Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller Read online

  “No sheriff, I haven’t heard anything about them.” Blake’s reply was measured.

  “Hmmm,” the sheriff said as he looked around, surveying the parking lot.

  Blake stood and waited for the sheriff. The sheriff stood silently and Blake was faced with the option of standing poised or saying something to the sheriff, even if all he said was that he needed to leave. The sheriff succeeded in flushing Blake out of the pocket.

  “Is there any news on them?” Blake asked.

  “Not much,” the sheriff began, “but we found some interesting pictures on one of the boy’s Facebook page.” The sheriff said no more.

  “What kind of pictures...or is that private?” Blake asked.

  “Well,” the sheriff said, “a picture of one of the fellas in a wooded area in front of a whole mess of pigs. Then there was another of him standing in front of a shed of some sort. Couldn’t make out the details but looked like some stuff was hanging in there.”

  Blake’s pulse quickened. He sipped his coffee, so as to act nonchalant, but the caffeine would do nothing to help slow his heart rate. He said the only thing that he felt he could. “Hmmm.”

  “Yeah,” the sheriff continued, “pretty strange. He was working on some kind of farming, ’round here I reckon, but nobody knows nothing about it.” The sheriff looked at Blake, who said nothing. “You don’t know anyone messing with pigs, do you Blake?”

  He knows, of course he knows! There’s no way he don’t know, Blake said to himself. He didn’t know what to say or what to do. He just wanted this to all go away so badly so he could start over. I repent, I repent, Blake said, only he said it to himself. Not to the sheriff.

  The sheriff didn’t wait for an answer.

  “Of course, we expect to know more soon,” the sheriff said. “One of his Facebook friends commented on the pics so we’re gonna contact him. Already sent a subpoena to Facebook to get access to Jesse’s account, the fella that’s missing.” The sheriff stood as calm as could be, allowing his words to sink in.

  “I sure hope you find ’em, Sheriff,” Blake said, “and I hope they’re okay.” He meant it. “Well, so long, Sheriff. I gotta get going.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you, Blake.”

  ***

  TUESDAY 8:06 A.M: ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  Clint Justice pulled into the parking lot of the parking garage on Alabama Street in downtown Atlanta for his 8:30 a.m. meeting with the USDA district manager. He parked the car and reached to turn off the ignition key, but hesitated so he could catch up on the local news.

  “Support for WABE comes from WallCloud, providing dependable web hosting for mission critical applications. More at WallCloud.com. This is your home for Atlanta’s classics and NPR News, the time is 8:06. Now the news. A spokesperson at Athens Regional Medical Center said a second person has died in as many days from what doctors are calling flu-like symptoms. The spokesperson said the hospital has experienced a spike in flu-like symptoms since Sunday, and are cooperating with both the CDC and Georgia Health Department, as many of the afflicted are from out of state. Yesterday, a thirty-four-year old New York woman died in Athens, as did a forty-two-year old Dallas businessman. Both died at Athens Regional Medical Center. In all, the hospital admitted over twenty people yesterday with flu-like symptoms. Neither avian nor swine flu has been ruled out. In weather, Hurricane Isabel is expected to hit the Bahamas this evening as a Category 3 storm. Forecasters predict it will continue to strengthen and make U.S. landfall somewhere between Jacksonville, Florida and Charleston, South Carolina by Thursday evening. This is John Mattock for WABE News.”

  Clint turned the key and sat in the car for a moment.

  ***

  TUESDAY 9:10 A.M: SAN SALVADOR, BAHAMAS

  Doctor Severino Ortega parked his jeep in front of the rented beach home and tried unsuccessfully to open the driver’s door. The steady, southerly winds already exceeded seventy miles per hour even though the eye of the storm was almost nine hours away. Seve, as his friends back in Spain knew him, crawled over the center console and opened the passenger door. The wind flung it open violently, threatening to warp the door on its hinges. The doctor grabbed his bag and fought his way to the front door and let himself in. John heard the front door open and the winds howl through the house. He left Rose’s side and went in to greet the doctor.

  “Doctor,” John said pleading, begging, “she’s in here.” Seve followed John into the bedroom. Wind-driven rain and sand pelted the side of the house and the windows. Seve looked at the windows vibrating as he walked into the room. “I hope those windows hold,” he said.

  “I couldn’t leave her,” John began, “so I didn’t have any time to board the windows, and didn’t have anything to use if I did. So I hung those blankets on the inside.”

  “Well, looks like the eye is headed for Nassau and will pass west of here,” Seve said. “We won’t get the worst of it but we’ll get a wallop. And we’ll be cut off from Nassau and the U.S.” Seve sat his bag on the floor next to Rose and sat on the bed. He needlessly put his hand to her head but he could see that she was soaked with sweat.

  “I’m scared, Doctor,” John said, his voice shaking. “She was unresponsive all night. The last she spoke to me was about 2:00 a.m. or so, saying that both her chest and abdomen hurt. She has been a little delirious at times.”

  Seve took the thermometer out of Rose’s mouth and made a note of the temperature of 103 degrees. He placed his stethoscope over Rose’s lungs and listened closely. The wind whistled and battered the house, making it difficult to concentrate. What he heard through the stethoscope concerned him more than what he was hearing outside the house. He cupped his hands over his ears and concentrated on the continuous sound of the rhonchi that was reminiscent of constant, low-level snoring. It was a sound he had heard in patients before and it was never a good sign. As he removed his stethoscope Seve surveyed John. Other than being distraught, John looked perfectly fine. “On the phone late last night, you said you thought she had the flu,” Seve said. “Why did you say that?”

  “Because, that’s what Rose said when we landed on Sunday. Just that she felt like she was coming down with the flu. Then she started feeling better and actually looked fine yesterday morning, which is why I left for the day. What was I thinking?” John started to ramble and get off topic. He had never been so scared. When he looked out the front door an hour before, the low clouds and crashing surf attacked him relentlessly. He shut the door and came to be with Rose, pacing the room frantically and waiting for the island’s only doctor to get here after seeing other patients who just couldn’t wait.

  “You don’t seem to have any flu-like symptoms.” Seve said.

  “What? No, of course not. I’m fine.”

  “Were you or your wife around anyone with flu?”

  John thought for only a second. “No, I don’t know anyone with the flu. Well, I’m not with Rose all the time. I don’t know, maybe she bumped into someone at a store or something. How would I know? She was fine until we flew down here.”

  Seve knew that it wasn’t flu season and he already suspected it wasn’t the flu anyway. He wished it were the flu. “She doesn’t seem to be congested. Did she have a runny nose at all?”

  “No, I don’t think so. No.”

  “Did she complain of dizziness?”

  “Dizziness? She hasn’t been up since I got back yesterday. She felt confused when I asked her questions last night. Couldn’t concentrate, but I don’t know if she was dizzy.”

  “How do you know she couldn’t concentrate?”

  John felt himself becoming infuriated, his face feeling as if it was baking in the sun. What the hell is wrong with her! That’s all he wanted to know. Enough with all the questions! “Because–” John hesitated, “she–she couldn’t remember the names of our daughters last night. She kept asking me their names and when I told her she–she forgot them instantly. Kept shaking her head and saying that wasn’t right, then she’d ask
me again.” The lights flickered off and cast the room into utter darkness. John gasped loudly as he swore he saw a black, bird-like figure fly around the ceiling, circling over Rose. The lights flickered back on and remained on.

  “Jesus...did you see that?” John asked. “Did you see something on the ceiling?”

  “Yeah, we’ll probably lose power anytime,” Seve said, unaware of what John thought he had seen. Seve picked up Rose’s left arm and placed two fingers just below her wrist. As he feared, he detected no radial pulse. He had begun to suspect that Rose may already be losing blood pressure, which is why he had asked about dizziness. Lack of concentration would be another symptom associated with low blood pressure.

  “What did you do on Saturday before you flew down here?”

  “Nothing. Just packed and went to a dinner Saturday night. Then straight back home. Why all the questions? Don’t you just have something you can give her besides this stuff she’s been taking?”

  “What has she been taking?”

  John showed Seve the two tincture bottles he had found in Rose’s purse. One read “Echinacea Tincture: take daily in water for immune system health” and the other read “Yarrow Tincture: spray in nostrils for flu, in throat for cold.”

  Seve examined the bottles and placed them back on the table. “Did you do anything with these tinctures?” Seve asked.

  “That’s all we have here. Everything last night was closed. EVERYTHING! Like the whole island shut down. It took me forever to reach you, the ONLY doctor on the whole island. No hospital, no nothing!” John began pacing, his breathing labored. Outside the outer band of winds from a Category 3 hurricane slammed the house, but John heard or felt none of it. He was beside himself, furious that he had left the day before to catch a fish. A stupid fish! He left Rose to catch a stupid fish.

  “It’s okay, John. Back in my country people swear by those tinctures. You did fine, John.”

  “I–” John began and hesitated, “I sprayed the yarrow in her nose and in her mouth. I know it’s stupid, I know. But that’s what the label said and I didn’t know what to do. I just needed to be able to do something for her. Her twin sister is really into that holistic kind of therapy stuff.”

  “John, you need to try and calm down,” Seve said. “Let’s focus on Rose. Now I have to ask you a few questions and I need you to answer them to help me. I can’t treat her until I have a good idea of what I’m treating. All right?” Once again the lights flickered off and then on. John stopped pacing and looked at Seve. His eyes dropped to Rose, lying semi-conscious on the bed and breathing heavily.

  “Okay,” John replied.

  “Good,” Seve said. “First off, I don’t believe she has the flu, John. She has no sign of congestion; you don’t have any symptoms; there’s no productive cough: I hear rhonchi in her lungs; you haven’t been around people with the flu and it’s the wrong time of year. That doesn’t add up to the flu.”

  John paced and listened to Seve as blowing sand pelted the side of the house, sounding like hard rice hitting the sidewalk.

  “Now, I have a theory about what this could be John, but we have no way to do any tests. The closest hospital is 200 miles from here and the only way to get her there would be a medevac. The U.S. Coast Guard would have to do that but they’re not available just now due to the hurricane. They’ve been helping boaters in Haiti and elsewhere, so–we’re on our own.”

  John stopped as he realized what Seve was saying. The gravity of the situation enveloped him. “Okay,” John repeated.

  “Before you came here, did Rose or you visit a farm at all? Do you live on a farm?”

  “No. We don’t live on a farm and haven’t been to one.”

  “So there’s no way she could have been around livestock, is that right John?”

  “Livestock? What the hell does that have to do with–”

  “John, I said I need you to stay with me.”

  John exhaled deeply. “No, she hasn’t been around any farm animals. Jesus!” John thought to himself what a stupid island doctor he was dealing with. Back home they would have whisked Rose into a sanitized room, treated her with one of a thousand drugs, and she’d be up and fine now. Here it was as if he had gone back in time to be asked insightful questions from the tribe’s medicine man. Questions like whether or not she had petted a donkey.

  “Could she have been to a drumming event?”

  “What kind of event?” John asked.

  “Some place where they were playing drums. Or perhaps a craft fair where they were making rugs, shearing animals–anything at all like that?”

  “NO! Nothing like that.” John said.

  Seve paused and looked back at Rose. He had seen these symptoms before in Spain. Too many times in fact, one of the many reasons he opted to sign up for a two-year sabbatical and become the lone physician on this island. Still, something didn’t add up. What John was telling him didn’t support his theory, but Rose’s symptoms, without question, did. He hoped he was wrong, prayed he was wrong. He knew that if he were right then there was a high probability that Rose would be dead within twenty-four hours anyway.

  “Does your wife happen to work for the postal service?”

  John rolled his eyes and turned his head. “NO!”

  “Any government agency at all?”

  John bowed his head and shook it violently, placing his hands on each side of his head. The questions were too much for him and he was nearing the end of his rope.

  So was Rose.

  Chapter 26

  Clint walked out of the conference room just after noon. He had hoped the meeting wouldn’t eat up so much of his Tuesday morning, certainly not over three hours. But for the second consecutive year, Congress had approved the President’s budgetary request for reduced FSIS funding, budget cuts that seemed ludicrous to Clint. Politicians wouldn’t admit it, he thought, but they seemed to love it when that happened. Armed with a mandate for more oversight and a bigger budget, they’d outline huge spending programs and label them with grand names like the Food Safety Modernization Act, as if food safety measures prior to that had been operating in the dark ages. Congress would sign off and funds would flow for a couple of years until everyone forgot about the salmonella, the e.coli. That’s where we are now, Clint thought. No foodborne illnesses of any magnitude for the past few years, no more Jack-in-the-Box scares, no more spinach coated in e.coli so might as well lay off inspectors. Then when there’s another scare hire some rookies, train them for a few years and lay them off just when they learn what they’re doing.

  Clint walked down the corridor toward the exit. He looked into the break room at a few colleagues sitting down to lunch and watching the news at noon. Clint paused for a moment to watch the CNN update.

  “CNN has learned of five mysterious deaths in the past twenty-eight hours from what doctors are calling flu-like symptoms.” A talking head was reading the teleprompter but speaking directly to Clint, he felt. “Two deaths were reported just outside of Boston, two at the same hospital in Athens, Georgia and one this morning, a thirty-six year old pharmaceutical executive near Trenton, New Jersey. NPR stations in each of those cities first reported on the deaths and CNN correspondent Drew Hunter pieced the story together and contacted each hospital. In all, there have been seventy-nine people admitted to hospitals in Athens, Trenton and in two hospitals in the Boston area, all from what doctors are calling mysterious, flu-like symptoms. Officials from the CDC have not acknowledged a connection between these illnesses. We’ll continue to report on this story as details become available.”

  The words “flu-like symptoms” looped in his head as Clint walked toward the door. He paused at the front desk for a moment before continuing out the door and turned to the receptionist. “Carol, can you get me the number for CNN’s newsroom?”

  ***

  Lounging by the pool of his stately Buckhead home, Nick enjoyed what he thought might be the last warm day of the Indian summer. His view to the southern
skies showed no sign of the storm he had heard was brewing in the Caribbean. It would make no difference to him if it came his way. Hurricanes were a threat to the coast, not to cities as far inland as Atlanta.

  He picked up his phone to check his voice mail. Two minutes prior a blocked number had called, which Nick, of course, didn’t answer. But, the anonymous caller had decided to leave a message. “Nick, this is Drew Hunter from CNN in Atlanta. I’d like to speak with you about a story I’m doing that’s rather urgent. Please call me back at–”

  Nick looked around for a pen and paper, but found none. He walked into the kitchen to retrieve them and replayed the message to write down the number. Nick grinned as he dialed the number, thinking that the reporter had no doubt seen him on Fox News or had otherwise heard of the success of 50-Forks and now wanted a piece of Nick for his own “urgent” story.

  “Drew Hunter,” the voice answered.

  “Drew, this is Nick Vegas returning your call.”

  “Mr. Vegas, thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”

  Mr. Vegas. Nick liked the respect. He had worked hard for it his entire professional life. On days like today, when he took time off to enjoy the fruits of his labor, when he relaxed around the pool surrounded by his own palm trees, his own fountains, and had every freedom he could want, on days like this one he felt like he had arrived. He had earned the accolades, the success, and the respect. He could soak it all up now and savor it.

  “You’re welcome. Just call me Nick.”

  “Nick, I don’t know if you’ve been following the stories of a number of people becoming suddenly and violently afflicted with the flu–” Drew paused, waiting for a reaction. Nick said nothing, waiting for Drew to continue, but a butterfly took flight in the hollow cavern between his heart and his gut. He hoped that the reporter had called the wrong person.