Some said it came from the Orient, others Candia. However it came about, it was generally agreed that the plague had indeed returned to London. I resolved to cast myself onto the bosom of the Lord and to remain in town and not flee to the countryside as so many, including my brother and his family, had done. I had a stout door and lock on my house and no meager supply of stored goods to see me through. From May 9 through the 16th, I continued within my house but observed the street daily and saw a good many people, wagons filled with household goods and attended by servants and spare horses, filling the streets as they fled the city. The numbers slackened as the days went by and I, admittedly curious to see how the town progressed, left my lodging to stroll about the streets in spite of the fact that I had no business there. At about 9:00 as I went along Shoreditch, I observed people gathered in front of a large and handsome house set back from the street by a small garden. This house had been shut up in the usual way, with a large red cross in the middle of the door with the words “Lord, have mercy upon us” writ large.
The shutting up of houses was first authorized during the reign of the late and much beloved King James so precedent existed for the practice. Once a house was sequestered and locked up, a watch was set upon it for one month at the end of which time the chirurgeon made another assessment of the occupants whether they be free of any continued sign of pestilence. The state of those confined was piteous even if they survived. People thus confined made bitter lamentations and protests but the method proved most efficacious in stopping the spread of the disease.
It seems the watchman appointed two days ago when this house was first shut up heard loud clamor and great crying the first even but since heard nothing. The family therein ensconced made no requests for food, medicine or any sort of assistance. No lights were seen, no smoke of cooking observed. The watchman had summoned the chirurgeon and these men knocked at the door of the house a long time without any response from within and they made to force the door with one or two neighbors willing to help (and not many were willing to help in those days). Upon request, I consented to assist with the task at hand and thus was present when the door was first breached.
Noisome air flowed out accompanied by a nightmare figure with swollen putrid belly and black broken teeth crawling pitifully and painfully toward the watch. All drew back and covered their mouths and noses with the vinegar cloths popular for keeping away the contagion. Some indeed fled altogether and sheltered within their houses with bolted doors. The watchman gestured to the chirurgeon to take the ill creature in hand but the chirurgeon shook his head, eyes wide, and took to his heels, leaving the watchman and myself to deal with the afflicted. I knew it would be worth my life to apprehend a body so thoroughly contaminated with plague and contemplated fleeing as well when a young woman stepped forth from the doorway.
A slender, fair creature she was and appearing as a delicate young woman of fashion despite the bloody stains on her stomacher and apron. She carried a spade under one arm and held a sword in the other. She looked at us. Our indecision and want of will must have shown for she sighed as one resigned to handling matters on her own and walked to the creature struggling on the ground, decapitating it with repeated blows of the sword. The body slumped to the ground and the head rolled a short distance. The mouth continued to work and the broken teeth gnashed until the young woman broke the skull to shards with the spade. She then removed herself a short distance away and sank to the ground as one exhausted, her skirts mingling with the dust on the cobbles and long russet hair streaming down her shoulders and back.
Leaving her for the moment, the watchman and I made for the interior of the dwelling just breached, wondering what madness had possessed this household. We found four other bodies, three of them children, all headless and in surprisingly advanced states of decay. Two of the skulls were destroyed but the others were intact, with moving mouths and eyes rolling in their orbs. Possessed of a stout staff, the watch smashed these abominations into clotted black stains on the floor. I was glad to quit the place and head back into the sunlight.
The young lady we had left outside gave the particulars of her story.
Her family lived several streets away, on a goodly estate backing up to the Thames. Hearing that her old nurse, to whom she was still devoted, was sickened of the plague, and that her current employer did not wish to care for her, she made her way to Shoreditch with the intent of removing her from this family. By ill chance, just as the girl arrived, the chirurgeon and justices also arrived to shut up the house and she was locked in with the rest.
“I could not save my dear nurse but did stay with her until the end. I had not the courage or heart to put her out of her final misery at first and she became the creature you see here.” She motioned at the remains of the creature on the ground.
Amazed, the watchman spoke. “I have heard of this manifestation of the disease but have not seen it until today. You were already acquainted with this?”
“Indeed, having seen it a fortnight past in my auntie’s stable lad. Aunt had to put him down with the sword.” She hefted the sword in her hand. “I knew not what I would encounter and came prepared. The family here were all infected before I arrived. I locked myself in the strong room before their final extremity but they managed to break through the door.”
“By law you must be examined by the chirurgeon before you can leave this house.”
“Can’st thou find one who will not run away?” She smiled and two small pits* showed fetchingly in her cheeks. “ Quickly please. My lady Mother will be most anxious at not having heard from me.”
A chirurgeon was found who gave the girl a bill of health and she departed with it, making for her punt she had left tied up by the quay. I offered to row her home but she smilingly refused. By good chance, the dead cart came through then and removed the bodies from inside the house. By sunlight, I was able to see what I had not before. Skin and flesh were ripped from the carcasses. One child was little more than a bloody skeleton, the meat having been torn from his small bones.
“Had their fevers driven them to such madness that families would attack each other so?” I asked of the watchman.
“It is worse than you know.” He walked over to the corpse of the child and with his staff, pointed to the shoulder still covered with a bit of skin. I leaned in closer, after covering my face with my cloth, and observed a perfect indentation of teeth marks. I examined the other bodies and found similar marks.
“So they fought each other tooth and nail. I have heard of brief madness in some of the victims but nothing like this.”
“Again, it is worse than that. I advise you sirrah, if you come across anyone escaped from one of these sequestered houses and you have not the stomach to destroy the afflicted on the spot, flee for your life. There is much still unknown about this plague.”
I withdrew then and, cutting short my intended perambulations, went home. I later heard the plague house in Shoreditch had burnt to the ground taking out the houses on either side as well. There continued to be stories of sequestered households going mad and slaughtering all inside and my observations attest to the truth of such. Rumor of confined households turning to the eating of flesh were generally scoffed at. I must say that dreams of those severed heads, eyes rolling in their sockets, have awakened me at times.
Although I looked often, I never again saw the delightful young lady with the sword but it is my earnest hope that she did survive.
*“Pits”- dimples
***
“It’s admittedly fiction.”
“True but the entire journal was a fictionalized account based on true events. Makes you wonder if it actually didn‘t occur in some shape, form, or fashion.”
“I’ve never heard anywhere that the bubonic plague turned anyone into the walking dead.”
“Good point, still it makes me wonder.”
Virginia stuffed the envelope in the backpack but images kept playing in her mind. People survived that horrible
time in history and we will too. Only now, it’s worldwide. She looked out the window at the sparkling white scenery flashing by.
Charles broke the silence, “Are we going to talk about the eight hundred pound gorilla in the car or just ignore it a while longer?”
“What gorilla?”
“You kissed me Virginia. Not just a friendly peck either but believe me, I’m not complaining. Were you trying to tell me something?”
She had been afraid this would come up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I was so afraid in that tunnel and then when I got out I was so relieved… You were just there. It was an overreaction. ” Ow, that did not come out as intended. She hoped he believed it.
He didn’t. “Just an overreaction? You mean you would have kissed Carson or Gabriella like that if they ‘were just there?’ “
“Well- obviously not Gabriella and probably not Carson either but-”
“So there’s something there. I hoped so but I didn’t want to push it. I know about the divorce but you‘re still wearing-”
“How did you know about my divorce? I never talked about it.” She was annoyed.
“It’s a small town and you are somewhat noticeable. People talk.”
She wasn’t going to get out of this. They had been through a lot together over the past few days and he had saved her life. She owed him the truth.
“You’re fairly noticeable yourself and I’m not immune. That probably has something to do with why I kissed you. But it was wrong of me.”
He reached over and took her hand in his. She withdrew it gently.
“Don’t make this harder for me. I’ve been alone for a while and you’re very attractive. More than just attractive: brave, smart, and caring too. But I don‘t want to involve anyone else in my messed up life.”
“So you plan to stay alone for the rest of your life?”
“I really don’t know. Maybe. I think I still love my husband.”
“Then why did you throw him out?”
“I didn’t. He left.”
“He abandoned you and you still love him?”
“There were reasons. I made mistakes. We both made mistakes.”
“What sort of mistakes?”
“It was money. We overspent and then we bought more house than we could afford.”
“A couple with two children shouldn‘t divorce over a house. You couldn’t just sell it?”
“We tried but we owe more on it than it’s worth. Neither of us are particularly financially savvy and we listened when our realtor told us what a good idea it was to ’stretch’ and buy the more expensive house in a ‘good‘ neighborhood and sit back and watch the property value go up. The bank guy told us how smart we were to ‘manage’ our debt this way. A year and a half ago the lock went off the teaser interest rate and our payment shot up another fifteen hundred dollars a month just when the bottom fell out of the housing market. We tried to refinance but no bank would talk to us once the value started dropping. We had doctor and hospital bills with the children and you wouldn‘t believe the cost of diapers and daycare. We both thought being in debt was normal. I grew up that way. My parents declared bankruptcy twice before they changed the laws and my dad drove a Jag the whole time. They still live like that. Everything looks good on the outside but if they miss a paycheck- it all could disappear like that.” She snapped her fingers.
“We were so stupid we had even taken out a second mortgage to pay off our student loans. We had doctor and hospital bills with the children- we fell behind on everything. The constant sense of failure from losing so much money and being so close to losing our home was just- a nightmare. We argued all the time. Then I did the most idiotic thing of all.” She leaned her head against the window, staring out at the rhododendrons lining the banks of tumbling hillside streams.
“The government forced the banks to offer that loan modification program to reduce payments. I called them. They told me we qualified in every way but one. We needed to be three months behind in payments. At that point, we were about a month behind so I stopped making payments. A few weeks later I filled out the application papers and paid the fee.”
“Did your husband know?”
“No. I did it on my own. My magnificent plan was to get the payments reduced and surprise him. Well I did surprise him. He opened the mail the day the bank sent us a notice of intent to foreclose. I called them; they had no record of my application or my phone call.”
“Did you get an attorney?”
“Couldn’t afford one. The application fee was thirty five hundred dollars. That was the last of our savings. Chase said they had no record of the application fee payment but would ‘look into it‘ and told me ‘not to worry‘ about the foreclosure notice. I eventually found out they took our thirty five hundred dollars and applied it to some penalty fees no one had told us about, not an application fee. That was it for Ian. He said we lost everything because of me. He‘s right.”
“You know banks are supposed to be accountable for things like this?”
“I know and so do the other people they did the same thing to. But none of us matter. The banks have all the power.”
They were silent for a moment. A road sign indicated a gas station ahead.
“Anyway, that was a lifetime ago. Thanks for listening to my tale of woe. Property values and a good credit score don‘t matter now, do they? We should stop for gas and food if we can find it.”
From the road, the gas station looked perfectly normal, if deserted. A few cars remained parked in front with no one, living or dead, inside. Leaving Daniel asleep in the back seat and locking him in, they opened the front door cautiously, guns ready, turned the pumps on, and then surveyed the shelves.
Rows of brightly packaged candy, snack cakes, jerky, and chips were a beautiful sight. The refrigerated drinks were cold. They found bags behind the counter and started shoplifting with gusto. Virginia grabbed juices for Daniel, along with snack crackers. Charles picked up two cases of bottled water and placed them by the door. The bananas by the register were past eating but the apples looked fine. Band-aids, chapstick, toothbrushes and toothpaste, all went in the bag.
Screams erupted outside. Dropping everything, they ran out to the pump to find an infected teen, clad in a torn, gore drenched Superdrag t-shirt and jeans, on the hood of the Explorer. Black shreds of skin hung from his shoulders and stomach, revealing hollowed out cavities of nothing. He groped and clawed at the windshield, behind which they saw Daniel’s face, mouth open in a howl of terror. Two more infected came around the side of the building, one, a woman, walking on legs that were little more than red streaked bones, clutched a shoulder strap purse tightly as she tottered forward. The other, a middle aged man in pyjamas, moved much more quickly, teeth chomping with malignant intent. Charles ran to intercept it, clubbing it to the ground with the shotgun. The thing was strong and grabbed his legs, pulling him down, mouth open wide.
Virginia shot shoulder strap in the face, completely exploding her head, and tried to knock the teen off the Explorer but couldn’t get close enough. Shooting it so close to Daniel was out of the question. She hesitated and turned to Charles, who still struggled with the fast walker. Trying to knock it off him, she kicked it hard in the head. Her foot sank into the skull, malodorous, black ichors pouring out the cavity. Charles pulled free of the now weakly twitching hands, wiping the foul fluid from his face. He angrily stomped the skull into fragments before climbing onto the SUV and kicking the teen to the ground. Virginia finished it off with the gun.
“I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got to find someplace to get clean and sleep more than three hours at a time.” He looked done in.
Virginia unlocked the Explorer and took Daniel in her arms. “I’m going to pump the gas. We’re only an hour from the pass at Chapel Croft. If we-”
“I understand you want to get there quickly but it’s almost dark. We don‘t want to deal with these things in the dark.” He walked into the gas station.
She finished pumping the gas, one handed; Daniel refused to get down. Charles returned with their retrieved loot. “There’s a bed and breakfast just before you get to the Chapel Croft pass. I don’t think anyone is there this time of year but there should be some canned stuff at least and beds. I’m beat.”
She clenched her teeth in frustration. She would move heaven and earth to get to Springfield and she’d bully Charles into it if she could.
“I don’t know if my children are alive or dead, safe or if they are crying for help right now. I can’t adequately describe that feeling but I can tell you this- every minute away from them is agony.”
“Driving exhausted and making stupid mistakes might mean you never see them again.”
“Please, I’m begging you. My in-laws have food, warm beds and showers, anything you want. I‘ll drive the rest of the way; I‘m not even tired. I swear-”
He interrupted wearily, “Fine, just get in. Let’s go.”
Evening came on rapidly as the road grew steep and winding. Charles appeared to sleep which suited Virginia just fine. She encountered nothing but a downed tree partially blocking the road and saw no other vehicles until they arrived at the Chapel Croft pass. A highway maintenance truck stood abandoned in front of the barrier pole.
The heavy steel pole, chained and padlocked, completely blocked off the road. A towering, sheer cliff on the right and a yawning chasm on the left ensured she couldn’t drive around it. She needed the key to the lock. Searching the state truck yielded nothing useful but a cellophane sleeve of peanuts that she handed to Daniel, telling him to get back in the Explorer. Charles still slumbered in the front passenger seat. Knowing it would wake him but desperate to get through the barrier, she took aim with the shotgun.
The blast echoed off the rock cliff making roosting birds scatter, squawking. She inspected the lock and chain but both were intact. She shot again to no effect. Great. Now what? Remembering Charles’ ax she headed back to the vehicle.
The Living Dead (Book 1): Contagion Page 13
