SURGE

by Donna Elliott

  To my surprise, this area is nearly empty. No one is working at the admitting desks, and no sick or injured people are in the waiting area. Mr. and Mrs. Eisenbeis explain that they usually help with food services, and they tell us to meet them in the basement cafeteria for lunch. Afterward, we’ll run by their house. I nod goodbye to them and follow their daughter to the Help Desk.

  Crossing the room with a big smile on her face, Emily gives a little wave toward the woman sitting behind the counter. “Hello, Mrs. Tuttle. This is my friend Mya, and we’re wondering if you might need some help this morning?”

  Mrs. Tuttle reminds me of somebody’s sweet old grandma. Her silver hair is tied up in a loose bun, and she’s wearing a cotton dress with some SAS classic comfort shoes. Her eyes light up beneath her glasses when she looks at Emily, and she clasps her hands together in front of her chest. “I’m so glad to see you, child. I’ve been a bundle of nerves here lately. This weather, and all this mess…it’s enough to make a body just want to curl up in bed and stay there. But you know me; I can’t stay put too long.”

  Emily nods her head at various points during this oration, while I just stand and smile. I have a fairly short attention span, and my mind wanders quickly.

  Mrs. Tuttle finally stops talking to take an extended breath, and Emily suggests that she and I go up to the second floor to collect soiled linens. She waves goodbye, and we head off toward the stairwell.

  “She’s a very nice lady,” says Emily, “she’s just a little lonely sometimes.”

  The second-floor stairwell opens right next to the elevators and the laundry room. Someone left an empty bin by the door, so Emily steps behind it and begins to push it down the hallway. The first room we come to is the family lounge, and I’m directed to grab an armload of reading materials.

  Second-floor patients are mostly low risk and those recovering from minor procedures. It’s actually pretty fun stopping in the rooms and chatting with people. As Emily scours the bathrooms for used towels, I offer the room’s occupants a magazine or two.

  The fourth room we enter is occupied by two middle-aged men who have suffered minor burns on their arms and hands. I approach the man in the window-side bed, and notice that he’s the freshman biology teacher.

  “Hi, Mr. Willows,” I say. “I had you for biology two years ago. Do you remember me? I’m Mya Bernal.”

  “Of course I remember you, Mya,” he says. “Your petri dish experiment from various water sources was most impressive.”

  I smile with the realization that my former teacher actually does remember me. My eyes stray to his hands. “What happened? How did your arms get burned?”

  “The doctor says the electric current traveled through the air the other night. Doc says he thinks that when I grabbed my dog’s chain to coax him inside, the voltage traveled along the metal and sent a shock right into me.”

  He looks down at the loose wrapping on his hands. “Poor dog’s dead…I was outside looking at the colors in the sky one minute and hurled against the house the next.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “What will you do now? Will you stay in Harrow?”

  “I get out of this place soon. After I recover a bit more, I’ll help rebuild the town, I guess.”

  He looks past me and points with his bandaged hand to the sleeping figure in the next bed. “Reverend Hastings and I have been talking about his commune. He’s being released soon and has offered me a room.”

  I frown slightly and narrow my eyes. “I’ve heard about it, but I really don’t know what a commune is.”

  Emily walks over and begins straightening the covers on Mr. Willows’ bed. “Oh, I’ve heard a couple of other people mention that today,” she says. “A commune is a place where everyone works together to provide food and shelter for each other. You share everything, right sir?”

  “That’s correct Ms. Eisenbeis. Thanks to all the damage we’ve suffered from the solar flare and its aftermath, now seems like a good time to join. There are a lot of people who are going to need help and a place to stay, whether the electrical power returns quickly or not.”

  A soft rustle of the bed sheets behind me signals that Reverend Hastings is awake. In a deep voice, he says, “We need to band together for the sake of survival.” Rather cryptically, he adds, “We will be forced to make some difficult decisions soon. We must remember that the life of the community overshadows the life of the individual.”

  I process this last comment and find it a little unnerving, so I offer Mr. Willows a Texas Landscapes magazine and signal to Emily that it’s time to move on.

  Out in the hallway, I question my new friend. “What was all that life of the community stuff about?”

  “Oh Mya,” she says, “I don’t think he meant anything bad. The community exists for the individuals to survive. Everyone shares everything, and everyone’s equal. It sounds pretty good to me.”

  Somehow, I can’t imagine the wealthy Reverend Hastings or his spoiled brat ever considering themselves equal to the rest of our community. I don’t know much about their church, but I do know that I’ve never seen them tending the sick or helping the poor.

  I decide to drop the subject for now, and after a nice warm lunch downstairs, the rest of the afternoon is spent in pleasant conversation with other second floor patients. By the time Emily and I return to the barn, the sun has set, and I’m ready to sleep.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Every morning is a jolt to my reality. I wake up having forgotten that the world is now some crazy place. I have to remind myself: I now live in a barn with three other families; I am slowly running out of food; I haven’t had a shower in forever; and if I need help, there’s no way to contact anyone.

  Even though I can’t make any calls with my phone, I still carry it with me at all times. I haven’t tried to use it since Friday night, but this morning, as I sit against the side of the barn eating a stale hoagie roll coated with peanut butter and honey, I unconsciously pull the device from my pocket and swipe the screen.

  Some of my older games, like Angry Birds and Word Search, run without WiFi once they’ve been downloaded, so I decide to throw some birds around while I wait for my friends to get up. I’m starting a new level of pig torture just as Kat comes outside and sits down. Her trek into town the other day was unfruitful, but she remembered that she did bring a photo album to the barn, so she isn’t quite as sad.

  “Your phone still works?” she asks before biting into her own sandwich. “Mine died two days ago.”

  “I haven’t looked at mine in days,” I say. “I guess my battery must hold a pretty good charge.” I look at the upper corner of my phone screen and gesture to the battery level display. “It’s still at full, so I thought I’d indulge in a little mindless gaming.”

  Kat gives me a quick hug and starts to stand. “I won’t bother you then. I know that sometimes, we all need alone time.”

  I turn the phone off quickly and reach my hand out to Kat. “Don’t go,” I say. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”

  Curiosity shows on her face, and she sits back down.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk in forever. Something happened the other day that was really weird.”

  “Have you had more episodes with your fingers sparkling?” she asks.

  “No,” I say, “but a couple of days ago, when Raul and Eric and I went down to the road, Patrick Hastings was harassing me. He and Miguel were in his fancy Corvette and being annoying.”

  Remembering the episode rekindles my anger and my face begins to heat up. “I called him a jerk and then walked off, but as he was driving away…I think I did something bad.”

  Kat leans in closely to me and murmurs, “What sort of bad thing?”

  I scrunch up my face, look around to make sure we’re alone, and whisper, “I think I blew out his back tires.”

  Kat frowns in disbelief, and her chin dips. “What?”

  “Well,” I begin, “I was watching them drive
off, and I gave them the ‘bird.’ Then under my breath, I said, ‘I hope your tires blow out.’ The next second, there was a loud noise, and their car flew into the ditch.”

  A loud chuckle explodes from Kat’s mouth, she grabs my arm, and bends over laughing. “You think you caused his accident!” she says. “Oh Mya, it’s not possible. Stop feeling bad about it. Patrick got what he deserves; he is a jerk.”

  ◌◌◌

  We all attend a meeting at the high school football field later that afternoon to discuss the disaster and consider methods for keeping people sheltered and fed. Reverend Hastings rallies the now homeless and presents a strong argument for his commune. The housing structures were undamaged and have a multitude of rooms.

  Mr. DeLaPortilla is opposed to the idea. I hear him telling Mom that there are a lot of people in Harrow who are lazy and don’t understand how much work will be required to support the town – even if there are only a few hundred of us left. He says that he isn’t opposed to helping the sick and elderly, but he’s not going to break his back to feed people who are capable of feeding themselves.

  Eventually, a vote is held, and the majority decides that working for the commune is in everyone’s best interest. Anyone opposed, like Mr. DeLaPortilla, is welcome to live separately, but must understand that the commune members have priority for all of their supplies. Naturally, Reverend Hastings has offered his religious and moral ministrations to the town, and since Father Neeham lives in Pleasanton, the reverend’s proposition is accepted.

  The second topic of interest involves the two recent murders. Our town doesn’t have its own coroner, so one of the doctors did a preliminary examination and announced his findings.

  “Both girls were strangled and neither had put up much of a struggle. It seems as if they didn’t feel threatened…I want everyone to know that there’s a violent gang of people camping out just north of town. A few of us drove out that way to have a look, and it isn’t pretty. They’re loud and out of control. We should all keep alert.”

  Mom reaches over and grabs my hand. “You be really careful, Mya. Don’t talk to anyone you don’t know, and don’t go anywhere by yourself.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  While spending a second day at the hospital with Emily and her parents, I happily cruise from room to room, handing out magazines. In an effort to conserve energy and keep the patient rooms as cool as possible, Emily asks me to make sure all the blinds are closed, as she refills toiletries and tidies the bathrooms.

  I walk over to adjust the window coverings but stop when I notice a couple of large trucks pulling into the hospital parking lot. Around fifteen people jump out of the vehicles and run toward the main entrance.

  “Someone’s friends and family must be really worried about them,” I call out. “A bunch of people just rushed into the hospital.”

  Emily pokes her head around the bathroom wall, “With everything that’s been going on the past few days, that isn’t surprising.”

  She finishes wiping out the sink, and we proceed to the next room. Again, I walk over to the window and look out before closing the blinds. Another truck is pulling into the lot, and I call Emily over to have a look at the driver and passenger.

  “I don’t recognize either of them,” she says, just as an emergency alarm begins to ring. We both clamp our hands over our ears and run over to the room entrance. Before we poke our heads out, I hear a faint popping sound. I take hold of Emily’s arm and pull her back into the room.

  “That’s gunfire!” I say. “What’s going on?!”

  The hospital’s intercom crackles just before a high-pitched, panicked voice announces that gunmen are in the lobby area and headed to the other floors. Everyone is urged to leave the facility or hide.

  I’ve never imagined that I would be thrown into a situation like this, and my increasing fear is making it very difficult to think clearly. “How do we get out of here?” I ask. “Where’s the nearest exit?”

  Emily points to her right. “There’s an emergency exit a few halls over.”

  “What should we do?” As the words leave my mouth, all the lights go out, and vital sign monitors with backup batteries begin sounding their alarms. The daylight coming in through the opened blinds allows me to see Emily clearly. “Now’s our chance,” I say. “Let’s see if we can sneak down the hall toward the exit.”

  I feel selfish when Emily asks, “What about all the patients on this floor? What will happen to them?”

  “We can’t very well help them, if we can’t help ourselves,” I say. “How are we supposed to evacuate a bunch of patients in hospital beds all by ourselves?”

  She takes my hand and gives a tug toward the door. “We start with the last people and work backward.”

  Before stepping into the darkened corridor, we pause a moment to listen for danger. Hearing nothing, we sprint past an empty room and through the doorway where two older women are.

  We help them ease out of their beds and are crossing the floor, when loud voices echo down the hallway.

  “All the sick and all the adults have to go,” says a female. “Bob wants only the young, healthy ones.”

  “Why not kill ‘em all?” asks a male.

  “Young ones can be put to work,” says the woman, “and they’re easier to handle. Just be careful with the stronger ones.”

  I squeeze my lips together and turn toward Emily. She’s looking between the door and the window, and I know that she’s out of ideas.

  “The closet,” I whisper.

  Emily and her charge walk quickly toward the wardrobe, and she gently opens the door. The older woman steps inside, and then I help the other one enter. As I hastily close them in, I turn to Emily and push her toward the bathroom vanity. “I’ll fix the beds and hide somewhere else. You watch over the ladies, and when it’s safe, get them out.”

  “No Mya, you’ll get caught. They’re shooting people out there.”

  I give a stronger shove and quietly insist, “We’re a little low on options right now. Get under the sink. You know where the exits are. You have a better chance of getting them out. I’ll lead whoever’s out there to another room.”

  I point toward the doorway, “That person just said they aren’t killing young people, and I’m small. I’m no threat. Just take care, and I’ll…” I pause because I really don’t know what I’m going to do.

  I give her a pained smile, “I’ll see you back at the barn.” I close the vanity door and run over to strip the coverings off of the beds.

  I remove the second bed’s sheets and jump into a corner by a nightstand just as two people enter the room.

  “Here’s another,” says a young, buff male as he enters the room and levels an AR-15 assault weapon in my direction. When his finger moves to pull the trigger, his female companion shoves the rifle’s vertical foregrip upward sending a slew of bullets into the ceiling. “Not the young, healthy ones,” she reminds him. “I told you; Bob wants them alive.”

  My eyes are glued to the gun, and I lift the sheets up before me. “Don’t shoot me,” I croak. “I’m just a kid. I…I’m a volunteer collecting the linens and prepping the rooms for new patients.”

  The accompanying slightly-older female is stocky, but solid. She sneers at me and cocks her head to the side. “Then where are all the other dirty things, and where’s your hamper?”

  “Two…two doors down,” I stutter, as I point toward the door and motion to the right. “The bin’s getting full. I was just grabbing these things when the announcement came on.”

  “We’ll see about that,” says the woman as she turns toward the hallway. The man motions with the gun for me to follow, so I hang my head and proceed out of the room without giving any indication that there are more occupants.

  Luckily, Emily had left the laundry bin just inside the other room, and its location supports my claim that I was heading back there. I dump the load that I’m holding and turn slowly toward the couple.

  Although the mal
e has the gun, it is obvious that the female is in charge. “Go check the rest of the rooms on this side, Sam. I’ll take this one.”

  ◌◌◌

  Exiting the stairwell onto the third floor, I look around and rapidly surmise that this must be where all the surgeries take place. There are several rooms with large, clear-glass observation windows and connecting cleansing areas.

  Inside one room, a bearded man wearing a long-sleeved, guayabera shirt, jeans, and a white Ridge top cowboy hat is holding court. I’m ushered into the room and notice several other young people huddled in a far corner.

  “Here’s another one, Bob,” my guard says as she directs me toward said corner.

  I cross the room to join six others, one male and five females. I recognize two faces and estimate that all of us are between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.

  Cowboy Bob barely pauses to acknowledge my presence before he continues speaking to his cronies.

  “We’ll need to ration the supplies, and I want all unnecessary equipment to be unplugged or turned off,” he drawls with a strong southern accent. “We want to conserve the electricity as much as possible. God has smiled upon us by providing such quality accommodations, and we will not risk his wrath with foolish wastefulness.”

  A fleeting smile crosses his face as he scans our little hostage group then turns to face the woman who escorted me. “I want four people stationed on every floor once this place is secure,” he says. “And tell those crazy zealots who joined us yesterday to stay focused and stop shooting everything that moves. We need this facility to stay operational…where are they, anyway?”

  “They split up,” says the woman. “I had two with Sam and me, but most of them went downstairs.”

  Looking toward our group, Bob asks, “What’s downstairs?”

  When no one answers, he asks a second time, “What’s downstairs?”