Thoughts pulled away to eavesdrop on the blathering Hispanic woman.
“Go on, Autumn! Tell your father what you did.”
“Leave me alone!”
“I will leave you alone if you ever run away from me like that again!”
“Sophia, please.”
The screaming child twisted free of the woman, knocking over Patrick’s plate of spaghetti. She evaded her father’s grasp and escaped down the hallway, screaming bloody murder as she stomped up the stairs to her room.
“Autumn, come back here! Doug?”
“Not me, Leigh. She needs her mother.”
“I cannot control her, Mrs. Nelson,” the au pair blustered. “She refuses to keep her seat belt buckled, she runs away when I speak to her. She is too hyper a child for someone my age to handle.”
“It’s getting late, I should probably go.” Bridgett squeezed her sister’s shoulder, suddenly grateful her marriage terminated without children. “Dinner was delicious, I’ll call you tomorrow.” She lowered her voice. “Did you want me, you know, to drop Patrick off at the hospital?”
“Patrick!” Leigh handed Parker to her husband and hustled down the hallway to the sealed bathroom door. “Shep, you okay?” No answer. Her heart skipped a beat. “Shep? Damn it, Shep, open the door!”
She twisted the knob. Surprised to find it unlocked, she stole a breath and pushed her way in, readying herself to scream CALL 9-1-1, all the while cursing her career choice and the self-indulgence and ignorance that has led to—
— empty.
She checked the window. Sealed and locked. He’s still in your home. Find him fast before…
Exiting the bathroom, she took the stairs two at a time. Frantic, she searched Parker’s room, then her master bedroom and bath. She checked the walk-in closet. Under the king-size bed. Nothing but her daughter’s stuffed animal.
A kernel of thought blossomed into a parent’s worst nightmare. “Autumn…”
Mother bear raced across the hall into her cub’s bedroom. The Dora the Explorer lamp on the child’s desk illuminated the two inert figures entwined on the bed.
Doug joined her in silence.
Patrick’s head was propped by pillows. His eyes were closed. Curled up on the one-armed man’s chest was the Nelson’s daughter.
Two troubled souls. Comforted in sleep.
The farmhouse sat on twelve acres in rural Frederick County. Built in 1887, the home was structurally sound, its former residents having buttressed the foundation, replaced the roof, and renovated the stone-face exterior. There still remained much work to be done — the rotting barn was an eyesore in desperate need of demolition — but the new owner, in her final trimester of pregnancy, has had little time for anything other than work and readying the nursery for her unborn child.
Mary Louise Klipot had purchased the home on a short sale when the bank had foreclosed on the previous owners. The location was ideal — isolated yet close to several shopping malls and only a twenty-minute drive to Fort Detrick.
Andrew Bradosky had moved in two weeks after proposing.
“…with Bertrand DeBorn accepting the responsibilities of acting secretary of defense on this, the eve of a global summit. Joining us now is FOX news political analyst, Evan Davidson. Evan, in your opinion, what impact will President Kogelo’s eleventh-hour decision to dismiss his secretary of defense have on tomorrow’s summit?”
Mary entered the living room from the kitchen, carrying a steaming mug of hot chocolate in each hand. She passed a cup to Andrew, who was kneeling by the fireplace, adding another log to the dying embers. “Darling, see if this is hot enough.”
He sipped several swallows of the hot beverage, wiping whipped cream from his upper lip. “Mmm, that’s good. Mary, can we finish our conversation?”
Mary half sat, half collapsed in the cushioned rocking chair, her lower back aching.
“I told you, Scythe should be ready by March, April the latest.”
“April?” Jabbing at the embers with a poker, Andrew ignited the log, then sat on the fireplace stoop facing her. “Mary, timing is everything. By April, we could be involved in a full-scale invasion. The last thing we want is the CIA deciding they can replace us—”
“Andy, in case you forgot, the baby’s due in a few weeks.”
“The doctor said January.”
“The doctor’s wrong. Besides, I’m taking off at least six months to nurse.”
“Six months? Mary, come on, the future of the free world’s at stake!”
“Don’t be such a drama queen. Anyway, I was just kidding. Scythe’s way ahead of schedule. Now finish your hot chocolate so you can rub my feet.”
“Geez, you had me scared.” Relieved, he drained the mug, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “But cereal… surreally… surr…” Andrew dropped to his knees, the numbness in his lips creeping up his legs. “Wha… huh—?”
“No worries, darling, the paralysis probably won’t affect your breathing… assuming I measured the dosage correctly. You did say you weighed 182? Oh, dear… I forgot about your asthma. Is it getting hard to breathe?”
Mary sipped her hot chocolate, wincing slightly as Andrew Bradosky’s forehead struck the maple wood floor.
PART 2
End of Days
Lost Diary: Guy de Chauliac
The following entry has been excerpted from a recently discovered unpublished memoir, written by surgeon Guy de Chauliac during the Great Plague: 1346–1348.
(translated from its original French)
Death advances upon the world.
For a year now, its shadow has moved west from China across the Asian continent. It has infiltrated Persia through the Mongolian trade routes and infected the Mediterranean seaports. Villagers fleeing the Great Mortality report tales of horror one-noxious breath and another is felled, one touch of infected blood and sickness takes an entire family to the grave. God’s wrath is nowhere and everywhere at once, and there seems no escape.
Word of a spreading sickness reached Europe after the Mongolian army lay siege on Caffa (translator’s note: Present-day Feodosiya, a Black Sea port in south Russia). The invaders must have brought the sickness with them, for on the dawn of victory they became so ill they were forced to retreat over the Eurasian steppe… but not before they poisoned Caffa with the remains of their dead, tossing the infected bodies over the city’s fortifications.
As the chief physician to Pope Clement VI, I have been tasked with tracking the plague’s advancement. Caffa is a major seaport. Based on our most recent reports, I have surmised that sometime in the late spring of this year, sailors infected with plague left Caffa aboard Genoese merchant ships, bound for the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. Mariners practice costeggiare, a method of sailing that keeps them in perpetual sight of the coastline. Stops would be frequent, allowing the sickness to spread from port to port. One of the infected Genoese ships apparently reached Constantinople sometime last summer. Like Caffa, the Great Mortality spread quickly through the city. A personal contact, a Venetian physician I trained with at the University of Bologna, sent word to the Holy See that the streets in Constantinople were littered with the dead and dying. His letter describes high fever, a coughing of blood, and a stench that reeks of death. Welts soon appear, red at first, then swelling to black, some as large as a ripe apple. With each new dawn, the physician found another dozen infected, by sunset he buried another family member or neighbor until the despair and fear became so overwhelming that he had to flee Constantinople altogether. His description of a surviving father being too afraid to bury his own child brought tears.