“I don’t know,” Miles said, walking to his messy-with-stuff metal desk. “But if it’s true about Dancing With The Stars being rigged, then I don’t want to go on living.” He enjoyed pulling Price’s chain.

“Don’t believe seventy-five percent of what you read, or what you hear on the Tell-U-Vision. You want to know my formula? I take everything and I divide it by the BS Factor,” Price said, taking off his glasses. His voice trailed off, lost in the clatter coming from one of the paper’s antiquated fax machines. Price opened a window on his computer and beckoned Miles over.

“Look at this,” Price said.

United Press International

Big Bear, California

Mass hysteria has hit Big Bear, California and several small towns in Southern California.

People in the town of Big Bear have gone missing, say their loved ones. They’re missing in Bakersfield, Needles, Los Angeles, and hundreds of other small towns in Southern California. Not just one or two people, reports say, but tens of thousands in the last 48 hours, according to police sources. Relatives of the missing have jammed the police station in Big Bear looking for their loved ones who, they say, have literally disappeared off the streets and homes of this high-desert community, 70 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Authorities have no explanation for the disappearances.

“Now, even I don’t believe that,” Price said. “I’ll call my friends at the Times and they’ll get a big kick out of this. You’ll see.” Price looked at the copy and shook his head. “I think it’s some kind of New Year’s joke.”

“It’s the first of February,” Miles said. He lifted the lid on his cup of coffee and peeked at it.

“We’ll run it on page two. Follow up. It’s a good story, win or lose,” Price said.

“You’re kidding,” Miles said.

“Miles, will you please stop questioning authority. We are a small country newspaper. You are a small-town reporter; we are losing readers every day to Oprah Winfrey and unwashed, hare-brained bloggers, not to mention Twitter. Now get on the damn phone and get the story from—where is it?”

“Big Bear,” Miles said. “I thought you were just telling me how I’m supposed to question authority.”

“Don’t argue. And don’t forget you have to be at the Genesoft news conference at eleven sharp this morning. They have several new food products to announce. We’re going to give them a full page this Sunday,” Price said. “I promised the CEO, yesterday at lunch.”

“That’s not news, that’s public relations,” Miles said.

“Welcome to the news business,” Price said. “They scratch our backs—”

“We scratch theirs,” Miles repeated Price’s favorite saw. When he was first hired, fresh out of journalism school, the young reporter had been shocked to learn how much PR copy the Herald used. The paper often published whole stories that had originated in some big New York City PR firm, and were part of an expensive US-wide PR campaign.

Price turned around and left for his corner office. Miles printed up the UPI copy and went to his desk. He underlined the first four towns mentioned, then went to his computer and Googled Big Bear’s municipal listings for the police department’s non-emergency number. He dialed it. No one answered.

Well, so far, it’s no lie, Miles thought and hung up.

        *   *   *

From his office window, Dr. Marvin Poole watched the string of colored Christmas lights twinkle out on Main Street. The doctor could see his new Volvo station wagon where he’d parked it earlier that morning, with several inches of new snow on the hood and roof. A sheriff’s car drove by in the misty grey penumbra. Poole saw T.C. McCauley, one of his patients, at the wheel. He caught a glimpse of Willis Good in the back of the patrol car and he shook his head. He’d treated the Good children only a few days before. He couldn’t believe what he’d read in the paper: that Willis had murdered his family in cold blood—all of them.

He made a note to call Willis’s mother and see if he could do anything for her. He’d always had a weak spot for the poor woman and her son.

“I have CDC on line three, doctor.” Marvin Poole heard his receptionist on the intercom and he reached for his desk phone, chagrined. It was hard to call a place where he’d once worked. He missed his former life; he missed walking into the middle of an epidemic in the backside of nowhere. But he was younger then, he reminded himself, and picked up the phone. Working at CDC was a job for young doctors.

“Doctor Poole, good morning, this is Dr. Franzblau. I got your message. I was intrigued. We haven’t had any cases of spinal meningitis west of the Rockies this year.”

“I’m not sure that’s it,” Poole said. “I spoke to the Virology department at UC Davis and we were discussing it. There was some disagreement. I’m a virologist, but right now I run a family practice. I used to work in Atlanta for you guys, though.” Dr. Poole slipped that in.

“Really,” Franzblau said. Marvin could tell that Franzblau could care less. “What division?”

“Childhood diseases. I was just out of medical school.”

“Yes,” Franzblau said. “Mosley is the head man now.”

“I’m sure you’re busy, so I’ll try and make this quick,” Marvin said. He watched his secretary push open his office door and put down a note by the phone.

The waiting room is bursting.

The word “bursting” was underlined twice in red.

“Well, as a matter of fact I am,” Franzblau said. “What do you have, doctor?”

“Sixteen cases that look like bacterial-related spinal meningitis. All acute. Just developed symptoms overnight. Ages range from ten up to fifty-five. So it’s all over the map, age-wise. There is lower-tract discomfort, vomiting, confusion, seizures. But here is the odd, but signature symptom: numbness in the extremities. All the patients complain of numbness. And copious amounts of phlegm. Something I’ve never seen before.”

“You’re in Northern California?”

“Yes, a small town in the Sierra Nevada—Timberline,” Poole said. “Backend of nowhere.”

Marvin could tell the voice on the other line didn’t agree with his call of meningitis. He’d been around doctors long enough to tell when interest turned to skepticism. They usually just shut up then.

“You say in your email there have been no deaths. My guess is that we have a flu strain that is off our radar—hence the phlegm. But we’ll check the blood work. Send it in,” Franzblau said in a slightly patronizing tone.

“I’ve got several samples here on my desk, ready to send,” Poole said.

“We have a lab in . . .  let me see. Bakersfield.” Franzblau gave him the address.

“One other thing, doctor,” Poole said. “All the patients are suffering from neology, young and old. They are acting, quite suddenly, like schizoids.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Poole said. “They all start speaking gibberish. Patients who were perfectly sane. A lot of them talk about hearing God, or the Devil, speaking directly to them. The excessive phlegm seems to come on at the same time as the neology.”

“All right, let’s do the blood work-up. We’ll go from there. I’ll have someone here contact you as soon as we have something. You were right to call, doctor,” Franzblau said, his tone reversing to one of real concern.

Poole hung up the phone. His gut told him he’d missed something. He looked at the snack he’d bought from the new vegan restaurant in town: a bran muffin and a cup of coffee that he hadn’t had time to touch. He opened the white bag and took out his coffee.

He’d ruled out E. coli days before. Several of the patients had switched to pasteurized drinks since the last E. coli scare had hit the Whole Foods Market in Nevada City. Several patients had been in San Francisco and had just arrived in town, with no strong connection to anything in Timberline itself. He’d carefully queried them all about what they’d eaten, and whether they had traveled recently.