Alone

by Jennifer Reynolds

  I look into the small acre of land just beyond the back gate at all the small pieces that had once been grave markers lined up so perfectly. The small, makeshift cemetery is creepy and sad.

  Pulling my coat tighter around me, I walk up and down the rows, reading the names and dates that are still legible. The markers are plain and crudely crafted. I do not have any flowers to decorate them.

  Thick clouds fill the sky, but there will be no snow. Not this Christmas.

  If I let myself I would stay out here all day, talking to them, watching over them, but I can’t live life that way. Reluctantly, I go back in the house and pull the thick bundle of pages I’ve been guarding with my life for years out of my bag. I do it every day, but haven’t been able to bring myself to read the story.

  Today will be the day, though. It just feels right. Feels like it is time.

  I crawl back under my blankets and force myself to read aloud the first line, “This is the story of the end of civilization and the birth of a new world and its imminent demise.” The words immediately take me back to the day I decided we needed a history of how this all began. I laugh at how overly dramatic I was despite the fact that the words are true.

  Part I: The Sickness

  I opened my eyes today

  to a world I have never known.

  I saw myself as someone I never wanted to be.

  I’m not sure when this new person came.

  When it took over.

  The eyes are dark and tired.

  The smile has faded.

  The complexion is pale and emotionless.

  Lines tell stories of things that have happened.

  Stories of all the changes.

  The loneliness is all that is left,

  of a life I cherished so deeply.

  New –

  Introduction

  This is the story of the end of civilization and the birth of a new world and its imminent demise. The story is an epic one, covering more than a hundred years and exploring the lives of those few who have somehow survived the largest plague pandemic the earth has ever seen. The account deserves a better storyteller than me. The story deserves someone who was part of the political powers that brought about the whole mess. Someone who knows more about the ‘hows’ and ‘whys,’ or at the very least someone who lived through it all. Not someone who was born nearly seventy years after the fact. Not someone who barely understands the world and its language before its destruction.

  Unfortunately, I’m all you have. I’m not a historian. I’m not even a true scholar. I’m simply the leader of a small community striving to survive.

  I inherited the position from my mother, who inherited it from her mother, who inherited it from her mother. We aren’t a monarchy. The entire community actually votes on all major issues. Despite this fact, I still have the unfortunate position of being the one most come to with the community’s minor problems. I do my best to make decisions that are best for my people. Yet, when I feel strongly that something is beneficial or isn’t beneficial for my people and others don’t agree, I use my pull to persuade most to support my decisions.

  The women of my family have always held this position. Not out of hatred towards men, but out of the fact that my family tends to only bear females, and the position keeps getting passed down from one daughter to the next. Although, technically, now that I am of age, I share the position with my mother. She is trying to teach me a sense of respect for the position by leaving everything up to me. The tradition is an annoying one that occurs when we turn twenty-five, but I don’t think I would truly trust anyone else to do it.

  As you are probably gathering, I have come to my position reluctantly, kicking and screaming the entire way. Not because I don’t love my town, I do, I just don’t want this responsibility. I’m educated, not as formally as people used to be, but I can read and write on what Eve’s people might have considered a college level, so perhaps I will be able to chronicle these events in a manner that will be comprehensible. I’m of course taking into consideration that you, my hypothetical reader, have also had a decent enough education to read and understand these words.

  I’m compiling this from stories that Eve, my great-great grandmother, has passed down or the occasional diary entry she tried to keep. Ever since I have taken up this position, I have had this feeling deep down in my stomach that something is wrong or is about to go wrong, but those feelings never made me feel the overwhelming need to write our history. Nope, it took this threat to make me do so.

  I try to appear calm and in control. That doesn’t mean I’m not worried, not scared. Now, more than ever, I wish that someone else had this job. That someone else had to protect these people. With that said, I obviously feel that we have a good chance of surviving or I wouldn’t be writing this. Right? What would be the point otherwise?

  My faith in our survival is due to the fact that the survival rate of our infants is increasing with every generation. Some believe that the virus is still floating around us even though the death rate caused by it is almost non-existent. We are dying of other things now. Things like influenza, appendicitis, a wide range of bacterial infections, accidents, and even murder.

  Because of the strength of our founding members, Eve in particular, we are one of the few groups that actually have people we consider doctors. The theory our doctors have is that the longer we survive the more our bodies are changing, adapting, and developing antibodies that are helping future generations to become immune to the virus that killed over seven billion people nearly seventy years ago. They have made great advances in other fields thanks to the technology and literature left behind by Eve’s generation, which has saved many lives, but their expertise is limited to helping just a few groups. Only on rare occasions do they get to help the smaller bands because most of them don’t trust anyone outside of their own group.

  Eve taught tolerance and acceptance. She tore down boundaries that those who lived in the world before the sickness had built. She played the role of leader very carefully, but with authority. Of course, we are very much human, so we will never have the perfect world she strived for, and she knew that, but she saw a chance to change the world, and in many ways, she did. We have had our drunks, our drug addicts, and bums, and we have strict laws about such things. Fortunately, not much has happened over these last fifty years for us to need to enforce our laws too strictly. We have had our fair share of sicknesses and natural disasters, which have become a part of our day-to-day struggles.

  There have been stories of other communities feuding, even having wars, but for the most part, we have lived in harmony with those around us. Since the sickness, there have been rebel groups that have pilfered the land and invaded communities. They have usually been small bands that their opposition easily took down, which meant most of us didn’t need to worry about them.

  Now though, a treaty between three of the largest groups of rebels has brought them together, and they seem to be trying to systematically take down all major communities. We have yet to discover their reasons for doing this. It might have something to do with power or desperation. I believe it has more to do with simple blood lust. These people come from generations of damaged, isolated, and deranged people who have lost their humanity.

  Eve would be angry if she knew it had come down to this and no one cared enough to continue her legacy. It would make everything she had worked for seem as if it was all done for nothing. We owe our lives to her. To her courage. Her determination. Her strength. Her love.

  Eve was born right here in Richardson to Sadie and Ross Hayes. She was the youngest of four children. She was the baby, and her family treated her as such. She came into the world in a hospital not a mile down the road from the house I’m living and writing in.

  She passed peacefully during the night in her sleep three rooms down from the one I currently occupy not even a year ago. In some ways, this will be more of a tribute to her than a history of the town and our world, but I will d
o my best to include all the relevant information I can. She wouldn’t have wanted me to focus primarily on her, but it is only through her eyes that I can tell most of the story; because it is the only way we know it.

  —Evey Nichol

  I – Birth and Death

  Davidson County News

  Tuesday, January 2, 2024

  RICHARDSON

  Former National Guardsman Held for Questioning in Multiple Deaths

  By Bonnie Smith

  Senior Staff Writer

  Three people died suddenly while waiting for medical attention at Davidson County Memorial Hospital early Monday morning. Davidson County Police took former Staff Sergeant, Donald A. Murray, 40, of Richardson into custody yesterday for questioning in the three deaths.

  Davidson County Memorial Security Officer, James T. Freeman, was in the process of detaining Murray when the deaths occurred. Freeman said that he entered the emergency room in time to see Murray uncap a small plastic vial and pour the white, powdered contents in front an air conditioner vent. Finding the situation suspicious, Freeman radioed for assistance and approached Murray, who did not attempt to flee the scene.

  Two-year-old Austin M. Blake of Richardson died in the E.R. waiting room at approximately 5:45 a.m., Monday. Blake’s mother, Emily Blake, said she brought her son to the E.R. that morning because he was running a fever of 104 degrees, and her doctor’s office was closed for the holiday. “He was sleeping one minute,” said Mrs. Blake. “Then all of a sudden he started choking.” Several E.R. nurses rushed to his aid, but were unable to clear his airway in time.

  Seconds after the two-year-old started choking, Charles P. Sloan, 55, also from Richardson, died in the waiting room of massive blood loss. Sloan’s wife, Abigail Sloan, brought her husband to the E.R. after an accident with a garbage disposal.

  As the nurses, who had previously been trying to revive Blake, rushed to assist Sloan, eighteen-year-old Kyle C. Moore of Kingston, died from what doctors later claim was a blood clot in his leg. Moore and an unnamed minor came to the E.R. after suffering a minor single-vehicle accident on County Line Road 54. The unnamed minor was not injured in the crash. Barbara Clay, the admitting nurse on duty yesterday morning, claims that Moore seemed to have only suffered a broken leg.

  The hospital has reported that there have been more than one hundred patient, employee, and visitor deaths over the course of the last twenty-four hours. At this moment, Murray is the only suspect in the deaths of the three individuals that were in the waiting area when he emptied the vial.

  Murray is refusing to comment on the vial’s contents. Due to the number of deaths that proceeded Murray’s uncapping of the vial, the cap has been sent to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia for further examination.

  When questioned on whether Murray will be formally charged with any of the deaths that occurred in Davidson County Memorial since yesterday morning, Richardson Police Chief, Tony Scott, said, “That will all depend on what the C.D.C. discovers.”

  Neither local police nor the F.B.I has commented on whether the events at Davidson County Memorial are related to the other reports coming in throughout the state of sudden deaths at local hospitals. No other witnesses have come forth claiming to have seen any other suspicious activity at Davidson County or in any of the other hospitals.

  As of this morning, Davidson County Memorial Hospital is under quarantine while officials investigate the link between Murray’s vial and the recent rash of deaths. Bill Yocum, a spokesperson for the hospital, stated yesterday afternoon that he hopes the hospital will reopen soon. “So far the D.C.P.D has not found evidence of any airborne pathogens in the hospital and have yet to find anything relating any of the deaths together,” Yocum stated. “If the C.D.C. finds anything alarming in the vial, Homeland Security and the F.B.I. will investigate further. If they do not, we will reopen our doors to the public.”

  -----------

  The day was the first day of the New Year, and for Eve it had started too early, considering everything she had done the previous night. Rolling over in bed, she pulled her thick, down comforter up over her and tried to sink further into her memory foam mattress. The movement caused her to groan as her head began to swim, indicating that her hangover had arrived. A post-alcohol-bender headache and a possible day of vomiting wasn’t what she had had in mind for New Year’s Day, but that was the kind of day she was looking at.

  “Hello.” Eve’s voice sounded raspy and dry as she answered her incessantly ringing phone.

  “Eve, it’s your mother,” Sadie said, sounding sleepy and anxious.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” The tone of her mother’s voice jolted Eve to complete consciousness, making the pounding in her head worse.

  “Nothing, nothing’s wrong. Your sister is in labor. Gene just called. Her water broke an hour ago.”

  “But that’s great news. Why do you sound upset?” The excitement she also felt didn’t show in her hoarse tone.

  “They waited until they got to the hospital to call.”

  “Mom,” she said with a chiding tone. Eve’s mother was one of those mothers that wants, no, needs to be a part of everything their children do. Despite the fact that her oldest daughter was twenty-six years old and married, she felt she should be the one taking Jayna to her doctor’s appointments and birthing classes.

  “I know. I know,” Sadie said a little put off by the fact that her children were all grown up and none seemed to need her anymore.

  “Are they at Davidson?” Eve asked to distract her mother from her self-pitying. Gene and Jayna lived in Kingston, the next town over. There was a hospital there, but the maternity ward at Davidson was better.

  “Yes. Third floor. Delivery room three.”

  “I’ll be there in thirty.”

  “You live five minutes from the hospital.” The words were an accusation more than a statement.

  “I know this, but I really need to shower.”

  “Fine.” Sadie and Eve had a don’t ask, don’t tell agreement when it came to some of the things Eve did in her private life. The agreement enabled Sadie to pretend that Eve was still her sweet baby girl. “Please hurry.”

  “I will.” Eve had promised Jayna that she would be there for the birth of her second child, and she would be. Eve hit the END button on her phone and looked at the time. It was exactly 6:05 a.m. “Oh, this is going to be fun,” she mumbled to herself. Eve covered her head with a pillow and shut her eyes, wishing for just one more second of sleep. Three hours in a Crown and Coke coma wasn’t a sufficient amount of time to sober a person, she thought. Grunting, she rolled over, crawled out of the bed, and stumbled over a pile of dirty laundry to the bathroom.

  The toilet seat was freezing, but down, a sign that Doyle, her boyfriend, was still passed out on the couch. Her brain only registered this because she hadn’t fallen into the bowl. Any other morning her roommate and neighbors would have heard her shrieks throughout the apartment. But the simple jerk her body gave as her butt brushed the cold seat was enough to send a jolt of pain through the back of her skull, effectively silencing any noise she would have made.

  After taking a twenty-minute pee, only a fourth of which she spent actually urinating, the other three-fourths of the time she spent falling asleep and jerking herself awake a dozen or so times before falling onto the floor and busting her head on a plastic trash bin.

  Dragging herself off the bathroom floor, she decided that a lukewarm shower would be the best way to wash the night off. She stuck to washing the essentials to make the shower as quick as possible. She wouldn’t even have bothered with the shower if she hadn’t reeked of cigarette smoke, weed, and about three different types of beer one or another of her fellow partiers had “accidentally” spilled on her. If she had showed up at the hospital smelling the way she had, her mother would have never forgiven her.

  Once she was out of the shower, she threw on sweat pants, a T-shirt, a grey long sleeve thermal, and pulled a black knit
cap over her wet head. Before sneaking out the door, she scribbled a note to Doyle, letting him know where she was and asking him to meet her at the hospital as soon as he was up. Hannah, her best friend and roommate, had gone home for the holiday break, so she would have to call her later with the news.

  ----------

  Eve arrived at the hospital just as her mother was getting out of her own car. She and her mother shared the same unexplainable fear of parking decks, so both of them had parked on the top level of the deck behind the hospital. Eve honked her horn once to get her mother’s attention.

  “Why are you just now getting here?” Eve asked as she got out of her car. She squinted against the harsh morning light. Ignoring her mother’s disapproving look, she adjusted the dark sunglasses she had dug out of her glove box. The winter morning sun hadn’t been overly bright, but it had been bright enough to sting her tired eyes and keep her from opening them wide enough to drive.

  “I had phone tree duty. It took longer than I would have liked. I woke up quite a few cranky, hung-over people.”

  Eve turned her head away from her mother and killed a half a bottle of water, purposefully ignoring her mother’s examining gaze.

  “I’m sure you know just how they feel,” her mother continued sarcastically and turned to the stairs that led down to the front of the hospital.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about,” Eve said sheepishly, then winced at the dull ache in her head.

  “I’m sure you don’t. Anyway, I sent your father on ahead of me to be with your sister.”

  “You know if you would just use your phone you could have made those calls from the hospital.” Eve’s mother was the only person Eve knew who refused to carry a satellite phone. Her father had the three of them on a plan, but her mother refused to carry her phone anywhere. If Eve had to guess, the phone was in the junk drawer in the kitchen with a dead battery and that is saying something considering the battery life on those things last for months.