The Last Town on Earth

by Thomas Mullen

  For the soldier, who, moments ago, had thought he was going to die, this new development seemed relatively minor. He sat down at the top of the stairs, clearly reveling in the new feeling of relaxation. He closed his eyes and it looked to Philip like the man would fall asleep on the spot.

  It was growing dark when Graham saw them hurrying across town, rifles and kerosene lamps in hand.

  He had been fetching more firewood from the shed—the nights were growing colder—and as he returned to the house, he saw Mo, Charles, Doc Banes, and Jarred Rankle, concern in their eyes. Mo was supposed to be on guard duty, Graham realized, and so was Philip.

  He stepped back inside, the scent of Amelia’s stew wafting over him. It was the last of the venison. Graham had hoped to go hunting soon to replenish their supply, but ever since the events involving the first soldier, hunting no longer seemed the best use of his time. They didn’t need meat, at least not yet, but what they absolutely needed was to make sure the right people were standing watch. Whatever time Graham had, he committed to the guard post.

  “What’s wrong?” Amelia asked, seeing the look on his face as he retrieved his jacket.

  “I need to head to the post,” he told her.

  “Why?”

  He paused, unsure whether he should risk alarming her. “I don’t know. I think something’s happened.”

  On his way out, he reached into the closet and grabbed his rifle.

  They were a couple blocks away already, but he ran after them. Mo stopped to explain everything while Charles and Rankle walked on.

  “Why did Philip let him in?” Graham asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mo said, looking ashamed.

  “Did the soldier get the drop on him? Was he leading Philip at gunpoint or something?”

  “I think I only saw Philip holding a gun,” Mo said weakly, “but I might have missed something.”

  Mo had found Charles at home, he explained, just finished with supper. Laura was washing dishes and Rebecca was sitting in the parlor, writing suffrage letters with Rankle. Mo knew he should try to be discreet but wasn’t sure how, and he wound up blurting his message in front of everyone. It had been difficult for Charles to convince Rebecca to stay home with Laura.

  “You just wake up?” Mo asked, eying Graham peculiarly.

  “Not really.” Graham had stood guard all night and had slept for an hour or two during the day, between chores. “C’mon,” he said, and hurried after the other two.

  Soon they reached the street that housed the three old storage buildings. The far one was about forty yards long, a third that wide, and the height of most of the two-story houses in town. There were no windows, and in the front were two entrances—a regular-sized door and a much larger one designed for trucks or carriages.

  “Just Charles and me from here,” Doc Banes said to the others. “Everyone else stay back.”

  “What if the soldier tries to shoot his way out?” Graham asked. “You two aren’t armed.”

  It was rare for someone to question the doctor’s judgment, but Banes had won little of Graham’s respect over the years. After Amelia’s stillbirth, Banes had insisted there was nothing he could have done for the baby boy, but Graham was unconvinced.

  “We’ll be all right, Graham,” Charles said, though he sounded otherwise.

  Graham thought about handing Charles his rifle but reconsidered. If something did happen, it would be best for all of them if Graham were the one holding it.

  Charles watched as Doc Banes reached into his pocket and removed two gauze masks. The doctor put one on, the thin material straining against his thick mustache, and then he handed the other to Charles. Lamp in hand, Charles followed as Doc Banes walked past the first two buildings. They could see Mo’s tracks, his bootprints stamped into the soft earth. They stopped twenty yards from the door.

  “We’ll need to keep them in there for forty-eight hours, Charles.” Doc’s voice was low enough that only the two could hear.

  “Are you sure?” Charles’s son was in there, trapped with an outsider no one knew, a man who possibly carried the flu. Charles’s heart was beating quickly, and his hands shook. He was always so clear-minded and sober, especially in town meetings and at the mill, but he felt he had been thrust into a situation beyond his control. It reminded him of Everett, of the riots, that terrifying feeling of helplessness.

  Banes looked directly into Charles’s eyes, as he always did when delivering bad news. “The incubation period for influenza—how long it can stay inside you without giving you symptoms—can be up to forty-eight hours. So after two days, we’ll be able to determine if this man has the flu. If they stay in there that long and they’re both all right, then they can come out. But until then it would put the town at risk.”

  “But what if—what if they’re not all right?”

  “Whoever this man is, he’s probably healthy, or Philip wouldn’t have let him in. And if he had the flu, it’s doubtful he would’ve been able to walk to Commonwealth. He’s probably no threat, but we still have to take precautions.”

  Charles’s brow was deeply furrowed and his eyes wide and focused on nothing in particular, the ground, the darkness. He looked at the decrepit building, his son’s prison.

  “It’s good that there are no windows in the building,” Banes said. “This is an out-of-the-way street, so they’re as well contained as we could hope for. Is there a back door?”

  “No.”

  “Good. We’ll keep someone positioned here by the front to keep them inside. That’s the best we can do.”

  “We need to guard the building?” But of course they did, Charles realized. Still, the thought that now his son had to be guarded was difficult to take.

  Banes didn’t answer, seeing that Charles was answering his own question in his mind.

  “What about food? He can’t eat for two days?” Charles asked.

  Banes thought. “We can bring food by. We’ll tell him to wait in the cellar and someone can leave a tray by the front door. Then we’ll knock and walk away. One minute after the knock, Philip can come to the door and open it, grab the food, and close the door as quickly as possible. He’ll keep the used trays and dishes—under no circumstances should anyone touch them or retrieve them. We can just repeat that process for every meal: no contact, and no one touches any used dishes. That’s the best we can do.”

  “Are you not even going to go in and examine them?”

  The lamp cast an orange hue on Doc’s face, throwing shadows beneath his brow and nose and chin and frown. “I shouldn’t. This flu is so contagious that even doctors and nurses who’ve protected themselves have become ill and spread it to others. As much as I want to help them, I fear I’d only make things worse for everyone else.”

  “My son…” Again Charles shook his head. “We have to just leave him there?”

  Charles’s brother Timothy had died when he was barely seventeen, never celebrating his final birthday because he’d been sick in bed. When Philip had turned sixteen, Charles had thought of Timothy’s forgotten birthday, and the link in his mind between the two boys had filled him with disquiet. He still missed his brother.

  “Charles.” Banes grabbed his friend’s forearm, gripping it as tightly as a tourniquet. “You know we have to do this. And it’s only two days—he’ll be all right.”

  “Trapped in a dark building with a man no one knows?”

  “You can bring him more clothes, blankets, write him letters, anything. We can leave it for him just like the food. And in two days this will be over.”

  Charles nodded slowly. Doc released his arm, patted him lightly on the shoulder.

  “All right,” Charles said, hoping to signal that he was as clearheaded as ever. “I just wish we knew more about who that man is.”

  “Philip!” Doc Banes’s voice coming from outside broke the calm in the dark building.

  Philip turned his head, and the soldier opened his eyes. They’d been sitting in silence for longer
than either of them knew.

  “Are you in there?” Banes yelled before Philip could reply. “Don’t come out!”

  “I’m here!” Philip walked toward the closed door.

  “Are you all right?”

  He was scared and overwhelmed with guilt, but he tried not to let it show. “It’s a little dark, but we’re fine!”

  “Who’ve you got there with you?” Banes asked.

  A good question, Philip realized. Before he could ask, the soldier spoke up, hollering through the thick door and into the night beyond:

  “Private Frank Summers!”

  There was silence for a few seconds. Then Banes’s voice returned:

  “You’re a long way from your base, Private.”

  “There was an accident—our ship sank off the coast. I was just hoping for some food and shelter for the night while I made my way back to Fort Jenkins.”

  More silence. Philip wondered who was out there with the doctor and what they were talking about.

  Finally, Banes told Philip they would soon bring food. He explained the system and mentioned that someone would be stationed outside.

  “Everything make sense to you, Philip?” Charles asked.

  That’s the same thing he says after explaining an accounting method to me, Philip thought. The same thing he says after running through the way we get the timber from here to the buyers or how one of those enormous machines works. Everything make sense to you, Philip? And no, absolutely none of this made any sense.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll be back soon,” Charles hollered.

  “All right.” Philip didn’t know what else to say. He felt he should apologize to his father, but he knew this wasn’t the time for such a conversation, and he didn’t want to look weak by acting scared in front of Private Frank Summers. He was grateful that Doc Banes and his father hadn’t asked how the soldier had gotten in, grateful that he didn’t have to shout out—for both the soldier and his father to hear—the details of his failure. But he knew this imprisonment was a sort of punishment, even if not deliberately so, for letting the soldier into town.

  “Looks like I got you in trouble,” the soldier said.

  Philip glared at him, though the darkness had shrouded his face. He walked toward the soldier’s voice. “You got what you wanted.”

  “I’m sorry it’s landed you here, too,” the soldier said. By then Philip was close enough to see that he had a slight smile on his lips, a macabre appreciation for the bizarre situation. “But like I said, this is an awfully friendly town you’ve got.”

  “This town is feeding you for the next two days,” Philip reminded him, sitting down on the floor with his back against the wall.

  The soldier yawned.

  “Why couldn’t you have just contacted your base or something?” Philip didn’t mean to sound as whiny as he did. “Couldn’t they have come to help you?”

  “Now you’re giving me soldiering advice? If you know so much about how the army works, why aren’t you in uniform?”

  “I’m sixteen.”

  “Thought you were a little young. And what’s with that limp? You got a clubfoot or something?”

  Philip glared at him. Then he reached forward and, with a tightly clenched fist, rapped twice on his right boot. The deep wooden sound filled the air between them.

  The soldier shifted his eyebrows a bit and nodded. “Well, since you don’t seem to be in a very conversational mood, maybe I’ll just nod off till they come by with our supper.” He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall behind him. “Don’t forget to wake me.”

  The soldier seemed to be enjoying this—after all, it beat sleeping out in the woods and starving—but for Philip, it was the worst imaginable scenario. He had been entrusted with protecting the town, yet he had done the exact opposite. He had failed miserably.

  Philip folded his arms. He felt tears well up in his eyes at the sudden feeling of abandonment, but he fought them back, not wanting the soldier to see or hear. He tried to think of some solution to his new problem, but nothing was forthcoming. He retraced his steps, trying to pinpoint where he’d made his mistake.

  The soldier started snoring.

  III

  Doc Banes didn’t sleep that night.

  Maybe other people did, even those who had helped him quarantine Philip and the soldier, those who knew that the town’s precarious position in this pestilence-filled world had been jostled. Maybe they found some way to shrug in the face of what might be an incoming enemy. But Dr. Martin Banes didn’t so much as look at his bed that night—there was too much to do.

  After leaving Philip behind, Banes had walked Charles home, assuring his friend that everything would be fine. He declined to describe Philip as being held prisoner; he tried to couch things in dry medical terms. We’ll just wait out the forty-eight hours, after which time we’ll know the soldier is healthy and all is well. Banes had walked into the Worthys’ home and helped Charles explain the situation to his wife and daughter, had stood there and weathered their anxious questions and cries, their hesitant but unmistakable blame. Finally, they began translating their worries into action, Rebecca arranging a supper delivery for Philip and Laura deciding to bake him bread. Banes had shaken the hand of the shaken Charles, tried to smile, thought against it, and instead left him with a forceful nod. We’ll talk to Philip tomorrow, Banes had said, hoping to convey that the hours will pass quickly. Yes, Charles had agreed, his voice conveying: I hope Philip sounds all right tomorrow, I hope we don’t hear any coughing, I hope I haven’t buried my son alive.

  When Banes made it home, it was nearing his usual bedtime, so he turned on the lamp by his desk and lit his pipe. He lifted a volume from his bookshelf, leafing through to unfamiliar pages, diagrams of microscopic organisms that still struck him as bizarre, like abstract renderings of prehistoric monsters.

  Martin Banes was fifty-six and had been a doctor for thirty-four years. In 1886 he’d attended a medical school that no longer existed—one of the many wiped out by the reforms of 1904, when medical schools started establishing academic requirements for incoming students and instituting lab work as a norm. Banes hadn’t even been to college; he’d been a chemist’s apprentice until the chemist died of typhus so early into Banes’s training that young Martin was still unqualified to take over the man’s position. So why not turn to medicine? Just sit in a lecture hall for two semesters, take some notes, and you’re fully trained. They didn’t even have written tests—two of his classmates couldn’t read. But who needed to read? He knew how to feel a forehead, where to hold a wrist when looking for a pulse, how to cut a vein, how to bleed a patient to restore balance.

  And Banes was a good doctor, he knew this, despite the many changes that had shaken the field in his lifetime. He had tried to keep up, even if he hadn’t always understood the new ways. He had abandoned the miasma theory in favor of the germ theory, abandoned what he’d been taught in school about atmospheric putrefaction in favor of microscopic organisms. The discoveries of Pasteur and Koch had cast aside centuries of medical thought, and now diseases were thought to be caused by tiny bacteria and viruses rather than climatic changes and noxious fumes. It had been years since he’d last wielded his lancet and performed a venisection. Restoring balance of the four humors was no longer a doctor’s duty. Despite the advances, Banes sometimes felt that his responsibilities were becoming ever more complicated, the world more mysterious and challenging, rather than less.

  Banes knew how to use the new antitoxins for diphtheria and tetanus, had seen how they cut down on those diseases. He took careful notes, he reported outbreaks to the local boards, he worked whenever and wherever he was called upon. How many mornings had his wife, Margaret, awakened to find him gone after he had been called to someone’s home in the middle of the night? She had been such a hard sleeper, Margaret. Slept through the telephone ringing, slept through him dressing and packing his bag, hitching the horses and heading out in his carriage. He
missed her. Now the bed was always empty when he returned from a house call, always cold.

  They hadn’t had any children, and only now, alone in his old age, did he fully understand all those pitying looks they’d received from others who eventually realized the couple was barren. Margaret had died of pneumonia five years ago, leaving Banes to his patients and his books and journals. Their meaning passed him by often, but he tried to ignore that, tried to hold tightly on to that which his mind was able to capture. But unlike past discoveries that had challenged his ways of thinking, past breakthroughs that had required him to absorb some foreign bits of knowledge, his sticking point now was the opposite: an almost complete lack of information about this new disease.

  The newspapers had been of little help. At first they hadn’t reported on the Spanish influenza, and when they finally did, they wrote as if it were already being cured. Nothing but good news was allowed in the press during wartime. Thus the stories all portrayed soldiers feeling better after a testy bout with la grippe, doctors feeling confident and civilians being insulated against disease, even if it was all untrue. Medical journals also glossed over the subject, at least the journals to which Banes subscribed. The little he knew about the Spanish flu came via the letters from his former patient Jonathan Pierce.

  Pierce was now Dr. Pierce, had vowed to become a doctor after he recovered at age twelve from influenza. A bad case indeed. But Banes had treated him, had told his family how to nurse him back to health, had prayed for him at night, and young Jonathan had recovered, matured, gone to college, and then headed off to medical school at Johns Hopkins, a world away. He had kept in touch with Banes, sending him letters describing his adventures in medical science, regaling him with stories of laboratory discoveries and tales of unknown scourges both discovered and cured. Banes always detected the hint of condescension in these letters—Jonathan the wise young clinician informing the old, undereducated country doctor of the new ways of Science. At the same time, Banes appreciated this window onto the brave new world of medicine, felt privileged to have the view, if occasionally dizzied by its heights.