Free Endemic Rise of the Plague by Jeannie Rae Page B

on his toes weaving back and forth, trying to get a peek at the action.
    “Hey Bud, can you stop the ride?” Joe shouted.
    “Yeah, we want off, please stop the ride,” Kate whimpered.
    “Oh…sorry…okay,” the man uttered with a thick accent.
    Turning around as the cart rose skyward, the man pulled the lever, stopping the wheel. Joe and Kate’s cart rocked back and forth at the unanticipated stop, leaving them just less than half way up the wheel.
    “He's letting people off now, Dad,” Kate said smiling, looking down at the conductor.
    “We are not going to make it off in time,” Joe said slowly as the mob drew closer.
    Kate watched in silence at the hellish sight before them. As the crowd drew closer, she could see that people were ferociously attacking one another. They were biting and clawing at each other like vicious animals. There were small groups within the mob aggressively tackling individuals to the ground. Snarling teeth were shredding flesh down to the bone. Blood gushed and sprayed onto others. Gasping in repulsion, Kate’s eyes traveled around the carnival, unable to look away.
    A chubby man grabbed a plank of wood from the ground near the concession stand. He began swinging it wildly at two women that were closing in on him. One of the women rushed toward him, and he struck her in the face with the board. She sank to a knee, but wasted little time rising back to her feet. A crazed, tall man in a plaid shirt grabbed the board-wielding man from behind and sank his teeth into his shoulder. The two women moved in, one biting his neck and the other tearing into his arm. The chubby man dropped the wood and disappeared beneath the three of them, with more people joining the pile on top of him.
    Kate’s eyes scanned the groups of people within the mob. The scenes were similar. The attackers seemed peculiar. Kate couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong with them, but they were…different. She scanned the mob looking at the attackers. All were injured, having bleeding wounds, and hanging their heads in an odd way.
    In the wake behind the mob, along the course they had traveled, bodies were strewn out all over the pavement. Blood pooled and stained the ground. Some of the bloody people were unsteadily rising up from the ground and getting to their feet. They staggered around confused and lost. A woman stumbled toward the concession stand whose arm had been torn from her body. Blood spurted out from her shoulder, yet she shuffled forward. A man not too far from her had just climbed to his feet, with a broken-looking ankle. He limped a few steps on his ankle with his foot awkwardly twisted inward.
    The crowd rapidly moved across the carnival, some already reaching the bottom of the Ferris Wheel. Several members of the crowd surrounded the conductor. In desperation, he searched for the nearest thing to a weapon within reach. He positioned his hands around the lever that controlled the ride. As he pulled the rusty, white lever out of the socket that it lay upon, the wheel switched gears to the rotate, then to the stop position again, causing the wheel to rotate a few feet, then suddenly stop, swinging the carts erratically.
    “Dad!” Kate’s scream sounded nearly muffled by the agonizing screams from the fearful riders in the seventeen other carts on the wheel.
    “I got you,” Joe’s strong eyes locked onto Kate’s face as he braced his muscular arm in front of her and held the other side of the cart. In that moment, she transported back to her younger years when her father seemed like the strongest man alive. She nodded, accepting his reassuring arm, her small fingers seizing the bar restraint with all her strength.
    Joe and Kate looked down to the control station of the ride, and could see the conductor swinging the white pole at the mob surrounding him. Within seconds, he disappeared into the mob along with two carts at the bottom of the wheel. The riders had no chance to attempt an evacuation of