by J. F. Krause
Pandemic Reboot 2:
Restoration
by J.F. Krause
My Thanks
I’m truly grateful for the support and encouragement I have received from my family and friends. While this is my hobby, it is nice to have people who love and help and advise me in the process. No matter how introverted we think we are, we are all part of our own little tribe. Again, thank you to Linda, Toni, Deanna, and Greg.
And just so everyone knows, all characters are fictional and are not based on anyone I actually know or have known, living or dead; all characters that is except for Nelda and Butterbean. They are very much alive and just as adorable in real life as they will ever be in anything I write about them.
Copyright © 2018 J.F. Krause
All rights reserved.
Prologue
The Captain
January is a gift to the people of Beirut. It’s one of the least touristy months of the year and is often balmy or even cool. City life is at its least hectic in January, particularly in the neighborhood of Achrafieh, as it is a time when the Christian holidays have subsided, and people can take a bit of time to wind themselves up to do it all over again. Ari Haddad, had spent his day doing the routine things associated with being a family physician: he’d held office hours for his patients in the morning and early afternoon; he’d checked in on the ones in the area hospitals; and he’d returned to his office for a couple of final appointments. Best of all, he’d managed to spend his entire day without once having to get into his car.
Having completed his official day, he went home to his wife, Elena and their three-year-old daughter, Helene. Elena had trained to be an accountant, something she excelled at and hated at the same time. Ari and Elena had met soon after he returned to Beirut from the United States. He’d lived in the United States, first as an infant refugee fleeing from Lebanon’s civil war that started within weeks of his birth, and later as a student while he completed his medical studies. Being a dutiful son, he’d finally given in to his parents’ entreaties to come home to Beirut, a city he knew only from visits during breaks from school. Now, he’d come to love the culture and history of his once and again hometown, although he also occasionally longed to be surrounded by English speakers. For the last few years, he’d been able to partially fill that void by teaching an evening course at the American University of Beirut, the only time during the week when he always drove his car.
Since the birth of Helene, Elena had curtailed her accounting practice to the point that Ari was now her one client. Tonight, as was their common practice, the three of them would join his parents for supper at their parents’ apartment directly across the hall from his own. Before the civil war, Ari’s father owned a lucrative import business, but with Ari only months old at the time, Ari and his parents had taken to their small yacht to escape the fighting. After landing in Cypress, the family had moved on to the United States.
Once peace returned to Lebanon, the elder Aristotle’s business virtually exploded, and soon after the birth of Helene, he happily assumed the life of a doting grandfather. Upon Ari’s marriage, Aristotle and his wife, Magda, gave the newlyweds their current apartment, a mirror image of his own on the top floor of one of several apartment buildings he owned. Ari’s mother had always protected her only child and had been instrumental in his being allowed to finish his education in the States before allying herself with her husband in prevailing on Ari to rejoin them in Beirut.
All in all, Ari and Elena were happy with only the occasional argument, usually about whether to have another child. Ari wanted at least one more and would have happily had more than one. Elena was completely content with Helene and didn’t want to introduce another variable into the equation. Had it been left up to him, Ari would have simply forgotten to take precautions, but Elena was far too organized to have a slip up like that. Besides, Ari firmly subscribed to the notion that Elena controlled her own body, end of discussion.
Dinner was on the veranda that overlooked a park across the narrow street from the apartment. Being on the top floor of a six-storey building, they could easily enjoy the breeze and the muted sounds drifting up to them from the surrounding city. As Ari was the only one in the family to regularly go out and about in the neighborhood, he was usually the one describing his day during these frequent family dinners. Before he could get started, however, Lina, his parents’ housekeeper/cook interrupted them to let them know she would have to leave early. The government had just announced that a curfew would go into effect in just over an hour. She would need to leave soon to insure she had enough time to make it home in what was sure to be a rush. Ari offered to accompany her but that was quickly dismissed. The streets in the area were safe and Lina would have to walk only a few blocks.
As soon as Lina was safely on her way, the little family moved their meal into the den where they could watch the news on the television. There had been curfews after bombings, but that didn’t appear to be the case now.
“The government has established a nationwide curfew beginning at 8 PM this evening. Please go home and stay there until further notice. That is all the information we have at this time, but we will update you as soon as we know more.” With that, the station began broadcasting a foghorn audio and switched to a visual screen announcing the curfew times and showing a countdown timer with the number of minutes until curfew.
Eating was impossible with the foghorn blasting away at them from the television, so Magda turned the sound off. Now, as they stared at the silent TV, the family had lost their appetites. This was simply unheard of, at least since the end of the Lebanese civil war. What had been a pleasant and predictable day had suddenly become confused and frightening.
“We should plan on getting the boat restocked as soon as the curfew is lifted.” Aristotle was referring to the small family yacht moored not far away. It was seldom used for more than short jaunts around the harbor, but it was in good repair and could get them to Cypress with a minimum of preparation. Of course, everything depended on what this emergency was and how long it lasted.
Ari nodded silently, not voicing his thoughts that if they had to leave again, he wasn’t planning to return. For the first time he began to understand what his father must have felt when he took Magda and little Ari to that same small vessel when Ari was just a few months old. With those thoughts in mind, Ari unconsciously pulled little Helene to sit on his lap. Helene, sensing that something was very wrong, was on the verge of tears. Normally a good eater, Helene ignored her plate that was sitting on the coffee table inches away.
“We don’t even know what this is about. Maybe we’re being attacked by Israel again. Or Syria.” Magda was never one to react until she had all the facts.
“Do you mind if we put Helene down for the night in her room over here? It’s almost her bedtime and I want her nearby in case there’s a problem.” Elena was referring, of course, to the bedroom Aristotle and Magda maintained for Helene for their frequent babysitting gigs while Ari and Elena were occupied with the rest of their lives.
“Of course, dear. The room is always ready. Would you like any help with her?”
“No, I’ll just be a minute. She’s already looking warn out and she should be dropping off to sleep in minutes. I’ll be right back.” Elena was taking Helene from Ari as she spoke. She was right, Helene was already zoning into a pouty sleep pattern. She wasn’t happy about being hauled out of her daddy’s comfortable lap, no matter how gently her mother did it.
Ari and his parents sat in silence for a moment as Elena left the room. Each sat with their own thoughts until, soon after Elena had disappeared holding Helene, they heard a terrified cry coming from Helene. As Ari and his parents frantically ran to her room, they saw the crumpled body of Elena just beside
Helene’s crib. She was clutching her head and simultaneously vomiting repeatedly. Helene was partially covered by her mother’s bloody regurgitation. As Ari knelt over Elena’s unresponsive body, Magda pulled Helene from her crib and began to wipe her face and arms using a dry face cloth and towel. Aristotle stood ready to assist his son. After a few seconds, Magda, seeking to shield Helene from both the horror of what was happening in the bedroom as well as the stench of her mother’s last moments, took Helene out to the veranda where she sat down to finish cleaning her, this time with a freshly moistened cloth.
In only a very few moments, Aristotle joined his wife and granddaughter shaking his head in silent acknowledgement that Elena had expired.
“What happened? Elena was fine when she took Helene to her bedroom. How could this have happened so suddenly?” Magda was expressing everyone’s thoughts. None of them had ever seen anything so extreme come from literally nowhere as had just happened.
Then, before he could answer, Aristotle’s eyes seemed to bulge out of his face in shock and pain. He reached for his head and began to moan and immediately began to vomit copious amounts of gore and then blood. It seemed impossible to imagine so much fluid coming from a human body.
“Ari! Come quick! Your father needs you.” Magda was torn between protecting her granddaughter and helping her husband. In the end, she stepped back and shielded Helene’s face from the grotesquerie of another death. Even as her heart was tearing apart from the sight of her stricken husband of almost 50 years, Magda instinctively protected her only grand child.
Ari was with them in seconds, but all he could do was watch his father expire. As soon as the vomiting had come to an end, he bent down to check his vitals. He started CPR but knew it was useless. Sick at heart, after a few minutes, he stepped back and looked to his mother, still holding a now wide-awake and terrified Helene.
“I left my cell phone at our apartment. I need to get it to see if there are any messages. I’ll be right back. Will you be okay for a couple of minutes? We might have been hit by a nerve agent attack. I need my phone to call the emergency line at the hospital.”
Magda nodded weakly, still sheltering Helene’s face from the sight of her grandfather’s body lying in a pool of his own blood and waste. Ari ran from his parents’ apartment to his own just across the hall. With no other apartments on their floor, Ari quickly entered his apartment and found his cell phone where he’d left it earlier. Immediately, he saw the message flashing at him from the emergency channel on his phone. The message had been sent out minutes before the curfew had been declared, and he had been directed to the nearest hospital emergency room. He dialed the dedicated channel and got an expanded recorded message. This time he learned that a lethal virus had been intentionally released over much of the world and that the government was expecting a horrendous death toll. So far, they had no other information to share.
Ari was torn between staying with this mother and his daughter, but his duty as a health care professional demanded that he help the living. As he ran back to his mother and child, it occurred to him that he might find one or both of them dead. He wanted to cling to this moment of hope but knew that his duty was elsewhere.
“Mother? Helene?”
“We’re in the den, Ari. We’re both okay. What’s happening?”
“It appears that this is a manufactured virus. I don’t know anything else. Why don’t we go over to my apartment and wait there. You may be safer away from whatever this was, but I suspect the damage has already been done. I’m being called into the hospital, and I need to check in. I want to stay here, but I can’t right now. The sooner I find out what’s going on, the sooner I can be back. I’m so sorry, Mother, but I can’t say everything will be all right. I think this is really bad. I love you, and I’ll take care of myself. Don’t let anyone onto this floor.”
He didn’t wait to see what she would do next. He ran down the hall to the stairwell out habit. He rarely took the elevator, but wouldn’t have taken it anyway during the emergency. Getting to the street, he noticed there were actual bodies lying on the sidewalk. There were cars stopped at strange angles with bodies still inside or hanging out of open doors. All this made him run even faster toward the hospital where he had just been earlier that day. Even from here he could see there was pandemonium reigning outside the doors of the small emergency room. He could hear two sirens and see dozens of flashing lights from police cars, ambulances, and even fire trucks. So much was apparently happening, but what he was not seeing was movement. To be sure, there were a handful of people out and about, but not enough to go with the noise and light barrage on the street just outside the entryway.
As he approached the door, one of the firemen standing next to his emergency vehicle collapsed with the now familiar symptoms of the disease. Ari automatically ran to his side, but he was dismayed to see over a dozen bodies already lining the sidewalk. Some of them had obviously been placed in an orderly pose, but even more of them appeared to have been left untouched where they had fallen.
Seeing there was nothing he could do, Ari entered the small emergency quarters only to see that all order had completely broken down. Quickly scanning the room he counted four ambulatory individuals inside and three outside. It was easy to see that people had literally come here to die since there were easily dozens of bodies both inside and outside.
Ari also quickly determined that he was the lone medical staff member present. The other survivors didn’t recognize him as a doctor or else they were too stunned to care any more. Ari was pretty sure they were the caregivers who had brought their loved ones to the hospital only to discover they were merely delivering dead bodies to a de facto morgue.
As his gaze circled the room he saw another standing survivor collapse onto the bodies around her feet. Ari was frozen into his position near the intake desk. He knew he was going into a state of shock and had to forcibly get a grip on his emotions. Knowing he needed to keep a cool head didn’t help him know what to do. He already knew that the moment the symptoms started, the victim was beyond help. He also knew that any minute he could be one of them. He regretted his decision to respond to the summons to the hospital. He should be home. Then he realized he couldn’t help anyone, at home or at the hospital. His medical knowledge was virtually useless.
After he’d spent an inconsequential half hour trying to give comfort to those facing the inevitable, he realized he and a very young woman, probably only a teenager, were working side-by-side and all alone.
“I’m Dr. Haddad. What is your name?”
“Falah Amir. I’m here with my mother and brother. Or I was.” She was very subdued, but she was holding it together.
“It appears to be over. At least it is here, I think. I don’t know if we will succumb, but until we do, would you like to attend to you mother and brother? I will help you.”
“Yes. Thank you, but I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry, but you will need to help me get them past all the other bodies and into this hallway. Then we can put them on a gurney and put them in a room there they can be together. Will that be okay for now?
“Oh yes! Thank you.”
Moving the bodies of Falah’s mother and brother took only about ten minutes, and by that time Ari had had time to think more practically. The hospital was small, but had over a hundred beds, most of which were occupied.
“I need to check the rest of the hospital to see what is happening with the rest of staff and patients. Do you have family you can go to? Do you live nearby?”
Falah shook her head. “My dad got sick at home, and we put him in the car to bring him to the hospital. Then my older brother got sick in the car. When we got here, Mother and my younger brother died in the waiting room. I’m all that is left at home. I have a grandmother in Tripoli. My I come with you? I can help.”
It wasn’t normal to have a teenaged girl follow him on his rounds, but nothing was normal right now so Ari found himself nodding. “Stay cl
ose.”
They systematically worked their way through the rooms of the hospital starting at the top floor. Ari was hesitant to use the elevator since everything he had been taught about emergencies was to avoid elevators during one. They climbed the seven floors to begin their explorations. In room after room, ward after ward, they came upon no one living. Every single body was surrounded by the same pool of blood, regurgitation, feces, and urine. Finally, they heard the distinctive sound of a child crying in a room in the pediatrics ward.
As Ari and Falah entered what was the waiting room outside of the maternity ward, they came face to face with a small boy of no more than five. The little boy was sitting in one of the waiting room chairs with his little legs pulled under his body crying quietly. Falah instantly crossed the room and knelt in front of the little boy.
“Hi. I’m Falah. What’s your name?” Falah, who had thus far only spoken in Arabic had spoken to him in fluent English thinking he must be European because of his sandy blonde hair and gray eyes. However, the little boy had responded in French.
“My name is Dietrich. I want my momma. I want to go home. I’m hungry. I want my daddy!” It all came out in a rush, and had Falah not been in such a state of grief, she might have laughed.
As it was, she pulled him into her body and gave him a comforting hug. Meanwhile, Ari after glancing at Dietrich’s visitor’s ID patch, quickly went over to the vending machine and got a bottle of water and a sandwich for him. Through his tears, Dietrich was able to take a few sips of water while gobbling up the sandwich, all pretense of manners forgotten.
“Do you know where my momma is? She’s having a baby! Are you a doctor?”
Clearly, Dietrich had determined that Falah wasn’t in charge and had addressed himself to Ari.
“Yes, I’m a doctor. I’m going to find your parents right now. You need to stay here with Falah while I go find them. Can you do that for me?”
