Mick remained cool, calm, and indifferent until he saw the doll on the street. Just lying there, its legs broken, probably from being run over. It was dirty, the hair frizzy, and Mick bent down to lift it.
Was the child who loved that doll still alive? He imagined in his mind the family leaving to get help and the doll dropped. So much screamed at Mick about all that happened to the world, all that was lost, when he saw that doll. Just as his fingers gripped it, he heard it.
So did Ethan, because he turned his head to Mick. “You hear that?”
It was high pitched sound, achy, and almost catlike.
“Animal?” Mick asked.
Ethan shook his head and called, “Hello!”
Again, the noise came to them, faint but close.
Mick spun to the tan mobile home. “There.”
“You sure?”
“I think.”
A few more steps and another cry out, and Mick was certain he and Ethan were entering the right home. The second they stepped into the mobile home, the familiar smell of death pelted Mick. It was raw, overpowering and the trailer was warm, which seemed to breed the odor. It didn’t take long, only a few steps, to find not only the source of the smell, but the cause of the noise.
The body of a woman lay on the sofa. She was covered in a blanket, her eyes wide open, face grey. In the center of the living room was a portable playpen. Inside, surrounded by empty bottles was a child. It was apparent by the amount of bottles the mother had done all that she could. That perhaps as she lay dying she prayed that someone would find her child before it was too late.
The boy was no older than two, and was lying on his side. His skin was dry, cracked and pale. His tiny mouth was open and his eyes sunken in. He blinked once, as if trying to focus on Mick, then whimpered out a labored, faint cry.
“Oh my God.” Mick rushed to the playpen. He knew the second he placed his hands on the child, that it wasn’t the flu. The toddler was starving and severely dehydrated. “Oh my God,” he said again as he lifted the child.
His heart broke. The child was listless, only able to squeal, and it was apparent that the simple noise took everything from him. He locked eyes with Mick and Mick just wanted to cry. Just crumble and cry.
“We gotta get fluids into that child,” Ethan said, rushing to the playpen and lifting a bottle. He raced to the kitchen and looked. “Nothing here.”
Mick just stared at the child, the slowly brought him to his chest. His little hands tried so hard to grab on to Mick, but he didn’t have the energy.
“I got water in the truck,” Ethan said, rushing from the kitchen to the door. “Let’s go.”
Mick just stood there.
“Mick, come on. We got to help this child.”
After only a nod, Mick, cradling the toddler, quickly followed Ethan.
Help the child? Mick thought, Was that even possible?
Journal Entry
I thought I’d write a little while me and Tig were just hanging back in the camper. We’re waiting on Mick, he won’t be long. Tig keeps looking out the window. We can hear kids out there playing.
They’re laughing. I don’t understand that. How can they laugh? A part of me feels as if I am not allowed to laugh. That if I smile, it would be wrong.
Not that I want to smile. I don’t have it in me and I don’t think anything, right now, can make me smile. Not a real one or big.
I had the weirdest thought. I wonder if my dad was psychic. Maybe he knew deep inside that something was gonna happen, something big and sad, and that was why he took his own life.
I didn’t understand it when he did it. I mean, why? But now, I’m a little jealous. Why?
Because he didn’t have to see it happen.
He didn’t have to watch Dustin die. What my brother went through was bad. Really bad. He was so sick and he did not deserve to feel that much pain.
Yet, he wasn’t scared. How can you know you’re gonna die and not be scared? I am proud of my big brother. I wonder if my dad was there waiting on Dustin, saying, “Come on, guy, we have to greet a lot of people.’ I wonder if they were sad or happy when my mom got there.
Like I said, a part of me is jealous. I know that sounds stupid. But my dad gets to be with Dustin, my gram, my mom. I get Mick and Tig. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mick and Tigger. I just wish our family wasn’t broken up.
I’d give anything to have it be normal.
I’d give anything to have my mom and brother back.
What’s gonna happen now to this world? I’m pretty sure I’ll never go to school again. Never have my friends. Probably never go to college. What about the dreams that I had, that my brother had?
They’re just gone.
I’m smart enough to know that water isn’t always good enough to drink when you find it, and the cans of food on the shelf at the store ain’t gonna last forever.
Maybe it’s something I should leave for the grownups to worry about. But something tells me I’m gonna have to be a grown up long before I’m ready.
It ain’t fair that this happened.
But what can you do?
4. Life
“I seen this before but not this bad,” Ethan told Mick as they placed the baby on a dampened cloth. Internally, that wet towel would do nothing, but Baby Boy Doe was like prune. Literally like a prune.
Putting liquids in his bottle were futile, as Doe wouldn’t drink or swallow; he could barely react at all.
“Come on, little man,” Mick pleaded. “You got to drink, something, please drink something.”
“He needs more than water. Maybe they got some of the electrolyte stuff in town in one of the stores. It won’t hurt to look.”
Mick was at a loss. As an officer of the law he had some knowledge of emergency medicine, but it was basic. First aid, CPR, stuff like that.
Baby Boy Doe was naked, his legs barely squirmed, and Mick held him as they got in the truck.
“Ethan, you said you seen this before?”
Ethan soaked a paper towel with water. “About a week ago when we found Billy, yes. He’s six, like your boy. He was dehydrated to the point he couldn’t swallow. He was able to have some reaction. Most of the young ones are starving, thirsty.” He handed the wet towel to Mick. “Put this in his mouth. Maybe he’ll suck on it and get just enough into his system so that he’ll take a bottle.”
Ethan shut the door and walked to his side of the truck.
The water from the towel rolled down Mick’s hand and he brought it to the boy’s mouth. He opened his mouth some and placed the cloth inside. The baby barely reacted.
“Massage his throat,” Ethan instructed. “Help him to swallow, keep him up, you don’t want him to choke.”
“So you have done this before?”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t this bad. No one was. I don’t know.” Ethan started the truck. “I saw that little gas station up there, maybe they have something.”
Mick kept constant eye contact with the baby. He didn’t know why the child pulled at his heart so. He kept encouraging the baby to take the cloth, swallow, anything.
Baby Boy Doe’s breathing was rapid, and his protruding stomach snapped back and forth with each breath.
“What did you do before this world went to shit?” Mick asked.
“I was school teacher.”
It made immediate sense to Mick, why Ethan thought of children first, how he cared so much about those left behind. He could see Patrick doing the same had he survived the flu.
“Mick, you seem like a level headed guy,” Ethan said. “But right now, you’re frazzled. Relax, trust me he can sense it.”
“How did this happen, Ethan?” Mick asked with such heartbreak. “How?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, apparently his mom tried, you know? But he was forgotten. He was just forgotten. How?”
“Mick, think about it. I don’t mean to dredge up anything, but when you were suffering your loss, when you and your f
amily were going through the hell of the flu, did you stop to think? Did you at all, stop and wonder, let’s say, about the Smiths down the street, how they had two boys and what would become of them? Did you wonder at all about the kids?”
“I did. Yes, I ran my town,” Mick said. “And our whole town became like a family when the flu hit. We went door to door.”
Ethan exhaled. “That was Lodi. It isn’t the way it was. Unfortunately, unlike Lodi, no one really cared what happened outside their own home. You folks were just different.”
Ethan’s words hit hard to Mick and rang a painful reality. Yes, the people of Lodi cared for each other, came together and rallied to each other’s aid. But in essence, Mick did the same as everyone else in the country. He didn’t care about what was happening outside his house. Only difference was, All of Lodi was his house.
After thinking about it, Mick simply said. “No, no we weren’t. We were the same, Ethan, just on a different scale.”
Mick held the baby with the cloth to his mouth. How ironic that such a small, helpless child could bring such a big revelation. Mick had only focused on what happened to his home, his family, and for the first time, the hard reality of what had happened to the world pummeled him.
* * *
Rose Owens was still angry with her son. It wasn’t like when he was a teenager and didn’t check in. Mick was a grown man. In fact, he was the Chief of Police in the small town of Lodi, Ohio. But he had left.
He stated he had good reasons, but to Rose there wasn’t any good reason to up and leave the town that you had led through such a horrendous ordeal.
She credited her son and a couple of others with saving the lives of half the population of Lodi. Half. While the loss seemed great when spoken, it paled in comparison to the rest of the world.
Rose thought about the rest of the world; she was certain her son did not.
To him, Mick had lost his world - the love of his life and the boy who was no less than a son to him. He didn’t care hide nor hair about anything except what he lost and what he still had remaining.
Tigger and Chris.
Rose was sure she didn’t play into the ‘still had’ factor, or else he wouldn’t have left. She understood his reasoning, but she didn’t like it. There were too many painful memories in Lodi and Mick wanted to take the boys away. She wasn’t sure where, though. Tom’s family cabin in West Virginia? Would they even get that far? Rose doubted it.
Mick made decisions his entire life based on the passion in his gut and not the knowledge in his head and that worried Rose. The boys had just lost their mother, brother and grandmother. As much as a testosterone filled getaway seemed like the thing to do, Rose wondered if Mick had a clue what was outside the town limits.
Rose had returned to Lodi at the height of the flu epidemic. She watched people panic, rush to the streets, to the hospitals, break into stores. She saw the confusion and chaos. And it wasn’t long before that Lodi put up an iron wall to keep people out. A wall many tried to break through.
Mick was there to hold it; he was the one who kept law and order. And now there was only one deputy remaining, one law enforcement agent. Mick was gone.
Did he suddenly think with the end of the flu, so came the end of any threat? Rose thought it unfair of him and selfish. Yes, he was hurt. But so were the boys. And so was everyone else in Lodi.
Being hurt and emotional left one vulnerable. What kind of world remained out there where he was taking the boys? Nothing was hunky dory anymore - she knew that. Rose’s gut wrenched with worry for her son and grandsons. Mick was a big man, but was he big and strong enough to keep those boys safe?
Mick and those boys were all she had left in the world. And while she prayed for their safety, she grew angrier by the hour. They had been gone a little over a day and it was a day too long.
She stayed in her home, declining dinner with Tom and Lars, who supported Mick’s decision. Of course they would. They weren’t out in the world like she was. Tom checked off a clipboard, sending out trucks for supplies and opened a video store.
Rose couldn’t sit idly by, pretending that all was fine while watching a movie she picked up at Tom’s. If things were going bad during the flu, the bad didn’t die off.
The bad may have paused, but for how long? Her instincts told her something was awry. Tom told her she was crazy.
Her son stood well over six foot five, and Rose pushed six foot with her boots on. She had a thick, tough body that didn’t waver in strength even though she was sixty-two.
Nor did her attitude. She was tough as nails, and barely flinched, even in the worst stages of the flu.
In the morning, after Tom sent out the trucks, Rose got on her motorcycle and decided to do what no one had in a week. She went out to check the perimeter of the town.
The ‘iron wall’ of strength that Mick had erected to protect the main entrances to Lodi was gone. The trucks were moved, and the motorcycle brigade gone. Most of the bikers had packed up and left after they helped bury bodies. They went out to find their families. The few remaining soldiers had left as well.
Then, so did Mick.
Rose didn’t see anything, of course; it was flat. But it was when she was visiting the new cemetery outside of Lodi, that she smelled it.
Smoke.
Something about it made her hair stand on edge. She focused her view to the trees in the distance and couldn’t see anything. It could have been someone starting a fireplace. After all, the air did have a chill. Maybe she was being neurotic and looking for something, and maybe it was coming from within Lodi. She just thought it was odd that she had to go outside of her community to grab the scent.
From the cemetery she couldn’t tell, couldn’t get a good direction or lock on it. There was only one way to find out, so Rose hopped back on her bike, and headed back into town.
* * *
Doe’s lips moved, and they closed some against the cloth. Mick smiled in relief. “He’s responding.”
“Finally,” Ethan stated. “Let’s see if he’ll take the bottle yet.”
Mick removed the soaking cloth and tried enticing the toddler with the bottle. He didn’t seem ready to take it. “Not yet. But he looks better, doesn’t he?”
Ethan tilted his head. “A little, not much. We’re getting there.”
They had driven back into town. The man who was packing was long gone. The gas station didn’t have the electrolyte drink and they used up more time looking for it. Finally they located a child’s version of it and were getting some results.
It helped Doe but it wasn’t what he really needed. At the fire station and EMT garage there were no IVs, and nothing else that would help.
Ethan scratched his head. “This little one has to be seen by a medical professional. Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue where we’d find one.”
“I actually do,” Mick said. “Lodi. Lars Rayburn is there.”
“Lodi isn’t that far, a couple hours’ drive. This child, if you keep trying to hydrate him, could survive that and stand a fighting chance.”
“I know. I guess, I’ll have to cut the trip with the boys short. I’m certain they’ll understand.”
“You carry that cell phone. Does it work? Maybe you can call that doctor.”
Mick shook his head. “Cell phones went down a few days ago. Actually, one of the last calls received by Lodi was from the president.”
“Of?”
“The United States.”
“Wow, I thought he was dead. What did he want?”
“Since two of his government guys were in Lodi, he was letting them know he was trying to … restructure … or whatever.”
“That’s good to hear,” Ethan said. “Will it work?”
“Can’t think about that right now,” Mick said. “Let’s get this baby some help.”
Ethan gave a nod, handed the rest of the infant electrolyte water to Mick and both men got in the truck.
Mick continued to try; intently foc
using on the baby, and suddenly, saving the child was most important to him in the world.
* * *
“What are you writing?” Tigger asked, peering over Chris’ shoulder.
Chris repositioned himself at the tiny kitchen table in the camper. “Stuff.”
“A story?”
“No. Well, sort of.” Chris shrugged. “Just stuff that happened, my thoughts.”
“Can you read them to me?”
“I can tell them to you.”
“Yeah, but I miss stories. No one reads me stories anymore.”
Chris closed the cover to the notebook. “I’ll read you a story tonight before bed, okay?”
Tigger nodded then climbed up to sit across from Chris. It was a task for him, being so small. He exhaled, a breath too big to come from him, as he perched his chin against the palms of his hands and peered with a sideways glance out the window.
“What’s up little man? You bored? Wanna play a game?”
“Would you be mad if I said I wanted to play with the kids?”
“Now why would I be mad about that?” Chris asked. “You’re a kid, of course, you wanna play. Can you wait for Mick to get back?”
“I guess. But what if they stop playing by then? They look like they’re having fun.”
Chris peered out the window. ‘Yeah they do.”
“Don’t you wanna go play? You’re still a kid, too.”
Chris stared at his little brother. He reached across the table and rubbed his hand over Tigger’s wiry hair. “Yeah, I am, dude. Grab your coat and hat. Let’s go out.”
Tigger grinned, widely. He jumped from the table and raced for his things.
Chris swept up the notebook, deciding he’d take it with him in case he got bored. He doubted it though. Maybe what he needed was to get out and be a kid again.
The Flu 2: Healing Page 3