Across the room, Daniel wasn’t doing much better. He was coughing even more now with the tube down his throat. His fever had climbed to 104.3 and his eyes were blank. Over the past few days, a thick beard had started to grow on his face. He didn’t have the energy to shave. The black man seemed like he was in a different place. He barely seemed to notice what was going on around him. Jensen was afraid he’d be digging two more graves before the week was over.
The white sheet was draped over Emmy’s face and trailed toward the ground as he walked slowly toward the new grave. The clay caked to his boots made them feel like they weighed several tons. Jess had brought another wooden cross over. She had scratched Emilia on it already, Emmy’s real first name. Emmy had been the last one to get sick, but the first to die. Jensen reflected again how nothing about this flu made sense.
Brent said a few words as she was laid to rest. They gently lowered the first shovels of dirt and clay onto the sheet. Neither Brent nor Jensen wanted to simply throw the dirt on her body. There was an irrational sense it could hurt her. Once her form was obscured by the reddish colored ground, they sped up. It was almost dark by the time they finished. Jensen was worn out, both physically and emotionally.
“I’m going to turn in for a little bit before I take watch,” he told Brent.
“Going to eat anything first?”
Jensen shook his head. He had no appetite. “Maybe later.”
Brent nodded. He understood a lot more than he said. The man seemed to notice everything and save his words for the right moments. “You did everything you could for her. You at least gave her a chance.”
Jensen hung his head. It didn’t feel like it at that moment. “I know I did. I just wish it had been enough.”
Brent didn’t say anything more, he just put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder for a minute and then walked back toward the cabin, leaving Jensen alone with his thoughts.
Jensen had set up sleeping bags on the back porch of the cabin. The sound of the stream they’d diverted trickled past, and he liked the soft lullaby of the water as it flowed by. As he walked, he saw Dave in the front seat of one of the Humvees. He gave the former Marine a small half-wave. Dave just nodded and continued to look past Jensen toward the trees and the line of graves along the edge of the clearing. He’d been sitting there since he first saw Jensen bring Emmy’s body out of the cabin and hadn’t moved.
When Jensen reached the back porch, he sat down on the edge and removed his boots. He banged them against the wooden planks a few times to dislodge as much of the mud as he could before he crawled into his sleeping bag. He didn’t even bother with the slowly drying mud on his pants. He was too tired. He fell asleep in moments.
When he awoke, the moon was high in the sky. He could see it reflecting off the gently burbling stream. He didn’t feel fully rested. Instead, he felt a tension which caused him to crawl out of his sleeping bag and pull his boots back on. It was quiet. He didn’t know the time, but felt like he should have been awakened for watch at some point. Jensen felt guilty that someone might have done a double shift to allow him to sleep. He wore his pistol while he slept, so he picked up his AR and moved toward the door.
He stepped inside the cabin and stretched. He was young, but sleeping on wooden boards still didn’t feel good. His back and side felt sore. He could see Sheila stretched out on the couch in the kitchen. She had to be exhausted. She’d spent the past several days caring for Daniel, Dylan, and Emmy. Abby was asleep in the chair next to Dylan, still holding his hand. Through the door, he could see light splashed across Marcy’s face as she slept in one of the bedrooms that didn’t have power. From where she rested, she could see Daniel’s form lying in bed in the living room.
That left Dave, Jess, and Brent. He peeked quickly into the other bedrooms and saw nobody. Jensen quietly opened the front door. He could hear two people conversing in a low tone. He could tell one of them was Jess, but he wasn’t sure about the other. The male voice turned out to be Brent. “Jensen, did you get enough sleep? We’ve got this covered.”
“I could use some coffee, but I think I’m good. You guys need to get some sleep, too.” He looked around, “Where’s Dave?” The silence stretched on for a few moments before he realized nobody had answered.
Jensen looked toward Brent in the faint light. “Dave?” The older man sighed. “He left.”
A jumble of thoughts filled Jensen’s brain. “What do you mean he left? Like a supply run or something?”
Jensen knew the former Marine wouldn’t have gone to find supplies in the middle of the night, but he was trying to find some way to make sense of Dave’s departure.
“No, not on a supply run” Jessica answered. “He said he was going back to Appling.” Jensen looked around quickly, suspicious that one of the tubs might be missing, but both of them stood solidly in the darkness. The Humvees were still there, too.
“Why would he do that?” Jensen was confused. It didn’t make any sense to him. They had food, they had electricity, they had weapons, they had water … this place was safe. Why would Dave abandon them to go back to Appling?
“Jensen, think about it. He’s a young man,” Brent said.
That didn’t help much with Jensen’s confusion. What did his age have to do with it?
Jessica noticed his confusion. “He didn’t want to stay here as the fifth wheel forever, so he went home. He was lonely.”
Jensen leaned against the wall. “He left a group of people and went out alone because he was lonely? That doesn’t make sense.”
Jessica sighed. “You’re dense. He wanted a girlfriend. I shut him down. Sheila shut him down. Marcy shut him down. Abby is with Dylan. And now Emmy is gone. He would have been alone forever up here.”
Jensen woke up after that. “He hit on you?”
There was fire in his veins now. He was ready to chase Dave down and have words with him.
“Settle down cowboy; it was years ago. He didn’t try anything.”
Jensen was all the way awake now. There was a strange energy pumping through his body. He was gripping his rifle almost tightly enough to leave marks on the grip.
“How do you know about the others? Did he tell you?”
Brent spoke up, but he was talking to Jessica, not Jensen, “He doesn’t have a lot of experience with women Jess, go easy on him.”
She snorted, “Clearly.” She turned toward Jensen. “Women talk, Jensen. He hit on Sheila right when we got here, and she turned him down. She’s not looking for another boyfriend. He hit on Marcy when you all left to get shipping containers. She shut him down cold. She’s got her eye on Mr. Daniel in there.”
“She does?” Jensen gasped.
Brent chuckled and spoke to Jessica again. “I told ya.”
She answered back. “I think it’s cute.”
Jensen’s face flushed in the dark. He was glad nobody could see him. He tried to defend himself. “I wasn’t really paying attention, you know.”
Brent laughed softly again. He was enjoying this. It reminded him of when he was younger. Women were still a mystery to him, but he’d learned a few things over the years. He was pretty sure Jensen was about to.
He was wrong; he was about to learn some more. “What’s so funny old man? Jensen’s been off fighting rednecks and getting us books and medicine. It’s not his fault he wasn’t around!”
Brent was caught off guard. He’d expected some more fun at Jensen’s expense, not an attack. He’d miscalculated, but his suspicion about Jessica and Jensen had certainly been confirmed. He attempted to divert, “Hey now, I’m not old. You all are just a bunch of babies.”
“Your gray hairs are gleaming in the moonlight,” was Jessica’s response.
Brent groaned. “Ouch, that cuts me deep. Can we go back to making fun of Jensen now?”
Jessica got up from her chair and came around to hug Jensen. “Only I get to make fun of him.”
Chapter 23
Dylan died two days later in t
he afternoon. Jensen and Jessica were in the clearing halfway down the hill using the cultivator with four remaining tines to dig up the ground. Like Abby and Dylan before them, they’d been finding ways to duck away from the cabin frequently. Jensen had to admit he now understood why Dave had departed.
It appeared the physical timeline of dating had been accelerated by the fall of their country, or perhaps it was because they were so often surrounded by death and were embracing life. Whatever the reason, they had several dates following the first one and each was better than the last.
That didn’t mean they could stop preparing for the future, though. They needed to get crops into the ground if they had any hope of eating after their packaged food ran out. It was disappearing faster than they thought it would.
Brent and Jensen had returned to Dahlonega again to bury Aaron and Sasha, and to scavenge all of the flour and baking items they could from the bakery. The bread Marcy made was already helping to provide variety and offset their rapidly depleting supplies.
When they returned from the field, Jessica’s short blonde hair was mussed up and they both had a gleam in their eyes that hadn’t been there a few days before.
Brent just shook his head; it was a story as old as the world. That gleam was dimmed, but not extinguished, when they saw him digging the 21st grave at the edge of the clearing.
They both went straight to him for the news rather than going into the cabin. He answered their question before they could even ask. “Dylan. About an hour ago.”
Jessica followed up quickly, “Abby?”
Brent motioned toward the cabin. “Marcy’s with her.”
She nodded, “I’ll go check on them,” and turned toward the cabin.
Jensen held out his hand for the shovel. He could see Brent had already been digging for a while. “Any change with Daniel?”
The older man handed the shovel over, clearly relieved, but said, “No change. He’s not doing well.”
The words hit Jensen hard, but he held out hope. The longer his friend fought, the better chance he’d have of beating the virus. He just had to hold out long enough.
“Jensen, he’s really not doing well. Maybe you should go up there. I’ll keep at it here.”
Jensen looked shocked but handed the shovel back to Brent and turned toward the cabin. If his friend didn’t have long, he was going to be there until the end.
Emmy’s bed lay empty and Dylan was covered with a sheet. Only Daniel remained among Sheila’s patients.
He pulled a chair next to Daniel’s bed and held his hand. “I know you can’t talk, so I’ll talk.” The tube down Daniel’s throat prevented him from saying anything. His breathing was clearly raspy even over the soft sound of the ventilator by the bed. “You’ve got to keep fighting this thing. You’re my best friend, and I need you.”
Daniel turned his head toward Jensen and weakly made the sign of writing on paper.
“You want to write something?”
Daniel nodded and his eyes followed Jensen as he searched for the cabin for a pen and paper. He returned with an envelope and pen. He put a textbook behind the envelope and held it up for Daniel so he could write.
“Don’t … be …” wrote Daniel. Jensen blinked back a tear. How could he not be sad? He was going to lose his friend. “… gay.”
“Really? Don’t be gay? This is the last time I’ll ever be nice to you.”
He could see the faint hint of a smile on Daniel’s face as the corners of his mouth lifted just a little. If he was going out, he was going out the same way he lived, as a smartass.
“If you live through this, I’m going to feed you nothing but MREs for a year. Then I’m going to find more and you’re going to eat those too.” He continued to threaten him and make fun of the Air Force for several more hours as he talked to him. While he sat there, he watched Jessica and Brent come for Dylan’s body. They waved him off when it looked like he was going to stand up. Marcy and Abby trailed off after them. They were gone for hours.
Sheila went in and out. There was little she could do aside from changing the IV bags. She looked like hell. She’d lost weight during the week and had dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. She’d been working 24/7 to save them, and so far she’d failed. He could see Marcy watching worriedly. Maybe Jessica had been right about her feelings for Daniel. Jensen leaned back in his chair and fell asleep to the soft sounds of the ventilator. Whir, hiss … whir, hiss.
Jensen sat there for the next day. And the next. At any moment, Daniel could follow Emmy and Dylan, and he’d find himself digging another grave. He watched as Sheila powered on one of the laptops from the CDC tent in hopes of finding a way to help. With only one patient left, she could spare a few moments to eat and shower. She could spare some time to research.
Like any government agency with official computers, the username and password were taped to the laptop. In the field, the last thing they wanted was to lose the ability to log onto a computer. It was firmly against the rules, she was sure, but she welcomed the information as she booted up the computer and logged on.
Sheila clicked through the warning banner; she doubted anyone out there was monitoring, especially since she wasn’t hooked up to any sort of internet. She confirmed that her unauthorized use of the computer could result in significant penalties or prison time. The background showed the Center for Disease Control. Jensen had been right.
She scanned through documents as she looked for anything which might help save Daniel. What methods did they use? Did they give additional antivirals? EPO? Were there any additional drugs that could be used to help?
One folder held a number of patient reports. Their names were used once, on the first page, but after that they were referred to only by patient numbers. Leslie Clark, patient 00143. John Davis, patient 00076. Lyndsay Stewart, patient 00041. All deceased. She clicked through rapidly and went to the last page each time, but none of those patients had survived.
What chilled her to the core were the dates. All of them had died almost a year before, in May. That was months before the vaccinations which had supposedly started the pandemic. She could only come up with one conclusion; the pandemic hadn’t been an accident. It was intentional. The CDC had known about this virus; it wasn’t some wild mutation.
In the background, another box popped up. She hadn’t clicked anything. Concerned, she minimized the report she was looking at. It was a connection status. The blue bar crawled across the screen toward 100%. In a panic, she closed the screen and pulled the plug, hoping to put it into sleep mode and stop the connection attempt. Then she pulled the battery out. She had no way of knowing if it had worked, or if the laptop had made a call out.
“Jensen, Marcy, get everyone in here. We have a problem.” They both gave her curious looks, but returned shortly after with Brent, Jessica, and Abby.
Jessica was the first to ask. “What’s going on?”
Sheila breathed deeply, she looked scared. “You got this laptop from the college?”
Jensen was the one to answer. “Yeah, I got it from the tent with the antivirals.”
Sheila looked at him with fear in her eyes. “I looked at the patient reports. They all died last May.”
Brent broke in. “That can’t be right. The pandemic didn’t start until the end of October.”
Sheila looked at them. “I’m sure, they all died of heart failure or hypoxia in May. The CDC knew about this virus.”
“Let me see,” Brent went on. “Maybe the dates were wrong or something.” He looked at the unplugged cable and the battery resting on the table next to the closed laptop. Sheila shook her head, “Don’t turn it on. It started trying to establish a satellite link.”
That got their attention. The wireless networks were down, but there would still be satellites in the sky capable of transmitting. “If this was intentional and the computer dialed out, someone will know that we know. And they might know how to find us now.”
They spent the rest o
f the afternoon trying to figure out what to do with the computers. Marcy wanted to throw them in the river in case there was some sort of tracking device. Brent wanted to turn it back on and try to disable the satellite link before it could start. They searched the outside of the laptop for any sort of plugin communications device, but there was nothing. It had to be something inside the computer.
Jessica was ready to pack up and leave. Anyone willing to slaughter most of America was not someone she wanted to wait around to meet. The others weren’t so ready to go. They had Daniel to think about. There was no way of knowing if the connection had been made, or if there was even anyone left to receive it. Atlanta, and the CDC, were gone.
It took them a moment to realize the heart monitor had stopped. The constant sound of Daniel’s heart beating had been with them for days, but now the machine was silent. They looked toward his bed, fearing the worst, but he was sitting up with his feet swung over the side of the bed onto the floor. As they watched, he pulled the tube out of his throat, almost vomiting as he did so.
In a hoarse whisper, he said, “Bring me the laptop.”
Daniel was still weak, but he was functioning. He went over the laptop carefully and used a small screwdriver to pop out the communications device screwed into the space usually reserved for a second battery. “I’ve worked with computers before. Media exploitation.” He was still coughing a lot, but his breathing was slowly improving. “You can use it now. It can’t dial out.”
He wheezed a little bit. “Now I need a shower and some clean clothes. I stink.”
Jensen stood up. “I’ll help you, bud.”
Daniel glared at him, “What did I tell you? Don’t be gay.” He struggled to his feet, wobbling a little bit. “I’ve got this.” He turned to Sheila, “Find out what the hell’s on this computer.” He pointed toward the satellite link: “Don’t do anything with that. We might be able to use it.”
As he wobbled toward the bathroom. Marcy appeared with clothes from the bedroom. She placed them on the sink and started the shower before she stepped back out, offering her arm to the man who was easily twice her size. He gratefully accepted it and allowed himself to be led into the bathroom. Jensen watched the door, expecting her to come back out. It took him a while to realize she wasn’t going to.
Tomorrow's Dawn (Book 2): Fractured Paradise Page 17