Nellie got all the kids together. There were eleven of them. She feared there would be even fewer in her near future. She would be happy to have hundreds. If there were more kids in her future, she'd take them all. They needed her. She needed them. They were her life. Their symbiosis was a very good thing. The kids made her feel that her life still meant something to others. It meant her dead parents lived inside Nellie and that she was living their lives for them. She saw her mom's face in a window, way back in the darkness, and she knew the apparition for a regular occurrence, but it never would mean that her mother was really alive, just a reminder of things as they had been once. Those images in her mind were the old things in the old life. The new ones were the kids, the decaying corpses, and the angry dogs that growled and looked at you as though you were their next meal, because you would soon fall down, soften, and become something for them to chew.
Nellie remembered when she had practiced ballet at the fine arts center down the street from their school. She had worked hard to be accepted into the program, studying into the night to raise her grades and meet that requirement.
“You are going to be a nice lady,” her mom told her. That was more than her mom was. Her mom was on crack, crazy as hell, and didn't keep house as good as she should. The cops were all over her whenever they went outside, and she knew that some day they might even grab her away from her mom and take her to a kid's home, because her mother was no mother at all. She'd had to stay in several foster homes along with her brother and sister and Brandy, who was her cousin on her dad's side whose entire life had been side-tracked through accidents, booze, shootings, and fights. Brandy was a loser, but Nellie had loved having her as a relative. She was a sort of sister and soul-mate who cared about whatever Nellie was doing.
“I love you always,” Brandy told her as they parted ways at the public school each morning. The way Brandy said it, Nellie knew it was true. As they trundled to their separate classrooms down the hall, Nellie wondered if Brandy was going to die, because the way she said that all the time, it just seemed too good to be true.
Nellie saw the sign on the store window that contained a dire warning of the death from the plague that was going to kill them if they weren't careful. A doctor with a stethoscope wrapping around his neck like a casual and somewhat legless octopus, having only three appendages and one suction cup or whatever that black thing was on the dangling end of the neck piece was smiling and pointing right at Nellie and her kids. In the talking balloon that poured out across the top of the poster, the doctor said, “Wash your hands. Stay inside. Don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth with your fingers if you haven't washed them first.” Nellie guessed that what he was saying was that he needed her to put on rubber gloves, pick up the bodies, burn them, and stay positive. It was as though she was already dying, because the doctor was nothing but a lying puppet with a kind face. All she knew was that a shovel was going to bury her and her entire family, and that happy doctor face was just more of the bullshit about life being worthwhile. It was only the kids that kept her going.
“Come on, children,” Nellie said. “We're going to the park today, just like mommy promised you.”
“Thanks, mommy.”
They called her that. She made sure they did it at least five times a day, each one of them. The more she got them to call her 'mommy' the more she liked them, and the more they liked her and felt secure. She wanted to cry for what she and they had been through, and Nellie wasn't that much more than a child herself. She was still only seventeen, had only dated a few boys, and the Prom hadn't been nearly as nice as they had promised her it would be. Her date was all right, but he wasn't the one she wanted. He'd gotten her a nice corsage and danced pretty well, but he was not the guy she wished she might marry, but then, no one in this world got to marry the guy they wished for, and besides, he was dead now along with his brother and sister. She had seen him inside his home where she'd gone after her family collapsed into corpse positions and never talked back to her. She had broken the window to get in, and the smell of death permeated everything inside the window just like it did in her own house. She found him sitting on the couch undressed with a wet sponge in a bowl next to him. He was still a dashing youth, and her curiosity about his parts was now totally satisfied. His death was such a waste, and she still lusted after him even though he was dead, although like everyone else in the Bronx Public High School, he'd not be dating her ever again or kissing her or doing homework or making love if they ever got that far. Nothing more was ever going to happen. All of their future potentials were cast under the bus now. A tear dropped from her eye as she blew a good-bye kiss to him. “I love you,” she said. A tear dropped across her cheek feeling cold and wet. She turned away. It was so sad. He was such a good person. She went through the house for some nice clothes, food, and books. She found his iPod still in his ears, and she took it. The music was over, the battery was dead just like him, but she already knew how to recharge the battery using an abandoned car, and there was a plethora of abandoned vehicles lonely for people prying their way inside and for their iPods sucking on their huge automotive batteries and for a virtual plethora of prepaid musical goodies.
At this point in time, Nellie was listening to Ceelo Green in Central Park as the children played games on the uncut park lawns. The grass looked like an uncut and discarded Kansas Field without a farm house. The park had been in disarray ever since the dying off, and there was no end in sight, because no one was left to mow it. If it continued, the weeds in the sidewalks and paths would make it even more difficult for Nellie and the kids. The music filled her soul with warm feelings. She loved to listen to the tunes she grew up with. She always had and always would. People may die, but she knew that somehow iPods were forever. She knew she was lucky to get Gary's only iPod. She already knew and listened to the very songs that Gary liked and purchased. He would have wanted her to have it. No one else had the closeness to Gary that Nellie had. They had been like brothers and sisters. The two of them spent many an afternoon together watching videos on cable television as the rock and roll, country, rap, and motown dogs, as they called the regulars, plied their wares on mtv, vh1, and other networks.
She took the earplugs out after a couple of songs. She didn't want to be deaf to the needs of these kids. They were already feeling abandoned as did Nellie, and she was determined to pay attention to each of their lives. It didn't take a lot for one of them to get hurt feelings. The crying and the laughter mixed itself up like some new age strangeness that was very apropos to the present situation. New York City, like the rest of the world was running on flux time, a time of change in which emptiness and decay fed on the uncertainty of what would be the next shoe to drop. Would it be a continuation of the plague in which the few that remained would catch their first, second, third, or fourth fever, depending on the case, and then weaken, shiver, convulse, bleed out inside until it came out of their stomachs and left a red bloody beard oozing down across their chin and onto the front of their shirts? Would that be the future? And would all mankind die and never come back?
She envisioned New York without her and her adopted children to witness its shamefulness in the dog fights and canine whimpers as canines fought atop the millions of human corpses. The environment turned even little red-eyed chihuahuas into strange monsters feeding on human flesh and running with their bright red mouths from body to body in search of just the right morsel upon which to dine. For a city that never slept, the place had become a morgue that never stopped giving. Lucky for dogs, the last few humans had opened all of the doors to apartments and let the trapped animals out into the halls and stairwells where they made their way to the streets in search of a master to tell them what to do, how to live their lives, and opened cans of cleverly marketed pet food with special flavors that dogs and cats longed for. The barking and baying of these survivors, who were practically the only living things beside rats and birds and the few animals they released from the zoos round about town, wen
t on all night and all day.
When thunderstorms came rolling into the city across the Hudson and East River, the animals shivered, cried, and hid inside the doorways of distinguished skyscrapers, fighting among themselves for what little territory that a skyscraper might yield to their barking, growling, and canine caterwauling.
On many an occasion, she found herself listening to the dogs howling throughout the New York canyons where the corpses rested unburied and torn to shreds by a thousand tearing teeth and pecking bird beaks and saying to herself that it was enough to wake the dead. The only trouble was that there was almost nothing left alive in all of New York City, except for the silent stages on Broadway and the darkness of the once well lighted signage of what was once called the great white way of Broadway where it crossed 42nd Street and billions of watts of buzzing electricity illuminated the crowded avenues of amazed theater goers, tourists, and the gently curious who just wanted something to do that didn't cost a lot, and, for that, the bright signs of the advertising giants who spent millions on cleverly posing hunks and beauties all dressed in expensive sweaters, tennis shoes, and holding colorful beers stared down upon the living models holding brand name objects in their hands and smiling grotesquely. Only now, there were no living customers to be seen staring from below at the lights. The signs were there, but their lights were gone.
Like blinded victims at the hands of a soldier fighting for his life, the canyons were gray and the porno theaters and sluts were either empty or their patrons were lying half clothed along the sidewalks. Others rotted on the floors inside the little theaters where they used to pay anywhere from $10 to $25 for a blow job and a fast twenty minute skin flick inside the so-called cleaned up New York that the smiling and well coiffed Mayor Bloomberg detailed as one of his many gifts to the civilized and ethical citizens of the great metropolis. Unfortunately, New York City was not great anymore. Its citizens including Bloomberg himself had kissed the sickening Irish blarney stone of death in which the last thing anyone expected was a rerun of life amidst the uncertainties of a very painful and horrid human plague.
She walked along the edge of the park counting her little chickies, and, yes, there were still eleven of them which meant that “mom” had been fastidious in making certain that none of them had yet found themselves lost and abandoned today in this place of fears and remorse where all of them continued to wonder what new horror would come to their town and carry them away in dark angel arms into an even more sinister and scarey place.
Chapter Ten
Weeks Later...
“Agent Ron Henderson?”
“Yes.”
“Agent Henderson, this is Director David Ferrell at the New FBI Headquarters. According to our records, you are in charge of the global population project.”
“That's right.”
“Mr. Henderson, our records are rather skimpy since our recent unhappiness at the old Hoover FBI Building, I mean the way it was taken out and all, along with our computers, by the enemies of the United States of America. So, we need-to-know where we are in terms of the great dying and the prognosis. We seem to have overshot your predictions and placed the very existence of our human race in question.”
“Our cities are quiet and dead.”
“Mr. Henderson, please understand that I am not criticizing your work. All of us understood this might be the outcome, and yet we voted for it. Perhaps we were wrong, but not too wrong. Besides, we accomplished what needed to be done, and in the most humane manner possible. There was minimal suffering compared to worldwide starvation, societal collapses, death of the rich as well as the poor.”
“Yes, sir,” Henderson said.
“We need the rich, you know. They may be totally worthless, totally greedy, and bad for the existence of this planet due to their over-exploitation of its resources.”
“I know,” Henderson said. “They can be regular little bastards, all right.”
“Indeedie.”
“Not to mention having a penchant for never wanting to pay their taxes.”
“Absolutely right. They always have their people in the halls of Congress, paying them vast sums to get deductions no one else ever gets.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“We've all seen their atrocious behavior, son. However, we need them to do our dirty laundering. Believe me, the dirt is significant.”
“That's certainly an understatement.”
“Ever hear the story of the Augean stable?”
“Yes. In ancient times, the hero Hercules was said to have been given the task of cleaning the offal from the stalls, floors, and hallways of the Augean stable. It contained hundreds of horses, all of them well fed and leaving their excrement all over the place. There was so much excrement, it could never be cleaned.”
“Yes. And you recall how he did it?”
“Indeed. He dammed up a nearby stream and flushed its waters through the entire length of the Augean stable, carrying away the filth in a flood.”
“You know the story, then.”
“I grew up in Wisconsin farming country, sir. I've smelled more cow shit than you can ever imagine.”
“For sure. So, you know that drastic action was called for, and Hercules took it.”
“I always wondered what happened downstream. Did the bass die? Did any aquatic life remain? A flood like that, filled with animal waste, would suck the oxygen from it.”
“Indeed. Not a very pretty concept, is it?”
“Not as pretty as what we did, sir. You have to admit, we swept it clean, hopefully once and for all time, sir.”
“I understand. However, Dr. Henderson, we need your biological answers to see where we are and where we might be headed.”
“Like whether we will even survive at all?”
“That, too, Henderson. However, there's more than enough horny corporals of both sexes out there to repopulate the human stable in a fortnight. I am certain the few remaining youths are more than ready to do their patriotic duty in this regard.”
Henderson laughed.
“Those were my exact sentiments,” the FBI Director said. “Let nature take its course, and all will be well. After they tire of firing their guns, may they fire the secondary artillery, so to speak, and all will be well, and all the women and boys shall be fulfilled. I think we are spot-on, here, professor.”
“Some are calling me Doctor Death, sir,” Henderson said.
“Indeed. I am sure that is no surprise. I am sure you expected as much.”
“Oh, yes. And I can take all the heat.”
“How do you do that?”
“Great men, make great decisions and at great costs. The grief of not producing a rapid die off was far greater for mankind. Someone had to act to prevent an even greater and more inhumane calamity. Besides, sometimes, people just need to be guided into battles they'd rather not fight.”
“We need new plans based on these newer realities, I suppose. In other words, we need to re-coordinate our activities to be sure you and I and the other agents are on the same page. Is the time ripe for such studies?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Director,” Ronald answered. “I will cooperate fully with you. However, even though the dying seems to have died out a bit, pardon the pun, sir, because I know it was totally tasteless of me. However, my sense of dark humor is such that I feel the need to crack the English language whip now and then against whatever few remaining ears are listening.”
“Indeed. So, Dr. Henderson, our records, what we have left of them, tell us that your performance as always would be five-star.”
“Thank you, Mr. Director.”
“What I need to do is discuss a few things with you. I might say that our attempt to reduce the population of the planet has worked dramatically. To recollect our thoughts, professor, we are very pleased with it despite the terror we have inflicted on the masses out there. It could never have been pleasant, of course.”
“Of course.”
'There have been very few
problems encountered, and most of the deceased around the world were exactly as expected.”
“Yes, Mr. Director.”
“So, Dr. Henderson, what have you been able to determine concerning the reconstituted planetary population at this point in time and some of your intelligent projections into our parallel futures, so to speak, scenario by scenario, as it plays out?” the Director asked his Agent in Wisconsin who had developed the deadly virus they had used to depopulate the Earth.
“Mr. Director, keep in mind that world communications are a bit skimpy at this point. Let me check something here.”
Professor Henderson checked his iPhone for several minutes, even talking to the female impersonator who was its speaking voice. Then, he continued answering the FBI Quisling's question.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Director. Here, we are. As of today, my records coming in from the National Institute of Health, show that the population is starting to stabilize fairly rapidly except in some rural areas where the disease entered the local infection zones rather late, so that the dying off in those few regions is still what we might call in progress. But that is such a small sample, we can disregard most of them. The numbers are miniscule. Of course, their suffering is still very difficult for each one of them. The world's dying off shows a present Earth population of about 1.1 billion and on the way down, Mr. Director, to about 225 million when the culling is finished. Best case scenario is 50,000 base line, which is smaller than we would wish, but still extremely viable for our race to survive while allowing this planet to totally recover its skies, oceans, fields, forests, etc. The animals would be very pleased, the lower the number, the better, at least for them.”
“I see, Dr. Henderson. We seem to have over-reached our 500 million target by about double that figure.”
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