Mrs. Matthews must have had a hand radio because I was a mere ten feet away when I heard her calling to Bentley that she had three more.
Three more dead.
I sought out the coffee and found it in the front office of the rectory, our temporary medical supply room. Then I sought out a bathroom and cleaned up.
I don’t know why I did it. I’d only get disgusting all over again with blood, vomit, diarrhea and mucus.
It was a virtual vat of body fluids that spewed out, flew out and landed everywhere.
While cleaning up I tried to examine what I had done the day before as far as care giving.
Not much.
Granted, I ran my ass off. But I was just the organizer, getting people moved to different areas depending on how sick they were. I registered names because my father wanted the name of every single person.
Then after that process slowed down I gave water, wiped off fevered heads and turned people on their sides so they didn’t choke on their own fluids. I gave out medication when we had it.
There was little I could do, but I did all that I could and followed my father's instructions to keep making rounds.
And it was now time to make those rounds again.
I had to find out where Mrs. Matthews had left off and relieve her so she could rest. She was pushing seventy and I was certain she was tired.
Stepping in to the hall, I heard Mrs. Matthews call out. “Someone hold him. I can’t get this in.”
I followed the direction of her voice as she kept calling out. Whoever was helping her kept responding that the person was ‘too big’ and they were ‘trying’.
They were in the last room, the kindergarten classroom. Although it was bright and cheery, the room reeked of death.
Mrs. Matthews was using all the strength in her tiny body to hold down a convulsing man. I rushed over.
“Danny, thank God. Hold him, please.”
The man was large and was convulsing on the cart with blood spitting out of his mouth. Using my upper body, I braced his arms and pressed my chest down on him to hold him.
Mrs. Matthews grabbed his IV. Then, through the corner of my eye, I saw it.
“Just hold him. It’ll only be a minute.”
She was grasping the biggest syringe I had ever seen. It looked like a horse syringe. She placed the needle into the IV and began to plunge.
But something was wrong.
Nothing was in the syringe.
Correction.
Air was in that syringe.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “What are you doing?” I knew there was urgency and even panic to my voice. That’s what I felt.
Was she nuts? Had she lost it?
There was no tubing for the air to flow through; she placed it directly in the shunt.
“Mrs. Matthews, you gave …”
Before I could finish my sentence or even snatch the shunt from the man’s arm, he arched his back, his eyes opened wide and then after a few more jolts, he came down peacefully and stopped moving.
He was dead.
“Thank you, Danny.” She exhaled and stepped away.
I was speechless, shocked. I raised my body from the lifeless man and looked at him.
My God, a man just died right before my eyes. He died while I held him down. I was a part of his death.
After catching my breath, I watched Mrs. Matthews, with that syringe, move to another patient.
“Mrs. Matthews, stop.” I hurried to her. “What are you doing? You just killed that man.”
I pointed to the body.
She stared at me as if to say, ‘Yeah, so, what's your point?
“Stop. You can’t do this. It’s wrong. It’s wrong,” I argued.
“Daniel,” My father’s stern voice called into the room.
“Father,” I spun to him. “Thank God.”
“Daniel, do not yell at this woman.”
“But … but she just killed a man,” I explained to my father. Obviously, he didn’t know. He had just arrived. “She killed a man and is getting ready to do it again.”
There I said it. Mrs. Matthews looked confused. She stared at my father. And I waited. I waited for my father to chastise her. To yell at her for taking that life and to remove her from duty.
But he didn’t.
He laid his hand on my shoulder and said, “Daniel. Mrs. Matthews’ job is difficult enough. Please do not add to that.”
Every ounce of air escaped my body as I gasped out that one word, “What?’ in my surprise.
My father just looked at me.
“You want me to … you’re just gonna let her …Oh my God.” I closed my eyes.
“Daniel.” I felt his firm his grip on my shoulder.
“No.” I shook my head and for the first time, I pulled away from my father. “No. Not you too. Not you.” Shaking my head, I left that room. I didn’t look back. I kept walking.
***
I didn’t have a direction or anywhere to go, so I sought out the place where I thought I was needed most.
My brother Sam.
He slept, as did his wife and child.
At that moment, when I entered the room, I grew suspicious of my father. What did he give them? Was it an easy slow death, a short route bypassing the virus?
I did get a moan from Sam. At one point he opened his eyes, smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
I told him I loved him and spoke about little league and how he was so good at sports. I talked to him about everything and anything.
“Daniel.” My father called out into the room.
I wanted to ignore him but respect stopped that.
“Daniel, what are you doing here?”
“Keeping a vigilant watch,” I replied. “I want to make sure the Mistress Angel of Death doesn’t slip in here and kill my brother before his time.”
“Daniel,” his voice grew close and he stood beside me. “Perhaps an early death would be best.”
“How can you say that?” I asked with desperation. “This is your son. Your family. Your granddaughter.”
“Exactly.”
I tilted my head, conveying through a look for my father to explain more.
He did. “Daniel, have you witnessed the final moment of someone dying of this virus?”
I shook my head.
“It is not pretty. It is not peaceful. It is violent,” my father explained. “It is obvious that the person suffers greatly. Their body shakes and expels. It is a death I would not wish on my worst enemy, let alone my eldest son.”
I closed my eyes.
My father continued, “Mrs. Matthews is not killing people, Daniel. She is sparing them the agony. I need you to know that. These people will pass on anyhow. But do they deserve to pass on so painfully?”
“Who are we to play God?” I asked. “How do we know they won’t turn around at the last minute?”
“You are right. We do not. And these decisions and choices that we make right now, we will answer for when we leave this earth. But we make them out of compassion, my son, not out of malice.”
I nodded.
“Please do not condemn Mrs. Matthews or myself. We just do not want to see the people suffering if we can spare them. If we can have them leave peacefully, we will do all we can.” He laid his hand on me. “Your brother has felt your presence long enough. You are needed with the others.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“You must.”
“Why?” I said. “Father, I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to help anymore.”
“You may not have asked, but you are being asked.”
I looked at him curiously.
“Daniel, we are not sick. You and I have been spared of this illness. We have an obligation.”
“I don’t have an obligation to anyone but myself.”
“Do you really believe that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Well I do not. I believe we the healthy are respo
nsible and must help those who are sick. Helping the sick is our way of showing our gratitude.”
“Gratitude? Gratitude for what?” I snapped with anger. "Gratitude for being spared to watch all those we love die? To watch the world end?”
“No, gratitude for being special enough to be chosen to keep this world alive.”
I had no response.
My father placed his lips to the back of my head and whispered. “You are special, Daniel. Come.”
I felt and heard him leave. I stayed there in the silence, with my brother for a bit longer. Then after allowing my father’s words to sink in and affect me, I bid my farewell to my brother and fulfilled my obligation.
3.
Finalizing
Slowly the communication with others trickled away and people began to die faster and faster.
On June 2nd, two days after we arrived, we lost the bulk of the sick. Over fifteen hundred in one day.
Fifteen hundred.
It was the day before, when my father knew we’d be hit big with a massive wave of death that he made the executive decision to move the bodies to one area and burn them all together.
Spec. Dewey and Bentley found a backhoe and spent the entire night of June 1st digging a hole. We put the bodies in there.
Rather, we dumped them there.
It was California. It was hot. The smell was unbearable. Smoke, smoldering flesh.
There were so many people hitting the death phase of the virus at one time that we couldn’t keep up with the mercy killing.
At one point I found myself running. Running away from the suffering, the screaming and the pain.
I think our little aid station lasted longer than most. From what we heard on last radio call, most were in their final moments.
We went from Sunday to the last person dying on June 4th.
Five days.
However, the last two days were nothing. A few people hanging on. That was it. We were able to give them the complete attention and care they deserved.
My brother’s wife was the first to pass on quietly, then their daughter. Sam held on for the longest.
I was there when he passed. It was almost as if he were waiting for me.
At the end he, like my mother, had one last lucid moment before he slipped away and left us.
My entire family was gone.
At the slowing point, just before the last person passed away, I swore my father was going to break. How could he not? He had just lost his wife and his son.
He told me that he looked at me. That was how he kept going. In a world where people lost everyone, he still had me.
I started to view it the same way.
Bentley made contact with the Captain that was gathering people.
The plans had changed. That was on June 2nd, when his last sick person died.
Instead of north, they were heading south. Thinking ahead, the Captain said, to the colder months. He had other reasons as well for the location. At the time, I didn’t pay much attention. Bentley got the meeting place and informed him that the seven of us would be there as soon as we were done.
We were instructed to bring supplies. Once there, what all we needed would be determined, but we were still supposed to bring supplies.
Bentley and I made the supply run. There wasn’t much left to do at the church.
There were seven of us left. My father and Mrs. Matthews handled the few remaining sick.
Bill Owens, that was his name, worked with Spec. Dewey on the bodies. The seventh guy, Ralph, really didn’t do much the last two days.
No. Wait. He slipped into a depression.
Bentley and I asked him to join us but he declined. Spec. Dewey asked if he wanted to help with the bodies. He declined. Asking him wasn’t real smart on Dewey’s part. I mean, the man was depressed over all the death. Loading bodies into a pile wasn’t going to take his mind off things. It could only make it worse.
Let me recount.
We arrived at the church on May 31st. And the next day things got bad, really bad. On June 2nd, most of the people died.
Bentley and I made the supply run on June 3rd, and by the fourth day it was done. Over. At four forty-five pm, the last person passed away. My God, it went fast.
In a way it was a blessing though. I don’t think I could have handled all that death and sickness for much longer.
We made plans to pack up, burn the last of the bodies and leave for the meeting place the next day.
The day of the last death my father and I returned to our home. We buried my mother and collected belongings that could never be replaced.
On the morning of June 5th we all woke up, some before others. All of us were suffering from a sore throat and cough. My father said it was from all the smoke. That was also the morning we couldn’t find Ralph. We were scheduled to leave early, but we couldn’t find him.
Finally Bentley did.
While adding the last of the gasoline to the dying flames of the burning bodies, he saw Ralph. Ralph had flung himself into the pit sometime the night before.
It was time to go. Time to move on and meet up with the Captain and his gang.
We had two trucks loaded and everyone was ready to go.
Everyone but me.
I don’t know why, but I had an urge to stay behind and look.
I wanted to look for survivors, friends that I had and that girl I had liked.
“Daniel, now is not the time to be separated,” my father said. “You must come with us.”
“I will, Father, but I need a day or two. I will be there in a day or two.”
“Then I’ll stay with you. I’ll make this trip with you.”
I shook my head. “No, go with the others. I’ll be there. I promise.”
Mrs. Matthews convinced him I would be fine and it was something I needed to do. Bentley wanted to come with me. But I wanted him to escort my father. I felt better knowing that he and Dewey were their protection.
I would be fine. I knew it. I just had to search. I had to see the finality for myself.
Besides what if there was a person all alone? They wouldn’t know about the meet or that there were others?
Even more than helping the sick, I felt compelled to find and help those who were alive.
My father, Bentley and the others left just before ten am. They’d arrive at their destination by nightfall.
I had Bill’s pickup truck, some food and an M-4 slung over my shoulder. No radio, no means of communication with them, just a wing and a prayer with no course of direction.
I stared my quest that day. Honestly, I did feel like Charlton Heston in the Omega Man. I saw no one, absolutely no one … that first day.
I had promised my father I would arrive at the meeting place in two days.
It took me a week to get there.
Like a puzzle I had to finish, I didn’t stop until I felt my job was complete.
Once I found the first survivor, instinctively I knew there had to be more. They were more than likely spread out, but there had to be more, so I continued.
I was glad I did.
In the course of that one week on the route to the meeting place, I had to replace my means of transportation and get more supplies.
I had found twenty-three people. Nine of which were children. Children not even old enough to care for themselves. Six of them were under the age of five.
I brought my group to the meeting place, but I realized I couldn’t stay.
If there were twenty-three people, there had to be many more. And I only happened across them through the areas I searched on my way to the meeting place. What about the places I didn’t search?
After resting, I geared up to go. Only this time, I accepted the offer from Bentley. He would go with me.
My father didn’t question me. He understood and was proud.
I had found my calling. My post-plague life mission.
We fell into a routine that we never thought twice about. Bentley and I
would fan out, search, find and return. After resting and situating survivors, we’d do it all again. Over and over.
We searched until we felt we couldn’t search anymore.
We never stopped.
That first six months after the plague, before winter hit, we had found three hundred survivors.
It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to be a community again.
To move on. To rebuild.
That was our focus.
The continuance of mankind.
Mankind.
A mere species on the brink of extinction. We were doing our part to see that wasn’t going to happen.
Most people believed that if the world was going to end, it would be God’s doing. I always believed God never really had a time or date when he was going to do it. He knew man well and knew man would take care of that deed for Him.
Or nature would do it.
Nature has a way of eradicating things. Mankind being one of them.
Eight billion people in the world. Almost 330 million in the United States alone.
In the course of one week the plague had decimated 99.9% of those in the United States. Less than four million remained.
Violence took nearly a third of those healthy people in the chaos and pandemonium following the virus.
Within the next couple of week’s poor sanitation, water poisoning and starvation claimed even more lives.
In the next few years, disease, hunger and savagery took even more.
It was estimated by the greatest theorists and mathematicians that five years post plague out of the four million fortunate enough to be immune, possibly only one million or less remained.
One million people in a big country.
It was a big empty country.
Finding Utopia
4.
Gray’s Mountain
Admittedly, when I first heard that the three men putting together the ‘meet’ were military men I was apprehensive. Not that I wouldn’t join them, but I thought for sure it would be some militia or some tightly run boot camp.
I was wrong.
They picked the location not for military strategy, but for survival.
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