The World's End Series Book One: Dymond's World (22 page)

"But I am better.  I'm a lot better."  Hoppie had a whine in her voice.

"No you're not."  Your fever is still coming and going.  I can feel you are hotter today, and your eyes are red and you're still coughing all the time."

Hoppie looked away, like she didn't hear what her friend had just said.

"I'm going down to Ketchum to see if the priest has anything that might help.  We've both been sick for days, but I've been pretty much back to normal since yesterday and you're not."

Hoppie continued to look into the distance, "They won't have anything," she said quietly with resignation in her voice.  It was like she was giving up.

For the first time, Sarabeth felt really, truly scared; deep in the soul, heart aching, dread-building-by-the-second scared.

"You don't know that!" she yelled.  It was either yell or cry.  "They've got to have something!"

The noon radio broadcast had reported that the flu was killing people all over the country.  Lots of older folks had died from it, but some younger people had died too.  The station had been off the air for a few days, but that report still reverberated in Sarabeth's mind.  Seeing her friend decline, day by day, made her remember it all the more.  She pushed it away, but another thought kept trying to intrude on her, to push itself into her consciousness - the thought that Hoppie might die.

Sarabeth felt herself starting to lose control, so she stood up ramrod straight and started to put on her coat.  "I'll just be an hour or so.  You try and rest.  Nap if you can."

Hoppie lay on the couch in front of the fireplace.  "I'll wait for you SeeBee.  Just don't be too long, okay?"

As soon as Sarabeth was outside, the tears started.  They didn't stop all the way down to the town.

***

It had been more than a week since Sarabeth and Hoppie had been to town and returned with their wagon load of supplies.  When they had talked to Father Francis before, he had seemed to be doing a good job distributing food supplies.  Sarabeth found him sitting on a bench on the outskirts of town.  His head was in his hands.

She sat beside him.  "What's wrong, Father?" she asked.

He studied her, obviously trying to remember where he had seen her before.  He seemed to have aged a lot over the last days.  "Oh yes, you and your friend . . . you were the ones who got the wagon full of supplies.  You were lucky.  You were the last ones."

She was puzzled.  "What's happened?"

He sat up and looked her in the eye, "It's the dying.  It seems that everyone has the flu.  Some are getting better, but a lot have died.  Most of the older people - the most faithful in their church attendance - are gone.  The mayor and Mr. and Mrs. Bumgardner died within hours of each other yesterday.  Ryan Rogers and Sue Bumgardner and some of the young people have taken over.  I just got out of a meeting.  They're running things now."

Sarabeth didn't know most of those people, but she did know the mayor and that bastard pervert Ryan Rogers.

She was disturbed at this news, but Sarabeth didn't let it distract her from her mission.  "Father, my friend . . . you met her.  Her name is Hop . . . Emily Ingram.  We both were sick, but I'm better now and I think she's getting worse.  She's coughing and her fever goes up and down.  She's real weak, Father, and I'm so worried.  Can you give me something for her?"

Now he looked at her with pain in his eyes.  "We tried antibiotics on eight people.  All of them died anyway.  We're almost out now and Ryan isn't allowing anyone else to use it for flu.  He thinks it's a waste."

Sarabeth felt a sharp pang.  It was like a knife slid gently into her gut.  "I don't give a damn what that pervert says.  Can you get us the antibiotics, Father?  Please, I'm afraid . . . I'm just afraid for my friend."

He looked at her with sad eyes and shook his head slowly.  "No.  I can't get it.  They've got everything stored - the food, the drugs, fuel - just about everything is locked away in the library.  It's a big building with only two entrances and lots of windows for light.  They have it locked up tight and only open it once a day to give people just enough for that day.  Everyone had been ordered to bring any supplies they have and turn them in - if you don't bring something, clothes or drugs or batteries or something, they won't give you any food.  Ryan ordered it."

He looked away from her.  "I remember now.  Your friend used your name; it’s SeeBee isn't it?  I tried to object.  I told them it was wrong.  But I can't stop them, SeeBee, not by myself.  Most of the people don't mind.  After the lights went out, and the flu came, they just want to be warm and dry and know they'll eat tomorrow.  He's offering them that.  I'm sure they won't listen to me.  I'm sorry."

He was the second person in the whole world who ever called her SeeBee.  Tears formed instantly, but she pushed the sadness away.  "Where are they?  I'll talk to them."

"I don't think it'll do any good, but you can try.  They're in the municipal building with the mayor's office and the sheriff's.  The sheriff was an old man.  He dressed like a western sheriff with the big badge and the cowboy hat - the tourists loved him.  He died two days ago."

Sarabeth got up to go.  Before she could take a step, she felt his hand take hers.  The expression on his face was one of anguish.  "I always thought that I was doing God's work on Earth.  I thought I was helping people, making a difference.  Maybe I did, SeeBee.  Maybe I did help a few.  I hope so."

He paused and squeezed her hand.  "But now, when people really need help, when evil needs to be challenged, I'm too weak.  I can't do anything.  It's a blasphemous thing to say, but I wonder if God has abandoned us.  Or maybe he's just abandoned me."

She wanted to offer him words of encouragement, but nothing would come.  "I . . . I'll go talk to them now.  I'll make them understand."

He nodded, and as she took her first step, his hand fell away from hers.

***

The first place she went was the library.  There were drugs there and food.  Perhaps she could find a way in and help herself.

When she arrived, there were two men sitting on the steps of the library, smoking.  One of them had a baseball bat.  Sarabeth could feel their eyes on her as she walked by on the opposite side of the street.  She wanted to just keep going, but she stopped and turned to face them.  "I need something from in there.  Can you get it for me?"

One of them, a dark haired boy that could not have been more than sixteen, grinned and blew a smoke ring.  "Won't be open for another three hours.  You can come back then or wait over here with us."

"Do you have the keys?"  Sarabeth asked the question knowing that if they did, the price for getting them might be high.  She was almost relieved when they told her that only Ryan and Ms. Bumgardner could open the building.

"Better bring something back with you to trade.  And not some mickey mouse shit either - something we can use."

His eyes leered at her as she walked away.

***

The sign on the entrance to the mayors off said "Closed," but the one on the door to the separate entrance for the Sheriff's office said, "Come on in!"  Sarabeth knocked and opened the door without waiting for a response.

Inside, he found Ryan Rogers sitting behind a large wooden desk.  In his lap was a large woman.  His hand was up her blouse.

"Hey, don't you know to wait for permission to enter?"  The woman rose and smoothed her clothes, "Looks like we've got some training to do, Ryan."

She looked Sarabeth over starting at her boots and working her way up.  She smiled. "I don't recognize you.  I'm Sue Bumgardner and this is Ryan Rogers."

Ryan leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on the massive desk to the side of a two- thirds full bottle of Scotch. "We met already, Sue.  This is Ms. Hepburn.  She's the one who knocked my poor old granddad to the ground.  That's how she paid us back after I went up to her fancy vacation home and chopped wood for her and her . . . friend.  I told you about them, remember?"

His words were sneering, insolent.  Sue nodded and continued to smile.  "Come on in, sister.  Sit down.  What can we do for you?"

Some primal instinct honed over millions of years of evolution prodded Sarabeth to leave this place right now. 
It's not safe.

She ignored that feeling and sat in the chair across from the desk.  The chair was bolted to the floor and had a metal ring screwed into it.  She guessed it was so that a rowdy prisoner could be handcuffed to the ring.  There was a filing cabinet, a table with a coffee pot on it and a hat rack that held a white western hat and a leather belt with a gun and handcuffs.  The belt buckle was a large gold star.

Sarabeth was careful to look only at Sue.  "My friend . . . she's sick.  I'm afraid for her.  I think she needs antibiotics.  Can you give me some for her?"

Sue seemed to think carefully.  "So you want some antibiotics.  They are scarce, you know.  And they don't seem to work against the flu; we tried, but it didn't work."

"But . . . but I've got try.  If I don't she might . . ."

"Might what?  Might die?  Listen to me, Ms. Hepburn, and listen good.  People are dying.  My father and mother died just yesterday.  I cried for them, but then Ryan's grandfather died and another old woman in town died after them.  If your friend dies, she'll just be the next, the one who will be mourned until the one after her kicks the bucket.  Get it?  Dying has become the normal thing.  Get used to it, girlfriend.  This is the new world you're living in and it's time you started to understand how it works."

***

Sarabeth felt the first tiny bit of red enter her vision.  When she was nine and in the third grade, she and Hoppie rode the bus to school.  One day, Hoppie had a doctor's appointment and didn't ride along with her.  She remembered feeling alone, kind of sad, when a girl named Sylvia from the fifth grade sat on the seat beside her.  Sylvia was bigger than her back then, several inches taller and much heavier - the same way Sue Bumgardner was to her now.

Sylvia put her backpack on the seat beside her, forcing Sarabeth to scrunch up against the side of the bus.

For all her life, Sarabeth had been easy going, calm and deliberative.  However, as a child, if something set her off, she would have an epic tantrum, screaming and crying and hitting.

But that was from when she was a baby.  She was able to control herself much better now that she was older.  Still, she felt the beginnings of that feeling - that feeling where everything turned red and anything was possible.

Sylvia reached into her backpack to get something when a carefully wrapped sandwich fell out of the opening onto the floor of the bus.  "Now look what you've done, stupid!  Get down there and get that."

Sarabeth’s vision started to turn red.  She could see Sylvia just as clearly as always, but she and everything else had a red tinge to it.  Her muscles felt loose, she was aware of her hands.  Sarabeth felt herself breathe and heard her own heart.  There was a pressure in her.  It built by the second.

"I said get down there, you bitch.  And you wipe that sandwich off good.  Use your skirt and it had better be clean."

The red continued to increase.  Almost her entire field of vision was affected.  She knelt down in the crack between the seats and picked up the sandwich.  But instead of getting back in her seat, she removed it from the plastic wrap and started to rub it on the dirty floor, back and forth.

"You bitch!  You are so going to get your ass kicked!"

The pressure rose to the point where the explosion occurred.  Sarabeth leapt onto the larger girl and started pressing the sandwich on her face, forcing it into her mouth.  Sylvia started to cry and the bus driver stopped and made them move to different seats.  When they got to school, he reported them to the principal.

Sarabeth got a day in internal suspension for fighting and Sylvia did too for swearing.

After she was released, Hoppie said, "Remind me not to get on your bad side, SeeBee."

***

The red was still just a hint of color as Sue said, "Stand up, sweet girl.  Take off your coat.  Let's see what sweet stuff is hiding under there."

The red increased like it was alive, but Sarabeth wasn't sure she understood.  "What? I . . ."

"I said stand up and take off your coat and, while you're at it, go ahead and take off everything else.  You dumb or something?  You want antibiotics or food or anything, you've got to trade.  Money isn't worth anything anymore, so what do pretty young girls have?  Ryan, you want to see, right?"

"Sure," he said with a grin.

Sarabeth rose, the pressure was there, just like that day on the bus.  It was building by the second.  She started to walk toward the door, but Sue cut her off, reaching out for her.

***

Soon after they started their freshman year as roommates in college, Hoppie had insisted they take a class called "R.A.D" or Rape Awareness and Defense system.  She remembered the class itself was kind of lame, but she did enjoy the defense part where they learned to kick and break holds and gouge out eyes.  Hoppie absolutely loved it and thought seriously about becoming an instructor until she got her job as a Sugar Baby.