Defending Against Affliction

by Connor Mccoy

  “Tom! Are you home?” she shouted.

  Quickly, Tom unlocked the door. The young woman jabbed her finger behind her. “You have to help! It’s Jamie.” She was hyperventilating. “He fell over down the street. He said he’s okay, but he’s having trouble getting up!”

  “Did he trip? Did he break his leg?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know. He kept saying he was thirsty, and then he started swaying like he was dizzy. And he seemed to be…” Karen snapped her fingers. “…scratching himself a lot.”

  Shit! Tom thought.

  He turned into the doorway. “Nadia! I need the medical gear! And for God’s sake, make sure the kids stay inside until I come back!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It should be all set up. We prepped every room on this floor as soon as we got Cheryl’s instructions,” Lauren said.

  Cooper walked down the white hall, his gait unsteady. “I do not wish to be a burden.”

  “That’s what this place is for,” Lauren said, “We have enough rooms. Besides, it’s better that you’re here. It’s been getting a little ugly out there for sick people.”

  Karen walked behind both of them, the anguish in her face hidden by her mask. For her this was almost like a death march. Despite Lauren’s attempts to sound upbeat earlier, it did nothing to ease her pain. The reference to the bad atmosphere out there toward the sick people only made her feel worse. How could anyone take out their frustrations on sick people? This wasn’t their fault!

  At last they reached the room. It was an ordinary hospital room, augmented with a plastic covering just a few inches from the doorway. Lauren unsealed it, permitting Cooper inside.

  A set of wires led into the lights above. When the plan to generate electricity for the town was delayed, many of the batteries intended for the generator were relocated here to provide light for the hospital’s growing number of patients.

  Cooper stumbled. “Jamie!” Karen grabbed him before he fell over.

  “Sorry. I am just a little dizzy.” Cooper grasped the bed, trying to remain steady.

  As Cooper sat down, Karen turned at Lauren, eyes full of worry and anger. “How did this happen? We both were quarantined after Cheryl got sick and that was over a week ago!”

  “I don’t know. He could have come down with it any time after you left quarantine, or maybe the symptoms just were delayed,” Lauren answered.

  “So, that means we don’t know anything,” Karen said.

  Lauren stuck a thermometer under Cooper’s armpit. “Hold,” she told him before turning back to Karen. “I’m sorry. I wish I knew how and where this damned thing would strike. It’s just everywhere now.”

  Karen then grabbed her mask and peeled it off, and tossed away her cloth headgear.

  “Karen! What the hell are you doing?” Lauren erupted, cutting off a similar rebuke from Cooper.

  Karen put her hands on her hips. “Hey, for all I know I got the disease, too. So, why should I care? I’m staying here and taking care of him, round the clock. He’s not going to stay in here alone.”

  “Karen, you shouldn’t!” Cooper said, his body shaking. “Please, get out of here and put the protective gear back on!”

  “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But I can’t infect you.”

  “Jamie, I think that ship may have sailed. Either I’m immune, or I’m getting sick and probably will die, too. I’ll share whatever happens to you.”

  “But why do this?”

  Karen took Cooper’s hand. “Who else do I have to live for? I lost family thanks to the EMP. I lost more friends in the NATO invasion.” She bit her lip. “And being with you…it’s the only time I never had to think about those pigs having their way with me! So, if you live, I’ll live. And if you die, I’ll die with you.”

  Cooper swallowed. “What if I live and you die?” he asked quietly.

  That seemed to shake Karen a little. Then she firmed her expression and replied, “Then I guess I’ll have to be too stubborn a bitch to let that happen.”

  Lauren rushed down the hospital hall toward the lab. Doctor Tran was waiting for her. “God!” She shook her head.

  “Why do I think this didn’t go well?” Tran asked.

  “That stupid…” Lauren rushed into the lab and peeled off her isolation gear.

  “I guess love makes you do crazy things, but still…” She tossed aside the gear, then braced herself against one of the tables. “Karen’s in there with Jamie. She’s going to be his personal nurse. She’s not bothering with the iso gear.”

  “Really?” Tran asked, “Dare I ask if it’s just more than reckless youth at work here?

  Lauren exhaled slowly. “Those two, they’re going together.”

  “Well, I was aware they had a passionate night on the town.”

  “Yeah, but I think it’s for real. I mean really real.”

  “I see. Well, Jamie’s a very fortunate man to have found it again.”

  “Again?” Lauren turned around. “What do you mean?”

  Tran’s features hardened. “You talked about all those things we lost. Sometimes we lose more than just material possessions.”

  Lauren’s mood began mellowing. She hadn’t known very much about Cooper, certainly not that he may have lost someone he loved. “Yeah,” she said, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

  Instead, she turned to the open door. “How about we go outside and see if Theo’s got more car batteries ready for us?”

  The daytime sky was turning to a soft blue. The full night was soon to fall. Lauren and Tran just had exited the back door of the hospital. Theo Lake, a teenage volunteer, had finished loading up a pair of car batteries on a hand truck.

  “How many did we get today?” Lauren asked.

  “Five. That’s pretty much it, except for the batteries Mister Warren wants to tinker with,” Theo replied.

  Lauren gazed at Theo’s haul. “I don’t want to say it’s enough, but I think we can make it work. The solar panels have been working so far. Every patient now has working lights.”

  “Cool.” Theo grabbed the truck handle. “Think we can get a DVD player working? I could get to see Star Wars again.”

  Lauren narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, if you can find a player that didn’t get fried by the pulse. Let’s worry about all the stuff that keeps us alive. I think Luke Skywalker can wait for a while—”

  Tran nudged Lauren’s shoulder. “Say, who’s that over there?” he asked.

  Lauren turned in the direction of the hospital’s small carport. The old black pickup truck was there. It was one of the very few working automobiles in town and had to be used sparingly, as they had a limited gasoline supply. Recently, it had been used to bring loads of car batteries and other equipment from Warren and the town’s power plant so they could set up power generation for the hospital. But unless it was an emergency, the vehicle would not be going anywhere.

  Lauren was about to turn away and tend to the batteries when a male rode up on a bicycle to the truck. The newcomer quickly discarded the bike and flung open the driver’s side door.

  “What the hell?” Theo pushed aside the hand truck. “He’s stealing it!”

  “Hey!” Lauren broke into a run. Theo followed beside her. “What are you doing?”

  The man slammed the door shut. Lauren and Theo reached the door, but there was no opening it.

  “The other side!” Theo cried.

  The man inside heard and quickly scooted over to push the other lock down. Now he was completely locked inside.

  “Hey!” Lauren pounded on the window. “What are you doing?”

  The man turned and looked at her, giving the doctor and Theo a good look at his countenance. He was a young man with a brown beard, not very full or long. His hair was a bit wild, long, and unkempt. His brown eyes seemed to hold desperation, and perhaps even a plea for forgiveness for what he was about to do.

  Lauren turned to Theo. “Tell me you have the key
! Tell me you have the key!”

  The teenager pulled out a set of keys from his pocket. “Yeah, I do! I do!”

  But then the truck roared to life.

  “Theo!” Lauren shouted.

  “I don’t know, unless, damn, maybe he found a spare!”

  The truck pulled into drive with a jerk. Lauren chased after him. “Hey! Stop! Stop!”

  But the driver did not heed her calls. The truck then pushed forward with a mass of acceleration that got it onto an adjacent road. Soon the truck vanished from view.

  Lauren kicked away a loose pebble. “How did he...” Then she spotted the bicycle the thief had left. “Theo, can you ride a bike?”

  “Sure,” he replied, “Took a tumble down a hill once—”

  “Stow the story. Get on that thing and go after him. Maybe he’ll stop somewhere.”

  “You want me to beat him up and take the truck back?”

  “No, I want you to follow him and see if you can get help. Hurry! Just go!”

  “Okay!” Theo stood up the bicycle and mounted it.

  At least Tom had made the bicycle stop wobbling. That was definitely an achievement. Now if he could pedal this thing a little faster to his house, he could give himself a pat on the back.

  Amazing. I can tackle a quarterback in the end zone. I know ten different ways to block a punch. But when it comes to bike riding I’m still rusty as hell, he thought.

  Tom had ridden a bicycle a few times as a kid, but the allure of video games had consigned his bike to oblivion. In fact, he had been stunned to rediscover it when he was fourteen years old. By then the bike was corroded and the paint was peeling. He thought nothing of getting rid of it.

  But in this new world, where a working automobile was a rarity, any kind of rapid transportation was important. As more and more bicycles were discovered in houses or salvaged from stores, some of the town’s citizens came up with an idea. Why not train everyone in bike riding? While there weren’t enough yet to go around, bicycle designs were simple and, in time, people even could build new ones once they learned how to reshape metal. Tom and Cheryl even were planning to return to Adelson to trade for bicycles. It would have been great. People could pedal through the town and reach destinations much more quickly than on foot.

  Sadly, it was another great idea that had hit the skids as people retreated into their homes. Tom glanced at block after block, home after home. He recalled the sights of children playing on these grassy lawns. People would wave ‘hi’ to him. Today, there was nothing. Emptiness. Still lawns, no voices or laughter. The only kind of human contact Tom had encountered since he had left Lee’s house was a wary look from a man just before he retreated into his home. These houses may as well be fortresses with the drawbridges pulled up.

  Finally, his house came into view. Amir emerged from a side door. The boy was covered in a face mask, coveralls, gloves and boots. Tom smiled. His boy wanted to help, but came prepared.

  Tom slid the bike to a stop. He almost toppled over. “Whoa!” Tom bounced backward, letting the bicycle flop onto his lawn. “Still haven’t gotten the hang of this bike riding thing. What will people come up with next?”

  Amir picked up the bike and held it steady. “What did you find out?” the boy asked.

  “We got some more newcomers. Of course, they wandered around town for hours until Lee showed up and greeted them,” Tom replied.

  Amir started toward the fence that split the backyard from the front. Tom followed his son. “Seven of them. Not a family. It’s a group, kind of like Obie’s was. They’re a bunch of survivors from Lexington, Kentucky. They made it all the way down here. Lee took them to the Whites’ old house. Their garden is still okay. So, there’ll be food, good shelter, maybe we’ll end up with some good neighbors, he said.

  “Do they have any kids?” Amir reached the gate in the fence near the house.

  “Two, but I don’t know their names,” Tom answered. “They didn’t talk a lot about their kids. They were more interested in giving us their story, about how things are going up north.”

  “How is it?” Amir opened the gate.

  Tom frowned. “It was…it was definitely hair raising. It’s best I don’t lay into the details.”

  Amir pushed the bike through. “I can handle it.”

  Maybe, Tom thought, but he still wanted to protect the innocence, what little of it there was, in his children, Amir most of all. Tom never could forget those moments when Amir, hunted by The Coach’s men or on the battlefield of Eagleton fighting Volhein’s men, tapped into his most primal instincts and lashed out. No, the boy killed. With an automatic rifle, he strafed the NATO soldiers with gunfire. With his adopted brothers and sisters, he had stabbed and beaten The Coach, his vile captor, to death.

  No. He would not tell Amir anything unless it was necessary. Amir still was a child. He had to grow up in the most normal way possible. If he could have that life, maybe the scars of his youth ultimately would heal, and Amir would become a well-adjusted adult, ready to handle whatever life threw at him.

  That is, if we can beat this disease, Tom thought.

  As Tom was stepping through the open gate, a noise cut through the air behind him. He turned around. That sounded like a car engine. No, maybe a truck. But any vehicle driving down an Eagleton road was unusual.

  Tom turned and hurried down the front lawn. He reached the sidewalk just in time to see the old black truck the hospital was using drive by. But the face behind the wheel didn’t look like anybody Tom recognized from the hospital. He also glimpsed the truck bed. There was nothing in it, no car batteries, nothing.

  “Papa!” Amir ran up to him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Probably nothing,” Tom said slowly as the truck headed down the street.

  He kept an eye on it as the vehicle reached a corner and turned left. Weird. That just led to another neighborhood. If he remembered from a map of the town Michael had drawn up, that street eventually would link up to the main street that, in turn, led to the state highway that led out of Eagleton completely.

  But curiosity, plus a dose of suspicion, nagged at him. “Buddy, I’m going to have to use the bike for a little bit longer.”

  After passing the Ridgewood Street sign, Tom cut the bike’s speed, slowly pedaling it down the road’s asphalt. Thankfully, the road was on level ground, so Tom didn’t have to fight an incline as he pedaled at a slow pace. The truck had stopped at a small yellow house in the middle of the neighborhood. The driver frantically was rushing back and forth between the house and the truck, tossing in big loads packed either in garbage bags or backpacks into the truck bed. A woman soon joined in.

  I think that’s Pete Lewis, Tom thought. The balding head, the ripped blue T-shirt, the brown beard, it all fit. This must be his house. Tom had met him once or twice at public meetings, plus briefly during their NATO imprisonment. Pete struck Tom as an okay guy, not a big talker, and a tad nervous at times.

  A pair of kids emerged from the house, a boy and girl, both wearing backpacks. The girl clutched a stuffed bear. Pete flung open the truck’s back door, picked up each child and sat them inside.

  Tom now was three houses away. This is really weird. How’d he get permission to use this truck? It looks like he’s pulling out his family. This didn’t add up. Tom picked up speed.

  However, before he got there, someone else had beaten him to it. A single male pedaled frantically into view. Then he jumped off the bicycle and ran up to Pete. “Hey! Hey, what are you doing?”

  Tom pulled to a stop. “Ian?”

  Ian didn’t act as if he heard Tom. Instead he rushed up to Pete, who just had finished shutting the truck’s back door. “You were supposed to hit my house first. That’s the plan!”

  Pete was panting. “Lara! Lara, it’s time to go! Just leave it! We got everything we need!”

  “Pete, talk to me! You’re going to my house next, right?” Ian tried to get in Pete’s way, but the man just kept walking fast around the tru
ck.

  “Lara!” Pete repeated.

  “Hey, hey!” Discarding his bike, Tom stepped over the street curb. “Guys, sounds like there’s a bit of a disagreement going on here.”

  “This doesn’t concern you, Tom!” Ian spun around so fast sweat flew off his face. The man clearly had pedaled over here in a big hurry.

  “Ian, what’s the deal? And Pete, you mind explaining what you’re doing with this truck?” Tom said, gesturing to the truck.

  “We’re just taking the family for a short trip to the hospital to get checked out,” Pete said, his face turned away from Tom and Ian.

  “You’re a terrible liar!” Ian said with a chortle as Pete rushed to the driver’s side door. “You’re hanging me out to dry. Is that it? You’re bailing on me!”

  Tom quickly walked up to the driver’s side, barring Pete from getting in. “Whoa, bailing on Ian? That’s interesting. I got an idea. How about I drive you all personally to the hospital? I’m sure they’re very eager to get their vehicle back.”

  Pete trembled. No doubt about it, this was a man hiding something. Tom could tell liars, particularly bad ones.

  Before Pete could say anything, a familiar voice shouted through the air. “Mister Cryyyyyver! Mister Cryyyyyver!”

  Tom turned his head. “Theo?”

  No question. The teenager was peddling frantically from the same direction Tom that had arrived. “He stole the truck! He stole it!” Theo kept repeating it until he suddenly turned, on accident, and toppled into someone’s lawn.

  Armed with this revelation, Tom turned to face Pete. The man’s face practically screamed, Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!

  Not that Tom had the chance to deal with Pete for his transgression.

  Because out the corner of his eye, Lara Lewis charged at him, holding up a flat wooden kitchen paddle. There was exactly three seconds before the flat surface connected with his face. The hit was much harder than Tom might have expected from the short thirtyish lady.