by Sean Little
I pulled the nail from my leg. It hurt less than I thought it would, but blood seeped from the hole and ran down my leg. I used a thick pad of gauze to staunch the blood and taped it around my leg. The muscle was starting to swell; it felt thick and hard, and every step hurt. I would have to put ice on it later.
I had three vehicles available to me immediately: my bike, a U-Haul truck, and the flatbed from Home Depot. I couldn’t make the trip on the bike. Holding a handlebar wasn’t an option, and I didn’t want to do anything that made my blood pump harder. The flatbed still had some of the shed kit on it. I would have to take the U-Haul even though it was starting to get desperately low on gas. I resolved to find a better car in which to make little trips after I dealt with my injuries.
Rowdy leapt into the seat next to me when I opened the door to the truck, and we drove to the medical clinic my mom took me to whenever I needed a checkup or a shot. As I pulled in, I realized she never took me there because I was sick.
This was a minor revelation for me. I never missed a day of school because of a cold or stomach flu. I never got sick. Period. Even as a baby, I was surprisingly healthy. My mom never lost sleep because I was sick or had a fever. I remember a couple of years ago she told me that she was actually jealous of some of her friends because when their kids got sick they wanted cuddles and mothering, and I never needed any of that.
Was I just generally immune to disease? Could I even get tetanus? I was immune to the stupid killer flu that decimated the world, sure, but I had no idea how far my immunities would carry.
The parking lot of the clinic was packed with cars, unlike many of the stores and restaurants. I pulled the truck right to the door and killed the engine. Rowdy followed closely behind me. He seemed to know something was wrong with me. Dogs are much more intuitive than we generally give them credit for being, I think. As I approached the door of the clinic, Rowdy whined. He danced in front of me and moved back toward the truck. He was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t figure out what.
I previously mentioned the smell of rot that was in the air. The town smelled faintly of rot at all times, but the smell was stronger, much stronger actually, by the clinic. Rowdy, with his super-sniffer, noticed it long before I did. The clinic was shrouded with a cloak of death. People must have gathered there when the hospitals were overflowing. After the second week of the Flu, many of the hospitals started telling people to go home, that nothing could be done. People must have come to the clinics looking for some sort of relief, some sort of aid. I feared what I would find when I opened the doors of the clinic, but I knew I needed the sutures.
The doors were intact and unlocked. They were electric sliding doors, though. I had to push the doors open with my uninjured hand, using my knees and elbows to brace them apart like Hercules. Opening the first door magnified the scent of rot. A handwritten sign on the second door urged people to go home; nothing could be done for them. It was clear that no one paid attention to the sign. The second door unleashed an unholy rolling wave of putridity the likes of which I would not have unleashed on my worst enemy. My eyes watered. I gagged and vomited. It wasn’t an option to gut it out. The smell was worse than I could have imagined, it was opened bowels and spoiled meat. Flies buzzed in the building incessantly. It was the very scent of death in its most unholy form.
I stepped into a scene from a horror film. Bodies lay everywhere. All the chairs in the lobby were occupied by corpses. Bodies lay on the floor. The body of a receptionist was slumped over the desk. A pair of corpses in stained, dirty white coats were leaning back against the reception desk--two doctors who gave their all to their patients, even as the end came for them.
I was a little shocked by the amount of carnage. I guess I would have just gone home and died there, as my parents did. My heart went out to all the poor souls who gathered in the clinic, desperate for a cure. They all died. They gathered into a single location and died together. Everyone struggling for breath, knowing they were doomed. Perhaps it was more comforting for them to not die alone.
I waded through the bodies, stepping over or around them as I moved to one of the clinical rooms. In every clinical room, there was at least one body, some on the examination tables, some in the chairs, some on the floors. Breathing shallowly through gritted teeth, I rooted through the cabinets in the exam rooms. I found suture kits and Lidocaine. I found bandage scissors and gauze and medical soap. I found cold packs--the kind where you squeeze them to pop something inside of them and then they get icy cold. I took as many of those as I could carry. In one of the rooms was a basket with kids’ books in it. I dumped the books and loaded the supplies into it. At the nurses’ station, I found a book about medicines and I was able to look up the vaccine I needed for tetanus. I got a bottle of the vaccine and a couple of hypodermic needles. Then, I left. I couldn’t stay there any longer, and I certainly couldn’t take the time to try to do the necessary stitching in the clinic. The smell was too horrible.
Rowdy hadn’t joined me inside the building. I could only imagine what the smell was like for him and his sensitive nose. He seemed relieved to see me when I emerged. He whined and danced in front of the truck, anxious to leave.
I drove back to the library and began the process of attempting to suture myself. I poured Lidocaine into the wound to numb the pain. It burned like fire for a few minutes, and then mellowed and numbed to the point where I felt like I just had a dead, lifeless weight at the end of my arm. I applied antiseptic salve to the wound and used gauze to clean it as best I could. I opened one of the suture kits with my right hand and struggled with the needle. I’m one of those strange, ambidextrous people. I write and draw with my left hand, but I do all the big tasks with my right, such as golfing and throwing. I’m not completely useless with my right hand, but usually for delicate tasks, I would have preferred my left hand. The kit came with a needle holder, a scissor-like clamp that I was able to use to grasp the end of the small, curved needle. The stitching went better than I thought it would, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I had no idea how to make a proper stitch, so I just looped the thread through the wound a dozen times and pulled it closed. I’m sure any first-year med student would have had kittens over how I approached sutures. I tied off the end of the thread in a clumsy knot and then put gauze over the wound and taped it in place. It was an ugly repair, but it would have to work. I couldn’t do it any better.
The puncture wound in my leg was ugly. I didn’t know how to treat a wound like this, so I limped to the first-aid resources in the library pamphlet files and found a treatment: clean the wound, put a bandage on to stop the bleeding, and treat for pain. Simple.
Then, I figured my way through administering a shot of DTaP to ward against Tetanus. I wondered if I could even get Tetanus because of whatever sorts of immunity I possessed, but I wasn’t about to risk it. Giving myself a shot was not as bad as I thought it would be, but instead of my upper arm, I had to do it in my thigh, as it was easier to reach.
I cracked two of the cold packs, holding one in my left hand and then I taped the other to my leg to hold it in place. I found hydrocodone in one of my pharmacy containers to treat the pain and took two. I continued to self-medicate by eating a whole box of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes and drinking a two-liter bottle of warm Coke.
There’s not a lot that can’t be made better with Zebra Cakes and Coke.
I bathed as best I could with Wet-wipes. Whether it was real or imagined, I smelled rot and death on me. I tried to purge that from my nostrils. I scrubbed at my skin with those cherry-scented towelettes and even sprayed myself with lilac-scented Febreeze when I was done. I could still smell death, though. At that point, I didn’t know if I would ever stop smelling death.
I slept well that night, surprisingly. I think the hydrocodone had something to do with that. I learned a while ago that my body doesn’t process narcotics well. I got hurt playing football in my freshman year, broke my collarbone, and I was given hydrocodone to
treat the pain. Every time I took pills, I passed out and slept for about ten or eleven hours, and then felt sick and groggy for the entire next day. This was no exception.
I woke to a worried Rowdy. He was concerned for my well-being, and was doing his pee-pee dance. I dragged myself out of bed, sweaty and hurting, and let the dog out. As before, I was groggy and muddled from the pills. I felt like seven pounds of crap in a five pound sack.
The sun was still in the sky, but there were ominous clouds to the west. Rain was coming. I still needed to finish the shed. I gritted my teeth and tried to shake off the headache and pain in my hand and leg. I took four naproxen tablets and hoped they would help.
My left hand was nearly useless. It had swollen badly. It was at that moment than I really missed ice. Of all the modern conveniences, something as ice rarely makes anyone’s lists of amazing things, but the simple ability to have frozen water on demand in the modern world is amazing and I took it for granted, as I took so many things for granted, until it was gone. The cold packs were nice, but they weren’t ice. They didn’t get quite as cold as I wanted them to be.
I restarted the generator and somehow managed to muscle the roof sheeting to the top of the shed with one hand. I secured it in place with good thoughts, wishes, and hope, and had to descend the ladder to get the nail gun to secure it in place. Up the ladder and down the ladder. It took me many trips to finish the roof, and my hand only throbbed worse as the day progressed. By the time the rain arrived, the shed was mostly done. I only had to finish and hang the door. That could wait for another day. I stored the power tools inside the shed and turned off the generator. I limped back inside the library.
The rain came with fury. It started as a few fat drops, but quickly built into a deluge. Sheets of water assaulted the windows. Wind whipped the trees in the park across the street. I stood at the window and watched the storm, thinking about my rain collection barrels. I wondered how much water they would gather. I started thinking about other methods of collection, like building a large, square block of rain gutters that would funnel into a single barrel.
When I grew bored of watching the rain, I took a look at my hand. The wound had seeped overnight, but the bleeding was stopped and it looked like it was starting to repair, so that was good. The swelling had me concerned, though. I took more Aleve. I could grit my teeth and deal with the pain, so I didn’t want more narcotic painkillers, but the swelling was getting to me. I broke a new cold pack and held it.
The rain looked like it was going to be an all-day thing, and I guessed that I had earned myself a day off. I wandered through the stacks and found a book to start reading. I opted for Daniel Defoe’s classic, Robinson Crusoe. I figured it was something I would easily identify with, given that my situation was not unlike being stranded alone on an island. I found the book more readable than I thought it would be, given its age. The prose was a little dense, sure, but it wasn’t horrible. The storms rolled through the area for better than two hours. I read for most of that, sitting in a comfortable chair by the window, with my dog at my feet. It was a nice way to kill the afternoon.
When the rain ended and the late afternoon sun dared show its face, I put the book down and limped out to check the barrels. Each one held a couple of inches of clean rainwater. I felt giddy. It wasn’t quite Tom Hanks making fire in Cast Away giddiness, but it was the elation of plan I devised bearing fruit, and it felt wonderful. I emptied a Rubbermaid container and poured the water from six of the seven barrels into it, then carted that container back to the barrel nearest to the door and married all the collected water together. There was over a foot of water in that barrel, probably seven or eight gallons all told. It was a good start.
I started a fire in the brazier and made up some instant mashed potatoes from a pouch (just add hot water!), and ate them with a few tabs of individual-serving butter. I would have liked a steak on the side, but scavengers can’t be choosers. I had to take what I could when I could.
After dinner, I went looking for a new car. With Rowdy at my side, I took up the gas siphon kit and limped down to the Chevy dealership in town. I broke the glass on the door to the offices with a rock from the landscaping and found the keys to a brand new Chevy Cruze Eco. The Cruze Eco promised 42 highway miles a gallon. It was the best option next to the electric cars, but I didn’t have the gas to waste running a generator for thirteen hours to fuel up electric batteries.
I took the keys to a fully loaded Eco with a sunroof and a CD player. I cleaned the plastic out of it and took the sales papers off the rear window. I held my breath when I went to start it, but after a minimum of fuss, it fired up and all seemed to be ready to run. The car had nearly a half-gallon of gas in it. It would be a fun little runabout, and it would let me start patrols. With my wood situation well in hand, the food and supplies situation dealt with for the time being, and the water situation under progress, I decided that I needed to start driving out to other cities and towns to look for survivors. The Cruze would be the key component to that plan.
I struggled to sleep that night, with the swelling in my hand and leg still bothering me. It was lessened, but it was still painful. I woke before dawn because of the discomfort, and I debated taking another day off and just spending it in a haze doped out on painkillers, but I decided against that. I figured that pain was going to be part of my future and running for drugs every time I hurt wouldn’t fix a lot.
The next morning, after a having a Pop-tart and some water for breakfast, I loaded some tools into the trunk of the Cruze, put my revolver and the pump shotgun and some ammo in the back seat, and took some food for Rowdy and myself and prepared to go see other towns.
Since I’d been west to Madison already, and I’d driven the country roads both north and south while looking for wood, I opted to head east, toward Marshall and beyond. As before, whenever I passed a field and could see cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, or horses grazing, I pulled over and cut down the fencing so they could escape if they felt like it.
Marshall, like Sun Prairie, was desolate. Already grass in yards was getting unsightly. It made me twitch a little. My dad had been a total lawn Nazi. He didn’t do a lot of landscaping, but the grass always had to be a certain length. I’d seen him cancel plans to go out golfing or something because the lawn was too long and he needed to deal with it, lest the neighbors think he was trying to lower their property values by keeping his yard less than perfect.
I drove to the center of town, a little four-way stop where Highways 19 and 73 crossed. I rolled down the windows and honked the horn three times. I listened. I heard nothing. I honked three more times. After hearing nothing, I moved on to Waterloo.
In Waterloo, I repeated my honking and listening process several times as I drifted slowly through town. I saw some cats milling around in tall grasses and a few thin, sad dogs emerge from porches to watch me with mournful eyes. My heart went out to those dogs. I broke into a Kwik Trip and liberated all the dry dog food I could, pouring a good mound onto the sidewalk nearest wherever I saw a dog. Some of them immediately ran out and ate. Some waited until I was back in the car and rolling away. Some dogs only watched until I was out of sight, distrustful of the humans that seemingly abandoned them. It felt like they were starting to become feral again, wild. They would have to remember that instinct inside themselves if they were going to survive. They were going to have to hunt and stalk prey. They were going to have to form packs. It was part of the reclamation process, I guess. They were going to have to relearn from that bit of ancient DNA that was stored in their bodies what it meant to be a wild beast. I couldn’t be there for all of them. They would have to adapt to this new world just as I would have to adapt to it.
From Waterloo, I drove to Hubbleton, a tiny little hamlet that was dead silent, and then to Watertown, a good-sized small city. I drove around Watertown for an hour, honking the horn occasionally, feeding roaming dogs occasionally, and seeing no signs of life. I continued on to Ixonia, to Oconomowoc, and then
to the Interstate. I drove on to Delafield, Pewaukee, and West Allis before arriving in Milwaukee and stopping at the shore of Lake Michigan.
At no point did I see any sign of human life past week four of the Flu. There seemed to be no fires burning anywhere. I saw no signs of anyone attempting to live anywhere. I honked the horn often and listened for responses, but heard only the wind.
I drove back to Sun Prairie on a road that ran along the interstate to the south. I drove through Waukesha, Waterville, Dousman, and Sullivan, and then on to Jefferson and Cambridge. Nothing. Nothing in any of them. I drove back into Madison on Highway 18 and circled through McFarland and Monona, then drifted north to Windsor before returning back to Sun Prairie, arriving after dark. I saw only silence, heard only ghosts.
I rethought my math. If Stephen King’s .6 percent held true, I should have found at least one other person. Eighteen people per municipality was a high number. I was confident there was no one else alive in Sun Prairie. They would have seen me if there was, and maybe I would have seen them. I’ve made no attempt to hide. I could have missed people in the other towns, sure. I don’t know Watertown or Delafield well. I don’t know where someone might have gone to hide themselves away. Milwaukee is massive--someone could have been anywhere. The likelihood of them hearing my feeble car horn was low, but the smaller towns, if someone was still alive, they should have heard me. It was a big state, though. I had tens of thousands miles of roads to patrol, and thousands of towns to visit before winter.
It was going to be a long summer.