Chapter Three

         I watched the virus try to attack my cells and held my breath, waiting. And then something happed that I’d never seen before.  The virus died. As soon as it penetrated the cell wall it died.  I had no idea what that meant, but it couldn’t be good.  If anyone from FEAD ever found out I’d wish I was dead long before I was even locked in one of their ‘facilities’.

         FEAD researchers had reputations to rival Mengele, well deserved reputations. My body shuddered, skin tightening with goose bumps and the hairs on the back of my neck tried to dance away all on their own. Breath coming shallow and fast made me dizzy when I stood and started looking for the incinerator, but I couldn’t quite get it under control.

         The small red box containing a medical waste disposal had been kicked under a bed and knocked on its side.  It was heavy and awkward to pull out and sit upright, but worked fine when I slipped the slide with my blood into small tray.  That let me finally take me a deep breath again and I stood up, swaying a little when my vision grayed out. 

         When the blood pounding in my ears subsided and I was able to think again I gave the tent another look.  Not much was left.  Taking my time and searching every box was probably a good idea but I couldn’t stand the thought of spending a single minute more there than I had to. 

         The blanket I’d been wrapped in had fallen unnoticed to the floor at some point so I shook it out and laid it down.

         Dumping everything I could find of use took only a few minutes and it made an unwieldy package, but there was no choice.  There wasn’t much in the way of supplies, some basic tools, bandages, a few vials of meds that didn’t require refrigeration.   Only a single manual IV set up hadn’t been used so I grabbed that, the two saline bags and single ‘banana bag’ that I found.   It all got tied up in the blanket, but the weight and size of the bundle was still depressingly small.

         The last two things I grabbed were my chart at the foot of the bed I’d been in and the bolt-gun.

         My fingers trembled just a bit when I untied the door flaps on the tent, but I got it done and stepped outside.  I stopped before I’d even gotten a single foot out.  It was dark.  I’d never seen it so dark out, not since I was kid.  No lights anywhere.  Not even any fires.   Clouds covered the stars and there was no moon visible, so I couldn’t even guess what time it was.

         A silent parking lot stretched out in front of me, empty of cars, and continued all the way to a gated drive on one end and a small hospital on the other end.  Hills rose on every side of the lot and I could vaguely make out some sort of huge pine trees covering the landscape as far as I could see. 

         There was no question of even trying the hospital.  If the tent had been empty, the hospital would be too.  Empty of anything useful anyway. The thought that there might still be a few FEAD agents still inside somewhere had me ducking back through tents opening. 

         There was nothing to do but run, as fast and as quiet as I could.  So that’s what I did, straight for the gate across the narrow drive.  My bare feet slapped the pavement and were torn by gravel, shredded by who knows what, but I couldn’t really feel it.  The pain was a distant second to the fear gnawing at me and clawing its way up my throat.  The gate was closed, but not locked so I slid out of as small a gap as I could make and ran as fast as I possibly could down the road.   

         It wasn’t long before my sides started burning and my lungs ached, but I kept going, fleeing in sheer panic from the monsters that had been left behind.  I almost missed the tiny gravel driveway and it’s equally tiny wooden sign.  The night was too dark too read the sign, but whatever it was had to better than running down a deserted road barefoot and wearing a thin paper gown.

         Bending over to catch my breath I had an idea…if there were still FEAD agents there and they were actively looking for ME I was dead anyway and no amount of running would save me.  But if they were just looking for anyone I might have a chance.  So I started hobbling down the road again about twenty feet past the almost hidden drive I rubbed the blanket on a bush that grown almost out onto the blacktop until a few threads caught on it.  A few inches past that I grazed my shoulder against the bush until the gown tore and left a strip of paper behind.   And then I limped back to the little driveway.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

         “Hey…kid?!”  My skin nearly leapt right off my bones at the sound of the whisper.  I whirled around and almost fell over when I caught sight of the familiar black and red scrubs before I was done turning. My heart hammered away in my chest making me dizzy and sick, and I couldn’t get a single coherent thought to form.

         “Ssssh.  It’s ok.  Not gonna hurt you.  You’re not black tagged. I was just checkin’ in on ya.”  The tall, hazy figure stepped forward and put a black gloved hand on the plastic, getting as close as he could without actually coming through the plastic.  The sight of a red bolt-gun handing from a nylon belt on his hip stole my voice so I nodded, electing to keep quiet.

         “Talkative kid huh?”  The man bowed his bald and coughed long and hard before continuing.  “That’s fine, that’s ok.  Ya’ll needs to just listen up right now anyways.”  His head came back up and when his eyes met mine I could see they were puffy and dark, swollen.

         “It’s like this.  You been out for a while.  You were triaged for research.”  He snorted at that and shook his head again.  “Research.  Damn sixteen year old kid. Research.  Buncha assholes.”   He sighed and I blinked, not used to language like that from the generally punctilious FEAD agents.

         When I didn’t respond he shrugged and continued “Well, the day we picked up was months ago. You had a bad head injury swelling of the brain…yada yada yada.  When you didn’t wake up the powers that be send you here.  M-flu resistants’ are pretty damn thin on the ground these days so research it was.  Anyways, I was transportin’ ya, cause god knows them damn Federal Emergency Aid Department agents weren’t gonna do it!   Anyways, so there I was on a damn FEAD Life Flight with ya when, Life Flight, what a freakin joke…”  He wavered a bit on his feet and coughed again.

         “No more time.  Right.  You’re here. Everyone’s dead. No fallout here.  But other places are bad.  Wars still on.  Don’t you trust no one in blue helmets or any kind of uniform understand?”  He stared at me and I still couldn’t speak so I just nodded. 

         He nodded back and continued with his story “Just after the bombs dropped people started getting sick again.  Mutagenic Influenza strain E of all things.”

         “Strain E?” I finally asked after he’d paused for several minutes.

         “Yeah. Some nutjob ran M-flu through a damned elephant.  Now we got strain E.  Anyways, they never got a chance to test it on ya, so’s I don’t know if you’re resistant to this one.  Best be careful.”  The tall man started coughing again, his whole body racked with the violence of it.  When he finally stopped and looked up me blood covered the mask over his mouth and his eyes leaked bloody tears.

         “You gotta find a way outta the city.  I can’t help you no more kid. Find some food.  Be careful where ya get your water.  Don’t talk to no one. You gotta be extra careful of…”   He started coughing again and fell to his knees, and then over to his side.  He kept coughing, harder and harder, I could hear the fluid building up in his lungs and shuddered as I backed away. I did not want to die like that.

         He coughed for so long that I lost track of time and finally crawled back up on the bed and wrapped the thin white blanket around my shoulders.  It seemed to take forever for him to stop. When the painful sounding spasms finally did cease he was still. I began to gather my courage and psych myself up for the leaving the safety of my little plastic bubble. 

         His hand twitched and jumped, staring at him, not sure if he was dead or not.  When his fingers feebly scrabbled at his belt for the bolt-gun I understood what he wanted and almost cried.  I knew I could do it, I had before…everyone in any kind of pre-med courses had to do it their first week of classes. ‘Death Orientation’ class was a pass/fail course. It was also a cheap way for the government to weed out people who couldn’t handle medical sciences and a cheap way to get rid of death row inmates.

         Taking a deep breath and squaring my shoulders I clutched the blanket a little tighter and stepped forward.  The plastic shivered when I touched it and finally moved aside, it was heavier than I remembered. He was right there at my feet, still trying to get the heavy duty velcro on his belt undone. I knelt and gently moved his hand away, knowing I was probably exposing myself, but I couldn’t just leave him to die.  M-flu was quick but excruciating, and no one knew that better than I did.

         When I tore the bolt-gun he smiled, the mask he wore was so soaked in blood that it leaked when his face moved and I shivered.  The device was heavy and felt too big for my hands.  But I pressed the barrel against is temple in just the right place and pulled the trigger, holding it for the required ten seconds.  The little wires inside the long bolt did their job and the bolt slid back into the gun, the small kick back letting me know that the six inch long bolt was back in the gun.  I stripped the harness off his body and stood, trying not whimper.  Fear gripped me harder than it had ever done, save for that day on the farm. 

         After taking a deep breath I looked around the rest of the tent.  Open, empty crates of medical supplies lay scattered haphazardly around the floor, tumbled onto long stainless steel tables, piled on empty beds.  Empty packages covered the ground so thickly I couldn’t tell if the ground was bare or carpeted in astro-turf.  No bodies.  Plenty of dried blood.  Just as much fresh blood, still running thick and sluggish down nearly every available surface.

         It took a few minutes to find what I was looking for.  Against the far side of the tent walls, next to the canvas flaps still tied shut were long metal tables with microscopes neatly lines up and ready for use.  It didn’t take me long to sit down and collect samples from both myself and the tiny built in ampoule on the bolt-gun.  Every model was required to capture and hold up to twenty five samples, and when it was full it couldn’t be used again until empty.

        

         Medical school had changed by the time I enrolled.  From the first day you were expected to absorb and use the knowledge that had been reserved for much more advanced classes before the First Wave.  The whole world had changed of course; twenty five percent of the population dying within forty-eight hours had made sure of that.  But very little had changed as much as the way medicine was taught and practiced.

         So I knew exactly how to test my own blood for resistance to the new strain of M-flu.  That was first week kinda stuff.  Collecting the samples and combining them on the slide was over with fast and then all I had to do was look.

Prologue

        I never even noticed when the end began.  Too wrapped up in my own problems I guess.  Looking back all these years later I cringe at my own stupidity, but then age does that to you.

         

           You asked me to write down what it was like in the beginning, but I'm no author really. And time plays with a person’s memories, changing them...twisting them into unrecognizable things.  If a crowd witnesses a crime and you ask what people what saw you'll get a different story from every person there even moments after the fact.  Ask those very same people for the same story years later and what they tell you will be completely different from what they said the first time around.

         

          You said you wanted "Just the facts, Gramma!"  Well I won't burden you with 'facts'.   Truth ain't nothin but a story everyone agrees on anyway.  What we used to call a 'social contract' back in my college years. 

         So no 'facts'.  Just a story.   My story, if you want it so bad.  Borin as it may be.

         I grew up poor.  My parents, grandparents and my two older brothers worked our butts off on a farm that had been in the family for generations.  Both of my parents were only children and they a shared a deep and abiding love for the land with their parents and my brothers that never really understood. 

         They never complained about getting up an hour before the sun rose to feed the animals.  They loved the early mornings, I hated it.  I hated the cows and goats and the pigs and the chickens and the crops and the smell of coffee. 

         What I did love was books.  I read everything I could get my hands on.  I’d hide in the barn in a little fort built of hay bales reading my brothers school books and thinking I was so clever for getting away with it.  I’d read anything.  And then remember it forever.  Anything I read just stuck in my head.  All those printed words clinging like burrs in my brain.  I read both versions of the Bible we kept in the house, all the manuals for all the farm equipment, the veterinary guides, the cookbooks my mother kept in the hutch in the kitchen, cereal boxes at the breakfast table, everything.  It was never enough.

         When I was six Gramma started taking me into town with her.  She showed me the library.  I thought I’d done died and gone to Heaven. After that first visit she’d just leave me there while she did her shopping or played bridge with the ‘church ladies’.  All anyone had to do get me to finish my chores was threaten to take away those library trips.

         Like my brothers, I was home-schooled.  And I was taught the running of a farm.  I learned everything and learned it well to keep the books coming into the house. 

         It all came crashing down during the first wave of M-flu pandemic. Everything was fine; my tenth birthday came and went with a cake and the gift of a ‘tablet’.  Then Lucas started coughing while he was milking the cows one morning.  By dinner time that night everyone was dead. 

         I called 911 over and over for hours but no one ever answered.  No help came.  The next morning I had a hard time crawling out of Moms lap.  She’d gotten cold and stiff sometime during the night after I’d cried myself into an exhausted sleep.  I rode Butterscotch into town and tried to find help.  Took me a few days.  They were bad days and the less said about that the better.

         Eventually I was taken into one of the state orphanages and there I stayed until I was admitted into a U of SC pre-med program.  I was going to be a virologist. I thought I was going to save world from another pandemic. I worked harder at my studies than I’d ever worked on the farm.  Worked harder on forgetting my past than I did my studies.

         TV was a distraction I didn't need I always told myself.  So were boys and parties and anything I deemed ‘frivolous’.  I was sixteen going on forty when the end began and I didn't even notice it. At least not until the air raid sirens went off.

Chapter One

         The pen flew across the room with enough force to embed itself into the cheap plaster and the notebook followed.  Almost growling with frustration I levered myself up off the floor and stomped the three and half steps across the tiny dorm room to retrieve them.  I was just bending over to pick up spiral bound paper when a scream like I’d never heard in my entire life split the air and my eardrums ache in response. 

         The unearthly racket got louder and louder and rose in pitch until I thought I would explode and then died down.  Shaking my head in confusion I tried to steady myself and the wail started ramping up again. It took a few minutes of the noise cycling before I figured out what it was, and before I noticed the sound of screaming and pounding feet under it all.  I panicked, straight up chicken-with-its-head-cut-off panicked. Screaming at the top of my lugs I ran right for the door, and bounced off twice as hard as I’d run into it.  Twice. Took me a few minutes for the simple physics to penetrate, when it finally did I threw open the door and rushed out into the river of terrified college kids.  I don’t even remember how it happened, one second I was trying to run for the exit with the crowd and the next second I was jolted awake.  

         Disoriented by the hushed whispers and rough swaying and forth I tried to struggle, to open my eyes, to ask what was happening.  None of it worked.  My body didn’t respond to my demands no matter what I tried.  After I’d exhausted myself without even so much as twitching an eyelid I started listening.

         “Female, Caucasian, approximate age fourteen.” The voice was strained, tired sounding and rough around the edges, male I thought.

         “Tag?” That voice was almost quiet to hear, resignation weighing down her words.

         “Red.” A sigh sounded right next to me ear and my body wanted to jump, but nothing moved.

         “Don’t worry sweetie…you’ll be ok. It’ll all be ok.” The rough male voice whispered so close to me that his breath stirred my hair a little.  Something warm and soft, sticky dripped down my forehead and I felt a smooth gloved hand brushing it away.

         My voice wouldn't speak and my hands wouldn't move, but my tears forced themselves out from under my closed lids and mingled with the tacky liquid on my face, thinning it enough to make it run in streaks all the way to my hair line.  Nothing hurts! I tried to say, tried to tell the voices that I was fine, and awake and there was no pain, but the blackness solidified and towed under.

         Waking up again hurt.  My head echoed the wail of siren superimposed over the sounds of a hospital.  The beeping of heart monitors and nurse call buttons were familiar noises for any pre-med student.  And they scared me.  The incessant beeping sped up with my heart.  I’d never been sick, never been a patient before, the prospect of being just another broken body for some doctor to fix was far more terrifying than the sirens or the panic at school had been.

         My eyes flew open and my mouth screamed, my torso dragged the rest of my upper body along for the ride when it flung itself forward.  Something tore at my left arm, just inside my elbow but the pain barely registered though my horror and fear. I had just enough time to realize that I was in a hospital bed surrounded by translucent plastic curtains before I crashed back down to the bed again.

         Panting and willing myself to calm down I tried to make sense of my surroundings.  The plastic curtains around the bed hung from a square framework of aluminum, not from the ceiling.  The ceiling was white and moved a little, as if in a breeze I couldn't feel.  There was a bloody IV needle dangling from left railing of the bed, and monitors and instruments were all built into the bed. 

         When I that little fact penetrated my panic I calmed down and started thinking.  The teaching hospital at the University couldn't afford that.  We had older pre-pandemic tech donated by the reclamation firms that either demolished or fixed up old buildings left empty after the M-flu. Blinking and wiping some sort of goop from my eyes I squinted at the ceiling and it was still twitching fitfully in irregular patterns.  A tent.  A white tent, the plastic curtains, automatic monitors and IV machines in the bed. 

         No private health firm could afford those stupid things.  Manufacturing was just too expensive.  And most government agencies couldn't either. Which meant I was in a FEAD tent. Fear crawled down and left me shivering, panting and determined to escape.