The Jakarta Pandemic

by Steven Konkoly

  CDC virologists confirmed that a patient exposed to the Jakarta flu would typically demonstrate symptoms within three to four days of exposure and remain contagious for about seven to ten days after that. He did the math in his head.

  They should be past the ten day mark.

  However, as seen with most flu strains in the past, both seasonal and pandemic, children could remain contagious for up to three weeks after showing symptoms.

  No, we can’t risk the exposure.

  “I don’t think two pre-teen girls should be left alone like that, without their mother,” Kate said.

  “I know, but there’s a possibility that they could still be contagious, so we can’t have them here.”

  Kate paused, clearly struggling with the thought of the kids staying over there alone. “I don’t know. Could they stay in the basement, or…never mind, that’s ridiculous. They’d be better off in their house with us checking on them,” she conceded.

  “I agree. We can’t keep them locked up in the garage or basement like animals. They’ll be better off in a familiar setting. I’ll head over there later today and make sure the house is okay. They still have some food and snacks over there from what I remember, and we can bring them hot meals. It’s not perfect for them, but it’s the best we can do.”

  “All right,” Kate finally agreed.

  “I’d better call Ed and let him know what’s going on.” Alex sighed.

  “Do you think it’s all right for you to be walking around their house?”

  “You mean the flu?” he asked, and she nodded emphatically.

  “Yeah, it should be fine. At the most, the Jakarta flu can survive for forty-eight hours on a non-porous surface, less on a porous one. I can’t see any way that it could still be a danger in the house…however, I’ll be sure to wear gloves and scrub down when I’m done. I’m calling Ed and going over right now. If the girls show up, explain the situation and keep them in the garage. They can use the camping chairs in the sports bin. I’d wear a mask just in case, and give them some leftovers,” he said.

  “Got it,” Kate said as Alex dialed Ed’s number.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Saturday, November 23, 2013

  Alex dialed Kate with his smartphone as he made his way across the McDaniels’ lawn. Ed Walker waved goodbye and nodded to Alex as he split off and headed toward his own home directly across the street.

  “Open sesame. I’m crossing the street,” he said to her when she picked up.

  “What took you so long?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you when I get in the house.”

  He jogged up to the mudroom door as Kate unlocked the deadbolt and the doorknob. He took off a pair of surgical gloves and balled them up in his hand. Kate held the door open for him, and he walked in, careful not to touch anything.

  “Can you do me a favor and open the door to the garage? I want to throw these in the trash,” he said.

  Kate opened the door and he walked into the garage, right up to the town garbage container, used his elbow to lift the hinged green plastic top, and dropped the gloves into the quarter-filled container. Both this trash bin and the recyclables bin were located side-by-side to the left of the mudroom entrance inside the garage. The recyclables container was even emptier than the trash bin. The top of the recyclables bin was colored red to differentiate between the two. The town-issued bins were about chest height to Alex, and under normal circumstances would have been full by this time of the week. Normal trash pickup was scheduled for Tuesdays in their neighborhood, but he wouldn’t even bother to put the bins out tomorrow.

  Alex dropped the lid and walked back inside the open door, catching a glimpse of Ryan and Emily sitting at the island eating leftover pizza as he ducked into the bathroom off the mudroom to thoroughly wash his hands. When he was finished, he sprayed the sink’s hardware with a sanitizing cleaner and wiped them down with paper toweling that was stored in the cabinet under the sink.

  “All clean,” he said, walking into the mudroom.

  Kate was waiting for him to hear what he had to say. She walked over to him and they both snuck into the library.

  “So, what’s going on?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want to freak you out earlier, but the reason I took longer than I expected was that someone broke into their house through the back garage door and stole all of their food. Nothing else was touched, but every last bit of food is gone and shit was everywhere. Nothing broken, but clearly the house was searched for hidden stashes. Every room. I wanted to put the house back in order before we let the girls in,” he said.

  “Gee, I wonder who did that?” she whispered sarcastically. “Do you think it’s safe for the girls to be over there?”

  “The girls will be fine. I did what I could to patch up the garage door window. Their mudroom door has a deadbolt, so they shouldn’t have to worry about it. Those dickheads came back and finished the job. I am done messing around with them. If they show up here again, I promise you I’ll put an end to their game,” he said, fuming.

  “All right, let’s calm back down and have some lunch with the kids. They were really curious about the girls being over here,” Kate said.

  “I wish they could stay here, but it’s too risky. I’m just glad to see that they look fine. They’re both still pretty beat from the flu, but not as bad as I expected. They aren’t coughing, or anything, so I think they’ll be fine. They just look exhausted. I can tell they’re relieved to be back in their house. Katherine was already playing with her Barbies by the time we left. We’ll keep a close eye on them,” Alex said, and they joined their kids for reheated pizza.

  **

  Alex heard the doorbell ring. He stood up from the couch, put his book down on the coffee table, and picked up his pistol, tucking it into his jeans. A dozen scenarios flashed through his head before the doorbell rang again. The timing between rings didn’t alarm him. Perfectly normal delay. He checked his watch and walked over to the bottom of the staircase, looking up just as Kate appeared.

  “Can you see who it is?” she whispered.

  “No,” he said, leaning over to peek through the windows on each side of the front door. “Not from here. Mudroom. I’ll check it out. I’m sure it’s fine. Doesn’t sound too insistent,” he said, as the bell rang again.

  “Three rings qualifies as insistent. Be careful.”

  “As always. I’ll be right back,” he said and walked through the dimly lit kitchen into the mudroom. He kept the light off in the mudroom and peered through the door. He recognized Derek Sheppard immediately, and his tension level dropped. He opened the interior door, keeping the storm door between them, quickly scanning the area around the stoop and determining that Derek was alone.

  Hopefully.

  Alex cracked open the door. “What’s up, Derek?”

  “Nothing really. I’m just really sorry that I was shitting on you earlier today. I got caught up with Todd and his crew. I said some bad stuff to Ed about you. I’ve really felt terrible about it. I…my youngest two are sick, and I…I’m sorry, really. You’ve always been a good friend. Both you and Kate,” he said softly.

  Jesus. He’s apologizing for something I didn’t even know about.

  “No problem, man. I wasn’t even there to hear it. This is a bad time for everyone. Seriously, it wasn’t on my radar, but I appreciate you coming over. Sorry to hear about the kids. How long have they been sick?” Alex asked, stepping outside.

  Derek stepped back off the stoop onto the walkway. “I don’t want to get you sick. I feel fine, but you never know. The kids…not long, about three days. It came on kinda slow. Slower than we would have thought, so we hoped it was maybe just a cold or something, but then it picked up pretty fast with the fever and coughing. The fever’s scary. Nothing’s really cutting it. The coughing hasn’t been so bad, but it’s been miserable, and we can’t take the kids anywhere for treatment.”

  “Have you tried to get any help?” Alex asked.
r />   “They won’t see new patients at any of the flu triage sites right now. We sat on the phone for hours trying to get through the DHS patient care line with no success, so we drove around for a couple of hours trying to find a site that would help. Everything’s locked down hard by the National Guard. Really creepy, like right out of a horror movie. All we got were some homecare instructions, which quite frankly aren’t very inspiring. I can deal with the fever, but the coughing has me worried.”

  “How’s Ellen?”

  “She just spiked a fever yesterday, and she’s having a nervous breakdown. I honestly don’t know which is worse. She’s got Owen on the third floor, away from Gavin and Taylor. We’ve all been exposed, right? I mean, is there any point to keeping Owen separated?”

  “She has the right idea to keep Owen separate. Again, how long since they started with the fever?” Alex repeated.

  “Three days, tops.”

  Alex paused to consider an idea that was just materializing.

  I need to talk to Kate about this first.

  “I’m gonna call you in like ten minutes. I’m thinking about something that could help. I need to…let me call you in a few minutes.”

  Derek looked confused. “All right, Alex. Sounds good. Hey, I’m really sorry I didn’t stand up for you, but…it just wasn’t a good night with the kids. Sad excuse, I know, but…”

  “Derek, seriously, I know it’s gotta be scary for you guys, especially with Owen and Ellen getting sick. Really, I’m not pissed at all, and I appreciate you coming over here like this.”

  “I would’ve come by earlier, but Todd and those guys scare me. Enough to wait until dark. I thought about sneaking around back to your deck, but I didn’t want to get shot,” Derek said.

  He’s probably not joking.

  Alex suppressed a laugh. “I’m not at the point where I’m shooting people yet, but it’s probably a good policy not to be sneaking around at night.”

  “Be careful with those assholes. It’s not over for them,” Derek warned him.

  “I know. Believe me. Hey, I’ll be in touch in like ten minutes.”

  “All right. Thanks again for being cool about this. I really feel bad.”

  “No need, man. Talk to you in a few,” Alex said and stepped back inside.

  Derek turned and walked briskly back to his house across the street.

  Alex removed his dark blue winter jacket and hung it in the garage on a row of hooks adjacent to the mudroom door. He lifted his right elbow and used it to press the garage door button. He heard the motor engage, and the subsequent creak and squeak of the garage door as it slid along its infrequently lubricated track. Kate opened the door to the mudroom and Alex stepped inside the house to commence his usual decontamination procedure, which basically just consisted of him washing his hands and wiping down the faucet hardware with a disinfectant wipe. Once finished, he opened the bathroom door and stepped back out into the mudroom to take off his shoes. He’d just returned from delivering anti-virals to Derek Sheppard and had also stopped by Jamie’s house to check on Amanda and Katherine, who seemed to be handling their situation well. While inside their house, Alex smelled the meal prepared and delivered by the Walkers. He didn’t ask, but it smelled a lot like lasagna.

  Kate poked her head into the mudroom. “How did it go?”

  “Uneventful, which is how I like it. The girls seem fine. Whatever the Walkers cooked up for them smelled a hell of a lot better than what we had tonight. It was some sort of Italian dish, and I swear I smelled cheese,” he said.

  “Really? Cheese. Huh. How about the rest of your journey?” she asked.

  Alex stepped into the darkened library and removed a walkie-talkie radio from the left cargo pocket of his tan desert camouflage pants, placing it on a high, unused shelf, along with his pistol and a spare clip of ammunition.

  “Good. Derek’s doing all right given the circumstances. I gave him three courses, and he’ll be using two of them tonight. Owen’s been sick for about three days, started off really rough, but Derek thinks he might be doing a little better.

  “His wife’s a different story. She just started with the high fever, and she’s already extremely congested. Having trouble breathing. He’s really worried about ARDS, and I agree. It’s been hitting mostly healthy young to middle-aged adults, taking a lot of them down within a few days,” he said, standing up from the mudroom bench.

  “Why would he use the drugs on Owen, if he’s getting better?”

  “I don’t know. I recommended he wait and watch. If he’s stabilized and hasn’t been hit with pneumonia, then I think he should save the drugs. It’s a tough call. I gave him some antibiotics too, just in case. What are the kids up to?” he asked, moving into the kitchen to sit on one of the island stools.

  “They’re both up in the attic watching a movie on demand. Would you give Derek more drugs if he needed them?” she asked, settling on to a stool across from Alex.

  Alex met her eyes as she took a sip of her tea. “I don’t know. We have ten courses left. I’d have a hard time refusing him.” He cast his eyes down and exhaled in resignation.

  “Hon, you shouldn’t feel like that’s the wrong answer. I feel the same way. I wish we could help more people,” Kate said.

  Alex looked up at her and saw a warm, compassionate smile that eased his regret. “I know you do. Sometimes I think about all of the drugs I gave to Dr. Wright. If I had just kept more of those, we could have made a huge difference around here,” he said.

  Kate leaned forward, sliding her cup of tea across the island with both hands. “Giving those to Dr. Wright was the right thing to do. Keeping them for yourself at that point would have been totally illegal and would have yanked the moral and ethical chair right out from under you when it came to your final dealings with Biosphere,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I was already teetering on that chair. I’d hardly call it a moral or ethical high ground,” he said and laughed through his nose.

  “You’ve never done anything clearly out of bounds. Taking a few samples here and there. So what? Every other rep out there does it, and so do the doctors and their staff. Please don’t tell me you think that all of the TerraFlu samples sitting in those office bins went to patients. You and I know exactly where most of those samples went. You could have kept most of those samples and forged Dr. Wright’s signature, but you didn’t. You delivered them to the right place at exactly the right time.”

  “I still kept an extra case from that load,” he reminded her.

  “And you think Dr. Wright didn’t? He’s got a family, too.”

  “We have ten more courses of therapy left. Four of those stay here for us. That’s non-negotiable, no matter who crawls up onto our porch. The other six we can give out. I have no problems with that. Hon, I don’t want you feeling guilty about this. You’ve been doing an unbelievable job with all of this,” she said, getting up from her stool.

  “I’ve been doing what I think is right, given the circumstances,” Alex said.

  “And you’ve done an amazing job.” She wrapped her arms around his chest from behind, nestled her head over his left shoulder, and leaned her body into his, squeezing him tightly. Alex nuzzled his head against hers.

  “I’m just worried that the situation out there is going to deteriorate as the winter gets worse. God forbid the power goes out. The decisions will get tougher, and they’ll have to be made quicker. If things get really bad in the neighborhood, we need to be prepared to make some tough calls, right on the spot. My mission is to keep you and the kids safe at any cost. I need you to understand what this might come to mean,” he said softly.

  “I’m a mother, believe me when I say that I understand what it means to protect these kids unconditionally.”

  Alex believed her every intention, but was still not convinced that she truly understood the full scope of what each of them might have to do in order to ensure survival in the face of a worst-case scenario.

  “Nob
ody messes with the momma bear?” he asked.

  “Damn right,” she said and gave him an extra tight squeeze before letting him go and walked around the island to grab her cup of tea.

  “What are the kids watching?”

  “I don’t know. Probably something borderline inappropriate, like every other movie they want to see nowadays,” Kate replied.

  “Still no Nightfall on demand?”

  “No. They haven’t put a new movie on that feature for a couple of weeks now. Not since the theatres closed.”

  “I hope Emily’s forgotten about it,” Alex said, wincing.

  “No, she had another emotional blowout earlier today about it. She checks the on-demand menu like three times a day for it,” Kate said, grabbing her book.

  “Great. Is she still blaming me for not seeing it?”

  “Of course. I’ve made sure to keep the blame focused on you,” Kate said.

  “Thanks. Hey, I think I’ll head up and watch the movie with them. You coming up?”

  “Why, you still worried about me sitting down here by myself?”

  “I’d certainly feel better if you were at least in our bedroom, or somewhere a little closer to the rest of us. Pleeeeeease.”

  “Don’t you want to watch the evening news? It’s recorded,” she said.

  “Not really. I’ll catch up with everything later on the internet. Anything really big going on?” he asked.

  “Department of Energy officials estimate that most coal-fired power plants are already operating on their emergency reserve supply. The White House is calling for a nationwide conservation plan to extend the coal supply until the whole system starts to come back online. Coal mining, transportation, all of it is nearly shut down,” she told him.