I hope you enjoy this sample from my novella "The Plague." You can read more about the book as well as purchase it here
The Plague
Britt was jarred awake by a series of loud knocks on her front door. She began to panic, thinking that it was the government coming back for another inspection. Her heart was racing as she put on her housecoat. She started to think about the tests; she couldn’t remember if she had hidden them or if they were out in plain view. She became concerned that she would be one of the many medical professionals that had disappeared in the dark of the night, leaving Hunter to wonder what happened to her. She was almost in tears by the time she answered the door. To her shock, it was Adi. She yelled at him.
“What the fuck dude? What time is it? What are you doing here?”
He pushed his way past her, ignoring her questions, her messy hair and the little bit of drool in the corner of her mouth. Those things he would have normally made fun of, but not tonight.
“Have you seen the news?” he asked, almost as if he was in a panic.
“No, clearly not. I was in bed sleeping, like most reasonable people.”
“Mom, what’s going on?” Hunter asked from the shadows of the hallway.
“Nothing buddy, it’s just Adi. Go back to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Okay, mom,” he said. He walked partway down the hall and stopped to listen. She knew he was still there but didn’t press the issue. By this time Adi had the TV on. The news had the same clip on repeat. It was a close up of several men dressed up like plague doctors walking into a hospital. They completely ignored the staff as they pushed their way down the hall. The camera followed, but not too closely. Two by two, they went into different patients’ rooms. Then, just seconds later, they reappeared, dragging sick people out of the rooms and down the hallway. The staff again tried to stop them, but despite their best efforts, they couldn’t even slow the costumed men down. A security guard came running up, he yelled at them to stop. He was pushed aside with ease as the 20 men dragged 10 patients out of the hospital. There was one remaining plague doctor trailing the pack. Several people tried to stop him. The man stopped, looked at the person with the camera, he grabbed the beak of his mask and said something that was barely audible to the camera. After the very brief exchange, the masked man left.
The group, including the camera operator, followed them out. When they stepped out of the hospital, they walked into a very eerie fog. The last plague doctor was barely visible and then disappeared from sight completely. A couple of the braver hospital staff members ran into the fog after them, but as they got into the fog, it disappeared, along with the costumed men and the patients. The camera cut out as the staff members all looked on, scared and confused.
The news anchors started dissecting the incident. They were trying to make sense of the only word the group said. One newscaster said, “If you listen, it sounds like they’re saying ‘asthma’ or ‘my asthma’.”
Adi’s eyes were wide when he turned to Britt.
“What do you make of this?” he asked. “You okay?”
She was whiter than normal. She had goosebumps and the hairs on her arms were standing up.
“What’s wrong?” Adi said again.
“It can’t be,” Britt said, still in a trance-like state.
“What is it?” Adi asked again.
Britt was flipping through books and opening up her thesis on her desk. “That word. They weren’t saying ‘asthma’ or ‘my asthma’. They were saying ‘miasma’.”