The Island - Part 2 (Fallen Earth) Read Free Page B

to worry about than a few people stuck on an island.”
    Wind swept at the loose strands of gray hair that had escaped from the tight bun. Firelight played across her face.
    “It’s not just here either. Countries across the world are reporting cases. Riots broke out in France and Greece today with people fighting over food at grocery stores. The world is going to be a different place tomorrow. We’ll just have to see how different.”
    Voices rose around the campfire, some in fear, and others in protest. I listened but said nothing. I had little to add. The social structures that Dad had hated appeared to be on the edge of collapse. The protections and comforts most had treated as a fact of life rather than a privilege of the society we had created, were being dismantled quickly and easily. Like most facades, what lay behind them looked significantly less inviting. 
    When the protests finally subsided, Elsie looked at me.
    “Will you see us back to the boat, Hill William? We have an early start in the morning.”
    I nodded, and went about gathering up the leftovers from dinner. There wasn’t much. The ham had been reduced to little more than a bone. I stuck it in the plastic bag Elsie had used for the bread, thinking I would use it as seasoning for soup or beans. The rest amounted to a few spoonfuls of green beans and a sliver of the bread she had baked earlier.
    Tyler nodded when I held up the bowl so I scraped the last few bits into his plate.
    “You get that flashlight out of the boat?” I asked Daniel when we were loaded up.
    He fished it out of a pocket and held it up.
    “Good,” I said, “why don’t you take point and lead us back.”
    We left them still huddled around the dying fire. If it hadn’t been for the houses looming in the background and the colorful jackets so common among campers, the scene could have come straight out a movie that targeted early man, circa about 10,000 B.C.
    Daniel raced ahead. Elsie let him go, keeping track of him by the flashlight bobbing in the distance. Her gait, though still spry, had lost its earlier enthusiasm.
    “I’m not liking this wind, Hill William. A north wind in these parts can turn ugly.”
    I kept walking. N ortheasters had a long and well-deserved reputation along the Outer Banks, but it seemed too early in the season to me. Then again, I hadn’t grown up here. She had. Arguing with her would have been like discussing monetary policy with an economist. I had no ground to stand on in either debate.
    “They had a man on the radio. He almost sounded loony,” she said suddenly.
    “What do you mean?”
    “He said the Fever is intelligent, that it’s fighting back and picking some of its victims.”
    I rolled my eyes, the motion completely lost on her in the darkness.
    “And they gave this guy airtime?”
    “I said he almost sounded loony. If what he’s saying is true, we don’t stand a chance. No one does.”
    “Come on Elsie. A disease is nothing more than a collection of organisms that your body doesn’t like. I’m sure that twenty years from now, doctors will talk about evolutionary pressures and all, but intelligent thought?”
    I stopped and turned toward her. “Be serious. It would have to be a collective intelligence, a thought process shared by trillions of tiny little bugs. That’s not possible.”
    She kept walking. I sighed and picked up my pace to try and catch her. Ahead the light had come to a standstill. The meeting with the others had taken place no more than a quarter of a mile from my camp. I’d expected the boy to stop at my tent on the way back, but the light looked wrong. It stood off to the right and closer.
    “It is evolving. You heard that today when they talked about having to strap people in their beds,” she said stubbornly when she heard me closing in beside her. “It’s gotten worse. The news this evening was full of doctors and nurses being attacked and in some cases, killed by their patients. It’s like the