The Alt Apocalypse (Book 4): Affliction

by Abrahams, Tom

  “There’s a cell in our tissues and in white blood cells called macrophages,” she’d told him. She’d been talking with her hands. Dub, barely able to breathe, had tried to keep his focus on her as she spoke.

  “The macrophages carry infections, like tuberculosis, throughout the body. They’re like an unwitting host to disease. It’s often the iron in the macrophage, the iron in the blood, which helps these infections spread more quickly. With less iron, the spread isn’t as bad. That’s the theory.”

  She’d kept talking about it and he’d fallen asleep. That was two nights ago. When he’d awakened hours later, it was because she was coughing, her body shuddering next to his.

  Michael was sick too. So was Barker.

  All four of them had holed up in their dorm room on the fifth floor of Rueben Vista. Their air-conditioning was off, their windows closed. They’d sprayed everything with Lysol and drowned the bathroom fixtures in bleach.

  They’d done everything the news had suggested they do to keep themselves healthy except for the most important step. They hadn’t stayed away from someone who was already infected. Though apparently not among the vast majority of those who’d completely succumbed to the illness, Dub was still sick. He’d carried it. He’d spread it.

  He’d spent the last twenty-four hours, as he’d improved, caring for the other three. None of them were good, and there was nowhere to take them. Every clinic, hospital, urgent care center, doctor’s office, and emergency room in the area was either inundated or closed.

  He’d tried. He’d killed his cell battery waiting on hold and wading through the series of automatic prompts most places made him navigate. None of them could help.

  Improvising, he’d plied his friends with NyQuil, Tylenol, and leftover antibiotics from the last time he’d had the flu. He’d chilled wet washcloths in the micro fridge and kept cycling them amongst the others. He’d given them clean towels when they’d started coughing up blood. He was almost out now.

  He’d opened the door to the hall once. There were three bodies littering the floor. He’d counted three. There might have been more. He couldn’t be sure.

  Now, having just gone to the bathroom, he was trying to muster the energy to walk back into their dorm room and nurse his patients. They’d all been napping. He’d worked hard not to wake them from their uneasy sleep.

  He turned off the light to the bathroom and opened the door. He picked up the can of Lysol and sprayed the knob, then moved into the bedroom. He closed the door, repeated the process, and set the Lysol on top of the micro fridge next to an unopened box of Oreos. Oreos, Dub had learned, were vegan.

  The room was bathed in darkness and the stench of infection. Dub hadn’t noticed it until he’d left it for a few minutes and returned. He crinkled his nose, his face squeezed into a sour look as he waded across the short distance to his lofted bunk. His toes sank into the fibers of the plush oval rug at the center of the room. To his left, he could hear the wheezing duet of his roommates. One wet inhale was higher pitched than the other. Both friends sounded awful, but they were breathing. That was good. All Dub could hope for now was to keep them comfortable and alive. He hoped, despite the growing evidence to the contrary, they might survive the disease, as he had.

  He climbed the ladder onto his bunk, crossed over Keri’s body, and slid next to her. He put his hand on her hip, which was buried in the tangle of sheets.

  The mattress creaked under his weight and he stopped moving. He didn’t want to wake her up. It had been so long since she’d slept this soundly. He listened to her breathe. He didn’t hear anything.

  He closed his eyes, concentrating, and tilted his ear closer to her face. Still nothing.

  Dub’s pulse skipped. He reached over to the bedpost and twisted on the clipped lamp that sat perched at the head of his bunk. Pale white light bathed his corner of the room. Shadows bounced off the walls, casting sharp lines across the wall-tacked photographs of Keri and Dub at parties and at the beach. Glossy images of the two clinging to each other or laughing loomed over Dub, and a nervous tingle rippled through his body. He swallowed hard and shifted his body to face her. She was on her back.

  Keri wasn’t moving, and she wasn’t responding to his touch or his voice. Dub was on top of her now. He held her face in his hands.

  “No, no, no, no,” he said. “Stay with me. Stay with me.”

  Her skin was clammy and cold. Her lips and eyelids were blue. Dried blood stained the edges of her nostrils and her cheeks. There was more blood soaking the sheets beside her head, appearing black against the white sheets.

  He slid his hands to her shoulders and lifted her limp, lifeless body up toward his and wrapped his arms around her. A thick ache swelled in his neck. His eyes welled.

  “Pleeeaase,” he cried out. “Don’t leave me. Please, Keri, stay with me.”

  She didn’t respond. Her head flopped back and her mouth dropped open. Blood leaked down her chin.

  Dub was shaking now. His whole body trembled uncontrollably. His pulse raced, pounding against his own chest. He thought for a moment that it was Keri’s pulse. He laid her down and laid his ear against her. Nothing.

  He tilted back her head, pinched her nose, and placed his mouth on hers. He blew everything he could into her lungs. The heavy breath forced him to cough, and he turned his head to the side, blew out the ragged air, and tried again.

  After several breaths, he tried starting her heart. With his palms flat against her solar plexus, he pushed and pushed and pushed, then tried breathing into her again. Her chest rose with each supply of air, only to leak out audibly from between her blue, bloodstained lips.

  Dub stopped his efforts and slid down the ladder onto the floor. He reached under his lofted bed to his desk and found his charging cell phone. He dialed 911. It was busy. He hung up and tried again. Busy again. He dropped the phone to the floor and his body to his knees.

  Tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He grabbed his hair, tugging at the greasy strands through clenched fists. His stomach tightened.

  Dub wanted to scream. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to die.

  From behind him, a weak voice webbed with phlegm said, “Dad?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. It was Michael. His thinning, fiery red hair was muted as if his own flame was dimming. He was sitting up on his elbows, staring at the door.

  Dub swallowed hard and calmed himself. He knuckled tears from his eyes and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Michael?” he said. His voice trembled when he spoke. He couldn’t shake the emotion. “You need something?”

  Michael’s chest heaved up and down. He was clutching his stomach, his face drawn tight with pain. He didn’t turn toward Dub, keeping his focus on the door. “Dad?” he repeated. “Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here. This place is bad.”

  Dub checked the door to make certain nobody was actually there, and faced Michael and snapped his fingers. “Michael.”

  Michael coughed. Blood leaked from his nose. He licked his lips. “No,” he said. “I don’t have classes. I didn’t miss classes. I’m sick. This place is sick.”

  Michael coughed again and wheezed. He doubled over, grabbing his gut. He moaned loudly and threw his head back. He slapped himself flat onto his face and kicked his legs free of his sheets. He cried out, a high-pitched squeal piercing the small room and hanging in the humid air. What he said, if it contained any real words, was garbled.

  Dub stood and stepped toward Michael’s top bunk. He carefully put his hands on the bed rail and softly called to his friend. “Michael? Can you hear me?”

  Michael kicked out one of his legs, banging his knee into the railing. Then he spasmed. His body shook wildly then tensed. He was rigid, his eyes open. His teeth bit down on his lower lip, drawing blood.

  Dub let go of the railing and stood there helplessly, unsure what to do. He stepped quickly to the end of the bed and climbed up to the foot of the top bunk. He crawled next to Michael
and held his head.

  Michael’s eyes were rolled back. His nose was bleeding. His mouth was bleeding. He’d wet himself. Again. His toes were pulled back, his fingers cramped like claws.

  Dub spoke to him, trying to reassure him he was there. He promised everything would be okay, that he would help him. He told Michael not to be frightened, to calm down.

  Michael bit down harder on his lip, puncturing the skin. His body trembled yet stayed stiff at the same time. He wasn’t responding to anything Dub tried.

  Dub knelt next to him for a long while, sweat pouring into his own eyes as he fought to help Michael’s seizing body. Then, as quickly as the spasms began, they ended.

  Michael’s body went limp. His eyes closed and a heavy, rattling breath escaped his mouth. Dub sat there motionless for a moment, trying to understand what had happened.

  Michael was still. Dub tried shaking him. He didn’t respond. He wasn’t breathing. He had no pulse.

  Dub’s eyes misted again. The uncomfortable knot in his throat swelled. He jumped from the bed, landing awkwardly and falling onto his side. He winced but grabbed for his phone lying on the floor.

  He tried 911 again. Another busy signal. He dialed the infirmary. Fast busy signal. He called his parents. It rang twice before a recorded voice told him all circuits were busy.

  He squeezed the device in his hand and thought about throwing it against the wall, but stopped himself. He tossed it to the floor and looked up at Barker. He was in bed, his body curled into a ball on his side, his back to Dub, sweat staining his shirt. He was on top of his sheets and comforter.

  Dub stared at Barker’s back, trying to see if his friend was breathing. He couldn’t tell, and he crawled toward the bed to get a closer look. Then he saw it: the minuscule rise and fall of his side as Barker inhaled and exhaled. He was still alive. Barker was alive. For now. Dub collapsed onto the floor. He lay flat on the rug, staring at the ceiling.

  He couldn’t comprehend it. One of his best friends and the love of his life were lying dead in his room, and he couldn’t do anything for them. He couldn’t save them. He couldn’t get them help. He couldn’t even move them. What was he going to do?

  He couldn’t dump their bodies in the hallway, as others had done. He couldn’t burn them, as he’d read the government was doing to prevent the spread of the disease.

  The disease. They had a name for it now. He’d read that too. Lane Turner, the newsman, had actually read it to him on one of his phone’s news apps.

  “Researchers are working tirelessly to develop a vaccine for the illness they’re now calling TBE,” Turner had said. His bright and shiny news set stood in sharp contrast to the dim, disease-riddled world outside. “They’ve identified the components of the relentless, highly contagious illness and in a news conference revealed an aggressive combination of both tuberculosis and E. coli bacteria.”

  Dub stared at a thin crack in the ceiling of his dorm, recalling the script the newsman had read with such sincere concern. He’d been on the toilet, cramping, while he’d watched the news report. It had been thirty-six hours earlier when he was sick but on the mend, while his friends were deteriorating.

  “The bacteria is spreading through touch and through the air. Close contact is not necessary to contract the illness. It has an incredibly high mortality rate. Researchers are working on the numbers, but they believe as many as forty-seven percent of those who contract it will not survive.”

  Forty-seven percent. Dub shook his head. It was higher than that in his own dorm room. The sheen of tears swelled and spilled down his temples. He was the reason half of his inner circle was dead. He’d killed them. If he hadn’t contracted the illness, had they not insisted on helping him before they knew how contagious it truly was, they’d be alive.

  He reached for his phone again. There had to be new information out there. He needed an update. Maybe there was something that could help him help Barker before the mortality rate in his dorm became seventy-five percent.

  He unlocked the phone and tapped the local news app. The app opened, but the main page wouldn’t fully load. The campus Wi-Fi was still working, which was good given the horrible cell service, but it was slower than it had been before the spread of the disease. Still, Dub could read the headline and the teaser sentence underneath it.

  “Four hundred thousand feared dead in TBE bacterial outbreak. Hospitals, clinics overwhelmed.”

  Dub waited until the accompanying video loaded. It played automatically and he thumbed up the volume, holding the phone above his face.

  “…martial law is critically important to the containment of TBE, according to both the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the CDOH in Sacramento,” read Lane Turner. He was looking into the camera with his typical intensity.

  “The entire state of California is under a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, the areas where TBE is most concentrated, are more restrictive.”

  Barker shifted in his bed, the mattress springs creaked, and Dub lowered the volume on his phone. He pulled it to his ear, figuring listening to the information was more important than watching Lane Turner’s expressive face.

  “There are quarantine zones in both metro areas. Movement between zones is prohibited. If Cal Guard troops request you evacuate with them, you are under orders from the governor of California to comply.”

  Barker wheezed, coughed, and rolled onto his back.

  “Here is a map of the quarantine zones,” said the anchor. “There are multiple secure facilities in each of the zones. The larger facilities include the Staples Center, the Los Angeles Forum, the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the Long Beach Convention Center, Memorial Coliseum, the Anaheim Convention Center and Arena…”

  Dub switched hands and put the phone up to his other ear. He checked Barker. His friend was still breathing. His mouth was open, his chest rising and falling.

  “If you see smoke,” said Lane Turner, “do not call 911. Emergency lines are overwhelmed throughout the Southland, and they cannot handle the volume of calls. As for the smoke, there are controlled burns initiated by Cal Guard troops. Do not worry. There are no out-of-control fires. There are no wildfires. They are, I’ll repeat, controlled burns.”

  Dub knew what the anchor meant without the newsman having to say it. The kindling for those controlled burns were dead people. So far he’d gotten little information he didn’t already know. The secure facilities and quarantine news was helpful. It told him he shouldn’t be leaving campus. But he didn’t know much more about the disease than he had two days ago. He didn’t know what, if anything, authorities were doing to stop its spread beyond the physical separation of the sick from the healthy.

  At the top corner of the screen, Dub noticed the video he was watching was actually a livestream. Whatever information he was learning now was the newest available.

  “Joining me now is the associate director for Healthy Water, National Center for Emerging, Zoonotic, and Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Mateo Negro, PhD, is live via satellite from Atlanta.”

  Dub lowered the phone to his ear. His eyes stung from the clinging, remnant tears. He sucked in as deep a breath as he could and exhaled.

  The anchor thanked the doctor for being on the program, they exchanged pleasantries, and the doctor got to business. He did not candy coat it.

  “This is not an extinction-level event, but it is catastrophic,” he said. “We have cases on both coasts and in Texas. We think we’ve managed to contain the infected in all locations but California, Oregon, Arizona, and Washington State. But that means, of course, we haven’t contained it.”

  “These are bacterial infections?” Lane asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Negro replied. “They are bacteria. There are, as many of your viewers may know, three types of microbes: fungi, viruses, and bacteria. There are also parasites. Together they are the causes of infectious diseases. In this case, it is sole
ly bacterial. Unfortunately it is antibiotic resistant. So treatment, to this point, is ineffective in most.”

  “People are surviving it, though?”

  “Yes,” said the doctor. “We’ve seen as many as half of the reported cases survive the infection. At this point, we’re finding that if someone can fight off the disease within the first seventy-two hours of symptomatic onset, they’ll make it.”

  “What are some tips that—”

  Dub dropped his arm to the floor and glanced toward his bunk. Keri’s pale, lifeless fingers stuck out from underneath the railing. Her dark pink nail polish was chipped but glossy. Dub stared at her fingers. His mind drifted to her hand in his and the soft, cool touch of her skin. His hands were always warmer than hers. He’d frequently chided her about it.

  “Cold hands, warm heart,” she’d say.

  “Does that mean I have a cold heart?” he’d ask.

  She’d kiss him and tell him that of course it didn’t, that the transitive property didn’t apply. He’d kiss her back and tell her he didn’t think that was actually the transitive property. But she was smarter than him, he’d acknowledge, so maybe she was right. She’d demand she was right by evidence that his heart was as warm as hers.

  Now her heart was cold. It was stopped. It didn’t work anymore. A swell of guilt rose again like a tide in his gut. His stomach tightened and the tide brought with it nausea and anger and disbelief.

  Barker grunted, drawing Dub from his melancholy reverie. A gagging cough followed the grunt, and Barker sat up in his bunk, nearly hitting his head on Michael’s bed above him. Dub rolled over and moved to Barker’s side.

  “Hey, Barker. How you doin’?”

  Barker was wide-eyed, dazed looking. His thinning hair looked even more sparse than usual. It was wild and matted and sticking out in all directions. If Dub hadn’t known better, he’d have thought either Barker was doing his best impression of Doc Brown from the half-century old Back to the Future movies or had stuck a fork in a toaster.

  Barker blinked a couple of times and wiped his chin. “It’s like a truck is on my chest and I’m sitting in an oven.”