Back At The Village, Part 2

While Bug and Luce explained the last few days to Mister Station, Cy put down the water jug and sat at the other end of the banch from Lumpy. They both looked at the second railcart and the unconscious stranger.
“We thought he’d die if we left him there.” Cy explained. “So we brought him back here. Didn’t see the warning part of the message until the next station, just the bit with our names.”
“He probably would have died.” Lumpy agreed. “With everyone in town sick, there’d be nobody to go and rescue him.”
Cy shot him a look, and Lumpy nodded.
“We made a list; It’s everyone. Everyone but you three and Mister Station.”
“Did we … ?” Cy began, paused, and tried again. “Did us bringing him back here cause … ?”
He gestured vaguely towards the waiting room doors, where Bug and Luce were describing how they’d moved the stranger.
“Should we have left him there? Would it have helped?” Cy asked.
Lumpy leaned back and looked up into the rafters of the platform awning, frowning in thought. He looked and smelled terrible; Better than when they’d first arrived, because there was less vomit on him now, but still awful.
“You found him today?” Lumpy asked.
“Around mid-day, maybe a bit before.”
“Where? And where were you before that?”
Cy thought for a moment, then grabbed a stick and started scratching out a map on the platform.
“Up from the little village, there’s the station where we camped. Then up past the panels that’re off the side of the track.” He explained. “At the next station up the valley, on the platform; That’s where we found him.”
Lumpy studied the map for a moment.
“And you came back along the rails?”
Cy nodded.
“Stopped here.” He pointed to the station with the working platform sign. “Because we thought that maybe there might be more people, but there weren’t. Saw the message though.”
“And then?”
“Then we came the rest of the way back without stopping.”
“That’s good.” Lumpy nodded. “Good idea to check, and good idea to come back fast.”
He stared at the map for a moment.
“I don’t think bringing him here caused this.”
Lumpy reached out a foot, dipped his toe in the puddle of water from his combined drinking and washing attempts, and drew a wavy line roughly alongside Cy’s sketch.
“This started yesterday, when you must have been at the old summer holiday camp, so … Nothing to do with you three; You’d not even reached him yet.”
Mister Station, Bug, and Luce wandered over as Lumpy talked, looking down at the map.
“Probably something to do with him though.” Lumpy continued. “From the smell of him he’s worse hit than anyone here, so either he got it first or he got it more.”
Everyone looked at Lumpy.
“How do you know he’s worse?” Bug asked.
“Easy; He’s shit himself.” Lumpy replied, tapping his nose. “Nobody in the village has done that yet.”
“Not looking forward to that stage.” Mister Station muttered. “Not at all.”
He gestured to the map.
“You’ve drawn in the river? That’s your guess?”
Lumpy nodded and waved an exhausted hand.
“It makes sense?” He said, gesturing to the three children. “These three have been drinking stored rainwater from the collectors, everyone else has been drawing from the river because with the summer being this hot, they’ve already gone through all their stored rainwater.”
“Does that mean the river’s not safe forever?” Luce asked.
“No. No, I don’t think so.” Lumpy replied. “It got in through the river, then sick people did the rest, but it’s almost impossible to totally poison a river, even one running as low as this one does in summer.”
“And it wouldn’t make sense.” Mister Station added. “If you can’t ever use the river again, then the place is no good to anyone.”
Bug, Cy, and Luce looked from Mister Station to Lumpy and back again, bot following what they were saying.
“I think this is some kind of War Plague.” Lumpy explained. “Something that spreads quickly and makes people so sick that they can’t stop you from taking over, but not so sick that they die from it.”
They all looked at the still-covered form of the stranger.
“If he’s the most sick.” Cy said, slowly, felling his way through the thought. “Should we help him first, because he’s the worst one, or last, because he might make everyone else worse?”
Lumpy studied Cy and raised a questioning eyebrow at Mister Station, who slumped slightly, sighed, then straightened and took a step towards the stranger’s railcart. Something in the station building made a soft ‘bing’ noise, and he paused mid-step, looking back over his shoulder.
“That’s probably another booster.” He told Lumpy, and gestured back and forth between the railcart and the building. “Which one first?”
Lumpy didn’t even pause.
“Booster. Then I can use these three to get everyone situated.” He grinned horribly at the shocked looks from Cy, Luce, and Bug. “With appropriate safety measure, of course; Don’t worry.”
“You sure you can take another one?” Mister Station asked in a soft voice.
Lumpy prodded his stomach with a thoughtful look.
“Should be OK; Haven’t started pissing orange yet.”
Mister Station nodded and walked back into the building as lumpy gesture to the nervous-looking trio.
“Don’t worry too much.” He said. “I’ll deal with the people, I just need you three to find and set up places for them. And probably help get them set up for treatment.”
He leaned forward, which turned into something closer to a slump, and continued.
“You’re sure you didn’t see anyone else out there? No other camps, or any signs of other people?”
The trio shook their heads, and Cy turned to give a suspicious look at the stranger. Lumpy gestured, inviting Cy to speak.
“If it’s one of those War Plague things,” Cy began. “Does that mean there’s more people coming?”
“Or already here, and this guy got unlucky?” Luce added.
Lumpy grinned again and nodded at them.
“Good; You’re thinking about it.” He said. “It doesn’t seem too likely to me, because you found that guy by himself, and that’s a bad way to invade.”
He pointed at Bug.
“But?” Lumpy prompted.
Bug thought for a while, looking at the drying map at her feet.
“But he might have been the one sent to follow the tracks, not the river, and got unlucky.” She suggested.
Lumpy nodded, then turned to Luce.
And if he wasn’t alone, but the people have a timetable to stick to?”
“They’d have had to leave him, and the station platform was an OK spot.” She declared. “And we don’t know for sure that the medical stuff we saw got used by him; We just sort of assumed.”
“You found medical stuff?” Lumpy said quietly, then shook his head and carried on. “So, what can we do id there are more people coming?”
He hadn’t gestured to anyone, but feeling like it was his turn, Cy spoke up.
“We … We can’t do anything, can we?” He said. “Everyone’s too sick.”
“That’s right.” Lumpy agreed. “If they exist, and at this point we’re only guessing that they might exist, their plan worked on everyone but you three, and you three are not going to be getting involved.”
He straightened up a little and looked firmly at them.
“First sign of trouble, you lot run.” He ordered. “Go into the woods, head up the valley, stay off the paths and the rails and the road. Head for that little village you found; There’s water and food and shelter there if you look.”
“And then what?” Cy asked.
Lumpy shrugged.
“No idea. You’ll have to figure out what to do next once you figure out what’s happening.” He explained. “But first, hide and stay hidden.”
Mister Station broke the tension of the moment by emerging from the workshop side-door back onto the platform, holding up a bag of oily-looking orange liquid.
“I’ve set the pharmacy printer to analysing samples.” He reported. “With any luck this thing’s close enough to something it recognises that we can make a treatment.”
He looked at the bag with distaste.
“Or at least something less toxic than this stuff.”
Lumpy slowly rolled up his sleeve as Mister Station found a nail in the rafters to hang the bag from.
“Did you always have that connector thing on your arm?” Cy asked, pointing at the off-white socket sticking out of Lumpy’s upper arm. “I never noticed it before.”
Mister Station dug a coil of clear tubing out of one pocket and a jar of clear liquid out of the other. He opened the jar, dipped both ends of the tubing coil into it, and started swirling them around as Lumpy replied.
“No, this is new; Makes it easier to attach those bags and administer medicine.”
Mister Station carefully handed coil of tubing to Lumpy, who made sure not to touch the ends, then held the small jar up to a connector on the bottom of the hanging bag. A familiar smell drifted over the group.
“Moonshine again?” Asked Bug. “You can use it for medical stuff too?”
“You shouldn’t.” Lumpy said, gently waving the coil back and forth to dry the ends. “These sorts of things are supposed to be single-use only, but since we don’t have a way to get any more or make any more, cleaning the hell out of them is the next-best thing.”