by J N Wood
They both spun around and started walking back to the school buses. Greg mumbled something into his radio. He was too far away for me to hear, but he was presumably telling a colleague to expect us on the other side of town. They disappeared through the gap in the buses.
’Seriously, what the fuck was that?’ I asked.
Before he could respond, an engine turned over and the middle bus started to move further forward, stopping when there was enough room for us to drive through. We squeezed our car through the gap and I waved to the two cops as we passed them.
Driving through the deathly quiet town centre of Estes Park, Jack said, ‘I need to get back home to Beth, I’ve not been able to get in touch with her since yesterday. I have to get a flight back now. I need to get to Denver.’
Things certainly had turned very strange.
‘Okay, hang on a sec. Let’s find out more of what’s happening first. Hopefully my phone will be working when I get Wi-Fi,’ I said, trying to reassure a very panicky Jack.
‘Sorry Chris but I have to get home. I can’t leave Beth on her own. She was pissed off that I came on this holiday. She’ll be fucking terrified. Hopefully it will be fine in a few days, but I don’t want to take the chance.’
I took a few moments to think it over, before sighing and sinking further into my seat.
‘Yeah I suppose so. But setting up road blocks for a fucking virus? Sounds like some kind of quarantine. What is this, 28 Days Later? We’ve only been gone for a day, and not even the whole day!’
With no other vehicles on the road we quickly reached the other side of the small town. In the distance, I spotted police vehicles rather than school buses being used as a roadblock, placed just before the road crossed over Lake Estes. One of the large SUVs reversed, giving us enough space to slip through. Jack raised his hand to thank the cops, and we drove out of Estes Park.
‘Ever experienced anything like that?’ I asked.
‘No, surprisingly enough.’ Jack gestured behind him with his thumb. ‘Do you reckon they’ll have all that shit in Boulder?’
‘What, the road blocks and the curfew thing? Dunno, maybe, what if they don’t let us back in? And what if there actually is some kind of curfew?’
‘Fuck, I don’t know,’ Jack answered. We sat in silence for a few seconds before he shook his head. ‘No, they’ll let us back in, we’ve got proof we’re staying there. It’ll be fine, and we’ll have to worry about any curfews later.’
‘Fuck’s sake. We’re only a day and a half into the holiday, this is really bad fucking timing,’ I said.
I could tell Jack’s smile was a forced one, his furrowed brow showed he wasn’t happy.
We sat mostly in silence for the rest of the journey. I tried tuning the radio into something that resembled news, but it was either static noise, or Taylor Swift songs on every station.
There was an empty feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t believe all this was happening, and the radio was really pissing me off. We desperately needed information. I’d forgotten how much I relied on smartphones for everything. If there was some kind of epidemic then surely there would be warnings everywhere, and experts on the radio telling us what we should be doing. Where were all the people from the government departments known only by acronyms? The ones I could never remember. I really regretted our decision to listen to a podcast on the drive up this morning.
Whilst fighting with the buttons on the radio, I also couldn’t stop thinking about Jack going back to California, and what I was going to do. I really did sympathise with him, but I was also pissed off the holiday was going to be ruined.
Yep, just being a bit selfish Chris.
I also felt a bit guilty at my immense relief that it wasn’t happening back home in England. Let’s hope the cops were right about that. I really needed to speak to Joanne to make sure she was safe.
We drove through the towns of Lyons and Altona. There were lots of cars travelling in the other direction, but more importantly for us, no more road blocks. We had relaxed slightly after not being stopped by any more cops, and at least we were nearing the safety of the flat.
The drive should have taken less than an hour, but after the chat with the cops, it was almost eight o’clock when we reached the outskirts of North Boulder. For the whole trip back, we had been travelling incredibly slowly, but Jack had refused my offers to take over the driving.
The sun had very much set by this time, but the street lights had been working, and there were plenty of houses with their lights on. Everything looked relatively normal.
However, as we drove further along the 36, I noticed temporary wire fencing had been placed at the entrances to the roads on our right.
‘Jack, have all the right turns been blocked off?’
‘Yep, all of them,’ he replied, with a slight tremor in his voice.
None of the roads were manned by police, but I was starting to worry again. We needed to make a left turn soon, and I couldn’t tell if it was clear or not. We cut across the empty road. Thankfully Jay Road had no fencing or anything else to block our path.
‘Maybe they just blocked off the centre of town,’ Jack supposed.
‘Yeah hopefully. Should we stop somewhere and get some supplies?’ I asked. ‘There’s nothing in our flat.’
Just then my phone started vibrating in the pocket of my shorts. I scrambled to get it out.
Five messages appeared on the screen, one after the other. I unlocked the phone and opened them.
‘I’ve got five texts. I think they’re all from Joanne.’ I quickly checked the dates and times that they had been sent. ‘Shite, they’re all from last night though.’
I read them to myself. Jack’s eyes were darting between me and the road in anticipation, so I read them out loud.
‘Chris, are you okay? Please call me when you get the chance, love you.’
‘Something really fucking weird is going on over there, is anything happening where you are?’
‘Please call me. I’m really starting to worry. They say it’s some kind of bird flu virus and people are dying, CALL ME!!!’
‘Nobody is talking about Colorado, is that where you are? My geography is shit, is Denver in Colorado? Or are you in Boulder, or is Boulder a State? Fuck, I’m panicking now.’
I slowly looked up from my phone. ‘Fuck’s sake. I even showed her on the map where I was going to be. We could really do with finding out what’s going on. Is your phone working?’
‘I turned it off to save the battery. It’s in my bag. We’ll be there soon though.’
I checked the news apps on my phone again, but none of them had updated since yesterday morning.
‘Didn’t you say five texts?’ Jack asked.
‘Yeah, but one of them was just from my mate Ian, telling me he’s caught up on Game of Thrones.’
‘Well that’s brilliant then. At least we know that very important information.’
‘That’s why I didn’t read it to you.’
We were soon driving down the Foothills Parkway, only a few minutes from our flat. There had been no more road blocks, but we’d seen lots of people running back and forth between their houses and cars, hurriedly throwing things into their vehicles. We only saw a couple of police cars. I expected them to tell us to get off the road but they just drove past.
‘Maybe the guy who owns the Airbnb will be in his house, we can get some info from him,’ Jack offered.
‘We haven’t seen him yet though have we? Maybe he goes away when he’s got guests.’
‘Maybe. Hopefully his TV is working,’ Jack said. ‘I couldn’t figure out how to get the one in our flat working this morning.’
By the time we turned onto MacArthur Drive, I realised I’d completely forgotten about stopping for supplies. I didn’t think it was at the top of Jack’s list of things to do anyway. Nobody was in sight, but there were still plenty of lights on in the houses. The owner of the flat had emailed me telling us not to park on his drive, but w
hen I noticed it was still empty, I told Jack to park the car on it anyway. I wanted us to be able to get away quickly if we needed to.
We gathered up all our stuff from the car, and swiftly entered the house.
Jack switched on the light in the living room and called out, ‘Hello, anybody home?’
A few moments passed, and all we received was silence, so we must have had the place to ourselves.
The ground floor of the house consisted of just two rooms, the lounge and the kitchen, both big rooms. I noticed a phone next to the TV and ran over to it.
Surely the landlines would still be working?
I lifted the phone to my ear, silence. I checked the phone was plugged in and dialled Joanne’s number, still silence.
I put the phone back in the receiver. ‘Not working, what the fuck is going on?’
My attention quickly switched to the thought of food, and I rushed in to the kitchen. Jack and I could have both easily climbed in to the fridge, it was huge. I really hoped Marcus, the owner of the house, was morbidly obese and always had loads of food in. I opened the fridge door.
‘Yes! Well done Marky Mark, you fucking star. Jack! He’s left us a shitload of food.’
It was bursting with all kinds of goodies, more than we could have hoped for if we did have to stay here for a few days.
‘I don’t think he left us any food, and remember, he could walk through the door any second.’ Jack stepped in to the kitchen and stood behind me. ‘Fucking hell, that is a lot of food, I don’t think he’ll notice if we take some.’
‘Sandwich?’ I asked.
‘Yep, whatever you’re having, I’m sticking the TV on.’
Jack entered the living room, found the remote control on the coffee table and pressed the power button. ‘The TV is working!’ he shouted.
I slapped some ham and cheese between slices of bread, while he quickly scanned through the mostly blank channels, eventually finding CNN.
Three men and one woman filled the screen, split into four separate sections. I didn’t recognise any of them. On the bottom of the screen in big black capital letters it said, W.H.O. AND C.D.C. DECLARE WORLDWIDE EMERGENCY. UNITED STATES UNDER QUARANTINE.
I joined Jack on the sofa and handed him a sandwich. We stared at the television, the food in our hands forgotten.
The man on the far left of the screen started talking. ‘At the moment it’s looking like every State in the south has been affected. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana have seen the worst of it so far.’ His head was completely shaven and the studio lights were shining off his bald scalp. ‘Texas in particular is not faring well, the latest figures show a 98% mortality rate.’
The screen suddenly cut to just one woman sitting behind a desk, not looking as calm and collected as news anchors usually appeared.
Stuttering over her words, she said, ‘Sorry but we have an urgent update from…we have to go to…’ She paused briefly and looked off camera, before forcing a strained smile. ‘Yes, we can now go to Louise Van Etten in Pensacola, Florida. Louise, what is the situation there with you?’
The screen cut again to a wild eyed woman in army fatigues. At the bottom of the screen was written, LIVE FROM FLORIDA.
She looked very anxious, and couldn’t keep her eyes on the camera. The choppy sound of helicopter blades could be heard in the background, and flashing blue lights illuminated the buildings behind her. After two or three seconds she began to speak.
“Louise Van Etten, reporting from Pensacola, Florida. We’ve been here all day with the brave Marines of U.S. Southern Command, while they try to contain the disaster as best they can. We have been receiving reports of people attacking each other. This has been hampering the Marines efforts.’
Something must have caught the tired looking reporter’s attention, because her eyes suddenly darted to her left. She was staring around the camera, a look of utter fear slowly filling her face.
‘Dave, watch out!’ she screamed, lifting her arms towards us, the viewers
The TV screen suddenly went fuzzy, as the view was violently turned ninety degrees to the left. Jack and I turned our heads to follow the new angle. When the screen fully cleared a few seconds later, the camera was on the floor, apparently lying on its side. There was no sign of the reporter.
Peoples’ legs could be seen running back and forth in a blur. It sounded horrific, like a scene from a war film. There was loud, panicked screaming. We heard two gunshots just before the screen cut back to the studio.
The female news anchor looked even more flustered.
‘Louise?’ she asked, before regaining her composure slightly. ‘Erm…we are very sorry, they seem to be having technical difficulties down there in Pensacola. We’ll go back to Louise when we are able to. We can now…’ The news anchor put her finger to her earpiece, a confused look flashing across her face. Two rivulets of sweat ran down her forehead from her hairline. ‘Yes, sorry about that, we can now—.’
The news anchor was cut off mid-sentence as the television screen turned to black, followed by all the lights turning off in the house. It was pitch black. The street lights must have cut out as well.
‘Mother fucker,’ I said.
A phone started ringing, startling both of us. I could see Jack’s face in the darkness, illuminated by his phone. The screen was filled with an image of his wife’s face.
I quickly moved to sit next to him, banging my shin painfully against the edge of the coffee table. Still holding his sandwich in his right hand and the phone in his left, Jack quickly swiped his thumb across the screen and lifted it to his face.
‘Beth, are you okay?’
‘Jack! Oh thank god, I’ve been trying to call you all day, are you okay?’
I could hear the hysteria in her voice, she was almost screaming.
‘Yes, yes I’m fine, we’re fine. Chris is here as well. How are you? What’s happening there?’
‘It’s really bad in San Francisco. Mountain View doesn’t seem to have it as bad. I’m with Sarah and Roy at their place. They said I can stay with them. How are you going to get home?’
‘I’m driving back to Denver tonight, and getting the first flight I can find.’
‘There are no flights Jack, it said on the news that all flights have been grounded.’
A humming noise drew our attention to the kitchen. The fridge was powering up, so the electricity must have been turned back on. The lights in the living room and kitchen swiftly followed. I noticed the red standby light on the TV was visible. After a few seconds of searching for the remote I found it under the sofa, Jack must have thrown it when his phone rang. I pressed the power button. The CNN logo appeared and underneath it read, TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. PLEASE STAND BY.
Jack quickly said, ‘Sorry Beth, hold on a second.’ He held the phone against his chest. ‘Chris, try some other channels.’
I quickly flicked through them all. They were all blank, or said something similar to the CNN station.
‘Shite, ask Beth,’ I said, pointing vigorously at his phone.
He lifted the phone. ‘Is your TV working Beth? Ours has just died.’
‘No it hasn’t worked for a few hours, when are you coming home?’
‘As soon as I can. Look, you’re going to have to help us out a bit, we don’t really know what’s going on.’
Beth sounded confused. ‘What do you mean? You don’t know? With the virus you mean?’
‘Yes, the fucking virus!’ Jack shouted.
‘Well—.’ There was only silence as Beth’s words were agonisingly cut off.
Jack looked at his phone. ‘No! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!’
He frantically tried to call her back but it wasn’t connecting.
‘Chris, try your phone!’
I tried but I had the same problem. ‘It’s not working, just keeps saying it’s trying to connect, there’s no ringtone or anything. Fuck! Next time either of us speaks to anyone, just get straight to the point, no messing
around.’
I tried ringing Joanne but it still wasn’t working. Sinking further into the sofa I said, ‘I’m eating my sandwich.’
We spent the next twenty minutes ringing everyone in our contacts, nothing. I also tried FaceTime, Skype and WhatsApp. Still nothing.
I emailed Joanne.
Hi Jo, I hope you’re okay.
The phones aren’t working and we only caught a little bit of news before the TV died on us. If you get this, could you please tell us as much as you know about what’s going on with this virus? You might not believe this, but we kind of missed a lot of what’s happening. We’ve only been catching snippets of information, and now none of the TV channels are working.
We heard it isn’t happening over there, is this true?
Don’t worry about me, I’m absolutely fine. Hopefully the virus won’t even make it to Colorado, it is a big country.
I’m sure the flights will be running again soon. I can’t imagine this going on for longer than a week, surely? I might be able to get my original flight back.
Hopefully we can stay here in the Airbnb until it’s sorted. There’s loads of food in the kitchen, so we’ll be fine for a while at least.
Jack spoke to Beth earlier, she’s okay. She said she’s staying with some people, must be friends of hers.
Can you let everyone know we’re alright, and not to worry.
I really hope you’re okay, I love you and I’ll see you soon.
Chris.
I pressed send, and after thirty seconds of staring at the screen the message disappeared. Excitedly I sat up and checked the sent folder. It was in there! I told Jack and he furiously started sending emails of his own.
We sat back and waited. It was the middle of the night back home, and whilst I expected Joanne to be worried sick, she still needed to sleep.
‘Well at least you know Beth’s alright, who are Sarah and Doodah?’
‘Sarah and Roy,’ Jack said. ‘They’re friends of Beth’s. I really need to get back there. My last words to her were “the fucking virus”. Brilliant, she’ll love that.’