Sick

23

When Ash woke the morning after his surgery, the pain in his head had become more of a throb-a huge, pounding throb. Pax was asleep in a chair in the corner. Apparently he’d been given the late shift.

Carefully, Ash swung his legs off the bed, then walked, painful step after painful step, to the bathroom. When he finally came back out, Pax was awake.

“I’d have helped you if you needed it,” Pax said, getting out of his chair.

“I didn’t need it. Where are my clothes?”

“You should lie down. Take it easy.”

“Where…are they?”

Pax frowned and shook his head. “I’ll get ‘em.” He opened the closet next to the bathroom, pulled out a set of clean clothes, and laid them on the bed. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

It took Ash fifteen minutes to get dressed. When he walked out of the room, he found Pax leaning against the wall in the hallway. “Looks like you’ll live,” Pax said, giving Ash the once-over. “Come on. Everyone’s in the cafeteria.”

Ash knew he wasn’t a pretty sight. He’d taken a look at himself in the mirror, not because he was curious, but because he wanted to remember what the people who’d done this to his family had forced him to do. He wanted to remember the bandages, and the swollen face, and the bruises. He wanted to remember it all.

The cafeteria was more like a wide spot in the corridor than a room to itself. There were four long tables and, at the back, a counter that opened into a kitchen.

Matt, Rachel, and Billy were sitting together at one of the tables, while a woman Ash hadn’t met before was sitting at the next one over, alone. She had coffee-colored skin and long, black hair. After a moment, he realized she might very well be the woman he’d seen doing shoulder exercises outside the day before.

In front of the tables was a TV on a cart. As soon as Ash and Pax walked up, Matt muted the volume, and the others got up and walked over to greet them. Everyone, that was, except the unknown woman.

“You should still be lying down,” Billy reprimanded Ash.

“I think he looks fine,” Rachel said. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” Ash told them. “But I’m not going to spend the day in bed.”

Billy moved in close, examining the bandages and touching Ash’s face. Twice, Ash winced.

“I can give you something for the pain,” Billy offered.

“No.”

Matt smiled. “You look fine to me. Well, except for your face. Come. Sit down.”

As Ash took a seat, he glanced at the TV. They’d been watching the news.

“What happened while I was out?”

Rachel said, “Daniel Ash is officially a suspected terrorist.”

He took a breath, trying to keep his anger in check, then nodded. “Just like you said.”

On the screen, there was a shot of the desert. It was flat and brown and looked very much like the desert he’d seen on TV the previous day, and the desert he’d lived in for a month or so before… ithappened.

The only difference today, though, was that instead of a steady shot, the picture was wildly jumping around. In the upper corner was a small graphic that readEarlier Today.

“What’s going on?” he asked, nodding at the screen.

Matt grabbed the remote and deactivated the mute.

Out of the speaker came the sounds of pounding feet, cloth rubbing against cloth, heavy breathing, and wind whipping across a microphone. Whoever was carrying the camera was running.

“Watch out! Bobby, Bobby. Watch out!” a female voice said.

The camera tilted quickly to the ground, revealing an offset crack in the asphalt. The cameraman seemed to take a hop step, then the image moved back up.

“This way,” the woman said.

As the lens turned to the left, the back of a young woman came into view. She glanced over her shoulder at the camera. It was the reporter Ash had watched on TV the day before.

“Just carry it, Bobby. You’re going to fall otherwise.”

The picture swung wildly for a few seconds, catching sky, then ground, then feet, before stabilizing at a lower angle. The girl was still in the picture, running just a few feet ahead. Visible now beyond her was a military helicopter. As the image moved a bit to the right, Ash realized there wasn’t just one helicopter, but several.

The woman looked back again, this time her gaze moving well beyond the camera. “Joe! Hurry up!”

There were uniformed soldiers standing outside the open doors of the helicopter. As soon as the reporter got there, one of the soldiers grabbed her arm and helped her up.

“All the way in, ma’am. All the way in,” he ordered.

When the cameraman got there, the procedure was repeated. Once more the image became chaotic, then settled back down and angled out the door the cameraman had just come through.

There were several dozen people running through the desert toward the helicopters. In the distance, Ash could see cars and media vans parked along the highway, and the same large military trucks that had been blocking the road since the previous day.

Seven people seemed to be heading for the cameraman’s helicopter. One of the soldiers took a few steps toward them.

“Only room for four more! Only four!” he yelled, holding up four fingers. He then pointed at the three people farthest away. “You, you, and you! Over there!” He directed them to a neighboring helicopter, but none of the three changed course. “No more room here! You’re over there!”

The four who were okayed to get on reached the helicopter and climbed aboard.

“Glad you could join us,” the reporter said to one of the men. Ash guessed he was probably the Joe she’d been yelling to earlier.

The other three were still coming, so the soldier who had been trying to redirect them got between them and the helicopter, then moved the rifle that had been slung over his shoulder into his hands. He wasn’t exactly pointing it at them, but he was making it clear he could.

“No. Room. Here. That one!” He tilted his head at the other aircraft.

This time the three stragglers got the message.

The soldier and his buddy who’d been outside with him jumped through the door, then yelled up front, “We’re good to go.”

Almost immediately the helicopter lifted off. There was a final bird’s-eye shot of the desert, with Sage Springs laid out in the distance, then the image on the screen switched to the anchor in the studio.

“Those startling images were taken by cameraman Bobby Lion. With him was PCN reporter Tamara Costello and their producer Joe Canavo. The video was shot earlier this morning as they were evacuated out of the expanded quarantine zone that now stretches over a large portion of the Mojave Desert in Eastern California. As a reminder, if you are watching us from within the quarantine zone, you are asked to stay in your homes until further advised and avoid contact with anyone other than those who are already in your home with you.”

“It’s spread?” Ash asked.

“Several cases reported in Victorville this morning,” Billy said. “That’s just northeast of L.A. They’re also calling it the Sage Flu now.”

“My God.”

“You’ll want to watch this,” Rachel said, still looking at the TV.

“…alert for this man.” The anchor had been replaced by the same picture of Ash the networks had already been showing. “Daniel Ash, a captain in the U.S. Army, is now thought to be behind this terrorist attack. His motives are unknown at this time, but sources do tell us he’d been showing signs of instability since returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. As we learned earlier this morning, this tragedy was made worse by the discovery that Ash apparently killed his own family prior to releasing the lethal virus.”