180 Days and Counting... Series Box Set books 1 - 3

by B. R. Paulson

  Shuffling some blank papers, Jessica forced a smile as she focused her gaze on the spot beside the lens. “Hopefully, you’re feeling fine as you’re joining us tonight. The truth is, there are more people finding themselves sick every day. The numbers are growing exponentially and it’s a worrisome report.”

  The green light said it was time to turn to the next camera. She swiveled on her seat, turning her eyes and softening her smile as she continued reading from the prompter. “Doctors are claiming this newest virus is similar to chickenpox, maybe a cross between shingles and chickenpox.” She had been warned not to say the word smallpox, even though the truth was the virus was closer to a cross between chickenpox and smallpox than shingles.

  The threats had been palpable as she’d been told to stay away from that topic.

  “Do not be lulled into believing you won’t contract the disease, if you’ve had a vaccine for either of these diseases. Please, continue watching and we’ll get you the information you need, first.” She turned her attention to Matt. “Well, Matt, speaking of vaccines, it seems there’s quite a controversy going on in eastern Nevada.”

  He blinked at her, his mouth working but nothing coming out.

  Jessica inwardly groaned. Great, a rookie. They’d found someone who didn’t even know what to do to take her partner’s place. Lovely. She nodded, then looked at the prompter again, reading his lines. “Yes, it turns out that a young mother with a popular blog about parenting lost her young son to a vaccine side effect. Apparently, she didn’t know what the ingredients were inside the vaccine and the child was allergic to egg.” Jessica wanted to scream. Her stomach dropped as more of the story appeared on the screen. She continued reading the report as if reading a report about cake, her voice growing more monotone. “The mother is suing the clinic for his death. We’ll talk about the weather and what highs we can expect next week, when we return.”

  The light indicated it was time for a break and Jessica leaned forward, ignoring Matt as he continued sitting there like a fish out of water, his lips moving but nothing coming out.

  Everything she’d read out loud had been a lie. Everything.

  Jessica had read the blog that they were reporting on. She had given the lead to the reporter and had been excited, thinking she would be reporting on something relevant, a human-interest story.

  When her friend had sent the information to her, Jessica had made some calls to see what was going on. The blogger was from a small town in northern Nevada and so was another big blogger that went by Sinna. According to the reports, both blogging families were dead. The children and the mothers. Jessica hadn’t been able to find out about the fathers before she’d hit her deadline and had to turn in the information to the team.

  All of her efforts had been a waste of time. What had she done, if they were going to just turn it into a vaccine controversy? They could’ve just written a story of fiction and not used any real people. Why hadn’t they done that? Probably because to have a real person that viewers could research gave them the viability they were lacking.

  Was anything she’d done worth it? Had she helped anyone?

  Nope. After a moment of staring at the blank papers and considering what she’d become, Jessica stood, unable to fight the righteous anger billowing inside her.

  “Jess, honey, we don’t have time for a bathroom break. Sit down and you can grab one on the next break.” Tim, the producer, motioned toward her seat, his headset on and his wide behind his spectacles. “Seriously, sit down.”

  Accustomed to doing as she was directed when in front of the camera, Jessica reflexively sat albeit reluctantly. She picked the stack of paper back up, clenching it in her fists. The paper crinkled with her grip. The truth. She owed people the truth. That’s the only reason she’d gotten into journalism, to report the truth.

  They weren’t reporting anything honest that night.

  The red light came on and Jessica lifted her head, her TV smile in place. Tim relaxed his stance and moved over to the side of the set to talk to someone who was up for the next section. Matt continued sitting there with no value but as another fixture on set.

  Pausing, the prompter waited for her to catch up. Jessica blinked and she took a deep breath. While Tim was busy was the only chance she’d have. “Everything has been a lie. The sickness has a relationship with smallpox, not chickenpox. The woman on the blog? She’s dead, too. It had nothing to do with the vaccine. There is no−"

  The light went off and the producer moved to stand in front of her, his face mottled red and his chest heaving with unreleased anger. “Get down to my office.”

  Jessica jumped from her seat and glared down at the shorter man. “No, Tim. I’m done. This is ridiculous. This isn’t reporting. We might as well be on a sitcom.” She straightened from her stance of thrusting her finger at his chest. “I’m done.”

  She stomped from the set, making her way to her locker. Grabbing her things, she didn’t even care that she’d quit her job. She could work from home as a massage therapist and have integrity. She didn’t need the money that badly nor did she need to be known all over town.

  In the parking garage, she unlocked her Cadillac and bent down to slide into her seat. She leaned back in her seat as the enormity of what had happened over the last few minutes finally hit her.

  A knock on her partially rolled down window pulled her attention and she looked toward the glass in time to stare down the black hole of a muzzle.

  Jessica wouldn’t have to deal with the virus. Tim’s assistant left her brains all over the seat and inside the car. If only Jessica could see the devastation in place for Tim, his assistant, and even Matt, her fish-faced co-anchor who did nothing but stare while she took on the media.

  Chapter 25

  Cady

  Sunlight sparkled on the mounds of gravel-dusted snow. Running the snow blower over the driveway and through the grass to create paths to the chicken coop had left torn up grass and gravel and other debris in the piles of snow. Where they should’ve been white and clean, they were brown, green, and gray in spots.

  The snow didn’t cover the yard though. Only the places where the snow had reached a thickness of more than three feet had any remnants. They were fading fast and Cady hoped she lived to see her grass green out and her lovage grow. She loved the crisp taste of lovage in a salad during the summer.

  Cady watched the sun rise over her yard, sipping more tea. She wished she had more than eighteen hours left to decide on what to do. Of course, she already knew what she was doing but the biggest part was getting Bailey to agree to the course of action Cady was determined to take.

  The timing had to be perfect. She wasn’t sure when that was. If she had enough notice, Bailey could think through all the options. She would realize there was nothing else to be done. But not so much notice she could come full circle and decide she didn’t care if there was anything else.

  Bailey came down about an hour later when Cady was on her third cup of vanilla tea. With her hair pulled back in a messy bun, she smiled, tugging on the hem of her t-shirt. “Hi, Mom. Any word?” She didn’t need to say what she was wondering about.

  The virus was out and the sickness was reported as the worst bout of flu in recent history. Everything was rolling forward as if it was just that – a flu. Every flu season a death was reported, usually the young or the old or a mix of both.

  With multiple reports of varying ages, no one was sure what was going on. Rumors of staying dehydrated, using licorice root, and sleeping with a heated rock had spread across social media as cures or ways to increase chances to get better faster.

  At that point, no one was certain what was going on, but it was still in the early stages. Not everyone was sick yet, just mostly those with compromised immune systems – most people over forty or under two years were contracting it or those who were tired or run down. Same situation with the normal flus.

  Add all that information together with the fact that not two reports anyw
here had the same incubation time. Some thought it was seven days, others threw out one day, two, three, four, or just mere hours. The disgusting part, over even the deaths, was the fact that there were all kinds of conjecture and nothing being done about any of it.

  How many people would die before anyone actually came out and said what was really going on and face the fact that there was no cure, there was no surviving the virus with everyone in your life intact.

  Cady had finally come to the acceptance stage. She was there. She faced her last chance and she wasn’t ready to give up without a fight. Bailey wasn’t old enough to have faced as many flus as Cady had, as many things that would build up her immune system. She didn’t have faith in Jackson or in his vaccine, but she knew his science was solid – if nothing else. He wouldn’t have given himself the vaccine, if he didn’t believe – wholeheartedly – in its efficacy.

  He’d given it to himself, and that was good enough for her.

  Cady considered their options for breakfast. They were down to the last gallon of milk and should probably get rid of it since who knew when the power would go out. “Want to have raisin bran for breakfast?” Cady pulled the box from the cupboard above the microwave and the milk from the fridge. She didn’t wait for Bailey’s answer as she approached the table.

  Bailey passed her mom and gathered spoons, bowls, and the sugar dispenser. Then she returned to the table to sit beside Cady. They both took a position where they could see out the windows.

  Before pouring the cereal, Cady paused. Her motherly instinct told her the time had come and she had to tell Bailey before they poured the milk. She had to come clean with her daughter, if she wanted to have something worth saving. She studied Bailey, then finally spoke with a lighthearted attempt at keeping it more like a conversation than a confession. “We need to make a decision. I want to know what you think, before I take any actions.” She rested her hands on the table, debating with her heart if she was doing the right thing or not. After a moment, she nodded – her heart and her mind had come to an agreement. Bailey deserved to know what Cady had planned. “I have a vaccine for the virus.”

  Bailey gasped, reaching out and grabbing Cady’s hand. “Mom. Oh wow. I’m so relieved. We’ll be safe, at least. Can we give some to Scott and Grandma? We need to call them again. I’ll… Oh, wow, this is great.” She half-rose from her seat as if Cady had just told her the virus was gone and no longer an issue. Like the world wasn’t going to end but there they were and they needed to throw a party.

  But Cady gently took Bailey’s hand in hers and pulled her back to her seat. Shaking her head, Cady peered at Bailey. “I don’t think you understand how truly sick this man is. He’s so twisted, Bailey, that he sent me one vaccine. One dose. There isn’t enough for both of us, honey, let alone any family or friends.”

  Bailey stopped pulling on Cady’s hand for release. She blinked, slowly at first and then more rapidly as she fought back tears of disbelief. “Mom… I don’t understand. There’s only one vaccine?” She sobbed. “Why would anyone do this? I don’t understand.”

  “There’s only one. I want to give it to you.” Cady swallowed, she gripped Bailey’s fingers in hers, willing her wishes into her daughter. Please, let me do this. I’m your mother.

  But Bailey wouldn’t have any of it. She struggled, freeing her fingers enough to put them in her lap. She shook her head. “No. I’m not going to take it. I don’t want to be here without you.” Her whole body trembled and she rocked back and forth. “How could you ask me that? I can’t do it. I’ll never be able to do that. It’s horrible. How can you?” She lifted her turbulent gaze and focused on her mother.

  “It’s not your choice.” Cady offered softly. She knew what Bailey had to struggle through. Bailey was a girl. She wasn’t old enough to know what was important and what wasn’t. She wasn’t a mother - yet. She didn’t know that Cady had no other choice than to pick her. How could she? She didn’t know that kind of love yet.

  Bailey scoffed at Cady’s assertion over Bailey’s choices. “Of course, it is. I’m fourteen-years-old in only a week. I’m old enough to say no.” She leaned forward, bracing her elbows and forearms on the table. She’d never looked more vulnerable.

  Cady cleared her throat. She lifted her chin. The topic was nonnegotiable and Bailey needed to understand that Cady wasn’t messing around. “Actually, you’re too young to know any better. If I said I wanted to take the vaccine myself, you’d argue that it wasn’t fair that I was getting it and you weren’t. You’re wired to argue with whatever decision I offer up. That’s part of the phase you’re in. Thus, you’re not in the right frame of mind to make this decision.” Cady shrugged, willing to do what was needed to keep the upper hand.

  Bailey slammed her hand on the table. “Stop trying to science me. I’m old enough to understand that you want me to watch my world die around me. Watch you die. Wasn’t it enough that Dad died? You’re not happy that I suffered for him, now you want to see how I’ll react while I watch you die? Are you sick? So, you die, what then? I’ll be all alone.” She looked around at the chickens out the window, the over-sized garden, the huge home she didn’t like helping with, and she turned her gaze back on her mother. “Are you kidding me? No. You’re demanding too much.”

  Cady’s shoulders slumped as if in defeat. “I can’t watch you die, Bailey. It’s natural for a mother to die before her daughter, not the other way around.” That was the only way Cady was able to not worry about her own parents so much. Of course, she was worried sick, but she didn’t have the energy to try to find them while she was trying to figure out how to save Bailey.

  Margie was a retired nurse. She could take care of herself. David was dying, one way or the other. Cady just hoped he was comfortable when he went. She couldn’t hold onto them, not in the world Jackson was delivering up to her.

  Her attention had strayed. The stress had affected her sleep and she caught herself lost in thought at times. She blinked as she returned to the table with Bailey staring at her.

  “But what you’re saying is that no matter what, one of us will die?” Bailey set her jaw, flashing a look that Cady recognized from Zach’s stubbornness. “I’m not living here alone, Mom.” Bailey’s tone was final but she didn’t realize that while it always seemed like Zach won their fights, no one saw the steps Cady would take to manipulate her way to being the way they took. Sometimes, she had Zach convinced that it was his idea.

  Cady didn’t want to, but she had no qualms pulling the same things with Bailey. She didn’t have the time to convince her it was her idea, but Cady didn’t mind doing things without Bailey’s approval.

  “I’m not living here alone, either.” Cady stood, matching Bailey’s obstinate expression. “Then are we saying we both want to die? Do you think that should be our option? We both die? What do you want to do? Swallow a bullet or let the sickness claim us, slowly and painfully?”

  Bailey’s eyes widened in horror at the reality of what her options really were crashed around them both at the same time.

  Would the horrors never cease?

  Chapter 26

  Scott

  Scott ignored the laughter coming from the kitchen where his mom, Mary, was talking to her friend on the phone. Life was going on as if there was nothing wrong, just a normal flu season rearing its ugly head at an odd time of the year.

  Stepping onto the back deck to his parents’ backyard, Scott breathed in the fresh air. Boise was the only city in the world that was as large as it was, but still smelled like a small town. He pulled out his phone and dialed Cady’s number.

  He wanted to hear her voice, but he also wanted to find out if there was any new information or if she’d heard anything that made sense.

  The phone rang, rang, and then she picked it up in the middle of the third ring. “Scott.” She didn’t say hello and something in her tone was sadder than he’d expected. He jerked backward, hoping she wouldn’t tell him someone they knew was dead, like Bailey, l
ike her parents… Scott wasn’t ready for that kind of a revelation. He still needed to believe that he had a chance, that his parents had a chance.

  “Cady.” He looked behind him for any listeners, pausing to make sure his mom still laughed in the kitchen. Holding his voice low, he faced back out to the lawn. “I’m not sure what’s going on. Is this sickness the one you were talking about? I thought you said we had more time?” The flu was all anyone could talk about.

  He didn’t want to tell her he’d been exposed more than two-dozen times before he’d realized what it was he could be facing.

  Cady’s voice dropped the sadness and she became frantic. “What sickness? What is going on? The news is just saying it’s a flu and leaving it at that. We haven’t left the house – well, except to move your chickens. That was nice by the way. I don’t mind helping, but Bailey didn’t tell me and I thought she had left.” Her sarcasm and guilt trip were plain as day.

  “She said you were pacing and we both know what that means. Not to mention, the fact that your daughter doesn’t obey you is not my fault. I asked her to do it. She said she would let you know.” Scott’s tone was clipped. He didn’t have time to worry about making sure Cady’s feelings were okay. She needed to respect the situation and quit acting like a protected princess. If anyone could handle what was coming down the pipeline, it was Cady. Her internal strength would take her by surprise when she allowed it to click into place.

  Cady paused, her voice lower, more worried when she spoke again. “What’s going on? Are you okay? You never talk to me like that.” But she wasn’t reproachful, more like his tone had changed her mind about something about him.

  He reached up and rubbed at his neck, pinching the back with his hand. “I’m at my parents’ place. You remember my oldest brother, Joe? He’s sick at his house. Stephanie’s at the hospital. Mom didn’t realize she wasn’t feeling well. Apparently, Stephanie didn’t tell anyone but when she couldn’t breathe, she got herself into the hospital. You know, she’s pregnant, but she’s still sick, and it’s not looking good.” Scott heaved a breath, leaning his head back. “I thought we had more time, Cady. Why was our time shortened?”