The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies (5 page)

     Thinking of the cold that seemed to be afflicting just about everyone in the country lately, it occurred to me that one reason
for the widespread epidemic might well be traced to the dedicated postal workers.  As I had just witnessed, transferring germs from one person to a vast population could be as simple as touching a piece of mail with a germy hand and then delivering it.  I wonder if Benjamin Franklin ever imagined that his post office could become the largest spreader of disease in the world.  Of course, I had no reason to believe this was how things happened.  It was simply a theory.

    
As I was running the idea over in my mind, a woman without makeup in white sweatpants and a t-shirt emerged from one of the houses to retrieve the letters delivered to the wooden mail box in her front yard. As if choreographed, she returned to her house and immediately the door to the next house opened to reveal an unshaven older man in gray sweatpants who went to his mailbox.  Watching this scene made me realize that sweatpants had clearly replaced the bathrobe as the uniform of the infirmed.  But something a little more practical also presented itself. 

    
The best to approach would be to catch Mister Clark as he was coming out to get his mail. The alternate method of knocking on the door and hoping he would answer gave him more control over the situation as he could pretend not to be at home.  Of course, none of my musings mattered in the least if Clark did not come out to gather his mail. 

     Fortunately, I did not have to wait l
ong for him to emerge. A man that I assumed was Jerry Clark stuck his head out of the partially opened the door and quickly swiveled his head around to take a look in every direction.  Seemingly satisfied with what he saw, the man swung the door open.  What I saw completed the image of a prairie dog popping out of his hole. Clark was wearing a tan sweat suit that had a little trouble covering the entirety of his wide girth. He darted out to the mailbox at the curb and peered inside.

     As soon as I started moving in his direction, Clark noticed me and started to
scurry back toward the open door. However, even in his sweat suit and with his speedy rodent-like reflexes, I was too fast for him.  I was standing on the porch in front of the door before he reached the steps.

     “Jerry Clark?” The sound of his own name seemed to
frighten
Clark, and he looked around for any way to escape as I continued, “Mister Clark, I am Kevin Turner from
The Marin Gazette
. We had an appointment this morning at the airport, remember?”

     Clark showed a flash recognition at the sound of my name, but he still look scared. 

     “When you didn’t show up for our meeting,” I began and looked at Clark with my best disappointed teacher expression. “I spoke with Steve Travers about what happened yesterday.  According to him, it was just, quote, a minor event involving a group of inebriated and disorderly passengers, unquote.” I let Clark’s exasperation grow for a moment before continuing, “Jerry, I don’t believe his story, and I think you can tell me what really happened.”

     The
little man’s bald head was now red with fury. “I need to see some proof you are who you say you are,” Jerry Clark snapped.  I handed him my press card, which he studied carefully for nearly a minute.  Finally, his hand shot out to return the card. “Yes, I can tell you the truth about what really happened, but it would be better if I just showed you.” 

     He pushed me out of the
way and went into the house.  This assertiveness took me by surprise.  After a moment, I  recovered and followed him inside. 

     The
place was dark and cluttered.  My eyes did not adjust quickly to the change, and I was standing just inside the doorway when Clark called for me to come down the hallway. I stumbled toward the sound of his voice. A pile of newspapers in the hall tripped me and nearly had me on the floor before I caught myself on the wall. Finally, a turn to the left brought me into a room which I suppose could be called a library.  A wide variety of books lined two walls of bookshelves. Most of them were well-worn paperbacks.  An old, dark, scuffed desk sat at the end of the room near the door. A big television on top of a short brown metal cabinet was at the other.  The old scuffed desk held a computer with an even older monitor that was on and showing only a flickering gray screen.

   “I knew everybody was gonna lie about this,” Jerry Clark said from behind the desk.  “That
’s why I snagged this before they had a chance to erase all the recordings.”  He held up a square of white paper envelope holding a DVD that he had taken from a desk drawer.  “Did you ask that weasel Travers to see the security videos?  I mean, there’s video of every second of every square inch at that airport!” 

     He looked at me and waited for my answer.  I hated to admit that I hadn
’t even thought about there being security video.  “Actually, we didn’t talk about that.”

     Clark listened to my answer and didn
’t appear to buy it.  “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.  Have a seat and you can see for yourself.”

     I took a dark green folding chair that was leaning against the wall, opened it, and sat down in front of the television. 

     Clark opened the cabinet to reveal a DVD player into which he inserted the disc.  As the snow hissed on the television, Clark said, “The quality is not great, and of course there is no sound. Still, I think you’ll get an idea of what actually happened.” 

     The video came up showing the customs area at the airport from an overhead angle.  A white
time counter appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. There was no movement at all.  Clark stepped forward and pushed the button to fast forward the disc.  Various customs agents and passengers ran in and out of the picture.  The time counter sped through the hours.  When the numbers reached “1535”, he pushed the play button to bring the picture back to normal speed.

     “It should be right around here,” Clark said and was vibrating with excitement.

     On the screen, a few customs agents took up their positions as a group of passengers moved toward them from the arrival hallway.  Things looked normal for a few minutes, and I considered asking my host to forward the video further.  But before I said anything, there was some sort of disturbance.  It was difficult describe.  It was like a sudden explosion within the group.  Without any previous signs of conflict, bodies were abruptly shoved out of line.  Several people were thrown to the floor.  A thin man quickly moved from the back of the group and threw himself onto a man who was on the floor.  I expected to see him throwing punches, but instead it looked as though he were kissing the other man. 

     I chuckled like some adolescent
, and an instant later was sickened by my reaction.  The thin man turned toward the camera. It was unclear whether his expression was a smile or a snarl, but it was clear that his face was covered with blood and his teeth were chewing flesh. 

     “What the fuck!”  I yelled and jumped up like the chair had suddenly gotten red hot.

     “So does that look like just a bunch of drunks to you?”  Jerry Clark asked and then sneezed.  I watched as he wiped his nose on the back of his shirt sleeve. 

     “No, it doesn
’t,” I answered.  “But I’m sure not sure what it looks like!”

     “Me neither,” Clark said slowly.  “But I figured that people
need to know about this. That’s why I called your newspaper.”

     I was still staring at the now-dark television screen unable to concentrate on anything other than what I had just seen.  Finally, I tore my attention away from
memory of that video and asked, “Okay, I can definitely understand wanting to get this story out to the public, but why call the Gazette instead of the bigger papers in San Francisco or Oakland?” 

    
Jerry Clark looked at me as though I was the dumbest person he had ever met.  “Are you serious?  You don’t know that the bigger newspapers are just tools of the government?”

     The last thing I wanted to do was to anger Clark and have him stop talking, so I answered, “Of course, those bigger papers have a clear bias, but what matters is that you called me.” 

     The response seemed to please him, and he said, “Yes, I called you, but then this damn cold kicked my butt.”  As if on cue, he began a series of powerful sneezes. 

    
When the explosions ended, I observed, “Sounds like you got that nasty cold going around.” The mail carrier with her cold flashed into my mind before I continued, “So did you talk to anyone at work about this video?”

     “No, I wouldn
’t waste my time trying to talk to any of those morons!”  Clearly, my
question
had touched a nerve, and it was a few moments before he continued, “I haven’t said anything or shown this to anyone besides you.”  He chuckled and said, “You think anyone’s gonna believe this?”

     “Well, you have the video,” I said.  “Seeing is
believing, right?”  Even as the words came out of my mouth, I realized how naïve they sounded.

     Clark
momentarily returned to that expression of disbelief before letting loose an unexpectedly energetic laugh.  “Are you sure that you’re a reporter?  You oughta know that nobody trusts video anymore.  Too easy to doctor.”

     I nodded and asked, “So what exactly do you want from me?”

     “Well, I’ve got to start somewhere, and your newspaper seems to be better than most.”  He nodded toward several piles of newspapers on the floor against the wall.  “I’ve followed your writing, and that’s why I chose you to get this story out.”

     I grinned at the compliment. “Okay, so let
’s get started.  Of course, I need some facts about you and then you can tell me the story from the beginning.” 

     Clark took the seat behind the desk, I pulled the folding chair closer, and then I entered the world of Jerry Clark. He was fifty-four years old, never married, member of several groups dedicated to revealing conspiracies surrounding the Kennedy assassination, UFOs, oil production, and other matters of which I had not heard.  Nothing I learned about Jerry Clark added any
trace of credibility.

     “Okay, let
’s start on what happened yesterday.  Was there anything that seemed out of the ordinary before the incident?”

     He tilted his head slightly to the right and looked at the wall behind me as if sorting through his memory.  “I can
’t really think of anything unusual.  I mean we just finished the Easter rush, and there’s no big holiday for a while, so the crowds were pretty small.”  He shook his head slowly.  “No, there was nothing that should’ve been a warning. Nothing unusual until... Well, you saw it in the video.  Passengers were disembarking in an orderly fashion. The chutes were being filled correctly.  There were three of us in our corrals.   Victor Martin, me, and the new guy whose name I can’t remember.”  He paused as he was obviously thinking about something.

     “Mister Clark, tell me the first thing you saw that signaled something was wrong.”

     “There was no signal!”  Clark took a deep breath before continuing, “What I mean is the first thing... I was reviewing the visas in a passport when there was a scream.  I looked in that direction but couldn’t see anything other than a crowd of passengers hurrying away from something on the floor. I kept watching and then all at once the bodies parted.  Someone was spread out on the floor, but the terrible thing was the person attacking. There was a young man sitting on top of the body clearly biting the other person.  Well, you saw it!” 

     Clark
’s voice was getting louder and more agitated, so I broke in with a question in an attempt to calm him.  “How long before airport security responded?” 

   Clearly irritated by my inability to grasp the point he was making, the customs agent stared at me for a moment. Finally, he let out a long sigh and answered, “I guess it was a coupla minutes before security showed up.”

     “Now, I talked with Ben and Berry Morgan.  Do you
know them?”  Clark shook his head.  “Well, they’re with airport security, and they responded to the attack.”  I looked down at my notebook.  “They told me about a woman with half her face eaten off and a, quote, guy flopping around on the floor with blood spraying out of his throat, unquote.” 

     At my
mention of what the Morgan brothers had seen, Clark’s face turned ashen.  He coughed roughly. “I think I’m gonna throw up,” he muttered as he launched himself from behind the desk and out of the room.

     I assumed he was headed off to the bathroom.  The
assumption kept me in the folding chair for about ten minutes.  I strained my ears but could hear no sound in the house.  Finally, I ventured off to find Clark.  From the doorway, I called, “Mister Clark!  Are you okay?”  No answer.

     I moved slowly and carefully down the dark hallway.  The glow from the computer screen cast an eerie
low light. The light switch was nowhere to be found. After a few steps, I stopped again and listened for any sound that might lead me to Jerry Clark. There was no sound other than the hum of a refrigerator.  Finally, I reached a white door that looked to be a bathroom door.  I knocked on the door and said, “Mister Clark, are you in there?”  There was no answer.