“If this is the old man and the old woman from yesterday, what happened to the kids that usually accompanied them?”
There’d been two teenagers the last time, a boy and a girl. There’d been another kid. Older, almost an adult, watching over a younger brother and sister. But he hadn’t been seen for weeks. So many had been lost.
“Good question.” David dropped the duct tape into the case. “We’ll poke around after we’re done with these two.”
He just hoped they hadn’t joined the animals that kept adding to the body count.
Or had become their next victims.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Standing in the shade of the mesquite tree in her front yard, Mavis blew the steam off her mug. Her taste buds turned the rich coffee and hazelnut flavor to sour fear and bitter guilt. These were her neighbors—her friends for more than twenty years. How could she go out there and pretend that everything would be alright? That the future brought prosperity and health?
That death wasn’t in the very air they breathed?
She inhaled. She hadn’t worn her mask, hadn’t thought about the Rattling Death’s return in hours. She’d just been relieved to be… normal for a while.
And her selfishness could get them all killed.
“Are you alright, dear?” Nani Colombe crunched across the gravel and mesquite pods. With lines streaking her cinnamon-colored face, she reminded Mavis of an ancient apple-head doll—worn, leathery skin, and always wearing a smile, if not her false teeth. They clacked together now; denture adhesive hadn’t been a priority.
“The first years are always the hardest. Getting out of bed, eating, even breathing.” Nani set her hand over her flaccid chest. Veins popped under the loose flesh. “That emptiness of losing both your husband and son within a month of each other can never be filled.”
Mavis sucked on her bottom lip and tried to breathe despite the bands constricting her chest. Jack and Joseph. Her family. Gone. She shook her head to clear the thoughts.
“And then to have the dying time on top of it.” Nani rubbed Mavis’s shoulder. Her black eyes lost focus as if she looked back in time, comparing the eight people in the street to the forty there used to be.
So many vanished in the dying time—such a benign name for the carnage. Yet wasn’t worse to come? One in a thousand would survive. And if her simulations were correct, Nani would be among the first to go. The statistic wore her friend’s name. Medical dependence tagged the eighty-year old’s face. Tears closed Mavis’s throat and stung her eyes. “Oh, God!”
“Here, now.” Nani’s arm crept around Mavis upper back. “Let’s join the others. It’s not good to dwell alone in the house of grief. You begin to talk to yourself and smell.”
Walking toward the others, Mavis smiled and swiped at an escaped tear. “Are you saying I stink, Nani?”
“Who me?” Nani’s teeth clacked before she sucked them back in her mouth.
Ducking under a low branch, Mavis sniffed herself. She detected soap and powder fresh deodorant under the smoke. For a while there, the old woman had her going. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”
“It’s nice to see you smile again.” Nani patted her again. “You should practice it at least once a day. You’d be surprised what it will do to kick the dickens out of the mopes.”
“I’ll remember that.” Turning her head, Mavis kissed Nani’s hair and inhaled the scent of smoke, sunshine and shampoo. She wouldn’t let the Rattling Death’s return get her, get any of them. There must be a way to warn them and she’d find it. What was the point in having a genius IQ if you couldn’t help those you loved?
“Oh.” Nani touched the spot before sniffing and swiping at her eyes. “Now who’s causing trouble?”
Red flames flickered over the last of the yard scraps burning in the center of the street. Two clumps of three people chatted and gestured while Mr. Quartermain and his grandson, Justin, separated the recyclables—plastics, glass and cans. Always cans. Their rations came in ten-pound cans and sacks. The sacks had many uses thanks to Nani’s nimble fingers. The rest, they lugged to the recycling center a mile up the road for disposal. It had taken fewer and fewer trips as the influenza had worn on.
Where it used to take six of them two days of trips, now, one person could do it alone, in one trip.
“There she is!” Mr. Quartermain tossed an empty conditioner bottle into the half-full twenty-gallon tote. His spine creaked as he straightened. “I’d thought you’d fallen into the coffee pot and we’d have to fish you out.”
Dressed in a clean, red Superman tee shirt, Justin stacked the bin of cans on the one containing the plastic. “Can we go home now?”
She ignored his stink eye. The kid had been right to fear the Rattling Death’s return.
Mr. Quartermain shook his head. “In a bit, Justin. Don’t you want to enjoy the company of others?”
“No.” The boy thrust out his peach-fuzz covered chin. “I’d rather be home. You should be at home too, Grandpa. The smoke isn’t good for your COPD.”
Red surged into Mr. Quartermain’s cheeks. “Those eucalyptus branches that Nani Colombe has us burn are helping open up my airways just fine.” He coughed into a red and white handkerchief.
Mavis’s mouth opened. He actually did sound better than he had last night. Could smoke actually help?
Nani shuffled forward. “Infusing hot water with the leaves will help more. Just be sure to use a towel to tent the vapors, so they don’t escape.”
Of course! Mavis resisted the urge to smack her forehead. The oils could open the airways. Not that it provided a permanent fix, but it would help until his medicines arrived. Time ticked on her heart. Maybe some could last longer than their medicines. “I have some vapor rub. Probably better than inhaling the smoke to get the essential oils.”
“That would work, too.” Nani’s false teeth bulged against her lips.
Li Hao bent over the bin of glass and pulled out the two bottles. His thick, black hair hid his brown eyes. The middle-aged Asian was so slight; he could fold himself inside the tote and disappear. The loss of his wife and three children hung in the rings under his eyes. “I’ll help take these to the recycling center, and then we’ll harvest some of those eucalyptus leaves for your grandfather and Nani.”
“Wait!” Mavis raised her hand and everyone’s attention turned to her. The warning of the impending outbreak stuck in her throat. Scanning their faces, alit with hope and haggard with grief, she knew. They wouldn’t believe her. They didn’t want to. She raked her hand through her hair. Their physiological survival depended on the promise of normal.
And without a healthy will, the body would die. The high suicide rate proved that.
“Does anyone need anything?” She stuffed her fists in her pockets. God, that was so inadequate. Yet, what else could she say? Nothing, not until the dying started again.
Metal rattled when Justin lifted the can bin. Hefting it to his shoulder, he rolled his eyes and stalked across the cul-de-sac to his bicycle.
Li tossed the glass bottles into the plastic bin. His smile strained to make forays into his cheeks. “A steak would be nice.”
“Or hamburgers.” Malak Altair stopped leaning on the broom in his hands and swept a few stray leaves toward the glowing fire.
“Or anything that doesn’t come out of a can and taste like tin.” His wife Jasmine separated from two other women and pushed her wide broom. In their mid-thirties, the couple was the youngest of the group besides Sunnie and Justin. And the newest to the neighborhood.
Being immigrants, they had feared leaving their house when the pandemic hit. God knew the televangelists had blamed them, gays, women’s rights and everyone else who dared think for themselves. It had taken a month to coax them out of the house. A couple more months to earn their trust. Now they belonged as if they’d always been.
Justin dropped his bin into the modified child trailer attached to the back of his black mountain bike. Cans clattered t
o the ground and the plastic tenting quivered. “Mrs. Spanner already had her burger yesterday.”
With fresh tomato and beef. Mavis’s mouth watered at the memory. There was definitely something to be said about fresh meat and vegetables. And it didn’t exactly make her eager to throw together the soy beef stew she’d planned to solar cook in her backyard for dinner.
Twin sexagenarians, Rhea and Pearl Signey shuffled forward, shoulder to shoulder. Their velour sweat suits matched in style but Rhea always wore some shade of green and Pearl always wore white. The color coding helped to distinguish the two as they both had loose jowls, a ready smile, bottle brown hair swept up into a tight bun and identical maps of wrinkles. In addition, they either spoke in a chorus or they finished each other’s sentences. This time it was the former. “You went out?”
Mavis nodded, looking for an opening. There had to be one. Think. “Yes.”
Pearl held onto her sister’s hand but leaned over the embers of the dying fire toward Mavis. She licked her wrinkled lips. “What was it like?”
Lie. Make up a cough, a sneeze. She caught Justin’s eye then Mr. Quartermain’s. She couldn’t do it, not when the old man had vouched for her. Risked his life to defend her to the soldier, to David. “Tense. If anyone had coughed or sneezed, the place would have cleared out in an instant. And sad. There were so few children.”
The group’s collective sigh swirled through the ashes.
Nani wiped her cheeks with the corner of her apron. “I heard from my great-grandchildren yesterday. The government is arranging their trip to me.”
She clamped her lips shut, not saying what everyone knew—their parents and grandparents were dead, struck down in their prime by the influenza.
Pearl and Rhea bookended the octogenarian, wrapping their arms around her wizened frame. “I’ve heard the number of orphans in the United States is twice what it was worldwide at the end of World War Two.”
Evan Thomas cleared his throat and stepped forward. His gait was smooth despite the prosthetic leg. Lean and toned, the forty-eight year old had managed to retain his athletic build despite not being able to compete in any Ironman Triathlons in the last six months. “With so many children alive, there’s hope for a better tomorrow.”
A false hope built on bright sunshine and clear skies. While somewhere high in the atmosphere lurked a killer directly from China, waiting to rain down and pollute their lungs with disease. God, she was depressing herself. “I couldn’t believe the prices. They were almost twice what they were before.”
Jasmine tossed the last can into the child trailer. “They took money?”
Had they taken cash? Mavis closed her eyes. There’d been a couple with children. Others with none. Shaking her head, she looked at Jasmine. “Sorry, I was so busy people watching that I didn’t notice. I imagine they did. But since I had a card, I paid with that.”
Li tugged a bandanna out of his back pocket, rolled it into a strip and tied it around his black hair. “I heard that money is going to be a thing of the past. The government will have cards with amounts on them, since most of the money is pre-Redaction, this will protect those who didn’t get it the first time.”
Bless him. Li had brought up the Redaction. Now, all she had to do was mention—
“They’re not taking money?” Malak tossed a worried glance at his wife.
Evan lifted a five-gallon chlorine tablet bucket of water and dumped it on the smoldering ashes. “There’ll be vending machines with the cards so you can swap one for the other. Fair trade. We’ll make sure you’re not cheated out of a penny.”
Jasmine unscrewed the push broom from its handle. Her husband held the bristles while she mixed the water into the ashes with the fiberglass stick. “We’ll need every bit if the price of things has doubled.”
Pearl brushed ash from her white tracksuit, creating a gray smear on the fabric. “I hear they’re going to have fresh vegetables.”
“And fruits.” Rhea smoothed the auburn hair away from her forehead and tucked it obediently back into her bun. “I’d love a banana.”
“Oranges.” Jasmine leaned against the pole before her husband pulled her back.
Evan shook his head. “A cherry pie with a golden crust and a dollop of vanilla ice cream.”
Mavis placed her hand over her growling stomach. The oatmeal wasn’t sticking to her the way it normally did. Of course, it didn’t help that talk always turned to food when they got together for the weekly trash burning. It was normal given the diet each had been accustomed to versus the one they had endured the last six months.
“Speaking of pies.” Rhea giggled. “I made a mock apple pie with saltine crackers.”
Pearl nodded, her bun fixed on top of her head. “Found the recipe in our grandma’s box.”
Setting the empty pail down, he eased closer. The metal foot of his prosthetic clacking against the asphalt. “You gonna share?”
“Oh, yes.” Rhea smiled and delved into her green tracksuit pocket.
Pearl pulled index cards out of her white one. “We made copies for everyone.”
Mavis used hers to cover her mouth. Poor Evan, he’d wanted a slice of pie, not an index card. Her stomach seconded that thought.
Mr. Quartermain scanned the list, before stuffing the card into his pocket. “Now, all I need is some crackers.”
Jasmine nudged her husband. Malak raised his hand. “We have a couple of sleeves left. Anyone have any soap?”
“Got a bar, green stuff.” Evan tucked his recipe card into his pocket. “I think it’s Irish Spring.”
“I found some bubble bath from when my grandkids were little.” Nani shuffled to her adult trike and tugged the folded up shovel from her basket across the back two wheels. “It’s pretty dried out, but I think you can rinse out the bottle and get some suds.”
Jasmine set her hand on her husband’s chest. “I’d love that. I also have enough cinnamon and allspice for everyone to make the pie once. Who has buttons that need to be sewn on?”
Mavis smiled. The system of sharing they’d started at the beginning of the influenza was still going strong. It would help when the disease struck again.
Evan lifted the shovel out of Nani’s hands. Unfolding it, he walked closer to the ash soup. “What are you going to do now that you’re no longer needed to marshal the troops, Mavis? I hope you plan a long vacation.”
Around her, the others nodded. Her cheeks heated. It wasn’t like she’d survived alone. In fact, they’d all helped make it easier to go on. “I—”
“Mrs. Spanner is working for the military,” Justin spouted from his bicycle seat.
This time, Mavis met his glare with one of her own. Childish, yes. But it felt good to give the little twerp a taste of his own medicine. Not that he noticed. The kid simply smiled and sat up straighter.
“The military?” Eyes wide, Jasmine scooted behind her husband’s shoulder.
Metal scraped asphalt. Evan scooped up the goop in the street and dumped it into the pail with a splat. “What are you doing for them?”
Now was her moment. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Words abandoned her. Mavis blinked at the dwindling pile of ash. An idea broke free from the chunk of nothingness inside her head. “Looking into the Ash Pneumonia, predicting the spread and effects on the population.” Her gaze flicked to Jasmine and her husband. “That’s it. Nothing more.”
The couple’s shoulders drooped and their features relaxed.
Guess all their fear hadn’t gone away. Then again, neither had those televangelists. Mavis smiled, hoping to reassure them. She had some say in the government, and she’d make sure it protected everyone.
“Ash Pneumonia?” Jasmine moved out from behind her husband and began reassembling her push broom.
Time to add a little more information. Taking a deep breath, Mavis spoke, “China tried to use fire to control the spread of the influenza. All that ash was swept high in the stratosphere, where it got caught up in the Jet Stream
s, and is now literally raining down on our heads.”
Evan finished scooping up the remains of the garbage, and then dunked the shovel in a second bucket of water. “The armed forces have had over a thousand soldiers become sick from the rain. Haven’t you been watching the news?”
Nani took her shovel from Evan’s hands and used a rag to dry it. “The crisis has past and we survived. Better yet, my programs have returned. So why would I watch the news when, quite frankly, it’s depressing?”
Mr. Quartermain coughed into his handkerchief. Once his face returned to a more normal color, he looked her in the eyes. “It that something we should be worried about?”
Thank you, Jesus! Mavis finally had a chance to warn them without panicking them. “Yes, definitely, wear a mask.”
“Ack.” Nani tossed the folded up shovel into her basket. “Never again.”
Justin bounced his front wheel on the pavement. Cans rattled. “We’ve been out here for hours.” He glanced at his grandfather. “And this is the first time she mentions wearing a mask.”
Mr. Quartermain hurumped. “I don’t think you have equipment personally delivered by a full bird colonel if you have loose lips.”
Li maneuvered in front of the boy. “There have been no reported cases in Arizona. We’re okay. Mavis is only telling us as a precaution. She’s been outside longer than anyone, and isn’t wearing a mask. Would she risk her life?”
Guilt clawed at her back like a scourge. Licking her dry lips, Mavis tucked her shaking hands into her pockets. “The truth is I don’t know the level of risk for any of us. I was just brought the information last night.” She crossed her fingers. “And while, Li is right, there haven’t been any cases in Arizona, that doesn’t mean there won’t be. Both the polar and the tropical jet streams merge over China, so it is possible for the ash to reach us.”
“There, you see.” Li set one hand on Justin’s handlebars and gestured toward her with the other. “She’ll tell us if there’s a threat, but she’s not about to panic us with rumor and innuendo, like those websites you visit.”
Redaction: Extinction Level Event (Part I) Page 22
