Free Ever Onward by Wayne Mee

have RH negative
blood?”
    Josh’s smile fairly lit up the night.
“He sure as hell does! What’s more, at least one of his sons has it
as well! Kenneth, the oldest one, born twelve hours before Jessie!
One night a few years back we were hiking the Presidential Range up
near Mount Washington. Brad had a beer or so too many and told me
how worried he was about his wife having the baby because of it!”
Still smiling, Josh rushed into the house.
    The next morning, June
25 th , four days after Sergeant David Henderson
unwittingly unleashed the worst plague in the history of mankind,
Josh Williams woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs.
    He’d gone to bed late and taken a long
time to fall asleep. There had been no answer at Brad’s place. He’d
left a message on Brad’s machine, but doubts had quickly crept in.
Perhaps Doc was wrong about the RH negative blood? Perhaps it was
the blood combined with something else? Perhaps now they’d never
know.
    When he made his way to the kitchen,
Mrs. Wang met him with a smile and a bow. He returned the gestures,
noticing the smell of hot bread mingled in with the bacon. Soon
Doc’s rambling kitchen was filled with eager eaters.
    Mrs. Wang seemed delighted with the
way the three men wolfed down her food, and refused to let them
help her with the dishes. “Go on,” she said in her musical voice.
“You men have your work to do and I have mine. Mai-Ling can help
me.”
    So much for Woman’s Lib!
Josh had a sneaking feeling that a lot of modern ideas would soon
be going by the board. As though to confirm his thought, Jessie
asked if he could have another target lesson. This time he wanted
to shoot the big gun. The refrain from an old Dylan song echoed in
his head.
    ‘Ya better start
swimming’,
    Or you’ll sink like a
stone,
    ‘Cause the Times they are a
changing’!
    ‘Bloody right!’, he said to himself.
‘A lot of things are changing.’ Slowly, even a bit sadly, he called
his son and carried the two guns out back.
    About eleven Doc suggested they go
down to the Town Square and see if their sign had worked. On the
way there he told Josh he’d tested both Mrs. Wang and her
granddaughter and that they were both RH negative.
    By quarter to twelve Doc was sitting
on a park bench feeding the pigeons. Josh and Jessie were watching
from the shadows of the court house. They’d left the dogs at home
and brought their guns instead.
    Twelve o’clock came and the clock
tower atop the court house tolled out the strokes. Nothing moved in
the square except the pigeons. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Josh
was just about to step out of the shadows when he saw the sun
strike something shiny on the far side of the square. Backing up,
he handed Jessie the 12 gage and took the .22. Inwardly he cursed
himself for not getting a bigger rifle. Field glasses would have
helped too.
    “What’s up, Dad?”
    “Someone’s watching from across the
square. Too far for the shotgun.”
    Jessie looked at his father strangely,
for the first time realizing that this wasn’t just some video game
or movie. This was REAL! The flash came again, only closer this
time. Whoever was over there was moving and probably armed. Jessie
checked to see that the shotgun was loaded.
    Then, on the far side of the square, a
girl appeared. Josh could see she was in her late teens, dressed in
cut-off jeans and a red halter. She flipped her long, scraggly hair
over her bare shoulders, looked back into the shadows, then moved
nervously forward.
    “Who’s that?”, Jessie
asked.
    Josh silenced him with a look, then
turned back to the girl. The flash of steel came again from the
shadows, only closer than before. “Cautious bugger,” Josh muttered.
“Using the girl as bait.” He thumbed off the safety of the .22,
wishing again that it was a bigger caliber and making a mental note
to visit the local sporting goods store as soon as this was
over.
    “Hello there, little lady,” Doc called
out. “Come on over and help me