by RWK Clark
I looked up at him. “My mom and dad, Jace. All of Tulsa. The government said… said…,” I broke down yet again, losing control over my ability to talk.
“There was news? You were able to get news?” I nodded as best I could, and Jace took my hand and led me to the living room. He put me in the rocker and sat on the floor next to me. He used the remote control to turn the T.V. on, and for the next twenty minutes we listened to a few normal people fill us in on what was happening on the late, great planet Earth. Jace was silent and sober. I continued to cry, and could barely make myself look at the set. They pinpointed nearly every major American city as having fell victim to the infection which was overcoming mankind.
Finally, Jace turned the T.V. off, and the two of us sat still in the dark, turning the news over in our heads, struggling to accept what was happening. Finally he spoke.
“It seems they have no idea it’s the water. Why didn’t they mention the water? Could the CDC be keeping it a secret, and if so, why?” I just looked at him with wide eyes and shook my head. “It’s okay, Alicia. We know, and we are going to do something about it.”
In a split second my life with my mom and dad passed before my eyes, and I became even more determined to destroy the nastiness that was taking place all around us as soon as possible. I looked at Jace and nodded, smiling through my tears.
CHAPTER 19
Only minutes later we were in the kitchen and Jace was unpacking the things he had brought. While he laid stuff on the table he paid little attention to any of it. A bottle of iron pills, a few notebooks of paper, a pack of pencils, a calculator, multi-vitamins. He then pulled out the small box that contained the home pregnancy test. I already knew, but I think he wanted the peace of mind of knowing for sure, so without a word I took the box from him and went into the bathroom.
Sitting on the side of the bathtub I began to thoroughly read the instructions. By the time I was finished my thoughts had gone completely haywire. Pregnant? How could this be? Well, come on, Alicia, you have been having sex right and left for months with no protection whatsoever. Did you think you were immune to pregnancy? I simply shook my head in response to myself and stood up, pulling down my sweats as I did. I squatted over the toilet and began to pee, holding the stick in my urine stream just as the instructions directed. I then sat it on the edge of the sink, not allowing the end to come into contact with the porcelain, and I wiped and pulled up my pants.
I opened the bathroom door and walked into our lab, fetching the timer from the card table. I set it for ten minutes and headed back to the bathroom. Jace appeared.
“Well?” His eyes were bright, almost excited.
“It’s going to take ten minutes for the results, Jace.”
He let out a gust of air and nodded. He turned and went back into the kitchen to tend to whatever it was he was doing. I entered the bathroom and locked myself in. Taking a seat on the closed toilet lid I began to think about my parents again, and once more I found myself on the floor of the bathroom, crying my eyes out, my face buried in a towel so Jace wouldn’t hear me. How I wish my mom were here doing this with me! Her and my father would be a bit disappointed, but the joy they would feel at the thought of a new family member would outweigh the disappointment. They had been so easy going, so down to earth… such wonderful parents. Why them and not me?
∞
The time went off and jerked me back to reality. I turned it off and wiped my eyes, looking up at the stick on the sink. “Come on, Alicia. It’s time for the verdict.” I got up off the floor and picked up the stick.
It revealed a clear “+” sign. Positive. Pregnant.
“Alicia?” Jace was already at the bathroom door. He must have heard the timer. I could tell he was anxious by the sound of his voice. I have to admit that I was a bit excited myself, no matter how much sense a pregnancy didn’t make right now. The thought of something to actually be happy about was an idea I really needed.
I reached out and unlocked the bathroom door. The knob turned and the door slowly opened. Jace looked at me with wide eyes.
“Well? What does it say?” He looked almost scared.
I kept my face devoid of emotion on purpose. Might as well keep him in suspense. Might as well make this moment as joyful and fulfilling as possible, regardless of the circumstances.
I held the stick out to him. “Why don’t you see for yourself, dad.”
He barely cast a glance over the little tattletale device before a huge “Whoop!” flew from his mouth. He picked me up and spun me around, and before I knew it I was being smothered in his kisses. “Oh, Alicia. We have a reason bigger than us now. We have something that is part of you and me, and we will love it and do whatever it takes to protect it. Did you eat? Are you hungry? How do you feel? Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you or make you…”
“Jace, I’m fine! I feel fine! Aside from a broken heart over my parents I feel like a million dollars right now. Maybe this is just what we both needed to keep going. Maybe you are right.” He took me by the hand and led me to the kitchen where he sat me down and put two pills, iron and a vitamin, in front of me.
“Take these and listen while we go over my math and my plan.” I did as he told me and then focused on him completely.
He sat in the chair across the table. “Okay. I did a bit of research on the laptop and found out how much water we are actually going to try to clean up in this city. We have the L.A. River, which is a dump anyway; that’s going to be the toughest part. Then we have lakes and reservoirs, and it is only a small portion of that which we are going to be dealing with. Now, the problem is the ocean waters but I don’t think we should mess with Santa Monica Bay or the Dominguez Channel. I think we will be able to get pertinent results if we stick to the lakes and reservoirs. We will do the lake first. I don’t think those were initially polluted because the sewers which transport pharmaceutical waste do not empty into it. Regardless, we are talking about millions of gallons of water flowing out of the city per day. I have decided I am going to concoct forty gallons of the mixture. We will dump thirty gallons directly into the lake water, but we will test it first. We will hide out and take samples periodically to check the bacteria level, and if the results are good we will head to the reservoir, for testing and treatment. If we don’t like what we see we will add more chemicals to the lake right away to avoid bacteria regrowth, and of course, we will have to take our equipment. I am also going to mix up some extra gallons, which will enable us to dump in extra gallons if we do not see the results we desire, but I believe we will, Alicia.” His eyes were lit up with eagerness.
“Even if this doesn’t work on the grand scale we hope it will certainly cause enough damage to the bacteria to wipe out most, if not all, of the zombies milling around the area. That will make the remaining numbers easy to handle, if there are any.” He nodded in response, and then picked it up from there.
“The good news for us is that it hasn’t rained. That will keep it from spreading while we contain it. The water from storms is not treated at all. Since we dumped the supply at the treatment plant all we need to focus on is the local bodies,” he stated. “This is going to work. If nothing else it is going to give us a chance to get out of here safely and get in touch with the CDC with the information we have.”
It was a good, solid plan, worthy of execution. I was anxious to get started. “When do you plan on getting the chemicals and the antibiotic?”
He looked at me and smiled. “I have a trunk full. I think it will be close to enough. I will begin whipping it up, and whatever else I need I can get in town. Right now I also have the back seat and passenger side of the Focus pretty filled with empty milk jugs and bleach bottles. Those will hold the anecdote. That was what took me so long; I was stopping and gathering… digging in the garbage. Is the still full? We need to use the water to clean the jugs out, and we need to get more water purified. We need a total of fifty gallons worth. One gallon per jug to wash and rinse, no more.”
/> Everything was really falling into place, and I knew deep in my heart that it was going to work. We were going to be fine. Our baby was going to be fine. I stood up.
“Okay, Jace. Let’s not put this off another minute. It’s time to get started.” I headed to the still, and Jace headed to the garage to begin bringing in empty bottles and other supplies. It was the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER 20
For the rest of the night and into the following evening Jace and I worked cleaning containers and mixing chemicals to refill them with. I napped on three occasions for only an hour at a time. I didn’t want to leave all the work to him, not to mention the fact that the faster we completed the job the sooner we could put the meat of our plan into action, and that was really my focus. I wanted to get out of this house, but I wanted to be safe. I wanted the world I once knew to exist again, so even though Jace nagged me to rest and eat, I drove myself to help as much as possible.
Our spirits had lifted significantly, and then task was actually fun. We talked and laughed. I cried a couple of times, but only when my focus shifted to my parents. Jace would console me, and once I was calm I would shake him off so we could get back to work. He was so patient and wonderful. Would I have ever met him had this terrible thing happened? I knew I likely would not have, at least, not in this way or for this reason. I suppose if we were ‘meant to be’ nothing could have stopped our fated union, but who knew?
∞
Jace had to go toward the city at around eleven the next morning to gather more containers. He was gone about an hour and a half. It was uneventful time; I continued to prepare chemicals so they would be ready when he returned. He came back with more jugs and bottles than we really needed, and once they were clean and filled with the antidote we began to neatly pack them into the trunk and backseat of the Focus. They all fit neatly inside.
Next we packed up our needed lab gear and notebooks, and once we were sure we had everything we needed, including some food for the trip, it was five o’clock in the afternoon. Jace wanted to leave at 8:30 p.m. and it sounded perfect to me. We grabbed a bite to eat, cold sandwiches and chips, and laid down to catch a bit of sleep before it was time to leave. We were way too tired to think about making love, and my stomach had been pretty upset for the last few hours. The food had helped, but I was queasy lying next to him. He snuggled me close and in minutes we were both dreaming.
∞
I woke to Jace gently nudging me awake. “Time to get the cobwebs out, Leesh.” He was rubbing my back a bit, making me moan with contentment. It was times like this that I really wanted all of this to be nothing but a bad, bad dream, but alas…
We sat at the table having a couple of cups of instant coffee made with distilled water. Jace made sure our tank was full so we would have water when we returned, while the zombies were dying off. While we drank Jace spoke up about the baby.
“Alicia, I hope you feel good about the kiddo. I do. I’m excited, and I want us to both be happy.” The look on his face was almost childlike expectation, and it brought a smile to my face.
“I have to admit, before finding out about the condition of Tulsa I was a bit nervous. All I could think about was bringing a child into this disaster and trying to protect it and provide for it. Once I learned about my parents, well, my heart was broken even more because I realized that I was happy about it, and I couldn’t share my joy with them… ever.” I looked down at my hands and then back at him, smiling with reassurance. “I’m good, Jace. No worries.”
He got a serious look on his face. “If and when we get through cleaning up this mess I want to marry you, Alicia. Would you marry me?”
I honestly hadn’t thought about that aspect of it, and when I considered it I had to admit that it made no sense to me. Marriage was a legal commitment. Was there even going to be ‘law’ anymore? Would a piece of paper matter, if indeed there was one?
“I don’t know if it will matter, legally speaking Jace. But if you want we can always take vows ourselves if it doesn’t.” His entire face began to shine as he smiled.
“You bet your ass.” He drained his cup, prompting me to do the same. We stood and put our jackets on, then proceeded to move the china hutch, grab our sturdy bats, and head out to the car.
It was time to eradicate the gray-faces. I couldn’t have been more excited.
We had decided to start with the lake. It was terribly polluted, and had been for a while, and since the creek was fed by it, we may discover we don’t need as much of the antidote, if any, when it came time to do the reservoir. We drove to an area which provided us with a bridge under which we could set up shop, and we were even able to park the Focus in a discreet manner. It was perfect for our mission.
We unloaded our equipment and set that up first, along with a small, battery powered lantern he had brought from the garage at the house. We then began to unload thirty containers of the antibiotic mixture. Next, Jace filled a clean water bottle with water from the stinking lake and brought it to our little outdoor lab, where he immediately tested it.
“Take a look,” he said to me, moving to give me access to the microscope. The water was filled with the vile bacteria. It had overtaken the drug molecules in the water to the point that they were hardly distinguishable at all. My stomach lurched hard. Between the look of the water and the smell of it, my delicate stomach was a mess. I jumped back, turned my head, and promptly deposited my sandwich and chips onto the rocks under the bridge.
Jace was right there, though, stroking my back and making soothing sounds. When I was done he handed me a paper towels soaked in distilled water, and I cleaned my face off. He then gave me a drink of the same so I could rinse out my mouth. I loved him; he was so very good to me.
When I had my wits about me we conferred. “Okay, gross as it is, this is what we needed to see. Now it’s time to get pouring.” We had the bottles with the antidote lined up along the waterline so dumping would be fast. We took all the lids off. I listened closely to the sounds around me while we unscrewed the caps from the bottles. I could swear I heard the uneven shuffling sound of the feet of a gray-face, but at that point one gray-face didn’t matter. We could end him with one swing, so I didn’t let myself become distracted.
When all the bottles were open Jace said, “You start at this end, I’ll start down here. Let’s go.” We began emptying the bottles into the lake at a record pace, and in less than two minutes the job was done.
Jace set the timer on his cell, and rather than having the alarm go off he simply watched the screen. We waited five minutes instead of only two, just for good measure, and when the time was up he took a clean water bottle to the lake’s edge and filled it. Bringing it back, he then placed two or three drops on a clean slide and put it under the scope. Waiting for him to look at the sample and give me a response was probably the most anxious period I had endured all day.
He looked up at me with a broad smile. Even in the shadows his eyes lit up and danced. “It’s working, Alicia! It’s working like crazy.” I jumped over to the microscope and took a gander for myself. Sure enough, there was only a small amount of bacteria, and it was fading fast. The water almost looked as good as our distilled stuff.
I couldn’t believe it. I stood up, but within seconds Jace had me in his arms hugging me tight. “It’s gonna be alright. I knew it! It’s really gonna be alright.”
I felt ecstatic, but apprehensive. “Jace, we need to wait and test it again in a bit, you know, just to be sure.”
“I know, I know, but it will be fine. Let’s sit and wait another ten minutes or so.” We planted ourselves on a blanket we had brought, and I used distilled water and rubbing alcohol to clean up our slides and droppers while we waited, drying them thoroughly when they were clean.
After another ten minutes had passed Jace filled another empty bottle and brought it up for testing. I was a bit doubtful; how could it go so smoothly? No one had been able to clean this water, ever. Now we were going to do it in
an hour’s time?
But the water passed the test, and with flying colors at that.
We were both so excited and anxious to get to the creek, which was a fairly good distance from here. We started to pack our things into the car, and that was when we heard the shuffling, louder than before, and directly over our heads. We scooted up the hill which led beneath the bridge. A zombie was going down the same hill on the other side of the bridge. He wanted to get to the water. He needed a drink.
We both looked around and seeing that it was all clear we shoved the rest of our things into the Focus as quickly as possible. We then got into the car, rolled up the windows, and made sure the doors were securely locked. We watched. Within seconds the gray-face jerked his way into view, tripping on a rock or something, he lost his footing and fell the rest of the way down the hill. It was all I had not to crack up laughing, so I put my hand tightly over my mouth and kept my eyes on the scene playing out before me.
Once he regained what was left of his composure he crawled on his hands and knees to the water’s edge, where he proceeded to completely submerge his entire head into the now clean H2O. Suddenly he jerked his head violently out of the water and screamed. It was angry, horrifying, and bloodcurdling. How, I didn’t know, but that monster could tell that the water was not the same.
Again he put his head in. He pulled it out and smelled the water. Screaming again he stood and begun to have what I would call a violent tantrum right on the banks of the lake. Suddenly from the road zombies began to come down to the banks of the lake. They were all either screaming or groaning. They headed to the lake and smelled, tasted, and touched the water. Then they all proceeded to go completely off the deep end.
Jace must’ve sensed that it was time to go. He started the car, which got their attention immediately. Man, were they ever pissed. The all started toward us, arms flailing, vile sounds coming from their throats. Every motion was full of anger and intent, even though they all lacked the coordination or power to get to us quickly. You could see that they either sensed or smelled our blood.
