Grants Pass

by Cherie Priest

  I could smell the sickness from here, that horrible combination of sweat and vomit and a dozen other bodily fluids that says ‘something’s dying nearby.’ I kept my face as neutral as I could. “Let’s see if she’s up now.”

  Nathan looked relieved — like he’d been afraid right up until that moment that I was going to disarm him and run — and opened the door.

  Miranda’s room had been a corner office before the pandemic, probably much-prized for the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised two of the four walls. Now it was a little girl’s paradise. The once-white walls had been inexpertly painted pink, and flower-shaped plastic decals studded the window glass. Toys and books were heaped haphazardly around the floor. At the center of it all was a glorious fairy tale of a four-poster bed — God knows where they found that — and in the center of the bed was Miranda.

  Any hopes this little jaunt would prove my theory about immunity being hereditary died when I saw her. Adopted daughter, maybe. Adopted after the pandemic, almost certainly. But biological daughter? No. Not unless he’d had a Korean wife whose genes had been able to beat his nine falls out of ten.

  Miranda raised her head at the sound of the door, summoning a smile from somewhere deep inside herself. “Daddy.” She paused, brow knotting. “We have company?” The question was uncertain, like she thought I might be a hallucination.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat before it could turn to full-fledged tears. “I’m Mercy Neely, honey. I’m a veterinarian.”

  Sudden interest brightened her eyes. “Is that why you have dogs? I like dogs. I used to have a dog. Before—” She stopped, the brightness fading. “Before.”

  “A lot of people did.” Nathan was standing frozen next to me. He’d ceased to be a factor as soon as I saw the little girl. Ignoring the possibility that he’d decide to shoot me, I started for the bed, setting my traveling medicine kit down on the mattress. “Now, your Dad says you don’t feel so good.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “My head hurts. I can’t breathe sometimes. I keep choking when I try to sleep.” She sounded ashamed of her own symptoms. Poor kid. “I—” A cough cut off her words, and she sat up to catch it in her hands, bending almost double in the process. It had a rich, wet sound, like it was being dredged up through quicksand.

  “Just breathe,” I said, and turned back towards Nathan. “It could be a lot of things. Without a lab, I can’t really tell you which one. It’s probably pneumonia, complicated by general malnutrition. I’m going to give you a list of medicines that I need you to go back to the store and find for me.”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed. “I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

  “My way out of here is back at that store. I’m unarmed. I’m not exactly going to take a sick little girl hostage, now, am I?” I shook my head, expression disgusted. “She shouldn’t be left alone. Either you trust me here, or you trust that I’ll come back.”

  “I’ll lock the office door behind me.”

  “You do that.”

  Still he hesitated, eyes flicking from me to Miranda and back again.

  I sighed, and played the ultimate trump card: “I don’t know how long she has.”

  His expression hardened.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  ****

  Things I don’t need to explain: what it was like to step outside for the first time after I got better and the rest of the world didn’t. I’m pretty sure everyone that’s still alive has their own version of that story, and they don’t need to be repeated. I woke up, I felt better, I went outside, I threw up six times, I went a little crazy, and I got over it. There wasn’t time to have a nervous breakdown. Maybe if I’d been a doctor, but I wasn’t a doctor; I never wanted to be a doctor. I’m a veterinarian, and my patients still needed me.

  Four days isn’t long enough for most animals to turn vicious; that made my job a lot easier. It took eighteen hours to canvas the town, letting cats out of houses, assessing dogs and livestock and making my decisions as impartially as I could. Domestic cattle aren’t made to live without somebody to take care of them. They need milking, or their udders will split open and they’ll die of infection. Sheep are worse. Goats are fine on their own; so are horses, most poultry, and pigs. Cats will go feral. Dogs will go mean. If it could be released, I either released it or fed it and promised to be back in a little while. If it couldn’t be released…

  Ending future suffering is one luxury veterinarians have that human doctors don’t. I spent a lot of that first day crying, but I guarantee you that while the people of Pumpkin Junction died just as badly as the rest of the world, our animals died better than they did anywhere else.

  I held back some of the stock. A few milking goats, some horses I knew were gentle and well-mannered, several of the larger, healthier, friendlier dogs. I was already planning, you see. Figuring out what I’d need, and what we’d need when I finished the trip. Can’t build a society without animals, and there’s no point in re-domesticating when we have the potential to save the work we’ve already done. Some of it, anyway.

  God, I hope she’s there.

  ****

  Miranda turned wide, dark eyes on me after her adoptive father was gone, and asked, “Am I going to get better?”

  “That’s what medicine is for, isn’t it?” I opened my bag, pulling out a needle and a small, unlabeled bottle. I never labeled that particular bottle. They taught us that in veterinary school. Even when they were the ones who’d decided that dear old Kitty was ready for that great scratching post in the sky, people didn’t want to see the label.

  They also taught us to be natural about it. To fill the syringe like it was any other vaccination. “Miranda’s a pretty name,” I said. “I like it.”

  “So do I,” she said, watching me with gravity beyond her years. “Are you going to give me a shot?”

  “Mm-hmm. Just a little one, to help you sleep.” I glanced up, offering her a warm smile. “I have a daughter just about your age. Her name is Linda.”

  “You do?” Her expression turned carefully neutral, like she was about to walk into a minefield. “Is she…did she…”

  “She’s just fine. She’s waiting for me in a place called Grants Pass. It’s up in Oregon. I’m on my way there now.” Linda would be there. Linda had to be there. She was the one who had told me to go there in the first place. Eight years old, smart as a whip, and gullible enough to believe everything she ever read. Gullible enough to believe the pandemic was coming, for one thing, and that it would probably come in our lifetime. “When they go crazy, Mom, you have to promise to come to Oregon,” she said, with those big blue eyes just as wide and serious as they could go. Like my agreeing to come to Grants Pass was a matter of life or death. So I agreed. What else can you do? I only got her every other weekend, and if she wanted me to promise to take a post-apocalyptic road trip, I’d promise.

  Linda had to be there. What I’d seen in Pumpkin Junction on the day I went a little crazy was just the shock talking. I didn’t see it again. And if part of me insisted that I only didn’t see it because I didn’t go back there, who cares? There were no animals in that shitty little apartment. There was nothing there to save.

  Miranda looked unsure. “How come she isn’t traveling with you?”

  “Well, see, Linda’s daddy and I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to live together anymore. So Linda was with her daddy when everybody got sick, and she had to start without me. I’ll catch up to her sooner or later.” I tapped the syringe, easing out the bubbles. “She promised to meet me there, and she takes her promises seriously.”

  Linda takes everything seriously, and has since she was born. So we sat down with the maps of the state, and we worked out four routes that we could take to get to Oregon. The Route Where They Closed the Roads. The Route Where Quarantine Kept the Roads Open. The Route Where There’s Been An Earthquake and We Have To Go Around. The Route Where Too
Many People Survived and We Need to Avoid Them. Even after the earthquake that took out most of the Los Angeles metro area, the bulk of California was mostly somewhere between routes one and two. Linda wouldn’t have had any problems if she avoided the coast roads and skirted the area around Red Bluff.

  “Can we come with you? Me and my daddy?”

  “We’ll talk about it when you wake up,” I said soothingly.

  She didn’t even cry when the needle went in; she bore the brief pain like a trooper. Domesticated animals always do.

  ****

  There are a lot of ways for people to die in the post-pandemic world; I’ve seen most of them. The human race was domesticated a long time ago, and like the cows that need someone to milk them, or the sheep too dumb to run away from a predator, the humans forgot how to stay alive without the trappings of their civilization. So they stagger along pretending they still have some quality of life while their teeth get loose from scurvy and their bowels get scarred by parasitic infections. Most of the people who lived through the sicknesses shouldn’t have. They’re just suffering now, without all the little luxuries they were so accustomed to.

  Euthanasia is kinder. It’s quicker. It takes the pain away. If we don’t let our pets suffer, why should we let people do it? Part of being a vet is knowing that the thing to do with suffering is end it, not prolong it just for the sake of being able to say that all your patients survive. I’m not a moralist. I see suffering, and I end it. It’s that simple. Human doctors aren’t allowed to have that luxury, but there’s a reason I never wanted to work with people.

  Miranda’s eyes fluttered shut in a matter of seconds as the drugs took effect, her body effectively sliding into a comatose state that was deeper than any sleep. I put the syringe away and took her hand, my index finger pressed against the pulse point of her wrist. Her heart sped up, fighting against the lidocaine. Her fingers tightened on mine with no more force than a kitten’s jaws.

  She gasped once, sighed, and was still.

  “See?” I said, slipping my hand out of hers. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

  ****

  Nathan returned about ten minutes later, clutching a bag that bulged with medical supplies. I met him at the office door, motioning for him to be quiet. “She’s sleeping,” I whispered. He looked past me to where she was stretched out on her bed, expression peaceful, and believed me.

  Outside, in the hall, I offered him a sympathetic smile, and said, “It’s bad, but she should pull through. I’ve given her something to help her sleep, and I can show you which medicines to give her. But there’s a fee for my help.”

  The hope in his eyes died like a switch had been flipped. “What’s that?” he asked, warily.

  I held up my bag. “After spending a year scrounging in all this rust? You need a tetanus shot. Let me give it to you, and I’ll stay as long as it takes to get her better.”

  Nathan laughed, sounding utterly relieved. “I think I can stand a shot if it gets my baby girl better.”

  “Good.” I smiled. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

  Biography

  Seanan McGuire

  Born in California, Seanan McGuire has long been fascinated by the fact that bubonic plague is endemic in the local rodent population. This explains a lot about her, really. Seanan’s interest in plagues and pandemics occupies much of her spare time; the rest of her time is spent taking inordinately long walks and working on her various writing projects. She is the author of the Toby Daye series from DAW Books. The first, Rosemary and Rue, will be published in 2009, with at least two more to follow.

  Seanan has released three albums to date. The latest, Red Roses and Dead Things, includes a lengthy musical explanation of why the Black Death wasn’t actually the bubonic plague. No, seriously.

  Like many writers, Seanan is a cat person, and lives with several Classic Siamese. She watches too many horror movies, and reacts violently to people asking ‘Is that you, Johnny?’ (It’s not Johnny.) You can catch up with her at www.seananmcguire.com, where she will happily geek pandemics with you.

  Afterword

  As a fan of both pandemics and California history, I was fascinated to learn that bubonic plague has been locally endemic since at least 1900. Bearing that in mind, I wanted a protagonist who’d know the medical ‘lay of the land’ in my home state, and could really appreciate the devastation. Since a surviving doctor seemed a little too convenient, I went with a veterinarian.

  A lot of our domesticated animals really can’t survive on their own any more. That got me thinking about what would happen to most of my friends without their modern conveniences. How many would make it? How many would want to make it?

  So there’s Mercy. She’s doing what she’s trained to do: ending pain. The question is whether what she’s doing is moral, and, if it isn’t, why is it moral to do that to animals?

  Plus I like being able to write about plague.

  Men of Faith

  Ivan Ewert

  I‘d never killed a man, not even after the world went to hell. But so help me God, Preacher would have been my first choice. In the dark of night, when everything was quiet and we were all huddled around the fire, I could hear the fluid rattling in his chest; hear that awful, sickly sound of a man struggling for breath. He said it was asthma, or apnea, or whatever the hell it was, and Sarge and Bo believed him.

  Not me. I figured he was catching.

  “You’re dreaming,” said Bo when I brought it up. “Flu’s gone. Killed everyone it was like to more than two months back, and I don’t think it’s headed back up anytime soon. Burned itself out, the way I figure it. Besides, it moved quick, remember? Preacher’s been snorting and snoring like that since the day we picked him up.”

  “Maybe it’s a new strain?” I asked, but Bo just laughed. He knew I’d barely managed to stay awake in class back at Pat Henry High, and I should’ve given it up there. “I’m no doctor, but I know that stuff like that changes. Mutates, right? It changes and becomes something different.”

  “Hell, Dave. Look at him. Preacher ain’t exactly the type to fight something serious off. If it was the flu, he’d be dead. End of story.”

  I looked back towards Preacher. There he was, nose in that Bible and barely watching where he walked. That pigeon-chest kept on swelling and collapsing like a blood blister, probably the only kind he’d ever raised. Never done a day’s work in his life; never got a callous. Never even raised a sweat except trying to sleep at night.

  “Still don’t like it,” I said. Hell, I couldn’t help myself. “No reason to bring him along, and believe me, the folks up at Grants Pass aren’t going to listen as nice as you do. I’ll bet they throw us all out to the wolves the minute they hear him trying to breathe.”

  “No reason to bring him along?” Bo laid a thick finger along his nose and gave a solid farmer’s hanky. “I think you’re wrong. Just hold on, and put up with it a while. You’ll see. I’ve got plans for Preacher.”

  Now, as much as I didn’t like Preacher, I trusted Bo. He was the only good foreman we ever had; he listened to us when we were telling the truth about needing a day off but busted your balls when you called in with a hangover. You just couldn’t lie to him and make it stick. He could tell just by the sound of your voice if you planned to spend the day fishing and watching hockey, or if you really needed the time to look in on your grandmother. After the first time I tried pulling something, and he gave me the business for it, we never had any trouble.

  He could fight, too. Only time I ever saw Bo lose his temper was the day he found out his wife Jenny was sleeping around with one of the regulars at the Riverside. Bo knocked him cold inside of five minutes, and Jesus, even then we had to pull him off the guy. He was cool about it the next day, filed for divorce and never looked back, but I sure saw what he could do to someone in his way.

  That’s why I called him up, once my folks passed away from that flu. That was three months ago — back in July, when the world started falling a
part faster than a politician’s promise. I was low, just like everyone else who was still standing. It was like the world had ended, but you were left…and you were numb.

  After a hell of a week spent trying to get them buried, I tracked down Bo. Figured if he was still alive, he’d have some kind of plan put together, and he’d need some guys watching his back to pull it off. Hiking halfway across the states through a Great Plains winter wasn’t what I had him pegged for planning. But if that was the way it was, then that was the way it’d be. You pick your guys and stick with them.

  So I kept my mouth shut and just watched the river as we walked along. The Musselshell wasn’t much compared to the Yellowstone, but skirting Billings had probably been a good idea. The last few cities we tried getting through had been nothing but trouble. Even Miles City wasn’t any kind of treat. Of course, that’s where we picked up Preacher.

  We’d generally holed up in churches along the way. They’d have been picked clean of everything worth a nickel long before we came in, but like Bo says, it was still the safest place to spend a night. It took a certain kind of coward to rob a church, and they weren’t the kind to stick around once they’d finished. So Sarge and I, we took the sides with our shotguns like usual, since you can’t be too careful, and Bo walked on in.

  It was the strangest damn thing to see those candles going. First time I’d seen anyone praying in a church since the fall. I guess it might be different other places, where folks could hunt for their food or try and live off of canned goods from grocery stores and warehouses. But travelling through farm country, most of the living were out until dusk trying to get in as much of the seed as they could. There was plenty of ground going fallow, but with autumn half over, those people that were left were working like crazy to get the wheat and barley planted. Not a lot of time to light candles — and not a lot of time to waste on your knees.