“How old were they?” The man at the table next to Blake asked the waitress, as if she had nothing to do other than relay the local gossip, which was probably true.
“20 and 22.”
“Well heck, they probably just went a hoboing,” the man seated said. He gave Blake a wink and added, “That’s a good age to take off exploring.”
“Maybe, but they didn’t take a dab blasted thing with them,” she said. “Not one thing missing from their house according to their folks, and not one word mentioned to nobody.”
Blake tried to smile at the man as he turned to his breakfast, but he had lost his appetite. The discussion brought Blake back to the two boys who were possibly dead because of him somewhere on the mountain. Blake didn’t want to believe it, but he did find Jesse’s bloody jacket the day after he and Terry had found them missing. He didn’t look much further out of fear of getting lost himself, and he didn’t know what to do or say, or who to say it to. So Blake did nothing. He just swallowed the secret, piling it on top of the other lies that were beginning to poison his soul, and let the day pass. And then the next day passed. Then a week passed, then a few. As time ticked on, thoughts of the boys just slipped away from his consciousness as he came to rely on Terry to help get everything set for Nick’s upcoming launch.
Blake threw a ten dollar bill on the table and left.
***
Terry was already on the mountain when Blake pulled up just before 8:00 a.m., having driven the F-100 that Blake now let him use. Terry hadn’t asked one question about Shane or Jesse in three weeks. Blake couldn’t decide if it was ignorance or apathy, but as the saying goes, he didn’t know and he didn’t care. Terry had been working hard and was thrilled that Blake let him drive the truck. He was even more thrilled with the fact that Blake said he would now earn $5,000 if all went well, since Jesse and Shane had run off and Terry had a lot more work to do. Terry celebrated real hard the night he heard that.
“Everything going okay this morning?” Blake asked as he stepped out of the truck.
“Yeah I ’spose, but a lot of these fellas are gettin’ a might ill.”
“Ill?” Blake snapped. “What do you mean ill?”
Terry waved his arm for Blake to follow and gave Blake the tour. “Looky there at that ’un,” Terry said, pointing to Felipe, lying in his shed. Felipe rested on his side as blood slowly oozed from his nose and his mouth.
“Let’s go in and take a look,” Blake said as he walked through the entrance. Blake approached Felipe and got down for an inspection. He traced his fingers over his shoulders, which had swollen considerably. Just below Felipe’s right shoulder Blake touched his right hand to a black, squishy ulcer and pushed it in and out, as he grimaced with disgust.
“What the hell is that?” Blake asked. Flies were already swarming around, more than usual. Blake lifted his hand from Felipe to scratch one off the back of his neck.
“Beat’s me, but a bunch of ’em got it.” Terry said. Terry took Blake around showing him the breadth of the illness that had popped up in the past twenty-four hours.
“Just came out of nowhere,” Terry said. “Like the air is poisoned or something.”
“Thanks, Dr. Terry,” Blake said as he dismissed the simplicity of the kid’s mountain logic.
“I’m telling ya, that’s what it is,” Terry said. “Looky over here by this tree.” Terry walked Blake to a huge twisted oak tree beside Blake’s truck and pointed to two dead squirrels and one dead skunk on the ground within thirty feet of one another.
“See?” Terry said. “Just up and died, not a scratch on ’em.”
“Jesus!” Blake said, being careful to steer clear of the skunk.
They walked back in and passed Felipe. Blake had never seen anything like it. Body after body was hemorrhaging blood from the nose and mouth. Some had hideous black ulcers and severe swelling in the lower neck, chest, and shoulders. A few showed none of those symptoms, but just staggered around as if they were intoxicated. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew enough to know it wasn’t good.
“Some of ’em done died,” Terry said. “Three of them real fat sumbitches.”
“WHAT!” Blake said, staring firmly at Terry. “Where?”
Terry led him behind the sheds to see the three huge bodies that were so round they looked bloated to Blake.
“Jesus Christ!” Blake exclaimed. A stream of thoughts, all of them bad, washed over Blake, but his primary thought was of how much less money he would make if he didn’t do something quickly to salvage what he could.
“Terry, I gotta go make a call but I’ll be back to help you clean all this mess up when I’m done. You’re gonna need it.” Blake drove down the mountain and headed back toward Clayton. He stopped in the parking lot of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church once he picked up a good cell signal.
“Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of Nick Vegas. Please leave—”
“Damn it!” Blake exhaled as he slammed the phone against the steering wheel. He looked up at the huge cross above the steeple, gathered his thoughts and listened to the rest of the message.
“—a message and I’ll get back to you.” BEEP!
“Nick, it’s Blake. Need to talk to you about this weekend. I have a special treat for your dinner this weekend that I think you’ll love. Give me a call.”
***
Nick Vegas pulled into the parking lot of the Fox News Atlanta bureau on 14th Street at 8:20 a.m. The associate producer of the Fox & Friends show told Nick to be there by 8:30 for a segment on the morning show. It was an easy autumn morning ride, only taking eighteen minutes in traffic from his Buckhead home.
The cell phone in Nick’s pocket rang. He looked to see that it was Blake calling, thought for a second, and sent it to voice mail. He left the phone in his black BMW 550i and walked inside the studios.
Nick was no stranger to the media. He had done countless magazine and newspaper interviews. He had even done several local TV interviews in addition to The Food Channel episodes, but this was his first live national television interview. The associate producer had asked Nick to appear in a panel that would discuss underground supper clubs, but when Nick explained his concept for 50-Forks and said it was launching that very week, the Fox & Friends team decided to do a full segment on it. Nick couldn’t refuse, even though all 500 memberships were already sold out.
When Nick walked through the doors he expected to see a full studio. Of course he knew that the hosts of the show, Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy, were located in New York and wouldn’t actually be there, but he expected to see producers, camera sets, camera crews with headsets receiving silent instructions. Instead, a young woman greeted him and walked him around a corner to a small studio with gray carpet, a single stool, and a camera on one end facing a wall with an image of Atlanta’s skyline. She escorted Nick to the stool in front of the skyline mural, and began fitting him with the microphone and earpiece as he sat.
At once, Nick felt the fluttering of a butterfly in the hollow cavern below his heart, a rare and unwelcome feeling for him. He looked ahead at the camera and saw only a tunnel of darkness. He had expected that he would see a monitor of sorts—a flat screen showing what the home viewers saw so that he could see his hosts and, more importantly, see how he looked. There was only a solitary, uncaring camera.
“Morning Nick, this is Rachel in New York,” a voice in his right ear said with crystal clarity. “I’m one of the producers and we’ll go live to you in about two minutes.” Nick’s pulse quickened, alarming him. He smiled on the outside and disciplined himself on the inside, commanding himself to calm down the way he commanded excellence from his staff. He widened his smile, remembering that one is always supposed to smile on television, then tried to determine if his smile was too wide, too awkward. He raised and lowered his lips as he gave his smile the full range of motion until he found what he hoped was the perfect personification of success.