Tom was really looking forward to the trip, plus he was a little anxious.
He had everything folded neatly and laid out on his bed to view before putting it in his suitcase. The only things not ready to pack were his phone, his bargain tablet and his chargers.
In fact, he lifted the phone and sent a text to Gabe.
“Are you all packed?”
Gabe replied, “Not yet. Soon.”
“I’ll be by to get you at five,” Tom texted. “You sure you don’t want to spend the night here? It’s an early flight.”
“No.”
Exhaling, Tom spoke out loud, “Okay.” Then sent a message he’d see Gabe in the morning and not to forget his ticket.
Because it was just the way he was, Tom reached out to Owen with a text. “Hey, are you all packed? Did you print your ticket?”
Unlike Gabe, Owen didn’t text back. He called.
“Hey, Buddy,” Tom answered the phone. “You didn’t need to call.”
“Dad, you don’t need to print your ticket, or rather boarding pass.”
“No, we get the boarding pass when we give our ticket at the counter and check our bags,” Tom said.
“No, Dad, just download the app.”
“App for what?”
“Your boarding pass.”
“We get that at the airport.”
“Dad, this isn’t 1995, okay? Your boarding pass and ticket are the same thing. Download the app from the airlines and … you know what? I’m headed out to get a burger, I’ll stop by and do it for you. Did you want one?”
“Yeah, that would be nice, I haven’t had dinner yet, thank you,” Tom said. “Did you want to stay over since we’re leaving so early?”
“No.”
“Okay. Well, are you packed?”
“I’m all packed.”
“Your brother isn’t,” Tom said.
“Well, he’s probably trying to figure out how he’s gonna smuggle weed on the flight.”
“Oh, Owen don’t say that. I think it’s illegal to do that. You don’t think he will, do you?” Tom asked.
“No, Dad, he won’t.”
“Good.”
“He’ll just buy it in Vegas.”
“Good.”
“See you in a half hour,” Owen told him.
“Thank you.”
Tom disconnected the call, then looked to all the items on his bed.
“I need a beer.” Phone in hand he walked through the living room of his apartment to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. Without missing a beat, he twisted off the cap and took a drink as he began his journey back to his room.
He noticed the television was on, and as he reached down, he paused when he saw the news.
The chyron at the bottom of the screen read, ‘Montana Town shut down due to natural disasters. Hundreds feared dead.’
“Montana?” Tom said, thinking immediately about Gene and the dead cow. He looked down to his phone and contemplated calling Gene to ask if that was the same town. He decided against it, Gene would tell him, and if it was the same place Gene had gone … his friend had his hands full.
THREE – REPEAT
Billings, MT
“Nine-one-one what is your emergency?” the operators voice carried over the speaker in the conference room.
Gene was one of ten people, all experts in one field or another. The meeting was delayed because the coroner wanted to examine at least one of the bodies. Gene didn’t mind but he was pretty sure nothing the corner would tell him would be a surprise.
Crackle.
“Every … One … is dead.”
“I’m sorry, sir, repeat that.”
“Can’t.”
“Sir, please repeat what you said. Everyone is dead?”
“Can’t … can’t breathe.” The male wheezed. “Can’t.”
Silence.
“Sir, sir, are you there?” the operator asked. “Sir, are you there?”
The recording stopped and Captain Leon Grayce of the Montana State police stood up at the end of the long table, he was leading the investigation. “That was it. Call placed by Richard Wilson at twelve sixteen PM. By that point everybody but one person in Hardin had died. I would have been there had I not been in training. This is personal. I lost my wife and two kids there. What the hell happened in my town?”
Governor Luella Williams spoke up, “I understand how painful this is for you, Captain, it is for all of us. We need answers, that’s why we have this think tank. We have the press waiting for answers.”
“Fuck the press,” Captain Grayce said. “Sorry, Ma’am. But what they think and what they know is irrelevant.”
“I beg to differ,” said a major with the US Army. “The wrong thing can cause chaos. What we know was the very last credit card transaction came from that town at eight-twenty-two AM. After that nothing, so whatever occurred, happened in that time frame.”
“It did,” a man in a suit spoke up. Gene figured he was FBI. “We have a video taken at the bank.” He clicked some keys on his laptop and on the big screen behind Captain Gracey, a security footage played a shot inside the bank. Everything appeared normal.
“Eight-twenty-four,” FBI guy said. “Watch the reaction of the teller and the customer.”
At that second both the teller and the customer jumped as glass flew out and a car came through the window.
Just as the two individuals in the video reacted, they stammered, grabbing for things that weren’t there before they finally fell to the ground, where they shook some before turning silent.
“Two minutes,” the coroner said. “That’s how long it took. Two minutes to die. The lungs are expanded and nothing can be expired out of the airways, but they show no internal organ damage. The bulging eyes are from asphyxia.”
The CDC representative. “It’s not biological. Or viral. Nothing like that. Whatever it is has a half-life of about two hours before dissipating. The first body was found in a car off the road one mile outside of Hardin. We estimate Mr. Wilson was exposed seven
