by LeMay, Jim
A Chicago Tribune investigation found that in the year 2000, almost three-quarters of the estimated 103,000 deaths from nosocomial infections in that year, about 75,000, were preventable. The investigation attributed the deaths to unsanitary facilities, germ-laden instruments, and – amazingly! – unwashed hands. It appeared that infection rates were soaring nationwide, exacerbated by hospital cutbacks and carelessness by doctors, nurses, and other hospital personnel.
Probably the carelessness of the hospital staff was the most disturbing trend. After all, they were the ones who should have known better. Though healthy doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and other employees showed no symptoms, they carried strains of super-resistant bacteria from bed to bed on their skin, in their nasal passages, and on their breath. Superbugs were brought to patients in food, beverages, bedsheets, even on the surfaces of containers of antiseptics. Antibiotics no longer assured surgery safe from bacterial infection, including urinary tract infection from contaminated catheters. In hospitals people are weakest and most vulnerable, and bacteria are at their most powerful. From the hospitals these powerful enemies traveled to patients’ homes, convalescent homes, schools, daycare centers – every place that people lived and worked.
Superbugs in hospitals became increasingly common. Some that were resistant to all but one antibiotic would trade genetic material with another superbug resistant to that specific antibiotic. Normally benign bacteria turned into monsters. Staphylococcus lived, usually harmlessly, on human skin and in nasal passages. But when faced with dreaded antibiotics, it was forced to fight for its life as fiercely as the most lethal varieties. The resistant qualities it subsequently developed were stored and distributed to the more deadly bacteria. Some staph species caused boils, some ear infection. Some, when they attacked repressed immune systems such as those that invade the lungs (pneumonia) or the brain (meningitis), killed. During surgery they invaded deep into the body through openings caused by surgery and fatally infected patients already in a weakened state.
Matt came to realize that humanity had begun to lose its battle with bacteria long ago.
He followed the news services avidly. Up until now Chou’s Disease had been treated as an exotic Oriental malady. After Mercy’s death, however, new cases started appearing in numerous other spots in the United States and all over the world. It was soon apparent that a new and very dangerous worldwide epidemic was erupting. There was no way to keep the news quiet now. Panic headlines screamed about the advent of “Killer Bugs” and the “Death Flu”.
No one knew if the bacteria responsible for Chou’s Disease were evolved superbugs or brand new strains of bacteria, though there were many speculations. The percentage of survivors was very low, somewhere between ten and twenty percent. The hospitals became choked with cases and then with staffs too short to care for them as healthcare workers succumbed to the disease or simply stayed at home for fear of catching it. Other services suffered as well as hospital staffs, especially on the coasts which had been harder stricken than the Midwest. The news services provided wildly contradictory information. Some claimed that new antibiotics were soon to be available while others proclaimed that the worldwide epidemic threatened the very existence of civilization.
Most economists agreed that even if a medical solution were found soon, the world’s economy would deteriorate to a level that might take many decades for recovery. Stock markets all over the world plummeted. Before their biggest drops Matt had had the presence of mind to take all his investments out of the market and put them in banks. Apparently, soon after, everyone else got the same idea. He hoped the banks could weather whatever economic disaster was on the way.
He began to stock up on groceries and other supplies. When the condo’s power began to wane at certain hours, he started buying only food that didn’t require refrigeration or preparation by a compwave (the computerized descendant of the microwave). This turned out to be more difficult than he imagined. Most modern foods were sold in the form of complete meals ready to eat after a short session in the compwave and most required refrigeration. Old-fashioned “canned” foods were difficult to find in any kind of variety, but he did find insipid dehydrated foods that could be reconstituted by adding water.
He called his parents on their commcomp. His mother answered, sounded distracted. Her face was drawn and worn. She told him that she and his father were going up to their cabin in the mountains with two other couples, friends of theirs, and advised him to leave the city also. There were so many illnesses in LA, she said, that many of the stores remained closed and they were being looted, sometimes in broad daylight. The city was dangerous because of the rising crime rate as well as the sickness.
“But don’t try to fly out here,” she said. “Travel is getting more and more uncertain.”
He didn’t say that returning to them was the last option he would consider.
“By the way,” she said. “How about you? Are you feeling all right?” Her concern for him was spoken almost as an afterthought.
“I’m fine,” he said and ended the conversation soon after.
* * * *
His classes began to shrink at the rate of one or two students per week, then even faster until no one showed up at all, undoubtedly for fear of catching the sickness. That gave him a reason not to show up either. He quit going out as well, didn’t see or visit anyone anymore, though he kept up long distance contact with friends he had met all over the country; he had lived in a lot of places.
Checks kept coming from the school and from his parents, but they bought less and less. Prices had skyrocketed. The condo’s power started going off for several hours at a time. Utility companies pleaded with people to refrain from using unnecessary household appliances like cleaning ’bots as much as possible. He started stocking up on more goods that didn’t depend on electricity: everlights, friction lighters to start fires, candles by the case which had been unbelievably hard to find, charged power cells for his car.
The commcomp had replaced computers, television, radio, and telephone, while at the same time provided services that no one had ever thought of before. Many of its information and entertainment stations began to be off the air for periods of time or quit providing service altogether. Sometimes power failures precluded its use. He bought solar batteries for it and for everything else he owned for which batteries could be used to free himself from dependence on the city’s power supply.
Retail stores began to close for several days at a time; some indefinitely. Managers in those remaining open said clerks had quit coming to work for fear of catching the Disease or the increasing incidence of armed robbery. Suppliers delivered goods sporadically or not at all. Shelves and coolers became increasingly empty. Robberies, burglaries, and vandalism increased, as did violent crime, as the Midwest followed the fate of the coasts.
Matt’s life became one of dread. He lived from day to day, unable to concentrate on reading for long, unwilling to go out of the condo for any longer than necessary, sleeping poorly and at random hours. He realized that he had, for the first time as an adult, lost control of his life.
* * * *
On a Sunday in late April, Matt read of the deaths of Dr. Scheid and his wife in the Kansas City Star’s obituary section on his commcomp. Both had died of Chou’s Disease. Dr. Scheid had taken ill and died while on duty at the hospital. His wife had been found dead at home by their son four days later. Apparently she had chosen not to go the hospital after becoming sick.
He switched the machine off and looked out the window into a menacing overcast sky, watching a surly wind blow the ubiquitous trash that now littered the streets across his window. He couldn’t hear the wind of course; modern buildings were almost completely soundproof. April showers were coming. Would anybody be left to see the May flowers a year from now? With a pang of intense sadness and loss, he remembered walking with Mercy down the few blocks to one of the Country Club Plaza restaurants for breakfast on their common days off. None of t
hose restaurants any longer opened for business.
He had come to terms with the inevitability of getting the disease and the virtual certainty of dying. He had long before decided not to seek medical help when he got sick, from neither doctor nor hospital. A doctor’s diagnosis was not necessary; he had researched the disease enough to recognize its symptoms. Not only could hospitals provide little or no help, checking into one increased the risk of the nosocomial infections he’d read about, especially now that their embattled staffs continued to shrink.
He had often wondered what Mercy thought of the myriads of new infections incubated in hospitals. She was obviously aware of them; she worked in a hospital. He didn’t like thinking that she’d kept any such knowledge secret from him.
He got up and paced the floor. His self-imposed imprisonment in the condo wore on his nerves. He should decide how to spend the remaining time until his almost certain end. He wasn’t afraid of dying, just the manner of it. Maybe his mother was right: get out of town. But he wasn’t a country guy; he’d lived in cities all his life. Where would he go? Sure he had supplies: food, everlights, lots of other stuff – candles, for Christ’s sake – but how long would they last once he got out of town?
Which begged the question: how long would he last? Hopefully his supplies would outlast him. He had enough money to last even after his food was gone so why not go?
In the late afternoon, he called his parents’ number. His mother answered. He told her he was leaving town.
“I’m so happy to hear that, dear,” she answered. And she looked as if she genuinely did. Her eyes were bright. She looked years younger than the last time they had talked. “Your father and I are so glad we’ve come up here. We invited the Clarks and the Allens along, you know. It’s so good to be away from that dreadful disease. Hold on a minute.” She turned away from the screen, spoke to someone else, and then turned back. “Here, honey. Your dad wants to speak to you. We love you.”
“And I love you, Mom.”
Bob Pringle’s big fleshy face filled the screen. His fair skin was flushed, and his sparse white hair stood up like a halo around his bare pate. He, too, was in an expansive mood. He echoed Matt’s mother’s relief that he had decided to flee the disease and the crime as they had. Matt then realized the source of his parents’ ebullient moods. They were slightly drunk.
“If you get far enough away from the crowds,” his dad said, “you’ll be okay. It’s only a matter of time before they get this bug licked. Then we can all get back to our lives. Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Maybe rent a cabin down on Lake of the Ozarks.” He had only thought of it as he spoke.
He talked to his father for all of five minutes, the longest continuous conversation they had shared for years, or maybe ever, then hung up and started preparations to leave. He’d pack his car tonight and leave at dawn. He had enough cash on hand to live comfortably for a couple of weeks and could retrieve more from his banks by means of the commcomp at any time from any place in the world.
He started gathering everything he planned to take into the middle of the living room floor. Then he paused, looked up at the bookshelves for a moment. A difficult decision faced him: which books would he take? All the reading material in the world was available electronically, either by means of his commcomp or on bookcubes. But he loved having certain old-fashioned printed books around, loved holding them as he read. He walked to the bookcase and ran his fingers over them. He obviously couldn’t take them all. Which would he take and which could he sacrifice?
His fingers stopped at his annotated copy of Bocaccio’s Decameron. This one he must certainly take, an appropriate companion for his journey, a tale of ten young people fleeing another plague just as he fled this one. Theirs was the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century, his a blacker plague some seven centuries later. The Decameron related the tales those youths told each other to while away the time in their self-imposed exile from the city. He would reread those tales for the same purpose Bocaccio had caused his young people to – to occupy time during his flight from the city. People, after all, didn’t change so much over the centuries.
* * * *
The fever struck him in mid-afternoon just as he switched the car to manual mode and exited the freeway. At first he felt a slight headache and warmth spread over his body. Then, within a few minutes, his temperature rose and his headache increased until he could hardly see. A feeling of discontinuity with reality came over him. He found it hard to concentrate on driving. Then the fever abated quickly, to be replaced by a violent chill. He shook so hard he could hardly hold the car on the road.
He knew he couldn’t make it much farther. He had to get off the road. He found and pulled into a driveway, dimly aware of approaching a farmhouse at the far end that appeared to be abandoned. He stopped the car, almost fell out of it, stumbled up to the front door and found it locked. Too weak to do anything else, he collapsed on the front porch swing. So this is how it ends, he thought, alone on a cold damp porch. Evening would soon approach and it was indeed growing cold. But was that just the effect of his chills? He could no longer think clearly.
Except for one last thought: Needn’t ’ve worried about supplies. My time is running out first.
That was the last Matt knew for a long time.
* * * *
He opened his eyes with difficulty. They were sticky as though they’d been glued shut for a long time. Blurred light stabbed a sharp pain into them. A pale object with a dark frame before him gradually resolved itself into a human face, a large face with a rather shaggy dark brown beard.
In a deep voice that sounded far away, the face said to someone behind it, “Looks like he’s made it. In fact, he may be waking up.”
Another male face appeared beside the first one and said, “How y’ feelin’?” This was a smaller face with a full black beard and glowering eyebrows that nearly met over his nose. Matt tried to ask where he was. All that came out was a croak. He wondered who these men were. He was certain he’d never seen them before.
“I’ll bet you’re thirsty,” said the man with the deep voice. “I know I was when I first woke up. Want some water?”
Matt suddenly realized he had never been thirstier. He managed to nod his head. The big man disappeared to return a moment later with a glass of water. The two managed to raise Matt far enough for him to gulp down most of the water. The activity completely exhausted him. He was asleep almost before they laid him back down.
* * * *
When he awoke again it was dark. This time he was able to raise himself up on one elbow but he was amazingly weak and his head throbbed with a dull persistent ache. The door was open far enough to admit a shaft of light, probably from an everlight, from the next room. He heard male voices talking in that room, though too low to be understood.
He was able to think a little more clearly now. He remembered passing out on a porch swing in front of a deserted farmhouse. Or maybe it wasn’t deserted. Maybe those two men lived here and had just been away when he’d arrived. He flopped back on the bed, unable to remain propped on his elbow any longer. He remembered dreams, vague and surreal. He felt as though he’d been unconscious for a long time.
His movement on the bed must have made enough sound to alert the others. The door opened wide to allow a great deal of light and noise to enter. Men surrounded the bed. A giant stood at his side, a big bald man with white teeth gleaming through a massive beard.
“So this is our newcomer,” he said in a loud voice. “They wouldn’t let me near y’ ’cause I ain’t never had it.”
“Had it?” Matt’s voice still croaked weakly, but at least he could make himself understood. He hadn’t a clue what the big man was talking about. Was he still dreaming?
“Chou’s,” said the giant. “I ain’t never had Chou’s Fever. They was scairt I’d catch it from you so they wouldn’t ’low me in here.”
Then Matt remembered why he was sick. He’d had Chou
’s Disease. And he was still alive! He almost passed out again with relief. He had lost consciousness on the porch swing expecting never to wake up again and here he was.
“He’s over the worst part,” said the man with the perpetual frown whose black eyebrows nearly met over his nose, “an’ he ain’t contagious now, but it ain’t doin’ him no good t’ have us standin’ ’round yammerin’. Let’s all git out and I’ll open him a packet a that chicken soup.”
He hustled the others from the room and followed himself. Matt was almost asleep when the frowning guy with the eyebrows returned with the soup. He was indeed ravenous; the thin watery fluid was the best thing he could remember ever eating.
“I’m Hank Mitchell,” said his benefactor as he fed him, “but ever’body calls me Mitch. The first one you saw was Lou Travis, and the big bald guy is Frank Johnson. He’s our boss. I’ll interduce ever’body proper t’morra.”
Dozens of questions formed in Matt’s mind. He finally got out, “How – how long ... ?”
“How long y’ been out? Right close on four days. That’s ’bout average.” A trace of a smile appeared. “For them that live anyways. For them that don’t it’s a mite longer time. Oh, we woke y’ up at times. T’ git some water down y’ to help fight the fever, or some soup, but I’m sure y’ don’t recall. I didn’t when I had it.”
“All of you, uh ... ?”
“Yeah, All a us been sick but Johnson. An’ he’ll brag ’bout not gittin’ it till y’ could kill him. If he wasn’t so big, anyways. Thinks it’s a big deal he ain’t got sick yet. ‘Good genes,’ he says.” But then Mitch’s brows knotted closer together and he looked away. “But I ain’t always sure us survivors is the lucky ones.”
