The Newcomers: a novel of global invasion , human resilience, and the wild places of the planet

by Pamela Jekel

  “What is that?” Jack interrupted.

  “Legionnaires Disease, you’ve probably heard it called.”

  Skylar took Jack’s arm. “That’s dangerous,” she murmured.

  “It can be,” the doctor nodded. “Certainly can, no doubt about it. And it will take about three days for us to get the culture back—“

  “Three days!” Skylar said, glancing again at her son.

  “The faster urine antigen test isn’t picking this up, for some reason, which is what we’d normally use. It’s only about eighty-percent accurate anyway, and the CDC isn’t recommending serum testing—

  Jack frowned. “CDC? The CDC is involved with this already?”

  “We’ve got sixteen cases in this hospital, twelve that I know of at Newton, more than twenty at Childrens, and about two-dozen at St. Joseph’s. And that’s just in the metro Atlanta area. So yes, the CDC is very involved.”

  “So this is very serious,” Skylar said, sitting down slowly.

  “Does he have any allergies, any previous antibiotic reactions?”

  “Moses,” Jack said. “His name is Moses.”

  “No,” Skylar said, “none that we know of.”

  “I need your permission to take some pleural fluid. Sputum alone won’t get us the results we need.”

  “How will you do that?” Jack asked.

  “Sedate him, aspirate out a small amount of fluid from his lungs, culture it, and see what we’ve got.”

  Jack glanced at Skylar, who nodded. “Yes. How quickly can you get him on antibiotics?”

  “I’d like to start him now, even before we know for sure what we’re dealing with here—“

  Moses erupted suddenly in a spasmodic cough, rough and deep in his chest. Skylar went to his side instantly. His eyes did not open. “Is that how he was coughing before?” Jack asked.

  “No,” she said. “It’s worse.”

  “Yes, start him now,” Jack said. “What are the dangers of this disease, if he’s got it, at his age?”

  “Well, pneumonia is dangerous at any age,” the doctor said, “but we’ll be watching for any kidney problems, lung issues, and of course, we need to get that fever down. He spiked to 106 earlier—“

  Skylar gasped. “Could he get brain damage?”

  “Not unless it stays that high. But listen, we’re doing everything we can right now to keep him comfortable, and we’ll start IV antibiotics right away. Any other family members showing symptoms?”

  Jack hesitated.

  Skylar looked at him.

  “My mother-in-law has a cough, says she’s feeling tired—“

  “You need to get her to the hospital quickly,” the doctor said. “This can be even more dangerous in the elderly. No brothers or sisters ill?”

  “No,” Jack said.

  “Good. Well, there’s little you two can do here. I would suggest that you go home and let us take care of Moses. You can come back in the morning.”

  “I would rather stay,” Skylar said.

  “I know you would,” the doctor said, his lips firm, “but with this many cases, we cannot accommodate family members, and until we are certain we’re not dealing with a contagious element, the CDC is insisting on isolation. Unfortunately, that means moms as well. So I must ask you to go home. In case you’re also infectious, we cannot have you in waiting rooms, which are jammed as we speak, risking infection to healthy patients. Now, the nurse will be in shortly with paperwork for you to sign, and you can come back to see Moses in the morning. We may move him to the isolation ward we’re preparing for these pediatric cases, but the nurses’ station can tell you where you can observe him.” He stood waiting for their response. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Thank you.”

  Numb and frightened, they signed the necessary papers, left Moses in that green-walled room, and Skylar had the terrifying notion that when she left Jack to go to her own car, she might never see either of them again. She opened her cell to call her mother just as soon as she pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

  * * *

  They sent Oneida home, reassured Chase and Miranda as best they could, got them to bed, and as Skylar threw her overnight bag on the bed to unpack it, Jack turned on the TV. The local news blared that fifty-eight cases were reported in the Atlanta area, and more throughout Georgia. Same symptoms, mostly children and the elderly, suspected pneumonia, possibly Legionnaires Disease, a few family members interviewed in waiting rooms, one doctor on camera who very sketchily gave a quick sum-up of what he preferred to call legionellosis, and then medical commentators who had been dragged in to give their opinions. Definitely waterborne, probably not contagious from person-to-person, but because it was waterborne, usually from community water sources, it could spread quickly through a population, endangering anyone immunosuppressive, organ or bone marrow transplant recipients, cancer patients, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients—

  “Moses isn’t any of those,” Sky said.

  “Neither is your mother.”

  “Dad’s going to take her in tomorrow morning. Not to the hospital, though, she doesn’t want to go there—“

  “Well, she might not have any choice, once her doctor hears that cough.”

  Jack realized that he still hadn’t called his own parents, and he went downstairs to his office, knowing he’d have to raise his voice for his father’s aging ears. The moment he heard his mother’s voice, his stomach went cold with apprehension.

  “Oh Jack,” she said, “I didn’t want to call you. But I think you should come right away. They’ve had to admit your dad with this thing, whatever it is, and he’s not doing well.”

  “Where are you?”

  “St. Joseph’s. And it’s packed.” She stopped to put her hand on the speaker, but he could hear her cough, deep and racking. “I don’t have a fever yet, but I’m not feeling all that perky myself. There’s not a bed left, though, and I don’t feel like sleeping on a gurney in the hall—“

  “Mom, Moses was admitted this morning.”

  “Oh no!” she gasped. “Are they saying it’s Legionnaires?”

  “Not yet, but that’s their best guess. The rest of us are alright, but Sky’s mom is down with it.”

  “My Lord, this thing is everywhere! Well look, get here when you can, I’m probably going to go home, there’s not an empty chair in the hospital, and I don’t want to get exposed even more, though it’s probably too late. But do what you have to do for your family, Jack. We’ll manage.”

  Jack’s eyes welled up suddenly, but he didn’t allow his fear into his voice. “I’ll try to get there tomorrow, Mom. You two take care.” It was so like her to insist that the kids came first. That everybody came first, in fact. Sky’s mom might bluster to the admission desk and anybody else who would listen that she was seventy-eight years old and deserved to sit down, goddamnit, but Jack’s mother was more likely to sleep in the car tonight, rather than make a fuss.

  When he got back upstairs, Sky was on the phone as well, and he could tell the news wasn’t getting any better. She hung up and said, “Five of Moses’ friends have this thing, same symptoms, high fever, cough, bone-tired, and three of them are at Well Star. Dr. Allan’s out on call, and the answering service can’t say when she’ll call back.”

  “It’s a good thing you got him there when you did, Mom says there’s not a bed left at St. Joseph’s. Dad’s been admitted, and she doesn’t sound so hot.”

  “Oh my God, what is this!” She went to TV and switched on CNN, while Jack got the laptop and opened it to CNBC. The message was the same, all over the Internet, all over the news. An acute bacterial infection was raging across the country, seemed to be infecting other major European capital cities as well, something akin to Legionnaire’s disease but worse. Infection could come from any water source, including shower heads and hot water heaters; it was possible that multiple municipal water systems could be contaminated. Symptoms were dangerously high fever, severe cough,
pneumonia, body aches similar to flu, affecting primarily children under five, adults over fifty, some infection seen in older children and younger adults, but high risk patients were smokers, diabetics, the morbidly obese, cancer patients or anyone on anti-rejection therapy, most of what they’d heard before but somehow more ominous on the national news.

  “It’s the aliens!” she said. “Jack, do you think they’ve poisoned the water?”

  “Why would they do that? I’m sure they could have annihilated us all months ago, if they wanted. What would be the point?”

  She wailed and paced the room. “What’s the point of any of it! Moses could die, you heard it, he’s in a high-risk group, so is Miranda! My mother and father! Your mother and father! How else could it be everywhere at once?”

  He took her hands and pulled her down onto the bed. “You’re going to make yourself sick, Sky. And you’re going to wake the kids and terrify them, is that going to help anything? Look, we’ve had pandemics before, thousands of people died in the Spanish flu outbreaks, and it wasn’t aliens. They’ve been warning about swine flu and avian flu and whatever flu forever, bioterrorism, antibiotic resistant germs, you name it, we’ve been hearing about it, and this could be something like that.”

  “But all over the country? Europe? They said it’s in Paris and Rome and—“

  “I heard what they’re saying, and it sounds bad, I know. But right now, is there anything we can do about it? This minute?”

  “I want to go to the cabin.” She yanked her hands away, resolute. “I mean it this time. Where we’ve got clean water, at least.”

  “And leave Moz?”

  She punched him on the chest, “Of course not! What are you saying, of course I won’t leave Moz! We’ll take him and get out of here!”

  He just dropped his head and waited. He knew if he gave her time, she would spend herself and calm.

  She began to weep, her hands over her face, rocking back and forth, the ancient rhythm. After a moment, she let him hold her. Finally, her sobs quieted and she said brokenly, “If he’s well enough to take him, we leave tomorrow. If not, we wait until he’s better, and then we go.”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “I agree.”

  They both slept poorly that night, and when Oneida showed up the next morning, they quickly left for the hospital, doing their best to reassure Chase and Miranda. No showers, drink only fruit juices and milk, use the waterless antibiotic hand-wash, keep the faucets off and the toilet bowls shut after flushing, use plastic cups and plastic plates, no dishwashing, no laundry, brush their teeth with bottled water, and everything would be fine soon. If the city water was infected, surely they would sanitize it, even if it meant dumping enough chlorine in it to gag everybody who drank it, but until they got some guarantees, nobody was to drink it, Jack told them. If they had to, they’d boil the drinking water and wash in the pool—

  “Take a bath in the pool!” Miranda goggled at that one. “With soap?”

  “Maybe just a big ol’ bubble bath,” Jack teased her. “But no splashing!”

  She giggled, and he was struck by how delightful that sound was despite everything, the laughter of a healthy child, his child, wondered if he would hear Moz laugh again soon, and he hurried to his car. Sky had already left, impatient to get there and hold her son, as though her arms could somehow stave off disaster.

  But when he got closer, cops waved him off, detouring him towards side streets, and he could see that there was no place to park, no way to get closer. He finally found a spot nearly blocking a driveway, hurried to the hospital, and stopped dead in the street, amazed at what he saw. There were tents out on the lawns and in the main parking lot, cots on the ground, white-coated nurses and doctors hurrying among them, and the noise of the sick and the desperate rose above the place like the fumes from hell. It resembled a Gone with the Wind version of the siege of Atlanta. He could only pray that Sky somehow was able to park and make her way inside.

  The waiting areas and hallways were thronged with people, and lines snaked out the building. He took the stairs to pediatrics rather than waiting for the elevators, and even those were crowded with people going up, going down, some obviously ill, others helping those who were. When he finally made it to Moses’ room, he was hugely relieved to see Sky, and then he saw that there was another gurney in the room with two more children in it, one at each end. He could scarcely move between the beds. No chairs, no room, they were two-deep lined up against the walls outside, and none of that mattered now that he could touch his son.

  Sky lifted her head, and he could see the glassy shock in her eyes. “He’s worse,” she said. “And that damn Dr. Allan hasn’t even called back.”

  Now he noticed the tubes and machines attached to his boy, the damp pallor of his skin. “Has he said anything? Opened his eyes?”

  She shook her head, her face haunted.

  He glanced at the other two children; they were just as still and pale, fewer machines and tubes, perhaps they had run out of them, but suddenly the room smelled of sickness and loss and despair so strongly that he had to leave, so he banged out the door, made his way through the milling people to the nurse’s station, to find yet another cluster crowding the desk. “I’m Jack Cummings,” he said when he could finally get a nurse’s attention; “My boy is Moses Cummings, room 24, can you tell me what’s going on? He wasn’t that bad when we left him yesterday.”

  “Yes, Mr. Cummings,” the nurse said, pulling him aside. “I know it’s a shock to see him like that, but we had to sedate him, he was coughing so violently. He has a severe form of pneumonia.”

  A sharp rise of hope. “Not Legionnaires Disease?”

  “No sir, it is legionellosis, but it’s the pneumonia that’s so dangerous. We’re trying to treat what we can, but the antibiotics are not effective, and we—“

  “Is my son going to die? Just tell me that.”

  She met his gaze, did not drop her eyes. “You must prepare for that possibility, sir. We’ve lost three children this morning, and I fear more will follow.”

  “I want to see his doctor!” Jack took her arm. “Please!”

  She put her hand over his hand on her arm and dropped her voice. “Did you see the tents when you came into the building, Mr. Cummings? Did you notice the crowds in admission, here in this wing? I don’t even know where your doctor is right now. At least your son has a bed, and we’re doing everything we can for him; there are many who will never get inside the building.”

  “Nurse, please!” a woman interrupted her, almost shoving Jack aside. “My daughter’s having a seizure!”

  Jack wanted to whirl on the woman and shake her and scream, “Wait your turn!” but he knew that it would make no difference. The nurse hurried off with the woman, and he turned to go back to Sky. What could he tell her? That she didn’t already sense?

  They stood at Moses’ bedside all day and into the night, leaning on the bed as they needed to, against the wall, sometimes pacing, talking, silent, weeping, and finally, another couple came in, both of them drawn and grave, to stand alongside one of the other children, a little girl. The father put out a hand, “Bob Milder” he said, “my wife, June. This is our daughter, Natalie.”

  Jack shook his hand, “Jack and Skylar Cummings.” He nodded to the bed. “Moses.”

  “You have any others?”

  Jack nodded.

  “She’s our only,” the father said, glancing at the still form on the gurney. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders; their eyes did not leave the small blonde head on the pillow as they assumed their vigil.

  Skylar had taken Moses’ hand, and she was stroking it, touching his cheek, speaking close and low in his ear. There seemed no response, but she said she thought she felt him squeeze her hand, and that hope kept her talking, trying to pull him out of his unconsciousness. After awhile she stood, her shoulders bent with fatigue.

  “I’m going to go call my mom and dad,” she said. “Want a Coke or something?”
>
  The hospital was being very strict with cell phone use now, probably because of the sheer number of patients; large signs in the hallway forbade any phones in the rooms or the wards. He took her place by Moses’ side. “That would be great,” he said. “If the lines aren’t too long. But only in a bottle.”

  She swiftly tied her hair up in a band off her shoulders, something she did when she thought battle was pending, and left him alone. He stood and gazed at his son, holding the same hand Sky had just released. He could see no quiver in Moses’ eyelids, and his chest barely moved. Over in the corner, Mrs. Milder began to weep quietly against her husband’s chest. He looked at Jack over June’s bent head, his eyes bleak. “Let’s go get a little fresh air,” he murmured to his wife, shepherding her out of the room.

  Jack went over to the little girl’s bed. Both the children were pale, damp with sweat, unmoving, seemingly unconscious. Same symptoms as Moses. He reached out and slowly tugged a blonde curl, moving the girl’s head to one side. No response. He pinched her toe, through the sheet. No flinch. Moved down and did the same to the boy at the other end, pinching his arm this time. Nothing. He adjusted the girl’s head back the way it was, patted them both, and whispered, “Sorry.” He went back and assumed his sentry position beside his son, leaning against the wall this time to relieve his tired back.

  Bob Milder came into the room. “I sent her down to the cafeteria too,” he said, glancing at his daughter. “This is just too hard on her.”

  Jack nodded.

  “Did you hear the news this morning?”

  “No,” Jack said. “Do they know what’s causing this thing yet?”

  “The CDC says it’s infected water sources, but nobody’s got an explanation for why it’s all over the country, all over the world, really. Nobody’s saying it, but we all know the truth. It’s the Newcomers.”

  “All over the world?”

  Bob started ticking off his fingers, “France, England, Amsterdam, Italy, Germany, Russia, Spain, you name it. China’s been hit big-time. They’re dying in the streets in India. Even Switzerland, and they’re neutral.”