Author's Note:
This is a work of fiction. Some locations reference real-world places, but in purely fictionalized form: imagination supplemented by Google Maps. All characters are over the age of 18. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is completely coincidental.
The Story so Far:
A strange disease has taken hold in the small town of Philipsburg PA, possibly after a meteor strike. Government scientists, part of the "Wildfire Project" are working with military and other governmental agencies to contain the disease and understand it. Meanwhile the town itself has been devestated. The disease seems to drive mature adults to engage in sexual activities. Upon culmination, most people die nearly instantly, grown over with mysterious salt crystals. Some characters in this chapter include: Carl Newman, a criminal on the run who thinks he has a solution to the insta-death, and has survived his first encounter. Melissa, a strongly religious girl, recently graduated from high school, who is leading the rescue effort for all the children of the town. Dr. Emily McKinnon, head of the Wildfire program.
>>> Noonish, West of Philipsburg, PA
Carl Newman was feeling pretty damn good right up until the moment he ran the car into a bog. Which was right when the dull thud of a helicopter started getting louder. Which was right when a fighter jet buzzed about thirty feet overhead with a blast of wind that shook the SUV like an earthquake, and sank it considerably deeper into the bog.
Suddenly it didn't look like he was going to be rejoining maintained roads in this car, if at all.
The thing was, he was feeling
really good
. Better than he had felt in years, actually.
The headaches gone, the thirst manageable. He just needed to take a leak once an hour. But more than that, he felt strong, energetic, sharp. He remembered what it felt like to be eighteen. Alert, ready, balanced. Ready. Carl felt good.
And he was damned if he was going to let himself get caught up in this situation.
No matter how things ended in Philipsburg, Carl was pretty sure they weren't going to end well for
him
. He had come West Nowhere PA specifically to avoid running into federal parties who might or might not be looking for him, and if the feds didn't end up having some kind of "tragic accident" that cleared away whatever craziness was going on, there was definitely going to be the kind of reckoning where his recently-minted identity documents weren't going to bear scrutiny.
Of course,
running
didn't look good either, and they seemed to be adequately competent at
finding.
But, with this unexpected flush of health, Carl considered himself ready to rise to the occasion. He was nothing if not the master of an improvisational backup plan.
It was a job to make a hole and crawl to the back of the SUV where he could exit the vehicle without going knee-deep into bog-muck. But this he did, and then he packed his light-frame backpack with energy drinks and the densest of his salty snacks.
He carefully shut the hatch, and made his way for the nearest trees.
When he turned off the road, he had seen a lone house on a hillside off to the left, and he began making his way in that direction now, finding the animal tracks that made navigating the undergrowth a little quicker, but keeping under the densest canopy. He was pleased to observe he was right about the helicopter, too. It tracked to where he'd left the car. Which meant... they had eyes on the place.
But all was not lost! He had been in central PA long enough to recognize the signs of a storm brewing, and today had all the signs. Hot, humid, and clouds stacking in the east.
It took him nearly an hour, but he came out on the dirt road that, by his reckoning, would lead him to or near the house he saw. Fingers crossed it was an empty vacation rental, and not guarded by hillbillies with AR-15's. These hills, it could go either way.
He kept off the road, tracking it uphill, going slower than he wanted, as the terrain was rough and uncooperative.
When he finally saw the house, it had the bad luck to be across the road, and surrounded by a good thirty feet of yard. It also had a sparkling clean red Mazda pulled up to it.
Not
a hillbilly car.
Nothing risked, nothing gained.
He could have waited for cloud cover, but he felt
too good
about things right now to wait.
The sunlight stung his skin in a pleasant way as he crossed to the house, and then he was up on the porch. The door was locked. He rang the bell, why not?
He gave it five slow breaths, and a second ring. Then five more slow breaths. He was just about to knock out a pane of glass when the door opened.
A pretty blond stood in the doorway. No AR-15, but a handgun pointed straight at his head in a grip that told him she knew what she was doing.
"Turn around, walk away, and we'll forget we ever saw each other," she said.
"My kind of gal," he answered, not turning away.
"I got the call, I know what I'm supposed to do, and I'm not doing it. You, however, are not the government, checking up on me. I do that math, I think, you are someone I don't want on my property, and I'm ready to use lethal force to protect myself. Shall I count down from, say, five?"
He held up his hands. It worked last time. "I come in peace," he said. "I'm not going to the high school either, and frankly, I'm glad to see someone who's not dead. Thought we could help each other out."
"You thought very, very wrong. Five."
"Look, I don't need anything from you, I'm fine leaving..."
"Four."
She had straight blond hair that made him think Scandinavian. She also had the kind of curves any straight, red-blooded man would kill for. She was not wearing a bra, full breasts pressing against a sheer blouse, nipples prominent.
"... But I thought maybe you would want to get out of here, too."
"Three," she said. Not blinking, not wavering.
Carl noted that her cheeks were pink, a flush on her neck.
"Cause, lady: I'm a survivor. Most guys aren't, as you know."
"Two."
"Is it on one, then, or the beat after one? You going to shoot between the eyes, or maybe just go for the thigh?"
"One."
Carl tensed, watching her finger.
Things went in slow motion. The muzzle of the gun lifted just a smidge, and her finger squeezed. Carl dropped to the boards of the porch. The sharp report of the gun was shocking, and the echoes had an odd flatness to them.
He looked up at her, grinning. "Can you give me another five count, and do it right this time?"
She pointed the gun near him and squeezed off a second shot. He felt a punch of pressure on his side, but no pain. He checked, there was a slice through his shirt.
"Damn, woman, you're good."
"I can be better if you don't start walking. I don't
want
to kill you, but I will."
"Ok, ok, I believe it now! Just do me one thing, feel that flush that's in you now, that adrenaline, right? Feel that thrill, that excitement, and
then
tell me to leave. You know I will. I think you know why."
"Huh? I don't know
what
you are talking about."
"Do it, and I'm gone."
She looked at him like he was a worm, and said: "Leave. Now."
Carl felt it. He felt that compulsion. It had been weird when the woman at the store had done it to him. But everything was weird now. He had a sense about this woman, this woman with a gun, and now he knew he had been right.
He got up, dusted himself off, and turned away.
"Wait!" the woman spoke sharply.
Carl paused, tilted his shoulders to look at her. The flush had deepend.
"Come inside," she said.
Carl turned, bounced up the steps, feeling that life in him, feeling that heavy thickening in his cock, that tightening in his belly.
Inside was sparse, designer decorated, big windows looking out onto the yard and the forest sloping down hill, the valley beyond.
"Sit," she said, waving at the sofa. "Let me get you some water."
He waved her off, and pulled out a some salty trail mix bars and a couple of energy drinks.
She cocked her head at him.
He offered her some. "It's good for ya, good for this."
Now in the cool of her house, he felt the stirring inside him intensify. That strength and youth flushed through him, but it was as if he was seeing through a haze. His brain seemed to buzz.
"I guess you should know my name," she said, unbuttoning her blouse. "Since you're going to die. I'm Ruth."
"You don't look like a Ruth," he said.
She shrugged, the silk flowing to the floor, her heavy breasts free. Pale pink aureoles, small, hard nipples.
"And I'm not going to die," he said.
She smiled sadly. "You don't know, then?"
