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The Wisconsin River
Lewiston, WI
Day 41 of The Rise
When dawn arrived, Hannah’s tears had subsided, her body shaking with the slightest of vibrations. Harry hadn’t moved or taken his hand off the throttle. He gripped the handle so tight his palm had clammed into a white and translucent prune. He could feel the sweat tickling the insides of his fingers, but he wasn’t willing to adjust for comfort. He kept his eyes fixed on the villain that was now Stevie Kohler. Stevie occupied in the boat's middle seat, staring out at the water that meandered around bend after bend. He had become fantastically pale, and the sun beating down on him made his skin almost sparkle in the morning's new light.
And then a voice, eager and expectant, called from the riverbank. It was a faint and dying, but unmistakable, “Hello…!” that echoed away into the trees.
Harry's hand slipped off the throttle and the motor sputtered to a halt.
“Hello…!” the voice came again.
Stevie got to his feet, the .22 rifle cocked and ready. The boat wavered against the current and Hannah stifled a sudden rush of nausea.
“Who is that?” Hannah whispered.
“Hello over there…!”
Under the tall pine branches Harry saw a pair of faded jeans and a pair of ragged slacks walking along the shoreline.
“Hello!” Harry called back.
“What are you doing, Phillips?” Stevie hissed. “Shut the fuck up!”
“They might need help. Or maybe they can help us.”
“Or maybe you just wanna rat me out for what I did to yer daddy?”
“So what if I do? What’s gonna happen? They gonna send you to jail? In case you hadn’t noticed, Stevie, the world kinda ended.”
Stevie’s eyes wandered over Harry with a mix of skepticism and intrigue. “All right,” he said. “But, even still, you mention one word about yer daddy and I’ll kill all ya both.”
Harry pulled back on the throttle and headed for shore. The boat’s metal underside slide across the bed of rocks. Hannah jumped out and helped pull the boat onto the saturated sand.
“Go on,” Stevie told Harry, motioning with the rifle.
Harry hopped out and Stevie followed. There was a small section of eroded shoreline next to the boat with massive, prehistoric-looking roots protruding from the earth. One by one, they used the roots to climb to where they had seen the jeans and slacks. Even with the rifle and his injured leg, Harry and Hannah were surprised at how nimble Stevie was at maneuvering the eroded shoreline.
“Anyone here?” Harry called.
“Over here!” The voice was very close now.
Harry crouched and saw the jeans and slacks traversing through the dense pines.
“Goddamn it, we just came this way!” Harry heard one of the voices hiss.
“Are you sure?” the other voice asked, his tone a little meeker than the first.
“Stay there! We’ll come to you!” Harry called.
The voices continued bickering and Harry followed them like a pair of comical compasses. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb were lost in the woods, ready to strangle each other; how perfectly strange.
Harry emerged from a cluster of pines and saw two men standing before him. The man wearing the jeans was tall and slender. He had sandy blonde hair which was thinning to the point of non-existence, and his smile was blisteringly white, almost harsh in the morning sun. There was a gray North Face backpack, stuffed to the gills, slung around his shoulders. He was wearing a 94.7 WLS-FM t-shirt that was coated in a fine layer of dust but, otherwise, in good condition. Had Harry been a Detroit resident (or owned a radio for that matter) he might have recognized it was “D.J. Dave Cash In The Morning” staring back at him. But, since neither were the case, such a realization never came to pass.
The man sporting the slacks was much shorter than Mr. Cash. He had thick, black rimmed glassed propped on the bridge of his nose making him look a bit like Squints Palledorous. He was quite portly and seemed to waddle rather than walk. There was a black leather attache case strapped across his chest, which, at first glance, looked more like an expensive purse. Both of their eyes doubled in size when they saw Stevie aiming the .22 at them. Their hands went up and Harry could see the yellowing pit stains that blotched both of their shirts.
“Look, we-we-we don’t want any trouble,” the man with the glasses said.
“Stevie, put that down,” Harry told him.
Stevie lowered the gun, but kept it at the ready. His eyes were quick and untrusting, and all of them were more than aware of it.
“You all right, buddy,” Dave Cash asked.
Stevie nodded, but kept the frown, his eyes unwavering and tense.
“What are you two doing out here?” Harry asked.
“Found him coming up from Chicago,” Dave said. “I was coming down from Detroit. Told him ain’t worth going up there. City had been taken, so I just got the fuck out.”
“Jesus,” Hannah muttered.
“You said it, sister,” Dave grumbled.
“My name’s Max. Max Horwitz,” the man with the glasses said. “This here is Dave Cash.”
There was a look in Dave’s eye as if he expected recognition, that they would all fall to their knees and praise the glory that was DJ Dave Cash in the Morning. But when only somber, sullen eyes glanced back at him, he knew he would get no such attention.
“What you got in yer bags?” Stevie asked.
“Medicine,” said Max, adding, “I’m a doctor. Managed to round up what I could.”
“Think you can fix up my leg?” Stevie said limping forward.
Max’s eyes fell to Stevie’s leg and he saw the sides of his knee were sickly and blue.
“Jeez, that sure looks bad,” Max said uneasily. “Come and sit over here.” Max patted the base of a fallen tree and Stevie limped to it. He took a seat and lifted his leg. Max squatted next to him. “What kind of gun is that?” Max asked unzipping the pack. Inside were all the tools a doctor might need to perform a craniotomy on the go, fixed with scalpels, syringes, bandages, peroxide, antiseptics, pills, and sutures.
“None of your business,” Stevie said.
“Just making conversation,” Max said throwing the end of the stitch through the tip of a needle.
“You believe what’s going on out there?” Dave asked.
“It’s awful,” said Hannah.
“Government’s calling those things ‘Variants.’”
“How you know that?” Stevie barked his question with blatant suspicion.
Dave went on, seeming not to notice. “We got a radio. Most of the stations are shut down, except for one: the Emergency Response Station. It’s only a recording, but knowing the government did something is better than radio silence.”
“What’s it say?” Hannah asked.
“Well, here…” Dave unzipped his backpack and removed out a small, bedside radio. He flicked it on and held it out so the others could listen. “Runs on a loop. Been running for days now—“
“Weeks,” Max interrupted.
“Yeah, weeks, I guess…shit…The recording’s just wrapping up.”
“…life under any circumstances. Good luck and Godspeed,” the voice on the radio said. There was a long pause of white noise and the radio’s female voice came back. The woman’s slow, calculating, robotic voice chimed in with such strange apathy Hannah thought it had to be computerized. But, somehow, there was a sense of terror in the voice, computerized or not. “This is a special bulletin from the United States Government…”
Ain’t nothing special about it, Hannah thought.
“This report is in conjunction with the United States Military, the Center for Disease Control, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” it continued. “By now you all know we have been attacked. How this terrible tragedy has started, we are not entirely sure. What the CDC can confirm, however, is that this is not a disease outbreak. From what we have gathered and studied over this short time, those initiating the attacks are—as best we can tell—still human, only a slight variation. Because of this, the CDC is calling the murderers: Variants. In spite of their behavior traits, their genetics appear unchanged. It is unclear if the variation has to do with the nervous, cardio, or endocrine systems, but we are continuing to exhaust all the possibilities. Contrary to initial reports, these Variants are not what some are calling ‘zombies.’ Variants possess no cannibalistic tendencies of any kind.” The woman’s voice wavered, suggesting a bit of humanness, and the horror in her voice grew.
Cannibalistic tendencies. A shiver ran up Hannah’s spine and her body turned to ice.
“Their only true motivation appears to be rage. The United States Military is working contain the problem and are assuring everyone there is no reason to panic. If you come across a Variant or they are outside your home, lock the door and stay inside. Don’t approach or antagonize them. Stay safe and out of their way. Again, please rest assured the CDC, FEMA, and United States Military are working tirelessly to stop the madness…”
The madness.
“…currently plaguing this great country. As long as everyone stays calm and alert, this problem will be resolved shortly. The military is discouraging any and all types of vigilantism. Anyone caught intervening will be prosecuted to the fullest extent. There are to be no attempts on the Variants’ lives under any circumstances. Good luck and Godspeed.”
The report finished and the white noise returned before the woman’s voice started all over again, “This is a special bulletin from the United States Government…”
Dave switched off the radio and the wind rippling the water and rustling the trees suddenly became still.
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