Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 49

The next morning, I make my way into the kitchen, trying not to let Pestilence see just how fatigued that simple action makes me.

I shouldn’t have bothered. For once the horseman isn’t even paying attention. The television in the living room is on, and Pestilence is standing in front of it, his arms folded, staring at the screen grimly.

I glance at the T.V., just to see what has tied up his attention.

“… Breaking news: virulent outbreak of Messianic Fever along the West Coast and Pacific Northwest, spreading into Mexico. State and local governments are rapidly trying to quarantine infected areas. No known sighting of the horseman yet. Please stay in your homes and avoid city centers. I repeat, please stay in your homes and avoid city centers. To all those affected: our prayers and thoughts are with you.”

My stomach bottoms out.

I stand there for a long time, not talking, not reacting, just … staring at the television dumbly. The report replays itself five different ways, the information regurgitated to fill the empty minutes. They are showing the pictures of Central Park taken after Pestilence passed through the city months ago, with its mass graves filled with bodies. Then images from Toronto and Montreal appear, the few photos anyone has of the Fever. There are even a couple from Vancouver and Seattle, places I saw with my own two eyes.

But now new footage joins the old. A shaky video of a hospital in San Francisco appears, the place filled with the dying. Another from Los Angeles, where people are lying in the streets, their eyes sunken and their faces flushed with the beginnings of fever.

San Francisco, Los Angeles. Those places are states away.

I grow cold.

I manage to rip my eyes away from the screen, and now, now Pestilence is looking at me. There’s still that damn apology in his eyes, but no remorse. None. In its place is a familiar coldness.

My throat works. I don’t want to ask because asking makes it real, and this can’t be real. The words come anyway.

“What did you do?” I whisper.

“My purpose.”