Dead Earth: The Green Dawn (7 page)

“I’m sure as hell not staying here.”

In the dome light Fiona looked drawn and
pale. He glanced at her neck, looking for the lump he had thought
he’d seen back at her house. Her hair covered the spot, though, and
he was grateful that he didn’t have to deal with it, at least for
now.

Just a few minutes, Lord. Just a few minutes
without another night-mare.

They held hands as they climbed up the front
porch steps. Jubal rang the bell, but he didn’t really expect an
answer. He turned the knob and swung the door open.

Damon may not have been the cop Jubal’s dad
had been; still, he was pretty good and he always locked his door
partly because he had a large gun collection that was his pride and
joy. As they entered the house—Jubal in front, Fiona close behind,
hanging on to his hand—Jubal drew his own weapon.

“Damon? You here?”

There was no answer. They moved down the
short hallway to the living room, which was softly illuminated by
the blue light from the screen of the silent TV. A large shape was
stretched out on the couch. A large, motionless shape.

“Damon? It’s Jube. You okay, podna?”

Damon snored, causing Jubal to jump back and
Fiona to emit a frightened squeal.

“Dead,” Damon said. “All dead-dead-dead.”

Jubal stepped closer to the couch and the
smell hit him. It was the same fetid odor of rot that filled Fiona’s
house. It was the scent of Renee Spencer as she died and rose
again.

Jubal turned on the lamp next to the
couch.

Damon Ortega was covered with oozing
pustules. The smell was coming from the yellowish fluid that leaked
from the blisters.

“Aw, God.”

“Wha—Suze? That you?” Damon’s eyes fluttered
open. Susan had been his wife. When Damon was still in high school
she ran off with an economics professor from the community college
in Carlsbad. Damon had never remarried. “I was too dumb for her,”
Damon once told him. “You need to roust a drunk, I’m your man. But
I wouldn’t know a floating exchange rate if it jumped up and bit me
on the pecker.”

“It’s me, boss.” Jubal couldn’t halt the
tremor in his voice.

“J—Jubal?”

“Yeah. Fiona’s here, too.”

“Hot in here. Is the goddamn furnace on?”

Fiona moved next to Jubal, getting her first
good look at the sheriff. She began to sob.

Damon squinted against the light.

”What’s wrong with her?”

“Oh. Well, it’s, uh, her time of the month,
you know?” He tried to put a cheerful note in his voice, but he was
afraid his attempt fell flat.

“Oh, I know,” Damon said. “Lock ’em outside
and toss ’em some chocolate, that’s what my old man always said.”
Damon started coughing. Jubal closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have
to see the color and thickness of the liquid that ran from the lips
of the older man.

“What’s wrong, kid? Am I uglier than
usual?”

Jubal opened his eyes. Damon was no longer
squinting. The older man’s eyes were shot through with streaks of
red and the whites were now yellow. He owed this man, this second
father, nothing less than the truth. But as he stared into that
diseased face he saw that the knowledge was already there, streaked
with crimson.

“Naw,” Jubal said. “Just the usual level of
ugly. Sometimes it still shocks me, that’s all.”

Damon chuckled—without expelling any fluids
this time, thankfully. “How’s that woman you found at the car
wash?”

Jubal could only stare at him.

“Don’t look so shocked, squirt. I’m still the
sheriff and I still got contacts. My feelers are everywhere.”

The sickness momentarily forgotten, Jubal
crossed his arms over his chest. “Who was it? Taylor or Red?”

“Pops Perez,” Damon said.

Jubal hadn’t even seen Pops out in the
street. He wasn’t surprised, though. As much as the old-timer liked
to gossip, he could also be as sly and quiet as a cat sneaking up
on a bird.

“How much he tell you?”

“All of it, I reckon. She had blisters all
over her face.” Damon ran his fingers over his own face, feeling the
pustules like a blind man reading Braille. “He said she was
babbling some crazy talk, too.”

“Yeah,” Jubal said. “What about you, boss?
You were doing a little talking when we came in. Do you
remember?”

Damon looked away from his deputy, and Jubal
was grateful that he didn’t have to see those yellow and red
eyes.

“Just a dream I was having.”

“About what?”

Damon sighed. “Something was chasing me. It
was a bunch of fellas, only they weren’t quite men.”

“What do you mean?” Jubal could feel his
pulse throb in his temples.

“Well, they were shaped awful funny. Their
heads were too narrow and long. Their arms were long, too.
And...”

“What?”

“They were all tore up, like they had been
killed by an animal or something. And some of them had parts of
their faces torn off or big holes in their stomachs.” Damon met
Jubal’s eyes again. “Some crazy shit, huh?”

“Yeah. Crazy shit.” Fiona walked back toward
the front door. He couldn’t tell if she were still crying.

“So how is she?”

“Fiona?” Jubal said.

“The sick woman. Where’d you take her
anyway?”

“Oh. To Fiona’s.”

Damon’s yellow eyes didn’t blink. “And?”

Looking his boss in the eyes as he spoke his
next words was possibly the most difficult thing Jubal had ever
done.

“Fine, Damon. She’s really coming along.”

Damon closed his eyes and rested his head
against a pillow. If he recognized the lie, he didn’t show it.
Perhaps he was even grateful for it. It wasn’t long before he began
snoring again.

Jubal decided to let the sheriff rest. Maybe
the old dog was strong enough to whip this thing. If anyone could
do it, Damon could. After all, Jubal felt fine. He would figure this
mess out on his own. He had no choice, really.

“Let’s go check on my ma,” he whispered to
Fiona.

Growths covered his mother’s face like bumps
on a blackberry. She floated in and out of consciousness and was
barely coherent. Each wheezing breath was like another painful
needle in Jubal’s heart. This woman, his best friend really—whom he
had loved all his life—was dying.

Jubal turned away, unable to look any longer,
hiding his flowing tears from his fiancée.

Fiona stepped up behind him and laid her hand
gently on his shuddering back.

“We have to get help for her, Jubal.”

Jubal sniffed hard and nodded his head.
“Let’s get her into the car. We’re going to save her, Fee.”

“Sure we are, babe,” Fiona said.

They soon had Jubal’s mother in the back seat
of the police cruiser...

Just like Renee.

...and were on their way out of town, heading
north towards Carlsbad. The sky to the east showed a lighter
darkness. Soon it would be dawn.

“She’s such a good woman, Fee. She’s always
been a best friend to me.”

“I know, Jubal. We’ll do whatever we
can.”

Jubal pressed down on the accelerator. He
glanced at the gauge and saw he was going nearly 100 miles per
hour. He’d have activated his siren if he thought it would do any
good, but state highway 285 heading north was barren.

“This is damn spooky,” Jubal said.

“What?”

“The highway. It’s still early, but there
should be at least some semis on the road.”

“There’s plenty of oncoming traffic.”

“Yeah, weird.”

Some of the people in the oncoming cars waved
their arms out their windows, but Jubal was moving too fast to
understand what they wanted. He was in too much of a damned hurry
to care.

“Why complain? The less traffic heading north,
the faster we get help for your mother.”

Jubal glanced into the back seat. His mother
didn’t appear to be moving, but it was hard to tell anything
driving this fast.

“Keep your eyes on the road, please, Mr.
Deputy Sheriff,” Fiona said. “I’ll check on her for you.”

Jubal drove while Fiona leaned over the back
seat. Soon she was sitting back down and fastening her seat
belt.

“Her breathing’s erratic and she’s
sleeping.”

Or unconscious. Or about to die.

Jubal slapped his palm against the steering
wheel. Fiona shot him a worried glance, but he ignored it. His only
concern right now was for his mother, and if Carlsbad told him
there was no room at the hospital, by God, he’d make some fucking
room. He wished there was a medical facility closer to Serenity,
but all they had was Doc Mitchell, and apparently he was next to
useless in this situation.

In the distance, something was happening on
the highway.

Fiona gasped.

Jubal glanced at her. She had her hand over
her mouth and was looking out her side window. At the green light
of dawn.

Soon enough, they found out what the
obstruction was in the road.

Traffic. Cars at a complete standstill.
Several people walked around on the highway, which indicated to
Jubal that this long line of cars wasn’t going to move anytime
soon.

Up about a hundred yards, alongside the
highway, was a large silver tent that looked like a prop from a
science fiction movie.

Then Jubal noticed the armed soldiers in
HAZMAT gear. Some stood at attention while others herded citizens
back into their vehicles at gunpoint. Several more stood around the
silver tent.

Far ahead, the vehicles were being rerouted
over to the southbound lanes. That explained the southbound-only
traffic on the way up here.

A gunshot cracked. Jubal flinched. Fiona
squealed. Jubal could not see where the shot came from.

“Stay here with Ma. I’ll be right back.”

As Jubal slammed the car door shut, two armed
soldiers approached him. He could not see their faces behind their
protective masks, but the weapons were menacing enough.

“Get back in your vehicle, officer. All
vehicles are restricted beyond this point.”

Jubal was afraid they were going to say that.
He stood his ground.

“But I have to get up to Carlsbad on official
police business.”

“You have no jurisdiction here, sir. Please
turn your vehicle around and go back. It’s for your own good.”

Jubal felt his face flush and knew if he had a
mirror with which to see his reflection, it would be beet red. He
pointed back at the cruiser.

“We have a deathly ill woman in that car that
needs to get to the hospital now, or she’ll die. Do you hear me,
soldier?”

The soldiers turned their heads toward each
other as if conversing in a silent language.

“If you’d just clear a path...” Jubal
said.

“We are going to have to take a look at this
sick person,” one of the soldiers said.

Jubal stepped aside, hoping the soldiers
would see his mother’s condition and let them through. He walked
behind them as they circled the car. As he passed Fiona’s window,
he noticed she pulled up her shirt collar.

One soldier swung the back door open while
the other stood away.

“You see,” Jubal said, “She’s...”

“We have a corpse here. Everyone stand back
while we remove it from the car.”

The soldier farthest from the door approached
to help his partner. Jubal stepped in front of him, risking harm
and not caring one fucking bit, and bent to his mother. He placed
two fingers against her neck, momentarily unconcerned about the
damned blisters or boils or whatever they were on her neck.

His mother was dead.

A heavy hand landed on Jubal’s shoulder.
“Move away from the car, officer. We must quarantine the body.”

Quarantine?

Jubal stood in shock as the two soldiers
walked past him, carrying his mother between them towards the
silver tent at the side of the highway. Fiona stared at him through
the window with tears running down her cheeks.

Jubal sprinted after the two soldiers, who
still hadn’t reached the quarantine tent yet.

Three other soldiers, who had been policing
the nearby area, saw him and ran over, blocking his path.

“I want to see my mother,” Jubal said, hand
falling instinctively to his Glock.

Three barrels lifted, pointing straight at
him.

“Throw that gun down, officer, or we will
shoot to kill. This is not a threat; it’s a fact.”

Jubal reluctantly drew his Glock with two
fingers and flung it toward the soldiers. One of them swooped his
hand down, scooped it up and stuck it in his belt.

From the direction of the quarantine tent, a
shot rang out.

Jubal lunged at the men blocking him,
attempting to break their line, but they expertly grabbed his arms
and pulled him to the ground.

“No! They shot her. They shot my mother!
Let...me...go!”

The three men held Jubal on the ground while
he continued to struggle. One planted his knee in Jubal’s chest,
cutting off his breath.

Jubal looked up into the soldiers’ blank
helmeted faces, looking for sympathy or mercy, but all he saw was
his own reflection. A man in agony and despair.

“Mister,” said a soldier. “You have two
choices: go back home or die.”

Jubal stopped struggling.

Suddenly Fiona was there. “Please, leave him
alone. We’ll go back. Just let him up.”

The soldier who had his knee on Jubal’s chest
rose. “You better hope so, ma’am. We don’t have time to fuck around
here.”

The men released Jubal, who stood up,
brushing off the backs of his legs. He suddenly felt very empty and
tired.

“How bad is it?” Fiona asked the soldiers.
“What’s happening in Carlsbad?”

“Ma’am,” a soldier said. “Carlsbad is
dead.”

Under the careful watch of the soldiers,
Jubal shuffled back to the cruiser like a man defeated, with Fiona
in tow.

Fiona placed her hand gently on Jubal’s
shoulder, but he shrugged it off. When his mother had died,
something within himself had died along with her. And now the
government had her corpse, probably keeping it for dissection
instead of a proper funeral. And how would he ever retrieve her
body for burial?