As soon as the last child had left the kitchen, Alice and Jonathan rushed to Alex to pull her into a hug. Her yelp of pain from them jostling her shoulder and arm injury had them flinching back. Her mom scanned her up and down looking for where her daughter was hurt.
“What is it? What happened? Where are you hurt?” She demanded.
Alex grimaced in pain and shook her head. “It’s nothing serious. I just took a little bit of buckshot in my shoulder and arm. But Leslie, a trauma nurse we met, fixed it all up for me.”
Alice’s expression morphed from worried concerned to anger. “It’s nothing?” She said in outrage. “You go running off without telling anyone and get yourself shot and now you’re saying it’s nothing?”
Jonathan put a calming hand on his wife’s arm and said her name in a warning tone but she just shrugged him off. “No, just no, Jonathan. I will not stand for this reckless behavior. You are a child Alex and you have no business running off and taking such foolish risks.”
Alex had known that she would face this when she got home but right now, she was tired, hungry from not eating all day, and in pain. She just stared back at her mother with a defiant look on her face until the anger and frustration she had been feeling for months spilled to the surface.
“No, I am not a child and I haven’t been one for a very long time but you’re right about us ‘running off’, as you call it, like it was some big fun adventure. We shouldn’t have had to go and do this. We shouldn’t have had to go and put ourselves in danger. So, let me ask you - why didn’t any of you go instead?”
“Alex, don’t you dare be flip with me. It is dangerous out there. No one should be out running around on the roads now.”
“I know just how dangerous it is out there, Mom! I’m pretty sure I understand better than you! But, all of you adults have hidden away within the boundaries of our community. You chose to let our people die instead of going out there to find the medicine that they needed. Did any one of you, or any of the other adults, even think about going to find help for our people? No, you just chose to hide away in quarantine hoping that the people who are sick would die and not come out here and infect you. There’s a lot of crappy things about this world and the only way it’s going to get better is if we try to make it better. If that means going out and risking our lives to save people then that’s what I’m going to do. But I guess that’s just my childish perspective of how I should live my life.”
She shook her head in disgust at her mother’s attitude and turned her head to meet Emily’s eyes. She saw encouragement there so she blew out a breath and turned back to her parents.
“I know you’d like nothing better than to lock me away from the world to keep me safe but that’s just not realistic. If the adults won’t step up to do the right thing, then this won’t be the last time we take matters into our own hands. If that’s not something you can accept, well, I’m eighteen now and I’m pretty sure I won’t have a problem finding a new home to live in.”
At her words, her dad held up his hands in panic. “Whoa, hold up there. Nobody wants you moving out, Alex. You just have to understand how scared we were when we found out that you had left. We know you’re not a little girl anymore, but that is a hard thing for us to accept and you need to understand how hard it is for us to see the changes in you from what you went through. We just want to protect you and keep you from having to go through those things again.”
He dropped his hands and glanced over at Peter as he came back into the room.
“What you said about the adults not stepping up is true. We had a similar conversation with Josh’s mom and dad. It should have been some of us that went out to try and find the medicine. We’ve all just, I don’t know, turtled in here at home since everything happened after the power went out. It was easier after what we went through, being held as prisoners by that gang in our own town, to stay in and stay safe. You kids taking off, taking it upon yourselves because you didn’t think the adults were going to do anything, to try and find the medicine and save lives was a wake-up call for us. We’re going to start putting together a scavenging party of people willing to go out to get the things we need in the future. I’m sorry you felt like we’ve tried to lock you down and we’re both going to work on easing off a bit. Right, Alice?” He asked his wife.
Alex could see that her mom was still furious but her sharp nod of agreement drained the last of Alex’s own anger which let in a wave of weariness to wash over her.
“Can we talk about this later? None of us have eaten since this morning including the children. I’m sure you’d like to know what we’re doing with them so is it possible to get some food into us while we tell you what we’ve been up to for the last three days?”
Her mother’s face softened slightly as she glanced toward the stove where a huge pot was steaming. “I made chili and cornbread for supper. I’ve been making enough to feed you, Dara, and Jake every day just in case you came home. I’m sure we have enough to feed the children as well.”
Emily stepped up beside Alex and slipped her hand into hers to give it a squeeze.
“I guess that’s my cue to head home. I imagine I’ll be having the same reaction from my parents when I get there.”
Alice, still smarting a bit from her daughter’s attitude, shot back at Emily, “As you should! You all have a lot of explaining to do, young lady.”
Emily knew that Alice loved her like a daughter after all these years of being in and out of her house so she didn’t take offense at her sharp words. She knew it was just the fear talking but couldn’t resist her own sharp reply.
“Right. I guess I should have stayed here and waited to die with the rest of you. It didn’t seem like much of a choice to me. Go out there and maybe die or stay here and maybe die. At least I got to pick which one.”
Alice opened her mouth to reprimand Emily but then closed it quickly. She took two quick steps across the room and pulled the girl into her arms instead.
She breathed into Emily’s hair, “I’m so sorry, Emily. I just couldn’t imagine losing you or Alex. You guys are so brave and fearless that it scares the heck out of me.”
She pushed her back to arm’s length and studied the girl’s pale face. She could see that whatever they had gone through on this trip had taken a toll on her. “Try and go easy on your parents. Just remember how much they love you and any anger they show stems from their fear of losing you.”
Emily gave her a soft smile in return. “I will, and I do understand, but I think all you parents need to try and start understanding us, too.”
Alice dropped her arms from Emily and looked down at her own daughter with sadness in her eyes, before turning back to Emily. “Why don’t you at least stay and have something to eat before you head back out there.”
She shook her head. “No. Thank you, though. I need to get home so they know I’m safe.” Emily turned to Alex. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow?”
Alex nodded and stepped closer to lean into her friend. “Absolutely. There’s a lot of things for us to figure out, right?”
Emily nodded in agreement and with a final wave to Alex’s parents and brother, turned and left the kitchen to put her gear back on in the porch. Jonathan pulled the chair out from the kitchen table and gestured toward it.
“Why don’t you take a seat, Alex? You looked wiped out. We’ll dish up some food for everyone and then we can talk about how you became the Pied Piper of children.”
Alex smiled gratefully at her dad and then sunk into the chair he had offered. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Even with all the anger and questions, it was good to be home.
Chapter Nineteen
Josh and Quinn drove the sleds through the silent town, making their way toward the community center where they had heard Dr. Mack had set up to treat the sick people. The streets were completely empty and they saw no one on the way. There wasn’t even any movement behind windows of the houses they passed. It made them extremely nervous about w
hat they were going to find once they got to the community center. They knew the town council had issued an order to quarantine any sick people in their homes but they still expected to see some movement in town. There were a lot of supplies they needed to carry into the building so they drove straight up to the door and parked as close as possible. They kept their helmets on with their visors down as they each grabbed a box from the back of their trailers and headed inside.
As soon as they opened the door, the odor of sickness hit them, even through their helmets.
“Well, this doesn’t seem good at all,” Josh said, hesitating just inside the door.
“No, it most definitely does not. No help for it though. We need to go in and try to find Dr. Mack so this medicine can get put to use. We’ll keep our visors down and gloves on and pray that will be enough protection for now,” Quinn said as he started down the hallway.
They walked towards the double doors that led into the main gymnasium and pulled them open. What they saw on the other side made them freeze in shock.
Every spare space was occupied by a body. Some of them were clearly alive as they coughed and groaned but others were so still it was hard to tell if they were still breathing. Josh swallowed hard at what they were about to step into and scanned the room, looking for Dr. Mack.
He didn’t see a single person on their feet in the whole place, but he did spot a table at one end of the room with someone slumped over it, either sick, sleeping, or dead. He nudged Quinn with an elbow and nodded in that direction with his helmeted head. The two boys carefully picked their way around cots and palettes, being careful not to step on anyone or drop the boxes that they carried. They reached the table and saw that it was Dr. Mack slumped over it.
Quinn blew out a sigh of relief when he saw that the doctor was breathing and figured he had just passed out from exhaustion. Keeping his visor down he had to raise his voice while leaning over the doctor to try and wake him up. When the man finally started to stir, he lifted his head like it weighed a thousand pounds and blinked at them in confusion.
“Are you alien invaders?”
Josh laughed behind his visor. “More like your Fairy Godfathers!”
He put the box he was holding onto the table in front of the doctor, flipped open the flaps and lifted out a tray of small glass vials with the powdered antibiotic in them.
Dr. Mack stared at the tray of vials for a few seconds before lifting foggy eyes to take in the two teens that still had their helmets on.
“I must be sick now too. I’m hallucinating,” he said and laid his head back down onto the table.
Quinn and Josh reflexively turned to look at each other before remembering their visors were down. Tentatively, they both lifted up their visors with gloved hands so that Dr. Mack would be able to see their faces.
Quinn leaned over the table to put a gloved hand on Dr. Mack’s shoulder to give it a shake. “Dr. Mack! You’re not hallucinating. We went and found the medicine you needed in Calgary. We just got back and came straight here. You need to wake up!”
The doctor lifted his head once again and this time his eyes focused enough to see the faces that were speaking to him. He looked at them in surprise and then dropped his eyes down towards the tray of vials before jabbing a hand out to drag Josh’s box closer to him so he could see inside of it. Astonished, he looked at the boys again.
“There’s more of this? You have more?” he asked desperately.
Josh nodded his head, a smile spreading across his face. “We brought back all three of the different medications you said you needed. We also have gloves, syringes and face masks that we got from a nurse at the hospital. She figured you would have gone through your supply by now.”
The doctor shook his head in disbelief. “How? When…? Never mind, you can tell me later how this happened. Right now, we need to get this medicine administered to as many people as possible. We’ve already lost over a hundred so every second counts. You both need to get those helmets off and masks on to help me.” He pushed to his feet and looked out over the room of patients and then shook his head. “Check that. Josh I’m going to need you to go out and start banging on some doors. You need to convince as many healthy people as possible to get over here to help me. Make sure you tell them that we have all the medication we need to treat the illness, otherwise they’ll refuse because they’re scared of getting sick. We’re going to need people to go door-to-door to find any townspeople that are sick so we can treat them too.” He turned to Quinn. “Are you okay to stay and help me? It would just be until we got some more people here to help.”
Quinn nodded nervously, “What do you need me to do?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to have you going near any of the patients. I’m going to get you to just sit right here and I’ll bring you all you need to start reconstituting the powder so that I can administer it. Thank goodness I still have plenty of saline to use. Being able to administer it into their systems immediately will be more effective than pill form. He turned back to Josh and waved towards the door. “Go get as many people as you can and don’t take no for an answer.”
As Dr. Mack ran to get the supplies that Quinn would need, he followed Josh out the door and back to the sleds to bring in another load of the medication that he hoped would save many of the people in that room.
It was hours later when Josh pulled Quinn away from the table where he had been prepping vial after vial, ready to be administered by the doctor and the many volunteers that Josh had brought back with him. Both boys were completely exhausted from the long day. Neither one of them had eaten and their bodies were ready to give out.
Josh led Quinn into the community center’s kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards, looking for something for them to eat. A propane stove in the kitchen had a pot of water simmering that someone had left on to keep warm. Josh found packages of dried soup mix that someone had made up and left in the pantry so he grabbed one, dumped it in a large bowl and then poured some of the hot water into it. After giving it a stir, he used a plate to cover the top of it and left it on the counter for the vegetables and noodles to soften in the hot water. He leaned back against the counter and studied Quinn’s face for a moment.
“How are you holding up?”
Quinn slipped off the latex gloves he had been wearing for hours and tossed them into the trash nearby before rubbing at his exhausted face and grainy eyes.
“I’m so tired I think I’m asleep with my eyes open. How about you?”
“Still a little jazzed up a bit from having to force some of the people over here at gunpoint. I can’t believe how many people refused to come and help. They didn’t even care that we had gone and got all that medicine or that we had gloves and masks to protect them. They just wanted to stay hidden and wait for everyone to die so that they wouldn’t get sick too.” He looked away, angry. “I definitely didn’t make a lot of new friends today, Quinn.”
Quinn shook his head in annoyance. “Who cares if they like us if all those people out there end up living because you made them come here?”
Josh sniffed in disdain. “Can you explain to me why so many people now aren’t willing to do whatever it takes to make sure we survive? I mean, we left our safe farms and put our lives in danger to try and save all these people. Why did it have to be us? Why didn’t any of those healthy people think about going and looking for medicine?”
Quinn just shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know why they don’t want to fight to survive. Maybe we’re different because of what we had to go through to get home. Maybe we’re just willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people we love. I mean, yeah, we went to get the medicine for the town but the underlying reason was so that we would have it if the plague spread out to our families. But I really just don’t get it either. I think once this all settles out and the thaw comes, we should try and talk to some people about changing things here. They seem to be clinging to the status quo of how life
used to be and they’re all afraid to move beyond our borders. There’s a lot of stuff that we need that’s going to run out, maybe even sooner than we realize. I don’t want us to be the ones constantly going out there to get what the town needs. Things are definitely going to have to change if this town wants to survive.”
“I agree completely,” came Dr. Mack’s voice from the doorway. If anything, he looked even more exhausted than he had when they first found him sleeping. He stepped into the room with a serious expression. “I don’t know what drove you kids to go all the way to Calgary to get the medicine we needed when the adults never once brought it up. The only thing the town council did was contact Red Deer by radio to see if they were willing to bring us the medicine. When Red Deer said no, they just seemed to shut down and it was after that that they ordered the house quarantines. Once again, you kids managed to save our town and a lot of people by your actions. I can’t thank you enough for the risks you took to get this medicine but you’re right too, Quinn. This town isn’t going to survive unless changes are made. Council looked to the military to fix our problems and when they didn’t get an answer they wanted, they just gave up. I think we all need to face the facts that there is no one out there who’s going to help us, especially if we don’t try to help ourselves first. If we want to survive, if we want to thrive - we need to take care of ourselves. It can’t just be about having food and warmth. There’s so much more we’re going to need as things run out and break down. Once we get this plague under control, I promise you that I will be advocating for changes in the town. Now, by the looks of you, I think it’s time both you boys got some sleep. I’d send you home but it’s very late and cold out there. I don’t want you driving until you’ve had something to eat and some sleep first. I also want to go over some sanitation precautions with you to make sure you’re not carrying any of the germs out to the farms.
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