Pandemic Reboot_Survivors

by J. F. Krause

  Irma stood up to tepid applause, but no overt hostility.

  “I also wanted to get you together so you could meet each other in what will likely be the first of several meetings. Right now, we have about twelve work groups, but soon I think we may have a lot more as we begin differentiating our responsibilities.”

  They were listening very carefully, and I was glad I was prepared. “Let me give you an example of what I mean. Right now we have one work group we call the ‘farm group’. But, soon, we will need to break that group into several more distinct teams. We’ll need a group dedicated to basic fresh food such as fruit, corn, veggies, rice, and so on. We’ll need a group that works crops that are not easily grown in our climate. Say we want to have coffee after all the coffee we can find has become stale or undesirable. Coffee isn’t a basic food need, but it makes life more pleasant for a lot of people. We might want to include spices and some more esoteric foods and drinks in that group. Of course, there are people who will produce wine and other beverages. People are going to have to work other communities to produce things that we can’t grow here. We’ll need people who work with dairy products, cheese, milk, yogurt, and eggs. I don’t want to go into too much detail since our farmers are the best people to make these divisions, but I hope you get my drift.

  We also have some people who will need to be in more than one group. For example, we have a couple of dietitians who may have to share groups. What I want is for each of you to give a lot of thought to what is next for your teams and for your team members. We don’t have time to spare, so we are going to have a meeting of this group everyday, at least for the next several days, at noon for two hours so that we can get this ironed out. Unfortunately, we have no time to spend congratulating ourselves on jobs well done, at least not much time. Inertia begets confusion. Additionally, there’s one rule I want you to rigidly adhere to: start on time and stop on time. We will start at 12 each day and stop at 2. Thanks.

  Now, before I set you loose to start planning your next steps, I want to make an announcement. Just a few minutes ago I had a conversation with Sergeant Marco Coletti who is currently in Indiana. More precisely, Marco is in Indianapolis. Our men and women have completed the really dangerous part of their mission in Indiana. Governor Hawkins and his surviving followers have been arrested and are being charged with kidnapping, child abuse, molestation, rape, and murder, to name some of the most heinous charges. They will be held and tried by the Indiana survivors.

  Our men and women have determined that at least nine innocent civilians of Indianapolis were abducted and murdered during Governor Hawkins’ power grab. Additionally, at least thirty-three women and girls suffered severe mistreatment at the hands of the Governor and, or, his men. One of these women died due to the mistreatment she received.

  During the assault on the Sandoval Hotel in downtown Indianapolis where the governor was holed up, fourteen of our community coalition men and women incurred some sort of injury. It’s my understanding that none of them were considered life-threatening by our medical personnel and were initially treated on site. These have all been transferred to more secure facilities and the injured are expected to make full recoveries.”

  I was reading from notes, and I thought I was almost through after that but Todd came rushing up with another page which I began reading aloud as soon as he handed it to me. “Unfortunately, we have just received notification that one of our medical volunteers was shot in the torso by one of the injured men he was giving first aid to. Kevin Turner is currently in surgery at St. Jude Hospital in Indianapolis.”

  I stopped and looked desperately at Lydia. She already knew what to do. Lydia took the paper from me as I walked off the stage in what looked like a planned exit to most, but to those who knew me, it was a barely controlled meltdown.

  I didn’t stop until I got to my office. When I got there, Jane was right behind me, and Todd was right behind her. “I need to know everything we can about how Kevin is doing. How did this happen? When did this happen?”

  They both nodded and left. I sank onto the couch and tried not to break down, but for a few moments all I could think about was what was going on with Kevin. Soon enough, Lydia was back in my office having put the groups to work trying to solve the problem of how best to organize disparate groups into working groups that had convergent goals.

  We were also all concerned about our people in Indiana. The highest ranking professional military officer we had left in the whole country was Colonel Alison Clark. She had done a great job of getting all the different volunteer units where they were supposed to be and had been in charge of seeing to the overall plan for resolving the conflict in Indianapolis. I had already talked to Marco, so now I was talking with her. She was on speaker phone and we all listened in, but to be honest, I have no recollection of what she said. Again, Lydia, sensing that I wasn’t quite up to par, took over and managed the conversation for me. I found out later that Colonel Clark was well aware that I was somewhere else mentally, but she also knew why and was very sympathetic.

  Almost immediately after we got off the phone to Colonel Clark, Todd came back into my office with a connection to Kevin’s doctor. Kevin had been shot by a wounded hostile combatant using a small firearm he had concealed somewhere on his person. As Kevin was leaning over him to determine the extent of his wounds, he’d simply pointed a concealed weapon at the most convenient target. Kevin had been shot through his left something. (I still don’t know what he said.) When it was first explained to me by the doctor who treated him, it was obvious I didn’t have a clue what was being said, partly because of the stress I felt at the time, and partly because the doctor used medical words that I didn’t process very well under the circumstances. Recognizing I was having difficulty translating the doctor’s words into everyday English, the doctor changed it to ‘love-handle’, a term I readily understood. It was quite painful, but Kevin would recover just fine.

  I had so much on my plate over the next couple of days, I didn’t have time to worry or grieve properly, so I did what I had to do and focused on the job at hand. Still, I found myself wondering a bit about what might have happened

  With all the excitement and commotion, I’d forgotten my soup and apple. Now wasn’t a good time to eat anything but it wasn’t a good time not to eat something. I could hear my mom reminding me to eat before school or leaving the house for some activity. So I ate the apple and did what was on my agenda next. I drew up an agenda for the legal team that was to come to my office at 3:30 today.

  I had about an hour and a half, and I wanted to know what had happened at Indianapolis. I needed to know if the price we paid was worth it so I asked Todd to connect me once again with Marco.

  It took only a few minutes to get Marco back on the line and this time he had company. With him was a white haired man with a bandaged ear. Marco introduced him as Tanner Albright, a local who had lived through the entire episode.

  “Hello, Mr. Albright, what can you tell me about everything that went on there over the last few days?” I asked.

  “Well, the first thing that happened that I know about, after people died, was there was this siren going on all night long, and when I looked out the front door, I saw this searchlight up in the sky. That was Charles Smith. He’s the one that talked to that Todd fellow. He was telling people to put up a searchlight and run a siren so he did. I lived alone, but I knew what was happening. All the television stations were going off the air and the radio was just saying the same thing about staying inside. I’d been to the supermarket when they closed things down and I’d seen people die on the street as I was walking home. I only live a few blocks from the supermarket so I usually walk. I’m seventy-two and walking to the store is good for me, weather permitting, and we’ve had a turn of good weather lately.

  Anyway, it was only 9 PM and I thought maybe I should go see what was happening. I got in my car and drove over to the Centennial Center which is almost to downtown. That’s where the centra
l library, the police station, a fire station, and some other county buildings are. That’s where Charles Smith had the searchlight. There were a bunch of people already there, maybe twenty or so. Charles and some others were talking about what to do next when I came up. There was a woman, Maxine something taking names and asking questions so I told her I was a retired dentist. She told me I might need to come out of retirement, and I said I’d think about it. I knew a lot of people were dying but not so many. Of course, that’s all anyone was talking about. That and what this Robert Caldwell person was saying to do next. Of course it wasn’t you personally, it was some kid named Todd. He said to find as many searchlights as we could and get some police cars or sirens running and start finding people before we lost our electricity. He made it sound like we were going to loose power any minute. Of course, that didn’t happen until almost a week later.

  Anyway, people kept coming in and Charles and Maxine were telling people to get food and barbeques set up so we could start up a refugee camp. We needed to start planning where to go when all the dead people started rotting. Once I knew how many people were dead, I figured that would be a problem before too long so I started helping set up some tents. Then someone suggested we see about using the library. There were lots of rooms there for meetings. We could sleep in some of the rooms and use some for cooking. There were showers in the fire station. We’d have to clean them out a bit. Most of the firemen and police were gone on patrols when the dying started so not many bodies were around the stations.

  Anyway, over the next couple of days we got quite a few people showing up. There must have been over a hundred or more. There was a group over on the northeast side of town that was quite a bit smaller. Charles said we’d be leaving the area before long and we’d meet up with them and make a more permanent settlement because Indianapolis was going to uninhabitable before long. He’d sent some electricians down to Bloomington where the university was. Some of the people in charge had decided that was the best place to relocate too. He said that was what you suggested, that we find a relocation place to get away from the disease that was sure to come.

  Then that Stanley Hawkins fellow shows up. He stands around a little while and starts talking to a couple of other guys and then next thing we know he’s up at the sort of reception area in the firehouse we’d set up telling Charles and Maxine he was in charge now. Said he was a legislator or something. Well, Maxine calls the people in Chicago and asks what to do. Of course, they didn’t know what to do so we placed a call in to you.

  We were still waiting the next day when Hawkins with few more guys shows up and announces he’s the Governor of Indiana and he’s in charge. Right then and there he declares a state of emergency and tells everyone to stay where they are. Well, Charles stands up and starts to say something and ‘BAM’ one of the men with Hawkins just blows his head off. Maxine screams and the other one shoots her! Everyone starts screaming and running but there are guys at the doors and all over the place. There must have been ten of ‘em.

  Well, I’m seventy-two so I’m not going anywhere fast. I just stayed where I was, watching. Then they rounded up the girls and women and took them over to the Sandoval Hotel just down the street. Next they lined all the men and boys that were left and took us over to the police station and locked us up.

  That was Friday. We stayed locked up for awhile and then they started taking us out one at a time. Sometimes I heard a shot, and other times they just came in a got another one. That went on for about a couple of hours, and it was my turn. They made what I took as a joke about how they ought to shoot me cause I was too old to work, but then one of them said I was dentist and they might have use for me one day, so they took me to the hotel and told me to start clearing out bodies. They didn’t give us gloves or anything. Some of the bodies were starting to decompose and smell so it was a pretty bad job to do. Our people been cleaning bodies out all along, but when they did it they had hazmat outfits on. We took the bodies in trucks over to the river on the south of town and just dumped them in. The river was up because of the recent snow and rain, but I knew this was going to be a real health hazard real soon. Of course, after I saw what they did to Charles and Maxine, I didn’t want to speak up. As we unloaded enough decomposing bodies that we were starting to see the bodies in the bottom of the truck, I saw there were at least six bodies, including Charles Smith and Maxine, that had been recently shot. I guess they were too old or must have spoken up.

  There were three boys, teenagers looked like, who managed to run away while we were dumping the bodies. They were all close together and just took off. There were only three guards and they managed to shout and take a couple of shots, but it didn’t look like they hit anything. All the older men, even me, we had cords hobbling our legs so we couldn’t run, but I don’t think they thought boys would run off like they did. I think they were some of the ones who got the word out about what was going on.

  After that, only a handful of new folks showed up, and the same thing happened to them. The men were taken one way the women another. We spent the rest of Friday and all of Saturday cleaning the hotel and the area around the Center. Sunday, they had us out finding food. It was like grocery shopping except there were lots of people to feed. Of course, they tried to keep us from talking to each other but we hoped that by now the government was coming to clean this nest of snakes out.

  I only saw Hawkins once after the day of the shooting. That was on Tuesday when one of the girls needed help with some teeth. I was working on the barricades when Hawkins sent someone to get the dentist. That was me, of course, so I went up to one of the penthouse rooms at the hotel. He was really mad at one of the guys who just stood there getting yelled at. It was one of his men he was yelling at. I didn’t hear it all but I heard him say ‘These bitches don’t grow on trees!’ Then I saw the poor girl he was talking about. Her face looked like an overripe strawberry. She had two really loose front teeth, her lips were swollen, her eyes were bloody and swollen shut. She had been beaten something awful. What she needed was an emergency room and a medical doctor.

  Hawkins just asked if I was the dentist and then said take her over to the nearest dental office and patch her up. Said I’d better save the teeth because no one wanted a snaggle-toothed whore for a hook up.

  I took her over to the dental clinic just west of the hotel a couple of blocks. It was right on the other side of one of the barricades. He sent a man with a gun to watch over us. I guess he decided an old man and half dead girl didn’t need much of a guard. I spent some time trying to find my way around the clinic which was a pretty nice one. I didn’t know if I could save the teeth but I figured I might as well try even though I didn’t think the guard would give me enough time to do it right. I was afraid if I failed he’d kill the girl and me both.

  Anyway, in the clinic, I shuffled around and finally told the guy I needed to sedate the girl because it was going to be painful. The guard told me he didn’t care if she screamed her lungs out, I wasn’t going to put her under. I should use novacaine or something simple. When I told him he’d have to hold her down if I did that, he decided to let me sedate her. He didn’t want to see it, so I closed the door, made some noise, and put a couple utensils through the door handles to keep him out and we slipped out the back door. I had to half drag the girl for the first couple of blocks, then we ran into some Indiana volunteers. They were already starting to in on Monday, finding hiding places even before the rest of the country showed up. They took the girl away and I stayed in case they needed some first aide. That was Tuesday evening. I’d sure like to have seen the look on that jackass’s face when he realized we were gone. Someone saved her teeth, too.

  Anyway, the next day, Wednesday, some soldiers started to arrive. Hawkins men didn’t even see it coming. They just snuck up on ‘em a few at a time. Anyway, I waited with my group, and early this morning we start moving forward. Hawkins’ men didn’t know what hit ‘em. This guy here, Marco, was with my group. All of ‘em
Californians. I didn’t think Californians could fight, but they knew their stuff.

  They just quietly crept up to the barricades until they were like ten feet from them. They waited there until about 5 AM and suddenly they just took ‘em out. They had these suppressors on their guns to keep the noise down. I could still here them, but I don’t think the sound carried all the way to the hotel. They ended up taking more prisoners than they shot. I don’t know where so many soldiers came from, and the women were just as good as the men. I showed them where they kept most of the jailed men, and the poor beat up girl had already told them where the women were.

  I know they got the men out of the jail, but I didn’t see them come out. Another group of soldiers did that, and they did it so quietly I didn’t hear or see a thing, and I was looking right at the building. I was there with a nurse who took care of the bad injuries. I was just going to take care of cuts and scrapes, and I did, mostly, and almost all of them were on the bad guys.

  Anyway, Marco took his men up to one of the side entrances of the hotel. That’s when I saw one of the teenage boys who escaped earlier. He was acting like a scout for the California soldiers. He’d been all over the hotel cleaning rooms and such so he must have volunteered to help. He looked pretty young. While we were going in our way, there were other groups going in other entrances. I think they had everything outside the hotel under control in less than ten minutes. There’s no match between the United States Marines and a bunch of hooligans.

  I followed the nurse; his name was Kevin something and we both followed the marines. I think there were army and national guard soldiers, too, but everyone was sort of mixed in, and they were all from California in our group. Of course there was the teenaged scout and me from Indiana.

  Down where we entered the hotel was the kitchen people. Some of the women were down there with a couple of Hawkins’ guards. The soldiers made quick work of the guards and the women evacuated as fast as they could. There were some Indiana people who lead them to safety. We went up the floors on our side of the hotel, but I knew from hearing Marco talk into his radio set that there were other groups going up the hotel floors by different routes. Then everything went dark. Kevin said the soldiers turned off the electricity. They were hoping most people were asleep and would think the power had finally gone out. Hawkins people knew it was going to shut off, but they didn’t know when or how to stop it. Charles Smith had said the same thing, but he sent people off to Bloomington to keep the electricity working there for when we relocated. That was where we planned to go when we left Indianapolis. If it hadn’t been for Hawkins, we’d’ve already been there.