by L. ROY AIKEN
I switch on the TV. Stefani Dunham of Cable Morning News talks of the unusual quiet in the Middle East, mostly due to the flu that’s taken the world by storm.
She narrates the latest video of a deer wandering through the automatic doors of a supermarket, but her voice is weirdly uninflected. Her head cheerleader swagger died sometime in the night. Her hair-and-makeup crew apparently didn’t show either. She actually looks beautiful. Her just-brushed-into-place hair, the dark crescents beneath her eyes betray a humanity I never expected a woman of her position to possess.
My phone chirps. Finally:
We took Mom to the hospital but it was full. She’s very sick. Don’t know what else to do. I have to go into work. Hope you feel okay and that you come home soon.
The time stamp indicates this was sent hours ago. I’m only now getting it.
According to Stefani Dunham of Cable Morning News the top story is the strain on services nationwide due to the Mayday Malaise. Hospitals are full of patients, but the hospitals can’t provide adequate care because one-third to one-half of the hospital staff is sick, too. Without techs to maintain the servers and towers, cell phone service has crashed in some areas. There were storms in Georgia and the Carolinas that knocked out power two nights ago. That power is likely to stay out because too few people feel well enough to fix things. And then the unaffected people have to take off from work to take care of their sick relatives.
“And while we wait for this thing to run its course,” Stefani says, “it turns out that for some people the illness is just getting worse. This is just for some people, though, the numbers are inconclusive. We’re not in the business of spreading rumors. Count on our team to keep you updated with the latest.” She coughs primly into a handkerchief just as they cut to commercials.
Normally you’d hear an exclamation point after that last sentence. That’s because—normally—Stefani! Dunham! of Cable! Morning! News! is fully invested in what she’s selling.
I power up my laptop. We still have Internet service, but the pages are slow to load. From the UK’s Guardian to the Kremlin’s own Russia Today, the columnists are mocking “the ‘Mayday Malaise,’ as the American news outlets so frivolously and dismissively label it” (the Germans seem particularly pissed about “the U.S.’s non-response to the crisis”).
According to the foreign press the infection isn’t viral, it’s bacterial—and resistant to antibiotics. Russia Today and Politiken DK report rumors that a pharmaceutical company brewed this up to contain it with its specially targeted (and patented) regime of medications. Of course, nothing can be proved.
Oh, and one more thing they’re not mentioning in the U.S. information bubble:
You can go fast.
You can go slow.
You can go easy, the way our Ms. Dunham seems to be going—then all-of-a-sudden hard. Or just go hard and die hard all the way.
Some have been known to go into remission. Like Claire. This article even uses the eye-of-the-hurricane metaphor. “And like the far side of the hurricane eyewall, Round Two of the disease comes on even fiercer than the first.”
However it plays out, no one gets better from this. That’s why the English, those masters of gallows humor, dubbed it the Final Flu. It’s the last thing you’re ever sick of.
I pull out my phone and dial her cell. Nothing. Whatever connectivity delivered Sibyl’s message to me late is down again. I dial the land line. Ring, click. I do this again, three, maybe four more times on both.
“As brief as the remissions are, the relapses are brutally—some say ‘mercifully’ short-lived. As are the patients.”
I think of Sybil’s text. Claire.
Claire....
I’m flashing on our first Thanksgiving, eating on the quilt she spread on the floor of our unfurnished apartment. The Christmases with her parents. The Christmases we did on our own, accompanied by bright and happy Sibyl, then Jack.
I think of the greeting cards Claire would leave for me to find in the morning, for no special occasion at all. Just to tell me how “grateful” she was for me. For what? I always meant to write her a long letter for Mother’s Day, letting her know all the things I noticed that I thought made us so much richer than most people with actual “disposable” income.
We know how these stories always end, don’t we?
I clap my laptop shut, look up at the TV. Stefani Dunham is still reading from her teleprompter. She doesn’t sniffle or cough. I’m guessing she’s in her remission stage.
What’s really intriguing are the implications raised by the logical follow-up: What makes a multi-million dollar diva like Stefani Dunham, Queen of All Cable News, go on television, read straight-faced from the teleprompter, and pretend she hasn’t heard her own personal two-minute warning?
Something is going down. The kind of something no mere citizen can do anything about but get home to the children as fast as humanly possible and brace for what’s next.
I couldn’t afford to kiss Claire goodbye before I left. I can’t afford to mourn her now that she’s gone. Sibyl and Jack are counting on me to know what to do—and to be there to do it. If I could drive out of here this instant I could make Colorado Springs before nightfall. I’d have to push it on the speed limit. Which might not be a problem. Then again, if I wreck, that’s it. Better hope I die instantly….
So I won’t wreck. I’ve got to get home! But I can’t leave without checking in one last time with the company, at least see who’s paying for what, if anything. The office opens at eight.
I shower, dress, and pack out quickly. I take the stairs on the north end of the hall. It’s fifteen flights down but the effort tempers my anxiety. More to the point, it lets me out by the back door to the parking garage. I don’t want the desk people to see me carrying my luggage out.
It’s just another job interview! I can do this!
I walk around the hotel. It’s so quiet I can all but hear the damp, hot sunlight pressing down upon the concrete. I’m so relieved to feel the air conditioning as I come in through the front door.
The dining area off the lobby is pitch-dark to my sun-adjusted eyes. “Sorry,” says the girl behind the front desk. “The entire kitchen staff is out.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I know they’re not all sick, either! Only one out of three got this, right?”
“I suppose the rest are home taking care of their people,” I say.
“Must be nice. The way I see it, I don’t work, I don’t get paid! God knows where those people are getting their money!”
“Well, did someone at least pick up some doughnuts and brew some coffee?”
“As a matter of fact, I did, thank you very much! Would you like some?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Oh, not at all! You have no idea how good it is to have someone to talk to!”
From Angie I learn there are a dozen or so flu patients booked here in the hotel because the airlines—on orders from Homeland Security, via the TSA—are refusing to transport obviously sick people. “Talk about closing the barn door when the horses are already out!” says Angie.
A very pale and irritable-looking woman wearing a prominent MANAGER tag comes in. “I don’t like leaving my little boy at home the way he is but the show must go on, right?”
“Don’t put yourself out on my account.”
“Oh! Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean it like that! This is just going to be a really hard day. We don’t have a kitchen staff and now there’s no one here to clean the rooms! It might be a couple of days on that, and for that we do apologize!”
“It’s all right. Look, I’m going out to find some breakfast. Good meeting you all—and good luck!”
“Let us know what you find open,” says Angie.
I nod, wave, and set off into the quiet city.
4
The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Cell phone towers are designed to run on full automatic. The landline system, a
lso designed for low-to-no-maintenance, works on batteries. Even if the lines were overwhelmed by chatty survivors you wouldn’t get a dial tone, let alone a ring on the other end. Just dead air.
Then again, if years of sporadic “customer care” temp gigs have taught me anything, it’s that modern civilization runs on duct tape and good intentions. There’s also the simple fact that too many people are either sick or taking care of their sick to do the most basic upkeep, let alone full-on relay station repair.
I’ve got to find some breakfast to help me kill time on top of hunger while waiting for the office to open. I’m already three blocks from the hotel when I catch sight of the OPEN sign beyond the blinking DON’T CROSS light I’m ignoring.
I pause in the middle and take in the full 360 degrees. Except for a lone mutt sniffing along the walk on one side, a couple of raccoons having at a trash basket on the other, there’s no movement for as far as I can see. Not a soul in the street.
The door of the glass-fronted diner is open. There’s a guy behind the counter. He’s waving me in.
“Just so you know,” he says as I walk up to the counter. “We’re all you’re going to find open for miles.”
“So what’s that mean? You’re charging a hundred bucks for a cup of coffee?”
“You paying it?”
“No.”
“Wait, wait! Don’t worry about it!” I turn back around. “Credit card machine probably doesn’t work anyway,” he says.
“I was going to use one of these,” I say, pulling the voucher from my pocket.
“Whoa!” he says. “You’re a guest of theirs? Sure, whatever you want! Just give me a few minutes to scare it up.”
I use the time to try and call Jack and Sibyl. I go through several other numbers just for kicks. Nothing. I look at the plate of eggs over-easy, bacon, hash browns, and grits, the man sets before me, along with a smaller plate topped with biscuits, with options for jam or gravy. It’s a veritable feast.
“Is something wrong?” the man says.
“No, it’s great,” I tell him. “I’m just hoping this isn’t the last time I get to eat like this.”
“I’ll always be here,” he says defiantly. “So if you come here, you gonna eat good! This is all I know to do!”
“Well, you do it well. Thanks.”
“You bet!” he says, and turns to busy himself in his kitchen. No telling how he’s going to do anything if there aren’t any trucks on the road to keep him provisioned, but I see no point in arguing. He’s obviously working to keep his mind off something.
I tuck into my breakfast. I catch myself eating too fast. I’m hungry, I want to savor this, yet I can’t help feeling I’m wasting time. I need to finish this and get on to—what?
The man takes my plate after I’m finished. “Don’t think much in the way of business is getting done today,” he says, watching me try my cell.
The man’s comment strikes me as strange until I remember I’m wearing a suit. “We’ll find a way to make it happen,” I say, thumbing off the phone.
“Too late for my daughter,” he says.
“What?”
“This morning. She…she couldn’t breathe.”
“How long was she sick?”
“She went to bed right as rain Saturday night! Woke up with sniffles and a cough on Sunday, went to church, no big deal. Yesterday she got really bad, but that’s the way it is sometimes, right? You get a little sick, then you get real sick…and she….” He squeezes his eyes shut. He shakes a little, opens his eyes. Looking at nothing and no one in particular he says, “She couldn’t breathe.”
I get up from my seat. “My wife went to bed feeling just fine Saturday night,” I tell him. “She woke up a little sick Sunday. She was too sick to drive me to the airport yesterday. It’s her I can’t get on the phone because everyone else is dying, too, and everything’s falling apart.”
“I’m sorry,” the man says. “I just needed to tell somebody. Must be hard being so far away and nothing you can do.”
“Ask yourself this,” I say. “Would your daughter want you to give up?”
“No. No, of course not. “
“Good. So where’s your wife? Shouldn’t you be making funeral arrangements?”
“Look around you! You think even the funeral homes are open?”
Damn. Hadn’t thought of that. “So what are we supposed to do with our…deceased?”
“They said…the man said we should clean her up as best we can. Then wait for the announcement.”
“Announcement?”
“They’re picking up the bodies. They’ll be doing…mass burials. In the city parks. They’ll have a service.”
“Huh. I thought procedure was to burn the bodies in situations like this.”
“No! No! We’ll bury them in the temporary place until we can put them in individual plots with their families. When things get back to normal!”
Normal. Right. I sign the voucher and slide it across the counter. He begins choking up with grief as he puts it under the tray in his register. I thank him and leave quickly.
The manager has already left for home when I return the hotel. Angie’s family is out of state; she has nothing better to do than mind the fort. Still, she’s irritated with the manager for leaving her alone so Angie lets me use the office land line to call my house. Dial tone. Ring. Click. Dial tone. That’s all. I do this three more times, then once more “just to be sure” before giving up.
“That’s funny,” says Angie. “I haven’t had any problems calling locally.”
The only person I could think to call locally would be Giselle. If she’s there. Anyway, I need to talk to someone face-to-face, see what I can salvage from this. I thank Angie and walk away towards rear doors of the lobby leading to the garage.
“Where are you going?” she calls out after me.
“Gotta check one more thing,” I say.
“You’re coming back, right?”
“Of course!”
“Don’t leave without saying—without checking out, okay?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Angie.”
“Seriously. You need to come back.”
“This won’t take long.”
The look on her face makes me feel even worse for lying to her. But if whoever’s left at the office can check me out of the hotel from her desk while clearing me to leave with the rental, then I’m going straight out on the road. I’m sorry you’re afraid, Angie. But I’ve got two people 600 miles away I need to do that being-afraid stuff with. And 600 miles is one long mother of a drive….
I almost miss seeing the only other car on the road. It’s going so fast on I-70 east it’s there and gone. Warp Factor Fuck the Police. I smile for the sheer give-a-shit ballsiness of this guy.
Then I realize what it means and the bottom falls out of my stomach.
There are all of three cars on my level in the parking garage. I take the elevator to my floor. Breathe. Breathe….
The doors open on a darkened lobby.
“Who—what?” I hear Giselle say as I come out of the shadows. “You’re still here?”
As with Stefani Dunham, something has aged my Hot Librarian by ten years overnight. The sweat glistens on her pallid, not-so-apple cheeks where the rims of her glasses rest. “Nice to see you, too, Giselle.”
“Oh! I’m—look, it’s just me and Don and Chris performing last rites here.”
“Last what?”
“The exact words from the acting CEO were, ‘Close and secure all operations until further notice.’ Then the networks went down. We don’t even have phones. So how we’re going to get that ‘further notice’ is something of a mystery.”
If the bottom had fallen out of my stomach at the sight at that car, the ground dissolves beneath my feet at the sight of the box behind her desk, packed with Giselle’s framed photos and knick-knacks. “Yes,” Giselle says, “we’re all out of work now.” She sniffs loudly, draws herself up. “Look, I don’t mean
to be short with you but—” Giselle pulls a stack of vouchers from beside her desk. “Take all of these! Get out of town while you still can! Just take the rental and go!”
“Did you get authorization for that? I waited for your call yesterday.”
Giselle freezes. Her Hot Librarian face is awful to behold: “I don’t know where you’ve been getting your information,” she says, “but people started dying yesterday, my mother among them. I know you’re tired of hearing me apologize but I was distracted.”
“Of course,” is all I can think to say.
“I’m sure your teenagers would want you there to help them bury their mother. I’m burying mine tonight. They’re picking her up from the house. They’ll bury her in some mass grave. Like in some awful Third World country!”
Her eyes squeeze shut. A sandy-haired young man leans out the door behind Giselle. “You the guy from Colorado Springs? Supposed to interview with Rob?”
“That’s me.”
“Rob’s dead. His wife called in this morning.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry,” says Giselle, weakly. “I probably should have mentioned that.”
“Figures,” I say, but not to Giselle. It seems everyone’s dropping dead these last 24 hours. Which means Claire….
The sandy-haired young man shrugs. “I don’t know if you’ve been listening to the radio but it might be a while before you can get home. The acting governors of Kansas and Missouri have activated their National Guards. They’re closing the borders and sealing off the cities against looters. Anyone not in an official capacity working downtown has to go home and stay there until further notice.”
“We’ll give you a call once things are up and running,” says Giselle.
“Giselle, look, I’m sorry. Thanks for—”
“No! No...it’s okay. Seriously, I’ll call you. We’ll need everyone who’s willing to come in to work. Good luck!”
“We got to go,” the young man says.
I take the vouchers from the counter and walk to the elevator. As the doors close it hits me: I’m not getting paid. My family is doomed to homelessness. In the middle of a freakin’ plague.