Mad World (Book 1): Epidemic Read online

“Where are we?” I asked Emily.

  “We passed into California about two hours ago. We’re near Barstow, maybe three miles out,” said Conner, sitting across from her.

  “The roadblock came up all of a sudden out of nowhere. There haven’t been any other cars on the road with us until now,” Emily said.

  Everybody waited in silence; we were trying to hear what was being said outside. We could make out voices, but it was next to impossible to understand what they were discussing. After a tense ten minutes or so, Turner returned.

  “They are turning back people to a detour, but I think we can still get farther in from here. They can’t have enough cops out to block all the roads, and I know another way from here. It will just take a few extra hours,” Turner said.

  He turned the van to the left and started down a side road, then stopped about a half-mile down and pulled out a map book. After consulting it for a few minutes, he started up the van and continued down the road.

  “Coach, need any help?” Jacob asked.

  “No, I think I will take the rest of the way myself,” Turner replied.

  He followed the detour down to I-15, but then cut across the 395 and took some local roads. We were soon back on course, following frontage roads to Highway 58. I’d never seen so many trailer parks in my life. We crossed into some foothills near Tehachapi. More trailer parks, dusty-looking mountains and crops. Some Joshua trees here and there. Long stretches of road wound across what looked like a barren moonscape. It seemed unending, but I knew we were getting closer. I swallowed and looked nervously out the window again. The farther we drove, the more the knot in my stomach grew. I thought about my baby brother and my mom. Tanner was only 5 months old. I took out my wallet and looked at the photo I had of him, taken only last month.

  “Who’s that?” asked Caitlin.

  “My baby brother, in Fresno,” I answered.

  “Very cute,” she replied.

  We both looked up as we heard Jacob talking to Coach Turner up front. They whispered, but we moved up closer, quietly, so we could hear better.

  “… Jacob, I don’t want to alarm the others. Don’t ask me that,” Turner said.

  “Coach, my mom works in Palo Alto, I need to know. What are the updates coming out of the university?” Jacob asked.

  Turner sighed. “Nothing good. Scattered reports of some kind of spreading death. The whole area has been cordoned off. The National Guard has been called in, the area involved is huge. They need to clear tens of thousands of people out of there. It’s worse than the wildfires last year down south,” he said.

  “Do you know if the people who worked in the area got out? My mom works at Stanford. She’s a history professor.”

  “I don’t know, son.” Turner said. The trouble apparently started at the university, in the biochemistry division. We should keep trying to get through on cell phones. Have you tried texting? Sometimes that gets through when phone signals won’t.”

  Jacob sighed and got out his smartphone again. “I’ll try texting now.”

  I suddenly remembered my iPad and got it out. I activated the hotspot on my smartphone and booted up the tablet.

  Emily snored in her seat, but Caitlin leaned over and watched from behind.

  “Can you get a signal?” she asked.

  “I’m trying. The Evo takes a while to send to the iPad. Here, hmmm …” I brought up Safari. It was slow to load; the mountains didn’t allow much of a signal to get through. Then the window came up.

  “I’m going to try CNN first,” I said.

  “ ‘K,” Caitlin whispered, “God, I hope you can find some news.”

  It took me several tries to access the CNN website - it was probably close to crashing with so many people trying to get information. Finally I was rewarded by the familiar red banner.

  “Coach!” I cried, “CNN has updates on Palo Alto,” I walked up to the front to sit next to Turner.

  “What does it say?” he asked.

  I studied the website for several minutes. “It’s going to take me awhile, but the latest news just says they are still trying to contain the infection. They haven’t been successful. No word on whether the area was completely cleared out yet,” I sat back to study the website more.

  “Keep me posted on any updates. Refresh the site every few minutes if you can,” Turner replied.

  I settled back into my seat. The night grew longer, and the inky sky looked the same mile after mile as I kept refreshing the screen, hoping for something more.

  “Hey,” DeAndre whispered in my ear, “look on Twitter. The most up-to-date stuff is on Twitter.”

  I brought the website up.

  “Try a few hashtags. Try #PaloAlto and #CaliforniaInfection,” he suggested, looking over my shoulder.

  I punched the keys and was rewarded.

  “Oh, my God,” Caitlin whispered next to me.

  Twitter was wild with news. Devastating news. People were still trapped at the university. There was some kind of assault going on, police and something else. Family members were trying to reach the campus, but the roads had been closed. One person had gotten through on a dirt bike, only to be stopped by… something. His friends tweeted that he was down. It was hard to get a fix on exactly what was going on in Palo Alto. It was clear that the university had been under assault, and that the assault had spread to the city itself.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Conner asked. He crouched behind DeAndre and read along with us.

  It wasn’t clear at all, except that Palo Alto was a war zone. Tweets were coming fast and furious from users claiming to be at or near the university. They sounded desperate. It seemed like the infection had spread, but people weren’t tweeting about sick people, they were tweeting about assaults. But by whom? The police? I typed in @PaloAltoPolice and started reading. It seemed like the police were nearly overwhelmed by the chaos, spread very thin, and barely keeping up with what was happening around them. Whatever it was, it was happening very fast, and it seemed to be spiraling out of control. When I refreshed, I saw a disturbing call for help to the Crescent Park area and beyond, past Gateway and reaching to the airport.

  “This is spreading quickly,” I said quietly.

  “Check CNN again,” said Caitlin. I clicked on the tab and refreshed the screen. “Oh, no.”

  A new story had loaded. They were evacuating a huge area. San Francisco was a little less than 35 miles from Palo Alto. They were evacuating San Francisco, San Jose, and as far south as Salinas. To the east, the police were asking for the area surrounding Modesto to evacuate. Fresno was about 165 miles away from Palo Alto, but I could see where this was going. The impacted circles were widening. At this rate, Fresno would be emptied within a day, maybe sooner.

  “Coach,” I said as I got up to approach the front of the van, “they’re evacuating as far south as Salinas and all the way over to Modesto. I don’t think it’ll be long before it reaches Fresno. Whatever they’re dealing with, it’s moving fast. Real fast.”

  “God,” he replied, rubbing his head. Then he remained quiet for a long minute. “I want to keep pushing forward; maybe we can get home before they clear out the city. We can get our families and evacuate out together,” He said tiredly. “It should just be another two to three hours from here.”

  We nodded and went back to our seats. I had a very bad feeling about those assaults and went back to studying Twitter.

  Caitlin and Emily huddled together and dozed off. Conner hunkered down with his phone, trying to get text messages out to his brother in Fresno. I pulled up my iPad again. The tweets coming out of the area sounded frantic and disjointed. Granted, 140 characters wasn’t much. But these people sounded desperate and scared. I shivered.

  “Want a blanket?” Jacob asked, offering me one. He had stopped trying to get text messages through to his mother. She wasn’t responding. Neither was anybody else.

  “Sure,” I replied, “I’m cold, but I’m more worried. It makes the cold worse,” I
whispered as he wrapped the small blanket around my shoulders and settled in next to me.

  “I don’t know what we’ll find, but I’m glad we’re moving. Doing something. Not running away. That would drive me nuts,” he said.

  I nodded, and we settled back together to read Twitter. San Francisco was a mess. The whole county had well over 7 million residents, with over 805,000 people in the city proper itself. Plus, add to that the fact that it was waterlocked on three sides. Getting out of the city on a good day took an hour. With this emergency, it would be mass gridlock. I gulped. I hoped they would have enough time to get out before the infection hit the area. Why hadn’t the police been able to contain this thing? I wondered. I needed to do more investigating. I wanted to know what we were up against. What would we be facing when we got into Fresno?

  Twitter was both a blessing and a curse. Tweets from the front lines seemed to have tapered off, most of them coming during lulls in the assaults. But the attacks seemed nearly constant. And where were these assailants coming from? It’s almost as if paratroopers were being dropped on the area from an unknown source. It was bizarre. And what was going on with the infection?

  Then there were other tweets that seemed to be the work of practical jokers. Insane reports that couldn’t possibly be true.

  I settled back to wait, watching Coach drive onwards. He was determined to get to Fresno.

  As morning neared and the sky began to brighten, we were finally making our way north through the valley. This giant depression in the middle of California had once been a vast inland sea, our geology teacher had told us. Now it was more like a desert. But it should have been humming with activity as residents took to the roads on their way to work.

  It wasn’t. The roads were nearly deserted, and police were moving quickly to seal off the area. We made it through Bakersfield, at the southern end of the valley, just in time. Police were setting up roadblocks, and we barely made it through. Now, we were approaching Selma, a small town about an hour and a half to the north.

  “Shouldn’t be long now, kids,” Turner said over his shoulder, “maybe another half-hour.”

  I tried to call my mom again. No answer. ‘All lines are busy’ I sighed. My stomach was in knots. The waiting was driving me crazy. I turned my head to the window again, resting my cheek against the cool glass.

  “Hey Alyssa, can I see your iPad for a minute?” Jacob asked next to me.

  “Sure,” I said, passing it to him, smiling. I had been reading Twitter for over an hour and my eyes were feeling the strain of focusing on the screen as the van bumped along. The road needed work in spots, and so did the shock absorbers.

  “Thanks,” he answered, gently taking the tablet from my hands and opening it back up. He began studying CNN and Twitter again. I settled back in my seat and stared out at the morning.

  My dad had been gone for six months on deployment to Afghanistan. I missed him every day and found myself thinking how much I wished he were here with us now. I shivered again, drawing the blanket closer around my shoulders. I closed my eyes to rest and nodded off for a minute.

  Opening my eyes again, I looked out the window. We had just gotten off the freeway and were and crossing over onto Ashlan Avenue. The streets were nearly deserted. Lights blazed in businesses, but it didn’t look like anyone was inside the stores. Had the evacuation already occurred?

  “I’m going to drop each of you off at your homes, okay? Then I’ll go home myself,” Coach Turner said to us over his shoulder, “Now, who lives where?”

  “Coach, I live on Teilman Avenue,” Emily said.

  “I live on Thorne,” said Caitlin.

  “I’m on Arthur Avenue, Coach,” said Conner.

  “Alyssa and I both live on Feland, Coach,” said Jacob.

  “Coach, I’m right up here on the Fruit,” piped DeAndre.

  “Okay, that’s closest I think, so let’s hit DeAndre’s house first,” Turner said.

  We all gathered up our suitcases, jackets and other belongings and moved toward the front. Turner pulled onto Fruit, following DeAndre’s directions, and three minutes later we were stopped outside a green and white house with white roses growing along a picket fence.

  “Come on, son. Let’s see if anyone’s home,” Coach Turner said, leading DeAndre down from the van and across the sidewalk. They knocked on the door, and a young girl answered. It was his neighbor Risa, who had come to most of our plays. DeAndre’s mom usually took her, and the little girl was a familiar sight, sitting there in the front row with a big smile on her face. Now, though, she looked scared.

  “Your mom left early this morning and hasn’t come back. It’s just me here with Scooter,” she said, as Scooter barked between her legs at the door. Even from our seats in the van, it wasn’t hard to hear what the girl was saying. Her voice was elevated, and the slightest sound traveled across the dead air like a rock out of a slingshot.

  “Risa is only 7, Coach. Mom watches her on the weekends. She wouldn’t have left her alone this long normally,” DeAndre said worriedly.

  Coach thought for a moment. “Risa, get your things together, and come with us,” he said. “DeAndre, I’m not comfortable leaving you here.”

  DeAndre nodded.

  “Can Scooter come too?” asked Risa.

  “Yes, but hurry, just grab some clothes and food. Here, we’ll help,” Turner replied.

  They had food and clothes bundled in the van with Risa and Scooter within five minutes.

  “My name is Alyssa, Risa. Come sit by me,” I offered. She sat next to me and took my hand. Scooter lay down by her feet.

  “OK, let’s try the next house,” Turner said, getting up into the driver’s seat and starting up the van again.

  “I think mine is next up, Coach, on Arthur,” Conner said.

  “Okay,” Turner said. “Arthur is next then. Let’s find out what’s going on in this city.”

  As he drove up the street we looked out the windows. It was still early, and the houses looked empty. No one was getting ready for work, no one was outside getting the morning paper, no dogs barked, no kids lined up for school buses. The city looked deserted. It was very spooky. As we pulled up to Conner’s block, Coach turned and said, “Everyone stay in here and wait for me. Conner, just let me see what’s going on, okay?”

  “Okay, Coach,” we all answered in scared voices.

  We pulled up to the curb and Coach Turner turned engine off and got out of the van. Stepping onto the grass outside the yellow house, he stopped and listened. The neighborhood seemed to hold its breath. We all watched from the windows of the van. Turner quietly walked up to the front door and knocked. Then he rang the doorbell and waited. From the van, we thought we could hear faint sounds coming from inside the house. It was hard to tell if it was just an animal or a person, but it seemed to be in some kind of distress. Turner grabbed the doorknob and turned it…

  Screams filled the morning air, coming from inside the house. Coach swung open the door, ready for anything. Meanwhile, in the van, we had heard the screaming and we all began pouring out of the vehicle, scrambling to catch up with him. I wanted Risa and the dog to stay behind. I wanted them safely in the back of the van.

  “Stay right here, Risa! Do not open the door of this van.” I told her. Risa just looked at me with scared eyes. I tried again. “Do you understand me? Keep the door closed! Stay inside! Okay?” This time she nodded. Her dog lay under the seat, and she sat on the floor and put her arm around him. I jumped out of the van and shut the door firmly. Conner was in the lead as we ran up to the front door and came to a stop in our mad rush. We peered inside. Coach Turner was right in front of us.

  Turner slowly stepped into the house. The screaming had stopped for a few seconds. Suddenly, it started up again, sounding panicked.

  “That is my mom!” screamed Conner, and he rushed inside and came to a halt next to Turner.

  They both rushed forward and around the right hand corner of the hall. They were in the k
itchen, but the screams now came from directly ahead and to the left, in the family room. They both saw the scene at the same time, and Conner gasped in horror. His mother appeared to have fallen across the coffee table and onto the couch. Crouched over her was Conner’s big brother Russell. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to be away at school.

  At Stanford.

  He wasn’t. Instead, he was bent over his mother, his mouth fastened to her flesh at the place where her neck met her shoulder. She screamed again as he bit down harder. Blood rushed out from around his mouth, and he let out a low groan that sounded surprisingly loud.

  “Holy …!” exclaimed Coach Turner, looking around for some kind of weapon. Conner reached out and grabbed his big brother by the arm, “Get off mom!” he screamed. Russell growled and swung toward Conner, and we could all see his face. It was greyish black. Emily screamed involuntarily. Russell stood there, one hand holding his mother, and one foot turned toward us, indecisive. He let out a low growl. Turner took that moment to swing a chair at him that he’d grabbed from the kitchen. It hit him solidly in the head and chest, and he fell to the ground. Turner jumped on Russell and held the chair against him, pinning him to the floor as the crazed man bucked and screamed incoherently.

  “Grab your mother, Conner!” Turner yelled as he tried to stay on top of Russell.

  Conner and Jacob grabbed the dazed and bloodied woman and dragged her through the kitchen and out the door onto the lawn, where she lay on the grass. They then set to the task of staunching her bleeding wounds with some towels they’d grabbed on their way out.

  Turner, meanwhile, was losing the fight. Russell’s face and hands were discolored, his clothes were torn and he had scratches all over him. I sniffed the air and smelled something, I wasn’t sure what, but it wasn’t good. Russell roared and pushed at the chair on his chest. He got his head and shoulders up off the ground where he had been pinned a moment earlier.

  “Get into the van! I can’t hold him much longer! Get Conner’s mother into the van!” yelled Turner.

  I scrambled over to help him push against Russell, both of us leaning our weight onto the chair across his torso, and he fell back down to the ground again. DeAndre and Caitlin ran outside and relayed Coach’s message. I heard them dragging Conner’s mom across the lawn and into the van. She screamed with every jarred movement. Risa’s dog started barking. Then DeAndre rushed back in, “okay, she’s in.”