Plenty Of Warning Given
In the still, quiet hours before dawn, Deag was startled awake by an insistent, hard rapping at his front door. He sat up and stumbled out of bed not even noticing that Miranda wasn't beside him, struggled to put on the blue jeans he wore yesterday and made his way into the living room, also never noticing the blankets and bags he had put there the night before, were gone. He looked through the peep hole and jerked back as the sharp tapping pounded the door again.
He unlocked the security deadbolt and slowly opened the door hoping to find Nathan there but was instead greeted by two national guardsmen suited for bio-hazard, fully armed and aimed right at him.
"Whoa! Whoa," he blurted out. "I'm unarmed!"
They didn't bother with any niceties demanding the count of the number of persons presiding in said dwelling.
"There are four of us," Deag informed them.
"Get everyone to the door," the trooper commanded. "We have to do a visual."
"Fine," Deag acquiesced, heading to the bedroom to get Miranda. When he reentered the room he just stood there staring at the empty bed. "Miraaanda!" he yelled. He trotted down the hall to Neala's room. Empty. At that point his heart fluttered in his chest and he flew over to Rois's room finding it empty as well. "Oh my God, oh my God." He was panting when he reached the front door on the edge of a panic attack. "They're gone," he gasped. "Gone. They were here last night when I went to bed," he trailed off feebly.
The officer dropped his automatic down by his side and stepped closer to the door.
"Sir calm down. Step outside while I have a look."
Deaglan stepped out on the stoop and looked around noticing right away that Miranda's Jeep was gone. He took a deep breath of anger mixed with some emotion he had never experienced. Right then, he noticed the baggage he had placed at the door last night was gone as well. He knew without a doubt what she'd done.
The guardsman came back out and looked at Deag with a steely gaze. "Where do you think they've gone," he asked with cool reserve.
"Well, her Jeep is gone. She most likely took the kids and went to her parents."
"Where is that located?" he pressed.
"Price, Utah." Deag answered.
"You're sure?"
"Yeah, she was arguing with me about it last night. It looks like she waited for me to go to sleep and she left. I had bags packed for the kids by the door because we were going to go to my Mothers in Colorado this morning," Deaglan admitted.
"Well, my news isn't going to be too pleasant, but if what you say is true, more than likely she and your kids ended up in a quarantine unit. The military curfew required anyone breaking time restrictions to be sent straight to quarantine. And we are only required to inform you, as well as make sure you understand that starting this morning the state is under a medical marshal law. If they aren't sick, they'll be released but it may be a while before they find out."
"Well can I go get them?" Deag probed hoping for a little sympathy, but none was forthcoming as the soldier merely shook his head.
"No way to know which unit they were taken to, Sir. Your best bet is to hang tight until further notice. Medical marshal law means no one in or out of the city or area where you're presently located."
"God bless," Deag breathed.
"I know Sir, but there was plenty of warning given. You have our condolences, but we have to move on. We have a large area to cover before the end of the day. Stay inside for your protection."
And with those words they spray painted a white circle with a one in it across the front door and were gone, moving across the yard and to the next house.
Deaglan stood there feeling like a lost child.
He went back inside and called Miranda's parents' hoping that by some miracle she had made it there, but phone service was crashed again and all he could get was a busy signal.
He threw the phone across the room with a curse and walked to the kitchen. He had no idea what to do.
He turned on the TV, to the one remaining channel and watched with growing trepidation the government officials trying to keep public panic at a minimum with various instructions to be carried out under the emerging medical crisis, and now it had just come to roost in his nest.
〰️
Len Cloud yawned. His lack of sleep was taking its toll, but he knew he had to go back to the RV and gather up things he had left behind and get back to Donelle's. On the radio he listened to the worsening news reports wondering idly if he would even be able to make it to Deag's.
Most every city in Utah had been declared a national emergency and he expected it wouldn't be long before Colorado suffered the same fate. The Cortez area was not all that far from the border and even though Donelle lived in a rural county as he did, marshal law affected every sector statewide.
Those thoughts gave him the impulse to speed up his trip and get back. He arrived at his mountain side property and parked his truck, easing his five-ten frame out of the seat a little slower than normal. It felt like he had been in his truck a lot longer than he had, and he bemoaned the arthritic stiffness that had crept into his bones as he'd gotten older. His hair, long and thick hung down past his shoulders in the long ponytail he had adopted lately because the heat of July made it just too hot to wear it loose.
He gumshoed over to his RV, inspecting the area as he went, looking for signs of break in or suspicious activity. Deep down he knew he was really looking for sick, blood ravaged groups of the sick. When he was satisfied there were none lurking about, he unlocked the door, stuck his head in furtively and went inside.
Finding his phone charger, he put it in his pocket. He grabbed some of his ham radio trappings because he planned to set up shop at Donelle's.
Then he began to gather up other things he would need, at least two weeks worth until things settled down, mostly clothing, food and dog food for the boys.
Thinking of Biggie and Yolo consequently made him think of Nathan, making him wonder if the government was somehow involved. Nothing else made any sense.
He went and sat down in a patio chair, giving thought to the idea, and what he and Hollis had discussed before he left.
He hoped officials didn't think Nate had caused any of this. While Nate was very outspoken in the prepper community, he was careful what he posted on media websites and newsletters. Len thought of the few times Nate had appeared with him as a guest on his YouTube channel and the things they had discussed. Now those were things the government might be watching, but if that were the case why didn't they come for him as well, he wondered.
Did they just think he was a kook? A dooms-day preacher? The thoughts plagued his mind because he had been at it for so much longer than Nathan ever had. Len remembered when they first met, by some coincidence at 191 Diner.
He later learned it had not been any chance meeting, but that Hollis and Verbena had planned it. They had met Nathan at an annual NRA gun training seminar for youth, had got to talking and naturally the talk turned to preparedness safety. They had turned Nathan on to Len's videos and the rest after that was history. Nathan joined their group, eventually bringing in EMT's Mark and Sherri Rhoma and from that time on they had used the diner to have their monthly meetings. It had been a solid progression that had formed tight bonds between all of them. The only people he ever had trouble bringing in were his younger brother Deaglan and his wife Miranda.
Nate was several years younger than Lens ripe age of forty-four, he was a died in the wool bachelor and soon, Nate headed up their organization and it had grown over the years.
Nathan had been staunchly convinced for a long while that the nemesis of America would be found in a catastrophic natural disaster scenario, and in that capacity he and Len agreed. In fact, many of their ideals ran parallel with Native American lore and prediction, but one strange night he had gotten in touch with Len about some information he refused to share over the phone. He had come all the way out to Len's place and that was the night he had shown him some things his mother had given him belonging to his late father.
Len remembered the information and the stunning implications it foretold. Not to say any of them were naïve, about chemical and biological weapons, but somehow Nathan's father had come across a deadly secret and possibly lost his life to it. It was so radical, a threat to the whole nation of Africa, at the time, it was almost impossible to imagine it ever really happening.
A manipulated biotoxin created for use by guerilla war fighters who had been raging across North Africa and Ethiopia. Freedom fighters bent on annihilation of a depraved Marxist regime of terror with a terror of their own.
A dry germ compound and the formulas that produced it, that could create its own spores simply by being released in the air, not unlike anthrax but able to kill its host within a 24-hour period with simple inhalation or absorption through the skin.
By multiplication within the cells and shutting down oxygen to the brain, it was a ravaging beast and once breathed in began a systematic chain of illness that spread like wildfire through a mucous sputum from person to person or deep infected wound lesions on the skin.
The only thing they hadn't perfected was how to release it without themselves becoming infected.
For years Nathan struggled with what to do with the classified information. His biggest concern was the information getting in the hands of the wrong people. Finally, after years of his own research, and the fear of the government beating at his door faded, he had put the information away for safe keeping, just in case. Len never knew in case of what, exactly, but here they were today.
Perhaps the threat had been there all along and they just weren't privy to it. Perhaps Nathan had been right all along.
〰️
In the hours since Deaglan had been awoken to the devastating reality that his wife and children were being held in some quarantine facility he'd finally spoken to his Mom twice.
She had begged and implored him to get to Colorado while he could because she was concerned for his safety and the possibility of him getting sick and dying, or being attacked by some undead bastard but he couldn't do it.
Even with the unbelievable news she had shared with him as information unfolded from Mark and Sherri, he felt he needed to stay put, for Miranda and his children. He was sure they would get released soon, within days even, and he was going to be right here when they returned.
Donelle couldn't reason him out of it, even with tears, or the need for his help to try and find his brother.
He had somehow taken to blaming himself for Miranda's rash behavior and he had spent all day, off and on, as the phone service allowed, with FEMA just trying to find out where they may have been taken but it was to no avail.
Now he sat in depressed solitude watching the government news channel and waiting for his phone to ring, to hear Miranda's voice, but it never did.