The Flu (A Novel of the Outbreak)

by Jacqueline Druga

  Mick closed his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

  “You aren’t telling me that to make me feel better, are you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t do that. I was in your shoes at one time.” Mick looked out over the yard. “And I’ll tell ya, I wish my father would have done that. What a thing to carry with you. Knowing your father made sure you knew he loved you before he left this earth.” Mick took a drink of the beer.

  “It...it would help with the guilt I feel.”

  Mick quickly turned and looked at him. “I know I can sit here and tell you that you shouldn’t feel guilty. I think you know you shouldn’t feel guilty.”

  “But I do. I all but sent him over there. I told him about you and Mom.”

  Mick nodded. “And if you didn’t, you think he wouldn’t have done what he did?”

  “No. He wouldn’t have.”

  “Nope.” Mick shook his head. “Got news for you, Dustin. Your mom and I were on our way over to tell your dad that your mom was moving in with me. He was getting the news last night. And...” Mick took another drink, “do you really think he didn’t know? Sam knew. He was smarter than that. Sam knew. He’s known for a while.”

  “If he knew about you and Mom, why he’d do it?” Dustin asked. “You’ve known him forever, Mick. Why’d he do it?”

  “I don’t think your father really wanted to kill himself,” Mick spoke softly. “But it was the first time he couldn’t take it back.”

  Dustin looked at him curiously. “You mean like with the sleeping pills after Pap and Grandma died?”

  “And then some.” Mick played with the beer bottle a few seconds before he said more. “I got your mom in there feeling guilty, you out here feeling guilty. It goes way back with your dad. And it wasn’t a desire to leave this earth, ‘cause I’m gonna tell you, your Dad loved too many things, including you kids, to leave.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “Sam...” Mick paused. “Sam grabbed for attention with suicide attempts. A lot. The first time was when we were sixteen.”

  “Sixteen?” Dustin asked shocked. “My dad tried to kill himself when he was sixteen?”

  “He didn’t want to. Keep that in mind. He was on the roof of Bailey’s Drugstore. Said if Coach Hawk didn’t get down there and put him back on the football team he was gonna jump. Now, we knew Sam was pissed. He wanted to get attention, and it was only me and your mom looking up at him on that roof. We told him, it was only twenty feet, he wasn’t gonna die, he’d only break his legs and never play again. Don’t you know—”

  “He jumped,” Dustin whispered. “I heard about that. He did break both his legs. That’s how he got the limp.”

  Mick nodded. “We never said that he was trying to kill himself. But the second time, your mom told.”

  “That was the pills, right, because he was seeing that doctor for a while.”

  Mick shook his head. “Your dad joined the service, then he changed his mind. Found out he couldn’t get out of it and tried to slice his wrist. But he used a plastic butter knife, never really made it too deep into the flesh, but the stigma was there. And he got out of going.”

  “This time he used a gun, and he couldn’t take it back.”

  Mick finished the beer. “No...he couldn’t take it back.”

  Dustin breathed out sadly as he stared down at his feet tapping the bare spot. “I’m gonna miss him.”

  “Me, too. We all will. And we’ll all be affected by this. Especially you guys and your mom, who hates me right now. But your grandmother yelled at her in that Donna Reed way.”

  “Bet Mom was mad.”

  “Called me a tattletale.”

  “You are,” Dustin said.

  “True.” Mick tilted his head in acknowledgement.

  “Think she’s still mad about it?”

  “Maybe not.” Mick shook his head then turned it at the same time as Dustin when the back porch door slammed.

  Dylan stood on the porch. Loudly, bitterly, she growled, “Dinner.” then she stormed in the house.

  Mick looked back to Dustin who just stared at him. “Then again,” Mick said, “maybe she is.”

  * * *

  Barrow, Alaska

  Paul had just finished sending the documents electronically to Henry. He awaited word on Winston Messaging for Henry’s reaction. Paul told him basically what the documents said, but somehow Henry didn’t believe him. Perhaps Henry didn’t want to believe Paul. Maybe he could find something Paul had messed up. And Paul was hoping Henry would. Something—anything—to say the findings were wrong, grossly premature. Inaccurate.

  They weren’t.

  There were four communities along Northern Alaska’s coast, just four. Their total population was less than that of Barrow. But four scattered communities said a lot more than one isolated northern community.

  James Littleton visited each town. He assured Paul he wanted nothing more than to dismiss Paul’s findings, but he couldn’t. He went through each community with a fine toothed comb, wanting, like everyone else, for nothing to be there.

  They believed the towns would be infected, and they were correct.

  Though each community was a day apart in progress of the infection, they were indeed infected. Fast, too. It was spreading rapidly, like wildfire.

  The information sent to Henry was simple. Basically breakdowns, the numbers of victims, the symptoms presented. Nothing Paul hadn’t conveyed over the phone. But still he awaited Henry’s thoughts, reaction, and opinion.

  And with the ‘beep’ of Henry’s return, Paul got all those in the form of one, short simple message.

  HBK_HENRY: Dear God, what have we started?

  THE OUTBREAK

  From deep within

  It finds a way

  Out of the darkness

  Seeping in

  Unknown, unseen

  Taking control

  Spreading

  Like wildfire

  Rapid in movement

  Claiming territory an inch at time

  Without warning

  Before we know it

  The enemy overtakes

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Winston Research Center

  Weston, Virginia

  August 29th

  Although the memo was everything Henry wanted to see and believe, he had as hard a time swallowing the contents as he did any cough medicine.

  Classified: CONTAINED.

  That was the heading of a memo to Henry issued by the Centers for Disease Control the previous day. The document that Henry had hoped would be a ‘not guilty’ verdict turned into the cause of a night’s lost sleep.

  He didn’t understand the classification. How, in one day, could the CDC simply say the flu was contained based solely on the towns infected, location, and initial outbreak? Henry didn’t buy it, not for one second. Perhaps that was the reason he called the emergency meeting; for his own conscience, his own peace of mind, Henry wanted to push the CDC to investigate further. To not let it die. Not yet. He would give his best argument. He had to.

  Kurt Wilson from the Centers for Disease Control was the last to arrive at Henry’s meeting, and he arrived with attitude. Irritated that he had to fly in for a meeting that he considered to be unnecessary, he took his seat with six others at the table in the conference room. He flipped through a folder of photos and statistics that he had already seen. It was his call to judge the flu contained, and he wasn’t happy that he was being second-guessed.

  “Swine flu, it’ll start out of the blue.” Henry lifted his hands as he spoke to the group. “It disappears just as fast. In 1972 at a small fishing village in Italy, a version of Swine Flu began out of nowhere. Deadly, strong, it was familiar and was tagged ‘Secondo Venire’, meaning, Second Coming. It was given this name by one of the town’s doctors who recognized it all too easily. He had seen it before, or so he thought, sixty years earlier when he was a child during the Spanish Flu pandemic. Because of his discovery, health officials we
re called in. This doctor was correct, though it was not the Spanish flu; our researchers had it matched down to one strand of eight in the virus that differs. Immediately, health officials closed this town. Quarantined it and surrounding communities. The flu ran its course, no other towns were infected. Case closed.” Henry paused to look at the faces around the table. “Until two weeks later when the flu showed up in a small town in Madagascar, courtesy of ‘fisherman to fisherman’ transfer on a boat making a seven seas journey. What saved the world from another pandemic, deadlier than the Spanish Flu, was the fact that earlier a division of the World Health Organization had set up a lab four miles from this little village. The reason for this little lab being set up there is that Madagascar, as you all know, has been the hot spot of the world for various plagues. The buck stopped there with Secondo Venire.” Henry paced slowly. “But not before it mutated and one teenage boy was hospitalized with a version of plague when he caught this airborne swine flu. The results: Within one week, everyone in that village was dead. Dead.” Henry repeated. “The nearest community was twelve miles away, and since this teenage boy and three others were known to have the plague, travel between the communities had been cut off. Due to those measures Secondo Venire never left Madagascar except in test tubes.”

  Slouched to one side, Kurt tapped his pencil on the table. He merely raised his eyes. “Not to sound like, I don’t know, an asshole, but we know this. What’s your point?”

  “My point is,” Henry answered, “you have to know how deadly this thing is.”

  “We do.”

  “No, you don’t.” Henry shook his head. “Listen to me. Ninety-five percent of all those who catch the flu will turn septic. Septic. Their lungs start decaying the second the flu hits them. And it can’t be discovered until it’s too late.”

  “Again,” Kurt insisted strongly, “we know this. What is your point?”

  In a fit of pique, Henry shook his head. “You’re classifying it contained. You’re marking the episode over.”

  “It is.”

  “No, it isn’t, you still have—”

  “What?” Kurt shifted through his papers. “Four towns displaying the virus. Four. Barrow is at ninety percent, the flu has almost run its course there. The other three are at fifty-, sixty- and seventy-five percent. You want me to keep full staff alert on this? You want me to spend funds we don’t have on warnings and search teams?”

  “Yes.”

  “For what!” Kurt blasted. “No other reports of this flu have come in.”

  Henry laughed quietly. “And how in God’s name is some physician, say in Wisconsin, supposed to know they are dealing with Secondo Venire? How? They will look upon their patient as someone with the ordinary flu. Cold symptoms, then pneumonia, the normal routine. Until the patient, every patient, dies. If they don’t know to look for it, how the hell are they supposed to report it?”

  “They won’t have cases to report,” Kurt said. “When the World Health Organization gave Winston the flu to research, they put you and others far away. Isolated. We’ve had accidents with this before and you know nothing has ever come of it. It has never breached a fifty-mile radius because of the isolation factor and where it hit. This will be no different. Sorry to say, this is out of the CDC’s hands. To us, it was nothing more than some rural areas with insufficient medical care with an outbreak of the flu.”

  Henry stormed to the table. “And what will you tell the technological world when they start dropping like flies?” He ignored Kurt’s scoff. “Are you gonna tell them they all have the flu? Prepare that little speech and prepare for that scenario because this isn’t over.” He shook his head. “It’s far from over.”

  * * *

  Lodi, Ohio

  Home.

  But there had to be an error. A mix-up of some kind, Lars Rayburn figured. Not only did he smell dust when he opened the door, but the house was dark. He guessed the woman he usually hired must have forgotten the date of his arrival in Lodi, which was unusual. No one ever forgot when he came home.

  For years when he came home at the end of August, the same woman would arrive the day before and prepare his house. Not that he needed it, but Lars liked the idea of returning to his house in Lodi as if he had never left it. The woman made sure of that. Dust free, drapes open, fresh fruit, a newspaper, and a refrigerator full of food. He began to think perhaps she hadn’t received the letter and check he’d sent three weeks earlier. Hoping that at least the power company had gotten his check, Lars reached for the light switch. As soon as he thought, ‘ah, power,’ the bulb burned out with a fizzle and pop.

  “Swell.” Lars shook his head, set down his bag and walked into the living room. “Two down, how about the third?” He lifted the receiver on the phone. “Well, GTE certainly received my check.” Happy to hear the dial tone, Lars made his call. His face lit up when he received an answer. “Hello? Tom? Lars Rayburn. Good, good. Hey, Tom, I was wondering. Is everything all right with Dylan? She never came to prepare the house.” There was silence, then Lars sadly took in the news he hadn’t expected to hear less than ten minutes into his homecoming.

  * * *

  Barrow, Alaska

  The older man sat up in the bed pushed into the corner of his bedroom in his one-story home. The television played, and he kept peering over Paul’s shoulder to see the bad reception, which was a task since Paul was wearing a large blue biohazard outfit.

  Paul knew the old man’s attention wasn’t with him, but he continued with his task anyhow. Of all the older people Paul had seen, the old man was one of few who had given into the modern convenience of television. Everything about Barrow really surprised Paul while he was there. Hearing it was the largest Eskimo settlement, Paul had envisioned a world of igloos, not a tiny village on a small technological ride.

  Paul finished what he was doing and smiled through the suit’s facial mask.

  “You’ve had a big drop in temperature, so I’m going to say you are well on your way to beating this flu.” What Paul wanted to add was that the man was one of very few.

  The old man looked from the television to the window. “I can see the street. I walk it every day. Today I see no one walking. No cars. No noise.”

  Paul sighed heavily and began to put away his things. “People are sick with this flu.”

  “Everyone?”

  Paul nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “And they are all healing now?” he asked.

  “Pretty much.” Paul stood up. It was a far cry from the truth, but in Paul’s mind, why tell the man any differently? Though they hadn’t lost the numbers Paul had originally projected, the numbers of fatalities was frighteningly close.

  “I’ll let you rest. I’ll check back tomorrow,” Paul said with a nod, noticing the old man returned to looking at the television. As he turned to leave, Paul noticed it. It hadn’t been there the day before. With an odd smile, he lifted the handheld electronic device. “This shocks me,” Paul said.

  The old man, confused, looked at him.

  “That you have this, I mean.” Paul explained.

  “I tried to play the games, but it doesn’t work.”

  Curious, Paul looked down. “It’s not a game unit. It’s called a pocket organizer. Didn’t they tell you that when you purchased it?”

  “I did not buy it. It was left behind last week by a story man who was in town.”

  Panic immediately hit Paul. “Last week?”

  “Yes. Two of them.”

  Fumbling through his gloves, Paul turned on the pocket organizer. He knew his hopes that the storyteller was from one of the coastal communities was in vain when he saw the owner’s name and information: Bill Daniels, Lighthouse Publications, Anchorage, Alaska.

  “May I take this?” Paul asked.

  “It is broke.”

  “Yes, I know. May I?”

  “Yes,” the man answered.

  Having a hard time disguising his concern, Paul hurriedly excused himself and left the house
. He was told by everyone he’d interviewed that no strangers had come into town. He’d banked on that and he’d lost. If some reporter from Anchorage was in Barrow one week earlier, he didn’t just return home with a story; he could have very well returned home with the flu.

  Paul knew he had to immediately send someone to locate Bill Daniels. As he stepped outside, he froze. He couldn’t move. It overwhelmed him. Something he normally didn’t even think twice about threw him into a personal frenzy. A wave of fear paralyzed Paul when he stepped off the stoop and sneezed.

  * * *

  Lodi, Ohio

  Three in a row, Dustin, Chris and Tigger, all sat on the couch, biggest to smallest. All sat the same, hands folded, and the three of them all wore black pants, a white dress shirt, and a black tie.

  As if they’d practiced it, at the same time they all slowly peered over their right shoulders when the front door opened.

  As Mick stepped in, the unusual sight slowed his pace. “Boys.” He closed the door.

  Chris stood up and snickered. “Mick?” he asked in question of the similar outfit Mick wore. “You look...wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Mick questioned then checked out his attire. His shirt matched his pants and his tie was neutral. “How do I look wrong?”

  “Just not like you. That’s all,” Chris shrugged.

  “Where’s your mom?” Mick asked. “Is she still getting ready?”

  In sync, all three boys shrugged an answer.

  Mick looked at his watch. “She knows what time we have to be at the funeral home, right?”

  Again, in sync, they nodded.

  “Is she upstairs?” When Mick received the same eerie nonverbal response, he went upstairs. “Dylan.”

  “In here,” she answered from the bedroom.