Enza

by Kristy K. James

“No!” Margaret Owens groaned. “No, no, no, no!”

  Jonathon jumped up and ran for the kitchen because now he knew he was going to throw up.

  ~~~

  Colby had been a minister long enough that he knew how influenza worked. Every winter, without fail, too many people got sick and some, inevitably, died. It was just the way it was.

  But winter wasn’t upon them. It wouldn’t arrive for weeks. Autumn had barely begun, which meant that daytime hours were still very comfortable. In fact, the only time he’d needed a sweater was in the early mornings or after sunset.

  Influenza shouldn’t be sweeping through the city right now. Yet it was. A viscous, virulent sickness, it had already stolen the lives of more people in a few short days than the virus last year had taken over the entire season.

  The number of residents getting sick was simply staggering. Some were estimating that at least one person in more than half of the households in the city limits had come down with it. No one knew for sure what was happening in the countryside. The roads were still closed, but now it was more to keep residents in than others out. Word tended to spread fast so afflicted areas were to be avoided at all cost.

  So there was no way to know how those living in the country were faring. Telephone service was pretty limited outside cities and towns, unless one happened to live on the main roads. Colby really hoped they were safer. It was possible since there tended to be several miles between houses. The virus couldn’t be spread from person to person as easily as it could in town.

  Except people in town had been avoiding one another for days. Shutting themselves up inside their homes in an attempt to avoid catching it. So how was it spreading? Because it was spreading with the tenacity of a wildfire, even with streets so deserted that it made Charlotte feel like a ghost town.

  For the past two days he knew he could count on one hand the number of people he’d seen while out and about on his rounds. Obviously one of them was Marcus because he was helping to collect bodies. But the three or four others had been slinking around town looking like bandits in their masks, running away from him like he had the plague.

  He snorted when he realized what he’d just thought. ‘Like the plague.’ Very appropriate considering the circumstances.

  Sitting in the pew in the front row of the dark and chilly church, he stared at the stained glass window behind the pulpit. Even though the light coming through was faint, the cross, a centuries old symbol of hope, was clearly visible. But for the first time in so long that he couldn’t remember the last time, Colby didn’t feel that hope anywhere inside him. Just fear and uncertainty.

  He’d been praying about this for weeks. Mostly for everyone in the countries the newspaper wrote about. And then for Americans on the east coast. Like most other people he supposed he never believed the influenza would make it this far. Or didn’t want to believe it. He still didn’t want to.

  With a sigh, he got to his feet. It was time to head over to Marcus.’ He knew it wouldn’t do much good, but he sincerely hoped they wouldn’t find more than the two bodies he’d seen laid out on the porches he’d passed earlier.

  It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done yesterday, helping Marcus pick them up. Seeing the family members standing at the windows, clutching at draperies and one another, sobbing helplessly because, if they wanted their loved ones to have a proper burial, they were forced to remain inside. He couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to see your loved one carted off like so much garbage and then tossed in the back of a wagon.

  Not that that’s what they did, of course. They treated the bodies with the utmost respect but still, that’s what it must have seemed like to everyone watching them.

  As he closed the door behind him, Colby looked up to the heavens and prayed that this awful plague would soon leave Charlotte. That no more lives would be lost because of it. But he was afraid, even as the words passed through his lips, that countless more would die as the Spanish influenza ran its course.

  ~~~

  Elliot wanted to hit something as he stood at the stove stirring a pot of soup. His daughter was sick, and getting sicker. His wife refused to leave her bedside, even though she stood a greater risk of contracting the influenza than anyone else in the house. Arguing had gotten him nowhere, so there she stayed.

  And it wasn’t that he blamed her. He didn’t like being away from Elizabeth for even a minute. It had taken all the courage he could muster to leave her long enough to open a few cans and pour them into a pan to heat. It had been all they could do to get sips of water into her, though they had encouraged her to drink throughout the day. And so they hoped that the broth might sound better to her, its warmth soothing her raw throat.

  The other children needed to eat, too, in order to keep their strength up. He knew Richard had given them sandwiches and milk at some point during the afternoon, but he didn’t know enough about cooking to do anything for supper. Not that warming canned soup could be called cooking, but it would have to do for the moment.

  Oh he hated this. Since the moment he’d married Meg she, and then their children, had become his reason for living. All he wanted was to provide for them, take care of them, and protect them from anything that might ever hurt them.

  He didn’t know how to protect them from this though. Everything he’d tried had failed. And he’d done everything the public health officials recommended and more. In spite of it all, his daughter lay upstairs fighting for her life.

  He reached up to take some bowls from the cupboard when he thought he heard muffled coughing coming from somewhere near the kitchen. He could hardly breathe as he lowered his arms slowly to his side, listening carefully and praying that it was something else.

  But there it was again. Pain seemed to race from the top of his head to the soles of his feet before he took that first reluctant step toward where it seemed to be coming from. Behind the door to the cellar. His hand shook as he turned the doorknob because he already knew what – who – he was going to find down there.

  Jonathon sat on the floor in a shadowed corner, leaning against the wall and barely able to stay upright. Even in the dim light Elliot could see that his cheeks were flushed and he wanted to cry out, to scream at how unfair this was. Two of his children?

  “Jonathon?” he whispered, squatting down and laying his palm against his son’s cheek. He was burning up.

  “Hiya, Pop,” he said weakly, trying to smile but failing miserably.

  “Why didn’t you tell someone, son?”

  “I’m not sick,” he denied without much conviction. “Just tired.”

  “Come here,” Elliot groaned, pulling him into his arms and holding him close for several long moments. He kissed the top of his head as tears rolled down his face. He loved this boy so much. Loved every one of his children more than he could ever say, and he prayed with everything in him for God to spare them all.

  And then, as gently as he could, he lifted Jonathon and carried him up to the main floor. As he walked past the parlor he heard Richard inhale sharply and glanced up to see his eldest son ghostly white. Elliot wished he could assure him that everything would be just fine. But he couldn’t.

  “Keep Charles and Kathleen down here,” he murmured, looking away before his oldest son could see the tears in his eyes. “There’s a pot of soup on the stove. And, Richard, please call Dr. Garlington. Hurry.”

  ~~~

  Marcus stood in the doorway of his store room shaking his head in denial. Nineteen caskets left from the thirty-five he’d ordered such a short time ago. In five days sixteen people had lost their lives to this cursed virus. And those were just the ones he had been called about. The others were reporting fewer, but the death toll was more than fifty now.

  The fact that scared him the most is that they weren’t even a week into this. It didn’t just scare him, he realized, it terrified him. Would they have to resort to using mass graves like so many other areas had done? It went against everything he’d le
arned throughout his life, first from his father, and then in the years since he’d taken over.

  He wished he hadn’t thought about his parents. They were so far away and he worried about them constantly. He prayed they took his warnings seriously. Most of the operators weren’t working, either because they were sick, taking care of sick family members, or just plain afraid and refused to leave their homes, but a couple of women were still manning the board. Marcus had finally gotten through to his mother late the night before.

  He told them to stock up on food enough to last a few weeks and stay inside with their windows and doors closed. To not go outside no matter what. But he knew they wouldn’t. It was too hot out there to close their house up like a tomb. That’s exactly what it would become if they followed his advice.

  With a determined effort he looked at the stacks of ugly pine boxes again. There weren’t enough. There just weren’t. He supposed it was time to put in a telephone call to the mayor, and hope it didn’t take all day to do it. They needed to implement a plan for when the caskets were gone. They should have done that before, but who could ever have known it would be this bad?

  Locking the door he walked wearily to the back porch and sank down on the steps, burying his face in his hands. Was it just a month ago that he’d thought this was the best year of his life? He still wasn’t entirely comfortable around other people, but everywhere he’d gone, after their team won the season, men would clap him on the back and encourage him to try out for the Detroit Tigers.

  And ladies had actually looked at him like he was something special. Not that it made much difference. He still hadn’t been able to do more than stammer and stutter when they tried to talk to him. But he’d begun to hope that he might get better at it and maybe, finally, work up the courage to court one of them.

  The best year of his life had quickly turned into the worst. Former glories, fleeting as they might have been, didn’t mean a whole lot today. Not when he thought about the list lying on his desk. Four more names had been added to it this morning. Who knew how many more he would have to write down before Colby came?

  Marcus had never wanted to run away from home when he was growing up. No, his parents had been wonderful and he loved his life, as much as a painfully shy young man could love anything. So running away had never even crossed his mind. Until this week. Only there was nowhere to run to. The influenza was everywhere. There was no escaping its reach.

  ~~~

  The air was stagnant, the smell of sickness thick and heavy as Elliot dipped a cloth into the cool basin of water. He wasn’t sure how many times he’d repeated the action, or how many more times he would continue to do so. She was too sick, he thought as he squeezed the excess water from the rag.

  It struck him that other than the sound of Elizabeth’s labored breaths, and Jonathon’s painful coughing and cries from across the hall, the tinkle of that water as it dribbled back into the bowl was the only thing that broke the silence in the dimly lit room. In the entire house it seemed.

  He couldn’t recall a time when his home had been so quiet, except when the family was slumbering at night. It was broad daylight now. There should be laughter, the sound of awful piano music offending every ear in hearing distance. Charles or Jonathon running from one end of the house to the other. Something other than this cursed silence.

  Fear threatened to choke him as he gently wiped the damp cloth across his daughter’s brow, down her neck and then her arms. And then he started over again.

  The vicious monster influenza that inflicted his babies with the high fever and painful cough was a terrifying thing. Daily the papers told of the thousands of deaths it had already caused. Tens of thousands, in fact. Just in America. But death would not strike in this place, he vowed, willing his children the strength to fight against its powerful grip. If love alone could heal them, they would have bounded out of their beds in that moment.

  But Elizabeth only lay there, looking fragile and small against the pillow. And pale. So pale, much as her brother had looked when he and Meg traded places a short while ago. He drew in a long breath, letting it out slowly, and dipped the cloth into the basin again.

  She was hot, her skin flushed as though she’d stayed too long near a roaring fire. Heat radiated from her and Elliot hurt at her suffering.

  Even though the past year had been difficult with the change in her attitude and her enthusiasm for the Suffrage Movement, his love for her had never waned. Now it welled up within him as he sat there, on the edge of her bed, trying in vain to make the fever leave her.

  “Please, God,” he prayed fervently, leaning down to place a light kiss against her hair. “Let her live. Let Jonathon be all right. God, please.”

  She’d had the influenza once before, he remembered. When she’d been not much older than Kathleen was now. Just a few days of a relatively mild illness. Back then he’d been concerned, as any parent would be. But he hadn’t felt this crushing fear. That sickness hadn’t been a real threat to the life of his sweet girl.

  This threat was all too real.

  He pushed those thoughts away and plunged the cloth back into the water with more force than he’d intended. A small wave washed over the side and onto the bedside tabletop. He didn’t care, or even much notice, his attention fully on Elizabeth as another fit of coughing seized her.

  A sob escaped him as he pulled her into his arms, hoping to ease the severity of it. She’d coughed so hard and so often since sometime the previous morning that it was torture to watch her suffering – and to be so utterly helpless to stop it. All he could do to help was to hold her as she fought to expel the fluid from her lungs. And watch her trying to breathe. That was the worst. Listening to her struggle to draw each breath.

  By the time the spasm ended, she’d collapsed against him and he held her close, feeling the dampness of her skin from the exertion. Feeling the rage well up again, he wanted to hurt something. To kill something. Instead he just held his daughter.

  “Papa?” she whispered, lacking the strength to speak aloud.

  “Yes, darling?” Reluctantly he laid her back against the pillow and resumed wiping her face with the cool cloth.

  “Where’s Mama?”

  “Tending Jonathon.”

  “Jonathon?” she gasped, her eyes wide with alarm. “Please tell me he’s not ill!”

  “Just a bit,” Elliot said evasively. She needed to concentrate on getting well herself, not on her brother laying in much the same condition down the hall.

  “Oh no. Oh God, please no!” Fear had lit her eyes before but terror replaced it now that she realized that her brother, too, was at the mercy of this ruthless virus.

  “Shh,” he soothed, gently smoothing her hair. “Jonathon is going to be fine. I was with him just a while ago. And he’s going to be all right. You’re both going to be just fine.”

  “But he’s so little-” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m so scared, Papa.”

  “Elizabeth-”

  “I don’t want to die.” Elliot was taken by surprise at the fury that exploded in his chest when he heard the words he couldn’t even bear to consider.

  “No one is going to die,” he said harshly. “Do you hear me? No one is going to die!”

  “But-”

  “No. I won’t let anything hurt you,” he promised softly. “Haven’t I always taken care of you?”

  “Yes, Papa,” she murmured, a slight smile curving her dry, cracked lips. As though weighted, her eyelids began to close. “I’m so tired-”

  “Then rest, my darling. Rest and get well.”

  He cupped her face with his hands and wiped the traces of the tears that had dried swiftly from the heat of her skin, and placed another kiss against her brow.

  “I love you, Papa,” she murmured just before sleep overtook her again.

  “I love you, Elizabeth.”

  As the words left his mouth he had to resist the urge to wake her long enough to repeat them. Because she hadn’t hear
d him and he needed her to hear it. So she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how much he loved her. Just in case-

  He began to pray harder than he’d ever prayed in his life.

  Chapter 15

  Colby dressed warmly, buttoning his coat clear to his neck. If yesterday was anything to judge by, there would be a chill in the air again today. The same chill that had seeped into his bones and stayed firmly put no matter how hard he tried to get warm. Less than a week ago the days had been very pleasant, but the temperatures had dropped steadily until it seemed that winter might make an early appearance. Had it been as cold this time last year, or was he just getting old? Feeling it more than he had in his younger years?

  Maybe he was too tired, even though he knew he was sleeping more than usual. By the time he crawled under the covers since the influenza had come to town, he was so exhausted that he was falling asleep faster than ever before. Oh how he longed to return to the bed he’d so reluctantly left behind a short while ago – and not come out again until this nightmare was over.

  Instead he walked purposefully to the kitchen for a sip of coffee before he had to leave. And he knew he had to go. So many people needed him that there was no choice.

  Anna sat at the table, a scowl of disapproval aimed his way but, as had become customary, he didn’t quite meet her eyes. He didn’t want to see the hatred and anger there. Didn’t want to see the fear that he might, today, bring the dreaded killer home with him. She seemed to feel that his duties as a minister of the gospel should begin and end with his Sunday morning sermons.

  She was wrong.

  Trying to keep a normal tone in his voice he informed her that he would try to be home for the mid-day meal. If not then, possibly for supper. Though he couldn’t make any promises for he didn’t know what he might find waiting for him. He chose his words carefully, neglecting to mention the death he would greet him in too many homes. This sort of news terrified her, and only served to feed her anger.