Cough

by Druga, Jacqueline

  Wells looked into the window and pointed at his wife. “You know, if you weren’t idling at a standstill. I’d yell at you for not having that kid in the safety seat. In fact, he should have the safety seat with all this craziness.”

  “Craziness? Talk about crazy, I watch Floyd drop dead in front of me. He coughed himself to death.”

  His wife leaned forward. “People were coughing and dying.”

  “If you were around them, it’s all the more reason to stay in town. Pull out, go back, and hunker down back home.”

  “There’s an illness in town. We don’t want to be there,” Roger said.

  “And you think it’s responsible, when you may have been exposed, to leave? To take it elsewhere.”

  “You gonna tell everyone else this?”

  “If I have to.”

  “If it’s all right with you, Chief, we’re gonna wait here until they open up the road.”

  Wells slapped his hand on the roof once. “Do what you need to do.”

  He started his journey to the front again, and when the Army barricade came into view so did the commotion. The people of his town were going to end up pushing through. Or get shot trying.

  After it dawned on him that there he could yell from the top of his lungs, tell everyone to disperse, they weren’t going to listen to him. His message played on the radio, he could hear that, they apparently didn’t.

  It was a fight he didn’t want to take on.

  Those who packed up to leave were headstrong. They were either exposed in town or would be when the next person in one of those cars started to cough.

  He didn’t understand their thinking. It was clear the virus was deadly and contagious. The townspeople in the line of traffic had two choices. Go back to their homes or stay in the line of traffic. Whatever choice they made, Wells knew the outcome would be the same.

  They were more than likely going to die either way.

  On that devastating and depressing thought, Wells returned to his car.

  TWENTY-FOUR – DAY ONE

  Littlefield, AZ

  June 29

  POPULATION 1622

  Macy never hated her ex-husband Rege. She didn’t collapse in hurt and despair when he left her for a barely legal Walmart worker. Not that she didn’t feel the pain, she did, but she couldn’t let it consume her life. More than anything Macy was a realist. If she couldn’t change something then why bother. It wasn’t that things were cut and dry about it. She showed emotion, but wouldn’t let it get the best of her. She wouldn’t wallow in it, she had to move forward or else it would cause much more damage than it needed to.

  She had that attitude with Rege, when her parents died, when she was robbed on a visit to Reno. But all that bravery all that ‘can’t cry over what I can’t control’ was out the window when she raced to her house believing that her son Thomas had succumbed to the instant virus death like so many in town.

  She raced into her house with her heart beating so fast she believed it was going to strangle her.

  After all, Clay panicked and cried and Lila was covered in blood.

  It was a whirlwind of devastating thoughts that slammed into her as she threw open the screen door. She expected Thomas to be on the floor, clutching one of his action figures. Instead he stood center of the living room crying.

  What was going on? Just as Macy started to ask that question she saw the legs. They extended from the kitchen.

  “He came over,” Lila said as she entered. “And then …”

  Macy raced to the kitchen. Rege lay on the floor. Items had been knocked over, a carton of milk was spilled by his head and the floor was littered with everything that had been on her counters. A sure sign of struggle.

  She crouched down. Rege without a doubt was dead. He looked so much like the others. Coloring off, blood from his mouth and nose. His eyes were wide open and the whites of his eyes were a deep blood shot red. Almost as if he bled from behind them.

  “He started coughing,” Lila said. “He couldn’t stop. He turned four shades of blue before he dropped. I have never seen a heart attack cause that.”

  “It wasn’t a heart attack,” Macy said.

  She then heard the boys whimper and her heart broke for them. They had to witness what happened to their father. Eyes still on Rege, she spoke softly. “Boys, there was a man that walked down here with me.”

  “The drifter?” Clay asked.

  “Yeah, if he’s there can you ask him to come in.?”

  “What about Dad?” Clay questioned.

  “That’s why I need him. And Lila, can you keep them outside?”

  “Yes. Yes, I will. Let’s go boys. Go get that man.”

  After they walked out, Macy stayed in the kitchen with Rege. At that moment, she didn’t know what to do.

  Stokes didn’t want to overstep his boundaries so he didn’t follow the family into the house. He was certain it wasn’t the second son who had gotten sick. But Stokes knew nothing about Macy. It could have been a live-in boyfriend or husband.

  Both boys emerged with the elderly woman, they stared at Stokes as if trying to get his attention. He took a few steps closer to the porch.

  The older boy with lighter hair spoke up, “Our mom asked if you would go inside.”

  “Sure. Sure thing,” Stokes said. He took a second as he passed them to acknowledge them. A nod to say that he could see and sense their sadness. The Stokes went into the home.

  It wasn’t a big place, not at all. A staircase to the right and from where he stood in the living room he could see the adjacent kitchen.

  Macy was on the floor, back against the archway of the door between the two first floor rooms. Stepping closer, he could see the body of a man.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Stokes said, his words truthful and soft. “Your husband.”

  “My ex-husband. The boys’ dad. They were here when he died. I knew he was in town, I just didn’t know he was coming over today.”

  “Did you know he was near the accident?”

  Macy shook her head. “Yeah, he mentioned he looked for us there..” She looked up to Stokes. “What do we do? I watched a lot of people die today. This isn’t a normal situation. Do I call the chief, ambulance, funeral home? What?”

  “I don’t know what the plan is for the bodies. I just know it’s not good for you to sit here. And the boys need you. Can you go to the neighbors? Or even the fire hall? They are setting up a quarantine there.”

  “I’ll stay here after … after …” She nodded at the body. “What about Rege?”

  “Get me something to cover him with, go outside, next door, something and I’ll head back into town to find out what Chief Wells wants us to do.”

  “I can do that.”

  He extended down his hand and she grasped it, with a slight tug he helped her to a standing position.

  “Are you really a federal agent?” she asked.

  “I am.”

  “Chief said you were a drifter. Told everyone that you were waiting for something big to happen. He wasn’t exaggerating was he?”

  “No.”

  Macy sadly nodded. “I’ll get a blanket for you to cover him.”

  Macy walked away. Stokes stood in the kitchen with the body of her ex-husband. Once she returned with the sheet, Stokes covered him and, told Macy, the neighbor woman and the boys he’d return. To just stay away from the body and he’d get help.

  Stokes made it three quarters of a way into town when he realized he wasn’t going to have an easy time. He fought diligently to remember the back way that Macy took him. He wished he had paid more attention. Just when he figured, ‘the hell with it’ he’d ask the soldiers what they were supposed to do with the bodies, he saw the barricades were no longer there.

  Thinking, ‘That was fast’, Stokes forwent any plans to dart in and out of buildings and walked straight down Main, passed the corner of Fourth where one abandoned military truck remained.

  The area around the market, the main s
tage of the chaos was visual testament of what had occurred. There were bodies everywhere. Both from the virus and the accent. An eerie silent fell upon the street. No sounds of car alarms, people screaming, or beeping horns.

  Nothing.

  Wells had given out forty doses of the antidote. All to essential service personal. He wanted to give out more but told Stokes, “How do you decide who gets it and who doesn’t? Which towns’ people are worthy?”

  So he opted to give it to only those who would be hands needed when the crisis inflamed.

  Where were they?

  He saw one other man in the middle of the wreckage and Stokes didn’t know him. Didn’t recall seeing him at the meeting.

  Then he spotted Wells walking back down into town. Stokes trotted to him.

  “Where’d you go?”

  “To see where everyone else went,” Wells replied. “They’re all trying to get out of town.”

  “I saw a lot of people leaving. Are the quarantine barricades set up?”

  “Yep. On all five points of exit. They pulled in the ones from town as backup.”

  Stokes looked over his shoulder at the military truck. “I wondered what happened.”

  “I think they tried to section off the town, but saw it was useless and better needed on the outskirts.”

  “How are things out there?”

  “People think they’re gonna get out. I guess some will turn around and head back in town.”

  “Where’s everyone else?” Stokes asked.

  “Fire hall, home.” Wells shrugged. “Here.” He pointed out to the bodies. “Tell me you are here to help me … clean up.”

  “I will. But now, I need you to tell me what the plan is for the bodies.”

  “We’re gonna pick them up.” Wells said.

  “Not these one. The ones that died at home.”

  Wells breathed out. It was a heavy sigh. “Jesus, I … I wasn’t even thinking of bodies. I knew this was gonna happen. I thought of the ones that didn’t die. I didn’t think of the ones that did.”

  “And that makes sense. We just need a plan.”

  “We’ll just …” Wells rubbed his head. “We’ll gather the bodies. The ones in town. The ones in the homes. Just gather them up. I’ll head down to the Sanitation Company and grab a truck. That’s all we can do right now. If you see anyone, you tell them to either bring the bodies here or put them out and we’ll grab them.”

  Stokes was going to comment and say, ‘Like garbage’ but he didn’t. He saw the look on Wells. How much he was dealing with. “I promise I’ll be right back to help you. Right now, I have to help someone that has a body in their house. Think I can take one of these abandoned cars?”

  “Be my guest.” Wells held out his hand.

  “I’ll be back. I promise,” said Stokes. He had to find a truck or something to take back to Macy’s.

  “Stokes,” Wells called him.

  Stokes stopped. “Yeah?”

  “You said you know this virus.”

  “A little bit.”

  “It’s not done, is it?”

  Stokes shook his head.

  “So we have what? Seventy-two hours before we have a repeat?” Wells asked.

  “I don’t know.” Stokes shrugged. “I don’t know how long it will be. But I know this, it’s gonna be harder and it’s gonna be worse.”

  Emotionally, Wells chuckled. “Worse? Worse than this? Worse than people just dropping?”

  “Yeah, worse,” Stokes replied. “Because the contact victims don’t drop. They get sick and then they die. Instead of having a town of dead bodies, we’re gonna have a lot of really sick people and from the looks of things …” Stokes peered around. “A lot of sick people with no one to help them.”

  <><><><>

  Washington DC

  June 29

  Nadia was calling it the day the world ended, because in a sense it was. It didn’t’ surprise her that the underground facility had a lab. After all it was a doomsday facility. She was safe down there from getting sick. As long as no one who had the virus came in. Then again, she had a dose of the vaccine.

  After close examination it looked as if the antidote inoculation did work. She had a few more to test and then would order production on it. She would recommend distribution to start in smaller populated areas with no reports of the virus. It would be easy to distribute it there. In a large city, they stood a chance of people fighting for it.

  Doctors and emergency workers in cities would be next in line, followed by children in the cities. But Nadia had her reservations that they would even make it that far. By the time a serum was produced, the virus could easily had burned through all it was going to hit.

  Nadia wasn’t giving up. There had to be something that they already had that could work on it. The virus reminded her of the Pertussis virus, perhaps some sort of ramped up version of that vaccine could help.

  She needed time.

  Ten weeks’ worth of time. It was literally a race against a vial clock.

  They had to focus on who they could save, who they could stop from getting the virus. Because those who were stricken died to fast to help.

  She was taking a break, a brief one when a soldier, a Captain, entered her office.

  “Dr. Lenza, the Secretary of Defense said I need to bring this to you.” He set down his phone. “I have information.”

  “What’s up?”

  “The German scientist released from custody? His plane went down.”

  “Then I suppose anything he had is out the window.”

  “His girlfriend is a flight attendant, her flight out of Vegas was quarantined in the air due to the virus and they crash landed.”

  “Outside of Ohio yes, I know.”

  “They’ve been sending out calls for help. But this one is different. I recorded it on my phone before we lost it completely.” He fiddled with his phone and after a few seconds, the recording played.

  “Anyone there? Anyone? My name is Sharon Kelly, from Airnamics flight 473. We crashed landed in a field in Western Ohio, We had people die of this coughing virus. But I think... I think I have a way to treat it.”

  Nadia’s eyes widened.

  “Not sure. I got someone to stop in the middle of one of the fits. I had to re-administer. But they are still alive. Not coughing.

  A treatment? Nadia listened. She wanted a way to buy time and there may be one... Something probably so obscure a medical professional would dismiss it. It could have been a contact victim, she knew contact victims lived longer. But if there was a shot that the flight attendant found a way on a whim to slow the virus or treat the symptoms. It was worth listening to.

  “Anyone there? Please. If you can hear me. If this thing is out there, I know how to ….”

  Nadia quickly looked at the Captain. “What happened?”

  “That was it. That was all we got. Then the signal was lost. We haven’t heard anything since. Just dead air.”

  “Why did you bring this to me, Soldier?”

  “Mr. Secretary I thought you may find it useful.”

  “It would only be useful if we knew how she treated it.”

  “What do you want me to tell the Secretary, Ma’am?” he asked.

  “You tell him,” Nadia said. “Find that plane.”

  <><><><>

  Littlefield, AZ

  June 29

  Albert wanted to help his brother. More than anything, be there as a sense of support, hands and boots in the biological ground war that commences in the small town. But when Wells told him he needed eyes and ears since Littlefield was shut off, Albert retracted to his home and lab.

  He wouldn’t be there long. Just enough to get some information.

  What was needed?

  He had mad skills when it came to tapping into things, probably one of the best. He served in the Navy for years in their Intelligence Division, then he worked for the NSA before finally being swooned by independent deals offering large sums of money for
someone that could get in and get information. While doing that, he was offered to be part of a larger organization. He accepted, because he found merely getting business secrets rather boring.

  Eyes and ears.

  Tapping into the news stations, the internet news sites was easy. Child’s play to Albert. But he needed more. The first thing he did was log in to get satellite images of Littlefield. Contrary to what a lot of people believed, there was a time delay on getting those. They would take a few moments.

  Surprisingly he gathered a lot of information from the news sites. One in particular mentioned that the government had called upon Nadia Lenza to work on the virus.

  He derived that she had traveled to Kimble’s lab to get his research and was moved elsewhere. A little more digging and Albert was able to deduce she was taken to Washington. In case of biological warfare, or Pandemic, there were secure locations to ensure the safety of the science community as they fought to defeat whatever was presenting the danger.

  If she was working in such a lab, hacking those systems were going to be tricky and time consuming. But hacking Dr. Lenza was not.

  She was a woman with four adult children, five grandchildren, and a husband of thirty-five years. A champion of the inoculation program and an avenger of childhood viruses. She wasn’t a government worker nor was she someone sworn to secrecy. If anything, she would choose to protect her family, as shown in her field of choice.

  Albert learned quickly he was right when he read the first text message she had sent of the day.

  ‘In route to DC. Will let you know if you should make the BBQ Ham. XO.’

  Second text.

  ‘Arrived. Met with him. Don’t make the BBQ Ham yet. I will give you plenty of preparation time. XO.’

  And then the third …

  ‘Just in case, you may want to get the ingredients together in case you have to whip together the BBQ. Call the kids and invite them. XO.’

  Not that he was an expert on the Lenza family but he was pretty sure he could bet they weren’t big enough BBQ Ham fans that they’d communicate so much about it.