Biohazard

BITTER CREEK, NEBRASKA
1

A storm hit us when we crossed the Nebraska state line. It started with rain and hail and fierce winds that tried to strip the Jeep right off the highway. Pretty soon it wasn’t just rain hitting us or chunks of hail the size of golf balls, but all manner of debris. The winds picked up anything and everything, creating a lashing, wet whirlwind of flak that made the Jeep shake and jerk like it was pushing through an artillery barrage.

If that was our welcome to the Cornhusker State, it wasn’t a very friendly one. I suppose my old pal Specs would have called it a bad omen.

Carl got us off I-80, cut through some farmland and pulled before a huge barn that seemed to be about as long as a football field. Covering our heads, we ducked inside. We were glad for the shelter.

There were cattle stalls up both sides with lots of hay and a concrete drive down the center. At one time, they must have had quite a few head of cattle in there.

Carl and Mickey and I watched the storm through the doorway.

It was really something. The rain was still coming down along with occasional barrages of hail. The sky was flat black, seamed with brilliant scarlet and indigo bands that seemed to flicker and expand like Northern lights. We could see bolts of lightening sweeping the countryside in the distance, just flashing and arcing like airstrikes. The thunder made the barn shake.

“Fucking storm beat the hell out of the Jeep,” Carl said. “She’s drivable…at least for now.”

“We just have to get to Bitter Creek,” I said.

“And where is that?”

“According to Price, it’s north, up in Boone County.”

Mickey nodded. “Okay. And what’s in Bitter Creek?”

“That’s what we have to find out,” I said.

I wasn’t about to tell them what I thought or felt or what Price said about the Level 4 facility there. No sense spooking anyone more than they already were. Because I could see it in their eyes: a combination of excitement and dread and there was no mistaking it. They knew we were nearing our destiny, that something very big was just around the corner.

“Maybe it’ll be paradise,” Mickey said with all due sarcasm. “Maybe it’ll be the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Carl pulled off a cigarette. “Sure, honey. And maybe it’ll be hell on earth.”

“Let’s just ride this storm out for now,” I said.

I left them there hashing it out. I went over to the others. They were sitting on a low stone trough. Janie had broke out some MREs and Texas Slim was regaling them with a story of a tornado at his aunt’s farm in Oklahoma. This was his version of dinner theater. I wasn’t hungry, but I listened to Texas tell of cows getting sucked up into the funnel, their badly worn carcasses getting deposited in the parking lot of an all-you-can eat barbeque joint twenty miles away.

“So at least none of that beef went to waste,” he said.

I walked away, Morse snapping a few shots of me, and leaned against one of the stalls. The smell of hot food made my stomach flip and flop. I stayed there by myself, chain-smoking and wondering if I was leading those poor people to their deaths.

Lost in thought, I looked up and Janie was standing there.

“What’re you thinking about, Nash?” she asked me, though I could see by the set of her face that she had absolutely no interest. “Something important or just musing over Mickey’s tits?”

“I was musing over Mickey’s tits.”

Janie shook her head and turned away.

“It was a fucking joke,” I told her. “C’mon.”

She stayed though it was obvious that she no longer cared for my company and could you honestly blame her? All men lust in their hearts, don’t they? But only the stupid ones let it go any farther than that.

“I was thinking about these people, Janie.”

“What about them?”

I pulled off my smoke, wishing to God I could quit and knowing there wasn’t much point to it at that stage. “They’re following me because they have some kind of faith in me or they fear The Shape or they think it-or I-will keep them safe. For the most part, they don’t question; they accept. And that bothers me. The faith they have.”

“Well, faith of any sort would bother a guy like you,” she said and then noticing that I was oblivious to her barbs, said, “They need something to believe in, Nash. Everyone does. Especially now. And you have to admit, for the most part they’ve been lucky with you.”

“Specs and Sean weren’t so lucky.”

But she had no interest in discussing the dead. “And you’re bothered by this faith?”

“Yes, I am.” I ground out my cigarette. “We’re going to a place called Bitter Creek, Janie. All I know is that somewhere near there Price says there is a storage facility the Army kept its germ warfare agents at. That’s all I know. But I know it’s where I’m supposed to go. I know, somehow, that it all ends there. I have to go there…but I don’t know about the rest of you. I wonder if I shouldn’t tell you people to keep heading west and just drop me off. I don’t like the idea of the rest of you facing what I know I have to face.”

“Hmm. Suddenly you have some overwhelming desire to protect their lives?”

“Yes.”

“It’s too late, Nash. They’ll follow you and you can’t get rid of them.”

“What about you?”

She studied me with her cold blue eyes. “I have my own reasons for staying with you and, believe me, they have nothing to do with love for who or what you’ve become.”

“Why don’t you tell me what I’ve become?”

“What good would it do?”

She turned away and I grabbed her hand. She yanked it away like she’d just touched a rattlesnake. “Don’t touch me, Nash. You don’t have the right anymore. I’ll stay with you like the others. But only because I need to, not because I want to.”