by Pamela Jekel
Neutral from what? Jack wondered. Old words, old thinking. “What about well water?”
“I don’t know,” Bob said. “But they say anyone under eight and over fifty’s sick or will be, and that’s one hell of a lot of people.”
“Do they estimate a mortality rate?”
Bob looked up at him silently. After a long pause, he said, “I haven’t heard about any recoveries at all. It’s happened too fast. Maybe next week, they’ll see some patients getting well.” He glanced at his daughter. “Probably the young ones, the healthy ones, they’ve got a chance.”
The two men stared at the walls, unwilling to look at their children or each other.
“Your folks still alive?” Bob asked.
“So far,” Jack said. “Yours?”
“Dad’s been gone four years, Mom went last year. Glad they didn’t live to see this. They were crazy about Nat.”
They fell silent again. Finally, Bob Milder went to try to find his wife.
After what seemed like hours, Sky came into the room with a juice box, handed it to him, and said, “Mom’s worse. Dad’s got it too, now.”
“Oh baby,” Jack breathed. Her face was drawn. “Where are they?”
“Well, they waited too long to get to the hospital, and I guess Macon Northwest is overrun, so they’re home. Their housekeeper is there, trying to take care of them both.” She ran her hand over her face. “Dad couldn’t even come to the phone. I know I should go to them.”
Jack felt the dull throb of guilt; he hadn’t called his parents yet today. “They’ll understand.” He hoped he spoke for his as well as hers
She was pulling the sheet off Moses, running her hands over his chest. “He feels cooler.” She stopped, her eyes wide. “Jack, he’s not breathing!” She picked him up and held his chest to her cheek. “Jack! How long has he been like this!”
Jack jerked the door open and hollered to the nurse’s station, “Help us! My son isn’t breathing!” One nurse disentangled herself from the people around her and hurried over. She looked inside at Skylar, at Moses’ head limply fallen to one side, and she shouted to another nurse, “Code Blue, 24!” She took Moses from Skylar, laid him on his back, put her stethoscope on his chest, and then put her hands on his chest to begin CPR. A second nurse came in carrying a bulbous apparatus, “Please give us room to work here!” and Jack and Skylar backed to the door, their hands instinctively reaching for each other.
“Call for the crash cart!” Jack cried out.
“It’s in use,” one nurse said, her face grim. “It’s been in use all day.”
Jack started towards his son, desperate to do something, and the nurse took her hands off his chest. “Back off or I stop this instant!” she said. The other nurse looked over her shoulder at Skylar, “Get your husband out of here, ma’am. We’ll save your son if we can.” She had positioned a mask over Moses’ mouth and nose and was squeezing air into him manually with a rubber bulb, an apparatus that looked as ancient as an old fireplace bellows. Skylar tugged at Jack’s arm, pulling him back outside the open door, wordless with terror.
She flinched when the nurse slapped her son’s cheek, shouted his name, pushed on his chest hard enough to make his arms flop, and the torture went on and on until finally, she heard the second nurse say, “Call it,” softly. The first nurse took her hands off Moses’ chest, glanced at her watch, murmured “nineteen twenty-five”, and then the two turned to look at them.
“I’m sorry,” the second nurse said, as the other one pulled the sheet up gently over Moses’ face.
Jack heard nothing but the whooshing of his heart for a moment, a distant wailing from a white wide plain of empty space, as Skylar threw herself on their son’s body, calling his name in rising, scalding screams of horror.
* * *
For a week, the world writhed as the epidemic flashed through every large city and most homes. The President, Vice President, and Speaker of the House died within hours of each other; the President Pro Tem was gravely ill, and the Secretary of State was in Turkey, struggling to get back home. Half the Senate and House were either dead or very ill, and even if the Joint Chiefs could decide to attack the alien ships, no one knew what if any weapons would be of use. Newscasters—many of them much younger than the regular commentators—reported that the governments of most other countries had suffered the same losses and chaos. Too many had died too fast.
All flights were cancelled, all schools were closed, most offices were shuttered, and half of the private businesses as well. Banks were closed to the public, except for ATM stations which had new withdrawal limits, and financial markets had been closed by Presidential executive order. Some gas stations, a few grocery stores and pharmacies were still open, but the streets were emptied of traffic, and County bulletins asked everyone to stay in their homes until the plague passed.
Few doubted that the Newcomers were the cause of the disease which was killing so many children and elderly and even some otherwise healthy populations of middle-aged smokers and diabetics, but there was little to be done to stop it, now that it had started. There was no way to achieve communication, much less revenge. It was useless to stand and rail and shake a fist at the sky; there was too much to endure, too much to be done.
Most people died in their beds, once the hospitals could take no more patients. Funerals ceased, furnaces ran night and day, and mass graves were dug in city land to accommodate the dead where possible. Ignoring zoning prohibitions, friends buried friends, neighbors buried neighbors in their own yards, and people gave each other black trash bags, because there were not enough urns to hold the remains of cremated relations.
Skylar was still in shock, when she got the call from their housekeeper that both her parents had died. She sobbed in wracking spasms that made Jack wonder if it was possible to break in half with grief. A neighbor called to tell him that his parents had passed as well, and he was so exhausted he neglected to ask who had cared for them. They had been buried on their property in Athens, the neighbor said. Jack thanked the caller numbly.
Oneida left to stay with her sister in Madison, and Miranda had developed a cough. She was listless and cranky, but so far her fever wasn’t alarming. Skylar said, “It’s not Legionnaires. It’s just a bad cold,” but she watched her constantly and took her temperature several times a day. So far, Chase showed no signs of anything other than anger and grief.
Two days after Moses died, they forced themselves to rise and get both cars packed. Skylar kept pushing, shouting at them to hurry, to get to the cabin where the disease would not follow. Sometimes she stopped and sobbed, but then she threw it off angrily and kept cramming things in the cars. When Jack came back from the crematory with Moses’ ashes in the porcelain jar from the china cabinet, all four of them wept again. “It’s so small,” Miranda said, her voice croaky. “How could Mozy ever fit in there?”
Jack silently questioned that the urn contained Moses’ ashes at all, or Moses’ ashes only. On some level, he had to believe it didn’t matter much anyway. Sky scotch-taped the lid on the jar, tucked it in a corner of the trunk between the suitcases and the case of toilet paper, they locked up the house, and they drove out of Atlanta.
The plan was for Jack to lead and for Sky to follow with the kids. That way, he said, if there was trouble on the road, he would come to it first. He kept his loaded pistol on the seat beside him, and if he lost sight of Sky for even a moment, he slowed or pulled over. The cabin should have been a two-hour drive, but traffic was heavy streaming out of the city. Where are they all going? Jack wondered. How many people could have places to go to, driving distance from Atlanta? There were few cars going into the city and fewer delivery trucks. They saw only one open charging station in an hour, and the line of cars stretched more than a mile.
After more than four hours, they reached the little town of Watkinsville, just south of Athens. They had left the freeway an hour before, hoping the country roads would be less traveled, and what they saw
in the smaller cities gave them some hope. Many storefronts were obviously closed, but some mom-and-pops were not, and they even saw a few children in yards and on the streets. Skylar’s spirits lifted with each mile they drove out of Atlanta, and she even managed a smile when she found a country-western station still broadcasting. As they pulled into Watkinsville, she signaled Jack to turn into a familiar grocery store she saw open near their property.
Large signs in the window were similar to those they’d seen on the road: NO CREDIT CARDS, LOCAL ID REQUIRED, and PURCHASES LIMITED. At the door, a man sat with a shotgun across his lap. “Only one of you can go in,” he said. “Cash only, ten dollar limit. You got ID?”
Jack pulled out his license.
The man glanced at the Marietta address. “Locals only,” he said. “Sorry. If you want water, there’s a faucet to the side. No coolers, though.”
“But we own property here,” Skylar said. “We’re going to our cabin.”
“Need proof, ma’am. Half of Atlanta come by here, and if we sell to them, we can’t sell to our neighbors.”
“I’ve got a phone bill in the car,” she said to Jack. “Propane bill too, probably.”
“Need to see it, then,” the man said. He glanced up as a car slowed, read the signs, saw his shotgun, and drove off again.
She rummaged in the back of the car, pulled out a box, a bag, found what she needed, and repacked them both. “Chase, keep your sister in the car and the car locked,” she said, lowering her voice.
“I need to go potty,” Miranda fussed.
“We’ll be there soon,” Chase said. “That guy’s not gonna let you use their potty anyway. Can you hold it, or do you want me to walk you out back?”
“I can hold it,” she said, stiffening her lips.
Skylar showed the man her paperwork. He looked it over and said, “Well, looks like you’re neighbors alright. Ma’am, you go on in. Mister—Cummings is it? You gotta stay out here. So how was the traffic on the road outta High Shoals, I heard it was jammed up from Monroe on—“
Skylar went inside and was shocked to see the shelves so empty. A young man with another shotgun on the counter said, “Ten dollar limit, ma’am. But you can come back’s many times as you need.”
And get what? she wondered. She picked up some canned mushrooms, the last bag of dried noodles, and two cans of stewed tomatoes. There was no tomato sauce. “Do you think you’ll get any deliveries soon?”
“Hope so,” he said. “You got more than ten dollars there.”
“Really?” How much could three cans and a bag of noodles cost?
“Need to put back something.”
She reluctantly put back the mushrooms. Miranda didn’t like them anyway.
He checked her out, and she emerged back outside feeling as though she had somehow crossed the border into another country.
When they got to the property, they saw that the gate was still locked, and they made their way down the winding dirt road towards the river. The cabin was standing in a dappled shaft of afternoon sun, and Skylar almost wept again with relief.
That night, after they finally got the cars unpacked and the kids down in their bunkbeds, Jack brought Skylar a glass of wine. They walked to the river to watch the moon. “You think we’ll be safe here?” she asked.
“Well, you can’t see the house from the road, and it’s not like it’s a main road anyway. The gate’s locked—“
“Wish we had a dog.”
“Just one more mouth to feed,” he said. “We’ll be okay here, I think. Sure glad we planted those fruit trees. They might even bear by next year.”
She emptied the wine glass. “Miranda doesn’t have this thing.”
“I think you’re right,” he said. “Or if she does, she’s fighting it off.”
“Now that we’re on well water, none of us will get sick.”
He glanced at her. The moonlight made her dark hair glow, and the sadness in her eyes caught at his throat. He pulled her close to him. “I’m so glad you made me buy this place,” he said. “And you had the good sense to stock up on staples, cash, everything else. You probably saved our lives.”
She wept quietly. “I can’t believe he’s gone. I can’t believe they’re all gone.”
They held and rocked each other and searched the face of the moon for consolation. The river was silent, dark, and deep. Somehow, there was comfort there, as it moved away into the night.
Chase and Jack began the next day, getting the property cleaned up, the brush away from the cabin, stocking the woodpile on the porch. Miranda sat in the shade and watched them. Sky came and went with cold lemonade made from their well water and a powdered mix she’d stocked, and for the first time in weeks, Jack felt as though perhaps they might make it. Later, they’d pull out the old poles and try for some bream.
He realized that no matter how impossible it seemed, the horror of Moses’ death could only last a little while, and then it would become commonplace. Now that he wasn’t sure that there were many days left for any of them, every day was becoming as important as a year, and he couldn’t waste time wishing for other realities but had to fill each hour with what must be done. Each moment, each hour, seemed slowed down now, more dense with meaning, in the same way a poem was more distilled than a page of narrative; every word counted.
He remembered reading that the heart beat 2.7 billion times in an average lifetime. Whatever that was. What about broken hearts? How much more grief could Sky take? Already her smiles had changed, when they fired up at all. Downward smiles, often just this side of trembling, the sort of smile that’s little more than an ineffective dam against tears.
Chase had been so quiet since Moses’ death. Even now, when he had the opportunity to speak to his father alone, he did not choose to share his feelings, to ask questions. Pain was forcing him to think; Jack saw it in the lines of his son’s body as he worked. He was young to deal with mortality, with death that comes in a swift blur of tragedy. He had to make his own connections, and like most men, he would do that in isolation, Jack guessed. The light shall never be overcome by the darkness, the Bible said. He hoped his son could find the inner strength to deal with what was coming for them all. He prayed that the soul of his baby boy knew that when he died, a part of his mother and his father died and went with him. That wherever he went, they went also. He was not alone. He prayed, too, to keep from hating God.
Perhaps today, they could find a spot on the property together and, as a family, put Moses’ jar someplace with a view of the river. He straightened and looked back at the cabin, feeling like a man who had brought his family to the new land out west to tame the wilderness. This would be a very different wilderness than those wagon trains had faced, he knew.
Skylar came out then and called him. It was too early for lunch, and he could tell by her voice that something was wrong. “Keep stacking that along the porch,” he told Chase, “but don’t let the wood get too close to the house; it’ll attract termites.”
He went inside and closed the door, so the kids wouldn’t hear. “What’s up?”
“There’s a new alien message.”
He went to the open laptop warily and stared at the screen:
“All humans must report to Ecology Training. You will be provided with meals, accommodations, medical care, and work assignments. Together, you will cleanse the earth and return it to health. Click on the ‘Next’ button, and you will be given a time and place to report.”
At the bottom of the screen was the usual, “I have read and understood this message” button which required a click to admit them to the Internet.
“Oh my God,” Skylar said. “Work camps. They’re collecting us in work camps.”
“Let’s not panic. And let’s not push that button either.”
He turned on the television in time to hear a new announcement from the Acting
Chief Executive of the United States. The Attorney General, Maria Tuberoso, faced the cameras, her face pale bu
t her voice firm. “My fellow Americans. As all of you know, our nation is facing its gravest challenge since its birth. We have been invaded by a powerful and implacable race, and our country has suffered devastating loss of life. The toll cannot be estimated at this time, and indeed the impact of both the invasion and the massive death count has been global.”
What had been a firm and brave voice now faltered. “The very fact that I am the highest ranking senior executive of your government must tell you how many have died.” She turned her head away for a moment, gathering herself. She choked back an audible sob. “Our country has been badly hurt, but we remain America. We must be prepared to endure the hardships to come. As Chief Executive of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I hereby declare a state of national emergency, until Congress can reconvene and new elections can be held. I hereby declare martial law in every State of this Union, to be supervised by the United States Army. I hereby declare a nationwide curfew, with all citizens behind doors by dark. Looters will be dealt with severely, as will anyone disobeying military orders. We can expect to see widespread disruptions in all services, including communications, transportation, and utilities. I declare, effective immediately, a moratorium on all debts, rents, taxes, interest, mortgages, insurance claims and premiums, and any and all financial obligations for the duration of this emergency, both public and private.”
“Oh my God,” Skylar murmured.
“As possible, I will address the nation with new directives as they become necessary. All citizens will obey the orders of local Civil Defense directors, state, and municipal authorities and any orders issued by the military. We do anticipate power interruptions will increase and become more severe. When and if the television networks can no longer broadcast, remember to turn on your radios and listen for your local Emergency Alert station. I sign off tonight with the hope that we have seen the worst of the disease that has decimated our country, and that our invaders will allow us to heal ourselves and our planet as promised. I ask you to pray for the United States and for those who must now assume the leadership of our country. Goodnight and God bless America.”
