One of the few joys in my life was Kung Fu. I took it up at Alan’s insistence and it was the best thing I could have done. I took to it like a toddler to ice cream and before long I was going three nights a week. I attained my black belt within a year and even competed in the Rhode Island State Championships.
Not only was it a good physical outlet for me, I look back now and see how much it did for my mental discipline too.
All in all, things were good and getting better.
It was the middle of October when I recall first hearing that something was amiss. I had helped Eleanor clear up the supper dishes and wandered into the living room where Alan watched the news each evening. As I did so, I noticed a banner across the bottom of the screen alerting the viewers of a special report.
“... and now some breaking news out of North Korea,” Sarah Mulligan, the Channel Seven news co-anchor was saying. “Tom?”
“We are getting reports of a flu-like disease that is sweeping the nation of North Korea,” Tom Dallard said, taking over from his on-air partner. “Preliminary reports suggest that as many as one million Koreans in the Pyongyang region have fallen ill with this mystery virus over the last few days. The North Korean government has closed their borders even tighter than they normally are and their leader has not been seen in public in over 48 hours. Their government news agency has remained silent on the issue of the disease. Experts here in the US believe that casualties could be in the thousands,” he paused, looking at his notes and then off to one side before looking back to the camera.
“We now take you live to a statement being given by Lloyd Ackerman, Chief of Public Relations for the Center for Disease Control.”
“Doesn’t look good,” muttered Alan, as we watched the camera cut away to a shot of a tall man standing behind a podium bearing the circular CDC emblem. I focused in on what Dr. Ackerman was saying.
“... isolationist policies make it hard for us to get accurate, real-time information on this outbreak; at the same time, those policies seem to be containing the outbreak to North Korea itself. At this point, all we know is the disease appears to be a fast acting form of influenza. Symptoms develop rapidly after exposure and, in many cases, fatality occurs within a few days. Again, because of the nature of dealing with information from North Korea, we do not know the exact fatality percentages or the rate of infection. At this time, we are coordinating with the FAA and the Department of Homeland Security to ensure everybody flying into the United States from East Asia will be quarantined for 24 hours after arrival to ensure that symptoms do not develop. We do not think there is a clear and present danger to the people of the United States at this time, but, when dealing with a disease such as this, the situation is always fluid and can change at any time. I’ll now take a few questions from the press.” He pointed to a reporter in the crowd in front of him.
“How bad is this going to get, Doctor?”
“Well, it certainly seems that there is a real mystery to this one. Flu season in South-East Asia had been relatively good this year, so it is worrying that it seemed to come out of the blue, hard and fast,” Ackerman replied. “Whether it turns out to be something less dangerous than originally thought, like the infamous Swine Flu, is unknowable at this time. While that outcome is something we can all hope for, I think it would be wise to look at this as if it were the worst case scenario until proven otherwise... and, if that is the case, then yes, it is going to be bad. Possibly very bad.
“Based on some of the reports coming out of North Korea, we could be looking at something as virulent as the Spanish influenza. But, as I said, that is pure conjecture at this time.”
He motioned to another reporter, but Alan switched off the television before the question came.
I often wondered later if Dr. Ackerman lived long enough to realize just how much his ‘worst case scenario’ had underestimated the flu that was, unbeknown to the rest of the world, decimating the North Korean adult population.
“Do you have any homework, Isaac?” Alan asked from his recliner.
“No, sir,” I replied. It was a lie, but a small one. I actually had a dozen math problems I needed to do for my algebra class, but I my class in the afternoon and figured I’d just do them at lunch the next day. It’s not like I had any friends to hang out with during lunch time.
The next day the ‘Pyongyang flu,’ as it had been dubbed, was the talk of the school. According to the loose teenage gossip it was going to spread and result in the end of the world.
Bernie Bova, my lab partner in Physical Science, wouldn’t shut up about how it was a government conspiracy, and that President Riley had finally had enough of Kim Jong-Un, his bad haircut and his constant threats of nuclear war.
“Telling you man, its biological warfare. We’re taking those bitches down!”
At the time, none of us knew how close to the truth he actually was, although he got the source of the attack wrong. That sort of talk went on for a few days, while news stories lingered on the evening news and in the papers, but then, like all news stories without a direct effect on the majority of Americans, they petered off, aided by the fact that the North Korean government had virtually sealed off their country, not only the borders but also all telecommunication, media, and internet.
Within a couple of weeks there was nothing besides the occasional mention, regularly recycled stories and speculation on the 24 hour news channels. Going about my daily life, I heard no news about the Pyongyang flu for nearly two whole weeks.
Then on Halloween day, the Chinese government announced that they were sending an expeditionary taskforce over the border into North Korea. Communications from the North Korean government had by then ceased and the American military had announced that their satellites were currently detecting little or no evidence of life. This essentially meant no movement of vehicles or transport, no communications, and little evidence of population in over two weeks.
With this deafening silence hanging over North Korea, the Chinese had the support of the United Nations. Even our government, long critical of China’s inaction when it came to North Korea, but also wary of their expansion in the Pacific, approved. Everybody wanted to know what had transpired there.
Halloween didn’t really mean a lot to me. I had never been much into candy, and at nearly 15-years old, I felt that I was a little bit too old for trick-or-treating even though Eleanor tried to talk me into it. I refused, politely of course, and spent the evening watching CNN’s live updates of the Chinese expedition with Alan.
The Chinese government was very forthcoming with what they were finding, releasing video footage to their own and Western news outlets but drawing the line at a live feed.
I had to suppress shudders watching the recorded video footage from the helmet cams of the Chinese soldiers. They were marching through a wasteland. Something like 96 percent of the adult population had succumbed to the infection; children appeared to be unaffected but the reports showed them being rounded up by soldiers and transported to camps where the Chinese government assured the world they would be cared for until a long term solution could be found. No one in the scientific community could explain why children seemed to be immune to the infection, although there was some wild speculation.
While they were physically unaffected by the flu, being left to their own devices, alone and unsupervised, had not been kind to them. The first groups of children filmed seemed wild, almost feral and I remember wondering how they could have fallen so far in such a short period of time. Watching them, some snarling and spitting at the soldiers, others staring dumbly, I was reminded of Lord of the Flies. The novel by William Golding is about a group of kids shipwrecked on an island with no adults. Left to their own devices, with little chance of rescue, the children’s descent into savagery had been quick and not at all pretty. Perhaps Golding’s fiction was pretty close to the mark?
Within a day or so, the Chinese government’s willingness to share information dried up. They occupied Nort
h Korea with a sizeable force and declared it a quarantine zone. Their president, only in the job for less than year and known for his aggressive politics, assured the world that their scientists were hard at work studying the disease and would reveal their findings when the study was complete.
Needless to say, a diplomatic crisis ensued, neither South Korea nor the US was happy with China’s forces crossing into North Korea and the president ordered our Pacific fleet into international waters off the coast of South Korea.
For a few more days, the Pyongyang flu and devastation of North Korea along with the huffing and puffing and possibility of war was on everybody’s minds, but eventually it slowly faded once more. Deals were done, and China agreed to allow UN forces on the ground in NK. The normal reactions to a horrendous human disaster played out; celebrities cried on TV and criticized the president for not offering more money, politicians pledged to push through relief packages and the conspiracy theorists threw their unsubstantiated theories around with wild abandon. Again, as the news cycle churned and it stopped being front and center, the celebrities and politicians moved on to their next pet cause and North Korea and the Pyongyang flu faded from most people’s minds.
Nobody seriously suspected then that the Pyongyang flu was anything more than a terrible pandemic that science would soon tame, as it had done many times before. The fact was, besides the conspiracy theorists, nobody was even close to the truth: that the infection of North Korea was a trial, a dry run for the real deal. NK’s isolationist policies had made it the perfect petri dish and, soon enough, the results of that experiment would be used to irrevocably swing the balance of power in the world.
2
Three days later I was in a dark mood as I sat in the school office during third period. It was my 15th birthday, but I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate. I had my head bowed and was doing my best to ignore the world around me.
I was thinking about my parents and sister and the last birthday I had shared with them. It had seemed nothing special then, just my favorite home-cooked meal and a simple chocolate cake, but now it was a precious memory. Funny how some things become more significant later on.
My thoughts drifted to the North Korean children and how millions of them had also had their parents ripped from them. The world was a shitty place.
I was faintly aware of somebody sitting down in the seat next to me, but kept my head buried in my hands. I didn’t feel up to making conversation.
“So, whatcha here for?”
I sighed. Some people just can’t read body language. I thought about ignoring the question, but in the end I sat back in my chair and looked up to see a tall, red-headed boy slouched in the plastic chair next to mine. I knew him, of course. Luke Merritt was my age and one of the more popular kids in my class, his outgoing personality more than making up for his freckles and gangly appearance.
“Don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I got a note to come see Mr. Jennings. How about you?”
“I’m here to see Dan the Man,” he said, referring to Vice Principal Dan Haralson. ‘Dan the Man’ was his nickname amongst the student body, earned by his easy-going, ‘cool’ attitude toward the kids.
“Tyler Lane was bugging Sheri Denison in PE, and when he grabbed her boob, I felt I just had to step in, you know? I mean, they’re so perfect that no one with the IQ of a brick should ever be able to touch them ... ever! Anyway, one swift kick to the nards later and here I am. Still, I’d rather be here waiting to see the Man than sitting with my swollen balls on ice at the nurse’s station.”
He was clearly pleased with himself and despite my mood I found myself smiling.
“You know, Haralson’s going to give you detention at the very least. I know he’s pretty cool and all, but he’s tough on fighting,” I said. “He might even suspend you.”
“Totally worth it, man,” Luke replied. “A suspension isn’t going to stop me from helping out someone in trouble. Besides, have you seen Sheri? Maybe she’ll want to thank me in person some time.”
He nudged me with his elbow and winked and I smiled again.
Begrudgingly, I felt myself begin to like Luke. It was hard not to. We might have talked more, but just then Mr. Jennings opened his door and called me into his office.
I felt my smile melt away.
“Seeya Isaac,” Luke said.
I gave a half-wave but didn’t smile as I followed the school counselor into his office. I know now my aloofness was a defense mechanism, something I put in place to be sure I could never get close to anyone again, but I didn’t know another way to handle my situation.
Jennings’ office was small and cramped. A desk and two metal bookshelves dominated the room and, when the coat rack was taken into account, the only place for a visitor was on the hard plastic chair set in front of the desk.
“Have a seat, Isaac,” Mr. Jennings said, dropping into the black cushioned chair behind his desk. “Miss Babette mentioned that you’ve been even more distant in class the last couple of days, so I thought I’d have a chat with you and see if you’re okay.”
I looked around the office, as I often did when called there. My eyes finally came to rest on a poster for an old movie that Mr. Jennings had on the wall above his head. I have never seen ‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead’ but I always thought I’d be interested to watch it and work out if there was a reason he had that particular poster on his wall. Maybe there was no deep reason? Maybe he just liked the movie.
“Well, Isaac?”
I looked back down at him.
“No, sir, nothing out of the ordinary,” I replied. There was no way I was going to mention it was my birthday. “I guess I’ve just been thinking about those poor kids in North Korea a lot this week is all. How they lost everyone.”
“At least they are still alive,” Mr. Jennings said. “So they’re lucky in that regard at least.”
I felt a flame of anger lick at my detachment.
“Are they?” I asked in a tight voice.
“Well, maybe not,” he said, apparently realizing he’d put his foot in it. “I didn’t mean to be callous. Of course, you’re right, nothing would be worse than losing parents at a young age.”
I swallowed my anger and zoned out again.
3
The rest of the year passed without incident until school let out for winter break. Leaving Fort Carter Junior High the Friday before Christmas, I had no way of knowing that I’d never set foot in the school again. My time in a classroom was over, but it was not the end of my lessons.
When it happened, it happened fast. The United States of America, the greatest nation on earth, functionally ceased to exist in less than a week. The first people started getting sick on Christmas Day.
“Thanks, Alan, Eleanor, I love it!” I said, holding the small drone I’d just unwrapped in my hands. I felt happy, part of a real family for the first time since the fire. Most of the presents that they had given me were sensible – a sweater, some woolen socks, a new backpack to carry my school books in, but the remote-controlled drone was the first real present I had gotten since my parents died.
I attempted to fly the mini-drone around the living room, but it was difficult to control and many crash landings and retrievals followed while I got used to it. Finally, I got the hang of it and followed it as I guided it on its most successful flight through the dining room and into the kitchen - where it promptly crashed into a wall above Eleanor’s China cabinet, two of its rotors flying in different directions as it spun on the floor like a dying fly.
The thought of playing had been absent from my mind for over a year and for just a brief moment, as we fell about laughing (all except Eleanor who was horrified at the damage I could have done to her good China) at my ineptness as a pilot, I felt almost like a normal kid again.
“Are you all right, Al?” Eleanor was saying to her husband as I re-entered the dining room after putting the blades back on. “You’ve been coughing an awful lot this morning.”
“Just a bit of a tickle in the back of my throat,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Judith said there was a bug going around,” Eleanor said, shaking her head. “Let me get you some warm salt water to gargle; perhaps we can knock it out of you before it really sets up shop.”
“I hope so. I took a mega-dose of vitamin C this morning when I first noticed it,” Alan said. “You know how I hate being sick.”
“Doesn’t everybody hate being sick?” I asked earnestly.
Alan smiled.
“That they do, Son.”
“Isaac, can you clean up the wrapping paper and put your gifts away?” Eleanor asked, before heading to the kitchen to fetch the salt water for Alan. “John and Amy should be here soon.”
John and Amy were two of the kids they had fostered before me. John was in college now, down in Providence, and Amy was living up in Boston. Both still had strong feelings for the Fosters though, and came to visit often on holidays. Amy even called them Mom and Dad. I had met both a few times before and they seemed like good people, just the sort of kids you’d expect to come out of a family life crafted by Alan and Eleanor.
I gathered up my gifts and took them to my room, where I dumped them in a pile on the bed. I had to admit to myself that I was looking forward to Christmas dinner. With John and Amy there it would be almost like the family gatherings I fondly remembered from before my grandparents had died, just a few years before my parents.
When I went back to the living room to gather up the torn wrapping paper, Eleanor was on the kitchen phone.
Hell Week Page 2
