Jubal watched the clear tan skin on Fiona’s arm suddenly break out in goose pimples.
“His head…well, he had a large helmet on his head that was disproportionate to his body. It was like one of those Aztec masks. And as he drew closer, I saw that he moved in an odd manner; it wasn’t noticeable at?rst compared to the way the others staggered and shambled about.”
“Then what happens?”
“Then he raises his staff above his head and makes some sort of shrieking sound, but I think it’s some sort of freaky language…”
“Then?”
“Its voice is so horrible that I wake up.”
Jubal put his arm around Fiona and patted her far shoulder. She laid her head on his shoulder.
“Damn, that’s some wild dreaming you’re doing there, Fee. It’s bad enough you had the nightmare once, but to have it all night long-maybe you are getting this?u or virus or whatever the hell it is.”
There was a jingle and a bang and then someone was running down the aisle of the store straight toward them.
Jubal recognized Billy Owens, a local teenager.
“Jubal! There’s something going on outside.”
Jubal bolted out of his chair and ran, nearly knocking Billy over in the process.
Down the street, at the western edge of town, a trail of dust plumed. A car. Judging from the sound it made: it was a solar. And it was moving fast into town.
Too fast.
Before Jubal could even leave the sidewalk, the car whizzed by down Main Street. Jubal watched it shriek into a sharp turn and pull into an abandoned car wash.
A thwooping sound, unnoticed until now, grew louder as a black helicopter?ew low above him, rattling his shirt and sending his hair into disarray. As it cleared town, it barely missed smashing into the billboard atop the auto shop across the street.
“What’s going on?” Billy said from behind him.
He looked back at Billy. Fiona and some other townspeople gathered on the sidewalk around him, watching the sky and the abandoned car wash.
Just as Jubal was about to respond, the solar car pulled out of the car wash and sped back down the street in the direction it had come from, racing past them at full speed.
Jubal started round his car to give chase.
Fiona called out, “Look!”
Someone was crawling, hand over hand, out of the car wash.
Jubal jogged down the sidewalk toward the crawler. The others followed close behind.
The person stopped moving. As Jubal approached, he saw something that made him halt in his tracks. He turned around toward the trailing crowd.
“Okay, everybody. Don’t move any closer; I want you to stay back. This is of?cial police business.”
Everyone stopped, some nearly running into the person in front of them. They all looked at him with blank faces. Some nodded their heads in response to his instructions. Others tried to look around him at the person on the ground.
“I mean it, now,” Jubal said, then turned away.
The Wet ’N’ Dry wash had been abandoned for a decade. Once the Amoco down the street had set up its own drive-through car wash, business had dwindled. Dry weeds surrounded it now and graf?ti covered its graying cement walls.
“Oh, my god.”
The woman on the ground had rolled onto her back. She whimpered through dry, parted lips. Her exposed skin-face and hands-was as gray as the car wash’s cement walls and covered with large, ugly blisters. She was so dis?gured, her face a swelling mass, that the only way Jubal knew it was a woman was from the large breasts beneath her buttoned shirt. As he watched, one of the blisters on her cheek popped-he could hear it pop-and yellowish pus splattered across the woman’s face.
“Jesus,” said someone from behind Jubal’s right shoulder. It was Fiona.
“I thought I told you…”
The woman on the ground mumbled something.
“What’d she say?” Fiona asked.
Jubal leaned his head closer.
“Dead army…” she hissed, then passed out.
Dead army?
Was it some sort of military accident that had caused this woman’s terrible dis?gurement?
But then, everything clicked into place and Jubal did not like the result: this woman, whoever she was, obviously had an extreme case of the sickness that was spreading throughout Serenity. He hoped to God his logic was inaccurate and that it was something else entirely-anything else.
Jubal felt faint.
“We have to get this woman over to the hospital in Carlsbad. Right away,” Fiona said.
Snapping out of his spiral of despair, Jubal said, “Okay, but get the hell away from her, Fiona. Now!”
Fiona looked shocked for a second at Jubal’s harsh outburst, but then moved away from the unconscious woman.
Jubal ran past the retreating Fiona, toward his patrol car. As he passed the small group of gawking townspeople, he shouted, “Stay away from that woman, godammit!”
He swung the car door open and plopped into the driver’s seat, banging his head on the roof of the car in the process.
“Fuck.”
Rubbing the pain in his forehead with one hand, he called up the state police on the radio beneath the dash. After several failed attempts, during what seemed like the longest minutes of his life, he?nally got someone. It wasn’t Dooley; the voice told him Dooley had gone home sick. Jubal explained the situation to the dispatcher.
“I’m sorry, deputy, but we’re short-handed beyond belief. Everyone seems to have the?u lately…”
“Well, what can you do for me? This woman doesn’t have long.”
“I’ll try patching you through to an ambulance service.”
Jubal stared out the windshield as the dispatcher put him through. The townspeople of Serenity stood about, staring at the woman on the ground. With gratitude, Jubal noticed that at least they were staying well away from the sick woman. He felt awful for having abandoned her there on the ground by herself, and wished there was some way he could help her. But he had to think of the people who were still healthy, too.
His radio crackled.
“Man, if you’re looking for ambulance service, you are fucked, buddy!”
Jubal punched the button.
“Who the hell is this?”
“Red-E Rescue Ambulance. And who in the name of the sweet baby Jesus might I be speaking at?” The young man, whoever he was, sounded drunk.
“This is the Mescalero County Sheriff’s Department. We got a real sick lady in Serenity and we need a transport now.”
The ambulance service dispatcher cackled. Jubal clenched his teeth so hard his jaws made a popping sound.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“Well, I’ll explain it to you, of?cer-”
“Deputy.”
“-so listen careful like, so I only have to talk to you once. See, even if I could get there, we would be faced with a whopper of a dilemma, which is to say, where the fuck would I fuckin’ take her?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I’m sayin’ is that there’s no room at the inn. The hospital at Carlsbad is full up. More than full. They’ve pitched tents on the lawn and they’re stackin’ ’em and rackin’ ’em. Now ain’t that some crazy shit? And the punch line to this particular joke is this: There ain’t nothin’ the docs can do. I haul ’em in so somebody in a white coat and a mask over their face can stand by with his thumb up the ol’ poop chute and watch ’em. It’s some ugly stuff, too. It starts out like the?u with a fever and maybe a cough. Then the circus really comes to town. The skin turns gray and they develop blisters on their faces.”
The dispatcher made a soft sound and Jubal pictured the man shivering. Despite the heat, he felt like shivering himself. He glanced at the woman on the ground.
“What about other hospitals?” he said.
“I guess I didn’t make myself clear. Carlsbad is havin’ a good day, compared to the rest of the state. It’s the end of the world, Deputy Fife. I suggest you drink up.”