Pandemic Reboot: Survivors

by Krause, J. F.

  Jane wouldn’t be joining us until we were ready for the meeting in about three hours, but Lydia wanted to join in the sanitation work. We were assigned to two different zones so we wouldn’t see each other until the meeting. The sanitation crew had a routine established. They all traveled by school bus to their assigned cleanup areas, then they collected and loaded the bodies they found and cleaned and sanitized the areas where the bodies had been. The bodies were placed in body bags and put onto waiting trucks. This went on until the trucks were at capacity, or more frequently, until it was time to pause for lunch. Sometime before lunch they dropped off the dead bodies at the cremation area, and then they went to the sports center for their first shower of the day before having their boxed lunches. Then it was back to collecting bodies, delivering them for cremation, and then showering before going home for the day. They started about 8 AM so that is when I was to be there. Poor Hector was with me all day.

  As I said before, the sanitation crew was the largest group we had. Since all of the work teams were important, it was certainly important. But there was something else about this team. It was difficult and labor intensive, certainly, but it was also emotionally draining in a way that only a couple of other teams could understand. Housing generally cleaned up the inside of residences after the bodies were removed. They worked much more slowly than the sanitation crews. It would be only a few more days before the sanitation crews would be finished with their tasks, but housing would be at it for several days and maybe weeks more even after we added most of the members of the housing crew. We were planning to do that when sanitation finished up finding and cremating the thousands of bodies that were just about everywhere. When the houses were finally clean and sanitary, we would be creating a whole new group called salvage. A lot of our sanitation crew would move into that work crew that, although still large, was less than a third the size of the current sanitation crew. Most of the teenagers would start school, either college or vocational school as would some of the younger adults.

  When I reported to my work zone, I was met by Jason Kryschtoff, a young guy who headed up a crew of teens and twenties. I realized the work group chief had put me with a group that was my age since all work crews were made up of friends when possible, and age groups when there weren’t enough friends to form a full crew. My new crew was made up of twelve young men and women most of whom had been friends with at least one or two of their fellow crew members from before the caravans had left their original gathering points. In a few cases there were singles who just showed up and got assigned. Regardless of how they ended up in this group, they had formed a solid group bond over the last few days because the work itself demanded it. I learned that in the beginning, they broke down in tears regularly as they found children or mothers clutching infants. They learned to comfort each other in these moments and in the process they forged friendships that transcended mere shared interests. These friendships grew from their mutual experience of Armageddon. Their extreme maturity and humanity made sense now that I saw where it came from. Like them, I broke into tears as I came upon one devastating tableau of death after another. Lovers who somehow found a way to comfort each other even as they lost all conscious understanding of the world around them; parents who sought to protect their children from the certainty of premature death; children who laid down to die next to their already dead mothers and fathers. I spent most of my time weeping and being comforted by these wise young women and men who took me into their arms and held onto my sanity for me. I don’t think I did any actual work that morning and I probably kept my entire crew from doing the work they normally did. But I came away knowing that these young people were the most honorable that my generation would ever produce.

  When the air horn blew to signal the time to head for the cremation fields, I was more than ready. The smell was enough to drive a person insane, but it was actually only slightly worse than the smell coming from the burning corpses. Burning flesh is nauseating. I don’t think there is a smell like it anywhere in the world. They used cranes to lift giant steel containers to and from the fields where the fires were going full throttle. It was worse than anything I’d ever seen. Attempting to describe the sight and smell is among the starkest forms of sacrilege.

  From there, we stood in open air trucks for the trip back to the sports center where we stripped off our coverings and showered. Once I was clean, I realized that I would never be able to forget the feeling of decomposing human flesh and corruption touching my skin even though I had been completely covered with an orange hazmat suit. Even knowing I hadn’t actually come into contact with the decomposing bodies because of the protection of the suit, I still felt the defilement of rot and singe.

  Lunch was in a box, but I passed mine up. I knew I would be given another chance for lunch, but I wouldn’t be any more ready an hour later than I was at the moment. As I walked past the food tables, I came upon Jane comforting a shriveled soul who materialized into Lydia. I knew exactly what she was feeling. My own family was saved from the mass burial pits only because I had requested that they be buried and had enough influence to make the request in the first place. I felt grateful and ashamed at the same time. So I wept again.

  Moments later, Jason brought the sanitation work group leader to meet me. He was joined by Lydia’s crew chief, a woman named Maria Mendoza. Both of them looked at us with such intense sadness that I wanted to break down all over again. I believed, and still do, that they wanted to take the pain from the experience away, that they wanted to protect as many of us from this life altering event as possible.

  The sanitation crew was led by Avery Wells. Avery had been a philanthropist and art collector living a privileged life in the world before. At one time he must have looked the part of a cultured man of leisure and comfort. But, being a patron of the arts was not of immediate value when it came to the world we all now shared. Maybe he had no idea what he was signing up for when he accepted the request to join the sanitation crew. But after watching him as he interacted with his young colleagues and with me, I saw a profoundly wise man, a man who may have begun this assignment out of a simple sense of duty but who now had actually grown under one of the most demoralizing experiences I could imagine. The man who greeted me bore no resemblance to privilege and leisure; this man radiated compassion and humility.

  Avery had been the father of four beautiful and talented children. He had close friendships of many years duration forged in elite private schools and power saturated boardrooms. Best of all, he had been one of those men fortunate enough to have married a woman who had supported his best impulses and aspirations.

  Avery’s first act upon seeing me in my broken emotional state was to take me into his arms and give me the same reassuring embrace that my crewmates had shared with me. Then he took Lydia into his arms as well. We both felt nothing but gratitude. He’d been where we had just been, and he understood.

  I was to learn that everyday, after his wretched day spent collecting cadavers, he picked up his one surviving child at the same school where I picked up Dinah. His youngest child was a boy of twelve months named Taylor, who, except for the survival of his father, would have died alone and forgotten in his crib. I’d never noticed this quiet and unassuming man who gratefully did his job and raised his son.

  Next, Avery introduced me to his crew who were all sitting on the ground just below our little makeshift stage of steps leading to a toilet. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present our leader, Mr. Robert Caldwell.”

  They rose to their feet to welcome me! These mostly young men and women who did this dreadful job on behalf of their fellow human beings, both living and dead, actually applauded me. I couldn’t contain my emotions, and I burst into tears again. Again, Avery gave me a comforting hug as I pulled myself together. Even though I found my voice, tears continued to roll down my face as I spoke.

  “There is no way to thank you for all you have done for this community. There are no words that I can find to do justic
e to the love you show to all of us, both living and dead, through the work you have been doing everyday. You voluntarily face the gates of death to bring closure to the dead and hope to the living. I also want to thank you for your kindness to me and to Lydia Baca. We have seen only a small part of your work, but we know that in this world where no one has to do anything, you have chosen to bring peace to so many of us. Your choice to come to work every day is what will bring us a future. But now, before we open this meeting up for questions from you, I want to ask you a few questions of my own.

  What will you personally do after the work in the sanitation group is complete? What do you believe are the next things we as a survivor community need to do? What’s next for all of us? Please think about that. In a few days or a couple of weeks you’re going to have to start your next phase. We all are, and only you can answer some of these questions.”

  There weren’t many questions from the group. Perhaps, after removing dead bodies from homes, stores, and cars, there wasn’t much left to ask. We ended our meeting, and we went back to the office to get ready for the meeting with the group leaders.

  This would be my first meeting with just the work crew leaders.

  The fairgrounds’ food court was on our way to the office. I realized I should get something for my stomach, but after the sanitation crew, the thought of food was really unwelcome. I suspected that having thrown up as part of my initiation into removing overly dead bodies, I shouldn’t be going into an arduous meeting on a completely empty stomach. Still, I felt I owed it to everyone to be at my best when I was doing my job.

  I decided to see if there was anything I might be able to eat that wouldn’t make me sick so I parted company with Lydia and Jane, and took a little side trip to the kitchen. Fortunately, everyone on the food crew knows me, and I can pretty much go where I choose, so I took a chance and walked back to the food preparation area. Almost the first person I saw as I scanned the room was Gale. She was just coming out of one of the cold storage units with a couple of blocks of what I took to be cheese. She smiled beautifully at me as I came up to her.

  “Bobby! Can I get you something?”

  I did one of those head nods and shakes at the same time. “I just got back from the sanitation crew, you know, the body removal group, and I’m not really up for eating, but I need to eat something during the lunch meeting with the work group leaders or I might not be very helpful, or nice. I know I won’t want much. Do you have anything to suggest?”

  She’d been responding with appropriately sympathetic facial expressions before smiling and nodding her head. “I think I can get you something that will help. How about I send some chicken soup and a ginger ale over? You’re group is having the usual lunch meeting food, and you may not like it right now. I’ll also put an apple in your bag. That way you’ll have something handy if you think you need it.”

  Even the thought of soup and an apple sounded horrible, but I was pretty sure that after the work and the stress of this morning, I needed something to tide me over. Now I could go to my office to prepare knowing that I had been proactive about my own energy level. “Would you make another one for Lydia, too. She was there with me, and I don’t think she feels any better than I do.”

  Walking into my office area, I saw Jane and Anna hugging. My stomach dropped immediately and all I could think about was Indiana. Other people, however, seemed to have broad smiles on their faces, and I realized that even Jane and Anna were smiling.

  “It’s over.” Anna announced as soon as she saw me.

  I looked over at Lydia who was standing next to Todd, looking at one of the computers. She motioned me over with a smile. “Marco’s on the phone, or the computer or,” she shrugged and nodded her head to the computer screen where Marco’s face was looking up at us. He didn’t look tired, but there was an element of something in his face I hadn’t seen before, perhaps it was stress? We’d all seen death in the last couple of weeks, but we hadn’t caused it. Did Marco feel the same way I had since we committed people to go to Indiana? Did the others? I listened as Marco gave a rather in depth report of the conflict in Indianapolis. Time was running short for me before the scheduled work group leaders’ meeting. I stayed and talked with Marco as long as I could before I had to leave to join my other meeting.

  Looking out over the small crowd of group leaders, I was glad I had been able to meet with most of the groups. The majority had one representative, but a few had more, either because they were very large or because their work had several facets that were conjoined for the moment but would later diverge. The sanitation crew was large for now, but would eventually be broken apart and replaced by several smaller groups. For now, there were four members present even though I had only expected three. After seeing what they did all day long, I wasn’t about to complain. The engineers were represented by two members because there were so many types of engineers. They had notified Jane there would be two, but would have happily sent even more. Then there were the housing people. They would eventually be completely morphed into something else, but for now, they would be represented by two members. The educators had three, one for cradle to 16 year olds, another for college and graduate school, and another for vocational school. I couldn’t argue with that either.

  I didn’t expect the entire legal group to show up, but they were all there even though they were represented by Irma, and I was even more surprised to see George who said he was there representing the ‘Oversight Committee’. Frankly, I didn’t care very much even though we don’t have that committee.

  I trust the collective wisdom of the whole. One of my firm beliefs is that objective groups make better decisions, in the long run, than individuals. Individuals may beat a group in a sprint, but not in a marathon. I learned that in a class in college. The teacher had all of us solve a series of problems. Later, she had us work as a group to solve the same series of problems. Most of the groups outscored most of the individuals, and all of the individuals were outscored by at least some of the groups. I was one of the higher scoring individuals, but I came away a firm believer that groups make better decisions, in general, than individuals. The key phrase is ‘in general’. If time is not on your side, pick a smart man or woman and cross your fingers. We’re finally at the point where our survival is looking more like a marathon and less like a sprint.

  So, looking out over the group, I began by asking each of the groups to briefly tell me whom they represented. I thought everyone should know as much about each other as possible. It all proceeded well until we got to George. George made sure not to make the mistake of sitting at the back. He decided to sit right down at the front. Of course, I started at the back, and since George was at the end of the row to my right, I started the introductions at the back on the left and started every row at the left as we moved to the front of the group. Things happened pretty much as I expected. George was the last to talk and didn’t receive a great welcome when people realized his only job was to be a watchdog. His first mistake was to not sit down after he gave his self-introduction.

  I didn’t have to say a thing. Irma did it for me. She stood up somewhere in the middle of the group and said, “Mr. Chairman, our friend George Francis is deviating from the group norm. In the interest of saving time, may we stay within the established norms.” George glared at her and looked like he was about to do something right for a change, then he thought better of it. “As the leader of the oversight committee for our community, I believe it is…..”

  From several places I heard “Sit down!” and “Oversight for who?” and “Be quiet, George!” and some other comments that weren’t quite so nice. I was actually afraid that George was going to accidently cause the very thing he wanted, to derail the meeting.

  Then, at the back of the room a loud whistle sounded. It came from Rusty Holloway of housing and salvage. As soon as it sounded, people stopped and looked back to see this very calm individual smiling at his own success. Rusty proceeded to gesture to me that I
could now proceed with the meeting. George, fortunately, taking advantage of this sudden lull in attention directed at him, quietly sat down.

  But all was not over for George, I’m afraid. Immediately, Harold Richter, one of the farmers’ two leaders asked what the “oversight committee” was looking at and why we needed one and who put it together and so on. It was a long and very loaded question.

  As I started to answer, George took a big breath and started to answer, too. I simply stepped toward him and pointed at him to sit down and shook my head. He very sensibly complied.

  “Right now, all our committees are ad hoc, or as needed and only temporary. We will soon need to have formal work groups that will be responsible for developing and defining their own work and responsibilities. Mr. Francis, here, has evidently decided we need his committee and has taken it upon himself to volunteer his services as our watchdog. We are broadcasting this meeting, as well as all of our meetings, so whether he hears us in person or on the radio is not important.

  Now, back to work. I’ve been asked by the council to put together some basic governing documents for us to consider. In order to do that, I decided to include a representative of our legally trained individuals to sit in on this meeting. Irma, would you stand up?” I decided not to point out that all eight of them were sitting at the back of the hall.