H7N9 Penitence

by Mark Campbell

Teddy didn’t respond to the biker’s outburst.

  All he did was stare straight ahead.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  As soon as he moved, Jane’s head rolled off of his shoulder and her limp body slumped forward over Danny’s corpse.

  Teddy wept quietly with his eyes squeezed shut.

  CHAPTER 32

  NOVEMBER 19th

  Teddy’s eyes fluttered open as someone kicked his outstretched leg.

  The white-suit standing in front of him jumped back, surprised.

  “Jesus!” the white-suit exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were still alive.”

  “Sorry… I… I didn’t even know I fell asleep,” Teddy said groggily. His head ached and his throat burned from thirst. “What time is it?”

  “Almost dawn.”

  Teddy glanced around and saw two more white-suits with foggers and a wheelbarrow outside of his cage.

  “What is this..?” Teddy asked. “What’s happening?”

  “Everything is fine. We just need the bodies,” the white-suit explained.

  “No,” Teddy said, shaking his head. “Not yet...”

  “You don’t have a choice,” the white-suit said. He reached down to pick up Danny. “All of the deceased have to be–”

  Teddy quickly slapped the white-suit’s hands away.

  “No!” Teddy shouted angrily.

  The white-suit stepped back, stunned.

  “Just go away… I need to pay my respects… I need to say goodbye,” Teddy said as he furrowed his brows and rubbed his forehead.

  “I understand your grief, but I need to–”

  “You don’t understand shit!” Teddy interrupted. “They deserve a proper burial, not be dumped in some fucking pit!” He glared up at the man and narrowed his eyes. “This is a child, don’t you understand?”

  The white-suit just stared down at him.

  Teddy shook his head with disgust.

  “Of course you don’t understand…” Teddy grumbled.

  The white suit sighed.

  “What?” Teddy asked.

  The white-suit crouched down and looked Teddy in his eyes.

  “Anna was the name of my little girl,” the white-suit said with a heaviness in his voice. “I lost her in a place a lot like this… Before I lost her, my wife passed away in our home. My sister and my parents died in shelters during the riots.” He paused to regain his composure. “So, yes, I do understand.”

  Through the white-suit’s visor, Teddy could see the pain in the man’s eyes and saw his tears as he spoke.

  “It’s a terrible thing to say, but there are only so many times you can get your heart broken. I’m sorry – we have grown used to seeing children die every day,” the white-suit continued.

  Teddy looked down and his eyes started tearing all over again.

  “Do you want us to come in there and get him to comply?” one of the white-suits standing outside the cage asked. He motioned for the other white-suit to follow him inside.

  “Give me a moment,” the white-suit inside quickly said as he held up his hand at them.

  Both white-suits outside of the cage stopped.

  Teddy kept looking down.

  “What’s your name?” the white-suit asked.

  Teddy held out his arm with his wristband.

  “No, not that number,” the white-suit said. “Your real name.”

  “Teddy.”

  “Okay, Teddy. What are their names, if I may ask?”

  “The boy is named Danny…” Teddy answered, wiping his red eyes. He reached down and brushed his fingers along Danny’s clammy neck. “The woman is his mother, Jane.”

  “I’m sorry this ended this way,” the white-suit told Teddy solemnly. “You know we can’t bury them. I wish we could, but we can’t.” He paused. “I promise to be respectful. I’ll treat them with the same respect I’d show my own Anna. Will you please allow me to take them?”

  Teddy nodded, choking back an animal howl of pain and rage, as tears continued to well up in his eyes.

  The white-suit rose up and stepped back.

  Teddy moved Jane off him and leaned her back against the chain-link and sat Danny’s frail body beside his mother’s. As soon as the bodies were disturbed, flies and gnats took to the air.

  Teddy got up and dusted himself off; his legs stung from the lack of circulation and his feet felt numb. He looked down at Jane and Danny and frowned.

  Jane’s head was cocked to the side and her glossy eyes were wide open. Her pallid skin was covered with insect bites. Droplets of pus that oozed out of her swollen eye.

  Danny sat pressed against his mother with his eyes closed and his mouth stuck open. A cockroach climbed out of his mouth and scurried away.

  Teddy reached down and gently brushed back a few strands of Jane’s hair back behind her ear with a trembling hand. She closed her eyelids with the back of his hand.

  “Goodbye…” Teddy said, fighting tears that refused to stop. “Both of you…”

  He brushed Danny’s hair back and cupped his cold cheek with his palm.

  Unable to look at them any longer, Teddy pulled away, turned, and sat on the edge of one of the gurneys.

  Teddy slouched down, closed his eyes, cupped his face in his hands, and sobbed quietly.

  Behind him, he heard the white-suits take Jane and Danny away.

  Nobody said a word to him.

  The gate was slammed shut and the padlock was latched again.

  Teddy kept his eyes shut and listened as they pushed the wheelbarrow away.

  Soon, he was all alone – an all too familiar feeling.

  CHAPTER 33

  NOVEMBER 20th

  It was high noon and the sun shone brightly through the gaping holes in the stadium’s roof.

  Despite the sun’s rays, the air inside was bitterly cold.

  A cool front blew in sometime during the night and a vicious wind howled through the stadium’s rafters all morning; winter had finally arrived in the Grand Canyon State.

  Teddy lay shivering on the gurney wrapped up in one of the thin foil blankets that were provided to those who were still alive. He stared at the cage’s door with bloodshot eyes.

  He didn’t know what day it was and he didn’t know the time.

  He tried asking a few of the white-suits as they passed, but nobody answered.

  Chronically malnourished and dehydrated, it was hard for him to stay awake as he slipped in and out of consciousness due to the low-calorie meals that consisted of little more than apple sauce and inadequate amounts of water.

  Teddy did notice that fewer people were being brought in.

  He figured that the last few encampments had been snuffed out and any other survivors were forgotten.

  A white-suit pushed a wheelbarrow in front of Teddy’s cage with three bodies stacked on top.

  The biker was lying on top of the heap. It looked like insects had hollowed out his eyes, and his beard was covered in bile and dried blood.

  Teddy frowned, rolled over onto his side, and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 34

  NOVEMBER 21st

  Teddy opened his eyes to the sound of crickets and grasshoppers echoing through the stadium. Moonlight shone in from the dilapidated ceiling and the air was still bitterly cold.

  He sat up on his gurney, shivering, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

  Teddy could see his breath fog up the air; he had forgotten how cold it got sometimes in Tucson.

  At his feet - he saw three water bottles that had been tossed inside sometime during the day. He didn’t see any food, however.

  Teddy reached down and grabbed one of the bottles.

  As soon as he moved, he became light-headed.

  Teddy quickly sat back up and waited a few moments for his head to stop swimming.

  He drank the bottle of water in three greedy gulps and then tossed it aside with the rest of the trash.

  Teddy sighed, reached behind him, and rubb
ed his aching back.

  A white-suit approached the gate, unlocked it, and waited.

  Teddy glanced over at him.

  After a few minutes, a FEMA officer wearing a respirator approached the cage with a handheld scanner in one hand and a baton in the other.

  The FEMA officer looked at Teddy and then glanced down at the scanner’s screen.

  “Is that the one?” the FEMA officer asked the white-suit.

  “The computer said the one you’re looking for is down here right?”

  “Yeah,” the FEMA officer replied. “I wouldn’t come down here otherwise.”

  “Well since he’s the only one down here still healthy, I imagine this is your guy,” the white-suit replied passively.

  The FEMA officer adjusted his respirator and tuned towards Teddy.

  “You, come here,” the FEMA officer ordered Teddy. “It’s time to go.”

  “Go where?” Teddy asked.

  “It’s been forty-eight hours and your test results came back clean,” the FEMA officer replied.

  “Are you sure?” Teddy asked, not moving from the gurney.

  “I just told you that you won the lottery and you want to ask me stupid questions?” the FEMA officer asked with annoyance.

  “Well, I mean… Just look around…” Teddy said as he gestured at the other cages. “I’ve been stuck down here with sick people.” He shook his head. “If you’re going to take me somewhere, give me another test, and then send me back here then I’d rather just stay if it’s all the same.”

  “If you’ve been here for forty-eight hours and have a clean swab, then you’re either immune or you have already fought off the flu. People like you have been given priority boarding.”

  “To where?” Teddy asked.

  The FEMA officer didn’t respond.

  Teddy gave a heavy sigh, dropped the blanket, and slowly rose to his feet.

  Still slightly dizzy, Teddy slowly limped towards the gate and tried to step through, but the FEMA officer put his hand on his chest and stopped him.

  “Wait,” the FEMA officer said. “I have to scan you.”

  Teddy held out his wrist and the man scanned the wristband’s barcode.

  The FEMA officer stared at the screen and then put the device away.

  “Okay, let’s go,” the FEMA officer said as he lowered his hand. “Follow me.”

  Teddy followed the FEMA officer through the rows of cages and glanced inside.

  People on the other side of the chain-link glared at Teddy with sunken eyes: desperation glaringly evident on their faces. They stared at him with envy; he was leaving and they were staying.

  Teddy looked away and kept his eyes straight ahead as he followed the officer.

  He wished that he could do something to help them, but what could he do?

  He had failed Jane and Danny, and with that he had lost any remaining hopes of happiness.

  The FEMA officer stopped in front of the steps that led through the seats back up towards the annex. He turned around and faced Teddy.

  Teddy stopped and looked at him.

  “You’re only about the very few I know of that got to leave the symptomatic ward,” the FEMA officer told him. “You should feel lucky.”

  “I don’t,” Teddy muttered. He glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “It should’ve been me, not her… She didn’t deserve this.”

  “Who?” the FEMA officer asked. “What are you rambling about?”

  Teddy didn’t reply.

  Confused, the FEMA officer turned away and started walking up the steps towards the annex.

  Teddy followed and held onto the iron railings for support. Stale pieces of popcorn from a time long ago crunched under his boots. His fingertips brushed along dry wads of gum stuck under the hand supports.

  At the top of the stairs, the FEMA officer held open the double-doors and waited as Teddy laboriously climbed each step.

  Teddy eventually passed through the doorway and stepped into the annex, exhausted and drenched in sweat.

  A white-suit carrying a fogger was waiting inside the annex.

  “Stand still with your arms in the air,” the FEMA officer ordered.

  As soon as Teddy raised his arms, the white-suit hit him with a burst of disinfectant.

  Teddy started coughing, his eyes burning like last time.

  “Okay, let’s go,” the FEMA officer said as he grabbed Teddy by the shoulder.

  The FEMA officer led Teddy down the annex and back outside.

  Teddy rubbed his stinging, red eyes as he looked around.

  It was the middle of the night but the floodlights had the lot illuminated as bright as day. All the cages were crammed with people wrapped and shivering in their foil blankets. Searchlights scanned the parking lot while FEMA officers walked on patrol.

  At the far end of the lot, an Amtrak passenger train was parked at the fortified train station - its lights on and the engine car running. The train’s horn blared loudly, startling a flock of nightingales that were perched on top of one of the nearby gun towers.

  “Where are you taking me?” Teddy asked.

  “Just walk,” the FEMA officer ordered.

  Teddy was led through the maze of cages by the FEMA officer with his hand on his shoulder.

  He could’ve resisted, but what was the point?

  People inside the cages stared at Teddy as he passed. They didn’t have the same jealous resentment in their eyes like the ones inside the stadium, but they looked curious. Even though they were the ones in the cages, they looked at Teddy as if he were the main attraction at the zoo.

  The FEMA officer led Teddy past the cages and stopped at the entrance to the train station - at the far end of the parking lot.

  An ICE officer was waiting for them at the security gate.

  “We’re here,” the FEMA officer said.

  CHAPTER 35

  The inside of the train wasn’t too different from how Teddy remembered them from before he was incarcerated. The windows were still little more than plastic portholes and the seats were upholstered with tacky patterns. All of the ashtrays in the armrests were gone, but the air still smelled like cigarettes and the fiberglass roof was stained yellow. Small television screens were mounted on the back of the seat’s headrests.

  Teddy was led down the middle of the aisle by an ICE officer who kept a baton pressed between his shoulder blades.

  Most of the seats up at the front of the car were occupied by people who looked just as lost and confused as Teddy did.

  “Take a seat over there on your right,” the ICE officer ordered.

  Teddy crouched down underneath the overhead storage bin and plopped himself down in seat by the window.

  It was remarkably uncomfortable, but still a lot better than the stiff mats and gurneys he had been growing accustomed to.

  “We’ll be leaving shortly,” the ICE officer said. “Don’t get up until you’re told to do so. Understand?”

  Teddy nodded and stared out the window.

  The ICE officer holstered his baton and walked away.

  Outside, Teddy watched as people wearing orange reflective vests and FEMA jackets loaded crates of supplies off of forklifts into the train’s cargo holds.

  The cardboard boxes were stamped US ARMY, but a few had manufacturing labels on them from grocery suppliers.

  Teddy spotted a few boxes that had Wal-Mart’s shipping information on them still.

  Someone sat down next to him, but he didn’t turn to acknowledge them.

  “Attention passengers,” a male voice said through the overhead speakers. “We’re loading up the last few supplies for transport and will be departing soon. Please remain in your seat, stay quiet, and obey all official instructions.”

  Teddy frowned and kept staring out of the window. He watched as the crew stowed the last few boxes and started dispersing. Steam started steadily rolling out from underneath the train and enshrouded them all.

  “Fucking hell,” the person s
itting next to Teddy said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  The voice was familiar.

  Teddy cocked an eyebrow and turned towards the voice.

  A kid wearing all black and spiked purple hair sat grinning at him. He had piercings in his nostril and ear.

  “You were with me inside the stadium when I got here, weren’t you?” Teddy asked, vaguely familiar. “In processing, right?”

  “Don’t tell me that I’m that easy to forget,” the kid said with a smirk.

  “Given everything that happened, the only reason I didn’t forget you is because of your ridiculous get-up,” Teddy grumbled. He turned his head back out towards the window.

  The crew outside was gone and the forklifts were driving away.

  The train’s horn blared again and another burst of steam shot out from underneath onto the platform.

  “I never caught your name,” the kid said as he extended an open hand. “My name is Ein.”

  “Teddy,” he answered without turning around to face him or shaking his hand.

  Ein gave Teddy a quizzical look and slowly withdrew his hand.

  “Outside, before we all entered this fucked up place, you were with that lady and little kid, right?” Ein asked. “Are they–?”

  Teddy’s face winced and he closed his eyes.

  Ein saw the pain in his face and stopped.

  “Sorry,” Ein said. “That’s a rough go…”

  The interior lights dimmed and the seatback television screens all switched on to display the Homeland Security emblem.

  A FEMA officer walked down the middle of the aisle holding an assault rifle. He glanced over at each passenger as he passed them.

  Ein looked down and didn’t make eye contact with the officer as he passed.

  The horn blared once more and the pneumatic brakes disengaged.

  Ever so slowly, the train started rolling forward.

  “This is so fucked, man,” Ein whispered. “Where do you think they’re taking us? The cop who brought me here didn’t say a word.”

  Teddy sighed and kept staring out the window motionless while Ein fidgeted around nervously in his seat.