Sam Collins - Chapter 5

Sam could see the light behind his closed eyes and winced when the feeling of being run over by a truck hit him.  Where the hell was he?

"This morning, the Army Intelligence base in Kentucky  reported several Plague-related incidents in Clarksville. A Special Unit has cleared the area in the meantime. However, the current line of the barrier needs to be shifted west once again, leaving only Arkansas and Missouri unaffected from the spread of  the Lyssa-V1 strain that originated in North Carolina. The western strain Lyssa-G1, the first outburst of the Plague in the US, has reached Texas in August, as previously reported. Further spreads of this strain have not yet been reported.

The police are instructing residents in Arkansas and Missouri to beware of possible refugees from Kentucky who might accidentally spread the virus further."

The radio was turned down and Sam opened his eyes, slowly adjusting them to the bright morning light. He was in a bed overlooking a big room that served as kitchen, bed and living room in one. A broad shouldered blonde guy with a short crew cut was making coffee on the counter by the window. The morning light put him in a soft haze .
Sam touched his head, groaning from the effort. The stranger turned around.

"Good morning. How do you feel?" He walked over to the bed and placed a cup of coffee on the bed side table.
Crap. Who was the guy?

"Terrible. Feel like I've drowned in booze. Is this your place?" The stranger nodded. Sam watched the worried expression on the man's face. He was handsome, reminded him of his training supervisor at the Academy. The one he had a secret crush on back then. He looked at the coffee cup next to him.

"Who are you? Have we...?" Sam was surprised when the man backed away from him.

"Hell no!" The shocked expression on his face spoke volumes.

"Gosh, was I that drunk?" He tried to laugh, wincing when his head ache made the effort impossible.

"You were drugged last night! I'm Paul, remember?"
The memories almost blinded Sam. The bar. The married bartender. That disgusting asshole who made him drink that shit that knocked him out. He tried to forget what had happened then.

"You're the the bartender. The one with the ring on his finger", he rasped.

"I guess I am", Paul said, concern written all over his face.

"Where's your partner? I didn't mean to cause you trouble." Sam tried to get up, suddenly feeling a hand on his chest pushing him back down.

"You shouldn't get up too quickly." Sam looked at the lines of worry in Paul's handsome face, brown eyes framed by thick brows as blond as his hair.
Sam rested his head back on the pillow. Paul handed him the coffee cup and strode across the room looking out of the window from behind the curtain.

"He's dead", he said.

"Huh?"

"Jason. My partner. He died two years ago." Paul turned his head to look at Sam.

"I'm... I'm sorry", he muttered, a surprised look on his face.

"Are you worried?", Paul looked out of the window again, not addressing Sam's painful expression of sympathy.

"Worried?", he asked uncertainly.

"About the Plague coming closer to Arkansas", Paul explained looking back at Sam.

Had there been one moment in the last five years when Sam had not been concerned about the spread of the virus? It had cost him his love, his career and almost his life. But did it trouble him right now? Seems like he had enough other things to worry about.

"Nothing I can do about it anymore", he replied, settling back against the cushion.  Paul frowned at this.

"You were involved? In the Army, I mean." He walked back to the bed, sitting down at the foot of it.
Sam studied his face, taking in the blonde stubble on Paul's chin, giving him a rugged look. He sighed and nodded.

"I had just finished the Academy in West Point, starting my first commission in Germany when it all began" Sam's gaze drifted off, memories flooding back as he spoke.

"The TV in the barracks was on and we were watching a football game when they suddenly interrupted the broadcast to show a newsflash. It was about an incident in Fort Bragg. Someone was found dead with terrible bite marks and blood all over his body just outside the Airbase. Apparently, the body was highly contagious with some unknown disease that spread quickly among the staff of the base. It had also reached civil residents in the area surrounding the base and anyone who tried to examine them got infected instantly." Sam paused, taking in a breath.

"It seemed like an act of terrorism or something, right here in the US. We applied for instant relocation. By the time we got back to the US, the Plague had already led to ten thousands of victims. I was selected to serve in the Army's first Special Unit."

Paul looked at him with worried eyes.

"So you killed all these people, just like the Army did in Clarksville." It wasn't a question, Sam realized.

"We got trained in bio warfare and were instructed to eliminate any infected carrier that crossed our path. I killed more than two thousand humans in the course of five years." Why was he telling him all this? Did Sam feel the need to confess, all of a sudden? Paul watched him with cold eyes.

"What about you? What's your story?", Sam asked, silently wondering, if Paul contemplated to kick him out after this revelation. Paul hesitated, clearly digesting what he had just head.

"I was in the Antilope Valley when it all first began", he said eventually.

"You're Air Force?", Sam interrupted, interest visible in his eyes. Paul did have the look of an ex-Air Force man, but he wouldn't have believed it to be true. All he lacked were aviator sunglasses.

"I was. Used to work as an instructor in the Test Pilot School we ran there. When the first wave of the Plague began, funds were relocated to Special Units and the Pilot School was among the first facilities that were shut down. We were given the choice to enter a Special Unit and start killing virus carriers - or we were asked to leave... Guess what I chose."

Sam looked down. He never felt ashamed for his choices. Looking back, though, he knew that there could have been other alternatives for him. Had he and Sean left the Army before it was too late, he might be happily settled down with him, instead of waking up in a stranger's bed after one
hell of a night.

"I went back to L.A. With the economy going to hell thanks to the Plague and no family left, I soon used up all my savings and ended on the street", Paul continued.

"And then I did what any gay man in my situation and with my background would do in Hollywood", Paul stated, his voice gone quiet.

Sam had no clue what he was referring to.

"You wrote a screen play?", he guessed. Paul almost laughed out loud.

"No, dumbass! I did porn."
Sam felt the color rise in his face. He was such a fool. Paul didn't seem to be phased, though.

"Anyway, it paid off real well. And I met a guy on one of the sets there. Jason. He was something." Paul looked out of the window again before he continued.

"When the Plague hit L.A., we packed our stuff and left before it was too late. We moved here, because Jason's family used to live here. When we arrived, the house was empty, his family gone to the East. They probably died of the Plague there, we never heard of them again."
Sam swallowed hard.

"What happened to Jason?"
Paul sighed and looked back at Sam.

"He wasn't healthy. He used to take meds in L.A. but when our income dropped, we could no longer afford them."

Sam didn't know what to say. It must have cost Paul more than courage to help him last night. And Sam had just been a bitch and wanted to leave the hospital.

"You need these meds too? Is that why you wanted me to take them?"

"You remember? Yes, I didn't want you to go through this on top of what happened." Paul's eyes
dropped to the floor.

"I will get tested. Maybe he was clean." Sam wasn't sure he could believe his own voice. "So, you're sick too?"
Paul's expression was illegible.

"I don't have any symptoms. Never got tested, though. Still, the Plague is what concerns me more, to be honest. I hope you're not thinking of shooting me already?" He winked, but now it was Sam's turn to be annoyed.

"I'm not a murderer. If we hadn't intervened, the Plague would have snowballed all over the states." At least that's what their superiors had said all those years. Looking back at how many people died from his hands, he wondered if they had been wrong all along.

"Seems like it already does, Sam."
Anger flared within Sam. He ignored Paul's sad eyes when he scrambled out of the bed and got up shakily.

"I should go." Sam felt the blood drop from his head and his knees turned to pudding.  Paul's arms were around his body before his face connected to the linoleum floor.

"You're going nowhere. Not until you feel better." He lifted Sam back onto the bed. The sickening pain in Sam's head lessened a bit and he was able to see things clearly again. Paul went to the counter and fetched a plate with a bagel on it, dropping it next to the coffee cup on Sam's bedside table.

"Help yourself when you feel hungry. I'm gonna take a nap. Just wake me if you need anything."
Paul dropped on the queen sized bed next to Sam, crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes.

Sam watched his profile, studying the square jaw and blonde stubble on his cheeks. Paul must have been about ten years older than Sam. But he still had the fit body of a trained military man which was displayed nicely in the muscle shirt he was wearing. Sam closed his eyes and tried to rest, but the
memories of the previous night haunted him. Maybe it served him right, though. If the Plague was meant to erase mankind for good, all Sam had done was kill a countless number of frightened innocents. He was never haunted by their faces or their screams. He didn't even want to contemplate what that might say about him as a human being.

There was one face, however, that he could not forget. And he never would.

It was the only one he had truly loved.