The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series

by Jacqueline Druga

  THE FINISHING

  How quickly does time go when things start to fade away?

  Minutes turn to hours, hours into days.

  Will we cry, will we anger, when those we love are gone?

  Will we close our eyes and pretend it’s a dream and try to carry on?

  DAY FOUR

  Monday, June 1st - 4:45 a.m.

  Ashtonville, Connecticut

  Joe had to park nearly a block from Ellen’s home. He probably could have pulled closer but by doing that he risked driving over one of the many that made the street their home. The small campfires had burned themselves to mere flickering embers of light. Joe, carrying a short wave radio, walked down the street to Ellen’s house.

  It was dark with the exception of one light. When Joe walked into the foyer, he could see Ellen in the only lit room, the dining room. She sat in front of booted up computer. He closed the door and set down the radio walking to her. “Hey.”

  Ellen looked quickly at him then back to the computer screen. “Hey, Joe. How did it go?”

  “Made it to Stamford fine. Got ...” Joe paused before telling her anything yet. “Got everyone checked in.”

  “Peter?”

  “He’s ... um, he took a turn for the worse. I’m still trying to clear my head.” He stood behind her. “What are you doing?”

  “Take an escape break. Yesterday morning I retrieved my email but I never read it. I was hoping to find a letter from Robbie. And ...” Ellen clicked the mouse. “There it is. He wrote this right before being deployed. He was bitching.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Joe smiled, reading his sons words on the screen, looking at the time it was sent, 5:30 a.m. Robbie’s time. “Will you look at that?”

  “I have.” Ellen looked peacefully at the letter. “Then I found myself reading some of his past mail to me to take my mind off of things.”

  “I would like a copy of that.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  Joe watched her click again and the smile fell from his face. “My God, Ellen.” Joe seemed taken aback by what he read. “That’s pornographic. Why is my son sending you pornographic messages?”

  “Because he’s Robbie.” Ellen smiled. “He always has. He’s funny.”

  “Yeah, he’s a pip. Well, do you feel like taking a less indecent form of escape with me? I want to go get Kelly and the girls and bring them here.”

  “I think that’s a good idea. Let me shut down.”

  Joe watched her maneuver the mouse again. “Wait. Before you close that thing down, can I ... . can I see that last letter from my son just one more time?” Joe leaned further over Ellen’s shoulder and closer to the screen as she retrieved Robbie’s last email again for Joe. No matter how much complaining Robbie’s words contained, they were still Robbie’s words. Joe wanted to take them in especially since Robbie was the only one of his sons he never got a chance to speak to personally before this all started.

  June 1st - 5:00 a.m.

  Interstate 95 - New Rochelle, New York

  On the ground outside the standard military Jeep, the bodies of a man and woman soldier, both plague victims, lay on the ground. Catherine was in the front passenger seat. Her body slouched and the seatbelt did little to help hold her up.

  Carl, damp with blood-covered clothing, shut the passenger door and walked around to the driver’s seat. After sliding in, he placed his rifle in between the two seats and started the Jeep. “It runs.” He smiled at Catherine. “We’ll get you there yet.”

  As the Jeep began to move, Catherine, her head slumped to the side, raised her eyes to Carl. She reached her hand to his but as soon as she gripped it, she lost all strength and her fingers slid across the back of his hand, leaving a bloody trail. Having a direction and a means to get there, Carl forged ahead on the journey that he and Catherine not only wanted to take, but had to take.

  June 1st - 5:10 a.m.

  Ashtonville, Connecticut

  A hint of daylight was all the brightness there was on Kelly’s street. No porch lights, no street lights. Dark. But it still wasn’t too dark for Joe and Ellen to see Maggie Peters, the elderly next door neighbor, standing outside of Kelly’s home. They could clearly see that something was amiss.

  Sending gravel up from the quick jolting stop of the car, Joe tossed it in park and hurried to Maggie. “Something’s wrong. What?”

  “I ... I came to check on them. I said I would.” Maggie’s eyes were red. “I ... just wanted to check on them.” She lifted her hand, and in it was a small piece of cream-colored paper.

  Joe saw the dazed, confused look on Maggie’s face and he snatched the paper from her hand. It took a split second to read it and for his expression to drop. Note slipping from his fingers and floating to the ground, Joe bolted into the house.

  Ellen looked at Maggie then to the note. She picked it up and then she too, raced in. “Joe!” Ellen called out.

  “Kelly!” Joe’s voice charged out as he stormed about the first floor of the house. “Kelly!” he moved to the steps.

  Ellen stopped him. “Joe. Just wait.”

  “Ellen, I have to see what she did.”

  Ellen pulled on his arm. “Listen. Her note said she didn’t want to face this. The last thing we need to do is wake those kids and have them find what Maggie saw.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right.” Joe ran his hand down his face to calm himself. Just as his fingers glided over his chin, a tapping noise caught his and Ellen’s attention. Steady, soft, tapping. “Do you hear that.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t ...” Joe turned his head. “Oh, my God.” His eyes saw it and his heart dropped. A red wet circle of blood was on the ceiling in the hallway, saturated so heavily that the blood dripped down onto the carpet in front of the powder room, forming a puddle. “The bathroom.”

  Ellen was closest to the steps and she flew up first with Joe close behind her. She rounded the corner upstairs and as soon as she did, both she and Joe saw it. Seeping out from under the bottom edge of the bathroom door was blood. Without stopping and ignoring the call of her name from Joe, Ellen charged to the bathroom door. The momentum of her run did not stop and she turned the knob, barging through. The second her body hit the inside of the bathroom, her feet slipped on the thickened blood that covered the floor as if it were ice. Ellen flew up in the air and landed hard on the red surface. With a quick turn of her body to try to catch her balance and get up, Ellen found herself face to face with Kelly’s pale corpse.

  Ellen’s mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out. She tried to get a grip on the slick surface and get out, but her hands and feet slid and Ellen fell back down again. Horrified, she started to quiver and shake, wanting only to get out of there. A fast clasp on her wrist and a tug from Joe brought Ellen out of the bathroom. Hyperventilating, Ellen rolled onto the carpet and Joe helped her to stand. Every part of her was covered in clotted and sour smelling blood.

  “Joe,” she stuttered his name out.

  “Listen.” Joe closed his eyes painfully before speaking. “I’m getting the kids out of here. But you have to get out of here too. Run home, they can’t see you or any of this.”

  Ellen hysterically nodded rapidly.

  “Go.” Joe told her as he reached back and closed the bathroom door.

  Again Ellen nodded and turned to the steps. She only made it half way down when she stopped. The sound of the single gut-wrenching cry from Joe told her that Kelly had done more than take her own life. Hearing Joe’s repeated ‘no’s’, Ellen went back upstairs, moving slowly and apprehensively into the girls’ room. When she stepped in she immediately saw the reason for Joe’s heartbreak. Lindsay and Megan were tucked in their beds, eyes open, faces blue-gray with a small amount of pink fluid, apparently dried, that had seeped from the corners of their mouths. Her eyes turned to Joe who held Amanda in his arms. The baby looked the same as her sisters.

  “Ellen.” Joe’s saddened eyes looked up to her. “What did she
do? What did she do?” A sob came from Joe and he dropped his head down to the baby.

  It was the first time in all the years she had known Joe that she could recall seeing him cry. A strong virile man who hadn’t shed a tear in her sight now sobbed in his sadness while holding his dead granddaughter.

  Joe sniffled long and wiped his eyes, laying his lips to the baby before placing her back in the crib. He raised his eyes to Ellen again. “I have to see Johnny.”

  “Should you?” Ellen asked.

  “Yeah.” Joe answered sadly and walked from the bedroom. “Can you ... can you cover them?”

  Ellen gave her agreement as Joe left the bedroom. She guessed it was the shock of all that had happened, it had to be, because Ellen just didn’t know how to feel at that moment. She glanced at Megan and Lindsay, children she had known and loved since birth, and then she moved to Megan’s bed. Ellen grabbed the blanket, but she had to turn her head and close her eyes as she lifted that blanket. Her throat closed up, she felt herself choking on her emotions, then she felt her heart stop when she heard little Johnny’s voice.

  “Pap?” He sounded so curious. “What are you doing here?”

  Ellen’s eyes widened, her hands released the blanket, her head sprang up and she raced to the bedroom door slamming it shut. She couldn’t be seen. The girls couldn’t be seen. Not by Johnny. Not at his age. She started to tremble in fear, her heart pounding rapidly. She prayed that Joe would only whisk the boy up without any words, without letting him see anything.

  Joe did.

  Joe lifted Johnny into his arms. He laid his hand on the back of Johnny’s head, pressed Johnny’s face into his chest and flew to the steps.

  “Pap? Pap, what’s going on?” Johnny asked. “What about my mom? Pap? Where you taking me? Pap? Can I say goodbye to my mom?”

  Ellen, leaning against the bedroom door, listened to the fading of Johnny’s voice, a voice that picked up confusion and fright with every word he spoke.

  Slam.

  Ellen’s shoulder’s dropped when she heard the front door close. They were gone. Moments later she heard the closing of the car door as Joe started of the engine. As soon as the relief for Johnny hit her so did something else: the silence of Kelly’s home. Then blasting into Ellen’s heart came the realization that she not only stood in the middle of one of the most heartbreaking and horrific scenes she had ever witnessed, but she stood at the beginning of a hellish nightmare that was far from being over for her.

  June 1st - 5:40 a.m.

  Aid Station - Outskirts, Chicago, IL

  It was the noise level that brought Frank to consciousness. In an aid station, under a tent jammed packed with cots, Frank opened his eyes. He hadn’t clue where he was, and everything was completely out of focus. His head still pounded, throbbing as if with each beat of his heart. Frank discovered he couldn’t breathe through his nose. He brought his fingers to his nostrils, pulled then away and saw the blood. He touched the bridge of his nose and cringed a little at the pain. Surely he had broken it.

  He couldn’t recall in his entire life feeling as bad or as weak as he did right then. He didn’t even remember being brought to his current location. His whereabouts were something he needed to learn. With a grunt Frank shifted his body and lifted himself to a sitting position. His head spun as he heard cries, screams, and moans. He could smell sickness. Situating his equilibrium, Frank stood up from his cot. His body started to sway again, and the spinning of the room made his stomach flip. He took control of his body, trying not to fall and hoping not to pass out. Arms extended to his sides, Frank balanced. He tilted forward then back and when he finally felt a firm stance, it was then that Frank felt the reality. Everything came into focus. The tent he was in. The number of cots too many to count. The sick that lay upon them. The dead that lay there, too. Frank may have questioned why he stood post on that barricade, but he knew right then he wouldn’t question why he stayed in that tent. Feeling the lightheadedness hit him, Frank lowered himself back down to sit on that cot before he passed out again. He would take a little time to let his dizziness subside, but after it did, Frank wouldn’t waste any more time. He had to leave that place.

  June 1st - 6:00 a.m.

  Ashtonville, Connecticut

  Like a zombie, Ellen moved in almost an aimless direction back to her house from Kelly’s, taking the long way back, moving slowly. Heavy thoughts of what Kelly did pressed in on her; she’d learned exactly what happened by just staying a few extra minutes in the house. She clutched a picture frame tight in her arms, close to her chest as she moved slowly down her street. She could hear the sounds of her make-shift aid station floating up to her. It was when she felt the pulling and stretching of her skin that Ellen realized she was still covered in blood. The only problem was, it was dried and Ellen had to do something before getting home.

  The Jamieson house on the corner was the biggest and nicest house in Ashtonville. They had money, and they swore they didn’t flaunt it. But they bought anything and everything their money could buy. Ellen remembered seeing them in her lawn trying to get relief for the illness that ravaged them. For the first time, the Jamiesons couldn’t buy what they needed. A cure. There was no price tag on that, because simply there was none.

  Knowing, she had to clean up, and knowing where the Jamiesons were, Ellen went into their house to clean away the mess she had become.

  While Joe was out making a minimal medication sweep with Jenny, she asked him a question. Jenny asked Joe why they were writing everyone’s name down, keeping track of who came in. Joe didn’t have a good answer at the time. In fact, he left Jenny without even attempting to answer her. He merely told her to just keep doing it.

  Perhaps Joe just needed to step away to find that answer. And he did while watching Johnny in Ellen’s kitchen hungrily slurp up a bowl of cereal.

  Amber, Lindsay, and Megan. Joe always saw so much of Kelly in them. But Johnny. To Joe, Johnny was all Slagel. He had the brains of his uncle Jimmy, the amiability of Hal, and Frank’s black hair. And Johnny had Robbie’s innocence. Within that one little boy, Joe saw all of his sons. Sons Joe thought about constantly, all four of them in the forefront of his mind. Were they sick? Were they alive? Where were they? Every attempt Joe made to locate even one of them ended up futilely. Even his last attempt a few hours earlier when he stopped at a police station to use the radio was in vain. Joe couldn’t find his sons. Whereabouts unknown. Unless they showed up in Ashtonville, Joe would never know what became of the boys he had dedicated his life to. That hurt. And that was the reason for writing down names. So that somewhere in the world there would be a record of the lives that meant much more than just being plague victim number so-and-so. For that one single person that would eventually wander into Ashtonville looking for their family. One month, six, maybe even a year down the road, they would be able to at least find an answer and find peace. Peace that Joe would never have without answers about his sons.

  Joe was a realist. From what he had been witnessing with the virus—even though he wished with his all heart—he knew all of his boys couldn’t be alive and well. And with the four of them scattered about the country, Joe could only hope and pray that maybe out there—even if only for one of his sons—someone was taking time to care enough about them to write down their name.

  Ellen shivered a breath as she stepped even closer to her house. It looked worse than when she left, but she knew it wasn’t. It was just the brightening of the day that lit the true number of people that had showed up at her home. Ellen had a hard time understanding why they stayed. They weren’t getting constant relief. The medical attention they received was limited to a teenager, a CIA agent and a nurse. But they gathered around her home like fireflies in a field, lingering en mass.

  She spotted Joe as she drew closer. He aided a woman who lay on a cushion from Ellen’s patio furniture. He stopped when he saw her and immediately made his way to Ellen.

  “I’m sorry I left you there.” Joe to
ok Ellen in his arms, holding her tight.

  “No, that’s ok.” Ellen shook her head. “It was for the best. She overdosed them, Joe. She put sleeping pills in their juice.” Ellen spoke as if in a dream like state.

  “The girls must have gotten sick.” Joe’s hand held tight to the back of her wet hair. “She didn’t try to kill ...”

  “Yes.” Ellen pulled back from the hold. “Yes, she did. Johnny, too. Sick or not. He just didn’t drink the juice.”

  Joe’s eyes closed. He got sick to his stomach at the thought of Johnny waking up and seeing his mother first. When Joe opened his eyes he noticed Ellen holding a frame. “What do you have there?”

  “Frank.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Frank’s picture. It was on Johnny’s dresser. He’s my best friend, Joe. God, I wish he were here.”

  “Me too, Kiddo.” Joe could see the bloody finger prints around the frame. “Can I?” he reached for the picture, turning it around. Joe snickered. “You took this one? Ellen, this is his army graduation picture.”

  “I know.” Ellen peeked at the photo. “But I love this one. I think, Joe, no matter how old he and I get, he will always look like this to me.”

  Joe blinked staring down at the picture of a thinner and still gawky-looking Frank. “You poor thing.”

  “Joe.” Ellen lowered her head not wanting to smile.

  Joe pulled her closer and kissed her on the forehead. He handed the photo back to her. “I would think you would have this picture.”