Excerpt:
The Legman and Alice Malokey sit in her office in Atlanta.
The Legman asks, “What the hell is going on? Where did this Covid-666 come from and why didn’t the Witches Council try to stop it?”
“It came from China. It was a bio-terror attack but we have not been able to figure out who is behind it. We know the lab where it originated. We know some of those who were working with the virus. But we don’t know who all got into the lab and gained access to the virus. The virus was supposed to be neutral and not deadly. The object of the study was to try to create a virus that would create herd immunity to hiv. Someone took the neutral virus and weaponized the virus but we are not sure who did it.”
“Have you all used magic to try to neutralize it?”
“Yes but with only minor success. And it weakened itself. At ground zero it was extremely deadly but by killing the host so quickly, that mutation did not spread very far because there was no surviving host to spread it. That is the reason some in China jumped to the wrong conclusion that it was being spread by animal to human contact. They figured the human was dying and therefore there had to be some animal that was surviving and spreading the disease. Then they realized there were weakened mutations of the virus spreading the disease.”
Hearthville Serial
Book 6
Any Truth, Proper Grammar, or Correct Spelling is totally coincidental if not accidental.
All characters are fiction. This story is fiction. This story makes no claims about any real person.
By Charles Peters
Copyright 2020
All Rights Reserved
Chapters
Chapter 4
The Legman and Alice Malokey sit in her office in Atlanta.
The Legman asks, “What the hell is going on? Where did this Covid-666 come from and why didn’t the Witches Council try to stop it?”
“It came from China. It was a bio-terror attack but we have not been able to figure out who is behind it. We know the lab where it originated. We know some of those who were working with the virus. But we don’t know who all got into the lab and gained access to the virus. The virus was supposed to be neutral and not deadly. The object of the study was to try to create a virus that would create herd immunity to hiv. Someone took the neutral virus and weaponized the virus but we are not sure who did it.”
“Have you all used magic to try to neutralize it?”
“Yes but with only minor success. And it weakened itself. At ground zero it was extremely deadly but by killing the host so quickly, that mutation did not spread very far because there was no surviving host to spread it. That is the reason some in China jumped to the wrong conclusion that it was being spread by animal to human contact. They figured the human was dying and therefore there had to be some animal that was surviving and spreading the disease. Then they realized there were weakened mutations of the virus spreading the disease.”
“I see. It all sounds like a bit of human folly. But here is the thing. All magic that I have attempted to use against the virus has pinged.”
“We have had slight more success than that but not much.”
“Is this something that Lucifer is doing? Is this happening at the computer code level of the machine?”
“We are pretty sure the code is being added by activity inside of the machine. We don’t think this is an act of Lucifer or of God. We believe that a witch is involved although as you have said, it may simply be human folly. Regardless, neither Lucifer nor God have intervened against the virus though we are pretty sure neither of them entered the code into the machine.”
The Legman asked, “So what are we going to do?”
“What can we do?”
“I don’t know. I hate to bring this up. I do not even want to suggest the thought. Still, I must. When Victor sent Belial to hell, he freed all the souls that had been caged on Pluto Viso. Some of the souls are dangerous and evil. Just because Belial saw them as his enemy does not mean they were all sugar and spice and everything nice.”
“Is it possible that one of the evil ones made it to earth and travelled a short distance back in time to begin this pandemic? I mean, that is not likely, is it?”
“I don’t know. Still, many of those souls should never be allowed to travel to earth.”
“I was so busy considering how great it was that Belial was sent to hell and all the good souls who were freed, I didn’t even consider the evil ones who were also freed.”
“To be honest, I didn’t either.”
***
Victor arrives home. He walks into the kitchen and hugs his mom.
Judy is sitting at the table with her laptop computer. She looks up at Victor hugging their mom. She teases. “Come on now. Social distancing.”
Victor doesn’t understand. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Ellen says, “They are telling people to stay six foot apart.”
Victor rolls his eyes. “I guess it is good that the dead are put six foot under.”
Judy moans. “Not funny. People are dying.”
Victor says, “I had no idea what was going on. I had not been watching the news.”
Stewart and Harry come into the kitchen.
Harry says, “So what the hell happened to you, Deven, and Leroy on the boardwalk during the fight. I got a glimpse of you and then you were gone.”
Stewart says, “Patrick was in danger and we were trying to help him. It all was confusing.”
Harry says, “Yeah. That is true. I wasn’t paying much attention to Victor but enough to wonder.”
Judy teases, “You better watch out Victor. Harry is going to find out about your trip to some imaginary planet called Pluto Viso.”
Victor laughs. “I know seriously. See. Judy. You and I can have weird conversations also, so there is no reason to be jealous.”
Stewart throws his head back in laughter.
Ellen Duddley stares at her children. She asks Harry. “Do you have a clue to what the joke is?”
Harry shrugs. “No clue at all. Pluto Viso?”
Victor says, “Just a weird dream.” Quietly Victor adds, “I guess.”
Stewart says, “The other night I dreamed I was playing football again. God, I wish that dream might come true.”
Victor pats his brother on the back. “It might.”
***
It is not yet quite dark.
Wade Essy and Bryan Wohan enter Wade’s camper that he has parked at the Hearthville Lake View Trailer Park. At the moment he is at a campsite that is right at the white sandy campground beach on the Hearthville Lake.
Bryan says, “Nice. You have cameras all around your bed.”
“I sometimes do shows on one of the cam model websites.”
“Oh.” Bryan walked over to Wade’s computer. “Nice laptop computer. You have it set up with three monitors.”
“Yeah. They are handy when I am doing a show and checking out other models. They also come in handy when I am trading stocks.”
“I wish I had my computer. My wife wouldn’t let me pack anything.”
“What did you do to piss her off?”
“I caught her in bed with a neighbor lady and silly me made a big deal about it.”
“You should have hopped in bed with them.”
“That thought never crossed my mind. The neighbor lady is ugly as shit. I have no idea why my wife would want to suck her pussy.” Bryan continued to look at the computer. “God, I want my computer.”
“We could go break into your house and get it.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not? It is your computer.”
“I’d get caught and she’d send me to jail and I could not pee in front of the other inmates and my bladder would explode and I would die.”
“Yeah. Well. Like I told you. You are already dead.”
“Please don’t start that again. Do you have a television?”
“I don’t watch TV.”
“Do you have a netflix account?”
“I hate movies.”