by Brian Hodge
Given time, they could’ve easily synthesized a vaccine based on this new knowledge. But sometimes time is the scarcest commodity you have…and you’re allowed only one fatal mistake.
So what did that mean for the human race? While the next census, ha ha, would see some stark downward shifts, he saw no reason to project extinction scenarios. But civilization had taken a thousand-year step backward.
Start with a country of around 230,000,000. Stir in a highly contagious disease with 99.6 percent fatality. Yields 920,000 survivors. St. Louis County population drops to small-town levels of 4000. But don’t forget the canine influence. It was extremely hit and miss, and there were no national figures on it, but locally, they’d been seeing about two acquired immunizations for every natural immunity. So triple these survival estimates. Even so, those 2.76 million survivors would now roll around the nation like BBs in a boxcar. Extrapolate outward and you had one big, near-empty world.
“I don’t know about you,” Kramer said to the nurse, “but I’m damn well going to see this through to the end.” He replaced his glasses, smoothed back his oily hair. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
He held up a syringe filled with an amber-tinted liquid. An untested vaccine. Would it work? Only one way to find out.
“Care to join me?” he asked.
He waited for her reply. And waited. And waited.
Finally, in a moment of rationality, Kramer saw her for what she really was…bloated and putrefying, one side of her face crisscrossed with blood that had trickled from a tiny hole in her temple days ago. One bluish hand rested on the table where it had fallen, the fingers loosely clutching a .25 automatic. A lady’s gun, no purse should be without one.
“You left me,” he said, beginning to weep. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Kramer stared at the syringe in his hand, then at the gun in hers. Crossroads.
After many long minutes, he finally chose, taking the only route whose outcome was certain.
6
He traveled by day, because it seemed safer that way. He never traveled very far at once, because he still didn’t know where he was going.
Caleb Enright was beginning to regard himself as a human tumbleweed blown by the winds of chance. Only those winds blew slow and gentle. In the three-and-a-half weeks since he’d buried his wife and left the subsequent nightmare behind in New Holland, he’d not even covered two hundred miles. His peeling, cream-colored 1964 Comet puttered along as faithfully as ever, but why rush when you don’t know where your road is supposed to end?
It had so far been unlike any journey he’d ever taken. At the start you could still buy gasoline, but first you had to find a station that was open and then you had to fork over double or sometimes triple the cost per gallon that it had been a month prior. Now, though, he had to siphon from the tanks of cars he hoped had been abandoned. The good Lord probably still didn’t look too highly on stealing…but maybe He wouldn’t much mind if it was just a matter of appropriating what was no longer owned.
Food was the same story. Nowadays it was impossible to find a grocery store or restaurant still open. Breaking and entering was getting to be second nature to him, although that too brought on the guilts.
Traffic wasn’t much of a problem anymore, but then, he was running almost exclusively through rural areas. He’d tried to pass through Cincinnati last week, but found the I-71 expressway within the city hopelessly logjammed with wrecked and abandoned cars. Looking back, he doubted there was even a twentieth of the traffic he’d encountered at the first of the month. Even those ever-present army trucks had seemed to quit rolling.
It was a hard pill to swallow. But the biggest choke of all was the breakdown of every semblance of order. Back in Ohio, he’d watched the town of Hillsboro burn right down to the ground. Somebody fleeing told him that a corpse-fire had gotten out of hand, and nobody was there to put it out. So it grew until there was no more Hillsboro. Erase it from your maps, folks.
Back in Ohio…that didn’t mean as much as it once might’ve. Here in Indiana things were pretty much the same.
“Ain’t no states anymore,” he said aloud. Dusk was settling in, and around him the countryside breathed with the sounds of crickets and frogs and unknown things scuttling through the woods to his left. A campfire kept him company as it warmed a can of Dinty Moore stew.
“Nope. No such things as states anymore.” He fished for a cigarette, lit it, then exhaled smoke at the deepening sky. And shook his head in sorrow at the thought of a nation laid to waste, turned into so many ghost towns, junkyards, and graveyards. “’Cause whatever this is, it ain’t America.”
* *
It sounded like the shots were coming from over the next rise.
The last town he’d passed through was Cross Plains, a few miles back on 62. He’d pulled off for a moment to relieve himself at the side of the road. In broad daylight! How long’s it been since I’d’ve dared to do this!
He was zipping up when the first shots sounded, big loud ones, three or four at least. Then came the sound of screaming tires. A couple more of the loud gunshots. And then silence…just the aura of a scorching summer day when it feels too hot to move.
Caleb jumped back into his Comet, reached across the front seat to pull his rifle closer. Just in case. Maybe he wouldn’t need to use it. Maybe the most he’d have to do was wave it, and the threat would do the job.
No. Shouldn’t try fooling myself like that. Gotta be ready to use it.
He geared the car, gradually gaining speed up the gentle rise. At the top, he peered down at the scene playing out below. It looked like an ambush was going on down there, and he braked to a halt there on the hill’s crown.
A green sedan sat cockeyed in the road, almost crossways. Some of its glass was gone. Three fellows were approaching the car, two from one side, one from the other, and all of them carried rifles or shotguns. The driver’s door opened and out tumbled someone wearing vivid yellow…a woman.
Caleb grabbed his rifle, fumbled with the door latch.
But she got the pair closing in on her first. Caleb didn’t know where it came from—her purse, maybe?—but the next thing he knew she had a decent-sized gun of her own out, and definitely knew how to use it. The two coming up in front of her never saw it coming.
The one closing in from behind was another matter, but Caleb was out of his car by this time. He aimed his rifle, breathed a quick prayer for forgiveness, and dropped the third one with a single shot. The woman looked up at him, at the newly fallen body, and then slumped in the road beside her car.
Caleb was down the highway in another minute. He was very much aware that despite the two red blotches staining her sleeveless yellow jumpsuit, her revolver was trained steadily on him. He left his rifle in the Comet, stepped out with his hands held palms out.
“I take it you’re not with them.” She cocked her chin at the two she’d taken out.
“No ma’am. I’m just here to help. If you want it.”
She paused a moment, the gun wavered slightly, and then she nodded. “Yeah,” she said, lowering the gun. “I think I could use it.”
Caleb squatted beside her and checked the bloodstains. One on her thigh, the other, the larger, along her left side. “How bad are you shot?”
“I don’t know. Have you ever known anybody who’s been shot good?”
“You’re right,” Caleb said. “Dumb question.”
“First thing, please get me off this damn road,” she said, wincing. “It’s hotter than hell.”
Caleb told her to let him know if he hurt her, then scooped her up in his arms. The woman slung an arm around his neck and he carried her over to a line of trees several yards past the road. He put her back down in the grass, well shaded.
She tore at her clothing over the wounds. The leg wound looked superficial, not m
uch to worry about so long as it got cleaned and bandaged. The side wound was worse, without a doubt. It still bled freely.
Caleb pulled off his shirt, the only spare cloth on hand. He balled it up and pressed it to her side. She gritted her teeth and made a low sound, deep in her throat, then pounded the ground beneath her right fist.
“I’m gonna need a doctor,” she said, starting to pant. “Bad.”
Quick, think…compress the wound to stanch the bleeding. What else could he do? Anything? Anything at all? Yeah. Yeah, there was. It had been a long time, but…
“Can you hold this in place yourself?” he asked. “I’ll be right back.”
She moved a hand to her side, and he flinched at the touch of her fingers on the back of his hand. She pressed in, grimacing, then nodded. Caleb was up and running.
He carried a first-aid kit in the car, but that wouldn’t do much good. Aspirin, disinfectant, small bandages…fine for later, and great if all she had were a cut finger and a mild sunburn, but this time things were a mite more serious.
But he had another kit, of sorts. Another storehouse of knowledge. He hadn’t been called upon to use it much in the past decades, as modern medicine had gotten better and better, and doctors were plentiful. But within Caleb had always lived a healthy respect for keeping the old ways alive…if not in deed, then at least in spirit. He had the lessons from Grandpap Elmer to thank for that.
From the back seat of his car, which also gave home to a forked ash stick, Caleb pulled an old athletic bag stenciled with a Cincinnati Reds logo. Inside were a wealth of roots, herbs, leaves he’d collected during his travels along the back roads. He took a swatch of cheesecloth, spread it on the Comet’s hood, then dumped a couple handfuls of ground tea leaves in the center. He then wrapped it up.
Gotta stop that bleeding, first off, he thought while hauling his big plastic waterjug from the car and setting it beside the Reds bag. He opened the spigot to soak the tea poultice until the runoff was a rich amber-brown.
Caleb glanced her car over on the way back. Nice one, a new Lincoln. A couple bullet holes graced the driver’s door, as well as the grill and windshield. One tire was flat. Connecticut plates, he noticed. She was a long way from home.
When Caleb reached her again, her breathing was rapid and shallow. She was still conscious, and opened her eyes.
“Listen,” he said. “We both know there ain’t no time for me to hunt you down a doctor. That’s the bad news.”
“I sure hope you’ve got some good,” she said softly.
“That I do.” He gently pulled her hand from her side. The sodden shirt fell away to the grass. “All I ask is that you trust me on this. This’s all probably newer’n a baby’s butt to you.”
With that, Caleb pressed the poultice to her side, both over the entry wound in the front and the exit where the bullet had shot cleanly through to the back. He ripped away a bit of the poultice, cheesecloth and all, and pressed it over the leg wound.
“What is that?” she said.
“Home remedy.”
The woman watched him mold the poultice to her side, gently patting and probing, and her eyes rapidly grew heavy-lidded. She uttered one last dreamy groan and laid her head back. Probably just as well, sleep was best for now. She was a lot less apt to move and disturb the poultice. And to start having doubts about him. But there was a good reason for what he’d done. The tea contained a chemical, tannin by name, that was one of nature’s better blood coagulants.
Caleb sat beside her against a tree, watching, waiting, as she slept. Satisfied that she was comfortable, he meandered along the roadside until he came upon a comfrey plant about fifty yards back, growing in a ditch. It stood nearly a yard tall, broadly tapered leaves at intervals up the stem, topped with a curled cluster of pale yellow, bell-shaped flowers. He stripped the plant of its leaves. Within three weeks, it would look as good as new. And best of all, its regenerative abilities weren’t limited to itself. Comfrey was hard to beat when it came to promoting speedy tissue growth.
He returned to his vigil by her side, and she slept for nearly six hours. During that time, a couple of cars passed by, and neither stopped. They merely detoured their way past his and the woman’s cars, then sped along. At one point, Caleb retrieved his Reds bag.
In the late afternoon, as she lay newly awake and still groggy, Caleb peeled the drying poultice from her side. He held his breath, imagining reopening the wound into a fresh gusher. But the tea had done its work well. The wound was a pair of ugly, puckered circles, caked in blood, but it had indeed crusted over.
“Easy,” Caleb said. “Don’t move much. How do you feel?”
“Worn out, I guess. Weak. I’ve never been shot before, so I don’t quite know how I should feel.”
He took a bottle of rubbing alcohol from his bag and gingerly swabbed the area, disinfecting it and wiping away the smeared blood. Then he mashed up a few of the rough-haired comfrey leaves and placed them over the wounds, prepared to bandage them into place.
“Hey,” she said, suddenly stronger of voice. “What are you doing down there?”
He grinned. “It seems strange, I know. But it’s a tried-and-true folk remedy. If it was good enough for our ancestors, it’s good enough for you.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Look at the life expectancy those people had.”
“Still longer’n yours would’ve been if I hadn’t showed up.”
Her eyes softened at that, and she reached down to lightly touch her stained, inflamed skin. In silence, she watched him finish bandaging her side, then the minor leg wound. He finished, gave her an encouraging smile.
“You best not plan on going anywhere tonight. We’ll camp here, try to find you someplace to heal up tomorrow. It’s a hair too early to move you just yet.”
The woman finally gave him a pained smile, grimaced, and made herself more comfortable. “Looks like I owe you.”
He shook his head, grinned. Said nothing.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said. “Mister…?”
“Caleb.”
“Mister Caleb?”
“Nah, just plain Caleb is fine.”
She extended her hand and they gently shook. At a better time, her grip would probably have been firm. “Diane McCaffrey.”
“Pleased to meet you, Diane.”
“Likewise.” She pointed to him, his sun-browned torso. Sixty-eight years of gravity hadn’t left him untouched, but the hard work had lessened its effects. “You know, for a man your age, you don’t look bad at all.”
She smiled at his obvious embarrassment. With the other responsibilities, he’d forgotten all about replacing his shirt. He returned to his car for another, and brought back food and water as well. After some coaxing, he got her to swallow a few mashed garlic cloves. To purify the blood, he said. A natural antibiotic.
Diane was thirty-six, he learned as they ate and talked, a divorcee from Hartford, Connecticut. Her ten-year-old daughter was spending the summer with her ex-husband, who’d since moved to Denver. Once the plague had really taken hold, she’d been unable to complete a phone call, or get a letter through, so far as she knew.
“Cross-country on your own,” he marveled. “That takes courage.”
Diane shook her head. “Not really. It’s just the only way.”
He nodded. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” He pointed toward the road.
“My ex is a lawyer. He made some enemies here and there. And once he insisted on putting us through shooting lessons.” An elfin glow touched her eyes. “Yeah. I did give those guys a surprise, didn’t I?”
“Surprise and a half.”
She nibbled at a sandwich of bread and cheese and mustard. Washed it down with a gulp of water. “You don’t have any children, do you?”
He looked toward the ground and shook his head. “W
e couldn’t. How’d you know?”
“Because you seemed surprised at me going after my daughter. Like you’d never known what it meant to love a kid that much.” She stopped, rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. That was really none of my business.”
Caleb waved it off and told his story…the farm, Emily, her death. And when night began to take hold in the sky, Caleb cleared the road, moving their cars off to one side and dragging the three bodies across the road to the opposite tree line. He returned with blankets for them to lie on.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Sore. I won’t lie about that.” She ran a hand along her ribs.
Caleb gathered sticks and broken branches in the woods behind them and built a small fire. It seemed important to do so, instinctual. He could come up with no good reasons. They’d already eaten, and they certainly didn’t need it for warmth. But the fire gave a sense of security and safety in the night, however false it might be. They weren’t much removed from their ancestors after all, it seemed as he squatted to watch tongues of flame creep up a dried stick. A fire was still the best defense against whatever howled out there in the black of night. He lay back, secure…for now.
“Caleb?” Diane’s voice drifted to him from where she lay several feet away. “Are you awake?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve lived on the East Coast all my life. I’ve seen a few bad things…assaults, car wrecks. Even a riot once, years ago. But I’ve never seen anything like what happened to me today on that road. I was scared, I’m not ashamed to admit that. But I’ve never felt that much hate in me either. The strength of it…that surprised me.” She made a grumbly noise from the other side of the fire. “I don’t know where I’m going with all of this. I guess I’m just wondering what’s happened here. Everywhere. How something like this could happen, and nobody comes to clean up the mess afterward. How it’s still just you and me, and them lying dead across the road. Sorry, that’s beyond my comprehension.”