“What’s with the construction vehicles?”
“The powers that be decided it was best to quarantine the virus here. They’re setting up a field hospital with separate concrete tents for exposed and feverish, individuals with the poxes, and those in recovery.” He looked at Greer. “There’s also going to be a morgue.” He gave the crowd a baleful glare. “There’s pushback on the fact that those who pass from smallpox need to be cremated.”
Greer shook his head. “It’s a lot to take in. It was a shock for us, and we’ve been somewhat prepared for a biological attack.”
“Do you think this was an attack?” Remi asked.
Greer nodded. “Yes. Someone infected these people.”
“Kit—let me talk to them,” Remi said. “Of all the outsiders here, I’m the most familiar to them.”
Kit nodded. “Go for it.” He looked at Greer. “Keep with her.”
No sooner had they started into the dense throng than Mayor Dunbar called them out. “This is all their fault. They brought this disease to us!”
Greer’s nerves sharpened as they became the focus of the mob. He wanted to pull Remi back with him and get her behind the line of soldiers that had quietly surrounded the square. Before he could act, the crowd separated, opening a path for them that led straight to the mayor.
“None of this happened until they came here,” Dunbar said, pointing at them.
Remi jumped onto his picnic table without hesitation. She held up her hands, commanding silence from the crowd in a way that made Greer wonder just how unruly her classes at the university were.
“Smallpox doesn’t occur naturally anymore and hasn’t since before 1980,” she said. “For it to show up now, and here, it had to be intentionally released.”
“That’s what I said! You released this into our community.”
“No. We didn’t do that. In fact, I will need to get the shot myself. If I had released it, I would already have had the vaccine. The vaccination is not a big deal. It makes a very tender sore, which becomes a blister. It’ll need special care for a few weeks, but then you won’t get the terrible, terrible disease that is already ravaging your village. If you don’t get the vaccine, history shows us that thirty percent of you will die. Many of you will have terrible scarring for life. Instead of one sore from the vaccine, you’ll be covered in itchy, painful, pus-y sores. They’ll be all over your face, in your nose, your ears, your mouth. Down your throat. In your lungs. In your eyes. You’ll go blind.”
The crowd went quiet. They began to look at each other. “How is that preferable to one shot?” she continued. “One sore. No disease? Greer, show them your vaccination scar.”
Greer stood on the picnic bench so his arm could be seen across the crowd. He lifted his sleeve to show them the white, puckered scar that was smaller than a dime.
“You have that,” Mrs. Haskel said, pointing to her husband. “I had to take care of your sore.” To the crowd, she said, “Dr. Chase is right. It just makes one sore. We’ve seen our loved ones in the infirmary. They have the sores all over their bodies.”
“Silence, Mrs. Haskel,” the mayor snapped.
Mrs. Haskel’s eyes narrowed as she looked from the mayor to her husband. “You knew this was coming. You knew it. You got that shot long before Mr. Dawson and Dr. Chase came to us.”
Greer cautiously watched the crowd. Another woman spoke up. They’d been introduced to her—she was the wife of another councilman. “My husband also got the shot.” She shouldered her way through the crowd and came to stand near to Mrs. Haskel. “Like you, I cared for it. He said it was a spider bite.”
She stepped up to the picnic bench and faced the crowd. “Who else has already had this shot? Who?” She pointed to another councilman. “You?”
Everyone turned to face the man she called out. He shrugged. “The mayor said it was mandatory. All the councilmen took the shot.”
“But not the councilwomen. I didn’t have the shot.” Mrs. Haskel turned wounded eyes on her husband.
He tilted his head and lifted his hands. “He owns us. He knows everything about us. We were told we couldn’t come out with the news. We weren’t allowed to tell you.”
“Who owns you?” Greer asked, his question heard across the suddenly quiet assembly.
“King.”
Greer looked back at Kit and the guys. Lobo was watching them, too. “How does he own you?”
Mr. Haskel looked at the mayor, whose face was hard as stone. “Your own wife may be dying,” he said to the mayor. “We can’t keep this up. It has to end.”
The mayor said nothing.
“King knows our sins,” Mrs. Haskel said.
Greer shook his head. “I’m not following.”
“The sins we committed during our tithes. Our payment for the privilege of being allowed to live here,” Mr. Haskel said. “It’s why no one talks about their tithes.”
“See what it got us?” Mrs. Haskel said. “We’ve brought this terrible day to our own community. I told the council it needed to end. I begged you to let us change our policy.”
Greer looked at Kit, then back at the three leaders. “All right.” He nodded. “So this terrible outbreak is the result of your choices. What happens next is up to you. Tell your people to get the vaccination. Live to tell your stories. Live, so you have the chance to straighten this out.”
Mrs. Haskel sent a glance around at those gathered, then nodded. She climbed down from the picnic table and went over to stand in line for her vaccination. When the others followed her, Greer helped Remi down.
She crossed her arms and lifted sad eyes to Greer. “That’s the end of this community. The adults who survive will do time for their crimes. The kids will be taken away to foster care if there aren’t enough remaining adults to care for them. It’s the end.”
“We don’t know that. The FBI will have to investigate.”