Enza

by Kristy K. James

  Jonathon knew he was beating the rug with more force than was necessary, but he had woken up that morning angrier than he could ever remember being. Three days now the whole family had been trapped in the house for nearly every waking hour. When someone had called to say that there were cases being reported in Charlotte the morning after everything had been closed down, Pop had decided that everyone could go out for half an hour very early every morning. But only in the backyard, and only if everyone stayed close to the house.

  And so Jonathon was pretending that the rug he hit over and over with the wicker paddle was the Spanish flu.

  “Son, I think you’ve beat the dust from next week out of that thing. Maybe you should do the other one now,” Pop suggested from where he sat on the porch reading to Kathleen and Charles.

  Jonathon grinned sheepishly, pulled the rug off the line, folded it in half and laid it on the steps. Before he hung the second one up he glanced around the yard.

  Mother was on her knees snapping the heads off the shriveling Marigolds and tossing them into a small basket. Later she would remove all of the seeds in preparation for planting next spring then store them on a shelf in the cellar. Elizabeth sat in the grass, leaning back against a tree trunk looking frightened as she stared off into space. And Richard just stood there, hands on hips, like he was on guard against anything that might try to sneak in and harm them.

  Jonathon knew how he feeling. It was the same way all of them felt. Except the little ones. They were too young to understand what was going on. Kathleen seemed to know that something was up because she had been pretty quiet, like she was trying to figure it out. But the rest of them knew.

  Only Jonathon knew even more than his brothers and sisters.

  They didn’t realize it, but he’d overheard his parents talking quietly in the kitchen before they knew he was awake. Pop said that Mr. Grundy, from the hardware store, had passed away from the influenza during the night. Mr. Grundy wasn’t old like Pop either. And Phyllis Landry. She was in Elizabeth’s grade. And they were both dead. Jonathon wanted to throw up.

  He hadn’t known too many people who had died. And most of those were just old ones from around town. That always made him feel a little bad, but it was hard to be really upset. It was different with Mr. Grundy and Phyllis. He and Pop went to the hardware a lot, and he saw Phyllis all the time at school. It made him feel sick to his stomach to know that she wouldn’t be there anymore.

  As he beat the second rug, just as hard as he had the first, he wondered where the influenza came from. He’d heard people talk about it and they thought maybe God was making everyone sick. That they were so bad that He was tired of giving them chances and wanted everyone to die.

  Jonathon didn’t think that was true. Except for Mr. Mertz, and Steven and Tommy, he didn’t know any bad people. But if it wasn’t God, he didn’t know what it was. For the first time he could ever remember, he wished he could go to church and talk to Reverend Thornton. If anyone would know if God was going to kill all the people in the world, it would be him.

  ~~~

  “I don’t know why you have to go out every day,” Anna complained as she flounced across the kitchen. “The more you’re out there, the more you risk catching that awful influenza and bringing it home to me!”

  “I offered to stay at the church to minimize your risk,” Colby reminded her. “And I have an obligation to be out there, Anna. This is what ministers do. These people depend on me.”

  “I depend on you, Colby.”

  It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to not roll his eyes heavenward. Of course she depended on him. To provide the money to buy her everything her heart desired, to put food on the table, and to give her the prestige she craved from his position as a respected minister. Except for those things, though, she had little use for him.

  “You knew what I was when you married me,” he finally said with a heavy sigh. “Do you honestly believe I would abandon these people in their time of need?”

  “What about my need, Colby? What about what I want?” she shrieked, flinging a bowl off the counter in her fury. It shattered all over the floor, some of the pieces coming to rest on Colby’s shoes. He shook them off absently and walked to get the broom from the pantry.

  “All you want and need is my money and the things you can buy with it,” he muttered, his voice too low for her to hear as he swept the shards of glass into a neat pile. More loudly he said, “Robert Grundy died last night, Anna. Do you even care?”

  “No. No, Colby I do not. I’m sorry but I won’t lie to make you happy. I barely knew the man.”

  “That was your choice. He attended our church for eight years and I’m not going to turn my back on his wife and children now.”

  He went back to the pantry for the dust pan, thrusting it into Anna’s hand before picking up his mask from the counter.

  “When will you be home?” she demanded.

  “Expect me when you see me,” he told her, turning his back on her and walking out the back door without a second glance.

  After all this time it shouldn’t have surprised him that Anna didn’t care for anyone but herself. But her callous attitude about Robert- He’d had to get out of the house, away from her, immediately.

  As he walked down the sidewalk, not a soul in sight for as far as the eye could see, he thought about his marriage. He had been happy the day of their wedding. Happier than he could ever remember, and his life to that point had been a good one. But the morning after, every dream he’d ever imagined for them had been shattered when she moved out of their bedroom – and never shared it with him again.

  She had denied him love, companionship, and intimacy for nearly two decades, and she wondered why he was more devoted to the members of his church than to his wife. It might have made him laugh if it weren’t so tragic. They could have been so happy- They might have had children, too.

  Oh how he longed for children, even now. Sons to fish and hunt with, daughters to cuddle and protect. But she’d crushed that dream, too.

  He thought he’d come to terms with everything. Accepted his lot in life and thrived, as much as one could in a situation like this. But the threat from the epidemic had brought out a side of Anna that Colby hated passionately. Sometimes, these past few days, he was afraid he hated her.

  ~~~

  For the first time ever Jonathon realized he knew what real fear felt like. Everything in him felt funny, a painful sort of tingling. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. It was hard to breathe. Like the dreams he had sometimes. The ones that scared him about as bad as a body could be scared, but he never really remembered what it was he’d dreamed about. Just that he’d awaken shaking and feeling like this.

  He knew exactly what was causing it now though.

  It was here. The Spanish influenza was in their house. Despite all the precautions Pop had made them take. Even though they’d hardly gone outside, and hadn’t seen another person in days, it had gotten in anyway.

  Mother and Pop were up there now, in Elizabeth’s room. She’d begun coughing long before dawn, and it had gotten nothing but worse since then. Really bad. He knew it had to be hurting her because you couldn’t cough like that and not have it hurt.

  Charles was playing with his blocks on the floor while Kathleen had all of her dolls on the dining room table. He and Richard had just been sitting in the parlor, casting frightened looks at one another – and at the stairway – since they’d been banished from being upstairs a few hours ago.

  Every now and again they’d hear quiet arguments from the hallway outside Elizabeth’s door. Pop wanted Mother to come downstairs with the rest of them but she wouldn’t do it. He kept saying she needed to take care of herself and the baby, and she kept telling him that Elizabeth was one of her babies.

  And through it all, she kept coughing.

  Pop had called the doctor a while ago and Jonathon hoped he would come soon. Probably there were a lot of people who were sick and he
needed to see them first. But he didn’t want anything to happen to his sister.

  And so he prayed that it was just a cold. He knew it wasn’t though. They all got colds sometimes. They were never like this. Not this bad.

  ~~~

  “Do you have any idea how many people are actually sick, Daniel?” Edward Hinkle hissed into the phone. “We need you here. Ted is at the end of his rope.”

  His boss was generally an easy going fellow to work for but, when under stress, everyone tried their best to give him a wide berth. And this was, without question, a stressful time for everyone.

  “I’m not coming in until it’s over, Edward. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “You may not have a job to come back to then.”

  Daniel ran a shaky hand through his hair. He and Nina hadn’t even been married a month and now he could lose his job? That was just a chance he was going to have to take. He could always find work somewhere else. His wife was irreplaceable.

  “Tell Ted to do whatever he needs to do. She’s all I have.”

  From the kitchen doorway Nina watched him, wiping tears from her eyes with the edge of her crisp white apron. He replaced the receiver and walked to stand in front of her, a wry smile on his face.

  “Are you in trouble?” she asked softly, reaching out to lay a hand on his chest. He covered it with one of his own.

  “Probably.”

  “Daniel-“

  “Hush. We’ve already had this discussion and I’m not changing my mind. I meant it when I said that it isn’t worth it, Nina. This isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen before. This is dangerous. In the few days since the mayor said it was in Potterville, four people that I know have died here. It’s just barely here. What’s it going to be like in another week?”

  “Worse.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, pulling her to him. “A lot worse based on what’s happened in other places. And the more I’m out and about, the more likely I am to catch it. And I can’t take that chance, Nina. I will do everything in my power to make sure that you don’t get it.”

  “Even if it means you lose your job?”

  “Even if it means I lose my job.”

  “Good. Because you’re all I have, too, Daniel,” she whispered.

  “You’ll probably be so tired of my company in a day or so that you’ll be praying harder than anyone else in town for the influenza to go away,” he teased, kissing her forehead.

  “That will never happen,” she said fiercely.

  “Ah, but you don’t know what I have in store for you yet, Mrs. Pullman.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him to the back porch.

  “What’s that?” she asked, noting the presence of two large crates, one filled with rolls of paper, the other with a couple of very full burlap bags.

  “That, my darling, is what we’re going to apply to the walls in our parlor and dining room. As long as we’re confining ourselves for who knows how long, I thought we could do some work on the house.”

  He laughed as she knelt down to inspect his surprise. If her gasps of delight were anything to judge by, she was quite pleased with the things he’d chosen. It was a delicate pattern with tiny roses and vines that she’d fallen in love with when they looked through the samples at the hardware a couple of weeks ago. One of the more expensive patterns, she’d decided against it, and was still undecided over three she hadn’t liked nearly as well.

  “Can we afford this?” She looked up at him, torn between worry and joy.

  “I had some savings and thought this would be a good way to spend some of it.”

  “Can we start today?”

  “Well, we’ll have to get the furniture moved and wipe down the walls down, but we could probably start putting the paper up tomorrow. Is that soon enough for you?”

  “I guess it will have to be,” she said with a smile.

  ~~~

  Three days. Three days since the meeting and this was the eighth call he’d gotten to pick up a body. Fred Latimer. He was younger than Marcus. Why were so many young people dying? Usually it was the very old or the very young. But the newspapers had been reporting all along that it was school children, college students and younger adults who were succumbing to this horrible strain of influenza. Certainly some of the others were being lost, too, but most of the victims were in the prime of their lives.

  He didn’t know how many calls the other three funeral directors in town were getting but, if it was anywhere near what he was receiving, that meant more than thirty people gone in seventy-two hours.

  They had all grudgingly agreed to keep working at the urging of the mayor and public health officer. But they had done it on one condition. The same condition that they had set forth in Philadelphia. The bodies had to be wrapped in sheets and left outside. If a living soul was anywhere to be seen, they would leave.

  Marcus walked wearily to the kitchen, sitting at the table where an almost untouched cup of coffee waited. His first sip reminded him that it had been there awhile. It was cold.

  He hadn’t realized he’d been pacing quite that long, walking from one window to another, peering out the drapes. Watching. Waiting to see if someone walked past his house. But no one had. Not one person all morning. Once, though, as he was looking out of the window on the north side of the house, Henry Franklin was looking out his window, eyes filled with fear – staring straight at Marcus. He wondered if Henry had seen that same fear reflected in his face.

  Sighing, he carried his cup to the sink and emptied it before filling it from the pot warming on the stove.

  Colby wasn’t due until early afternoon, still a few hours away. He’d volunteered to ride around town with him because everyone felt that it was safer for two people to lift and carry the bodies than it was for one person to try and sling someone over his shoulder. Since no one knew for sure, he didn’t want to take a chance that a sheet would come unwrapped, possibly exposing himself to the influenza.

  Three days.

  What was going to happen in a week, or two or three, as the Spanish flu continued to wreak its havoc? If he didn’t get any more calls today, his stock of pine boxes would be depleted to twenty-seven. And this nightmare had barely even begun.

  He prayed that the telephone wouldn’t ring again but less than a minute later it did. Marcus closed his eyes.

  Chapter 14

  “Maybe she doesn’t have it,” Jonathon whispered hopefully as he and Richard sat close together on the settee. Charles and Kathleen were still playing, blissfully unaware of what was going on upstairs. At least the doctor had finally arrived. “I mean, maybe it is just a cold. Or a sore throat.” But he knew he just wanted it to be something that wasn’t scary. He also knew that it was exactly what they feared it would be. He’d known it from the moment he’d opened his eyes that morning.

  “Maybe,” Richard agreed, though Jonathon knew he was expecting the worst, same as him. “That’s how the influenza starts. Just a cough.”

  “You don’t think she’ll die?” While it was true that he hadn’t much liked Elizabeth as of late, she was still his sister and he didn’t like to think of her not being in their family anymore.

  “No! Don’t even say things like that,” Richard snapped, angry enough that Jonathon figured he’d been worrying about it, too. “She’s going to be fine.”

  “I heard Mother and Pop talking yesterday morning. Mr. Grundy died. So did Phyllis Landry.”

  “How do they know that? We haven‘t talked to anyone in days.”

  “Someone called on the telephone. Mother was really upset. I don’t think Pop was very happy about it either.”

  “Well who would be happy to find out someone they knew had died? Mr. Grundy was a really nice man.”

  “I know he was,” Jonathon muttered. Sometimes Richard made him feel stupid and he didn’t appreciate it at all.

  From upstairs they heard Elizabeth coughing something awful and they looked at each other fearfully. That didn’t sound like a cough from
a regular cold.

  “I wonder how long the doctor is going to be up there?” Richard worried, turning to peer out of the draperies. They had been drawn tightly closed since their father had announced that no one was to leave the house. Apparently he didn’t see anyone because he turned back around and stared at the wall.

  “Do you think she snuck out of the house during the night?” Jonathon asked. “If she didn’t, how do you suppose she got it? If she has it, I mean?”

  “I don’t think she went out. She knows how dangerous it is.”

  “Then how did she get it?”

  “She doesn’t have it, Jonathon! Stop talking about it.”

  Maybe Richard didn’t want him to talk about it but it didn’t keep him from wondering. How could something like that get in a house that had been closed up tightly for three days? When they were outside in the mornings? When Pop hurried out to the porch to bring the meat or newspaper in? Was it in the meat? Would the rest of them get sick, too? There were so many things to think about. So many things that scared him.

  Mr. Grundy hadn’t been the first person to die from the influenza. The paper was full of news every day. Dozens of people sick and forty-three dead so far. One article told about cities that had thought it was over, only to be struck down again as soon as public places like schools and churches reopened. It didn’t look even close to being over for the first time in Charlotte. Would it come again, like it had in those other places?

  If it did, would others in his family get sick, too? Even if Richard didn’t want to admit it, he was pretty sure that Elizabeth did have the influenza. Maybe they would all get sick from it this time. Would they all die? He didn’t like to think of there being no more Owens’ living here. What would happen to the shoe store? To their house and their things?

  The sound of a door opening upstairs had them both sitting at attention, their eyes on the stairs, but even though they’d heard footsteps in the hall, no one came down.