Disease

Chapter 1: The Dunes

My heart pounds in my ears and my hands tremble. The dry desert air burns my lungs as I inhale and exhale, quicker than I think I should be. I wonder for a second if I'm hyperventilating. Time seems to slow down as every fiber of my being wills itself to turn invisible and dissipate into nothingness. I turn towards the man, his cassock somehow a dark, abyssal black, free of any trace of sand, despite every single one of us being covered in it. He turns to meet my gaze, his face the perfect picture of warmth and kindness. I can't bear to look at him, and turn back to the girl.

The girl herself isn't very interesting; she's small, probably not much older than I am, wearing a pink skirt, hiking boots, denim jacket, all as dusty and sweat stained as a life in the desert with little resources would warrant. The only thing remotely unusual about her is her hair, which is brown with irregular blonde streaks in it. Her face is covered in dirt and dust, streaked under her eyes from what must have been crying, and yet she glares up at me and the Preacher from where Greg Sands and Jamie Kurtis are holding her arms and forcing her onto her knees. Her green eyes are cold and hard, her mouth is set in a thin line.

I look up at the Preacher and stare dumbly, caught like a deer in the headlights.

"Drake, take the gun." The Preacher says firmly, with just a hint of a harsher tone. "Or I'll have to do it myself."

At this, I snap my head back up to look the Preacher in the eyes. The Preacher has lived in the town for as long as I can remember. The first memory I have is seeing his head of curly, blond hair and hearing him praying over me, though I can't remember what he'd said. The Preacher could be kind, as I had seen him offer a shoulder to cry on and a prayer for the grieving widows and orphans of those killed by the creatures in the desert. I'd seen him indifferent to the plight of those in other cities, whose cries of help could occasionally be heard on Uncle Jeb's ham radio, but that was only because the Preacher worried about us first. "We will protect our own," He'd said as the wall around the town was erected. "When the world has calmed and it is safe in the desert, we can help others." And even though Uncle Jeb had shaken his head, I'd agreed with the Preacher because if they went outside to help other people, they'd want to take the guards, the people with guns who currently stood in towers protecting the town. They'd be gone and if they were gone who was going to protect me and my mom?

I'd seen the Preacher do all of this, and in all my days I never once remembered seeing the Preacher raise his hand against another human being.

"It's okay if you can't, Drake." He says, though I can see in his eyes the look of disapproval. Disappointment. "You can go home now. I'll take care of this." He raises the gun up to the girl's head. She glares, her face a stony poker face, yet I can see her eyes water as she blinks back tears. The Preacher puts his finger on the trigger.

"Wait!"

Everything seems to stand still for a second. The Preacher, Greg, and Jamie turn to look at me. Greg and Jamie have these looks on their faces that just say "Big mistake, dude. You're in for it now," but the Preacher just smiles, a kind, warm smile that makes me lose my train of thought for a second.

"I...I can do it." I finally say, my voice breaking on the last word.

The Preacher holds the gun out to me. Back to square one. This time I take the gun. It's heavy and warm from the sun, and from the Preacher's hand. I hold it up to test the weight. My hand shakes. I point it at the girl's head. She breathes heavily through her nose.

"Just do it," she says, though her voice is dry.

I get closer to make sure I don't miss. My hand shakes. I put my finger on the trigger. Greg and Jamie are rolling their eyes. The Preacher puts a hand on my shoulder. It's warm and comforting. I can't help but relax, only to then tense up as I think of what I am doing.

"What are you waiting-" She doesn't get to finish her sentence as she's cut off by a loud pop.

I punch Greg Sands in the gut and follow it up by pistol whipping Jamie Kurtis in the face. Jamie's nose pops as it breaks. They fall to the ground, writhing in pain. The girl looks down at them, probably shocked at the fact that she's now free, and then looks up at me.

"Run! Go!" I shout, pointing at the gate behind her.

In a second, she's up on her feet and sprinting incredibly fast to the wall. The Preacher forces me aside, knocking me down, and he shouts orders up to the snipers in the towers. Suddenly there's noise everywhere and the girl is dodging the bullets in serpentine curves. She runs, not to the gate as I'd previously directed her, but straight at the wall. It's thirty feet high; there's no way she can get out. I think 'Well, it was all for nothing, then, she's dead,' but she stops, leaps up at least ten feet, wall-running and jumping up to the edge. She pulls herself up and disappears over the wall before anyone can fire another shot.

As I lie there, amazed at what I've just seen, the Preacher stands motionless, staring at where the girl just disappeared. He walks over to me, and I see his face. At first it seems emotionless, but then I see it. Cold, calculated, rage. He isn't red in the face or screaming at me, and that's what's terrifying. He kicks my face, and I feel my nose crunch. As I bring my hands to my face to staunch the blood flow, he stomps on my chest, knocking the wind out of me. He kneels down, keeping his pointed, black boot on my chest, picks up the gun and points it at the center of my forehead.

He is going to kill me.

He grins. "You've been a very bad boy, Drake."

He pushes himself up off of me, painfully stomping on my chest again as he does so, and lowers the gun to his side.

"Put him in the water tower." He says to Greg and Jamie, who are looking at me like they think I'd look hilarious drowning.
"I'll deal with him later. I have other business to attend to, now." He says as he strolls towards the sentry towers.

As Greg and Jamie roughly haul me up and push me forward, my face is covered in blood, my nose broken and bleeding profusely, my ribs feel like they've been run over by a giant truck, and the worst pain I feel is that I've made the Preacher hate me.

~*~

Samantha ran at full speed away from the walled off town into the desert. She had long since outrun her attackers, but she still ran like it was the most natural thing to her. Her legs fell so easily into the routine of one foot after the other, stretching as far in front of her as it could, her body leaning forward with her hair whipping around her head into her face, and she couldn't help but close her eyes and imagine she was flying. After a while, she remembered that she was in the middle of the desert and that she needed things like water and shelter from the things that would eat her if she stayed out much longer. She opened her eyes and tried to go into that clear, meditative state of focus.

She looked up at the sky. Staring at the sun, she let her mind go blank, letting her focus tell her where to go. Her vision darkened, the desert fading away until the only thing left was the sun and a beam of light falling from that focal point in the sky down towards the sand where the trailer was when she'd left. She subconsciously turned her body the way she wanted to go and kept running for about two seconds until a pressure began to grow just above her eyes behind her forehead that gradually morphed into a dull pain and a bright, blinding point of light in the middle of her vision. She flinched, looking down at the ground and squeezing her eyes shut, which caused her to trip on a rock. She slowed down to a brisk trot, and rubbed her eyes until the afterimages of the light disappeared and her vision was normal. Okay, she thought, no more focusing.

She shook her head and concentrated on getting where she was going, which she saw ahead of her. In the distance, rising over the horizon as she got closer, was the top of a battered, dusty RV. She sprinted the last two hundred feet to the door of the RV. The rusty hinges creaked as she pulled the screen door open.

The interior of the RV was cramped and dark, with 70's style wood paneling and scratchy, pea-soup green upholstery for the booth seats which matched the stained linoleum table. Inside, the dry, dusty air of the desert mixed with the humidity of the buildup of the sweat and grime of two people who had foregone bathing for over two weeks to save water.
She stomped in, throwing off her jacket and leaving it on the floor in front of the door. She peeled off her sweat-damp t-shirt, using her other hand to pull down her tank top so she didn't show Braedon her bra. She dropped her t-shirt on one of the beds that stuck out from the wall and sat across from Braedon at the booth.

Braedon glanced at her over his aviators for a second before he went back to the disassembled gun he was cleaning with an already completely black rag.

"Hey," he mumbled around his cigarette.

"Hey," she replied.

He set the rag down, picked up the slide from the table, slid it back over the chamber, and aimed it out the window for a second before putting it back in its holster on his hip.

"You find anything?" He asked.

"No." She replied instinctively, then corrected herself. "I mean, I didn't find nothing; I found a town but there isn't anything we could use. I ran into two boys just outside the dunes and I tried to get them to trade me some supplies, but all they wanted to do was... mess with me." She paused awkwardly.

Braedon looked out the window and rested a tense hand on his gun, flicking the ash from his cigarette with the other. "You're okay?"

"Mm-hmm. I had to use my focus, though." She continued. "I kicked one boy between the legs and punched the other in the stomach. I would've gotten away but then there was this priest guy and he knocked me unconscious. I woke up and the two boys had my arms and the priest was explaining to this third boy that he had to shoot me to keep their town safe from 'my kind'. He apparently didn't want to cause he attacked the two boys and got them to let go so I could escape."

"I see..." Braedon nodded, thinking it over. He tilted the brim of his tan cowboy hat back. "Could we steal some supplies when the people were all sleeping?"

Samantha shook her head. "I don't think so. There's this giant wall. It's really big; I could barely even jump over it. Then, there's these sniper towers and even most of the people in the town have guns with them. I think it's some kind of cult."

"This is bad." Braedon said, taking off his hat and running a hand through his dark hair. "We need water; there's no way we're going to get out of the desert before we run out." He leaned back, taking off his sunglasses and rubbing his eyes. "What if... I went into the town, since I don't have a focus, and then I traded for the water? You could hide in the trailer 'til I'm done."

Samantha shrugged. "Might work. Beats dying of dehydration."

Braedon nodded. "Alright, we'll head for the town in the morning. I... think we still have some of Maggie's jewelry to trade. And we have ammunition to spare. They'll probably need that."

Samantha looked at Braedon's face. As always, he was stoic, putting on a stern face and pretending he wasn't torn up inside about having to trade away the last of his wife's belongings just to survive. He got up from the booth and went to sit in the driver's seat behind the giant steering wheel.

"I don't think we have very far to go before we're out of the desert." She said. "I've been focusing on it. There should only be a few hundred miles before we're out. Then there'll be water."

He turned to look at her. "You can tell all that from it?"

"Yeah. There'll be water. And people." She said. "We'll survive."

He turned back to the steering wheel. Samantha rested her head on the warm booth table and prayed to whatever would listen that she hadn't just lied.

They arrived at the town two days later. Braedon almost didn't see it and would have driven right by, but Samantha, recognizing the dunes hiding the town, leaped up and made sure he knew where it was. Braedon drove over the dunes and was awestruck as the town appeared over the horizon in front of them.

The most immediately visible thing was a giant, thirty foot high wall about two miles around in a circle seemingly made out of whatever they could find. The building material seemed to be everything from scrap lumber to corrugated tin roof panels, which seemed to range in quality from shiny and brand new to so-rusty-there's-holes-in-it. There were four sentry towers placed at even intervals in the wall, in which Braedon could see people with shotguns and rifles pointed out at the desert. As Braedon drove up to the gate, the people pointed their guns at his RV. He stopped about three hundred yards away from it.

"They seem paranoid." Braedon said. "They might search the RV. You should hide."

Samantha nodded, went to the back of the cabin, picked up a few books, and went into the bathroom. It had never actually been used as a bathroom, since the thing required water to work and they couldn't spare any of that, but the insulation was situated so that it was the coolest spot in the RV. She closed the door behind her and jiggled the handle. It fell off on one side and Braedon picked it up and hid it under one of the booth cushions. The door couldn't be opened without the handle, unless they kicked it in, and if they were going to kick in doors in his RV, Braedon figured he would have more than enough reason to fight back.

"I'll be back after sundown. Try not to die of boredom." Braedon said.

"I'll be fine, I have Grisham and Roberts to keep me company," Samantha called through the door.

Braedon chuckled and headed out. He stepped out of the RV and raised his hands to show the snipers he was unarmed. Of course, he didn't have any guns on him, but he had hidden a small knife in his boot just in case. Not very effective in a gunfight, but one never could be too prepared. As Braedon walked towards the gate, two boys, one blond, one with brown hair, probably about seventeen, came out through a removable panel next to the gate and leveled two assault rifles at Braedon.

"Don't move!" The blonde shouted, and put his finger on the trigger.

Braedon suppressed a groan and stopped in his tracks. "No need to be hostile, boys, just here to trade for water."
"We'll see about that," said the other, brown haired boy as he went up to Braedon and began to frisk him. Finding no weapons, he pressed the barrel of the rifle into the middle Braedon's back and pushed him forward.

"Don't try nothin', you hear?" The blond boy said.

"Yeah, I don't care much to have a hole in my chest, thanks," Braedon said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Keep up that attitude, see where it gets you." The brown-haired boy said.

Braedon suppressed another groan, and the boys led him into the town. Once inside the wall, he could see the town. It seemed to be built split into four quarters, with two roads crossing in the center of the town, which housed a large, stone fountain with a statue so covered in rust and bird crap that Braedon couldn't tell who it was supposed to be. The buildings were like the wall around the town, made out of seemingly whatever the people could find that could stand up. Only a handful of them were actual buildings made out of brick and mortar, and even those were covered in dust and rubble. Over one of the brick and mortar buildings near the center of town was a rusted water tower. The boys pushed Braedon towards the building.
The inside of the building was similar to the outside in that it was dusty and covered in debris. Various different folding chairs and pews, most likely scavenged from what the townspeople could find, were situated so that they faced a wooden podium on a platform. Behind this platform, poring over a beat-up old bible, was a tall, pale man in the complete, oddly spotless uniform: black cassock, white collar, wide-brimmed hat, everything.

Must be the priest guy, Braedon thought.

"Preacher, this guy just drove up to the gate," the brown haired kid said, punctuating his sentence with a jab of the gun barrel into Braedon's back. That was the last straw.

Braedon reached behind him and grabbed the barrel of the gun, pulling it forward and pointing it up. The gun went off, sending little bits of wood down as Braedon elbowed the blonde boy in the face, breaking his nose with a surprisingly squishy, wet crack. As the boy dropped the gun, Braedon kicked it out of his reach, wrenched the other gun out of the other boy's grip and pointed it at him. His eyes went wide and he put his hands up in the air. Braedon scoffed and tossed the gun aside.

"I'm here, peacefully, to trade for water," he said, turning around to face the priest, who was looking at him with an air of amusement, "And I don't appreciate being held at gunpoint."

The priest chuckled and ran a hand through his short, blond curls. "Well, stranger, I have to admit, this is quite a first impression. One that I'm not entirely sure is good. That's the second time James has had his nose broken this week."
Braedon had always had an amazing poker face. Even his own mother sometimes couldn't tell whether he was lying. So, he easily hid the hint of recognition that went off in his brain from piecing together a detail in Samantha's story, and merely raised an eyebrow at the kid.

"I'm not surprised," he said, deadpan. Jamie glared at Braedon as the priest laughed.

"James, Gregory, fill up a few jugs of water for our guest. Speaking of which, go check up on the fish while you're at it." The priest said.

The brown haired boy picked up their guns and pulled the other boy out the door with him. Braedon tipped his hat at the priest.

"Thank you, sir, for the water. I have some jewelry that I could trade for it, and some ammo."

The priest shook his head. "Completely unnecessary. You are our guest, we shall provide you with as much as you need."
The priest's smile seemed warm and welcoming, which just made Braedon all the more suspicious. Nevertheless, he supposed he should be polite, at least.

"Thank you kindly, sir. Muchly appreciated. If there's anything I can do around the town-" Braedon was interrupted by the priest.

"Please, Mister, ah...?"

"Marcus. Braedon Marcus."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Marcus." The priest said cordially. "And, it is really no trouble at all; we need no compensation for doing the Lord's work and hosting a guest. Although, if you do feel so compelled, you may help Mr. Cox build his radio tower on the west side of town. Unfortunately, we must apply our efforts to other endeavors, and his radio tower is a rather low priority. Though, I'm sure he wouldn't refuse you." He turned back to the podium and gathered up the falling apart bible.
"Please forgive me, Mr. Marcus, but I have pressing matters to attend to. I wish you luck I your endeavors."

"Thank you again, sir. Good luck to you as well." Braedon said as he tipped his hat to the priest. The priest bowed his head in return as they departed.