Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller Read online

  “Even several deaths,” Drew continued. “Anyway, I’ve interviewed several of the victims and or their families in Athens, Boston and near Philadelphia–”

  As the reporter spoke Nick’s mind froze. Athens, Boston, Philadelphia...all cities where Nick owned restaurants. Wait...what was this guy saying again...the flu?

  “–and the only thing I’ve found so far that they have in common is that many...most of the victims say that they ate at an underground supper club last Saturday.”

  Nick said nothing, could say nothing. The words sank in and meant nothing, meant everything. Drew gave his words a moment to register.

  “Anyway, those cities are far apart so I dug into the supper clubs they mentioned and looked at the invitations from the chefs that were hosting them. I found that they were all hosted by chefs that work for your restaurants.”

  “Wait...what are you saying?” Nick, who had never before been speechless, now found himself without words.

  “We’re working on a story for this evening and we will report this information. Do you have any comment, sir? If you tell me where you are I can send a camera crew to meet you.”

  “Shit.” Nick said this to himself. To the reporter he said, “I have no comment,” and hung up the phone. He stared out over the pool for a moment as a cloud seeped in front of the sun, causing a dark shadow to cascade across his pool. His life, he feared. A gust of wind blew from the south and tussled his neatly combed hair out of place. Staring at his phone, Nick bit his lip and squeezed the phone tighter and tighter, as if he was testing his grip on a machine at a carnival. He looked back at the phone and dialed Blake.

  “The party you have reached has not set up their voice mail system yet–” Nick rolled his eyes as he recognized the same message he had heard from Blake’s phone for the past year. “Blake, Nick. Call me. Right now!” Nick pressed the disconnect button as hard as he could, walked to his computer and logged into his investment account.

  ***

  Angelica sat down on the sofa beside Blake as he turned up the volume on CNN.

  “Oh my,” Angelica said. “Dear Lord, look at THAT! Why is he even out there in that?” Angelica wrung her hands as she watched the screen. The CNN reporter was standing on the balcony of a room at his resort in Nassau as the eye of Hurricane Isabel approached. The eye was expected to go directly over Nassau in less than an hour at approximately 9:00 p.m. It had already passed the southern and eastern islands.

  “Power is out on all islands with backup generators expected to be the only source of power for at least a few days on the more remote islands,” the reporter shouted through the roar of driving rain. The camera panned out to show palm trees bending like plastic forks underneath a broiler as horizontal rain pounded the island, seemingly much to the reporter’s delight. “Just look at that surge,” he said. “That’s a hurricane right there.”

  No shit, Blake thought. All these guys are actors now, seeing who can stand in the strongest winds, the hardest rains. Who can be right in front of the tornado when it passes. Idiots!

  “Do you think they’ll be okay?” Blake knew that Angelica was worried about Rose and John. She had desperately tried to call them all day on Monday, but Rose had warned her that her cell phone wouldn’t work. Angelica put the girls to bed a little early so they wouldn’t ask questions about the storm.

  “I wouldn’t worry, hon,” Blake said. “The islands are prepared for these storms. The TV stations dramatize it but I reckon it ain’t nothing but wind and rain as long as you stay indoors.”

  “Maybe we should put it on the Weather Channel,” Angelica said.

  “I don’t think they’ll have anything more than this,” Blake said. “Just better acting maybe.” He meant what he said, but he had his own reason for wanting it on CNN. It took all of Blake’s resolve to remain calm, to act peaceful with Angelica, after speaking with Nick late in the afternoon. Blake knew nothing about the sicknesses and told Nick so.

  “Do you know anything that could have contributed to a food safety problem?” Nick had asked firmly.

  “No.” Blake replied. Nick told him about the CNN reporter and the report that would air later in the day.

  “Well I’ll tell you this, my friend,” Nick said, “my chefs may be the common factor in those dinners but the only thing they had in common was you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Blake asked.

  “You!” Nick said. “Every menu was based on local ingredients, every menu was different except for one thing. The ham that you provided. That’s it. Athens was the only dinner to have the fresh pork you provided but all dinners had the ham. Other than that they have nothing in common. So if I’m the common denominator, you’re the common supplier.”

  “So,” Blake began, “what are you saying? Don’t mince words Nick.” Blake knew his relationship with Nick was over. He and Terry had already slaughtered all the pigs other than a lethargic sow they couldn’t get to before light gave out on them. Blake would kill her himself later even though he knew he wouldn’t get paid for it. He just didn’t want any more evidence left on the mountainside. The two encounters with the sheriff, not to mention having the sheriff preach to him, had scared him to the core. It wasn’t worth it. He couldn’t risk the sheriff seeing him haul any of it, not with the Facebook pictures he reported seeing.

  “I’m saying,” Nick began, “that if they do come and ask me any questions, it will be you that I point them to. Your phone number, your address.” Blake hung up on Nick. Hung up and then slammed the phone repeatedly against the palm of his hand.

  The talking head on CNN continued reporting on the damage from the storm. “We have a report from the prime minister of the Bahamas who says that Hurricane Isabel has resulted in no deaths and, so far, no reported injuries as it has marched through the chain. He said the Bahamas is well prepared for storms and he doesn’t expect any deaths but does anticipate widespread power outages.”

  “See?” Blake said as he reached over to touch Angelica’s knee. She placed her hand on top of his.

  The footage of the hurricane on the screen was replaced with a graphic that read “Foodborne Illness.” Blake didn’t want Angelica to know that this was the story he wanted to see, that he was afraid to see. That he had been controlling his fear and only appearing calm as he had learned to do when it was late in the game and his team was trailing on the road. But Blake’s fear finally got the best of him. The words on the screen, combined with Nick’s spoken words, panicked him. He pulled his hand away from Angelica’s and leaned forward, his chin resting on his fists.

  “This just in. CNN is able to confirm that Anthrax has been identified as the cause of death and illnesses in Athens, Georgia, Trenton, New Jersey, Boston and six other cities,” the talking head said as she read the teleprompter. Blake’s mouth hung open, air suspended somewhere between his lungs and the air in the room as he sat perfectly still, the word still resonating inside him. “A-N-T-H-R-A-X.” The graphic behind the talking head changed to the capitalized word ANTHRAX, the motion graphic causing the letters to slowly expand and move away from one another to heighten the sense of drama. As if the word ‘anthrax’ itself, not to mention five dead bodies so far, necessitated more drama.

  What the hell is anthrax? Blake asked himself. I thought that was a weapon or something.

  “We turn now to CNN correspondent Drew Hunter for more on the story.” As the talking head spoke, the camera panned to show a thirty-something reporter seated on the other side of the glass table, opposite the first talking head. As he began to speak, Blake zoomed into the studio with him from the privacy of his sofa in Clayton, just as Nick did from a dimly lit office in his Buckhead mansion.

  “Details are only now beginning to surface, Candace,” Drew said, before staring straight into the camera for a close up. “Five deaths and eighty-four hospitalizations have been attributed to anthrax thus far. The source of the anthrax is still under investigation, but the suspected cause is tain
ted meat.”

  Blake felt his heart stop and then explode as the graphic behind Drew changed to “Tainted Meat.” He was sucked into a tunnel that connected him to the graphic, one that threw off his equilibrium like he was stranded alone, trying to make his way across a bridge in the vortex tunnel of a haunted house.

  “What exactly is anthrax, Drew?” Candace asked.

  “Candace, anthrax is one of the oldest diseases known to man,” Drew began. “In fact, many Bible scholars believe that anthrax was the fifth and sixth of the ten plagues of Egypt.”

  “Do they know what causes it?”

  “Yes, Candace, the organism that causes anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, can poison the soil for decades, even hundreds of years. In fact, it’s so common to find anthrax in soil that deadly outbreaks among grazing animals occur frequently, although not so much in the U.S. Normally, humans contract anthrax only by coming into contact with livestock or infected animal hides and carcasses.”

  As the reporter spoke, footage scrolled on the screen of dead cows, pigs, and sheep lying on the ground. Stiff carcasses with their legs spread out dissolved into pictures of humans with gruesome, widow-black blisters that covered their entire arms or faces. Drew continued to narrate as the CNN horror reel played.

  “There are three forms of anthrax, Candace. Cutaneous, gastrointestinal, and the most deadly and rare form, pulmonary or inhalation anthrax. Gastrointestinal anthrax generally comes from eating meat infected with anthrax. Conversely, when a person inhales the spores of anthrax they settle deep into the lungs, forming inhalation anthrax. Once there, the bacteria multiply rapidly and produce very deadly toxins. It’s the inhalation form that’s most associated with bioterrorism, as was the case in the 2001 attacks on the United States.”

  The background footage stopped and the camera panned back to show a third talking head join the other two.

  “Dr. Chandak, do we know which form of anthrax caused the deaths?” A graphic appeared under the new talking head that read “Dr. Sachi Chandak, Neurosurgeon and CNN Medical Correspondent.”

  “Candace, we’re told that it was inhalation anthrax that was the cause of death for the victims near Boston and Athens, Georgia, and for the fifth victim in New Jersey,” Dr. Chandak said. “Now I’d like to stress that there is no evidence of bioterrorism and that anthrax isn’t a contagious disease. You have to come directly in contact with it.”

  The graphic to the right of the talking head changed to read “Woolsorter’s Disease.”

  “As Drew said,” Dr. Chandak continued, “inhalation anthrax is the most rare human form of anthrax and is almost never seen in a foodborne illness since, normally, one doesn’t inhale their food. It’s also known in other parts of the world as Woolsorter’s or Ragpicker’s disease because, throughout history, the inhalation form was most associated with those who sorted wool. The most famous case of woolsorter’s disease was in Bradford, England, where the disease killed many of the town’s workers for decades throughout the 1800s. Today, the disease even shows itself sometimes at music festivals, when drums made from animal hides infected with anthrax are beaten, thereby aerosolizing B. anthracis spores that may be inhaled.”

  “What is the prognosis for victims that contract anthrax, Dr. Chandak?”

  “Unfortunately Candace—I’m afraid that it isn’t good at all for victims of inhalation anthrax. Most estimates show eighty percent to ninety-five percent fatality rate, even–”

  “Ninety-five percent fatal?” Candace interrupted. The graphic behind the doctor changed to read: “DEATH IN 24 HOURS.”

  Dr. Chandak dropped his shoulders solemnly. “Yes Candace, up to ninety-five percent fatal even with antibiotic treatment,” he said. “And inhalation anthrax acts very fast, sometimes killing its host within 24 hours. As for gastrointestinal anthrax, which would likely result from consuming tainted meat, the fatality rate is twenty-five to sixty percent. Cutaneous anthrax is very treatable and generally not fatal.”

  “Oh my! Drew, why do we suspect tainted meat?”

  “Well Candace, it’s very rare in the United States to get anthrax in any form, so much so that when we think of foodborne pathogens we think of salmonella, e.coli, listeria, campylobacter, even staphyloccus, but almost never anthrax. However, in this case over fifty victims or their family members have been interviewed and here’s what we have discovered.”

  Blake waited. Nick waited. Both leaned forward in their chairs, breathless, over one hundred miles apart, connected through the conduit of television by this bearer of horrific news that, if he released the words that dripped from his lips would rain destruction on each of their lives.

  “Every single one of the victims, both dead and those still hospitalized, ate at an underground supper club last Saturday,” Drew said. “Now here’s the strange part. The supper clubs were held in ten different cities across the country and were hosted by ten different chefs, but—here’s the catch.”

  Nick picked up his glass of Maker’s Mark and slugged it, knowing what was coming, knowing he was powerless to stop it. He tried to act calm, in control, even in the privacy of his study. His legs remain crossed, relaxed, as he tugged up his socks to be perfectly in place when the verdict was read.

  “Every chef was employed by the same restaurant owner and the events were all part of the same club,” Drew said.

  “And who was that, Drew?” With the focus off the hurricane in the Bahamas, Angelica rose from the sofa to check on the girls.

  “Candace, the chefs all work for acclaimed restaurateur Nick Vegas, owner of all ten restaurants that employed the chefs and founder of the recently announced 50-Forks Club. The dinners last weekend were the first for the new club’s members.”

  Angelica stopped. “Nick Vegas,” she said and she looked down at Blake, his head supported by his fists, his eyes locked with tunnel vision to the set. As he leaned forward his shirt collar pushed back allowing Angelica to see a pulsing black blister on the back of his neck. She tugged his collar slightly, the pressure still not distracting Blake from the television. Her eyes widened as she took in the hideous black lesion on Blake’s neck. The oblong blister looked to be about the size of Blake’s 9 MM pistol barrel and just as black. Angelica gently removed her hand from Blake’s shirt and walked to the kitchen to straighten up the dishes as she continued watching the news.

  “And have you spoken with Mr. Vegas?”

  “Yes, Candace, but he declined comment or to be interviewed for the story.”

  Candace paused for a moment, either unsure what to say or waiting for a teleprompter. “But...but, isn’t meat inspected? How would tainted meat get into the food supply?”

  “That’s the question that regulators and, perhaps even law enforcement officials, will want to have answered,” Drew said. “My understanding is that the Food Safety Inspection Service is already working with local health department officials and the chefs to determine the source of the anthrax. I need to emphasize once more that this is still very preliminary and that all we know for certain is that health officials have verified inhalation anthrax as the cause of death in five victims.”

  “Doctor Chandak, have cases been confirmed for gastrointestinal or cutaneous anthrax?”

  “No, not at this time. I suspect if they were going to find cutaneous anthrax then it would already have been reported, as it’s easy to identify.” As the doctor spoke, a graphic of a man with a grotesque, black boil on the side of his face appeared. Angelica looked at the blister and quickly turned her head to Blake, who didn’t move.

  “Cutaneous anthrax occurs when one comes into direct contact with anthrax, either in the soil or, most likely, by touching a sick animal or products from an animal that died of anthrax. It begins with a rash but quickly forms an ulcer with a black center. It would be hard to miss the visible signs, so if there were any of those cases I suspect we’d know about them.”

  Angelica stood at the kitchen bar only a few feet from her husband, but isolated from him.
He was lost in the television, engulfed by news even though he rarely cared about, much less watched news. She looked back at the television set to see the final image of the segment, a magazine photograph of Nick Vegas with a bulldog in front of his stately Buckhead home that connected him, somehow, to Blake. The image of Nick disappeared and was replaced with the other top story, a satellite image of a fierce hurricane that covered all of the Bahama Islands and was intensifying as it headed north. Somewhere below that mass of clouds was a tiny island, and on that tiny island was her twin sister. Angelica glanced to the guest bedroom adjacent to the kitchen where Rose’s daughters slept. She felt as if she was being presented with a puzzle. More than that. A test of some sort. The pieces were Blake, Nick, Rose, the hurricane and this wretched plague. And, she realized, every piece affected her. Was she supposed to act? To do something? To wait? She fingered the black and white beads that hung from her neck, rolling them gently between her thumb and index finger as she pondered the questions.

  She would have to think about it later, perhaps in her secret garden. For now, she looked back at Blake who had dropped his head to stare at the floor, evidently swallowed by his own puzzle of grief. A puzzle, Angelica feared, that Blake may have created. A game of greed he wanted to make and play, only now it had turned deadly. It had grown into a frightening storm that threatened everything Angelica hoped for and cared about. She tried to remember a dream, a nightmare that she had had, but the details had slipped away. All that remained was a gnawing feeling.

  As Blake slumped low to the floor on the sofa, Angelica’s eyes fell to him from high above. She narrowed her eyes on him, but said nothing, thinking only of the tools at her disposal, at the gifts that had been given to her. Compassion, forgiveness, support, understanding, healing, tolerance, caring...these were the tools she had in ample supply. The gifts that God had given to her. Judgment was not one of her tools. That tool and responsibility belonged to God.

  She looked once more at Blake’s neck, the boil clearly visible as his shoulders collapsed, his hands supporting his forehead as if it were a dead weight. Something about the blister was familiar to her. Something to do with the plagues the talking head had mentioned. Walking to her bedroom, she retrieved her well-worn Bible from her nightstand and sat on the bed. With the Bible resting in her lap Angelica stared into her dressing mirror. Her rounded abdomen protruded in her reflection, showing the life that grew within her. She thought about her unborn son, due only three months hence, and wondered where he fit into the puzzle. Her vision for the life she wanted for him was so clear. To be raised honestly by loving parents with God and nature as the guide, embracing and honoring his Cherokee heritage. Through the doorway she saw Blake walk to the kitchen and return with a bottle to the living room. She sat quietly, her fingers caressing her belly, gently rubbing it in a counterclockwise motion with her fingers as she looked down. The same motion she had seen moments before as a hurricane spun its path of destruction. She stopped suddenly and began circling the other way. “No, we’re not victims son, she said aloud. We’re not without power.”