by Urban, Tony
She found the bible mostly confusing and more than a little boring in places. Some parts she just couldn’t get her head around, like why God cared whether people ate shrimp or wore cotton-poly blend. Emory assured her that it got better when Jesus came into the picture so she trudged on.
At the moment, she was a third of the way through the book of Job and the more she read the angrier she got. Why would God allow someone who loved him so to be tortured all because of a silly bet with the devil? It seemed like a very human thing to do and she’d always expected God to be better than the wretched people who treated each other so poorly on Earth. With her mood already sour, Emory’s question cut through her like a blade. Why would he call her ‘Birdie’, that horrible name that her father used to make her feel ugly and worthless? How did he even know about it? She’d never told anyone about ‘Birdie’ except Bundy and she was certain he wouldn’t have spilled her dirty secret.
Mina glared at Emory who wasn’t looking at her but instead staring into a thicket of pine trees that rose above the sprawling building that served as that the Ark’s meeting place and mess hall.
“What did you say?”
Emory looked over at her, then raised a crooked finger and pointed at the trees. “Did you see that birdie? I think it was a pileated woodpecker.”
Mina felt her anger dissipate like air gushing out of a balloon. “Oh. No, I didn’t.”
“Grant used to feed the birds. He kept a moleskin notebook filled with the various species, what they ate, the time of day he saw them. He was very detail oriented.”
Mina thought that sounded like a rich person’s hobby, but didn’t say that out loud. She liked Emory even though she knew he was the kind of person she’d never have associated with before the plague. No, if she’d have so much as seen Emory Prescott it would have been while she was pushing a cart of dirty linens up a hotel room hallway and he was going to or coming from his room. Although, she suspected Emory was much too rich to have stayed at the hotel she worked at. He’d never talked about money, but a poor person could tell a rich one, especially a really rich one, just by looking at them. It wasn’t their clothes or car or wallet. It was the way they stood up and carried themselves, all straight and perfect because they hadn’t been beaten down and stooped by life. Even if Emory was 80-some years old, he still stood like a rich man.
Before the birdie comment, Emory had been using a paint brush to apply rich, cedar-colored stain to the log siding which had started to go gray. He and Mina had been taking turns, but it seemed like he did most of the work. Mina thought it a bit of a sin to let him, but he didn’t seem to mind and the people who ran the Ark, Doc mostly, insisted that everyone had a job to do, even the old fogies.
The way Doc told it, the Ark was something of a hippie commune where everyone worked together to advance the greater good. But Mina never saw any of the higher ups digging ditches or emptying outhouse latrines. She supposed they did work but it happened behind closed doors and in secret. She was okay with that, as long as it kept them safe.
Aside from the log cabin, which was bigger than the school Mina had attended growing up, the Ark had several other buildings which spiraled out in circles. Among them was the medical clinic where Doc spent his days working on a cure and Ellen Sideris, the Ark’s real doctor, treated people for sprained ankles and stomach bugs.
Further out there was a small community of single-story, four-room houses where most of the Ark’s seventy or so original residents resided. Closer to the entrance, which was blocked by a tall wood and metal gate, were a half dozen decrepit house trailers where the few people who had arrived after the plague lived. The idea that they were segregated wasn’t lost on her. But again, as she stared out at the walls which lined the community, the razor wire looped atop to add further protection, she knew she was safe and that was enough. Right?
She thought it was. She told herself that it didn’t matter that they weren’t allowed to pick what jobs they wanted to do, but that the chores were doled out like the big boss telling everyone on the plantation what needed done that particular day. She told herself that it was alright for there to be a ’safety squad’ which was little more than a police force with a nicer name, one that she’d seen hand out punishment in the way of a billy club to the kidneys or a punch in the guts to men and even some women who they thought were causing problems. And she even told herself there wasn’t anything wrong with the box. That it was a necessity to keep everyone behaving and safe. But even she didn’t totally believe that one, no matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise.
“That has me curious. The birds,” he said.
In her daydream, Mina had forgotten about the birds and didn’t know what Emory was talking about. Not that that was unusual.
“How’s that?”
“Well, I’ve assumed the virus that started the epidemic was air born. That’s the only way it could spread so rapidly. And it was ruthless in its attack, not just infecting the humans, but killing the animals too. Wim said his entire farm was destroyed within a day.“
“Now, I can go along with the theory that this island is far enough from the mainland, and in a location remote enough that the virus couldn’t cross the waters to infect the livestock. And the decontamination procedures we endured when arriving might cleanse us of the virus, although I’m quite dubious about that myself. But what about the birds? They fly back and forth from here to the mainland. Why haven’t they brought the virus with them?”
Mina squinted her eyes, thinking. This was all so complicated and she wasn’t sure how it even mattered. There weren’t any zombies here and so far as she was concerned, that was good enough.
“Maybe they have. We’re not sick even though we were out there. I just figured everything here was immune like us.”
Emory’s mouth formed a wry smile that Mina couldn’t label as amused or condescending but the paranoid part of her, and that was a large part, leaned toward the latter.
“We know some people are immune, of course. And some animals too. But doesn’t it all seem too perfect that the people who created the Ark, the animals they brought here, are impervious to a disease that killed approximately 999,999 people out of every million?”
Mina didn’t feel up for a debate she was certain to lose. She tapped the bible on her lap and then cast a glance skyward.
“This book talks about all sorts of miracles. I don’t see how what you just said is any more farfetched than a man getting two of every animal on the planet onto a little boat and not having the elephants squish the mice or chipmunks.”
Emory’s grin broke into a full smile and he let loose a tired, but joyful laugh. “I suppose you’re right, Mina. It’s all about faith, is it not?”
“I don’t right know. I’ve got a lot of pages left to read yet.”
Emory opened his mouth as if to speak, but the steady whine of a quad stole both of their attention and they looked toward the sound. Mina knew Wim was out gathering supplies and she always felt a little tied up inside with nerves until he got back. She hoped it was him.
They didn’t share another word until the quad, and its rider, came into view in the far distance. Behind her, she heard shouting voices, their inflections panicked and angry. She knew one of the voices belonged to Phillip and at the sound, Mina’s knot of nerves only got worse. She didn’t remember much of her schooling, but for some reason she never forgot the way a history book had described Europe leading up to the first World War. The term that book used was ‘powder keg’ and she thought that was also the perfect word to describe the Ark.
Chapter 5
The heartbeat pounding through the stethoscope was strong and steady and the sound of it made Doc smile.
Ba bum. Ba bum. Ba bum.
He counted 142 beats per second. Fast. Might be a girl.
He could sense the woman staring at him. To Doc, she was little more than a vessel. A human Petri dish. But he felt obligated to keep her in good spirits for th
e sake of the life inside her and he eased a gloved hand down onto her skin, which felt hard and warm through the latex. He gave her belly a consoling, if awkward, rub and pat.
“Good. Very good. Everything is going remarkably well.”
She might have smiled. He couldn’t be certain because her mouth was a swollen, purple mass of ragged gums where her teeth had once been before Doc had extracted them with a pair of needle nosed pliers. Several had shattered in the process and he’d had to dig the shards free of her jaw. The process took hours and he lamented the fact that he hadn’t recruited a dentist. But it had to be done and, although it wasn’t pleasant for either of them, they were much safer this way. She was strapped to a hospital bed, her hands and feet belted tight and additional straps crisscrossed her chest and thighs.
Can never be to safe. He grabbed her chart and began scribbling notes when the radio squawked to life.
“Doc! Come in Doc.”
It was Vince’s voice and in only those four words Doc knew something was wrong. He’d brought Vince into the group five years earlier, at a time when the Ark was nothing but an idea inside Doc’s overactive brain and when ending the world hadn’t even crossed his mind. Vince, of course, didn’t know that Doc was responsible for the virus that had gone a long way toward wiping out humanity. Only those he trusted the most knew that. And that number was quite small.
Doc peeled the gloves off his hands, which had gone moist and clammy under the latex. That made the air feel even colder. Because the laboratory was buried more than 20 feet underground, it was easy to keep the temperature at a steady 50 degrees. Doc preferred the cold for a multitude of reasons, the primary being that it kept the odors at bay. Plain white tile lined the floors and walls, adding to the sterile feeling. A few dry erase boards stood on easels, all filled with notes and dates and projections made in Doc’s neat, tight writing. At the far end of the room were seven gurneys, each cloaked in white sheets which covered human-sized lumps. Doc found the sheets kept those lumps placated and quiet, which was appreciated as sound echoed down there.
“Do-“
Doc pressed the ‘talk’ button on the radio, cutting Vince off. “Vincent. I’m here.”
“Oh, thank holy God. This is a shit storm, Doc. Clark and Caleb are dead. And Wim brought back some kid who looks like he’s infected and if he ain’t then he’s practically dead anyway. He threw the kid on my four-wheeler and is heading for the village. I—“
Doc stopped listening. He didn’t know if this qualified as a genuine shit storm but it had the potential to go very bad very quick if he didn’t make the right decision. The residents of the Ark, people like Vince who didn’t know the fine details about why they were alive and most everyone else was dead, were terrified of the infected. They droned on incessantly about their worries of getting sick and dying and becoming zombies. Their fear made them easier to handle. Easier to control. Doc needed to keep that fear alive and if Wim had indeed brought a sick or dying person into their midst, they had to stay afraid.
“Vincent, don’t let anyone near Wim or the boy. Keep everyone at least 50 yards away from them until I get there.”
“Okay.”
Doc turned and looked back to the pregnant woman tied to the hospital bed. He seemed to recall that her name had been Juanita, but that didn’t matter now. Her long, ebony hair was unwashed and matted under her head which rocked back and forth, the few millimeters movement the straps permitted. Her eyes, which stared back at him were pained, pleading. She groaned, a raspy, agonized noise. Waiting the next few months was going to be torture. He wondered if she grasped the importance of the life growing in her womb. About her essential role in the rebirth of mankind. He doubted she had the capacity to understand, but that was just as well. It wasn’t the test-tube that mattered. It was the contents.
“And Vincent?”
“Yes, Doc?”
“Tell the others, if Wim gets himself or the boy near anyone, they have my orders to shoot them.”
Doc shut off the radio before Vincent could respond. That should do the trick, he thought. Shoot to kill always managed to work the masses into a panic. And Doc enjoyed a good panic.
Chapter 6
“Don’t come any closer, Wim!”
Wim stared ahead where Phillip had an assault rifle aimed in his direction and his finger on the trigger. He wondered if he would really shoot. Sometimes he thought the cop was all ego, but he also knew ego often led to poor decisions. And with a good thirty or forty people watching the situation unfold, he had more than an inkling that Phillip’s finger already had a one-pound squeeze on a three-pound trigger. Near him, four other men with guns, the ones who acted as the Ark’s safety squad aka security force, also had their weapons drawn and aimed.
“Phillip, I’m not going anywhere. But this boy’s dying and it’s not from the bug that killed everyone else. He’s injured and he needs help. Sooner too, because I don’t reckon he’ll be around long else wise”
Wim held the boy in his arms and he was so frail his muscles hadn’t even begun to tire. He did notice the boy was taller than he first thought and suspected he might not be a boy at all. He was probably a teenager, although he couldn’t hazard a guess whether he was early, mid, or late. Not with a face blackened with blood and swollen so full of pus that his skin looked tight as a water balloon getting ready to bust. Please don’t bust. I don’t want to see that.
A few yards behind Phillip, Wim caught Ramey watching. He couldn’t tell if the look on her face was concern or fear or anger or a combination of the three. He’d noticed that Ramey arrived at this scene with Phillip. And he also noticed that Phillip’s hair was wet and that Ramey’s jeans were unbuttoned. He tried not to think about that and told himself there were more pressing matters but his mind kept wandering back to it nonetheless. What was up with those two, he wondered. Whatever it was, he was pretty certain he didn’t like it.
Beyond them, he saw Emory and Mina’s faces peering out from amongst the crowd. He was a little shocked to see Mina there as she usually kept to herself when she wasn’t working. He wondered if everyone on the Ark had already got word of his exploits and from the way the crowd kept growing, he suspected that to be the case.
He didn’t recognize the voice of the first person who hollered but their words came through clear enough. “You’re going to get us all killed, you asshole! What were you thinking?”
With that, it was like a cork had been popped and a flow of angry shouts burst loose. Wim heard more accusations along with words like, ‘traitor’, ‘murderer’, ‘idiot’ and ‘dumbass redneck’. He took a little offense at the latter. He always thought himself to be a hillbilly and a hick but he wasn’t a redneck. A spattering of curses seasoned their accusations and Wim realized Phillip and his one-pound pull might not be the biggest of his worries after all. These people were one thrown rock or bottle away from becoming a mob.
How did we get to this point, Wim thought? Earlier that very year there had been hundreds of millions of people in the country and now most of them had either died or been eaten. It seemed to Wim that life should be more important now but as he stared out at that sea of accusing and angry faces, it seemed as if the only lives they cared about were their own.
He supposed that he was the fool in the situation. Nothing about life on the Ark had shown him that any of these people gave a second thought to the people who might be alive outside of this island. No one ever asked him if he’d found anyone alive during the supply runs. No one asked them what life was like out there. They were content to live inside their bubble and pretend as if the world wasn’t burning everywhere else.
As their shouts and screams became a chorus too loud to decipher, Wim took one more look at Ramey. She wasn’t crying out or joining in the verbal onslaught, but when their eyes met he saw something that hurt him more than if he’d have seen anger or fear, because, in her gaze, he saw disappointment.
Wim had little time to process that before Doc’
s voice blasted over the crowd.
“Quiet please, everyone.”
As if someone had pressed the mute button on a remote control, the voices fell silent. All heads turned toward the sound of the voice and Wim watched as the crowd slowly parted. Through the now clear path, he saw Doc, at least he assumed that’s who approached him, wading in like Moses walking through the parted sea. He couldn’t be certain because the person coming toward him was clad in a HAZMAT suit with only a small rectangle of clear plastic to reveal the wearer.
Doc raised a megaphone to his face and his voice boomed out again. “Please, everyone go back to your business. This situation will be contained and any issues addressed. Everyone will be briefed at the meeting hall at noon tomorrow.”
About a third of the crowd dispersed immediately. The rest lagged behind and they reminded Wim of the lookie loos who slowed down when passing a traffic accident or fire, not because they wanted to help, but to get a good look at someone else’s misfortune. Soon enough, they too left.
All that remained were Doc, the men with guns, and Ramey. When Doc reached her, he covered her forearm with his gloved hand.
“Go on now, sweetheart. We’ll take care of this.”
She looked to Wim, then back to her father. “Don’t hurt him.”
Wim couldn’t see Doc’s face but when he saw the tension flow from Ramey’s body he imagined the man had smiled. “Of course not. He made a mistake. A terribly dangerous one, but I suspect his heart was in the right place.”
Now it was Doc’s turn to look at Wim. “Isn’t that right, William?”
Wim nodded. “Everything’s going to be all right, Ramey.”
She brightened and her reaction seemed to annoy Doc. “Sometimes our hearts get in the way of our brains, but that’s just human nature.” Doc gave Ramey’s arm a squeeze, then nodded toward the direction of camp. “I believe you have some children waiting for story time, do you not?”
