The Systemic Series - Box Set

by K. W. Callahan

  It wasn’t even completely dark out, and the first stars had yet to make an appearance, but Jay was already asleep, tired after the long trip down. The songs of the spring peepers mixed with those of the bush crickets to create a loud but soothing and uninterrupted chorus around us.

  My eyes were tired from the drive, and the dancing flames of the campfire did little to help keep them open.

  It hit me suddenly and without warning.

  “Ahh…my stomach hurts,” I said, cringing and rubbing it.

  “No wonder, you haven’t eaten anything today,” Claire said.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ve been so busy. But I’m not sure it’s that. Maybe it’s…”

  Claire didn’t let me finish. “You’re fine,” she told me. “I know you’ve been worrying about the gas station. The guy probably ate one of his own hot dogs or was out late drinking last night. It’s nothing.”

  That was it. Claire was telling me it would be okay. The health professional had doled out her advice and it was over.

  “Eat something,” she said, calmly, confidently, reassuringly. “You’ll be fine.”

  She was being strong. She was giving me no choice but to be fine.

  My stomach rumbled, then twisted, and I felt pains shoot through it.

  “Mmm,” I moaned again. “I think it’s more than that.”

  Claire just shook her head and held a granola bar out to me. “Here…eat,” she nodded.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said.

  “I’m not asking,” she replied, shaking the granola bar at me.

  I took it from her, unwrapped it, and took a bite.

  As soon as I tasted its sweetness, I found myself craving more. My stomach quivered as I swallowed the first bite, wrapping itself around the food, then releasing in pleasure. Some of the pains subsided. I took another bite, then another, and another, and then, when the granola bar was consumed, I ate another.

  Claire watched in silence. Then she walked to the car, opened the cooler, took out a hot dog and put it on a stick we’d used to cook Jason’s hot-dog dinner. She cooked the dog for me over the fire, put it in a piece of white bread that she folded around it and squirted a ketchup packet overtop.

  I ate it in silence and felt all my pain and fear subside.

  Claire was there for me, supporting me, sustaining me.

  “I know you want to stay longer,” she said softly, after I’d finished the hot dog.

  I nodded my silent agreement.

  “If you want me to call in on Tuesday,” she continued, “I’ll do it. I’m not going to fight you on this. We’ll see what’s going on from there.” She paused and took my hand in hers, “Sound good?”

  “Sounds good,” I said, thankful to have a wife like Claire. She’d put up a stink at first, but when it came down to it, she was always by my side.

  The humidity of the day had faded and it was actually starting to get a little bit chilly. The campfire felt good. I let go of Claire’s hand and stood, moving closer to the fire’s warmth. A moment later, Claire joined me. I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her up close to me, kissing her.

  “It’s so quiet here,” she said.

  “I know,” I agreed. “It’s nice.”

  I looked up at the sky. The stars had begun making their presence known.

  I nudged Claire and nodded upward. “So much different than Chicago, huh?”

  She giggled, “Yeah, you can actually see more than five stars.”

  “We should probably get to sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead of us,” I said. I turned and led her over to the tent where Jason lay sleeping. I stopped just outside its zippered entrance and turned to face Claire. “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you too,” she kissed me. Then she ducked down, unzipped the tent, and crawled inside.

  I took another long look at the sky and breathed deeply of the night air before following her inside.

  CHAPTER 6

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 1st

  6:30 a.m.

  Between Jason constantly kicking me in the groin as he slept, the glare of the morning sun ripping through the tent, and a mental to-do list that kept running through my head, there was no hope of sleeping in.

  I crawled over to the tent’s entrance, quietly put my shoes on, and did my best to noiselessly make my way outside.

  I retrieved our portable cook stove from where I’d stashed it in the back of the SUV. Setting it atop an old picnic table that Claire and I had found at one edge of the clearing and dragged over yesterday afternoon, I attached a portable propane tank, turned on the gas, and clicked the igniter switch to get a flame going on one of the burners. Then I filled a pot half full of water and began to work on getting coffee going, pouring straight grounds into the water, no filter. As I waited for the coffee to boil, I started the second burner, put a frying pan on it, cracked five eggs – since I wanted to eat our cold foods first – and dumped in a can of corned beef hash beside the eggs. I feared that we might need to start conserving food, but now was not the time. We had brought a lot of stuff that wouldn’t last long in the late-summer heat.

  Jay wasn’t too thrilled with the breakfast. He wanted cereal, but he suffered through an entire scrambled egg and a few bites of hash nonetheless. Claire and I ate well, each polishing off two eggs over hard and the rest of the hash. I mixed our coffee with some creamer I’d thought to bring along. Then I made a small, two-thirds creamer, one-third coffee concoction with a big spoonful of sugar as a sweet treat for Jay, which perked him right up.

  After breakfast, I laid out our plan of attack.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” I said, taking a big gulp of coffee before continuing. “If,” I looked at Claire, “and this is only a hypothetical here, but if we want to make this camp anything long term, I think we should be closer to the creek as a water source. That would put us somewhere back in the forest for cover rather than out here in the open. Therefore, I think I’ll take a walk down to the bridge and then head a couple hundred yards in either direction from that point. I want to stay close enough to the road that we have relatively quick access if we need to move, but not so close that we could easily be spotted by outsiders or intruders.”

  Claire shrugged, “You’re the disaster preparedness expert. Jay and I will stay here and clean up breakfast.”

  “Will do,” I said. “Be back in a bit.” The sun was bursting over the treetops as I left. “Try to stay cool,” I called back. The elements were yet another reason I wanted the protection of the forest.

  I walked back down the property’s entry road until I came to the plank bridge. The stream level was up compared to where it was yesterday and had neared the edge of its banks – something else to consider when setting up camp. I didn’t want our stuff getting wet, or worse yet, getting washed away in a flood.

  My trip upstream was a bust. The ground was very flat, which not only made it easily floodable, but it didn’t make for a very protective camp setting. Therefore, I headed back to the bridge and started my trek downstream.

  This was a much more productive venture. About 100 yards into my hike, I began to notice that the creek was dropping away into a sort of small valley, while a hill was rising up to my left.

  After following the creek maybe another 50 yards or so, I found our spot. The hill on my left continued to rise in one part, but dropped away in the space closest to the creek after a little rise. It created a sort of plateau that was hidden from view on two sides – most importantly, the side facing the entry road – due to the hill. And at the hill’s base, the creek carved a sort of miniature gorge. The entire area was thinly populated with a variety of oak, maple, poplar and sycamore trees. They provided a canopy cover, but weren’t so thick that we couldn’t spread out a little bit.

  “Perfect,” I nodded to myself. I stood, listening to the wind rustle the treetops above me. I could hear the creek gurgle occasionally below.

  The plateau would need some clearing of bru
sh and small trees if we wanted to spend any amount of time there, but I liked the layout. We could even dig into the hillside to create a sort of cool storage spot for food. The location was a good distance from the road, and it would take some work to haul our supplies back to it, but I figured that if things went bad in the cities, we’d have nothing but time on our hands anyway.

  The only thing that bothered me about the location was that I wasn’t sure we were close enough to the entry road to hear incoming vehicles. But I had a plan for that too.

  For right now though, we could pack everything back into the car, drive down to the bridge and only haul up what was absolutely necessary. I liked the spot and figured that even if we didn’t end up staying long, it would make a nice place for future vacations. I had a feeling that Claire would like the spot too; and I had to admit, if nothing else, it was a better weekend campsite than the open field as it offered a bit more character and woodland ambiance.

  I walked back up the road and found Claire and Jason finishing their morning cleanup. We spent the next hour relocating, and the hour after that re-establishing the framework for our camp. As Jay had his mid-morning snack and Claire ate a granola bar to get her blood sugar levels back up, I worked on hauling stone up from the creek bed and then clearing an area that I could ring with rocks for our campfire. I took Jay with me later in the afternoon as we scavenged for wood, he being assigned as kindling collector, but ending up instead serving as bug and fungi finder. Meanwhile, Claire worked on clearing our camp space of smaller debris, building a table of sorts out of the two coolers set side-by-side, and organizing our food supplies.

  The forest was steamy, but the trees blocked the sun, diminishing what would have made for an excessively hot day. While Jay and I roamed the area collecting wood, we saw two small deer drinking at the nearby creek. I crouched down next to Jay, holding him steady and pointing. “See those?” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back.

  “If we got hungry enough, those could be dinner.”

  “We eat?” he said incredulously, his eyes wide, looking at me as if I were crazy.

  “Believe me, you’d like it,” I nodded.

  “Ugh ugh,” he said loudly, shaking his head vigorously and scaring off the deer in the process.

  “Remind me not to bring you hunting with me,” I smiled at him as we watched the deer bound off through the trees.

  After collecting what I felt would be enough firewood for the next several days, and ensuring that it was stored in a dry spot and covered by a plastic sheet I had in with the camping equipment, I turned Jay loose to go with Claire and play in the creek.

  He set the fruits of his labor – four little sticks he’d managed to accumulate during our wood collecting – in a tiny pile next to my covered wood stack. “Awwlllll dunnnn…” he drawled merrily as he tottered off toward Momma.

  I was tired, but I felt good. I felt productive. I felt free. I wasn’t worried about work. I wasn’t worried about bills or income. I wasn’t worried about identity theft or credit ratings. I wasn’t worried about retirement planning or what boneheaded moves were being made by the government. I wasn’t worried about the flu – at least not here. And I wasn’t worried about all the other trappings that the modern world presented. All I needed to worry about was making our time here as comfortable as possible and enjoying nature.

  While I had planned to wait until later, I decided to do a bit of tidying up of the area in which our camp was situated. Claire had already cleaned up much of the smaller pieces of dead wood, branches, and brush, adding to my woodpile in the process, so I decided to work on some of the other obstacles in the vicinity. Larger felled trees, rocks, shrubs, and small sapling were all cleared away in an effort to make more room for the tent, remove tripping hazards, and generally clear the campsite surroundings. I also moved more of the leaves and other flammable material away from the stone-ringed campfire I’d formed, and I dug its center out to form it into more of a pit to decrease the chances of the wind spreading hot embers or coals into the camp. Then I used more stones I’d found in the area to build its ringed edges up higher.

  After an hour of such work, I stood, hands on hips, inspecting the fruits of my labor and gazing proudly upon our camp. Things were coming along nicely. I could hear Claire and Jason splashing and laughing down in the creek bed. The sounds of them enjoying themselves made me feel good.

  I walked over and plunked myself down on the top of one of the closed coolers that sat off to the side of the camp. This particular area was proving to be the shadiest section of the clearing. I sat looking around the campsite, pondering what my next move should be. I realized just by scanning my surroundings that we needed more than just the two coolers as our table. We needed the picnic table we’d left behind at the clearing.

  It would be a bitch to get it to the campsite, and I’d definitely need Claire’s help, but it would make things much easier down the road. I wasn’t going to press the issue right now though. I hated the thought of hauling the heavy and awkward thing all the way back here for just a few days and then having to take it back. Therefore, I decided that first we’d wait to see how things were playing out back home.

  CHAPTER 7

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2nd

  10:55 a.m.

  LABOR DAY

  “Let’s take the radios up to the top of the hill and see if we can get any reception,” I said, pulling the crank-powered radio and battery-powered weather radio from one of the camping backpacks.

  “Good idea,” said Claire. “I’ll bring the cell phone to see if we get any reception. I’m not getting anything down here at camp. Otherwise, we might have to take a drive if you still want me to call in to work tomorrow.”

  It was maybe a three-minute hike at a leisurely pace to reach the tree-studded hilltop upon the lower side of which our camp was perched.

  Claire and I found a felled tree and took a seat upon it. Jason immediately discovered a patch of moss on the ground in which he began rooting around with a stick. The mass of bugs he unearthed and sent scurrying in the process would have been enough to keep him entertained for hours, possibly days.

  With Jay occupied, I clicked on the weather radio. I used the dial to scan through the stations until I heard a monotone electronic-sounding computerized voice reading, “Winds…from the west… at…four…knots. Humidity…eighty…three…percent. Current…temperature…eighty…nine…degrees. Tonight…clear. Low…seventy …two…degrees.”

  “Well, at least we’ll know how to dress out here in the middle of nowhere,” Claire chimed in.

  I clicked off the weather radio, set it on the log beside me and picked up the hand-crank radio. It had a battery backup system, but I preferred to avoid draining the batteries if possible. I put the antennae up, stood, pulled the crank out of the side of the radio, gave it a good ten or twelve complete revolutions, and turned it on.

  I scanned the FM frequencies slowly, making it up to 99.0 without success, but I wasn’t giving up. I kept moving the dial slowly toward the right hand side of the radio; past channel 100…101…102…103…then I hit a blip of something right around 103.9. I moved the dial back just a hair. There was a crackle, a few broken words, and then a complete sentence. It was a commercial for a restaurant in Carbondale. This was followed by a commercial for a car dealership in Springfield and then one for a cell phone service.

  Next we heard, “WPWR…103.9…the power. Your channel for the best in classic rock.” Then there was some important sounding music and a voice that said, “News at the top of the hour. Weather, sports, traffic, and more.” Then there was some more newsy sounding music before the newscaster began.

  “Today’s top story,” he said, sounding unsurprised, “more about the Su flu. Hospitals in Springfield and Chicago are reporting record numbers of people arriving for treatment. Hospitals are full to capacity and are even turning some people away after being caught unprepared for the swiftly moving virus. Reporter Sharron
Coven is at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago where there have been reports of fights breaking out in the emergency room. Sharron?”

  A new voice took over the report, “The concern over this new flu strain seems to be increasing as cases are growing exponentially, flooding hospitals with patients they neither have the resources nor ability to treat. Several fights among the throngs of people seeking treatment here at Rush have already broken out as frustration and fear about the inability of health professionals to get a handle on this new virus seems to be growing by the hour. While this current flu strain hasn’t been with us long, it appears to be virtually unstoppable, and worse yet, untreatable.”

  Jason started jabbering about one of the bugs he’d speared, holding it like a skewered shish kabob on the end of his stick and waving it around in the air while it flailed helplessly. “Dadda look! Dadda look!”

  “Shhhhhhh…” Claire and I both hissed back.

  Jason cringed and shrank back, lowering his bug kabob, but remaining quiet.

  “The White House today reported that the CDC is taking measures to look into the spread of the strain but officials are urging people to take precautions of their own, staying at home or at least out of public places if at all possible. They are requesting that people remain at home unless they are first responders or are necessary personnel at hospitals, police departments, fire departments, or are involved in similar roles of high importance related largely to the sustaining of critical infrastructure such as nuclear power plants or water treatment facilities. The flu-related death toll in the Chicago area has jumped to over a 200 in just the past day. But with the number of new cases coming in, and the inability of hospitals to treat the disease, it appears that number is going to pale in comparison when we’re all said and done here. The reports we’re getting from doctors is that it seems that once someone is infected with the strain, it goes systemic, completely overtaking the body, rendering its host nearly incapable of supporting any sort of defense.”