Suffer the Children

by Craig DiLouie

  There was no escape, no cure. Just the certainty of death. It wasn’t only the world’s single greatest tragedy but its biggest medical mystery.

  “It’s a madhouse here,” Ben was saying. “They’re trucking in bodies faster than we can process them. The freezers are overflowing. I’ve got sixty people performing autopsies. Coroners, retirees, students, anyone I can get to show up. We’ve got twenty data-entry operators printing death certificates around the clock.”

  David tuned the television out of his consciousness and focused on his friend’s words. Forget the mourning, the mass vigils, the endless praying to God to spare the remaining children. What Ben was doing, he believed, was the most important thing being done.

  Right now, medical examiners across the country were autopsying thousands of bodies, collecting tissues and fluids, and shipping them to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for analysis. In Michigan, the medical examiner didn’t need permission from next of kin. It was unlikely their efforts could save any of the children still alive in the Far East. But they could save the next generation.

  David itched to get in on the action. He wanted to help. He’d called the parents of his patients to offer whatever comfort he could, but they no longer needed his services. He was tired of sitting around with nothing to do but watch the news.

  “Do you know what you’re looking for yet?” he asked Ben.

  “Everything is on the table. Bacterium, virus, parasite, environmental toxins, even nanotechnology. Whatever it is, it’s affecting the blood. Changing it into something else.”

  “Something like a runaway strain of staph A?” Staphylococcus aureus bacteria lived in the nasal cavity of one-third of all people and had an appetite for human blood—hemoglobin, specifically. It was the origin of the MRSA superbug.

  “We don’t know. Figuring this out is going to take a long time. All we can do now is keep feeding everything we have up to CDC. Things are frantic over there. They’re handing down new guidelines and protocols on the hour.”

  “Does this thing even have a name?”

  “Everyone’s still unofficially calling it Herod’s syndrome, like on the news,” said Ben. Herod being the Israelite monarch who slaughtered the firstborn of Bethlehem after the wise men, following a star, rather unwisely told him a king had been born there. “You have to admit, it’s catchy.”

  David grunted. CNN was now showing footage of massive crowds filling the streets outside a hospital in Delhi. Most of the people were holding crying children. Buildings smoked in the background, the result of fires set during the chaos. Herod’s hadn’t yet struck there, but it was coming fast.

  A wild-eyed young man waved his arms at the camera. Behind him, a crying woman held a little girl.

  “Hamari jaan chor do! Dafa ho jao!”

  David didn’t need a translation. The man wanted help, dignity. Anything but the camera’s passive yet invasive eye.

  “David, are you there? Hello?”

  A massive roar of grief and rage washed over the crowd. One after another, the children went limp in their parents’ arms. The father who’d shouted at the camera howled and tore at his clothes while his wife screamed.

  David had no choice but to watch. No matter how many times he’d seen scenes like this in how many cities over the past few hours, the horror transfixed him.

  The father pulled a handgun from his pants and fired it at the camera. David cringed at the flash. The camera’s eye lurched, offering a final glimpse of the distraught man turning the gun on himself before it ripped to black.

  David gasped. “God, I can’t take this anymore.”

  “You all right?”

  David turned off the TV. “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m fine. You were saying?”

  “All right, let me get to the point. I’m losing my mind, David. I need you here.”

  “To do what?”

  “Anything. Everything.”

  “I’m not licensed for your line of work.” Worse, David wondered if he could handle seeing all the bodies. It’d been horrible enough watching the children die. It might be even worse to see them stacked like wood in some hospital.

  “You think that’s an issue right now? We’re handing out licenses to students, for crying out loud. But if you don’t want to do any wet work, I can use you on the admin side helping me run this three-ring circus. I’m barely keeping the office functioning. Just attending all the meetings is a full-time job. I need someone I can trust at my side. Just name your price.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Well what? Will you help me?”

  “All right,” David said. “I will.”

  “Thank God. When are you coming down?”

  “Hang on.” David cupped his hand over the phone and shouted for Nadine. She’d left early this morning to visit Caroline, an old friend whose daughter Kimberly had fallen to Herod’s.

  No answer. The house was still empty.

  Over breakfast, he’d shared his idea that the most patriotic thing people could do was get started producing the next generation and thereby ensure humanity had a future. Who could argue with this? Nadine, apparently. She told him the future didn’t matter; the human race wasn’t ready to have a future until it mourned, and that could take years. The world had become a living nightmare. How could David be so rational about it?

  We need to pick up the pieces, he replied.

  There are no pieces, she threw back at him.

  The argument had exposed the break in their relationship that had been there, right in front of them, unseen but felt, for months.

  They’d become strangers. She’d left the house soon afterward and hadn’t yet returned.

  “I’ll be there soon,” he told Ben.

  After he hung up, the phone rang again almost immediately. He snatched it up, hoping it was Nadine.

  Shannon Donegal, crying.

  “The baby,” she said. “He stopped moving. I’m having cramps. I’m really scared.”

  She couldn’t reach her obstetrician, who’d lost two children himself to Herod’s. Everything was closed. She needed help. The hospital was a madhouse. She had no idea where else to turn.

  David told her to meet him at his office in thirty minutes.

  He realized something else: No births are being reported on the news.

  Every minute, two hundred fifty babies were born. More than half a million around the world since Herod’s struck, he estimated. Surely, showing new births would be a great story, providing hope for the future in the midst of so much tragedy.

  Nothing.

  Could they all be stillbirths? Are they all dying as soon as they leave the womb?

  The implications were horrifying.

  When he arrived at his office, he found Shannon and a middle-aged man waiting for him in the parking lot.

  He got out of his car. “How are you, Shannon?”

  “Can we go inside?”

  She looked like a different person. The last time he’d seen her, she’d glowed with robust health. Now her eyes appeared vacant and sunken, her hair and clothes unkempt.

  She’s not just worried. She knows.

  The man introduced himself as Charlie, Shannon’s dad. They shook hands. David led them inside and turned on the lights.

  “We appreciate you seeing us on such short notice, doc,” Charlie told him.

  “Check the baby,” Shannon said. “Please. Forget everything else. Just check the baby.”

  David and Charlie helped her onto the examination table. David exposed her belly and prepared a handheld Doppler.

  “Somebody told me, if I tweak my nipples, they’re supposed to hurt,” she told him. “I also read online, if you drink some Sprite and lie down for a bit, the baby should kick a little. I’m not feeling anything. Just these cramps.”

  “Try to relax for me, okay, Shannon?”

  “Okay,” she said in a helpless voice that broke his heart.

  “Good. Now let’s find that heartb
eat.”

  David placed the microphone against her belly and listened. The Doppler whooshed rapidly, confusing him. It took him several moments to realize he was hearing only Shannon’s heart, beating so fast he’d mistook it for the baby’s.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, her voice shrill.

  “Please don’t talk.”

  Nothing. Damn it. He gave up.

  “I’m sorry, Shannon, I can’t find a heartbeat.”

  “Oh God,” she said, crying freely now. “I knew it.”

  Charlie gripped his daughter’s hand. “Are you sure about this, doc?”

  “Not a hundred percent,” David told him. “I’m not an obstetrician. Obstetricians have fetal stethoscopes and a trained ear. They have ultrasound imaging equipment. I just don’t have the equipment you need here. The Doppler I’m using might very well be unreliable.”

  Shannon pressed her palms against her leaking eyes. “How? How did this happen?”

  “If it happened—”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Possible causes include placental abruption, bacterial infection, birth defect—”

  “And Herod’s, right?” Charlie said.

  David winced. “And Herod’s. That’s correct.”

  If Herod’s syndrome is killing all the babies in their wombs, then all of us are infected. The children die, but we’re all carriers.

  What about the next generation? Will death occur shortly after conception, resulting in spontaneous abortion?

  If so, this is truly the end.

  Unless we find a cure, the human race just went extinct.

  “See, it’s not your fault, honey,” Charlie told Shannon, and turned to David. “Doc? What’s the next step here? What do we do?”

  “Shannon should get further testing.”

  “Understood. But what if . . . ?”

  “What if he’s dead?” asked Shannon.

  David considered his words. “If—and I can’t stress that word enough, Shannon, if—the pregnancy has terminated, you would have several options for delivery.”

  He hesitated. She appeared stricken by what he’d said.

  “Tell me,” she breathed.

  “Maybe now is not the time—”

  “Tell me, doctor.”

  “Commonly, labor will begin on its own within the next one or two weeks. If that doesn’t happen, it could be induced.”

  “Will I get to see and hold him?”

  “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

  In fact, as heartbreaking as it sounded, studies showed it reduced the risk of depression.

  How’s this for depressing? In a hundred years, there won’t be any people left.

  “The sooner the better,” he muttered.

  “Why’s that?” Charlie asked. “Is Shannon in some sort of danger?”

  “Nothing,” said David. “It’s not important.”

  “You meant she should deliver as soon as possible. Wasn’t that what you meant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  David knew he shouldn’t have said anything. What could he tell the man? The sooner the medical examiner autopsied the fetus, the more information the CDC would have in its fight against Herod’s? Would this mean anything to these people, who were absorbed in their own grief?

  “Mr. Donegal, if Herod’s did in fact take your grandson’s life, it’s very possible that the same thing is happening everywhere. We don’t know whether what caused Herod’s is permanent or not. That might mean no more births. Ever.”

  Charlie paled. “Goddamn, doc.”

  “The more the CDC has to work with, the more of a chance we have to prevent the same thing from happening to future children. Understand?”

  Shannon sat up and closed her coat around her belly. “So you want me to push Liam out and hand him over so you can chop him up?”

  Charlie looked from David to Shannon with an anxious expression.

  “No, Shannon,” said David. “It’s about what you want. That’s the most important thing.”

  “But you want to chop him up.”

  “The autopsy would be minimally invasive. A few tissue samples. But again, it’s your choice. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Please forget I said anything.”

  “I just found out Liam is gone,” she told him. “I thought he was safe.” Her voice rose to a high-pitched scream. “I thought it’d happened to everybody but me!”

  Shannon Donegal was facing one of the most horrific things that could happen to a human being, yet David found that he just couldn’t focus on it properly. All he could think about was the big picture.

  All the babies are gone, and it’s the end.

  David closed his eyes. He felt dizzy. “I’ll make some calls to help get you an appointment with an obstetrician.”

  “Fuck you. And you don’t talk to me about my son anymore, you fucking vampire.”

  Joan

  49 hours after Herod Event

  Joan wanted the wake to be perfect.

  The mortuaries wouldn’t take her children. The only choice you had, when you registered the deaths online, was mass burial or cremation. The website had crashed three times before she was able to register both her kids. She chose burial.

  The government was going to put them in a mass grave. There was one other alternative, of course, and that was to bury them herself in her backyard. The penalties for doing this didn’t scare her. It just didn’t seem right somehow. Nate would want to be with other kids. And Doug had said they would be told where their children were buried, so she could visit and lay flowers whenever she wanted.

  That didn’t mean they would depart their home without dignity. She intended to say good-bye with love and respect. Tomorrow, she and Doug would host a wake.

  The preparations kept her busy. There was a lot to do and not a lot of time. That was good. If she stopped, if she had nothing to do, she might have to deal with her grief directly. Grief that could eat her alive. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to handle that yet.

  All morning, she’d rolled up her sleeves and given the house a thorough cleaning. She didn’t touch the kids’ rooms. She just closed the doors and left them alone. In every other living space, though, she’d erased all evidence of their existence. She couldn’t cope with what she was feeling if she had to wash her face every night before bed while staring at Megan’s little pink Dora the Explorer toothbrush.

  By midafternoon, she finished getting the house into shape. She’d called her guests, found appropriate music from her CD collection to play during the service, and dug up some candles. Now she needed to buy some refreshments to serve everybody. She hoped she could get Pastor Gary to visit and say a few words.

  First stop was Major’s kennel to fill his bowls. Joan knelt next to the dog while he ate and stroked the fur on his back. Major glanced at the back door of the house.

  “Are you looking for Nate?”

  The dog looked up at her with hope.

  “Nate’s not coming today.” She rested her cheek against his warm back and listened to his steady heartbeat. “When I get home, would you like to come inside for a bit and see how you like it? Do you want to be an inside dog? Would you like that, Major?”

  The dog nudged the bowl along the wood floor with his sloppy eating. Joan closed her eyes and smiled for the first time in days. It didn’t last.

  She walked out in front of the house, where she found her Dodge Durango. She’d parked it on the street to avoid disturbing the children in the garage. She scraped the ice off the windshield, got in, and started her errands. The streets were eerily deserted. The playgrounds empty. Everywhere she went, nobody had their Christmas lights on. It struck her that in most of the world, there wasn’t a single human being who believed in Santa Claus.

  Her local supermarket was open. Joan bought as many items on her list as she could find. Many shelves had been emptied. The pharmacy had run out of sleeping pills. Even the allergy and cold medicines had
been cleaned out. Teenagers and old men ran the cash registers. The cheerful Muzak made her want to scream.

  She packed her groceries into her car and drove off.

  The next stop was the church. Her heart fluttered as St. Andrew’s came into view and she heard its bell calling the faithful. She felt both drawn and repulsed by the prospect of going inside to find Pastor Gary. She was a churchgoing woman, and the familiar comforts of her religion sounded good right about now. But she couldn’t reconcile the idea of a loving God with what had happened. It was one thing to strike down a family member before his or her time and leave it to the survivors to find meaning in it. It was another to completely cull the world’s children.

  The Lord worked in mysterious ways, but this time it looked like plain old genocide.

  Maybe she would find some meaning to all this inside. Why did this happen? she wondered. Who should we blame? Ourselves? Terrorists? Global warming, pollution?

  God?

  And if it was God, why? What are we supposed to learn? If God is teaching a lesson, what could it possibly be?

  Saint Andrew’s appeared to be packed. The church parking lot had filled to capacity and then some, and Joan was forced to park several blocks away. She left the car and followed other people streaming toward the church. Most wore black; the entire world was in mourning. The bell tolled again.

  Joan hesitated at the entrance. She’d never seen it so crowded. The pews had filled. A long procession of mourners waited their turn in the aisle to place candles, flowers, toys, and photos at the altar. The organist played a neutral tune, something to fill the air so you couldn’t hear the sobbing. Otherwise, there was no structure to the ceremony, no clergy providing comfort to the afflicted. The atmosphere was thick with tension, grief, and anger. Hysteria and madness channeled into the rituals of coping with death. She pictured somebody pushing somebody else, and that would be the only thing necessary to turn the room into a violent bloodbath.

  She recognized members of the congregation, some neighbors, a few friends. The simple act of breathing seemed to demand every bit of energy they had. She saw Coral and resisted an impulse to offer some comfort, maybe even get some herself. She didn’t have the energy. Moments later, her friend blurred into the background with the rest.