For three relaxing weeks, Mason enjoyed the isolation of the Blue Ridge Mountains from the comfort of his family’s cabin. He completed a host of fix-it projects, caught more fish than he could eat, and practiced with a 1911 semi-automatic pistol. The handgun, a Wilson Combat Tactical Supergrade in .45 caliber, was arguably one of the finest pistols currently in production. Unfortunately, it also was also one of the most expensive. Marshal Leroy Tucker, a friend and avid gun buff, had loaned it to him to try out over his vacation. With more than five hundred rounds passing through the match grade barrel while in his brief care, that was exactly what Mason had done.
Mason was normally required to carry the Marshal Service’s standard issue Glock .40 because of its ease in handling and high reliability. He was surprised at how walking around with the Supergrade on his hip felt so natural. It was certainly a more beautiful weapon, albeit a bit more complicated to operate in a gunfight. The thrill of carrying such a fine firearm would be short-lived, however, as he had to return it to Marshal Tucker the following Monday.
It took him nearly a full hour to secure the cabin, locking the windows and doors, hanging the shutters, latching the cabinets to prevent unwanted four-legged visitors, covering the generator and wood pile, and tying down everything outside that he didn’t want blown halfway across the county. He loaded his bags into the back of the truck, including a few days of extra food and drinks that he hadn’t consumed. When everything was loaded and secured, he took one last trip around the cabin to make sure that nothing had been overlooked. Once he deemed the property ready to weather another six months without attention, Mason climbed in his truck and started the seven-hour drive back to his apartment in northern Brunswick.
The drive from the cabin to his first coffee stop in Boone started on a narrow scenic road that saw very little traffic in the offseason. Cracks and potholes ensured that no one got in too big of a hurry. Giant trees stretched their limbs out over the road, their protective canopies letting in only the occasional slivers of fresh sunlight. Mason gave the drive his full attention because deer, possums, and the occasional flock of wild turkeys were frequent early morning jaywalkers.
He was surprised to come across an old blue Chevrolet pickup sitting halfway off the small road, its wheels resting in deep ruts left by logging trucks. His first thought was that hikers had braved the early morning chill to see Silver Stretch Falls, a scenic waterfall that spilled into the Watauga Reservoir. He slowed and pulled around the truck, instinctively glancing into the cab as he passed. While he caught only a glimpse, what he saw was something more suited to a drug-infested ghetto than a quiet country road.
He hit the brakes hard, stopping about ten feet in front of the Chevrolet. Leaving the engine running, he stepped out of his truck and took a look around. Nothing moved, and the only sound was the wind whistling through the trees as if a mountain giant was working out a tune on his favorite harmonica.
Parting his sport coat so that his badge was visible on his belt, he placed his hand on the grip of the Supergrade and slowly approached the truck. He was careful to maintain a clear view of the windshield and both doors because, despite the finality of what he had seen, it didn’t mean there wasn’t still some danger lurking within. He personally knew several peace officers who had been killed or injured as the result of letting their guard down when approaching a crime scene.
As he stepped up to the driver’s side window, the carnage inside came into full view. Three bodies lay sprawled across the cloth bucket seats. The driver, a man in his mid-fifties, had a gunshot wound to his right temple. His head lay forward against the steering wheel, a large spray of blood and brains peppering the windshield. To his right sat two women, one about his age and another perhaps thirty years younger. Both were shot through the heart. Three shots: three dead.
Not wanting to disturb the crime scene, Mason left the vehicle doors closed and worked his way cautiously around the truck, looking in the various windows for clues as to what had happened. He spotted a .38 revolver dangling from the right hand of the lifeless driver. Murder suicide? It certainly appeared so. What it didn’t explain was why the two women hadn’t put up a fight. The shots were precise, and there were dark circular powder burns on their shirts, indicating that they had allowed their attacker to carefully place the pistol against their chests before firing. The evidence pointed to a triple suicide, which was extremely rare.
The bodies had already passed through rigor mortis and were lying limp on the seats, like noodles that had boiled too long. Soon, gases would build up in their gastrointestinal and respiratory systems, causing skin to swell and blood to spew from their noses. Eventually the skin would rupture along their arms and legs, splitting open to spill their gory contents. The fact that they hadn’t yet started to swell meant that they’d been dead for less than two or three days.
Mason checked around the pickup to see if there were any footprints to indicate that someone else might have been involved. Everywhere he looked, the ground was undisturbed. For whatever reason, these people had brought about their own bloody end. He released his weapon and walked back to his truck. As he climbed back in, it occurred to him that he now knew the source of the shots he had heard the other night. It had been something much more disturbing than simple midnight poachers.
He clicked on his two-way police radio, but surprisingly, only static sounded. He pressed the microphone button and said, “This is Deputy U.S. Marshal Raines requesting assistance, over.”
There was no reply.
The radio was a modern wideband digital transceiver, so there was no manual channel control. Everything was automatic. It either worked or it didn’t. His transmission was frequency coded such that any law enforcement officer within range would hear it. The complete lack of activity over the air could only mean that his radio was inoperable.
A quick check of his cell phone revealed that it too had no service available. That, however, wasn’t particularly surprising given his remote location. Cell coverage was spotty at best in the mountains and could remain that way almost all the way down to Boone. His best bet was probably just to drive to town and contact the local police. The biggest risk was that someone might come upon the crime scene and inadvertently destroy key evidence. Given that it appeared to be a mass suicide, however, even if that happened, it probably wouldn’t change the outcome.
Just to be on the safe side, he walked around the pickup one final time and snapped a few photos with the camera on his cell phone. Once Mason was sure that he had enough evidence for local authorities to get to the bottom of what had happened, he tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and continued his drive to Boone.
For the next ten minutes, Mason didn’t see a single car on the road. That in itself was a little surprising because the area was frequented by outdoorsmen hoping to pull in a few trout as well as young mountain bikers hitting the trails.
As he came around a long bend that opened up to a popular scenic stop, he discovered two cars involved in a head-on collision. The larger vehicle, a white Lincoln Town Car that looked as if it belonged at the yacht club, clearly got the better of a much smaller Honda compact. The windows were wet with condensation No one stood beside either car; neither were there any police or tow trucks present.
Mason stopped his truck in the center of the road, blocking off any potential traffic that might approach from behind. A quick check of his cell phone showed that service was still unavailable. He climbed out of his truck and approached the accident with a disconcerting feeling of dèjá vu. Given that the collision must have happened hours earlier, he was surprised that the accident had not yet been discovered and reported to the highway patrol or local authorities.
The Town Car had only a twisted bumper and broken headlight, and no one was sitting inside. The driver’s door was wide open, suggesting that he may have quickly fled the scene, as was often the case when an accident involved a drunk driver. The Honda had not fared nearly as well. The entire fron
t end was crumpled, and a large puddle of antifreeze and oil had pooled beneath it like blood from an injured warhorse. Two people were sitting in the front seats. Both were badly mangled, and there was no doubt that they were stone-cold dead. From the awkward positioning of the bodies, Mason assumed that they were still in rigor mortis, which aligned well with his conclusion that the accident had occurred sometime in the night.
He rubbed his chin, mulling over what he was seeing. In all his years, he had never come across two scenes within minutes of one another where people were lying not only dead but unattended. It was either a strange coincidence, or more likely, the two were somehow connected. As he had done at the previous scene, he walked around the vehicles to ensure he hadn’t missed anything important. As he came around the Lincoln, he nearly stumbled over another body lying beside the rear wheel.
It was of a woman in her late thirties, dressed in an expensive-looking gray skirt and white silk blouse. The cause of her death was difficult to determine. Her face and arms were covered in large, pus-filled boils that early decomposition couldn’t hide. There was also bloody foam on her lips that looked as if she had aspirated her favorite fruit salad. Her eyes were open, and the whites were laced with a network of red streaks caused by petechial hemorrhaging. Suffocation seemed to be the probable cause of death except for the fact that, from the knee down, her right leg was completely missing. A long trail of blood led up into the woods. Animals of some sort had obviously gotten to her. Whether that happened while she was alive or dead was difficult for him to say.
Perhaps even more disturbing than her grotesque appearance was the repugnant odor that outgassed from her body. Mason knew too well the putrid stink of decaying bodies, but this was something different. It was more of a rancid smell, and it made him want to cover his nose and spit the saliva from his mouth. While he was certainly no bacteriologist, he had smelled enough curdled milk to know when something had gone bad.
He returned to his truck, walking slowly and methodically. Three people shot to death, a car crash with bodies lying unattended, and a potentially infectious disease the likes of which he had not seen before. Having been a soldier and lawman for most of his adult life, Mason considered himself hardened to death and violence. But taken together, the bloody scenes felt surreal, as if civilization’s normal checks and balances were being tested.
He tried the two-way radio again, but the airwaves remained silent. He reached up and held his cell phone out the window with the hopes of picking up even spotty reception. Nothing. Mason shook his head in disbelief. The universe was clearly conspiring against him. He flipped on the blue light sitting on his dash, popped his truck into drive, and started down the mountain road with a newfound sense of urgency. It was time to get some help.
When Mason turned from Buckeye Road, a small rural stretch that led up to hiking trails and weekend getaways, onto Highway 321, his first thought was that there had been a huge accident. Hundreds of vehicles were scattered along the roadway, facing every possible direction, as if they had been tossed into the air as part of a colossal game of pick-up sticks. Several had crashed, or perhaps been pushed, into the deep gullies that lined the sides and center of the thoroughfare. Cars, trucks, tractor-trailers, emergency vehicles, and even a school bus were mixed into the automotive bedlam.
Mason stopped his truck and paused a moment to try to grasp what he was witnessing. It was an impossible sight, one that he found hard to accept even when seeing it with his own eyes. It was as if thousands of people had attempted to flee some supernatural evil only to be caught in its clutches on this cursed stretch of freeway. The war zones that he had experienced in Iraq held nothing over the destruction before him now.
Not a single person walked along the highway. A few cars still had their headlights glowing dimly, but other than the occasional spinning wheel of an overturned car, nothing moved. The roadway was utterly lifeless, as if mankind had been suddenly scratched from the planet, leaving only the scars of its technology behind. Mason could only think of a single word to describe the chaos that he was seeing: Armageddon.
Not knowing what else to do, he shut off his truck and got out. His first steps were tentative as he unconsciously tested the asphalt to see if it might suddenly collapse and drop him into an invisible abyss. No such doom befell him. On the contrary, the air was calm and the scene strangely peaceful. Only the occasional creak of a settling vehicle broke the silence.
He walked slowly toward a small camper trailer that had partially overturned. The passenger door was wedged open, and the corpse of a fat man was leaning out, dangling from his seatbelt like a condemned man from the gallows’ noose. Mason circled around to the front of the camper to get a better view of the cab. Another man rested behind the steering wheel, also quite dead. Both were covered in the same blisters that he had seen on the woman lying beside the Town Car.
He checked several other vehicles, and nearly all of them contained decaying corpses with similar symptoms. Something terrible had killed these people. Most of the cars were facing away from Boone, but there were also some heading into the small town. Whatever had killed them was so widespread that they hadn’t known which direction offered salvation.
Mason made his way back to his truck and shut off the flashing blue light on the dash. He started to reach for his phone again but surrendered to the fact that it wasn’t going to work. There was only one logical explanation for why he didn’t have radio or cellular phone service. The entire area had been affected by some sort of pandemic or biochemical attack. That in turn must have led to the loss of infrastructure services. The only other possibility he could think of was that the authorities had sealed the area and intentionally cut off all forms of communication to prevent those who were contaminated from calling out for help. No one wanted those 911 calls played back for years to come.
Mason had a long list of questions that needed answering. How widespread was the pandemic or attack? What methods were being used to contain it? Was it airborne, and if so, was he in danger? What steps could be taken to prevent infection? Had a quarantine zone been set up to prevent the spread of the illness? And if so, how could he safely exit it?
He swung the truck around and headed back the way he had come. Everything he needed to get answers was back at the cabin.
Chapter 5