Origins of the Outbreak (13 page)

He smiled as he exited off the expressway onto his street.  “We were, weren't we?  This whole day has got me thinking about things and my priorities.  Are you doing anything tonight?  I can cook you dinner at my place.  I'd love to talk to you.”

“
It's Friday night.  Have you ever known me to not have plans on a Friday night?
”

Levantre
grimaced.  “Yeah, you're right.  I should have known –”

“
But I will cancel those plans for you, Levantre.  I'd love to have dinner with you.  Do you still live over in Skipcha?
”

“Yeah, same apartment and
everything.
Can you be there in an hour?”

“
Yes, I can make that.  I'll bring a bottle of Malbec.
”

“
Mmm, my favorite!”

“
I know.  Will you leave the gate open for me?
”

“Of course
.
I can't wait to see you!”

“
Ditto, my friend
.
Okay, I'll see you soon.
”

“Bye,” he replied and hung up the phone just as he pulled up to the apartment complex gate.  He typed
the code to open the gate and then another code that would leave the gate open for two hours.  It was a feature that the complex had on their gates to allow residents to have guests over without the need to give out the code for the gate.  It had come in very handy for Levantre over the years.

He pulled his car over the small metal track that the gate ran along and the tires made their usual bumping sound as they went over it.  Because of the noise, he didn't notice the bloody hand that reached from the bushes and slapped against the side of his car.

Levantre's apartment building was one quick turn away from the entrance.  He liked living closer to the front of the complex because it seemed quieter up here as opposed to deeper in where the people with kids lived because it was farther from the road.  He pulled into his spot and popped the trunk.

The first load was a small one as he carried his latte and the bag with the meat in it to his front door so he would still have a free hand to unlock it.  Once inside, he s
et the drink down and lit a candle – Sea Breeze.  It wouldn't do for Hector to come over to a smelly apartment.

He walked back to his car for the second load of groceries and all hell broke loose.  Someone jumped him for around the corner.  They didn't seem to care that they were clearly illuminated in the bright security lights. 
Levantr
e
shoved and kicked outward to get away, but the guy had latched tightly onto his arms.

He recognized the Army workout uniform that his friend Tony used to wear in the mornings to go to work and he knew his way out of the situation.

“You're on camera, asshole.  The Army is gonna catch you and send you to jail if you don't get out of here!”

His attacker didn't say anything; he just pulled violently against
Levantre'sarms.  He struggled, but after a full thirty seconds of straining against the man, his muscles gave out and the soldier pulle
d
Levantr
e
right up next to him.

The guy smelled horrible and was covered in all sorts of shit.  It looked like he'd been through
a mud pit or something.  “Oh my God!
”
Levantre screamed when he realized that what he'd mistaken for mud was actually caked blood and gore. Levantre was a sensible and gentle man, it was too much for him. He passed out before the creature's real damage could be done.

Craig chewed happily on pieces of the bank teller until he died.  Great streams of blood flowed from his partially open mouth and mixed with his own blood and the remnants of other victims. 
When Levantre finally quit struggling, the soldier dropped his useless body and wandered off in search of fresh meat.

The Young Lovers
, 9:28 p.m.

The beat up Dodge Neon sped down the road and twin contrails of dust floated into the air behind the car as the tires disturbed the hard-packed gravel. Tonight was going to be the night that Taylor and Beth finally went all the way.

They’d dated for three months and had done everything else imaginable except take that final plunge, which would happen tonight.
The two of them talked all week about what would happen. Beth was scared and eager at the same time. She wasn’t sure what doing it would feel like – her girlfriends all told her that it hurts the first time – but given the way that the other stuff made her feel, she thought that she’d probably enjoy herself.

She glanced over at her boyfriend as he struggled to keep the car on the road.
“Taylor, slow down. Don’
t
worry
,
it’s gonna happen – unless we get in an accident!”

“Oh geez, you’re right,
Bibi. I’m just really excited.”

Beth smiled at his nickname for her.
“I know.
Me too!”

She reached across the small console and placed a hand on his knee.
“Eep!” he squealed and jerked the steering wheel, sending the front of the vehicle skidding to the left. He turned the wheel hard back towards the right, which only exacerbated the problem. The car rotated completely around and by the time Taylor was able to stop, the nose of the vehicle faced the direction that they’d jus
t
com
e
from.

“Oh.
My
.
God
.
Taylor!” Beth yelled and clutched her chest as her heart hammered against her breast. She felt like it was going to explode. “What the hell happened?”

The boy rotated a dial beside the steering column and the interior lights came on.
“I’m sorry, you just startled me. I wasn’t expecting you to do that.”

Beth grinned at him in apology for her outburst.
“I guess we’re okay, right? Nothing hurt… It was fun, wasn’t it?”

A smile spread sheepishly across his face and he replied, “Yeah, I don’t think I could do that again if I tried though!”
She leaned over and kissed him, darting her tongue past his lips and gently touching his.

When she pulled back, her stomach was aflutter with excitement.
She brushed her hand across the front of his pants, feeling the bulge there and said, “Let’s not try to do that again though, okay?”

“Yeah, you’re right, babe,” he chuckled nervously and shifted the car into reverse.
After completing a three-point turn, they were back on their way to the river.

Taylor told her that he’d found the perfect place to take her.
He said that there was a dirt trail that ran along the river and opened out to a small clearing. That immediately sent up a red flag for her as she wondered how he knew about the spot. He’d promised her that he was a virgin, but knowing about a place to go parking had made her think that maybe he wasn’t telling the truth at first. But his church actually used the clearing to park their cars when they went to the river for a baptism. The explanation, combined with the fact that the first few times that they’d messed around he’d ejaculate
d
in less than a minute, made her believe that he was telling her the truth.

God, I hope it lasts longer than that
!
sh
e
thought. A small giggle escaped her lips and Taylor glanced over at her. She bit her lower lip and wondered for the thousandth time what it would feel like.

The car jiggled slightly as they drove over the single-lane bridge and then from the gravel road onto the dirt path th
at ran beside the river. Beth had grown up in the tiny town of Holland, Texas and swam at all sorts of places along the river, but she didn’t recognize where Taylor was headed until they pulled into the clearing to park. Then she remembered that sh
e
ha
d
been here years ago when her cousin was in town. The girl was too been embarrassed to be seen in a bikini so Beth’s dad took them to a lesser-used part of the river.

The parking area looked like it would hold about thirty or forty cars, but the little Neon was all alone underneath the stars.
Once Taylor put the car in park she opened her door and stepped out into the weighted-down grass. It was still early enough in the summer that dew had accumulated. If it were much later in the year it would have been too hot and dry. The cool wetness of the grass coalesced with the amazing view of the Milky Way above and the sounds of the crickets in the wood line to create the sensation that the evening was magical. “Wow, Taylor. Do you see how many stars there are? You can’t ever see this many in town.”

He walked around the front of the car and leaned against the hood on her side of the car.
“All the lights in town drown out the stars. Have you ever seen pictures of the sky from way out in the middle of nowhere, like hundreds of miles from any cities?”

Beth shook her head and stepped closer
to the car so she could hop up on the hood next to where he stood. She lay back and relished the warmth of the engine on her shoulders. “This is nice,” she muttered.

Out of her periphery vision, she saw Taylor shift slightly.
“Yeah, it is,” he replied. She could tell that he was looking down at her lean body and she stretched out to make her stomach appear even thinner that it was.

Am I supposed to play hard to get
?
sh
e
wondered. Her boyfriend placed a tentative hand on her thigh and then when she didn’t complain, he slid it up higher. She sat up quickly and came face-to-face with Taylor. He’d been leaning in over her so that she’d almost head-butted him. “Do you have a blanket or do we go inside the car or what?” she asked.

“I, uh…
No, I don’t have a blanket. Aren’t we supposed to go in the back seat?”

She peered through the front windshield into the tiny back seat
.
How romantic
,
she said to herself sarcastically
.
“Maybe we should just recline the front seat or something. I don’t think there’s room for us back there.”

“I knew that I should have borrowed my mom's van,” Taylor replied dejectedly.

“Um, no
.
I definitely don't want my first time to be in the back of a minivan. Too bad you don't have a blanket. It's so gorgeous out.” The wheels started to turn in her mind. Sh
e
reall
y
didn't want her first time to be in the back seat o
f
a Neo
n
either. This was one of the most important events in a young woman's life. If she let this go down in her boyfriend's crappy car, she'd probably regret it for the rest of her life
.
Or am I just scared and looking for an excuse?

“How romantic would it be for both of us to lose our virginity under the stars?” Beth continued.
“Then our first night in college together and when we go on our honeymoon to an island somewhere, we could make love on the beach! On the deck of our first house… Doesn't that sound amazing? The stars could symbolize our firsts together.”

Taylor cleared his throat uncomfortably and mumbled, “Yeah, that'd be great,
Bibi.”

She lay back down on the hood and stared at the stars above for a full minute while she thought.
She loved Taylor madly, deeply. Her feelings for him were stronger than she'd ever had for any boy before. They were soul mates and she already knew that she wanted to marry him and have a family. She had no idea what kind of career that she wanted after college or what the future would hold, but she knew without a doubt that Taylor would be a central part of it.

“Taylor, I love you,” she stated without taking her eyes away from God's canvas above.

“Love you too, babe,” he replied automatically and parted her legs so the he was between her knees staring down at her again.

“No, I mean that I really love you.
I want to be with you forever.”

He slid a hand up along the bare skin of her legs and then walked his fingers up over the material of her shorts towards her waistline.
His fingers played with the elastic on her shorts for a second, and then went deeper. “Of course,” he said
.
“You and me
.
We've made all those plans together. We're gonna stay together through thick and thin.”

His choice of words made her think about school that day.
They'd been released early because of the problems in Belton. Holland was over twenty miles away from the problem, but the principle and the school board had decided that the risk was too great. Beth's mom and Taylor's dad were in the Texas National Guard – which is how they ended up spending so much time together – and they were both called up this morning to go and cordon off the town. Her mom was the company commander, so she knew that there was nothing to worry about all the way down in Holland.

She brought her legs up in
a moment of pleasure and then pulled Taylor's hand out from inside her panties. “Do you think things are gonna turn out alright in Belton?” she asked.

“Oh, come on, Beth!
I thought tonight was gonna be about us.”

She sat up, once more almost knocking into him.
“It
is
about us, Taylor, but our parents are up there guarding all of Texas so you can get laid. Don't you think we should at least acknowledge that fact?”

He huffed in frustration and replied, “Of course.
I'm grateful for them, it's just… It's just that you don't seem to want to go forward with what we had planned for tonight.”

She pushed him out from between her legs so she could stand up.
“Do you think that I want to lose my virginity in the back seat of a car?” she asked and crossed her hands over her chest.

“No, of course not
.
But it's starting to seem like you're finding excuses now to not do it with me at all. First it was the blanket, then the back seat and now you want to talk about our parents!”

Her eyes glazed over with the beginning of tears that came from nowhere.
“Why are you doing this, Taylor? Tonight was supposed to be special and you're ruining it.”

“I
…” he paused to reorganize his thoughts.  “You're right, I'm sorry. It's frustrating. I've waited eighteen years for tonight and we had it planned out and it just seems like you're having second thoughts – about me.”

Beth reached out and placed a hand on his upper arm.
Taylor had always had self-esteem issues. She'd known him since they were toddlers and had become close friends with him through the years in the small town and during the forced awkwardness of children at social events that the National Guard armory held every month. She didn't want her unwillingness to crush him. “Taylor, it's not about you. Well, it is… It's about us. I mean, I've waited eighteen years for this too – and I don't want our first time together to be in the Neon. I love you and I want to make love to you. I want to keep making love to you until we're ninety –”

“
Eww, gross!” he interrupted.

“Shut up!” she said.
“I'm serious. I want to be with you, forever.”

Taylor looked past her towards the river in the distance.
“I have a towel in the trunk. We coul
d
la
y
that across the hood or on the ground.”

“I don't know.
What if we went somewhere and rented a hotel room?”

“What about everything you just said about the stars being magical?” he countered.
“I like the idea of our first time being under the stars as our bodies are pressed close together.”

Beth looked up at the beautiful scene above them.
I
t
wa
s
absolutely magical. Maybe he was right. They should just do it out here and it would be a memory that she could cherish forever. They had their whole lives to have sex in a bed. “Okay. Go get the towel. I'm ready to be with you and commit myself to you fully.”

Taylor stepped across the artificial boundary that she'd established a few minutes ago and kissed her.
Then he jogged around to the driver's side to pop the trunk and she leaned back against the hood once more. This was it. They were going to take that incredibly important next step in their relationship. It was time. After tonight, Beth would be a woman.

The car's interior dome lights came on and then quickly extinguished as Taylor opened and closed the door to access the trunk latch.
She thought about all the implications behind having sex for the first time. It was a big deal and she unconsciously patted the condom in her front pocket. Her best friend Maggie gave it to her after school today when she told her friends about her plans for the evening. Beth had no desire to be a tee
n
mom; tha
t
was for sure.