Brushfire Plague Read online

  Cooper moved through the store, methodically and with solid purpose. He kept his distance from others—merely to keep them from becoming agitated—and kept Jake locked to his hip. He made short work of the bulk foods, which most people were ignoring. Flour. Rice. Pasta. Oats. He grabbed the heaviest bags of each that he could find. He quickly loaded up at the aisle for spices and salt. He grabbed an armload of boxes of matches and dumped them into the cart. Next, he found some candles and a half dozen cans of camping fuel. The batteries were already mostly gone, but he scavenged what he could. He had saved the canned foods aisle for last. He was just about to turn the corner when he heard shouting from the back of the store.

  “Damn you! I know you have some canned stew hidden in the back! Go get it right now! Don’t you see this? It’s called a gun,” a loud, but nervous voice yelled. “Now, go get it!”

  The bellowing voice rang throughout the store. Scattered screams of panic responded. Around him, many fled to the front of the store. The quickly clearing canned foods aisle beckoned to Cooper, ready for the picking. Instead, he turned his body towards the angry voice, and looked at Jake, “Get on the floor and stay here. If I’m not back in two minutes, go to the truck, lock yourself in, and call Dranko on my phone.” He handed Jake his cell phone. It was not the last time that Cooper would see rank fear in his son’s eyes, but he complied. Jake slowly collapsed to the floor and cradled his head in his arms.

  With that, Cooper moved in a half-crouch toward the disturbance. He pulled his pistol from his belt, pulled the steel slide back to ensure a round was chambered, and welcomed the odd comfort of the familiar polymer grip and the solid weight of a loaded pistol in hand.

  He heard the quiet protest of the store employee, her voice throttled by fear. Around the end cap filled with Doritos, he could see the pair. The employee was a woman, mid-forties, overweight, and just a smidge over five feet tall. She wore a dark blue uniform and light blue apron. Her brown hair, streaked solidly with gray, was pulled up into a haphazard ponytail. She wore latex gloves and a surgical mask. Must be the new addition to the dress code. She cowered with her hands upraised and her head tilted toward the ground.

  The man stood opposite her, the pistol a few scant inches from her head. Cooper was afraid he was thinking about pistol whipping her. He stood over six feet, well-built, with thick, strapping arms, and a healthy beer belly. Construction worker, heavy machinery. He wore a red flannel shirt, blue jeans, and tan work boots speckled with mud. The pistol looked to be a .45 semi-auto, 1911-style. Stainless steel and shining brightly from a high sheen polish finish. I hope that means he hasn’t used this thing much and it was just a showpiece until today.

  “Don’t lie to me, bitch! I know you have it back there. I heard you guys talking about keeping some there for yourselves. Now, go get it! I’m going to give you just five seconds! One…”

  Cooper readied himself to move like a cougar, first shifting his weight backward, preparing to pounce. His finger slid into the trigger guard and found perch on the trigger.

  “Two!” Cooper leapt forward. He was acutely aware of a myriad of smells around him: fear mixed with the man’s heavy cologne, fresh fish from a refrigerated case down the aisle, and the sharp sting of urine, most likely from the store clerk.

  “Three!” The clerk’s face reacted to Cooper’s movement by shifting her gaze to him, her eyes flew wide open, and the slack look of surprise blanketed her face. Damn it!

  Silence greeted the space where “four” should have been shouted. The woman’s movement had betrayed Cooper. The man spun to his left, just as Cooper barreled in. The man’s eyes widened as he saw Cooper coming at him and he frantically tried to bring his gun to bear. Cooper was only a few feet away. He could see and smell the sweat dripping down the man’s face. The man’s pistol loomed large, the bore swinging around.

  Cooper didn’t hesitate. He fired twice, the pistol spitting flame from its barrel, both rounds hitting the man in the chest. True to his training, Cooper saw nothing except the front sight of his pistol. The sound was deafening. The man was knocked backward and fell to the ground in slow motion. Blood back-splattered onto Cooper, speckling his face, hands, and chest. Cooper loathed the coppery-taste of blood and reflexively spat. Cooper maneuvered the pistol to keep aim at the man as he fell.

  He heard a sharp chink of metal hitting metal. From the corner of his eye, just at the edge of his recognition, he saw the large bore of the .45 aimed directly at him. Somehow, after being shot, the man had held onto his pistol and aimed it directly at Cooper’s head. The man’s face widened in surprise at the pistol’s failure. A half second later, Cooper pulled the trigger and the man’s face disappeared and gore splattered the floor behind his head. Most likely he failed to chamber a round or maybe he’d never had the expensive Colt look-alike worked on. Some 1911’s were notorious for their need of good gunsmith work before they were reliable. The man’s body collapsed back onto itself and lay sprawled on the ground. A quickly-spreading pool of blood engulfed the body where it lay.

  He breathed deeply to calm his adrenaline-pumping body and right his rapid, shallow breath. The pungent smell of blood mixed with the trailing smoke of cordite from his pistol assaulted Cooper’s nose.

  The woman, who had been threatened with death a moment ago, sank slowly to the ground, her knees buckling, now that death had indeed come, but not to her. A hand clutched her mouth and she let loose a long simper of painful relief, like a long lost puppy who finally finds its home. Sobbing, her body shook back and forth, while her hand covered her mouth.

  Despite the impulse, Cooper wasted no time in comforting the shaking woman; he knew he had to leave, and now. The police might be ignoring speeding on the highway; he had no inclination to find out how they’d respond to a shooting in a grocery store. With Elena at home ill, he could not allow himself to be questioned or detained by the police. Without a moment’s hesitation, he merely nodded gravely at the woman, pivoted firmly on his right foot and went to retrieve his son.

  ******

  He found Jake curled up on the floor underneath one of their two shopping carts. Nervous eyes peered over his arm that he was using to cover his head. Jake’s eyes flung open wide when he saw his father, blood-spattered, come wheeling around the corner. Cooper saw his son’s eyes fixate immediately on the pistol that he still clutched in his right hand. He re-holstered it in response. Cooper glided swiftly to his son’s side, kneeling next to him when he arrived.

  By then, Jake was sobbing the deep tears of relief that his father had returned unhurt and unharmed after two shots of gunfire. Cooper rubbed his shoulder furiously, “It’s alright, boy. I’m OK. Everything’s OK.” Cooper pulled his son’s chin up so they could look each other in the eye, “See, look at me. I’m OK.” Cooper smiled and did his best to put a twinkle into his eye. Jake looked back, surprised, and unsure. Cooper pulled into a brisk hug and Jake’s sobbing abated. Cooper seized the opening.

  “OK, son. We need to move now. We need to get out of here and fast. I need you to push the second cart and stay right behind me. OK?” Cooper pulled Jake to his feet.

  Jake wiped away the tears with the sleeve of his blue flannel shirt and tried, in vain, to plant his feet firmly on the ground. His knees wobbled a bit as he said and voice was balky, “Yes…OK…Dad.”

  Cooper planted his son’s hands firmly on the handlebar of the cart and then grabbed the other cart. He raced to the front of the store, moving at the breakneck speed that an eleven year old could keep up with. He looked back several times to make sure Jake was keeping up. His son’s visage was a vision of child-turning-man determination. His face was screwed up tight, every muscle taut, as he navigated the cart through the store. Cooper knew where his son had picked up such focus.

  They spirited past the other customers, having to move around some that still lay scattered in heaps on the floors, frozen in fear. Others were more difficult, the ones that had come back into action and either paused to star
e at them in confused amazement, or those already intent on scouring the shelves for the items they were looking for. No one said a word to them, nor did anyone try to stop them.

  Cooper would not risk waiting in line to check out, as the rows of those in line pivoted in near perfect tandem to look at him as he raced the cart up. He pulled up next to one of the checkers from an empty lane. Taking all the cash he had in his wallet out and leaned in to hand it to her, “Your co-worker is safe at the back of the store. But, someone should go help her. This should cover my groceries and then some.” She stared back in dull shock and absently took his money.

  As he and Jake left the store, Cooper could not believe what had just happened in a store he had shopped at for years. A store where the most tension he’d ever witnessed was the occasional embarrassed customers’ reaction when their credit card was declined. Dranko was right; the threads are fraying very quickly. And, so much for the famous friendliness of the Northwest offering us much protection from that.

  Chapter 5

  Gray, dimpled sunlight reflected off the windshield of the truck as Jake and Cooper drove home in muted silence. Cooper kept looking at his son, but he only stared ahead, blankly, unblinking. Cooper thanked small miracles that his son had not seen the shooting, but he knew enough from his time in Iraq that mere proximity to an event like that was traumatic; especially to a child.

  When they pulled up to their house, Cooper brought the truck to an abrupt stop, followed by a jerk on the emergency brake. Instinctively, he pulled his son close to him and hugged him. Jake welcomed his father’s embrace. He could feel his father’s muscular arms through his black fleece pullover. This reassured him. The potent mix of shock, relief, fear, and adrenaline overwhelmed him and he let loose with uncontrolled sobbing. Cooper rubbed his son’s shoulders and whispered the best words of comfort he could offer.

  The ring of his cell phone shattered their relative peace. He dug it out of his pocket, “Yeah?”

  It was Dranko, “You here? I thought I heard the truck pull up?”

  “Yeah, just outside. What’s up?”

  “You better come up, right now.”

  “On my way”, he said, jamming the cell phone back into his pocket.

  He turned back towards Jake, “I’m needed upstairs. We’ll talk later. Let’s go.”

  He pulled Jake along with him out the driver’s side door. Cooper swept his hand over the truck bed full of food and other supplies as he moved to his front door. “Jake, I want you to stay at our front door and keep an eye on the truck. If anyone approaches it, I want you to shout to me upstairs and then come inside the house quickly. OK?” Jake muttered his agreement and took up his post, a child sentry with tear-stained cheeks but a set of serious eyes and firmly set mouth.

  Once inside, Cooper bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When he reached the top, he turned into the bedroom on his left to find both Lisa and Dranko gathered in conference, talking rapidly. He looked quickly at Elena, who still breathed fitfully, prostrate on the bed.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We thought you should know the latest,” Lisa answered for them, turning toward Cooper. “My God, what happened to you,” she asked excitedly after seeing the blood spattered on his clothes.

  Cooper looked surprised, having forgotten his appearance in his rush to get inside. “There was a situation at the store. I had to put a man down who was threatening to kill a clerk over the groceries.”

  “People are snapping,” Dranko exhaled. Lisa shook her head in disbelief.

  “I will tell you more later, but what’s going on here?”

  Lisa recovered, “OK. First, Elena’s condition is roughly the same as when you left. Her fever is up a few tenths of a degree, which is worrisome because it’s only been an hour plus.”

  Dranko continued, “Second, we have several more illnesses in the neighborhood and another death.”

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Ellingsworth, the widower on 58th. But, there’s more. Just twenty minutes ago, a pickup full of rowdy teenagers roared through shouting about the end of the world and to get what you could, while you could. They threw an empty bottle against a street sign, but nothing more.”

  “On Hawthorne, there was a burned out Subaru. It looked like some stick-up robbery, but no one was around anymore. No bodies either.”

  “Damn,” Dranko responded. “Everything’s happening faster than even I would have guessed. We better…”

  “Help!” a high-pitched yell came from Jake down below. Cooper was charging downstairs before the sound had faded. He cursed himself for failing to reload his pistol since the store. Dranko followed close on his heels. When he saw Cooper drawing his pistol on the way down the stairs, Dranko reached to the holster at the small of his back and drew his .45. “I’m on your six and I’m armed,” he yelled as much as reported to Cooper as they hurried down.

  Cooper reached the landing and saw his son crouched off to the side of the door. “What do we have?” he asked.

  Jake’s voice was firm as he pointed out the door, “Pickup, full of guys. Swarmed around ours.”

  Cooper leaned so that he could see outside the open door. Sure enough, they were clustered around the old, rusty GMC, he counted about six, ranging from a young blonde boy with moppy hair that couldn’t have been fourteen to the presumed leader, a tall, muscular, twenty-something with long, dark hair, hanging onto his shoulder. He would have passed for a Samoan if he had more bulk to him. They were hooting and hollering and starting to pass the supplies from the truck back and forth. One of the boys shouted, “Go long!” as he threw a can of peaches to his sprinting friend. The boy missed the catch, and the can splintered as it hit the ground, pouring syrup and peach halves onto the asphalt.

  Cooper grimaced. He tilted his head backward towards Dranko, “Let’s take it slow. I think they will leave OK. But, be ready, just in case.”

  With that, Cooper straightened himself up. He knew a little of dealing with a group of rowdy young men. He conjured up every inch of height and lowered his voice another octave, reflexively slipping into what his Drill Instructor had called ‘your command voice.’ He kept his right hand on his holstered pistol, just behind his right hip. He strode out the front door, with long, firm steps.

  “Good morning, gentlemen!”

  As one, a half dozen heads swiveled in his direction. Cooper noted that two of them, the ersatz Samoan and another on the older side, a blonde that stood barely five and a half feet with a red flannel shirt draped over faded blue jeans, reached their hands instinctively to the small of their back. Armed, most likely. Movement in the cab caught Cooper’s eye as well. For the first time, he noticed someone moving on the driver’s side. There was no mistaking the long, thin silhouette of a rifle barrel being raised just over the door’s window. Damn. He knew Dranko had taken this in too as he heard him flank out to his left as Cooper continued walking forward. Dranko’s moving out to give our opponents the widest possible gap between them and to split their angles of fire.

  “I said, good morning.”

  Their leader moved forward. His apparent lieutenant, the other armed teen, moved lockstep with him, staying a half step behind the leader, but clustered almost on top of his right hip.

  The leader responded, cocksure, “It is a good morning, isn’t it? If you ain’t coughing yourself to death, that is.” His minions chortled a variety of ragged laughter, from high pitched yelps to low, deep throated, growls.

  “You have it right there. We’re all very lucky to be healthy today. I do have to ask you to move along to find your fun somewhere else. You are messing with the supplies I have to cook my wife her last supper.” Cooper was hoping an appeal to their sympathy might defuse the flush of testosterone he knew was running most of their show right now.

  The black-haired leader didn’t miss a beat, “Last supper, eh? She must be one fat bitch with all this food.” This elicited another round of laughter from his minions.
/>   Cooper snarled inside, but retained a comforting smile on the outside. OK, you want to dig me to impress your new-found followers?

  Cooper forced himself to smile even wider, “Well, she does like to eat, I can’t deny that.” Now, his smile disappeared, he hardened his face and took another, deliberate step forward, “But, be that as it may, you need to move along. You don’t want our trouble this morning.”

  Cooper saw the leader’s eyes cloud up with fear. He recalled one of his father’s sage words of negotiation advice, gained from years steeped in the harsh conflict between workers and management that was his father’s life: always allow the other guy a way to give you what you want, while saving face in front of his team. After a pregnant pause, to allow his words to sink in deep, and spread the fear in their bowels, he continued, “I know you boys want to enjoy the rest of the fun this day has to offer without the trouble of having to beat down an old man like me.”

  Unsure, the leader stumbled, “We do. We do.” Then, his face turned from slack fear to hardened anger, “And, we will. But, we are going to enjoy it even more with your pickup and what’s in it.” His right arm tensed up and moved rearward another half inch.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Cooper barked and deliberately smeared the blood on his shirt with his left hand, “I had to kill one man already this morning, I don’t want to have to kill another!”

  The man’s hand stopped momentarily in indecision, caught between fear and anger. Anger won, “Well, the hell with you,” he shouted as he began to draw his weapon.

  Cooper moved lightning quick. His left arm pointed sharply across the street, motioning behind the boys, “Frank, shoot him!” His words had the desired effect, his opponent’s head swung to his rear, looking for the made-up Frank.