The World's End Series Book One: Dymond's World (21 page)

She handed him the bag.  "My name is Lucia.  You can walk down to the church.  It's three blocks that way.  They've got food and clothes for those in need."

She pointed down the street. Jason imagined her fingers encircling him, stroking slowly.  "I thank you, Ma'am.  Can I help with anything?"

For the first time, Jason saw the beginnings of a smile on her face, but it was almost immediately replaced with a sad expression.  Jason realized she was actually pretty in a peasant kind of way.  "No, Mr. McDonald, I'm just going to be here another hour or so.  I'll come back tomorrow if the power is still out."

Jason nodded and walked away thinking about her.  He was impressed with her - with her strength and her sense of duty.  Here she was still doing her job even though there was no reason.  He suspected his admiration was because he'd actually spoken to her - gotten to know her at least a little bit. Normally, clerks and people who waited on him were practically invisible - they may as well have been robots.  But talking to this woman made him realize that she was a fellow human being.  He was almost surprised.

He looked at the bag containing the Zestril and started to throw it away before heading to the church.  Instead, he experienced another surprise.  "What the hell," he thought.  He changed course and walked back towards the truck where Mrs. Wright was waiting.

Along the way, he opened the bag and inserted the five twenties.

A week later, Jason pictured the Death Clock in his mind.  Instead of sluggishly counting upwards, now it spun at a high rate of speed.  People were dying all over the country.  He knew that because it was part of the plan.

Just today, three people had died inside their makeshift hospital.  Regina would have been proud - it was almost exactly as she predicted.  The strain of flu was particularly deadly, hitting quick and hard.  The old and the young went first, with a number of seemingly strong adults dying as well.  Jason guessed they were just unlucky, because most younger, stronger people should be able to survive even this super flu.

Jason, however, felt very lucky.  Almost as soon as he'd arrived at the church, he'd become a valuable member of the inner circle that ran the place.  First, they'd fed him and given him a coat.  He told them that he'd been on the turnpike traveling from Philly when his car failed.  A few kind strangers had given him rides and now, here he was.  He also told them that there was a flu epidemic in Philly and that it would likely head here.  "I had it and it was nasty, but I'm okay now."

He was a bit surprised by their reaction.  The minister in charge told him they were praying it wouldn't happen.  "We took the vaccine.  It should keep us well, don't you think?"

Four or five others walked up and now were listening.  This was his chance to prove himself.  "It didn't seem to help in Philly.  I heard that the vaccine was for a different strain and it wasn't very effective.  A lot of people were very sick - some were dying."

He let that sink in and then continued, "They said people should get and use face masks and wash their hands often; that the infection is normally breathed in or transferred by touch."

They were all paying attention to him now.  He went for it.

"Can I make a suggestion?  I think you should go down to that pharmacy back that way, behind the shopping center.  There is a woman there, dispensing drugs out front of the store, but once it hits, the place will be overrun, probably looted.  I might suggest that someone go talk to the woman in charge there and see if she will allow the transfer of their drug supply here.  You're already distributing food and clothes, and you've got enough people around to keep everything safe from looters; you could handle the drugs too.  Regardless, you should get respirators for those caring for the sick.  And you'll need a place for the sick people to keep them away from the well - a room separate from the main building."

They were silent, considering the unwelcome news he'd brought them.  "That is . . . that is if you want to care for the sick here.  I'm sorry, I shouldn't have assumed anything.  A lot of people are heading away from the cities, out to their cabins or just camping up in the hills, waiting for the power to come back on."

Clarence Jones spoke up, "When do you think the power is coming back on?  And, you sound like you know what you are doing with the medical stuff, are you a doctor?"

Jason frowned and shook his head.  "No sir, I think I wish I was, but I . . . I sell batteries.  I'm a battery salesman.  At least I was.  And as to the power coming back - my personal opinion is that it not going to be back for a long, long time.  Not until spring for sure and maybe not ever.  Sir, I think there's going to be a lot of dying and I think it's starting now."

After that, what could they do?  Minister Foster introduced him to Clarence Jones, to Fallon, and Dy, and Patti and to about a dozen others.  They put him in charge of their preparations for the coming sickness.  He was once again on the inside of a group of people.  It was a bit like it had been with Regina and her group, but the difference here was stark - this time he was playing these people.  Last time Regina had played him.

The thought of her caused the anger that lived inside him to nip at some internal organ and it hurt.  He could almost hear it speak to him.  It said, "The pain will continue until you find her and pay her back for what she did."  He nodded to himself.  That was the plan.

***

Today was much colder.  Jason was glad to have his coat as he examined Lucia's face.  He gave the straps of her respirator a tug and looked to see that it was tightly against her skin.  "You look fine," he said. "Are you sure you want to do this?  It's kind of grim in there."

"It's my turn, Jason.  Fallon and Patti and Dymond all pulled a shift.  We don't have that many well people.  You can't be in there helping them twenty four hours a day.  You go on and rest.  I'll take over.  Fallon will relieve me in a few hours.  I'll find someone if I need anything."

He nodded and gave her a wistful smile.  He didn't bother with a respirator.  He told them it was because he'd had the flu already and couldn't get it again, but in truth, he'd been vaccinated with real vaccine.  "I'll go in with you for a minute.  I want to check on Mr. Farmer."

They had converted a classroom that was in an adjoining wing of the church into their "hospital."  Actually, the conversion was done by simply removing all the desks and laying mattresses on the floor that were donated by people in the area.  Inside, the smell of bleach was heavy in the air.

Right now, there were twelve mattresses and eight of them were occupied.  Of the eight, Jason was pretty sure that six would die within the next day or two.  Mr. Farmer would likely go first; Jason wanted to see if he had died while he was outside checking on Lucia.

The inside of the hospital was kept dark due to the window coverings and the lack of electricity for lights.  At night, they kept a solitary candle burning.

The treatment regimen for the sick people was simply to keep them hydrated and to feed them some liquid nourishment if they were conscious.  Most of them had developed pneumonia that didn't respond to Lucia's antibiotics.  By the time they were admitted to this room, they had high fevers and, as the end approached, fell into a sleep from which they would not awaken.  Mr. Farmer had been that way for the last two hours, his breathing heavy with liquid, too weak to cough.  Jason thought he sounded like he was drowning in slow motion.

As they entered, Lucia took a clean towel from a stack and wet it.  She would wipe every fevered forehead to provide a second or two of relief from the internal heat that was almost literally burning them alive.

No wiping was needed for Mr. Farmer.  His chest was still, his suffering over.

Lucia checked his heartbeat with a stethoscope and said, "He's gone, Jason."  She went over to the corner and wept silently.

Jason marveled at how she could feel such anguish for an old man she never even knew.  Farmer had shown up the day before yesterday, already well along towards dying.  Jason knew she'd not spent any time with him, and yet here she was, weeping for him like he was her friend.  It was strange.

***

They didn't have any kind of wheeled cart to handle the bodies, so they used a wheelchair that had been kept in the church.  Jason pushed it over beside Farmer's body.  Now for the hard part - the dead people were lying practically on the floor; getting the body in the wheelchair could be a challenge.

Jason rolled Farmer over so that his body was balanced on its side.  He slipped his arms underneath the old man's and started to lift.  As he did that, Lucia appeared, sniffed and took his feet.  Together they placed him in the wheelchair.  She pushed on his chest to keep him from falling out as Jason wrapped an elastic bungee cord around him and the chair.  He gave her arm a squeeze.  "Be back in a minute," said Jason as he pushed the chair outside.

A small crowd of people waited in the street for the next meal.  They watched as Jason wheeled the body to the garage.  The church had owned a small bus that they used to pick up people who wanted to come to services, but were too old or frail to get their on their own.  The bus still worked, so they moved it out of the garage and left the large sliding door half way open so that the interior of the garage remained cold.  Sooner or later they would have to figure out something better to do with the bodies, but for now, the garage would do for storage.

Jason wheeled in Mr. Farmer and unhooked the bungee cord.  When he did, the old man fell out of the chair and landed face first into a tangled heap on the concrete floor.  "That'll leave a mark," he thought.

He dragged the body feet first and placed it with the others.  Instinctively, he made a count.  Mr. Farmer had just joined eight others.  Not bad when you consider that people had only started to get sick a very few days ago.  Jason knew that this scene would be playing out in hundreds of locations - places where families had gathered, at apartment buildings, in shelters set up in schools, in private homes both grand and common.

He pictured the Death Clock in his mind.  It spun very fast, the rightmost digits changing in a blur.

***

As Jason returned to the hospital with the now empty wheelchair, he thought of Lucia.  He considered himself lucky that an acceptable female was around.  He planned on having her, but knew he had to take it slow.  Right now, she was suffering from shock at how their lives had so suddenly changed; how they now woke up every morning wondering what new horrors were in store for them - and wondering if they would be alive by the time night arrived.  But she was human and a woman and at some point, her own needs would be apparent; her desire for physical love, her need to be protected, her longing to be held.  He was waiting for that moment to arrive.  There was something about her, some shield she had up, like she was afraid he might guess some sort of secret.  Their time together had been brief, but she never told him a single thing about her past.

He didn't show Lucia any greater attention that he did Dy or that foul mouthed Patti or any of the other females.  But he did go out of his way to be attentive and watchful for opportunities where he could help her.

Jason believed he was playing it just right.  He thought he detected a new level of comfort toward him from Lucia, one based on being glad he was around, one based on trust.  It was a good start.

As he reentered the hospital, she was kneeling beside a young girl.  They'd found her just yesterday, fever blazing, wandering the streets around the church.  Lucia had immediately started her on antibiotics.  They normally didn't work, but it was about all they had to try.  The girl hadn't spoken and none of them knew who she was or what happened to her parents.  She was probably about nine.

Lucia leaned over and when she did, her sweater rode up to reveal a small patch of skin on her lower back.  Jason felt himself respond to that sight.  He had a sudden vision of her; face down in bed, her ass in the air.  His hands were locked onto her hips as he thrust into her from behind, again and again.  He heard her cry out for more.

In his vision, her body had lost that extra weight; it was taught, strong.  As he pounded her harder and harder, she changed into Regina.  Suddenly Regina begged for him to stop.  She cried out that he was hurting her.  He thrust twice as hard until he saw blood run down her legs.

Lucia stood up and turned at the sound of his entrance.  The vision disappeared in an instant.

She smiled at him.  "She said she was hungry!  Jason, I think she's going to be all right!"

She was excited, feeling joy.  It was an almost forgotten emotion with them.  He went to her, arms outstretched and she met him.  They embraced over the little girl.

Mary Hammel sat at their table and cried.  Samantha had her arm around her shoulders, providing support, but a tear ran down her cheek too.  The news was beyond horrible.

Every night after dark, after the kids were long asleep, Vic and the two of them would scan the airwaves for news.  Yesterday, the station in Bozeman didn't come on the air and hadn't been heard from since.  Emril Perkins had been faithful in his broadcast ever since the initial EMP event, but he'd announced he had the flu and then, three days later, he and the station were off the air.  All three of them knew he was probably dead or dying.

Tonight, they found mostly ham radio operators on the air.  Before SHTF, there were over a million of them, most with their own transmitters and with technical skills to run them off a car battery.  But since they all had antennas that fed the destructive energy of the EMP event back to the radio, the great majority of those radios had been damaged beyond repair by the pulse.

A few hams managed to get on the air using older radios that had been stored away, often running on vacuum tubes.  One guy told how his two thousand dollar DSP rig with its dozen microprocessors was now a doorstop and his old Heathkit SB-100 was still working fifty two years after he built it himself, piece by piece.

A few of them tried to carry on conversations, but most were just reporting what they saw or heard.  Victor scanned the airwaves and found stations in Little Rock and Denver and Pittsburgh.  The news was the same everywhere - people were dying from the flu.  They were dying quickly and in large numbers.

Eerily, they all reported two things in common from every city.  First, there were fires all over.  They burned until they burned out on their own.  That was because of the second thing - there were no people to fight them.  People were either sick or they had locked themselves in their homes or apartments, hoping to either not get sick or to ride out the flu.  Either way, the streets seemed to be relatively empty.

Victor knew that would not last long.  The time would soon arrive when large numbers of people would have eaten all the food they had stored away in their pantries or refrigerators.  The military had distributed emergency rations to just about everywhere, but now it appeared that most of them were sick too.  No one reported any new deliveries of supplies.  The streets would have people in them again soon enough - hungry people.

The news from overseas hams was, if anything, worse.  By now, it was clear that both Russia and China and perhaps others had exchanged nuclear attacks.  No one knew what the conditions were in most of those places, but the silence was telling.

Hams living well outside of Paris and London reported mobs roaming the streets, looting, raping and killing.  Armed warlords were forming groups using weapons stolen from military warehouses.  Groups were declaring war on other groups.  Some new disease, not the flu, had sprung up and was raging throughout the continent.  So far, it hadn't killed many, but Victor suspected that was coming.  Densely populated cities with no pickup of trash would quickly become breeding grounds for rats.  The rats had been responsible for infecting and killing millions in the past and now likely would again.

Samantha wiped her eyes and sniffed, "It's not supposed to happen like this.  It too quick, too many people dying all at once."

Victor nodded, "Yeah, It's hard to explain.  For the flu to spread this fast, it must really be highly contagious.  I don't think anyone saw that coming.  Most people thought we might have a triggering event and then weeks of gradually declining civilization, followed by mass casualties.  But I don't know of anyone who thought the world with get hit with three things at once - the EMP attack, the flu and the wars overseas.  It looks like civilization has just disappeared and the dying is starting in earnest after less than two weeks."

Samantha shook her head in wonder and sadness, "Those poor people.  Most of them don't have a chance, do they?"

She looked at Vic and then Mary for an answer.  They both looked away.

***

Vic tuned the radio to twenty megahertz.  This was the frequency of WWV and was the only government owned station that seemed to be reliably broadcasting.  Normally, it broadcast the time, but yesterday it had started to ask listeners to check back for an important announcement.  Vic had checked it a couple of times today, but the same message was being repeated.

Tonight, however, the message was different.  "Due to the present emergency, station WWV has expanded its operations to include public safety information.  Tomorrow, January tenth, the President of the United States will address the nation at 8 p.m. eastern time.  Please alert all citizens who are capable of hearing this broadcast to tune in at this time.  All radio operators with working equipment as strongly encouraged to receive and then rebroadcast this important message.  That is all for now.  This message will repeat until the President speaks."

That was enough bad news for today.  Victor turned off the radio and went into their little bathroom to get ready for bed.

Mary was surprised to see Samantha pull on her heavy coat.  "Where are you going?"

"It's clear tonight with a full moon.  I thought I'd got out and see if I can find my Indian spirit guide.  I haven't been chosen by one yet.  I think it's time.  I'll just be watching the moon over by the kid’s tree house."

Mary's frowned at her.  She wasn't buying this for one second.

Samantha smiled and hugged her, fully encased in her warmest coat.  "Here I got this for you.  For your anniversary."

She took a silver thing out of her pocket and placed it in Mary's hand.  It was a picture frame and in it was a picture of Mary and Vic.  It had been taken in the garage.  Samantha must have taken it with her phone and without any flash because Mary didn't remember having her picture taken at all.

Vic was scowling at a car.  His hands were dark with dirt, his biceps bulging beneath his t-shirt.  Mary was standing off to the side, watching.  The expression on her face was one of contentment, of love.  It was unmistakable.

"Sam, I . . ."

She cut her off.  "Mary, I know we don't have a lot of privacy in here.  That's my real gift to you and Vic.  You go on now and tell your husband you love him on your anniversary.  I'll be back in a couple of hours.  Who knows, I might really be called by a spirit guide.  It could happen, right?"

Mary started to object, but instead she hugged Samantha, this time even harder.  "I love you," she said softly.  "And don't be out there freezing for two hours.  One will do."

Sam laughed and said "Love you too," as she left.

Victor head the door close as he came out of the bathroom.  He looked around.  "Where is she . . .?”

Mary's look stopped him in mid sentence.  She went to him and kissed him gently.  "Happy anniversary," she said.