by Lynn Lamb
“We need to talk about the Out-bounders, as well. Eight out of nine of them have the Sneaker Wave, so we know that going into homes for food and other items is out, indefinitely,” Malcolm added, looking at our distressed faces. My mother’s face really showed alarm.
“The one Out-bounder who does not have the disease is Sampson. We are doing tests and keeping a close eye on him, but we have a working hypothesis; we think Sampson did not contract the Sneaker Wave because he had a resistance that somehow has something to do with his previous homelessness. Please remember, this is just a theory for now.”
∞
This meeting was the worst yet. I asked for the rest of the day and evening to work out the details. I will announce my decisions to the Villagers tomorrow.
Veda was telling everyone over the walkies to return to their homes due to a possible impending storm.
Mark and I picked up Bailey from day care directly after the meeting and brought her home. I had a box of papers and my now working laptop, thanks to generator power, so I was set to work from home.
Bailey was unusually quiet on our walk, and I suspected that she sensed something was not right. She was far more intuitive than most children, but spending time with my nieces when they were growing up had prepared me for that.
My main problem for the day was trying to figure out our supper time meal without having to go into the details about what was happening with the Villagers. I did not want to lie, but having a mass panic before I could figure out how to handle everything would be worse.
When we got home, Bailey went into the kitchen to help Annie with supper. Before she could touch anything, I saw Annie bring her to the clean water basin and begin to sanitize her.
Mark and I went to our room, and I set my things on my desk. I sat and rubbed my temples to try to calm the growing ache in my head. Mark came and massaged my shoulders, but I really wanted to be left alone. I didn’t tell him that, though.
“You don’t have to figure out everything yourself,” he said.
“I don’t?” I asked, pointing out window. “All of those people think I do.”
“I know, but you have people under you. Delegate.”
“Mark, at times like this I want to give up,” I said, planting my forehead on the cold, hard desk. “It just keeps coming, and not only can I not get ahead of it, I’m failing. People keep dying; the freezing, the fire, and now the Sneaker Wave.”
“YOU CANNOT BLAME YOURSELF FOR ALL OF THAT,” he said loudly, stunning me out of what was about to become a good-sized meltdown. He had a knack for being able to talk me down from the edge of a full-blown Chernobyl.
He took me to the bed, and laid me down on the soft surface. He closed the curtains, came to my side and kissed me on my forehead, going against everything we had just heard about physical contact.
“Rest,” he said gently this time. “It will come to you.”
When I woke, Mark was beside me, holding me tightly. I felt his heat warming my body, but I would not let our physical contact go any further than that - doctor’s orders.
He opened his eyes, and I whispered, “You were right. I do feel better.”
I checked the time on the windup alarm clock and realized how late it was getting.
We went into the kitchen, with Mark’s hand on the small of my back. Jill was helping with supper, and I asked them to stop and come into the living room with us for a family meeting.
“You go, I’ll keep working,” said Jill.
“No, Jill. You are family,” I told her.
I picked up my walkie that was on the “dedicated Jackson channel” and asked him to come over. Then I called for Veda on our usual walkie.
Mark stoked the fire until it was raging, licking up to the sky through the stone fireplace. The sky was dark and irate, angry at what the human race had done, and it threatened more snow to cover up our mess.
Everyone assembled was wearing a mask.
Bri and Ammie settled in on the couch with Jake. I sat on the rocking chair near the warm fire, and Mark pulled up a chair next to me. Bailey sat on the floor with the beautiful doll that had once belonged to Bri, dressing her in various outfits. Mrs. Ingram was in her wheelchair on the other side of the fireplace. She looked so frail. Annie, Jake, and Billy also pulled up chairs.
Jackson and Veda let themselves in. Jackson was much quieter than usual today. That was unsettling.
I felt the missing person in our group and looked worriedly at Bri. Her face was sad, and my usually cast-iron niece rested her head on her father’s shoulder and stared despondently into the fire.
I took a moment to take in my family. Some had been family by blood, and some had been family by horrendous tragedy, but I loved them all; well, maybe not so much Jackson most of the time.
“Most of you were at the meeting today. I guess the rest of you were told what’s going on while I rested.” I saw the scared, but still stable faces of these wonderful people who did nothing to deserve this. Bailey got up from her spot, doll in hand, and sat on my lap.
“What’s going on, Laura?” she asked. I hadn’t thought that no one would have wanted to overstep their boundaries by telling her.
“Well, the bad people who started the war left an illness with the bombs, and some people are getting sick from it. The doctors are working on making them all well,” I told her. It was my policy with her not to lie, but to give her truths in ways that she could understand. And she always astonished me with her ability to comprehend such adult issues.
“You mean like Adam?” she asked, this time looking at Bri. Bri stood up and lifted her from my lap. She sat on the floor and cradled the little girl in her arms.
“Yes, like Adam,” said Bri, voice cracking slightly. Bailey put her arms around Bri, and I couldn’t tell who was consoling whom.
“I have some things I need to discuss with all of you. I need to know if you would be willing to break up our cluster, here at Annie’s house. The doctors have said that it is dangerous, and we have been in pretty close quarters,” I said, hoping that they would understand.
“I think that we need to, and as much as I hate to be away from any of you, I am willing to do whatever it takes,” said Jake.
Bri and Ammie nodded their answers.
“Bailey,” I said. “I was thinking that it would be nice if we had some of the family move into your old house. I need to stay here and help Annie, but if you would like to go with Jake, Ammie and Bri, I would understand.”
She looked at me for a moment, considering. “No, I need to stay here with you and Mark. I need to help Grandma Annie, too.”
My eyes filled, and I felt Mark’s hand on my shoulder. He smiled, and nodded. “Would it be okay if the others moved into your house?” Mark asked.
Bailey sat up in Bri’s lap and gave her a big smile, “Yes, I would like for them to live there. Maybe they can come back home when it’s over, or they can live there forever if they want to.”
Again, I was blown away by this little girl with the huge heart.
“Thank you, Bailey,” I said. “Now, would that be alright with you all?” Everyone nodded their amenability. “There will be enough rooms if Brianna and Amanda bunk together. It is next door to Charlotte’s, so Amanda will have close access to the greenhouse.
“Mrs. Ingram, would you mind staying here with us?” I asked. “Both Ammie and Bri will be working outside the house, and I don’t want them compromising your good health.”
“Of course, dear,” she said, sweetly. “Whatever you think is best. I trust your judgment.”
Now that my family was taken care of, I was ready to move on with the rest of the plans.
Jackson stood up and stepped in front of the fire. “For today’s supper, we will deliver door to door using our cars. It’s going to be a push, but we can do it. I’ll radio everyone that we are worried about the storm that looks like it’s moving in and that we don’t want people out in it.”
I felt my breathing co
ming back under control. We can do this, I thought.
“Okay, let’s get rolling,” I said.
For the next two and a half hours, we brought rabbit soup to every doorstep in the Village. We worked as one determined group, and we pulled it off.
∞
It’s after two in the morning, and I am still working. Somehow, when I have big and complicated actions to plan, I do them better late into the night and early into the next morning. Those have become the only hours when I am able to work in peace.
The Sneaker Wave may do us in, but I plan to go down fighting. I know how cliché that sounds, but that doesn’t matter. If I don’t make it, others might. And they may be the seed that repopulates the planet. Humans created this destruction, and humans need to survive to set it straight.
The first thing I set out to do was to spread out the clusters of people who were living in the same homes. I asked our family’s resident mathematician, Ammie, to help me with the giant word problem that came from our lack of homes in the Village.
There were twenty homes that came together out of necessity after the fire; for proximity to work places, people who were working on certain projects, day and night shifts, and so forth. I was ready to use the two RVs the Village has, too.
We have eight homes that we are using for offices, and one that is now the jail. They all needed to be converted back into housing.
Steven Rolette was one of the Villagers who needed to be relocated. I considered placing him with the Reverend and his wife to see if they could talk some sense into him. I was not sure if it would work or not, and with things as extreme as they are now, I just couldn’t do that to Reverend John and Cynthia.
After we finished with the new housing arrangements, we moved on to meals. The only meal Ammie and I were concerned about was our biggest one; supper. Supper is when we received most of our nutrition and calories for the day, and we needed that to continue for obvious reasons. Most of us would be working from home and not getting as much exercise, so we could probably drop the calories down a bit for those people. Security, waste and trash services and anyone dropping off meals would need more calories and probably more carbohydrates. We would need to talk to Charlotte and Annie about this tomorrow, but that would be a good jumping off point for the Village’s nutritional needs.
The Sneaker Wave disease was the hardest part of the puzzle to place. The doctors couldn’t even tell us how far and fast it will spread. The only thing they seemed to know for certain was that it would spread. With all of the canned foods we have been consuming, it was a concern that we were never going to be able to battle it with our present immune systems. And, although we have had more exercise in the past few months then most of us have gotten in years, we were still weak. Our immune systems were compromised from the start, with little sunlight, food and water. Combine that with our mental and emotional states, lack of fresh fruit and vegetables and all of the toxins in the air, and we just didn’t have much left to fight with.
Ammie’s eyes were drooping, so I sent her off to bed while I continued on with the next problem. Hershey came to my side and slid to the floor next to me. He rested his head on my shoe while I reached down and stroked his soft fur.
At the morning meeting, the doctors will give walkie-talkie “classes” on hygiene, exercise at home and nutrition, but I feared that the knowledge of this new challenge may push some over the edge.
I needed to think of a way to make the community feel safe. That was my greatest challenge. For now, I have only come up with the idea of keeping everyone’s mind busy, like I had done with the “Clubs” when we were stuck inside all of those days following the attacks. We have come a long way since then, but I think that there were many projects that Villagers could do from home that would be truly helpful for our future.
A sound came from one of the walkies, and I practically jumped through the roof.
“I’m glad you finally let that girl go to bed,” the annoying voice said.
“Damn you, Jackson. Are you spying on me?” I asked, attempting to keep my voice low so as not to wake the entire house. I got up and looked out the window towards his house. In one of the windows, there was some movement, but I couldn’t make out his face. “You are such a creepster.”
“Heh, your kitchen window is within eye shot of my bedroom and the only light on in the Village,” he replied.
“So that means grab the binoculars?” I asked.
“I can’t sleep,” he said in a reluctant tone. I was not used to hearing reluctance from him. If Jackson’s worried, the man who acts as if nothing is too big a hurdle, what does that mean for our continued survival?
I tried to act as if I hadn’t noticed his concern. “We finished with the relocation issues, and now I am onto the biohazard aspect of it. What are your thoughts?”
We spoke until dawn, but I was still not sure if I was ready for the reactions of the people on the receiving end of our transmissions during our scheduled meeting in a few hours.
November 16
It was a good thing that this was a walkie meeting because I looked like hell.
I did not start the meeting with a happy greeting as I usually did. There was no pleasant way to say what needed to be said.
“This morning I have some news; news that won’t be easy to hear,” I began in a purposefully urgent tone. It was now or never. “When the attacks happened here in Monterey, the damage that was done was not only immediate. The terrorists added another surprise for us. It seems that the bombs came with a sleeper bio-chemical agent that is triggered when debris is stirred up.”
I stopped, and in my mind I could hear the gasps from my fellow survivors.
“The medical team is working on a cure; however, we have some ill Villagers who are now in the hospital. There are presently thirty people being treated for the disease that our doctors are calling the Sneaker Wave. That is two more since yesterday. It is airborne, and highly contagious. Over the next hours and days, we will be broadcasting vital information, information that will hopefully keep you well.”
I took a brief moment before I continued, but it was too long. There were the sounds of many people attempting to speak at once, but the walkies only allowed for one person to speak at a time. So, I waited until the cacophony of chaos ended.
“Please, I know that this news is disturbing, but we cannot have a mass panic. It will only make things worse,” I said calmly but firmly.
“We are doing everything we can, and we will answer all of your questions in an orderly way, but you must be patient while we get everything in place. Colonel Jackson will give you an assigned number, and we will take roll call and answer questions in that order,” I said, happy to hand the frightened, albeit faceless, mob over to Jackson.
The next two hours were spent covering everything that was known about the disease that Doc Malcolm explained as a plague. I had wished he could take it back because that word caused even more fear.
The most vocal and accusing of the terrified people were God’s Warriors.
“God is telling us that we are still not pleasing Him,” said Rolette. Because you can’t really cut someone off on a walkie-talkie, he continued to spew his hate and fear to the vulnerable listeners.
“We need to come together in our faith, and only then will our heavenly Father protect us. Only through our belief will come our salvation,” Rolette postulated.
“Please, everyone listen,” said Malcolm’s tired voice when that idiot stopped talking. “If you come together, and any of you are infected, then you will spread it. Make no mistake, this disease will kill. We lost Sandy Sherman this morning, and if we can’t contain the disease, it has the potential to wipe out the entire Village. This disease is cruel. It causes pustules, fevers, vomiting, diarrhea, lung infections, bloody stool and coughing-up blood, and that’s just for starters.”
And that is how Doc Malcolm brought the crowd under control, at least for now.
∞
T
he rest of the day was comprised of informational conferences, moving day for some, and supper deliveries for others.
God’s Warriors held their own walkie meeting, and I can only imagine what they were discussing. This fringe group has the potential to bring us all down if they decide to do something stupid, like continuing to meet. Even though I could have easily listened in on their meeting, I couldn’t trade my integrity for the bit of information from those crazies. I’ll ask Jackson what he heard later (hee, hee, hee).
Saying good-bye to half of my family was very difficult. Even though they were just moving down the street, it felt like it did when the war had initially kept us apart.
Although I have not left the house, I am completely exhausted, and the sun hasn’t even gone down yet. All-nighters are rough.
November 21
Entire families have come down with the Sneaker Wave. We went from twenty-eight victims to forty-two in just five days. The doctors feel that it is because people have not been following the protocols closely enough, so we are using our valuable printer ink to make point-by-point flyers for each household.
We have also handed out much of our canned food, so that there is no chance that the disease is being conveyed through improper food handling from outside of the individual households. It is very doubtful that has happened, as we have been most careful in our food preparation. We are taking the “better safe than sorry approach,” as this disease is very difficult to contain, much less cure.
The doctors also sent down hundreds of biohazard bags from the hospital for us to line our “toilet buckets” with and implemented a pickup and disposal of any item that might have been touched by the infected. Full precautions were to be taken in order to keep those people carrying out that duty safe. The Council decided to make this a voluntary job, and I was the first person to sign up.