Chapter Five: I may not be a smart man but I know when something's wrong

Joshua Gilcrest, better known to the folks in southern Georgia as 'that dumb big ox of a son those Gilcrest's have' or 'Ox' for short, rode beside his pa in the wagon, his concern growing for the other man.

They had left home before dawn this morning to go pick up the suitors that his pa had in mind to make Evangeline choose from. Evangeline was Ox's younger sister, twenty-two years old and the prettiest damn woman in the state of Georgia, and yet still unmarried. She said she didn't want to get married just to get married, she wanted to fall in love first. She admitted to Ox that she wanted to feel 'tingles' but he had grumbled under his breath and let her know that she shouldn't tell her overprotective brother things like that because if he ever caught a man giving her 'tingles' he'd kill him before the man could draw another breath.

Ox shook his head and turned his attention back to his pa. What had Ox worried was the fact that his pa seemed to be shivering and a sheen of sweat was covering the man's stern brow. Ox glanced around at the few ranch hands that had come to town with them to help with supplies and realized that they looked to be in the same shape as his pa was. Every man was very tired looking and all their shoulders were slumped.

Ox rubbed the back of his neck. "Pa, you feelin' okay?"

"I'm fine, Ox." Augustus snapped. Ox nodded and closed his mouth. His family hated him, it wasn't a secret and so everyone knew. Ox was a disappointment. At first glance Ox was exactly what every parent could wish for. He was tall, roughly seven feet, and he had thick muscles and broad shoulders, which had helped to earn him the name 'ox'. He was good looking, he knew that much was true because women flocked to him and rode him good and proper quite often, but they were always gone just as soon as the ride was over because Ox was dumb. His brain didn't work quite right.

His mama liked to say that God was so busy making Ox handsome that He forgot to fill his head up with anything other than hot air. It wasn't that Ox was dumb like people thought he was it was just that it took him a while to learn things, a long while. Long enough that his teachers and tutors had quickly given up. And he had a hard time turning his thoughts into words.

The only person in the whole world who seemed to like Ox and defended him was his sister Evangeline. She had taken the time, night after night, to teach Ox his numbers and how to read a little. He still couldn't read very good but he knew more words than he had before she'd begun their lessons. It was sad that he, a twenty-seven year old man, needed lessons from his younger sister.

"Are you sure, pa? Did y'all eat somethin' rotten? Ya look a bit ill."

"We ate the same things you ate, Ox and you're just fine so think before you ask me such ignorant questions."

"Yessir." Ox replied meekly as he looked down at his big hands folded in his lap. He hated that he always seemed to say the wrong thing to his pa. Every boy just wanted to make his pa proud but Ox had learned a long time ago that he never would.

"Sir..." A hand, Daniel, said with a groan as he rode closer. "I ain't feeling too good......"

"I bet I know what it is pa!" Ox spoke up suddenly and Augustus blew out an irritated breath before swiping his jacket sleeve across his sweaty brow.

"What, Ox?"

"That medicine. I'll just bet it's that medicine you all took. I didn't take none, nope I didn't, and I ain't a bit sick."

For once his pa didn't tell him he was wrong. Instead the man appeared thoughtful for a moment and then nodded.

"You might be right, Ox."

Ox smiled proudly and sat up a little straighter. Almost a week ago his pa had gotten a shipment of elixir in from up north. The box had come all the way from New York City according to the label and it had been a medicine. An elixir guaranteed to keep you from ever getting another cold, fever or illness again in your life.

Ox hadn't taken it because he'd never been sick a day in his life and hadn't figured he needed it and he knew that Evangeline hadn't taken it either. She'd refused just for spite since she was angry at their ma and pa, but right now Ox was glad she'd been childish. He sure would hate to see his sister looking like his pa and the hands looked right now. He and Evangeline were the only people, out of the twenty that lived at or worked on their plantation, that hadn't taken the elixir. Ox wondered if everybody was this sick come today? Was that why only these men had been willing to even get out of their beds this morning.. maybe they were the healthier ones. Ox chewed on the inside of his cheek hoping he was wrong. That wouldn't be good at all.

"Pa, maybe you should go see the doc." Ox offered as they rode onto the first dusty streets on the outskirts of Hagatha. Hagatha was a booming town at the center but the outskirts were all rickety buildings and dirt streets full of holes that jarred the cart Ox and his pa were riding in.

"I..I might..." Ox's head turned quickly toward his pa when the man began to stutter and then Ox nearly screamed when his pa began to shake violently. The reins fell from his hands and Ox was quick to grab them as his pa convulsed on the seat beside him.

Thuds around Ox had him realizing that the ranch hands had all begun to do the same thing as his pa and they had fallen from their horses.

"Pa!" Ox called when the man's face began to turn blue and it became clear that he wasn't breathing. He was just shaking, drool pouring from his mouth.

Ox cried out and then urged the horses into a gallop. The cart jarring and jumping along the bumpy dirt road. Ox held on to his father's jacket to keep the man from falling from the cart and he shouted for people to get out of the way as he raced down the streets and then turned onto the brick main street, nearly toppling the fast moving cart as it went up on two wheels.

He yanked up on the reins bringing the horses to a stop outside the docs and yelled for the old man as he jumped from the cart and pulled his pa down into his arms. His pa was convulsing so hard in his arms that it was hard to hold him, but luckily Ox was big enough to simply clutch the sick man to his chest.

He burst into the docs, causing the doc's wife who had apparently been filling the tea cups on a tray in the sitting room, to scream and drop her tea kettle, shattering it and sending pink and white ceramic shards scattering across the polished wood floor.

"Help my pa....!" Ox begged, tears filling his eyes and emotions clogging his throat as his pa continued to shudder in his arms. His pa's eyes had rolled back in his head, leaving nothing but white visible as he shook and his swollen tongue hung from his mouth.

"Vernon!" Clarice screamed and her husband came running into the room on his aging legs and gaped at the sight of Augustus in Ox's arms.

"Bring him in here and lay him down!" Vernon ordered, leading Ox into the bedroom he used for treating patients. Ox laid his father down on the bed, his father's body thrashing violently as his fingernails dug into his clenched hands so tightly that blood began to drip from his palms.

"What's wrong with my pa? Help him please!" Ox begged, ripping off his hat and clutching it tightly in his fists. Vernon pointed at the door.

"Get out. Go sit with Clarice." He ordered. Ox wanted to argue but Clarice grabbed his arm and tugged and he was too scared to fight her. His boots dragged on the floor as he made his way to a tiny arm chair and Clarice closed the door to the patient room.

Ox looked down at the tiny arm chair and realized there was no way he was going to fit there, instead he sat on the ottoman beside it, his knees bouncing as he squeezed his hat with all the strength he had and fought hard to hold back his tears.

"I'm sure things will be just fine, Ox." Clarice whispered gently as she patted his broad shoulder. Ox didn't bother replying and his gaze went to that bedroom door when silence fell behind it. The sound of his pa's thrashing ceasing suddenly.

Seconds ticked by and still that silence remained and the door stayed closed. Then suddenly a scream filled the air from inside that little room and Ox leapt to his feet when a crash sounded.

"Vernon!" Clarice cried as Vernon's blood curdling, pain filled scream came from behind that closed door.

Ox threw the door open and Vernon shoved past him and ran from the room.

"He bit me! That bastard bit me!" Vernon's arm was bleeding heavily and it did indeed look as if a giant chunk had been bitten out.

Ox looked into the room and saw his pa... .or at least it looked kind of like his pa... Gone were his pa's brown eyes that had always looked at him with such disappointment. They had been replaced by lifeless gray orbs. His father's face was covered in blood, the doc's blood? He was pale and his movements as he started toward Ox were jerking and hitching.

"Gnaaa!" his pa groaned, stretching out his arm toward Ox.

"Pa? Pa, what's wrong with you?"

Ox jumped backward when his pa let out a screech and then lunged for him.

"Pa!"

"Gnaa!" his pa said again and he grabbed Ox's arm. Ox stared in shock as his pa lowered his mouth toward his forearm and at the last moment Ox's instincts overrode his horror and he shook his father off, sending the man stumbling and staggering away from him.

Ox slammed the door to the patient room closed and then moved a chair in front of it to keep his pa locked inside.

Then he turned his attention to the doctor as Clarice backed away from the man. The doctor was beginning to shake, sweat was covering his brow. He looked the same as Ox's father had looked just before he'd went into convulsions on that cart.

"Doc, what's going on?"

"Nothing." Vernon insisted. "Your pa has something loose in his brain obviously."

Ox shook his head as he looked at the docs arm. How had his pa bit out a chunk that big? Ox could see the man's bone shining beneath the blood and torn muscle.

"Doc, you're not okay. You need a.... a doc." Ox insisted. His mind was racing but he was working hard to focus on one thing at a time. If he thought about his pa any more he was going to break down and cry.

"I'm fine, Ox!"

"I may not be a smart man but I know when something's wrong." Ox countered. It was then that the doc's eyes began to roll back in his head and he went into convulsion's, falling to the floor. It was also in that moment that Augustus burst through the closed door, shattering wood and screeching as he stumbled across the room and came upon Clarice, taking the sobbing woman to the floor and tearing into her with his gnashing teeth.

"Pa!" Ox exclaimed. He had to get his pa off that woman before he killed her! It was clear to Ox that his father was beyond saving. Something bad had happened with his pa's mind and Ox had to stop him. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Ox picked up the small armchair beside the fire and swung it, catching his pa in the head and shoulder and knocking him off the doc's wife. It was too late to save her, Ox realized, when he saw that the front of her throat was missing.

Ox felt bile rise in his own throat but swallowed it down and swung the chair again when his pa came for him, the chair splintered apart as it crashed into his pa's head, crunching against his skull.

Ox swallowed hard when his pa fell to the ground and didn 't move. "Pa?" he whispered. Still no movement. Blood ran from the man's ears and Ox realized he had crushed his pa's skull. "I'm so sorry, pa!!" Ox cried out as he fell to his knees beside the man and big tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes and slipped down his cheeks.

A movement behind him had him turning his head and Ox felt his blood freeze when he saw the doc and his wife both jerking and twitching as they fought to stand. Their eyes were gray and lifeless... sores were covering Clarice's face... How was she standing when her throat was gone?!

Ox knew he had to go... he had to get out of here. The medicine! The medicine had done this to his pa and everyone at the plantation had taken that medicine. Everyone except Evangeline!

Ox ran from the docs, startled when he heard the screams from the townspeople and realized that the ranch hands had become what his father had become and they were chasing the panicked people, biting, clawing and spreading whatever sickness that medicine had caused in them.

Ox saw a hitched horse in front of the tiny clothing shop beside the docs and didn't think twice before stealing it and hopping on. He had to get to Evangeline. He had to save his sister!