“Drop the pistol.” She said in Farsi colored with a British accent.
“No” he replied coolly, “drop your rifle.”
“I don’t want any trouble, but I will shoot you if I have to.” She said, the rifle shaking slightly in her hands.
Tal took a minute to get a measure of her. Her clothes were dirty and had some
questionable looking stains in various places, but looked to have once been what was considered ‘business casual’. She was as tall as he was, about five foot ten, and slim. Her nails had been plainly manicured at one time and kept short, and the sound of her accent marked her not only as British, but as fairly well off. Under the grime and dirt, she was also strikingly attractive. Tal wasn’t totally sure she wouldn’t shoot him, until he saw the necklace she was still wearing; a small silver caduceus hanging from a delicate (if now tarnished) chain.
“Ok, we’ll both drop our guns” Tal said in English, taking the pistol and slipping it back into his waistband. “After all, it’s not like you’re gonna shoot me, are you doc?”
She hesitated a bit before pointing her rifle at the dirt.
“No…no, I rather suppose not. At least, I’d hoped not to at any rate.”
“Good. Christine, you can stand down now, thank you.” He replied, smiling, as the woman turned to see Christine standing behind her. As Tal was talking, she’d crept up silently behind her and had her bull pup trained at the back of the newcomer’s head.
Seeing Christine, the woman held up her hands and removed her finger from the trigger, allowing Christine to take the weapon from her.
“Yes…well…are you going to kill me, then? Or simply rob me?” Christine snorted in mild disgust and walked back toward the bus, handing the AK to John who had come out with his axe.
“Neither. We are heading north to Turkey, trying to get clear of this mess. We don’t want to hurt you, or anyone else. In fact, we have enough room and supplies and could certainly use someone with your skills…you could come with us, if you’d like. As long as you don’t plan on giving us any trouble.”
“How did you know I was a doctor?” she asked. Tal tapped his neck where the necklace would be hanging on her, and she nodded. “I see. Good thing for you, then, that I hadn’t stolen it from some poor unlucky individual. But thank you, no. I’ll not be going back that way, and you should rethink your options as well.”
“What do you mean?” Tal was concerned now. She’d said ‘back’ that way and she was in no hurry to return. That did not bode well. “Where did you come from? What do you know?”
“Can I trust you?”She asked, suddenly very nervous, licking her suddenly dry lips as her eyes betraying her as they darted toward the back of the ambulance. It was a movement that Tal hadn’t failed to note.
“Christine, cover the good doctor. John, bring that weapon, and let’s see what’s hiding in the back of the truck, shall we?”
Christine re-shouldered her weapon as John and Tal moved quickly to the rear doors of the ambulance. John positioned himself back a few feet, covering the doors, and Tal drew his pistol and grabbed the handle. In all, it was so fast that only a few moments had passed. Still, just as Tal began to open the door, the doctor had
recovered in enough time to call out.
“No! Don’t!! They’re just children!”
Tal pulled on the door handle and in the back of the ambulance, huddled together and cringing on the floor, were five filthy children. They wept and cried in little bleats, like sheep almost, and the three boys were trying to be brave by pushing the two younger girls behind them. They looked like fresh hell, clothes ripped in many places, some still sporting wounds that looked a few weeks old at best.
“Holy shit” said John.
“Holy shit, indeed.” Tal looked at the kids and motioned for the doctor. “So, suppose you tell me what’s going on while we get a little bit of food in these kids? We don’t have a ton, but they don’t look like they’ve eaten in a while.”
The doctor looked between Tal and the kids, and though Christine had once again lowered her weapon, she was not forgotten. Realizing that she was in an untenable situation, having been disarmed, she took the chance that the offer of food and tentative security was genuine.
“Very well, but can we do it on your bus, please?”
Chapter Seventeen
The kids came out slowly and seemed ready to bolt at any moment. Once the doctor had assured them that they wouldn’t be hurt, which she hoped wasn’t an empty promise, she led them onto the bus where they all sat together and John and Christine took over. The couple hadn’t had children of their own, not for lack of trying, but things never seemed to work out to where Christine had gotten pregnant. It was actually one of the many reasons they had come to Jerusalem in the first place. After visiting the Church of Saint Anne, the patron saint of women trying to conceive, they were to go to Bethlehem and visit the Milk Grotto where Christian and Muslim women would mix the chalk of the cave with their food, hoping for the ability to get pregnant. Of course, they’d never made it out of Jerusalem before they had to start fighting for every step. But still, their parental instincts had kicked in, and they were happy to see to the children and get them food and drink while Tal and the doctor spoke.
“So, doc. I’m Tal, this is Omar and his nephew Nasir. You’ve already met John and Christine. Sorry about the guns and about being so brusque, but we really need to keep moving. What’s in Turkey that you don’t want to go back to? What’s with the kids?” asked Tal, sitting near the front of the bus with Omar and Nasir, and motioning for the doctor to take the seat across from him.
“Well, first off my name is Elena Avalon. I am a doctor…rather, I WAS a doctor with Doctors without Borders… back when there were borders. I was working in Homs, Syria, with casualties from the civil war as a trauma surgeon. Homs was slightly more secure than some of the neighboring cities, a few more hospitals working since the government reestablished control over the city and the antigovernment forces had evacuated.
Still, people from Aleppo were streaming in by the dozens and hundreds. Barrel bombs and hell cannons had taken a huge toll on the fighters, but also on women, children, and other non combatants. We were trying to help. We were working one day, like we normally do, except that one of the other doctors, a Nigerian gentleman named Sunkanmi, made an offhand comment that ‘at least the flow of people had slowed down’. The flow never slows down. Not ever. Then, shortly after that, it stopped. It was like everyone fighting in the war had run out off bullets all at the same time.
Then, others began streaming into the city. Wounded but not stopping for treatment. People driving and riding camels or horses or tractors…anything that could move at speed. Government troops and rebel fighters running side by side, some even helping one another. One of them stopped at the hospital just long enough to scream at us to run because ‘the dead were coming’. Obviously, we didn’t believe that. Looking back, we probably should have known that something very bad was coming.
We got communiqués from the CDC and WHO telling us that some new virus-like disease had been detected and the spread was like wildfire. But we couldn’t spare any time for anything that didn’t directly affect us and our work with the wounded from the civil war. Communications out here, with the war going on, are intermittent at best. The last thing we got over the network was a message saying that people were dying in droves in many countries. Japan, America, France, and yes, Turkey. We tried to leave, but we couldn’t get all the wounded into trucks and such in time. It reached us…they reached us…shortly thereafter. It was…beyond a nightmare, the things that happened.
They boiled into the hospital tearing into anyone within reach, so I ran. I was heading toward the back of the hospital where the ambulances were parked, when I passed a group of children huddling in an operating room. I couldn’t believe they weren’t among the first evacuated, so I grabbed them and we tried to make our way out and into one of the
am
bulances. There were eleven of us then…” She trailed off and tears began to gather at the corners of her eyes before she brushed them angrily away and continued.
“We got out eventually and hid in one of the ambulances. We hid for a day and a half. So many noises and so much pounding on the doors and sides of the ambulance. Sometimes I find myself wondering how many were dead and how many were still alive when they were banging on the sides of the ambo. After the major hordes moved to different areas of the city, we drove like hell out. We barely made it through Damascus. It was at its worst when we went through. Fires, explosions, people being eaten everywhere. We had actually only really gotten through Duma but then we drove out towards the outskirts of the city, which probably saved us. Everything was happening in the city proper, so that’s where they all went, like moths to a flame. I found a map in the glove box and we went down back roads and through a half dozen little villages before I got us back on the M5 and found a way to 98. I was heading for the coast. We got as far as you saw before one of the tires blew out and the rim got buried in the sand.”
“Then what? What were you going to do once you hit the coast?” Tal asked.
“Then…I don’t know. I kind of just tunnel-visioned at the coast. Maybe Cairo? Or anywhere? Just keep moving ? It’s all desert out here, all more of the same. The ocean was the biggest fixed landmark I could think of. I just didn’t want to die…and the kids…I had to do whatever I could.” she trailed off into silent tears and began to shake.
T his was probably the first time she’d been still for more than a few seconds, and the adrenaline was wearing off.
Shit. Shit on fire. Every single piece of fucking news I get is worse than the last. Turkey is overrun and it wasn’t a small country. Now what?
“So Turkey is gone? You’re sure?” he asked.
“As sure as one can be in this world. You have to know, this happened literally
everywhere and the heavily populated places got the worst of it. It’s all gone, I think.” She replied
“What about the air base? Incirlik? How long ago was all this?”
“Gone. Everything. Is. Gone. We are hundreds of kilometers from Her Majesty’s closest military base. We’ve been on the road for about a week and a half. Stopping to forage or loot what we could, when we could. Siphoning gas from wrecked cars.”
“God damnit!” Tal fumed. Turkey was as far as he had really thought. Hospitals and the military…all gone. And hundreds of miles from the nearest base…they might as well be on the moon. Where the hell was she talking about anyway? Incirlik was the closest base in to the Levant area…the next closest one was…….
Holy shit.
“Wait….wait…waitwaitwaitwait….fuckin g wait! That’s it! Oh doc, I think you just figured this whole shit show out!” Tal was ecstatic, jumping up from his seat and
frightening the children in the rear of the bus.
“What are you on about?” Elana asked, a sideways glance plainly showing her concern that Tal had just snapped.
“What’s going on, Tal? You ok?” Christine called out from the back with the kids.
“Christine…do you remember what Ben said back at the monastery? No…wait, you were with the others. Anyway, he and I were talking and he was telling me a bunch of shit about a vacation he had with his wife. It’s how he knew where the monastery was, it was part of his holiday. I was hung over as hell so I was barely listening, but he said that the last stop they made was in Cyprus.”
Everyone was simply staring at him, missing the point he was trying to make and desperately trying not to look at him like he was a lunatic. Admittedly, he was doing nothing to help with that.
“CYPRUS! Don’t you see? We’ve been trying to figure out where the hell we were going to go, and now we know! It’s so obvious! Look! Cyprus is an island, ok? It has fresh water, mountains, animals…they have goats and shit! It’s cut off from the mainland countries! The Mediterranean Sea has some strong currents, so the dead won’t just be able to shuffle on the sea floor or float on over there. It has a limited population; here we could get the dead from anywhere on two continents eventually, but there it’s a pretty fixed number. We can get a boat from one of the cities, ON THE COAST!” he gave the doctor a knowing and almost frantic look, “and best of all, BEST of ALL, there are two British airbases on the island, plus the Cypriot National Guard! It’s perfect!”
“Except that the coast is bloody close to a hundred kilometers away. And that we would have to find a boat that works. And cross an ocean. And hope Cyprus isn’t as bad as here. Assuming we haven’t gotten ourselves eaten well before we even make a dent in that first bit”, interjected Elana.
“That’s a real long shot, Tal. We’ve got these kids now and we had enough food back when it was just us five and we were only going ten hours up to Turkey. More mouths, less food, and who knows what between us and the coast”, said John.
“Come the fuck on! What do you want from me? Sure, let’s just focus on all the stuff that can go wrong. If we had done that and let it whoop our asses, we wouldn’t have gotten out of Jerusalem, or to Faran, or OUT of Faran, Nofei Pratt, Kfar Adumim or the dozen or so other near catastrophes that we did, in fact, get the hell out of! But no, yeah, you’re right. Let’s roll over now, baste ourselves in schug and lay out on the desert! I’ll get the napkins, doc, you bring the wine!”
“Tal, you’ve been amazing since this whole thing started. Without you, I don’t think we’d have gotten a quarter of the distance we did so far. Every single one of us respects you and is grateful to you for your leadership. So it’s with the deepest love and respect that I am saying this: please shut up for a second and stop acting like an ass, ok?” Christine stepped up and put a calming hand on his shoulder as she spoke.
Tal stopped and stared at her, his mouth open mid retort.
“Well…only because you said ‘please’.” And he sat down.
Omar threw his head back and laughed, Nasir following close behind. Within moments John, Christine, and even Elana started laughing. Tal couldn’t help himself either, the laughter was infectious and it felt good to have the tension of the last several days finally broken, if only temporarily; he chuckled himself at how quickly and politely he’d been disarmed.
After the laughter had stopped, several of the group drying tears from their eyes, Omar took control of the situation.
“Tal, do you have the map handy?” Tal fished in his pocket and handed the folded map over.
“Ok, so the coast and to Cyprus? Let’s see how feasible that would be. We are here”, he pointed to the very bottom of the Sea of Galilee, “and we need to get as close to a straight shot to Cyprus as possible. That leaves us with few options. Hafia, Nahariyya, Tyre, Sidon, or all the way into Lebanon to Beirut.”
“Those are all big cities. And Beirut is probably out just on distance, not to mention the…ah…population.” Elana pointed out.
“Ok so the others. Hafia would be closest.”
“Still a really big city. So are the others. Not on the order of magnitude of Damascus but still not some wattle and daub villages.” Tal wasn’t in love with the idea of a large
population of undead between them and the sea.
“Acre.” Said John, simply, and pointing at the map between Haifa and Nahariyya.
“Acre?”
“Yeah. It was a major port for a long time. It’s a smaller town compared to the rest, it’s pretty close, and it’s bound to have a marina. The Templars and the Hospitallers had a fort there and they held it deep into the loss of Outremer.”
“How the hell do you know so much about Acre?”asked Tal, somewhat surprised and a little impressed.
“St. Francis went there on his way to the Holy Land for pilgrimage.” The reference seemed lost on everyone.
“We’re Catholic and John’s a farmer,” said Christine, “St. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals.”
“Of course he is. How silly of me.” Tal replied. �
��Ok, so what if we went back down 90 then up the western bank of the lake until we hit 767. That keeps us out of Tiberias, through a few small towns, up 65 to 77, over to 79 where we will have to skirt Shefar’am. From there we hit 4 and drive straight into Acre. What do you think?”
The group deliberated the matter for some minutes. Everyone asking questions and solutions given or discarded. By the end, the consensus was that they really had no other options or anything else resembling a plan. Shefar’am was going to be dicey, there were around 40,000 people in it before the end, but since the road really only ran through a mostly rural part of the southernmost reaches of the city, it was decided to be a calculated risk.
The ambulance was worked over by John and Elana to gather as much of the first aid related items. Much of the gear was pretty standard; bandages, IV bags, hypodermics and some antibacterial ointments, but also a supply of a broad based antiviral medication which Elana gave to each of the members of the group.
“I’ve already given it to the kids, and there’s only one left after you all are done. We keep the ambulances stocked with it so that we can try to kill off any viruses in the patients on their way to the hospital. You can stitch up lacerations, remove bullets, repair torn veins and so on all day long…doesn’t matter if the patient dies from an infection shortly after you’re done. Hopefully this will kill anything you’ve already picked up, and maybe will even help if you get in close contact with one of those things, or get their blood on you.”
Seven Days Dead Page 16