Resonance - J. B. Everett (best novels to read for students TXT) 📗

Nausea? Dizziness? Disorientation? Gastrointestinal upset?

 

Within three minutes the woman who looked and acted as though she was anywhere but Podunk, Tennessee, knew more about him than his mother ever had. Then she started asking him more and stupider questions. “Has your stomach felt queasy in the past several weeks, since you returned?”

 

David felt the frown move into place on his face. “Didn’t you already ask me that?”

 

The professional mask broke form and the side of her lip curled just the slightest amount.

 

“You wouldn’t believe how many people can answer the same question five or six times, but on the seventh try they suddenly remember that yes they do have a life threatening allergy or yes, they did have exactly those symptoms. My favorite thing to hear when I’m interviewing someone is: ‘come to think of it …”

 

He almost laughed. Then he heard the words coming out of his mouth and was powerless to stop them.

“Come to think of it, my friend and I did feel a little sick to our stomachs just before we left.”

 

“This would be …” She flipped back through her paperwork, scanning for the answers she had jotted down earlier. “Dr. Greer Larson?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Was it mild or severe? How would you rank it?”

 

Dear God, she was insane. All this writing and she wouldn’t tell him what was going on.

 

He sat at the table, studying her intently and answering all her questions as best as he could. While she looked up at him only to ask another stupid question and another, and furiously recording his answers. Finally she thanked him as she stood up. “Please stay in touch. And please call daily with an update on your condition if you do go into McCann city. Thank you.”

 

He glanced down at her card making sure he had enough information, and looked back up to ask her if McCann actually qualified as a city, but she was gone. There were a few bills on the table, and the bell that had been hung over the door was letting the world know that someone had left this little hole.

 

Becky knew in her heart that the birds were the next in line to be magnetically freaky, and that the project was no longer hers. She could only hope that they would recognize her efforts and give her a good billing on the paper that likely she would write every word of.

 

She drove herself to work in the old Jetta, hearing the wheezes from the engine that was never quite fully repaired. Her office smelled just a little stale, and she wondered for a brief moment if any of her colleagues had been in. But she pushed herself down into the wooden rolling chair and leaned over the desk. U.T. had sent her to Georgia, and several birds had been brought back to the school labs, using school equipment. She would call the birdwatchers from her U.T. phone providing a record of the conversation. It was officially out of her hands. Marshall Harfield answered on the first ring. And he recognized her name right away.

 

“We were wondering when we would hear any news about our Bradys.”

 

She tried to keep her voice light, even though she already knew what he would find. “I actually have a task for you if you can help us out, then I’ll be able to give you more information.”

 

The man was overly eager to help in any way he could, and it brought back memories of being in the woods surrounded by the ABA group, all talking at once. “I need you to gather your birdwatchers and a give everybody a compass and check out the areas where the birds first migrated and where they’re settled now.

 

Do you think that you can get everybody together for that?”

 

“I can do it today.” She could almost see him puffing with pride. The manners her mama had drilled into her told her to let him know that it wasn’t necessary no matter how much she was anxious for the results. But he stepped in before she could have gotten a word in edgewise anyway.

 

“We’re having a meeting at three and we can just change our agenda a little bit.”

 

“Is that okay? I don’t want to bother-”

 

“Just tell us what you want us to do.”

 

Becky was glad that he was so happy to help. She felt a little less like she had put a chore on him. And she spent a good while explaining how they should map and record the electromagnetics of the area and what they were looking for.

 

Mr. Harfield concluded with a sniff and a “we’ll know it when we see it, right?”

 

“Yes, if there is any activity you won’t be able to miss it.”

 

“I don’t suppose you can tell me why it is that we’re looking for this?”

 

She smiled. The man was a goon and always overeager, but he was a sharp tack. “I can. I hope it will be within the next several days. And the information you get this afternoon will help me gain the authority to share what I know.”

 

Becky hung up with a sigh, dragged herself to her feet and gathered a few supplies. The walk to visit the Warblers wound down a long hallway and around behind several labs. An undergrad was hunched over, muttering to himself when she entered. It took only the briefest of explanations to get him to agree to a break from mucking the crates. “I’m trying to figure out why they’re so creepy.”

 

“Well,” He laughed, “that’s a noble endeavor. But one I doubt you’ll be able to solve.”

“Why is that?”

 

“Because Dr. Jenkinson has been at these guys since you brought them in. We’ve been testing them with everything we know and can’t come up with squat.”

 

“Ahhh,” Becky sighed. “But I have the inside track.” She went back outside the doorway and gathered up the magnets she had set down just before entering, in a few moments he had one of the warblers out and Becky had the magnet in front of it. It turned when the magnet was moved.

 

“Ho-lee shit. You win. You do have the inside track.”

 

They tried bird after bird and then finally entered the room with their pockets loaded with as many of the magnets as they could find. The birds followed their movements, becoming obviously agitated when they separated, taking the magnetic pull in two different directions.

 

“So that’s why they were all staring at me when I entered.”

 

Becky nodded. “Actually they stare at the door all the time. What direction is that? Do you know?”

 

He looked around a little, orienting himself inside the building as the thought clearly formed for the first time. After a few motions that Becky couldn’t decipher, his brows knit together and he said “West northwest.”

 

Becky was ready to smack herself in the forehead. Why hadn’t she brought the compass? There was something about the way she had come down the hall. The undergrad followed patiently while she mentally retraced her steps backward from the birdroom, winding up in her office. Sitting in her chair with the empty shelves behind her.

 

The shelves are empty. Becky sighed. And only as he responded did she realize that she had spoken.

 

“Why are they empty?”

 

“Because I took the frogs home.” The breath rushed out of her. “The frogs were facing the same way.”

 

“Jilly.”

 

Jordan’s voice broke her reverie and she snapped to with a feeble excuse. “I was just thinking …”

 

Jordan waited, looking at her, watching, as though he might see her thought process. She knew she was a mystery to him, how her mind functioned, what she saw, and how she lived with such a singular drive. But at times like these, he sat, waiting for whatever she would come up with. And she felt the pressure of him expecting more of her than she was probably capable of producing. McCann was turning out to be more than she could handle.

 

She shrugged at him, giving up. “I don’t have any idea what to tell Landerly, but we have to phone this in. We hit criteria.”

 

Jordan nodded. “Do you want to make the call or me?”

 

“Are you serious?” She would have laughed if she hadn’t spent the day fielding the six new patients down with this illness - two already at a coma state before she and Jordan got to them. All their families had said was that they were ‘under the weather’ or ‘feelin’ a little down’. Good God, one family seemed to think the father would just come out of it.

 

Jordan had sent her back to re-dress the first morning when she had declared herself ready in her suit and labcoat. He had said the good people of McCann wouldn’t tell her anything if she dressed like that. He had made her dig through her bag until she produced jeans and the oldest looking top she had brought. What Jillian understood was that people would open up to Jordan no matter what he was wearing. Dirty little children just asked if they could hug him.

 

She looked around the makeshift lab in the bedroom with the broken bed. Her bag was stashed in the corner; the slanted bed wasn’t even good as storage space, everything just rolled off.

 

James Hann had offered to come over and fix it. So she had waited until he declared that he needed a

‘part’ and that he would come back with it in a few days.

 

Jillian wondered what ‘part’ one needed to fix an old wooden slat bed. A nail? A screw? And she stared around the obnoxious room feeling desperate. She couldn’t come up with a solution or any idea of what they had. She wasn’t even sure if it was viral, bacterial, or chemical. All she knew was that the weaker your immune system was the more likely you were to get it. And that they’d been living in ‘it’ for days. Bathing in it? Eating it? Breathing it?

 

And that wasn’t anything more than they had known in Florida. Except that here they could trace a link. In Jordan’s bold print it graced the wall - the connections from patient zero to the other locals who had come down with ‘it’. Not that there was a standard incubation period or anything. Jillian couldn’t wrap her mind around it. No matter how patiently Jordan waited on her. And she didn’t want to have to tell Landerly that.

 

So Jillian forced herself to trail behind him to the kitchen where the old yellow phone was mounted on the wall. The push buttons were its only bow before modern technology. If it had been dial-up … well, she didn’t think the CDCP even accepted dial-up calls anymore.

 

Jordan smiled at her, the large ugly receiver held against his head, the short coil holding him captive against the far wall of the be-roostered kitchen. “Hey Dr. Landerly.”

 

Breath pushed into her lungs. She would never have addressed him with ‘Hey, Dr. Landerly.’ But then again, she wasn’t Jordan. She listened, waiting for the screech that was sure to come. The questions as to why their assays hadn’t showed anything. The makeshift desk top in the ‘lab’ was covered with test plates.

 

But nothing had turned up.

 

Jordan nodded, knowing full well that Landerly couldn’t see him. “Yessir. Problem is - we hit criteria for quarantine… . about fifteen minutes ago… . 19 … down or deceased… well, yes, but here that’s the necessary 8 percent of the population… . do it ourselves? … .” His eyes looked up finally meeting Jillian’s. He looked bewildered.

 

She was certain his expression mirrored her own as she imagined the two of them rolling yards of yellow tape around the outskirts of town.

 

“I thought we would call in a team. How do we hold quarantine with just two people? … .”

 

The pause seemed interminable. “The law enforcement? This place isn’t a city, so there’s no police… sheriff? …” He looked at Jillian, eyebrows up waiting for her to provide the answer.

 

So she did. In a situation like this at least she was useful as