A/N: Well, not long ago, I wrote a fic called wear my boots into the ground as a one-shot. Then this happened. I have no idea where this is going or what I'm doing with it. You don't need to be familiar with either that story or The Stand to get this, but I would highly recommend The Stand anyway because it's awesome.
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue.
The Dirt Road: Prologue
Sam gets the flu in March. Jessica frowns in sympathy.
"Would you like some tea? Orange juice? Water?"
"I'm fine," Sam says and sneezes. He's trying to pull on his coat. Twirling around, he fails to catch the other sleeve.
"You're not seriously thinking of going into work, are you?"
"Can't," he shivers, "Can't stay home. Need the money. Gotta…"
Jess grabs his coat, sliding it off his shoulders, "Not today, Sammy." She says, "You can miss one day. You need rest."
She crawls into bed with him, later, after the light has faded, curling into his fevered body. "You'll get sick," he mutters.
"No I won't," Jess whispers. "I have amazing constitution."
~*~
June is warm in California. Sam gets home from class around two with sweat stains under his arms. Jogging up the stairs leaves him breathless. Getting out of shape, he tells himself as he swings the apartment door open. The sound of the television reaches him. In the kitchen, Jess is leaning her elbows on the counter watching it.
Although the military has yet to make a full statement, rumours are circulating about the quarantine of Arnette, Texas…
He reaches over and turns it off, even as Jess leans forward to kiss his cheek. "Ew, sweat."
"Yeah, well, not all of us have been in the nice air conditioned apartment."
She grins, "Someone's grumpy."
"Maybe someone can make it better."
This time, she pecks him on the lips. "After someone does the dishes like someone asked."
Sighing, Sam strips off his shirt. He'll do it after he showers. "What was that about, anyway?" He calls from the bedroom.
"What?"
"On the television?"
"Oh," she comes into the room. "Something happening in Texas, but what else is new?" Jess puts a hand on his shoulder, "How about pasta tonight?"
~*~
Sometime in the morning, long before sunrise, and long after midnight, his phone rings. He hears it on the cusp of waking. Then it stops and Sam falls back into the warmth of sleep.
~*~
They go to a bar a few days later. Jess drags him, actually. The air conditioner is broken, and Sam's been trying his hand at fixing it, even as Jess called the landlord. Despite the betrayal, he can't say no to the temptation of a cold drink over schoolwork in the hot apartment.
Zach smiles when he sees Sam. His eyebrows rise in mock surprise.
"Wow, the Winchester outside the library." He reaches out one hand and presses it to Sam's forehead. "You feeling okay? Not sick or anything, are you?"
"Shut up."
"Hey, I'm just concerned for your welfare, dude."
Zach knocks back a shot, then hacks into his hand, spewing vodka everywhere. Jess makes a face, pulling away.
"Jesus, that's disgusting."
"Y'alright, Zach?"
"Yeah," his face is red. "Went down the wrong throat."
Normal, Sam thinks, motioning the bartender for a glass of water. His own drink burns warmly all the way down.
~*~
On the wall, someone's drawn graffiti. A red eye watches Sam pass down the alley. It's dusk. Up ahead, the apartment windows are lit. He thinks he can see Jess's shadow there and then gone. The writing on the wall is shaky like a child's. Beware the Crimson King, it tells him. Whoever that is, Sam thinks coming to the foot of his building, he doesn't intend to be around to meet him.
When he comes in, Jess is cutting up vegetables. The radio is playing, asking baby, can you dig your man? He's a righteous man. She turns when she hears him at the door. In the light of the kitchen fluorescents, he's struck by how pretty she is. Even when she sneezes into her elbow, everything holds perfectly.
~*~
Zach doesn't make it to class on Wednesday. Sam thinks that he'll want the notes and resolves to take them to him. His cell phone rings. Several heads turn to look at him. He looks down sheepishly, fumbling desperately with it to either answer or turn off. As suddenly as it starts, it stops. He turns it off. Later, he'll get the voice mail. The professor walks in, and Sam holds his pen at the ready.
"Dude," Sam calls as he pounds on Zach's door. "I have notes for you."
The door opens slowly, and Sam pulls back at how ill he looks; the discolouration along his jaw startling against the paleness of his skin.
"Jesus," Sam breathes.
Zach nods and whispers, "Yeah." He winces in pain as he speaks.
"What is it?"
"Flu," he says and smiles wanly. "It'll pass."
~*~
--new strain of Anthrax--
Sam watches the traffic light. The car nearest him is blasting the news like Becky blasts house music from her stereo at parties.
--No cause for alarm—
It turns green, and the little yellow man appears. Just as he's about to step off the curb, he hears the telltale sound of an ambulance heading this way. He holds back, bumping into a woman and spilling the contents of her shopping bag all over the ground. Apologizing profusely, he helps her gather the stuff on the ground, shoving the bottle of cough syrup into the plastic bag as the ambulance passes. The car blaring the news follows immediately after.
~*~
He sees two military trucks the next day. Surprised, he stares until they disappear around the corner. Afterwards, Sam thinks the back of the trucks were too shadowed for him to be certain the occupants were wearing gas masks, but the image sticks with an eerie certainty in his head.
~*~
The professor doesn't show up the following class. After twenty minutes, Sam packs his bag back up and leaves. He debates about swinging by Zach's, but instead heads down to the library. Four ambulances and three cop cars pass him, all headed in different directions. For the first time in months, Sam finds his mind actively returning to Dean and Dad and what he'd last heard of them. It unnerves him. Readjusting his backpack on his shoulder, he hunches down, bracing himself for something he can't see coming. The library is closed when he gets there.
Work calls him. He puts the phone to his ear, listening to his boss ask him if he could take a shift on short notice. Jess will be peeved, he knows even as he accepts. The money is always useful, though, and with the library closed, he can't get any research done for his paper anyway.
"Fine, go," Jess says. She's still in her pyjamas and her nose looks red and raw. "I'm going to bed."
"I'll bring you some tea."
She grunts, shuffling off to the bedroom, stopping long enough to sneeze into her hands.
It's a slow night, and Sam spends most of his time watching the clock on the wall. At one point, he flicks on the radio.
--gunshots. They say…they say…We appear to have lost Gary, people. Riots like these haven't been seen since—
Changing stations, Sam settles on the familiar opening chords of AC/DC's Highway to Hell. It fades in and out like the station can't quite hold the signal. Bon Scott warbles over the static: the voice of a dead man. After only the second verse, Sam turns the radio off. There are goose-bumps along his arms. He takes out a rag and rubs down the counter for the fifth time. There are no customers for the rest of his shift.
~*~
The shower's running when he gets home. Sam pulls his shirt off in the living room. It clings to him, scratchy and uncomfortable against his sweaty skin. His jeans come next. He flings them over the back of the couch.
"Jess?" he calls. The shower doesn't falter. It fills the apartment, steady and understandable in its consistency. "Jess?"
In the kitchen he pours himself a glass of water. From outside comes the noise of sirens and something akin to fireworks. Sam turns on the television but there's only the news; men and women in suits and ties who smile shakily at the camera. He turns it off.
"Jess?"
The glass clinks when he puts it on the counter. Even dressed only in his boxers, the apartment still feels too warm. Absently he thinks the landlord hasn't been in to fix the air conditioning like he promised. Then he's in the bedroom and the shower is loud this close, the bathroom door open, letting the sound out. Jess is on the floor, naked, one arm out straight so that the back of her hand is on the floor of the bedroom.
"Jesus," Sam lifts her up before he realizes he shouldn't have moved her, just in case. She burns against his skin. "Jess? Jess, can you hear me?"
"Sam?" Her voice is hoarse and her eyes, opening a crack, are fever bright. "Sam?"
"Yes, yeah. It's me. Jesus, what happened?"
She shifts in his arms. "He was in the mirror," her eyes slip shut. "He was in the mirror."
She's delirious, he thinks, shushing her. Is it possible to be this warm and not cooking from the inside out? Gently, he carries her back into the bedroom.
"He was in the mirror," Jess is mumbling, "Grinning at me…"
Sam grabs the phone from the bedside table. The sound of sirens fills the night even as Sam dials 911. It's busy. Biting his lip, he pulls on another pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a pair of shoes, and wraps Jess in her bathrobe. In his arms, she dangles like a raggedy-Anne doll.
~*~
Jessica Moore does not make it to the hospital.
~*~
Back down a narrow alley, then out into a wide side street, a screen door is improperly latched. At the first bit of a breeze, it opens wide, letting whatever wants to, in. Up two flights of stairs the sound of a ringing phone echoes out from an apartment onto the deserted landing. An answering machine clicks on and takes the message. It continues to do so dutifully until a few days later when the phone lines go down. Still, it holds its messages until the power fails and they're lost. In the bathroom, the shower water, long since run from hot, to warm, to cold, leaks through the floor into the apartment underneath. Eventually the water mains shut down, and the water turns off suddenly, leaving only a small drip from the shower head that fades and finally stops. But the damage is done, and the mildew starts to grow underneath the floor.
Outside, the summer heat wave continues, cut only by the occasional breeze off the coast. It carries dust on its back instead of salt, thick and heavy in the warm air. The streets remain deserted with only the bloated rats slinking under the protective shadow of the night. At the first sound of footsteps, they flee back into the cracks they came from. Only a crimson eye, crudely painted on a wall bares witness to a human visitor, a man dressed casually in jeans and cowboy boots who whistles cheerily amongst the dead. He steps into an apartment building and back out a few moments later, disappearing down the street. Soon enough he's gone like he's never been there. For all the crimson eye knows, he never was.