Contagious (12 page)

“I want them back! Where are my children?” Ava cried.

No one gave her an answer.

She hoped that after she was through whatever processing they did to her, she’d see him. But Ava wasn’t the only one separated from her family. Every person that was at that seminar was pulled together.

For the longest time, she swore she could
hear Landon crying. Was it her imagination? He had to be scared. Ripped from his bed, from his home and then his mother’s arms.

Ava was cold, her hair was wet, her body squeaky clean and her toes were tingling numb. She thought of the kids. “Can you get my children shoes or something for their feet? Please?”

Each and every soldier or health worker she passed she asked and they looked through her as if she were a pane of glass.

Finally she broke and Ava couldn’t stop sobbing. They didn’t return her purse, and without that she didn’t have her phone. How was her husband supposed to know about her and the kids?

After one metal mobile building to the next, Ava finally discovered where she was when they led her through the revolving doors of the Ambassador Suites hotel.

For hours she was only eight miles from her home.

She carried in her arms a plastic bag with toiletries. She wore only hospital scrubs.

Her eyes felt swollen from all the crying, and when she walked through the lobby she recognized the hotel manager. People approached him and it appeared as if he were directing them
. .

“Joel.” she whimpered his name. “You probably don’t remember me.”

“I gave you pizza,” Joe said. “You’re Ava. You were with Rayne.”

Ava sighed out with a whimper. “Yes. Joel. My children. Have you seen my children? They took them when they were disinfecting us.”

Joel sighed out. “They’re making me separate people. Those who were in contact with Semora and those who are family members. I have several children I put on the second floor.”

“Is that where I’m going?”

Sadly, Joel shook his head. “Like me, you have to stay down here.”

“But I want to see my kids.” Ava pleaded. “I need to know they’re all right.”

“I’ll have someone check on them. But for their wellbeing, understand, you have to keep your distance.”

Ava sniffled. “Does it make a difference now?”

“Any chance they have of not getting sick is one we have to take.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll make sure I find them and you talk to them. Right now … you’re in room 124. Okay?”

Clutching her belongings, Ava nodded.

“Someone will be by to drop off rations. But there is water in the rooms.”

“Thank you.” Ava took a step. “Joel, can you find my children shoes? They took our clothes. I know they’re cold.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Joel said. “Ava, I know this is tough, but this is for the good of all.”

Ava started to walk; she had to find her room. She was lost and confused, her body numb and stomach churned from hunger. A part of her felt violated and she wanted to just curl up and cry.

It wasn’t like her not to be strong, and Ava knew she’d find her strength again. But at that moment she felt beaten from lack of knowledge and lost without her kids. Ava couldn’t help but blame herself. It was her fault. If she hadn’t gone to that seminar, they wouldn’t be there.

If the kids got sick, she would never forgive herself.

When she arrived at the empty room, exhausted both physically and emotionally, Ava sat on the couch in the suite and just broke down again.

<><><><>

Joel had enough.

He kept up his professional exterior, but deep inside he was folding. He was all right at first. He had his clipboard and room numbers. The first people that came through were, as Randall called them, Contact B.

Children, family, spouses and friends of those who were in immediate contact with Semora. They came through the line as families, and he assigned them rooms. No one really looked distraught, just tired and confused.

But when the Contact A people came through, Joel felt their pain.

Each of them looked lost. Each of them somehow carried blame for being there.  It was then he realized that they were made to feel responsible for all that was happening to their loved ones. Ripped from their families, tucked aside.

Not a single person knew where their families were. Ava wasn’t the only one to ask where her children
were.

Joel was asked by everyone.

“Where is my wife?”

“Where is my child?”

“Where is my mother?”

Enough.

Joel had seen enough desperate faces for one day. He didn’t know what to tell them. Truth be known, Joel had enough. His hotel taken over, his wife locked away, Rayne was somewhere and to top it all off, a deadly virus was seeping its way through the air. Joel couldn’t help but wonder as he looked at each person: Will she die? Will he get sick?

Every person was a possible victim.

Joel handed the clipboard to Walter and walked off.

He just needed some time to absorb all that was going on. He also needed to get in contact with his wife to make sure she understood why they had to be separated.

He went to the lounge to steal a quiet moment. As he reached for a bottle of bourbon, he smelled it.

Something was cooking.

Joel knew nothing should have been cooking considering he placed all employees on the third floor. The kitchen was shut down and food was going to be distributed.

Bottle in hand he followed the scent to the kitchen.

He heard the clanking and the sizzling and Joel walked around the line.

His heart sunk. He recognized the dark blonde hair. She had it pulled up in a ponytail and she moved about naturally, grabbing ingredients and tossing them into the pot.

Joel sighed out and set down the bottle. “Bianca, what are you doing? You’re supposed to be upstairs.”

Bianca set down a wooden spoon and turned around. “I’m making soup.”

“That’s not what I mean. Please go back upstairs.”

“No.” She turned back to her kettle. “There are a lot of people in this hotel and they are hungry and scared. I’m making soup. They can have soup.”

“Bianca, do you understand what is happening?”

She ignored him, adding her ingredients.

“Bianca … there is a virus. A deadly virus. One of our guests had it. I was in close contact. Eighty percent of us in close contact will get sick. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes.” She set down her cooking utensil again and faced Joel. “It means twenty percent will not.” She sighed out. “What do you want me to do?”

“Go back up.”

“And what? Let you handle things? There’s over two hundred people here. You, Walter and Melissa are handling things. Well you can’t do it alone. You can’t. You need help.”

“I need you to be safe,” Joel said.

“And I need to be with my husband. For better or worse. Sickness and in health. Well, this is one of those times.”

“FEMA is giving rations. So you don’t need to do anything.”

Bianca laughed. “FEMA rations are MRE’s. Do you know what that does to the digestive system?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, Joel. Constipation is not comfort. Soup … is comfort.” Bianca dropped her voice. “I hear them crying, Joel. I hear the children. They’re alone. We weren’t put on this earth to hide in a room hoping our air stays safe.” She walked to him and Joel stepped back.

“Don’t.” Joel stated.

Bianca quickly reached out and grabbed his arm. “Too late.”

“You realized what you did by leaving the room and coming down here, right?”

“Yes. I made the decision to help and be with my husband. And that, for me, was the only choice to make.” She darted a kiss to his cheek, turned back to the pot to cook, and after a brief second, she stopped. “Oh. Wait.” Shuffling over she reached to the shelf, grabbed a tube and handed it to Joel. “I thought that about this point you’d be needing this.”

Joel looked at the tube of Ben Gay that she gave him. He passed on a smile of gratitude. He did need that Ben Gay. But he also needed his wife. While he hated the fact that she had placed herself in a bad position, Joel was grateful that she was there.

For better or worse.

And this was one of those times that would definitely be in the ‘worse’ category.

She got the message that everything was done in the hotel and that the lab assistants were starting the breakdown of the blood. Amita took that a sign to stop and call home.

“Hey, Sweetie,” Tony answered the phone. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going.” Amita sighed out. “Have you been watching the news?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then just as a precaution, you need to hit the ATM. Max out what you can get.”

“Has it jumped?”

“We’ll know if a few days. Unfortunately, by the time we know, there may already be a run on the banks. Hit the super Bargain Mart tonight after the baby goes to bed. Just tell my mother that you have to get some things. Buy in bulk.”

“For Uncle Bruno’s birthday?”

“Yes
,” Amita said sadly. “And I’ll let you know when to go.”

She asked to speak to their son who really didn’t do phone calls very well. She got an ‘I love you’ from him and that made her happy.

The conversation made her sad. Telling Tony to prepare made her feel like a failure. That she was giving up way too soon. But she needed them to be ready. She had to be ready too. Unlike a captain, Amita wasn’t going to go down with the ship. She wasn’t going to fight to the end. If she saw the end, then she was going to be with her family.

Ready to go back inside to work, her phone rang. It surprised her because it was the Secretary of Health calling her personal phone.

“Mr. Secretary, what can I do for you?”

“I need people out of quarantine.”

Amita laughed. “You’re joking right?”

“Not at all.”

Almost aghast, Amita spoke with an edge. “Sir, this is a quarantine. We just don’t let people out.”

“I’m not asking you to set them free on the streets of Cleveland. Good Lord, woman! I want to move them. Can we do that?”

“Sir, that can not be done. It’s not fair to the others in quarantine. Who are they?’

“The Mason family. The father is assistant to Senator Adams. His wife called him about the quarantine.”

“I’ll look for them and make sure they’re comfortable.”

“There is something else I need you to do.”

“What is that?” Amita asked.

“There are pictures on the Internet and Social media sites of a man beaten by the military on guard there. His face is a mess. Rumors have it that pop star JJ Wylde was beaten as well.”

“He was not beaten. He’s been detained for leaving quarantine. Just until things are settled.”

“So the picture is false?’

Amita hesitated. “The man, not JJ, was beaten. Struck. Yes. He is a large man they had to stop him.”

“I understand. But we cannot have the public thinking that all those in quarantine are treated like lepers. I want you to send a team in there and sweep the phones. Shut them down from communications outside.”

“We never took phones before.”

“Yes, well, we never had a pop star in quarantine. He’s making this worse. Right now, to keep calm, this is a matter of national security. We’re shutting things down left and right. Take the phones. The ACLU is up my ass on this one.”

“The ACLU will die of this virus if I don’t contain the outbreaks.”

Did he laugh? Amita swore she heard him muffle a laugh. “Sir?”

“Take the phones. Laptops, tablets, anything that can reach outside. Lock them up. Thank you.”

Amita hung up.
What a mess
, she thought.  To her, allowing people to see in quarantine was better than not. Let people see what was going on. Otherwise, it was going to look like they were hiding the truth.

Then again, with how fast everything was moving, for the sake of ‘calm’, maybe hiding the truth was eventually the best thing to do.

<><><><>

Very few people knew who Frick and Frack were. Some just attributed it to a phrase, not knowing it went all the way back to a duo of comedic skaters in the nineteen thirties.

Sean and David knew the term, the origins and vowed to be the most memorial duo in the news industry. Just like the skaters Frick and Frack.

In fact they were inseparable, a lot alike. They looked similar, talked the same way and what one didn’t think of the other did.

They crowned themselves the kings of journalism.

Their editor, however, referred to them as relentless and fanatical paparazzi.

But they got the scoop and never were their stories embellished. They only wrote what they knew for certain, never speculation.

There was one celebrity no reporter really could get a definite on. No pictures of the trouble ever surfaced.

That was JJ Wylde and when Sean found out his old Army buddy was JJ’s new bodyguard, he called in that favor long owed to him.

After all, there were rumors of hard drug use, vandalism where ever he went, voyeurism, and an Oedipus complex so severe, that security would sneak women three times JJ’s age into his room at night to satisfy his peculiar appetite.

All that speculation and never
any proof.

Sean and David were going to get that proof.

Larry Shepinksy was the man to help. When Sean called him he agreed, stating, “I hate that little punk”, told Sean where to be, how early to get there and promised he’d be able to get all the scoop he wanted.

So after a triple high five to his best buddy, David, and exchanging a few, ‘you’re the man’, they booked a room at the Ambassador three days before JJ’s arrival, under the guise of being a newlywed gay couple on their honeymoon.

No one would suspect they were paparazzi.

And no one did.

Everything was going well, too. They got pictures of JJ rappelling off the balcony, and a snap shot of him holding an older woman and going into her room.

They got a good chuckle out of the fact her name was Semora Love.

“Guess he’s gonna get Some more a love.” Laughed David at his own bad joke.

Then again, Sean laughed with him. “Go, JJ. She’s not bad looking for an older broad, from what I could see. Good body.”

“Yeah, not bad.”

But now, just on the brink of exposing the youthful star, they were quarantined, and to make matters worse, they had to turn over their phones, tablets and the laptop.

At least they still had pictures and could take more.

“He’s not going to behave, even under quarantine.” David said. “No way. You saw, he tried to sneak out.”

“Punk.” said Sean.

“Tell me about it.”

“We’ll just follow him when they let him out.”

“Probably started this mess. Probably has some sort of weird viral STD.”

“Speaking of which…” David said.

“STD’s?”

“No, viral. You think since we are reporters that maybe we should be looking into this quarantine story more?”

“Nah, it’s all smoke and mirrors. A ruse for something else.” Sean stated.

“You think?” David asked.

“Absolutely. It’s Cleveland. Who quarantines a hotel in Cleveland? It's not like it’s New York or anything. I think they saw them shut down JFK, and JJ had them do this.”

“He’s crafty.”

“And sick. Not in a viral way.” Sean said. “He's probably gonna pull an Elvis and fake his own death. This is all part of the set up and we’re here to see it.”

There was a knock at the door of their room, and Sean raced to check the peep hole.

“Who is it?” David asked.

“The manager and some woman.” Sean opened the door.

“Afternoon, Gentleman,” Joel said. “This is my wife Bianca.”

Bianca stood with one hand on the push cart. Both of them wore face masks.

“What’s with the …” Sean indicated to the masks.

“CDC Says we have to wear them when walking around,” Joel said. “Anyhow, since we’re still waiting on FEMA supplies, my wife made soup and we’re trying to give everyone some food.”

David peeked out. “That is really nice, thank you.”

“Our pleasure,” Bianca said. “It’s not much, but it will tide you over.” She ladled soup into a Styrofoam cup.

Joel handed each of them the soup, a bun and a bottle of water.

Sean said, “Thank you.”

“Oh. Wait.” Bianca stated brightly. “My husband told me. And … I am so sorry that you have to spend your honeymoon like this. How awful. But … it will be one to remember. So
...” She reached under the cart and pulled out a bottle of wine. “Here.” She handed Sean the bottle and an opener. “Enjoy. From us. Congratulations on your marriage.”

“Wow. “Sean looked at the bottle, “That’s um, really nice of you.”

“No problem. Enjoy.” Even though no one could see it, Bianca smiled.

Sean and David, with their rations, went back into their room.

Bianca moved the cart, following Joel. He stopped and faced her. “That was very sweet. I wouldn’t have thought to do that.”

“You have a lot on your mind,” she said. “Besides, this is supposed to be a happy occasion. I just feel so bad for them. I thought immediately of our honeymoon.”

“Oh, God,” Joel said with a groan.

“Yeah, remember that one? We were young, broke, and we just happened to stay at a hotel with a lice outbreak.”

“Spent the entire week picking nits out of your hair.”

“That’s love.”

Joe shook his head but his eyes smiled. “Yep.”

“I think that was the deciding factor in me not wanting children,” Bianca said. “I never wanted to deal with that.”

“Bianca, my lack of sperm was the deciding factor.”

“That too.”

At that moment, as they moved forward to turn the bend, they saw below. Both of them saw it at the same time and it froze them. Two men carried a covered body across the courtyard. It had to be Semora.

Bianca stared out, then with saddened eyes, sighed out and looked at Joel. “It’s times like these that make me so glad we didn’t have children.”

“Yeah … me, too.” Reaching out, saying no more, Joel grabbed the edge of the cart, and guided her forward.

<><><><>

Though she was certain her body had never been cleaner, Ava took a moment to wash her face. Her head hurt from crying, her eyes were puffy, and she had a knot in her stomach.

She was grateful for the manager, who brought her the generously filled snifter of brandy along with the news that the children were fine and in the room above her.

The in house phones were working, and Ava called them.

Calvin sounded relieved when he answered. “Are you okay? They just took you away. Where are you?”

“I’m below you. They
... they are keeping us separated because I was near the sick woman. You weren’t.”

“But aren’t we all exposed now?” He asked. “I mean, we’re here. What difference does it make?”

“I’m sure it’s not that easily caught.”

“You’re not sick and not telling us are you?” Calvin asked.

“No. I'm just sad that we’re caught up in this.” Ava replied, then asked to talk to Landon.

“Mommy,” he whimpered “Mommy, I’m scared.”

“I know baby. Me, too. But Calvin and Cassie are right there. Can you do me a favor?”

“Yes.”

“Can you listen to them? Do not leave the room.”

“What about you? I want you to be here.”

“I will be. Soon. Okay?” Ava tried to stay in control. “I love you, sweetie.”

Landon sniffled.

“Landon? Honey? I love you.”

His words squeaked out as he choked on them. “Love you.”

Then Calvin got on the phone. “He’s upset. I’m gonna calm him down.”

“Calvin, I’ll let you know when I hear something. But I’m right here. I’m not far.”

“I gotta go.”

“I understand.
Kiss him for me.”

“I will.”

“Calvin, I …” The other line disconnected, and defeated, Ava hung up the receiver, finishing her sentence, even though Calvin didn’t hear. “I love you guys.”

The knock on the door caused her to not only jolt but jump up and race for the door.

She flung it open.

Rayne stood there.

“Rayne,” She gasped out. “Oh my God!” His eyes were black and blue, nose swollen and there was dried blood on his face. “What happened?”

“Nothing I just … are you okay?”

“I’m a mess. But are you okay?” She opened the door wider. “Come in. Sit down.” As he walked into the room, she raced to the bathroom.

“Don’t worry about me. I needed to check on you. I would have been here sooner but I was detained.”

Ava wet a cloth and carried it into the main room of the suite. “Has anyone looked at your nose?”