Small Town EMP (Book 3): Survive The Conflict

by Hamilton, Grace

  She gave a quick nod before pushing open the front door a little wider. The smell of sickness washed over her, rife with the familiar smell of vomit and human feces. She covered her face with her bent arm, following the light at the end of the dark hall. She gasped when they walked into the bright living room, all of its windows opened to let in sun and fresh air. The smell of sickness overpowered even the air coming in through the windows.

  There were at least twenty people of various ages lying on makeshift beds on the floor, plus one on the couch and several on folding cots that had been set up near the windows. There were garbage cans all around the room, flies buzzing over them. It was a horrific sight that belonged somewhere in the medieval ages, not in a world with modern medicine and sterile hospitals.

  The doctor turned when he saw her. “You shouldn’t be in here. It isn’t safe.”

  “I won’t touch anything,” she assured him.

  “What do you need?” he asked with exasperation.

  “You’re sure it’s typhoid?” she asked.

  “The rash on the chest tells me it is, combined with their other symptoms,” he said, pulling on a pair of exam gloves and touching the forehead of a young woman who looked ghastly pale lying on a narrow cot.

  “How many?” she asked.

  He let out a long sigh. “Since it started, I’ve lost eight children, four elderly, and one middle-aged man. Before the day is over, I expect to lose another two. I’ve gone through all the antibiotics I had. I don’t have any more IVs and I’m at a loss for what to do next. I can’t help them.”

  “I’m so sorry. Do you know the source?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “It could be the water. Most of the people living here have been using the stream to get their water because it’s close and easy; I doubt many were even bothering to boil it, to tell you the truth. It could have been one of the dishes that was served at a community meal a few weeks ago after a particularly successful hunt, too. I have no idea.”

  “The stream?” Tonya gasped from behind Amanda.

  Amanda spun around. “You guys should go. We can’t risk getting infected.”

  “We have to warn Gretchen and the others,” Tonya said, panic in her voice.

  Amanda nodded. “Tell her not to touch anything. Anything here could be contaminated.”

  “There are more of you?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes, we’re traveling through and stopped to look for supplies,” Amanda explained.

  “You don’t want to stay here and you certainly don’t want to eat or drink anything from here. These people were sick for days. They could have spread it around. I don’t know how many are out there. The population was small to begin with, but this isn’t all of them.”

  “Are you from here?” Amanda asked.

  He offered a small smile. “Yes and no. I moved here two years ago. I had a small practice. It was a nice, quiet town. When the darkness hit, a lot of people packed up and moved, hoping to find success closer to one of the cities. There were probably only about fifty of us left when this happened, and I fear that, by the time this typhoid has run its course, there will be very few survivors.”

  Amanda shook her head at the horror of it, looking at the ailing victims of a bacterial infection that could have been prevented with proper sanitation. All it took was one infected person to touch another person’s food, eating utensils, or use the bathroom too close to a water source, and something like this would spread like wildfire without good handwashing and sanitation… things that were extremely difficult without running water.

  “I’m so sorry. Are you taking care of all of these people on your own?” she asked gently.

  The doctor shrugged a shoulder. “I’m it. I’m all they have.”

  “You’re exhausted. You’re going to get sick if you don’t get some rest,” she said.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I? If I stop moving, they all die. They’ll lie in their own vomit and feces and the situation will only be that much worse,” he reasoned.

  “I’ll help. I’ll stay for a while. Go take a nap, eat, rest,” she insisted.

  She thought he was going to reject her offer, but he suddenly nodded, suggesting that his personal exhaustion might have been even worse than she’d guessed. “Okay. Thank you. This is Sienna,” he said, moving to a young woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty. “She can tell you names. I have gloves here, but I’m out of clean trash bags.”

  “Hi,” the girl said, her voice weak as she lifted her head from her pillow.

  “Hi, Sienna. How are you feeling?” Amanda asked.

  Sienna giggled softly. “Like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

  “Sienna and her family were some of the first to show symptoms. They were given antibiotics,” the doctor said.

  Sienna looked away, tears in her eyes. “I’m the only one that made it,” she said in a raspy voice.

  Amanda’s eyes went to Robin’s as he continued, “Her twin brothers were only four, and her little sister was six. Their little bodies weren’t strong enough,” he explained, his voice flat.

  “My grandma died yesterday,” Sienna said. “She was all I had left.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Amanda said, longing to reach out and comfort the girl but afraid to risk it.

  “I expect Sienna to make a full recovery. She’s through the worst of it, but still very weak. She needs to stay in bed,” Robin added, his eyes on the girl to emphasize how serious he was.

  Amanda could see from the exchange that the young woman was struggling to follow the doctor’s orders. “I’ll make sure she does,” Amanda promised. “Now, go get some rest.”

  “How many of you are there?” Robin asked first.

  “Seven.”

  “Our resources are limited out here,” he said with a grimace.

  “We won’t take anything. I’ll stay long enough to give you a reprieve and then we’ll be on our way,” she said.

  “Thank you. I’ll just be upstairs in the master bedroom,” he said, walking away with his shoulders slumped forward.

  Amanda turned back to Sienna, who was watching her wearily. “Why are you helping us? You know you could get sick.”

  Amanda forced a smile, knowing the girl was right. This was a risk, but she felt she had no choice. “Because I see a man fighting hard to keep people alive and I can’t let him do it alone. Besides, I could use a break from walking and the heat. My whole group can. We’ll stay for a while and then we’ll be on our way,” she told the girl, who had laid her head back against the pillows.

  “Where are you going?” Sienna asked, her voice growing weaker.

  “We’re headed east,” Amanda said.

  Sienna turned her head to look at her. “That’s vague.”

  Amanda smiled. “We don’t really know.”

  Sienna studied her a bit longer before closing her eyes. With that, Amanda got up and let the girl rest. She put on a pair of gloves and slowly moved around the room, checking on one victim and then another. An older man, probably in his late sixties, was hovering on death’s door. His breathing was shallow, his lips a faint blue and his skin ashen. She knew the complications from the bacterial infection were vast.

  She continued to make rounds around the room, doing her best to avoid contact with any bodily fluids. One middle-aged man had an intensely high fever. He was violently shaking and appeared to be hallucinating. There was nothing she could do for him, either—except get him clean water. She stood, removed her gloves, and deposited them in a trash bin before walking outside to find the rest of the group gathered in the yard.

  “Are we leaving? I don’t like this place,” Drew said.

  “I want you to go to every house, to find pots and pans and build a fire. We’ve got to get these people some clean water. The doctor can’t do it all. Grab every piece of clean linen you can find. I need to clean these people up or it’s only going to keep spreading,” she ordered, going into Airman mode.

  “Is
that safe?” Gretchen asked. “Shouldn’t we just keep going?”

  “As long as we practice good sanitation, we’ll be okay, and we have some time to spare. These people need us desperately. Gretchen, do you have any magical remedies that can help with this situation? The doctor has gone through all of his antibiotics. Some of these people are in bad shape and won’t make it if they don’t get medicine.”

  Gretchen appeared thoughtful. “The only thing that comes to mind is garlic, possibly raw honey, but I wouldn’t know where to look for either.”

  Amanda sighed with disappointment. “Then water it is. Use pots with handles. Don’t put your hands in the water in case it is contaminated.”

  Gretchen grimaced. “We’ll have to be careful. From this point on, don’t eat anything without washing your hands thoroughly first. We have that soap that we took. Everyone make sure to use it. Boil everything.”

  “What about the people around here? Are they going to shoot us?” Jordan asked.

  Amanda chewed her lower lip. “I don’t think so. There aren’t many left alive. The ones who are alive seem to be right here with the doctor. So, just be smart, be careful, and hurry, please.”

  Everyone nodded and scattered to do her bidding. She knew it was risky to expose herself to the bacteria being harbored inside the house, but the need to help was strong. They could boil enough water for the doctor to use for his own personal hygiene and to try and get fluids into those stricken down. It was all they could do. The rest was out of her hands, but they could spare the time, and there was no way she could just leave these people to die when a few hours of time might make a real difference for them.

  23

  Austin looked at the other members of his group, watching their faces as they realized it was their own stuff being hawked back to them. Ennis shook his head in what looked to be a mix of disgust and embarrassment, and then Austin’s gaze went back to the woman standing over the goods and waiting for them to tell her what they wanted.

  “Do you see something you like?” she asked with a wide smile.

  Austin looked her in the eyes, nodding at her with a tight smile. “I sure do. I see quite a few things I like. In fact—”

  “In fact, we’re going to need a few minutes to discuss what we need the most,” Ennis said, cutting him off.

  Austin glared at him. “Yeah. Right,” he grumbled, getting his brother’s subtle message not to reveal they’d recognized the goods.

  “Don’t take too long, boys; these things are going fast,” she warned.

  Austin opened his mouth to say something in return, but Ennis stopped him again by shoving him hard in the shoulder. Then his brother led the way out of the tent, bypassing the line of customers ready to trade for the things that had been stolen from them. It was hard to be mad at the refugees, of course. They were hungry and doing what they had to for their families. He understood that, but couldn’t accept the big picture of what he saw happening.

  Ennis walked about thirty feet away, moving behind a row of small tents. The others joined him. Austin had his back to the large tent that was being used as a trading post. “What? What’s your plan?” Austin asked his brother.

  Ennis used his chin to gesture towards a woman and two kids walking between the rows of tents. They were dirty and looked like they hadn’t eaten in days. “What kind of refugee camp demands the refugees give up the little they have to get basic needs met?” Ennis asked.

  The others looked around, watching the people mill about, none of them looking all that healthy.

  “A for-profit camp,” Sarah said.

  “Their fearless leader looks well-fed and has clean clothes. Her huge tent could house several families,” Harlen growled.

  “She’s taking advantage of their desperation. They’re being forced to give up things they probably fought hard to gain. I wouldn’t be surprised if she or some of the men who robbed us robbed each and every one of these people, forcing them to come into her safe haven,” Austin said.

  “There are some bad people in this world, but anyone who would take food out of the mouths of little kids is a special kind of evil,” Harlen said.

  Wendell shrugged, holding up his hands. “What are we supposed to do? I think we should just go. We’ll find more stuff.”

  “Will we?” Austin snapped.

  “We always do,” Wendell shot back.

  Austin glared at him. “And what about all these people who will die if they don’t start getting some real nourishment? Should we leave them?”

  Wendell looked undisturbed. “You yourself said we can’t save them all. So, what else are we supposed to do?”

  “We can save these people,” Austin argued.

  Ennis looked at their small group, then back at the tent city. “We don’t have to save them. They can save themselves. We’ll talk to them, tell them what she’s doing, and offer to help them rise up. There are more of them.”

  “That’s risky,” Austin said with a grimace.

  “I don’t think it is. Let’s split up, talk to as many as we can, and find out what’s going on here,” Ennis suggested.

  Austin thought for a moment, and then relented. “Okay. We don’t have long, though. I don’t want to sit around here biding our time. I don’t trust that woman.”

  “I agree,” Harlen chimed in.

  “Everyone’s been friendly—maybe a little reserved, but I think we can talk to them,” Ennis said.

  “Fine, let’s do this,” Austin said, turning to move back towards the main roadway dividing the two rows of tents on either side of it.

  They spread out, knocking on tent flaps and talking with people. Austin walked down the road, farther away from the trading tent. He got the idea there was a class difference here, the farther he walked. The tents were in disrepair, with some of the inhabitants using duct tape to hold the doors closed. Others had tarps taped over obvious holes. Almost as soon as he began knocking at tent flaps, speaking to the residents, he saw that many people there had been waiting for someone to speak up and say how unfair things were—nobody had wanted to get the ball rolling, it was true, but all of them knew this wasn’t right on some level. As he went tent by tent, he saw more and more people coming out into the lane after speaking to him and the others in his group. And they were speaking to each other, too.

  Moving on, Austin got to some of the more run-down tents, where he doubted they did a great deal to keep the heat and the elements out. A dirty little boy, maybe three, was sitting in front of one of them, staring into the distance with sunken eyes.

  Austin dropped to a squat in front of him. “Hey buddy,” he greeted him gently.

  The boy looked at him with a blank stare.

  “I bet you’re hungry,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out one of the remaining protein bars he had.

  The boy looked at the offered bar for only a moment before snatching it from Austin’s hands. He took a big bite, his little teeth tearing off a big chunk.

  “Slow down,” Austin said with a laugh.

  “What are you doing?” A young, thin woman with brown, stringy hair had emerged from the tent.

  “I gave him a protein bar,” Austin said easily.

  Her eyes dropped to the bar her son was greedily chomping on. Austin could see her own hunger and how hard it was to watch her child eat while she starved.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “A few weeks, maybe longer. We saw the signs and hoped to find food and shelter. I guess I’m glad we got a tent.”

  “Can you tell me how it works here?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean, is there no food?”

  “There’s food, but I don’t have anything to trade. I don’t have any skills, nothing. I’m going to have to move soon. Lilly has been kind and let me stay longer than she normally allows, but I have to go,” she said, her voice trembling with what A
ustin guessed to be fear.

  “I thought this was a refugee camp,” he said.

  “It is, but we all have to pay our own way,” she said matter-of-factly. “Lilly is a fair but firm leader.”

  He nodded in understanding. “You pay through work or other goods?”

  “Yes. Some of the other people go out on scavenging trips to get things to use for trade, but I don’t have anyone to watch Henry. I don’t trust the people here—not enough to watch my baby, anyway. Besides, the scavenging is dangerous. Sometimes they don’t come back at all, and other times they get robbed and go through all that work for nothing,” she explained. “I guess it didn’t used to be this way, but Lilly realized there were too many people coming into the city. She took over to create a better way of doing things. No freeloaders,” she murmured.

  Austin had to clench his teeth to keep from cursing. He knew Lilly and her goons were behind the robberies and probably killed anyone who fought back. He couldn’t sit back and let the young woman and her baby get kicked out; this was clearly all they had.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Cara.”

  “Cara, my name is Austin. My friends and I are talking with some of the other residents. We want to help you take this tent city back, along with all the supplies that are being hoarded. Lilly is stealing from people and selling it back. She’s not kind or generous. There are enough of you here that you can fight back,” he said. “Take back the city. You’re stronger together.”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide. “I don’t know how to fight. I came here to get away from the fighting. I just want to live in peace,” she whispered.

  “I understand that, but sometimes you have to make a stand. If you don’t stand up for yourself now, it’s only going to get worse. Think of your son. He needs you to be strong for him. He needs to have a safe place to sleep and food to eat. You’re his mama. That’s up to you. If there is anything you have to do, this is it. You have safety here, I get it, and that means you can’t leave. You can’t allow her to make you leave if you have nowhere to go. Does she own this tent?” he asked.