Calamity (The Calamity Series Book 1) Read online

  Calamity

  Sam Winter

  Calamity

  Copyright @ 2021 by Sam Winter All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Real places are used fictitiously with creative intent. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  www.samwinterbooks.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Epilogue

  Join Sam Winter’s Newsletter

  Confliction

  Also by Sam Winter

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Officer Derrick Hart stared at the screen of his phone. His thumb hesitated above the name ‘Janice’ in his voicemail box. There was a twist of anxiety that knotted in his stomach as he heard the distant pops of gunshots and the pursuing police sirens that had become a banality in Birmingham. Law and order were the first to go after the news outlets began sensationalizing the deadly viral outbreak. The title of the last news article Derrick read was:

  ‘Millions Suspected Dead in Florida––Is This the End of America?’

  I don’t have time for this crap, Derrick thought. This city is about to burn.

  Derrick stuffed the phone back into the breast pocket of his uniform and went to step back inside the Judge’s house but stopped at the doorway of the front porch. It was as if an invisible lasso had cinched around his hips and kept him from ignoring this part of his life he was so desperate to forget. Gritting his teeth, Derrick punched the splintering, brown wood of the door jamb and removed his phone from his pocket, clicking the voicemail.

  “Hey Der– Derrick, it’s Janice, um– it’s Mom.” Derrick pinched the bridge of his nose as he paced the front porch with the phone pressed to his ear. “I was just checking in on you. I tried calling a few times but I– they never made it through. I was just worried about you, you know… Maryland’s not close to the outbreak down there, but they still have us all under martial law, just like everywhere else. All we can do is watch the news and all they ever talk about is you guys in the South. Every time they mention Birmingham or Alabama, I think about you. I guess I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately… I know we haven’t talked much over the years, and that’s my fault, but…”

  Derrick could hear his mother move the phone away from her face so she could sniffle and clear the knot in her throat. “I just called to tell you that I am thinking of you, and praying for you, and– and… I really, really want to see you when this is all over.”

  The quiver in his mother’s voice made Derrick clench his teeth.

  This is her goodbye, he thought. She knows that I’m next to die.

  “I’m just–I’m sorry. I needed to say– I’ve wanted to say it so many times, but– I’m sorry for everything. Everything I put you through… I can’t fix what happened– what I did… I know sorry doesn’t change anything but… I wanted to make sure you knew that I’m so sorry, and I love you and I always have loved you… um… just call me back when you can, okay? I’ll talk to you soon, son… um, Goodbye.”

  Derrick chewed his lip. He hoped the pain from his teeth stabbing his fleshy cheek would remove his mind from the black hole of self-pity he spiraled into. Instead, the welcome distraction came in the form of a short scream of rubber tires chafing against the pavement followed by an abrupt crash.

  From the front porch of the corner house where he stood, Derrick watched the beige minivan, already speckled in dents and scrapes from its recent wrecks of the past, skid around the backside of his parked patrol car and flatten the stop sign into the intersection. The violence and chaos that plagued downtown Birmingham were beginning to snake their tentacles into the affluent suburbs of this upper-class neighborhood.

  The minivan driver– a middle-aged woman with stressed, unkempt hair, sat with panicked eyes that found Derrick glaring down on her. For a moment they stared at each other in silence. His eyes on her van idling in the middle of the intersection and her eyes on the oval, silver badge pinned on the chest of his uniform.

  Derrick hadn’t planned on charging onto the road in a cursing rage. He wasn’t the type of person to lose his head. Over the past few days, since the outbreak began, he’d let worse crimes go unanswered than a hit and run. But when he saw a child’s head pop up from the backseat of the minivan, a flash of anger boiled inside him. The little girl, no older than five years old, had tears in her eyes and appeared to have been unsecured by a seatbelt or a car seat. Leaping down the four steps leading to the porch in one stride, Derrick sprinted across the front lawn towards the intersection.

  Perhaps it was his lack of sleep or even a trickery of the afternoon light, but as he ran the driver’s face appeared to swap with his mother’s likeness. But not the vibrant, middle-aged woman she was now. Not the woman who rebuilt her life after prison and began a new family. No, Derrick saw the pale, sunken-skinned Janice from his childhood with long, matted brown hair in need of a comb. He saw his mom as he imagined she looked after her car accident.

  But it was this driver who moved in a frenzy. Lurching forward with acceleration, the wide-eyed woman fled the scene in a hurry sending the young child toppling over in the back of the minivan and disappearing from sight.

  “Hey– hey, stop!” Derrick shouted at the taillights. “Stop! No, Mom sto–” Derrick bit down hard on his lower lip, stopping his pursuit as he looked around, with a flare of embarrassment.

  “Wut the hell was that ruckus?” the familiar southern drawl of an old man’s voice bellowed as he stomped outside. Judge Watkins was a barrel-chested man, with combed-over graying hair and a round face. Looking at the flattened ‘Stop’ sign in the middle of the road, he roared, “Goddamn lunatics!” the Judge beat his fist on the railing along his front porch as if his hand was his gavel.

  Derrick rubbed his brow, centering his thoughts as he walked back to Judge Watkins’ front porch. “Your honor, can you spare that minute now?” Derrick asked. Grumbling to himself, the Judge waddled back inside his house.

  Following the Judge inside, Derrick walked through the open French doors into a long living room where the news played loudly on the TV mounted above a fireplace. The images being displayed on the screen were of aerial footage taken by a news helicopter in downtown Miami, Florida. Through smoky skies, the camera panned across a four-lane road tucked between buildings downtown. Hundreds of people ran through the narrowing street. From the elevated camera angle, the mass of panicked people looked like wildebeest fleeing a predator. The mere dots of people on the screen were chased by a handful of other dots–things that appeared to move faster than the fleeing dots; things that leaped onto the fleeing dots, tackling them violently into the pavement.

  Derrick didn’t need to watch the end of the news clip. It had been recorded only a few days ago, but the video was already viral. It had been viewed hundreds of millions of times online and on the twenty-four-hour news networks now that the internet was beginning to lag across the nation. It was one of the few videos of the infected available to the public that hadn’t been deemed too violent or gruesome for TV.

  “That’s right, David. We now have two senior officials inside the Pentagon confirming they have lost contact with the National Guard units deployed just days ago to restore order inside southern Florida. There’s still no word from the White House–” The White Hou
se reporter’s voice followed Derrick down the hall to the Judge’s study.

  “Alright, now. Let’s have it.” Judge Watkins huffed air in and out of his mouth as he side-stepped around his large mahogany desk in his study. The room looked more like a library with walls lined with bookshelves containing law textbooks and other historical books from around the world. Two leather couches that appeared to never have been used sat beside a small bar, which had more than a few emptied bottles on it.

  Alyssa stood in front of the Judge’s desk at the head of the room exactly where Derrick had left her to go outside to listen to his voicemail. She had a guilty look in her eyes, but the wavering line of her lips communicated her impatience as she chewed the corner of her thumbnail. Her blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and the t-shirt and jeans she wore revealed the collection of old and new tattoos she had on her forearms and chest.

  Judge Watkins held out his hand expectantly to Alyssa, a layer of sweat forming on his brow as he waited. Fumbling with the stack of papers stapled together, she extended them to the Judge only for him to rip them out of her hands. Breathing loudly through his nose, he flipped through the pages in a rush, scribbling his name on empty lines and stamping his personalized red ‘Judge Watkins’ seal beneath each signature.

  “What– is everything alright?” Alyssa whispered over her shoulder to Derrick. Derrick looked at the phone that was still in his hand and nodded as he put it away in his uniform’s breast pocket.

  “Yeah, it was Janice– it was my mom,” he said. The word ‘mom’ always came out strange when he used it about his family. “She tried to get in touch to check on me. Damn phones keeps going in and out of service though.”

  “Heard on channel three it’s them cell towers,” Judge Watkins butted into the conversation without looking up from the papers he was signing. “Said they was overloaded er’ some type of nonsense. Everybody in the country callin’ at the same time to check on family in Florida... it’ll only get worse. Soon they’ll all be calling to check on us.”

  Derrick saw Alyssa flinch as her guilt worsened. “Is she doing alright? Janice?” Alyssa asked.

  “They’re fine,” Derrick said, purposefully void of emotion. “Her new family’s safe, too, it sounds like.”

  “Gawddang forms!” Judge Watkins snapped as he slammed his clubbed fist down on the desk hard enough to make an empty bottle of bourbon topple over and teeter on the edge before rolling off the tabletop. “I done signed that one twice already! Why do they need another?”

  Derrick Hart had been in the Judge’s courtroom enough over the years to know his question was rhetorical. Judge Watkins was known for his grandstanding whenever a defendant or lawyer made the unfortunate mistake to ‘whine’ about the proceedings in his orderly courtroom. Derrick had a good working relationship with the Judge as many of his cases over the years were overseen by him. In the private moments between hearings and motions, the judge and Derrick would poke fun of each other and exchange tales of their most recent fishing exploits.

  “Now don’t tell any them other police officers that I did this for ya, ya hear?” Judge Watkins glared over the top of his glasses at Derrick. “I’m serious. Don’t have time for this. Got my brother, Eddie, waitin’ for me up in Huntsville as it is...”

  “Yes, your honor, thanks again–” Derrick started but the Judge waved away his thanks and went back to signing the last of the papers, finishing it off with a stamp.

  “Nah, hush up with that now,” the Judge said. “Don’t know why y’all don’t just fake my signature anyways. What’re they gon’ do? Arrest ya?”

  “A few officers tried,” Derrick admitted. “The army stopped giving out the Yellowband bracelets with just a signature. They need your stamp now, too.” Judge Watkins nodded, as he, out of thirty-five years of habit, went through the stack of papers and double checked each page to cross the T’s and dot the I’s.

  “Derrick... Derrick,” Alyssa whispered until he looked at her. Despite the lack of sleep and stress that wore on her face, she still looked as beautiful as the first day Derrick met her. Rarely ever wearing makeup, Derrick always loved the natural look Alyssa had about herself. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “I know,” he replied with a small, hopeful smile before looking away when he realized she had nothing else to say.

  “Alright, all signed an’ stamped an’ all that nonsense,” the Judge sighed as he tossed the stack of papers on the center of the desk. “Do y’all have rings?” he asked looking at Alyssa’s empty ring finger on her left hand.

  “Oh, um, no, we–” Alyssa started as a pink hue burned her cheeks.

  They turned to Derrick as he dug into the cargo pocket of his pants and removed a small gray box. The folded receipt from the jewelers was clenched in the case’s mouth as he had intended on returning the ring before the outbreak put a halt to his life, like everyone else’s.

  Derrick saw the diamond, fourteen-karat white gold engagement ring staring up at him. Months ago, he had fretted over the ring for weeks, worrying if it was the right one for Alyssa. He used to look at the ring and feel anxious excitement over the possible future. Now he only felt foolish at its sight.

  “Derrick…” Alyssa’s voice was soft and full of pity. “I can’t–”

  Pinching it free from the jewelry box, Derrick dropped the ring in Alyssa’s palm and put the box back into his pocket. “Just take it, it’s outside the return policy anyway,” he lied.

  Reluctantly, Alyssa slid the ring down her left finger and stole the quickest of glances, admiring the look of her engaged hand. Taking off his reading glasses, the Judge used them to draw a lazy crucifix in the air as he said, “With the power vested in me I now pronounce you man an’ wife, you can kiss the bride.”

  Alyssa looked around the room, fidgeting with her hands and feet, clearly uncomfortable, before turning to Derrick. Derrick circumvented the awkward moment by reaching across the desk and shaking the Judge’s hand, ignoring the twisting feeling he felt in his chest. “Thank you, your honor. Good luck to you and your family.”

  “Son,” Judge Watkins looked at Derrick and grasped his hand for a prolonged moment. “I’ll pray for you and the other officers who stayed behind. Y’all are heroes and don’t you forget that. And ma’am, best of luck to you.”

  Alyssa took the Judge’s extended hand in a delicate shake before he snatched up a piece of empty luggage from behind his desk and waddled off to the bedroom through a side door. Derrick and Alyssa hurried in a rush when the Judge left. Scooping the marriage certificate up along with the rest of the National Security Public Servant Act waiver paperwork, they made for the front door. Derrick hesitated for a moment in the hallway.

  “Derrick, what is it?”

  “Go ahead, I’ll meet you at your car,” Derrick said as he jogged back into the Judge’s study. Pausing at the large desk his eyes jetted to the bedroom where the Judge packed his things. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the small, wooden grip stamp of the Judge’s name and the red ink pad beside it and slid them both in his pocket. Leaving the house, Officer Derrick Hart felt bile kiss the back of his throat as he rationalized committing petty theft in service to the greater good.

  How many suspects have I arrested for crimes they thought were for the greater good? How many rationalized away their actions just like I am doing now. Derrick balked at his hypocrisy but did not turn around to return the stolen items.

  I’ll take being a hypocrite if it means this stamp saves other police officers’ families.

  From the passenger seat of his patrol car, Derrick grabbed a large yellow envelope and slid the marriage license inside with the rest of the paperwork. He took out a plastic card with his police academy picture on it. “Here take these documents; this is my Police Commission card.” he handed the envelope and the card to Alyssa who stood beside her car parked ahead of his. “Go up 20th St. until Interstate 20– I’ll radio ahead. All the road closures manned by police will wave
you through.”

  Alyssa nodded, listening to instructions while balancing her car keys and the envelope in one hand and holding the Police Commission card in the other.

  “Once you get to I-20, you won’t find any police. That blockade is manned by the National Guard,” Derrick continued and put a heavy hand on Alyssa’s shoulder to emphasize his seriousness. “Drive slowly, follow commands, and keep your hands visible. Show them these papers and my ID. They’ll give you a Yellowband bracelet,” Derrick pointed to the metallic bracelet cinched securely on his right wrist.

  The bracelet he had was thick with a red band around the center and a laser etched barcode in the middle. To receive the paperwork with the pre-authorized signatures for Alyssa to get her bracelet, Derrick had to allow himself to be Redbanded. It was his shackle to this city that would soon be his tomb.

  There’s a reason everyone calls these papers suicide contracts.

  “…once you have the Yellowband they’ll let you through to Georgia. If they don’t, call me. If the phone isn’t working, have one of the officers at the previous road closures radio me, okay?”

  Alyssa nodded. Her starry eyes looked overwhelmed, lost in a sea of instructions and surmounting emotions.

  “Are you sure you won’t go to Tennessee?” Derrick asked one last time. “The infection will reach Georgia before Alabam–”

  “My family’s in Atlanta,” Alyssa interrupted, already knowing where this conversation was headed. “They’re all in Atlanta– I can’t just leave them. I need to be– I need to be with my family.”

  Derrick nodded, accepting that echoing his opinion would be pointless. Alyssa set the papers down in the front passenger seat of her cherry-red Chevy Impala. Its flashy color stood as a shining example of their differences. While Alyssa was the bright, social butterfly, often getting lost in conversations with complete strangers at parties, Derrick was the quiet one who always seemed to be dragged to the party. She would congregate groups of friends and discuss her latest tattoo or lip piercing, and the clean-shaven Derrick would stand beside her and laugh along with her.