Spore Series | Book 2 | Choke Read online

  He shook his head as he looked down at the piles of hair piled around the drain. With a sigh, he picked up a bottle of antifungal spray and went to work cleaning up behind them.

  An hour later, Bishop was back in his office dressed in a pair of jeans and a soft cotton T-shirt with his air filtration mask tucked into his belt. He’d made a house rule that they were to carry them at all times in case the house was compromised.

  Outside, the spore tendrils were still drifting toward the ground like a silent, deadly snow, spreading across all surfaces. Once settled, the fungus gave off an eerie red glow that lit up their front yard like something from hell.

  Laptop tucked under his arm, Bishop walked into their foyer and climbed the stairs like a man in a dream. At the top, they’d hung another plastic tarp in case the contamination found its way into the lower floors. They’d fixed the tarp to the wall with more duct tape, so he peeled the tape back, stepped onto the landing, and resealed the opening.

  He looked back and forth between the master bedroom on one side of the house and the kid’s rooms on the other. Part of him wanted to go into the master bedroom, climb into bed, and turn on the television. He could pretend Kim was having a late night at work and would be home within the hour. He’d watch a show or browse through some YouTube videos until she got there.

  That wouldn’t solve anything.

  With a sigh, Bishop visited the kids’ rooms. Riley had shut her door tight, and he didn’t want to engage her just yet. She was the kind of kid who needed to work things out on her own. Smothering her with questions was the last thing he wanted.

  Trevor’s door was open, so he knocked on the door frame as he stepped inside. “Son, how’s it going?”

  His son was sitting on a chair in front of his window, staring out at the gentle but deadly fall of spores. He glanced over his shoulder at his father. “Oh, hey, Dad. It’s going, I guess.”

  Bishop pushed his glasses up on his nose and joined his son at the window. “Pretty big event.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyone talking on social media? Twitter? Snapchat? Anyone texted you, yet?”

  Trevor took a deep breath and let it out softly. “Nope. I think everyone’s…I think…” Trevor’s breath hitched, and he let out a sigh filled with pain and anger. “I think they’re dead. I really do. All my friends—”

  Bishop set his laptop aside and knelt next to the boy, wrapping one arm around his shoulders. “Shh. Hey, now,” he said in a hushed tone. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Trevor shoved his forearm against his father’s chest, and Bishop allowed the boy to push him away. “You don’t know that. Come on. Look at it out there.”

  “I know, son. I see it.”

  “What are we going to do?” Trevor’s voice rose in panic. “And where the hell is mom?”

  “Hey, knock it off with that tone,” Bishop scolded, “and that vocabulary.”

  Trevor continued, his emotions rising. “You know what? I think we should drive to Mom. You said she’s in Washington, right? How far is that?”

  Bishop grabbed his son by his shoulders and turned him around, so they were facing each other. Then he turned up his voice to a volume that shook the house. “Trevor, I want you to calm down right now or I swear I’ll toss you out with the fungus.”

  The boy’s eyes widened for a moment before he collapsed against his father with a sob. “I’m sorry,” the boy cried. “I just want Mom. I want to know she’s okay.”

  “Me, too.” He held the boy at arm’s length and gripped his shoulders hard. “Look, the chances are your mother will come to us. She’s that good. But if we leave the house without her knowing, we may miss her.”

  “Can we call her?”

  Bishop nodded. “The cell phones and internet are all down out east, and they’ll soon be down in Ft. Collins, too. But we might be able to get a satellite radio that can reach her. You know, like a radio inside a military vehicle or something?”

  “Oh, right.” Trevor sniffled. “I saw a bunch of military trucks down by the stadium. Maybe they’ve got one.”

  “Or, if they have a command center down there,” Bishop added. “There might be some people left alive.”

  “Should we go back into town?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” In reality, he hadn’t been thinking about that at all, though his son had sparked a splendid idea. They couldn’t stay in their house forever and hooking up with some military forces was the best thing they could do. “I don’t want to go today, though. It still might be too dangerous. Plus, we still have lights and food and shelter. How about we wait a day or two, at least until it stops raining fungus? Can you keep yourself busy until then?”

  Trevor smiled for the first time all day. “I’ll try.”

  “Awesome, son.” He let go of Trevor’s shoulders and sat back on his heels, with a calming smile.

  “How’s it look?”

  Father and son turned their heads to see Riley standing in the doorway. Still skinny as a bean, she was looking more and more like a woman every day. It was a scary time for Bishop, so he assumed it was even scarier for her. And now, amidst all life’s changes, fate had thrown them another curve ball.

  Riley had cut her hair down to a half-inch and added styling gel to give it some body. She subconsciously ran one hand over her head while touching the ends with a brush.

  Bishop grinned, but his daughter frowned. “If you say it doesn’t look bad, I’ll scream.”

  “I was going to say it looks beautiful.” Bishop shook his head, meaning every word.

  “No, I look like a Q-Tip.”

  “Q-Tips have a lot of uses,” Trevor quipped. “You can jab them in your ears, clean boogers out of your nose…”

  “Shut up,” Riley threw her brush at him, and the boy laughed as he blocked it with his hands.

  Bishop chuckled loudly. Even though she’d never believe him, he thought Riley was the most precious thing on planet Earth besides Trevor and Kim. He just needed to get them all in one place.

  Chapter 7

  Moe Tsosie, Chinle, Arizona

  Moe sat on Rust’s back and looked down from White House Overlook on the ancient canyon routes of his Navajo ancestors. His eyes scanned the trails down through Canyon de Chelly where the ruins of ancient dwellings nestled beneath cliffs of red rock with white bands.

  The beauty of the scene never got old.

  He thought about taking the trail down into the canyon and walking Rust along those old routes and past the ruins. It might be the last time he could. The spore cloud was coming, the news had said; a cloud of toxic fungus that had all but wiped out Denver and Fort Collins, and Albuquerque, too. He knew what it meant, because he’d escaped it in Bakersfield. Yet, when Moe raised his eyes to the mountains in the east, no ominous clouds approached. He saw nothing different at all.

  Perhaps the combination of mountains, canyons, and dry air had been enough to stop the cloud. Perhaps this was one thing that couldn’t reach his people and drive them to the edge of extinction. If so, it would be a bitter victory.

  “Let’s go, Rust,” he told the gelding. “We should get back to town and find out more news.”

  Moe rode Rust along the edge of the canyon around to his mother’s property. He galloped the horse up a shallow rise and to the small barn where Rust’s brother, Copper, enjoyed the shade and some hay.

  He dismounted, opened the gate to the small enclosure, and walked the big gelding inside the barn. Moe removed Rust’s saddle and allowed him to greet his brother. The two horses nuzzled each other and nickered before turning their long heads down to the hay. He brushed Rust down, taking pleasure in the simple task.

  Thirty minutes later, Moe left the barn and walked up to the house. His semi-trailer truck sat out in front of his mother’s small ranch home, and it seemed the massive vehicle was waiting for him to get in and drive away like he’d done five years ago.

  But there was nowhere to go.

  He c
limbed into his mother’s old Chevy pickup, started it, and drove toward town. Taking State Route 7, Moe passed the Holiday Inn, the Navajo Police Department, and several small agencies related to the tribal workings of their town.

  He noticed some increased traffic, likely because people were running supplies to the Wildcat Den gymnasium and Chinle High School to prepare for the potential spore storm. He pulled into the Denny’s and parked. The lot was nearly empty, only three or four cars visible. One of them was Casey Harvey’s beat up hatchback parked in her usual spot.

  He took a deep breath and entered.

  “Hey, Moe!” Casey called from the kitchen. “How about one more coffee before the world ends?”

  “I’d like that,” Moe said, sitting down at the counter. “How come you’re not at the gym?”

  “I’m leaving in fifteen minutes,” she said. She poured Moe a cup of black brew and turned off the coffee machine. “This has been sitting awhile, so I’ll put some cream in it.”

  “Thanks, Casey.” He watched as she lightened his coffee and brought the cup over.

  “No worries,” she smiled when Moe tried to pay her. “It’s on the house. No pie, though.”

  “That’s too bad,” he chuckled.

  “Yeah, it is. Hey, I need to lock stuff down here. You going to be okay?”

  “Go ahead,” Moe said. “I’ll be fine.”

  He stared up at the blank television screen for a few seconds and then let his eyes fall to his cup. He thought about Coyote’s and his old friend, Rocko, and the dozens of times he’d stopped in for a beer enroute to some west coast destination. After a while, Casey came over and touched Moe’s hand, drawing him out of his daydream. He glanced up with a smile.

  “You following me?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  He got up and followed Casey outside.

  Casey locked the doors and shouldered a heavy book bag. “See you there,” the young woman called out, glancing eastward before dashing to her car.

  Moe followed her gaze but saw nothing on the horizon. No black wall of clouds. Nothing but clear afternoon skies. He sensed something bigger coming, but it wasn’t a spore cloud. No, it was a tide of a different sort, though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

  He got into the old truck, started it up, and pulled out behind Casey. He followed her up State Route 7 until they reached Highway 191. The traffic here was as thick as it ever got in Chinle, with cars pushing bumper to bumper as they took a left on 191.

  The high school was a couple hundred yards down the road on the left, and Chinle’s citizens were everywhere. They pushed shopping carts full of supplies, and everyone carried big, weighty backpacks, even the children. They were heading toward the school or gym, and school administrators stood at the entrances telling people where to go.

  As he inched down 191 and neared the parking lot entrance, Moe saw it was full. One of the town’s police officers was directing people to pull across the street into the Navajo Tribe management facility. There was a Dollar Store and a dialysis clinic nearby, and people used those lots for parking, too.

  Casey pulled onto the access road and shot toward the parking lot. Moe followed behind, though the traffic promptly stopped them. As he waited for things to move along, he glanced over at the Dollar Store where something caught his eye.

  Two trucks and a police cruiser had gathered in the lot with a group of a dozen people gathered around. Moe recognized the school’s Athletic Director, Rex Yazie, standing in one of the truck beds as he talked. He also recognized Sheriff Robert Ahiga and some people from their tribal government.

  Moe whipped his wheel to the right, drove along a short access drive to the store, and pulled into an empty spot. As soon as he got out, a young man standing in front of the store with “Manager” on his name tag, rushed over, saying, “You can’t park here, sir.”

  Moe pointed at Sheriff Ahiga. “There’s the sheriff. Tell him to arrest me.”

  The store manager gave him a sour look and walked away.

  Moe got out of his truck and sidled through the crowd of people, squinting up at Rex. Like Casey, the athletic director was younger than him, though the thirty-year-old had never lost his exuberance for Chinle’s athletes. That’s why Chinle had always fielded competitive athletic teams in the state of Arizona. He watched as Rex talked excitedly and gestured south down Highway 191.

  Rex caught sight of Moe and came across the truck bed to stand above him. He pointed down with a grin. “Hey, Moe!”

  “Rex,” he nodded in reply.

  Sheriff Ahiga turned and offered his hand. “I didn’t notice you come up, Moe.”

  “That’s okay, Bob.” He accepted the man’s hand and gave it a firm shake. Then he turned his attention back to Rex. “So, what are you preaching from the back of your truck?”

  “I was just telling these guys,” Rex said. “I just came up from Burnside and saw the military zoom by.”

  “What do you mean zoom by? Are you sure?”

  “I saw three big semi-trailer trucks with five tanks parked on the truck beds,” Rex said carefully. “There was at least a half-dozen helicopters; armored trucks and troop transports, too.”

  “Where were they headed?” Moe asked.

  “East, as far as I could tell,” Rex replied. “It must have something to do with what happened in Denver and Albuquerque.”

  “I’m thinking they’re headed to Window Rock,” Ahiga said. The sheriff was a stocky man with russet-toned skin that sharply contrasted his head of short white hair. Years of sun had etched lines in his face, and his eyes were smoky and expressive.

  “Why do you say that?” Moe asked.

  “They could be going there to handle a refugee situation,” Ahiga guessed. “Probably tens of thousands of people moving west to escape the toxic air.”

  “That makes sense to me,” Moe said, remembering Flagstaff. “I wonder if they’ll come here.”

  “You don’t have to wonder!” Rex shouted, pointing west. “They’re here!”

  Moe climbed up into the truck bed and followed Rex’s gaze westward. Ten military vehicles along with several semi-trailer trucks and vans with “FEMA” stenciled on the side pulled into the field next to Chinle Elementary School.

  “I guess that answers our question,” Moe said.

  “I need to get over there.” Ahiga leapt into his police cruiser and pulled toward the road. When people wouldn’t move right away, he turned on his sirens to clear a path.

  “We should go down there ourselves,” he suggested to Rex.

  “All right,” Rex said. “I’ll drive.”

  Chapter 8

  Moe Tsosie, Chinle, Arizona

  Rex drove down to the field and parked across the street in the Speedway parking lot. Next to the Speedway sat some mechanic shops and the Navajo Administration Building. Beyond that, it was nothing but open desert.

  On the south side of 191, the big military vehicles and FEMA trucks pulled up to the side of the road and waited for soldiers to dismantle parts of the fence. Once they made the openings, the enormous trucks drove through and parked out on the scrubland at intervals of about thirty yards. Five trucks pulled onto the service road next to the Elementary and Junior High and parked in a neat line.

  Soldiers leapt out of troop transports and sprinted to the semi-trailers, jumping into the back and handing equipment down.

  Moe, Rex, and Cynthia Tso stood on the side of the road and watched.

  “What in the world are they doing?” Cynthia asked as her white hair whipped around her head. She put her hand up to shield her eyes and stared at the military bustle through her sunglasses.

  Moe hadn’t brought a pair of sunglasses, so he winced as the sun beat down on them. He didn’t know Cynthia very well except that she was a well-respected town elder.

  “It looks like they’re setting up a refugee camp of some sort,” Moe said. “Look at all the FEMA trucks.”

  Sheriff Ahiga had pulled into th
e service road and parked behind the neat line of trucks. He’d gotten out of his police cruiser and was looking around as clouds of dust rolled over him. He appeared to be looking for someone in charge, though he wasn’t having much luck.

  An armored Humvee rolled past them and pulled onto the service road, parking behind the sheriff. A tall man with sunglasses and an officer’s hat got out along with an attaché. The sheriff immediately went up to the man, exchanged a handshake, and began conversing.

  “That’s a colonel,” Moe said, recognizing the man’s swagger and the way the attaché hovered around him. “They sent a colonel out here.”

  “I better get over there,” Cynthia said, and she looked both ways before jogging across the street.

  Rex and Moe exchanged a glance, and Moe shrugged and crossed the street himself, not in a huge hurry to catch up with Cynthia but curious about what was going on.

  The two men came across the road, he noticed that Sheriff Ahiga and Cynthia were in a heated debate with the colonel, who seemed to be trying to shed the Navajo leaders as a clear nuisance. By the time they reached the group, more of the town’s leaders had pulled up in a Ford SUV and were getting in on the conversation.

  The two stood on the outskirts, Moe listening to the conversation and cringing as it turned south.

  “There are no jurisdictions anymore,” the colonel was saying. He was a brash looking, middle-aged man with a round face and clean-shaven head. “We’ve got orders directly from the President of the United States.”

  “I understand this might be an emergency to you, Colonel Humphreys,” Ahiga said. “But you can’t just camp on Navajo territory with these soldiers. There are permits required, and this must pass through a vote.”

  “We don’t need a permit, or a vote,” Colonel Humphreys said, walking to the edge of the road and peering out at the trucks. “It’s a state of emergency.”

  “But—”

  “If you people don’t get away from me,” the colonel said with a flat note, “I’ll have my MPs escort you away.”