“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.
Traf?c. 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?ction 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 traf?c on the way up here.
A gunshot cracked. Jubal?inched. 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, of?cer. 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 of?cial 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?ush and knew if he had a mirror with which to see his re?ection, 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?ngers 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, of?cer. 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, of?cer, or we will shoot to kill. This is not a threat; it’s a fact.”
Jubal reluctantly drew his Glock with two?ngers and?ung 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 re?ection. 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 shuf?ed 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?
The world had gone mad and it seemed civilization was fucked.
He allowed Fiona to lead him back to the cruiser. She took him to the passenger side of the car, and said, “Keys.” He didn’t question her. He handed over the key ring, then slumped into the passenger seat.
The gunshot still echoed in his mind.
They shot his mother. They said she was dead and they shot her anyway.
You know why.
No. He didn’t want that disturbing picture in his head.
They shot her because she was becoming one of them.
“No,” Jubal whispered.
The dead army.
Fiona looked his way, but didn’t speak. He knew she wanted to?nd a way to comfort him, as he had tried to do for her after Renee Spencer died. That moment seemed to have happened months ago. Fiona turned the car around and headed back toward Serenity.
Maybe she couldn’t?nd the words; she was likely still in shock herself.
Jubal closed his eyes and tried to think of a time-was it just a day ago? — when the sky wasn’t green and corpses didn’t rise from the dead. Instead, a series of images?ashed through his thoughts.
His mother comforts him after he started a?ght with the tall girl who lived next door and received a busted nose for his trouble. She tries to look concerned, yet every now and then a smile slips through.
His mother sits up all night next to his bed when he shivers with a fever, frequently pressing a cold washcloth against his forehead and murmuring silent prayers; he isn’t scared but, rather, comforted by her presence.
His mother, dead only a few minutes, stands up and tears through the HAZMAT suit of the soldier nearest
