The China Pandemic

by A. R. Shaw

  “We can’t leave her there. It’s getting dark and we have to do it now,” Graham said gruffly, and walked over to the couch. The boy put his arms over her, guarding. He pulled him back by the shoulders and said, “Look, kid, we have to do this right now. You can either help or stand back. Don’t make me lock you in a room. The least you can do for your mother right now is to be strong and come help me.”

  Graham pulled the red floral quilt down from the back of the couch and began wrapping her up, just as he’d done with the others. At first, the boy just stood there sobbing and then began patting her wrapped legs. As Graham started to cover the rest of her, he noticed a medallion necklace. He took it off her body as the boy watched and then reached for him. He pulled back, clearly untrusting until he realized what Graham was trying to do. He let Graham put the chain over his head. The medallion landed with a thump against his narrow, bony chest.

  “She has a book in her pocket there,” the boy said, pointing to her gray jacket. They were the first words he’d spoken other than, “No.”

  Graham felt in her coat and found a small leather bound journal.

  “Is this for you?” Graham asked the boy, who just raised his shoulders, not knowing the answer.

  “Well, you hold on to it for now,” Graham instructed.

  He continued to wrap her up until he got to her face.

  “Go ahead and say goodbye,” he told the kid.

  The boy sniffled, and then kissed her on the cheek. He hugged her one last time and stroked her long silky hair.

  Graham looked outside and realized the night was coming quickly. He pulled the boy back gently from his mother. “Okay, it’s time. We need to get her buried now.”

  The boy watched as Graham covered her face with the quilt then he cried again, “No, no, no!” He tried to pull the covers back and Graham had to pull him away, restraining him.

  He knew this was heartbreaking for the boy, but he didn’t have a choice. “Look, we have to bury her now or we’ll have more trouble with the dogs. Do you want that?” he said, looking at the boy’s tear-streaked face. “Your mother wants you to be safe and stay alive. We can’t do that if there are dogs attacking us.”

  The boy looked miserable and confused and just shook his head again.

  “All right then, let’s get this done before dark,” Graham said. He slung the rifle over his shoulder.

  He picked up her light frame and led the small procession out to her last resting place. The boy followed, crying.

  “Stop that, or you’ll attract more of the dogs,” Graham warned.

  However, the boy couldn’t suppress his grief. The closer Graham got to the grave, the more he struggled to pull the quilt away. With his arms full, Graham ordered, “Knock it off.”

  He lowered her down to the edge of the hole and the boy pulled more of the quilt off, exposing her feet. Graham pushed him away, landing him on his rear. He sat there, crying and rubbing his eyes.

  Graham took a look around for any more predators and jumped into the hole. “Give me a hand, kid,” Graham whispered, but the boy ignored him.

  He pulled the body over the edge and lowered her to the bottom. The boy scrambled over to the edge and yelled again, “No, No!”

  Graham quit worrying about the kid. Instead, he shoveled the dirt into the grave as quickly as he could because nightfall meant predators. He continued to shovel with the boy crying out. He felt awful having to do it this way, but the circumstances left him with no choice.

  By the time he finished, it was nearly dark and the child’s sobs had faded to whimpers. Graham, exhausted both emotionally and physically, began to smooth the mounded dirt over the grave. To his surprise, the boy shoved his hands away and began smoothing it himself. Graham let him do it.

  Another howl pierced the backyard silence, sending a chill up Graham’s spine. Not knowing the kid’s religious beliefs, he said, “Okay, kid, hurry up and say goodbye.”

  The boy said something in what Graham assumed must be Korean, but he wasn’t sure. He knelt down beside him, bowed his head, and hoped bringing her into his home had allowed her to pass peacefully. Out loud so the boy could hear him, he said, “Just like I promised, I will look after your son.” Graham heard another howl, then reached over and picked up the kid who leaned, spent and tearless, against his shoulder now.

  4 The Lucky Ones

  They were the lucky ones, being able to bury their dead. Most families without someone in the two percent living were left unburied. They lay in hospital beds, their own beds and sometimes in vehicles, trying to reach a destination or escape from the travesty of a life they had once known.

  Early on, ailing and dying people overran the hospitals and after attempting to encase every single dead body in plastic body bags, workers soon ran out of those supplies. As things progressed, they resorted to simply burning them in parking lots. There were dead bodies everywhere—corpses left to decompose as nature intended. Natural elements either sped up or slowed down the process of decay, depending on daily conditions.

  This encouraged the animal kingdom to descend in droves out of the forests and into the normally forbidden land of man. They peered around houses and onto the black asphalt-topped roads, lining the maze of streets beyond their borders. Tempted in by the lack of manmade noises that had formerly kept them at bay, they now were enticed by the aroma of rotting flesh. Out of desperation, neglected family pets soon either became prey or reverted to their feral state. They formed large packs, which often tangled with the wild side.

  Coyotes, wolves, bears and bobcats chased their natural prey, the deer, which were once only seen at dusk and dawn. The sound of the ruminants’ clip-clopping hooves on the hardened road surface and concrete sidewalks were heard by few people now. Those humans who remained would then hear the sound of savagery as the prey suffered death by fang and claw. This left those who endured to the end with an intense fear of being hunted by beasts. So they remained in the shadows of their shelters, running out of resources day by day.

  ~ ~ ~

  Graham put the boy down and locked the door. The wind picked up and the rain started again. The child just stood there, dazed. Graham looked out at the graves, which now totaled six. He leaned his head against the cold glass, fighting back the pain. He thought about the answer his father gave him for his question, “Why should I go on?” The old man had replied, “You’ll find a reason or the reason will find you.” He looked down at the boy. Great! My reason’s a pissed off Asian kid?

  Graham sighed and looked down to his boots. They were caked in mud, so he began to wipe them off on the mat but saw how useless that was. He then removed them instead and glanced at the boy’s tennis shoes, which were filthy as well; too filthy to track around his mother’s house.

  “Hey, take off your shoes,” he said.

  “I want to go home,” the boy whined.

  Graham spun him around to face him. “Listen, your mother spent the last moments of her life trying to save yours. She brought you to me and I promised to take care of you. I’ll do that until you manage to get yourself killed. Until then, you will do what I say, when I say it, and if you leave my sight again, you won’t get two blocks before you’re attacked by big, mean dogs. Only this time, I won’t save your ass because you didn’t listen to me. Got it?”

  The boy cried, but he also took terrified glances to the darkening outside and Graham hoped the warning was enough to keep him from running off again. The truth was that he could have easily been mauled to death earlier.

  “Now, take off your shoes,” he ordered again.

  The boy sat down on the carpet and untied his shoes. He still sniffled but at least complied.

  “Are you hungry?” Graham asked, trying for a kinder tone.

  The boy didn’t look up at him.

  Graham didn’t feel like eating now, either. He looked down at his dirt-covered hands. He was concerned the kid might try to run off if he turned his back. “Okay, listen. I’ve got to go shower
. You have two choices. You can either promise me you’ll stay here and behave, or get eaten by the dogs outside. What’s it going to be, because I don’t have time for this?”

  Between sobs the boy said, “Stay.”

  “All right,” Graham said. “It’s getting dark in here. Let’s go to the back.” The boy picked up his backpack from beside the door and Graham realized he hadn’t even seen it there before. The kid followed him.

  Since the illness had begun, his family had kept the house mostly dark at night. Graham used a flashlight to light their way to the back of the house. He opened the bedroom door, revealing a pair of twin beds.

  “That’s my bed, by the window. You can sleep there,” Graham said, pointing to the one nearest the door.” He pointed again. “That’s the bathroom, across the hall. I want you to go do your business and wash your hands.”

  The boy looked up at him. Graham started to feel guilty for being so harsh with him, but it was for his own good. The kid walked into the bathroom with the nightlight casting a soft glow, closing the door behind him.

  Graham heard the water running so he waited in the hall for the boy to finish. In the meantime, he leaned his head back against the hall closet wall. He hadn’t eaten anything today but knew if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

  His thoughts wandered back to dawn and his father’s death. Graham couldn’t suppress the tears anymore. He bowed his head, and when he looked down, the boy was standing there looking up at him. Graham wiped his tears away.

  “Are you all done?” he asked the boy, who nodded. He walked him into the bedroom and pulled back the blankets on the bed for him. “Okay, climb in,” he told him.

  The boy climbed up and Graham pulled the covers over him. “I’ve got to take a shower. You’re going to stay right here, right?” Graham asked. The boy nodded, but his lower lip quivered.

  “What’s your name?” The boy hesitated. “Look, my name’s Graham. What’s yours?” he asked him again.

  “Bang,” the boy said.

  Graham wasn’t sure he heard it right. “What?” he asked again.

  “Bang!” the boy said and rolled over, weeping.

  Graham felt even guiltier now, “All right, Bang, I’m going to take a quick shower. I’ll be right back.” He patted the boy but Bang jerked away from his touch.

  Graham closed the bedroom door but left the bathroom open so he could listen for any noise. He looked at himself in the mirror, still holding his rifle over his shoulder, and saw a man he didn’t recognize. He was filthy and utterly spent—both of energy and of emotion. He peeled off his dirty clothes and turned on the shower. He propped the rifle nearby and kept the curtain partially open so he could see out. He let the hot steamy water run over his worn body, watching the clear water turn brown as it drained away. He cried again, because the strongest man he’d ever known lay cold in a grave tonight. After showering off the dirt of graves, he emerged, finding the boy asleep.

  He stopped at the door and watched the sleeping child, then noticed the leather book lying atop the kid-size backpack. He picked it up and sat down on his own bed. With the golden glow of the night light, he unwrapped the leather binding. The first few pages showed a genealogy tree with Bang in the end. Photos and names of the ancestors delicately translated into English below what he guessed were Korean names. The brave lady bearing Bang’s likeness had indeed been a beauty. His stomach knotted from knowing the pain of losing his own mother too. He turned the pages slowly until a loosely folded letter addressed to him came into view. It read:

  “Dear Mr. Graham,

  “I’m writing to you this letter with a happy heart. I know you are a good man and will take good care of my son Bang. Please keep him safe and remind him of his father and me. When he is sad, ask him to tell you of his whole family and the people we were. We will be with you both in spirit.

  “I will tell you a little about Bang so that you will know how to care for him.

  “We are Korean American. My father bravely escaped the death camps of North Korea, Bang knows of the story. He is five years old and his birthday is July 15th. His birth took place in Seattle, Washington.

  “He loves cars and animals. He is scared of the dark and sometimes has bad dreams. I taught him he must be brave for you. He is a good hunter of small game.”

  Reading this, Graham lifted his head and looked over at the boy.

  “His father and I trained him well to fish and hunt duck, rabbits and squirrels. He knows how to set small snares and traps for them. His bow and arrows are in his backpack along with his slingshot.

  “He is quiet most times but can read and write well for his age. Most importantly, I believe you need him as much as he needs you.”

  There it is again, that same idea Dad expressed.

  “You are both alone now. That is why I chose you over the others.”

  Obviously, she wrote the next part later, because the handwriting wasn’t as smooth or as calm as before.

  “Please read my warning!

  “When you take Bang and leave this place, I must warn you about a very bad man named Campos. I watched all the living here at night to make my decision. He has killed two of the few that walked into town. When you take Bang, please go at night away from the highway exit. He stays at the gas station there by a small blue trimmed house. He seems like his mind is gone and he speaks to himself out loud in different voices. He’s very dangerous. Please avoid him. He has guns and carries a hatchet on his belt in the back at all times. He keeps the fires in the dumpster going and he even threw one of the survivors into it alive. When you leave don’t make any noise with a car, or I fear he will find you and Bang. Stay hidden from him.

  “Do not be sad for those you lost, Mr. Graham. You now have someone to live for.

  “With my deepest gratitude as a mother,

  Hyun-Ok”

  Graham refolded the letter and slipped it back into the book, rewrapping the binding. He wasn’t sure what to think of the boy. He wasn’t surprised by the warning since he’d often heard the distant sound of gunfire and had seen the black smoke drifting this way almost every evening. So far, he hadn’t ventured that way since his dad implemented the no contact order. They mostly stayed close to the house and then his family started dying, so he certainly hadn’t thought of going anywhere until now. Now that he knew of the danger, he would have to devise a plan for him and Bang to exit this place safely.

  Unfortunately, the direction he needed to take to get to his family’s cabin led him right through the trouble-spot. They were landlocked by man and nature both. To get to the other side of the highway, raised like a causeway there, and lined with boulder walls on each side, they needed to cross the interstate bridge right in front of this Campos fellow. This guy sounded pretty bad, and regrettably the immunity to the virus wasn’t confined to good people alone, like his dad had warned him.

  Then, like most nights before he went to sleep, Graham cleaned the gun that he kept at the ready, taking pleasure in the routine and familiar task. Somehow, this act in recent days had taken over his typical pre-bed ritual of reading a chapter or two of a chosen novel before nodding off. Now, he felt the world around him mirrored some of the dystopian novels too much to enjoy them.

  Just before he woke, his father’s death replayed in his dreams. The desperate pleas from him, hoping he’d given his son every bit of advice he would need to survive, remained with him as sleep left. Then he opened his eyes and became aware of a sleepy little Asian boy sitting atop the adjacent bed, leaning against the headboard. He rubbed at his morning eyes and yawned. For a minute, Graham couldn’t make the connection. Then it all came back to him from the day before, losing two and gaining one.

  5 Heading Out

  This new day brought with it a new purpose, one Graham could look forward to because now he had a boy to look after and that meant he needed to keep him safely away from harm. He felt the burden of the promise. He did not resent it, though it had come une
xpectedly. Well, time to get the hell out of here especially considering Hyun-Ok’s warning.

  “Morning, Bang. You sleep well?” he asked. Bang nodded at this question. From the sad little face, Graham he knew yesterday’s facts were draping themselves into reality for him, as well. Bang let himself drop back down to his pillow.

  “I’m going to take another shower this morning because we probably won’t be able to get clean for a while until we get to the new place. After I’m done, you can take a shower or a bath, too, whatever you’d like to do. You do know how to take a shower, right?” Graham asked him. The boy nodded.

  Hell! I don’t know what to do with a five-year-old. Guess I better let him figure it out and if he comes out clean then that would do. A stinky little boy will be the least I have to worry about. Heck, we’re both going to be pretty ripe soon enough. It looks like I’m going to have to find a way out of town tonight, sans engine.

  Graham grabbed a change of clothes, went back to the bathroom and turned on the hot steamy shower. He tried to wash away his grief and banish the uncertainty of what lay ahead. While in there he came up with an idea. Maybe they could take the bikes in the garage. They were quiet and they would not make as much noise as his truck when getting out of town. He did not know if Bang could ride a bike. His niece’s bike would have to do, being about the right size, though girly.

  He sure hoped the boy knew how to ride because teaching him out front in the driveway would be too risky. As he thought about it, teaching a kid he hardly knew hit right up there with experiencing parenthood. He, being a novice guardian at best, felt severely unprepared. He wished he could go in the next room and ask his dad. He would just have to rely on his own experiences as a kid. He figured his parents were pretty decent with him and his sister, so he would just ask himself what his mom or dad would do as each case presented itself. He’d made a promise to Hyun-Ok and as best he could, he meant to keep it.

  Finally, the day had come where he would set into place what he and his father had planned. Now these plans had to include a young boy too. It would certainly slow him down, but he’d never been a loner in life and started to warm to the idea of having the kid along. At least it gave him a legitimate reason to talk, with no one accusing him of talking to himself.