THE LAUGHING CROW: A CRYPTIC Anthology

Thanks, Obama

Bill tossed his eggs at the waiter. Well, if he were being honest, it was his eggs, half a slice of bacon and the plate on which it previously rested.

"Do you really expect me to eat that crap!" Bill shouted. "Are you trying to give me high blood pressure?"

The waiter bowed to Bill, his hands shaking at his sides. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, yolk dripping down his chin.

"Not yet, you're not," Bill said. He smiled, wondering what the best punishment for the boy might be. "Go lick salt for five minutes," he said finally.

"Thank you, Mr. Ingram," the boy said, running off to do what he was told.

Bill stood up and tossed his napkin on the table before leaving the restaurant. That was one of the perks of being a walking vaccine; you could do what you wanted, how you wanted, and people thanked you for it.

His two bodyguards trailed him, more for fashion than necessity. No one was stupid enough to harm Bill. Before the spread of the Obama Syndrome (technically the Otis Bannon Autoimmune Maladjustment Syndrome), he was just a guy whose tech support job had been outsourced to India. Now he was the mayor of New Ingram, a town he'd carved out of the carcass of the nation's capital.

And the people didn't like it...tough. That was what was wrong with the country. Too many people wanted things handed to them. Just like the president who'd gotten them into this mess. If he hadn't run the country into disaster and de-funded the CDC, they wouldn't have been in this mess. The plus side was, well, it had weeded out a lot of the liberals with weak constitutions.

Being the real American he was however, Bill's blood held a rare antibody that made him immune and could cure others. And as much as the egghead pharmaceutical companies had tried to replicate it on a large scale, they couldn't. The government couldn't force the cure from him, something having to do with stress or some other sciencey crap that tried to explain what it couldn't. God himself had given Bill the cure because he was righteous, and others only got the cure when he damn well pleased.

So, he'd become untouchable.

Bill walked down the street, ignoring the dead or dying near his feet. Large sections of their skin had gone gray and hard, leaving them moaning on the sidewalks. He could have had them removed, but the reminder of what could happen at any moment kept most people in line. Besides, watching the crows poke at the snowflakes was better than Duck Dynasty reruns.

Besides, they were mostly brown people. Who cared?

Bill had a meeting with Don Wilson, one of those science guys that wanted to take his gift. Don used to be the head of Wilson's Pharmaceuticals, one of the most powerful multinational corporations in the world. Now, if Bill walked into his office and peed on his rug, he could make the man lick it up with a simple nod.

"You killed my-."

Bill rolled his eyes. He got three or four of these a week. Some person would threaten him, give him some sob story and get torn apart by the mob. It was scary the first couple dozen times, but now, it was just annoying. He doubted the boy had bullets in the gun as rare as those things had become.