The Scourge (Book 1): Unprepared Read online

  “You heard me,” said Brice “It’s fake. Louis Vuitton never has uneven seams. Plus the logo’s cut in weird places. That never happens. The stitching on the strap should be yellow, not white. It’s fake.”

  The woman seethed but didn’t respond. She left the line and marched toward the register in a huff.

  Mike appreciated Brice’s willingness to have his back. He was a better friend than Mike thought. His love of darts and dollar wings wasn’t as douche as Mike had previously decided. And unlike Mike, who would apologize for someone stepping on his foot, Brice wasn’t afraid to mix it up.

  Brice motioned toward the thin older man in front of Mike. “I bet if you insult him, he’ll leave too. Before you know it, you’ll be at the front of the line.”

  “Thanks for doing that,” said Mike. He took a step forward to close the gap. Brice moved with him and shifted the bags in his arms. “That was cool of you.”

  “I didn’t mean to make fun of you about Ashley,” he said. “But you said she’s out of your league. I mean, she’s out of everybody’s league, I think.”

  The line moved. Mike moved with it, and Brice kept pace.

  “Yeah.” Mike shrugged. “I guess. Why say yes to begin with? I mean, just tell me no.”

  “You’re a backup,” Brice suggested. “She keeps you on the line in case nothing better comes along. When it does, she kicks you to the curb.”

  “You should be a shrink,” said Mike. “You’re so comforting.”

  Brice laughed. “I don’t think shrinks are there for comfort. I think they tell you what’s wrong with you and then help you fix it. Or they don’t fix it. They keep you just broken enough to keep coming back.”

  “You think?” Mike didn’t want to tell Brice he’d been seeing a shrink. There was lot Mike didn’t want people to know.

  The line inched forward. Mike craned his neck to look at the counter. The deli worker slathered mayonnaise onto half a sub roll. She took the excess and spread it on the other half.

  “I look at shrinks like consultants,” said Brice. “They give you just enough to change what you’re doing, but they never solve the issues. If they did, you wouldn’t need them anymore.”

  “Not all consultants do that,” said Mike. “I knew this one woman who worked in education consulting, and she—”

  Brice shook his head. “I’m sure you can find a good shrink too. I’m making a generalization, like how everybody sings ‘Margaritaville’ at karaoke.”

  “Only you do that.”

  “My point exactly,” said Brice. “I’m generalizing.”

  Mike jutted out his chin at the chips in Brice’s arms. “What’s with the bags?”

  Brice looked down. “Oh, no carts, no baskets. I had to carry it.”

  “No, I mean what are you doing. Any plans?”

  Brice looked around the store then back at Mike. “Nope. Netflix. There’s some new movie about an astronaut who gets stuck on the space station when the power goes out. He’s gotta get home. Looks good.”

  “Wanna come over?”

  “You sound like a twelve-year-old.” Brice snickered.

  “I didn’t want to ask you to chill.”

  “I dunno,” Brice said. “Kinda lame. Two dudes hanging on a Friday night.”

  “I’ll pay for the beer,” said Mike.

  “Domestic or imported?”

  “Imported.”

  “Can or bottle?”

  Mike stepped forward in line. “Bottle.”

  Brice joined him. “Regular or light?”

  “Regular.”

  Brice smiled. “Buy my sub too and I’m in.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Your list nets twice what mine does.”

  “My car payment’s twice as much. And I don’t buy my clothes at the outlet mall.”

  Mike looked down at his loosely knotted navy blue tie and the white cotton shirt underneath it. He glanced at Brice’s trim fit shirt that was designed to show off the results of his more expensive gym membership. If he wasn’t such a nice guy, Mike would hate him.

  He sighed. “Okay. As long as you don’t cancel at the last second.”

  “This is the last second,” said Brice. “And I—”

  Shouts behind them caught their attention. Across from them in the aisle, two men held a case of bottled spring water, both tugging at it. One of them tried to hold onto a package of toilet paper but dropped it.

  The larger man, on the left, had a better grip. The smaller man, closer to the empty shelf behind him, was red-faced and angry.

  “I had it first,” said the shorter man. “Let go of it.”

  “You cut me off,” said the larger man. “You saw me coming for it and you cut me off.”

  Mike scanned the shelves. They were empty. All of them. On both of the aisles. He looked up and saw the sign above it.

  Bottled Water. Flavored Water. Juice Drinks.

  All of it was gone?

  “I’m calling a manager,” said the shorter man, tightening his grip. “I had this first. It’s the last one.”

  The larger man tugged. “That’s why I’m taking it.”

  A crowd was gathering at the edges of the aisle. Men and women with overfull carts or loaded arms watched in rapt silence. A man in a green vest scurried past them, almost slipping on the floor in his loafers, and reached the tug-of-war, with his arms flailing above his head.

  A wave of unease washed across Mike. He swallowed hard. His heart thumped in his chest. He wasn’t involved in the argument, but it made him nervous, as if he were in the middle of it. This was what Mike avoided at all costs.

  “Stop,” Green Vest said. “No fighting in the store. I’ve called security.”

  Neither man let go of the water. Neither budged except to try to wrench the case from the other.

  Mike scanned the store. He noticed how empty many shelves were, how congested the aisles were with scurrying people checking off lists. Their faces were clenched with worry or concern that told Mike there was something he’d missed.

  “There’s no hurricane,” he muttered. “The season’s almost over.”

  “Yeah?” Brice said. “So?”

  “Why is there a run on everything? Why are two guys fighting over the last case of water on a Friday night?”

  Brice shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “There’s a flu going around,” said the man in front of Mike. He had a thick New York accent that only amplified his condescension. “Don’t you watch the news?”

  “Flu?”

  “It’s pneumonia, actually,” said a woman two people ahead of Mike. She had a basket hanging at the crook of her arm and a blue surgical mask over her mouth and nose. “It’s not here yet, but it’s coming. People are getting it everywhere.”

  “What does that have to do with groceries?” asked Brice.

  The man ahead of Mike smirked. “People are panicking. They always do. You know, like when a storm’s coming and the news blows it out of proportion.”

  “So you watch the news,” said Mike, “but you don’t believe it.”

  The man’s smirk devolved into a frown. “You asked. I’m just telling you what’s going on.”

  “It’s not blown out of proportion,” said the masked woman. “People are dying from it.”

  “Says the woman wearing a mask,” said the man. “This isn’t bird flu.”

  “You’re right,” the woman said. “It’s not flu, it’s pneumonia, and it spreads fast.”

  “Let’s skip the subs,” said Mike. “Just get the beer and go. I think—”

  A loud bang snapped everyone’s attention back to the tug-of-war in the aisle across from the deli line. The case of water was on the floor. The shorter man had the larger one by the throat and pinned against a shelving unit. The manager danced around them like a boxing referee.

  The larger man shoved back and punched the smaller one in the chest as two uniform-clad security guards appeared at the opposite end of the aisle.

>   The men grappled, grabbing at clothes and reaching blindly for each other’s faces. They grunted and cursed. People watched, recording it with their cell phones, streaming it live on social media. One bystander, a basket in one hand and a phone in the other, was narrating it like the play-by-play announcer for an MMA fight.

  The guards rushed the two men and separated them. The larger one backhanded one of the guards and lunged at his tug-of-war opponent. The crowd gasped with a collective “Oooh” at the sound of the slap.

  The guard stumbled but regained his balance and helped his partner separate the two men for good. Outside, the muted whoop of a police siren warbled.

  “You believe this?” asked Brice. “It’s like the Octagon in the middle of aisle three.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Two police officers joined the guards and led the men from the aisle in cuffs. A smattering of applause erupted from the onlookers. The livestreams ended. People checked what they’d recorded and worked to share it.

  The play-by-play announcer slid into the aisle and picked up the case of water. He struggled with it and his basket, heaving both toward the registers.

  Mike checked the line for the subs. Fifteen people stood ahead of him.

  “They’re out of turkey,” said the man ahead of him. “And prosciutto.”

  “Seriously?” asked Mike. “How do you know?”

  “The deli lady just announced it,” he said. “They’re low on tomatoes too.”

  Mike sighed and stepped out of the line. He started toward the chilled aisle with the beer cooler.

  “Where are you going?” asked Brice. “What about the sub?”

  “They’re running out of stuff,” he said. “I’ve got plenty for sandwiches at home. Let’s just get the beer.”

  He swiped a plastic bag full of Publix bread rolls from a table display and swung them around like a tassel. Over his shoulder he motioned to Brice, who still hadn’t stepped from the line.

  “C’mon, Brice. It’s the bread that makes it anyway. I got the last package of rolls.”

  Brice shrugged and hustled to catch up to Mike. He nudged him on the shoulder as they turned the corner toward the cooler. “Hey, I got an alert about the pneumonia thing.”

  Mike eased to a stop in front of the imported beer section of the cooler. He scanned the selection. It was sparse. “On your phone?” he asked Brice. “I didn’t think you watched the news.”

  “I don’t, but I get alerts on my phone. Sports, news, weather.”

  Mike was looking for Guinness Draught. There wasn’t any. Pacifico was gone too. As well as Newcastle Brown Ale. “So what’s it say?”

  Brice held his phone up to his face in one hand, swiping his thumb back and forth. “It’s a link to a British article,” he said. “It says the disease started in refugee camps in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. More specifically, it says it came from Syria and Ukraine. They think aid workers might have spread it from one camp to the next. They don’t know where exactly it started.”

  Mike found a six-pack of Beck’s and another of Negra Modelo. He grabbed the Modelo first. Brice grabbed some hard cider.

  “They’re saying that it’s already spread to western Europe,” said Brice. “And there’s no doubt it’s coming to the United States and Mexico. Brazil is likely next.”

  Mike set the Modelo on the edge of the cooler. Then he stretched for the Beck’s.

  “It’s not here yet?”

  “I don’t like Beck’s,” said Brice, looking up from the phone. He jutted his chin toward the cooler. “What about the Dos Equis Ambar?”

  Mike took two steps to his left to pick up the Dos Equis. Another man approached and pointed at the Beck’s. “That yours?” the stranger asked.

  “Take it.”

  The stranger smiled. “Thanks. Wouldn’t have wanted to fight you for it.”

  Mike chuckled. “Me neither.”

  “It’s probably here,” said Brice, his eyes on the screen.

  Mike grabbed both six-packs and put the bread under his arm. “What is?”

  “The pneumonia,” said Brice. “Scientists think it’s here. It’s incubating. Some have it, but they don’t know they have it. Others might be sick but think it’s a cold or the flu.”

  “But it’s not the flu,” said Mike, moving past Brice and walking the length of the aisle toward the registers.

  Brice followed. “It’s definitely not the flu. They’ve already got a name for it.”

  Mike found the end of the line to the closest register. There were easily ten people ahead of him. He stopped, handed a six-pack to Brice, and raised an eyebrow. “What are they calling it?”

  A harried woman with a sour look on her face and a full cart in front of her bulldozed her way between Mike and the person in front of him. She said nothing and shoved past.

  He noticed the air was different. There was a palpable tension. He couldn’t be sure if it was from the fight earlier, the crowded aisles, the long lines, or the sense that something was irrevocably wrong. The hair on his neck stood, and a chill snaked down his back.

  Brice held up his phone, showing Mike the article. A color photograph was at the screen’s center. Bodies were piled on top of one another, resembling something from a war zone or one of the pandemic movies he caught on Netflix or Amazon Prime. The caption read that it was from the Czech city of Kladno, a city twenty-five kilometers northwest of the nation’s capital.

  His eyes flitted between the image and Brice’s worried expression. Brice lowered the phone.

  “Dude,” he said, “they’re calling it the Scourge.”

  CHAPTER 2

  OCTOBER 2, 2032

  SCOURGE +/- 0 DAYS

  LAKE MARY, FLORIDA

  The hangover was thick in Mike’s head, the aftertaste of hard cider pasty on his tongue. He was on one sofa. Brice was on the other. They’d fallen asleep after watching the spaceman movie on Netflix and binging a few episodes of a new western series on Hulu. He couldn’t remember where they’d left off on television, but he could tell from the dozen empty bottles on the coffee table and the floor where they’d managed to end the night with regard to the beer.

  He rubbed his eyes and raked his tongue across his teeth. His breath was horrible. Brice was facedown, one leg hanging off his sofa. His mouth was open and he was half-snoring.

  Mike sat up and reached for his phone. The blood rushed to his head, and his temples throbbed with pain. He groaned and sank back onto the sofa with his phone. It told him it was almost noon and he’d missed three calls and a text from someone. Mike had a feature on his phone that hid the caller’s identity on the lock screen. He didn’t like other people knowing his business unless he wanted them to know it.

  He held the phone up to his face to unlock it, and the screen repopulated with a new screen and the name of the person who’d been trying to reach him.

  Ashley Pomerantz.

  Mike closed his eyes and reopened them. He rubbed them and moved the screen. Ashley Pomerantz? He thumbed open the text screen and scrolled to the newest message.

  Was there a chance? He didn’t have plans tonight.

  Hi Mike. Sorry about canceling. I feel horrible. But I AM sick. I’ve got a fever. My head hurts. Do you think you could help me out?

  Mike’s thumbs hovered over the digital keyboard on the screen. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Yeah, she’d reached out to him. But she wanted his help? Why him?

  Brice rustled on the sofa across from him. He pulled his leg up onto the sofa and rolled onto his side. “Morning, dude,” he said, his voice groggy sounding, like he had something caught in his throat. “Sorry I passed out.”

  Mike rubbed his temples. “No problem,” he said absently. “Hey, guess who texted me? She called me too. Three times.”

  Brice pushed himself into a sitting position and snatched his phone from the coffee table, knocking over an empty bottle, which fell onto the table and spun in a circle. Beer trickled from its
mouth onto the glass. “Sorry,” he said. “And who?”

  “Ashley Pomerantz.”

  Brice pinched the bridge of his nose and winced. Apparently he was hungover too. How had six beers apiece hammered them?

  “Why?” asked Brice. “Hey, you got any aspirin?”

  Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean about Ashley, I don’t know. I’ve got some aspirin. Hang on.”

  Mike got to his feet, steadied himself, and walked gingerly toward the kitchen. He talked over his shoulder as he moved. “She said she’s sick and needs me to do something for her. She apologized for ditching me.”

  He stepped onto the cool tile of the kitchen floor, squinting against the bright light filling the room from the large window above the stainless-steel sink. Reaching into the upper cabinet next to the sink, he spun the collection of over-the-counter medications he kept there, finding three different kinds of pain medication.

  Then he noticed the empty vodka bottle and twin shot glasses in the sink. Nemiroff Honey Pepper. The stuff was incredible. No doubt Brice had agreed. Now he understood the hangover.

  “Aspirin, acetaminophen, or naproxen sodium?” he asked, placing his hands on the counter and locking his elbows. He lowered his chin to his chest and squinted his eyes closed, awaiting the answer.

  “Uh,” said Brice, “what’s what? Give me brand names. I can’t ever get them straight. And she’s playing you. She knew you didn’t have plans last night.”

  “Tylenol is acetaminophen. The other one is Aleve. And I agree with you.”

  “Aleve?” chided Brice. “What are you? Sixty? Isn’t that arthritis medicine? Did you respond to her yet?”

  “Aleve is good after workouts. I’ll get you Tylenol. No, I just saw the messages. I don’t know if I’m responding.”

  “Water, please.”

  Mike picked up the Tylenol bottle and plucked two bottles of water from his refrigerator. He was running low. It crossed his mind he should have taken the last case from the grocery store.

  When he stepped back into the living room, Brice had the remote control aimed at the television. The wall-mounted screen was tuned to a cable news channel.

  “Dude,” said Brice, “you still have cable?”