The Immune Box Set [Books 1-5]

by Kazzie, David

  With the addition of the Citadel refugees, the population of their collective rose to seventy-three souls. Twenty-four men, thirty-five women and fourteen children. There weren’t enough beds at this farm to accommodate everyone, and so they’d spread out to five neighboring farms. Each farm elected its own representative, and together, the representatives formed a governing body of sorts. The women from the Citadel had clung together, occupying the farm closest to the central compound and selecting Rachel Fisher as their representative. Diane Williams, the chef who’d stepped up in Adam’s absence, was elected to serve a four-year term as mayor of the collective. The group had decided that a single leader was necessary, but the five-member board carried an override power to ensure that no single person amassed too much power.

  Fresh water was a priority. Each of the farms sported its own well, which had been a good start, and they taught themselves the basics of well maintenance with books from the library in a nearby town. To be extra safe, Adam directed that all water used for drinking and cooking be filtered through charcoal, sand and gravel and then boiled for two minutes. That had seemed to do the trick, as no one became ill from drinking water.

  There was no shortage of things to worry about. Security of the farm was never far from his mind. They hadn’t seen many others, which didn’t surprise Adam given the remoteness of the farm. But, he suspected, that wouldn’t last forever. He worried about bandits and warlords and rapists and folks who’d been bad guys in the old world, now living in a world without any filters at all. And it wasn’t just bad guys they’d have to worry about. At some point, they’d have to interact with other people for trade or for the far more basic need of pairing people off for procreation.

  Adam’s greatest concern was for the welfare of one Erin Thompson. She wasn’t the only pregnant woman in the collective, but she was the first one due to give birth. The baby’s fate might well be all theirs. There was no way to know whether all babies born to immune mothers would die, or whether baby Stephen had just drawn a shitty hand. There was no way to know what fate awaited Erin’s baby, the progeny of a naturally immune mother and a vaccinated father. Adam hated Miles Chadwick, but he found himself praying on a daily basis that the monster’s vaccine was as good as advertised. He had a recurring nightmare in which he was the only one left on the planet.

  He was so lost in thought he didn’t notice Max toddling up the steps.

  “Hi, Doc,” he said.

  “Hey, Maxie,” Adam replied. “Have a seat.”

  Max sat in the other chair, and they rocked in silence for a while. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but Adam didn’t force the issue, lest he scare the boy off like a frightened puppy. He had shot up over the past few months, looking less like the scared boy they’d found in the chip aisle of that grocery store so many months ago. His resilience had surprised Adam; these were heady times he was living through, and a sudden change might knock him on his ass for a bit, but he was always back up on his feet in no time. Maybe it was because kids weren’t as set in their ways as adults; they were more malleable, more adaptable to change.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Max finally said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Why did he do it?”

  Adam’s chair stopped rocking. Max was asking about Freddie. Freddie, who Max had worshipped. Freddie, who had destroyed so much.

  “Well,” he began, and then he paused.

  He thought about Freddie and Caroline and Sarah. He thought about how much Freddie had lost when so much had already been taken from him. He had died because he had no hope, much like Caroline had. Sarah, on the other hand, had died for precisely the opposite reason.

  “I’m not entirely sure about this,” Adam said gently, “but I think it was because he didn’t think things would ever be good again.”

  “What do you think?” Max asked. “Do you think they will be?”

  Adam considered the question for a long moment.

  “I do.”

  #

  Erin Thompson went into labor on the fourth day of June. She toddled up to his house as the sun was going down, just as he’d sat down to enjoy his evening whisky and cigarette. He allowed himself one of each every day, but no more. There were no other nurses or doctors in residence at the farm, and so Adam had to be on call twenty-four hours a day. Rachel and Max had expressed interest in learning medicine, and so Adam was doing his level best to teach what he knew. How inadequate it all seemed compared to his own medical training, but what choice did they have? No more medical schools meant doing it this way or not at all.

  “How far apart are the contractions?” he said.

  “About five to six minutes,” she said.

  On the porch with him was Harry Maynard, another refugee from Evergreen.

  “Harry, run and find Rachel and Max for me, please.”

  Harry was a big man, but he bolted off the porch like a cheetah. Adam saw the terror in his eyes. Everyone had been anxiously awaiting the baby’s arrival, as they all wanted to know the same thing as Adam.

  Would the baby live or die?

  He escorted Erin over to the makeshift clinic he’d set up on the first floor of one of the guest houses, where he’d cobbled together instruments and supplies as best as he could. No one had needed major surgery yet, but their luck would run out at some point. He could only do what he could do, he told himself over and over. Frontier medicine would be all they had. Part of him wondered if they should try and relocate to one of the smaller cities, where they’d have access to a hospital, but then he would think about the avalanche of corpses or roving gangs and the fact that a hospital with no electricity was no better than the clinic he’d set up here.

  Rachel and Max were already at the clinic when he and Erin arrived. They were busy setting up the gurney and the stirrups and all the supplies for what would hopefully be a routine delivery. Based on his weekly check-ups, they should be in good shape, but he didn’t have to wander too far down his mental corridors to find that dark room marked Patient A.

  After Erin was settled in the bed, Adam pulled on a pair of latex gloves, fresh with powder, and palpated her abdomen. A test he’d done a thousand times, ten thousand times, so often that it was like breathing. His stomach flipped when he realized that the baby had turned breech since he’d last examined her a few days earlier. Naturally, he thought. Nothing was going to be easy. Erin was in a fair amount of pain, but holding up well. She needed to know what was going on, but he didn’t want her to panic.

  “Erin,” he said, using his most doctorly voice. “The baby’s flipped, but it’s going to be okay.”

  Huge droplets of sweat had beaded on her head, and she paled at the news.

  “Breech? It’s breech?”

  “Yes, but I know what to do.” He was terrified, but he kept his voice calm. So much was riding on this baby, and that bet wouldn’t even kick in unless he got it out of her womb and into this world.

  “Anything,” she said. “Do anything you have to do to get the baby out.”

  Adam couldn’t help but smile a little; he was reminded of the Crusading Mom-to-Be he’d occasionally encounter in his practice, the ones hell-bent on executing a specific birth plan, cleaving to it like it was some religion. He worried about these women, those who lost sight of the big picture, the only picture that mattered – getting the baby out safely. That was all that mattered. Not whether the baby was born in a loud hospital or underwater or with a doula or on the back of a circus elephant. He was thrilled to see that Erin was on board.

  “I’m going to manipulate the baby a little,” he said. “That can often work. He may just need a little encouragement to flip back around.”

  “OK,” she said, her voice small and quiet.

  It was all on him now; Erin had done all she could do. Now was the time that he earned that honorary at the end of his name, the respect accorded him since the day he’d been able to call himself Dr. Fisher.

  He began a procedure cal
led the external cephalic version, carefully moving his hands around her swollen belly, poking and prodding the little one along. It was painstaking and risky work, especially without an ultrasound machine, ensuring that he was putting the right amount of pressure here, easing up there. But he didn’t want to do a C-section unless it was absolutely necessary. His mind had cleared out all the clutter that he’d once allowed to distract his thinking. Then he let an image of the hidden fetus fill his brain, and he could see in his mind’s eye the baby rolling, rolling, rolling. He didn’t let himself think about the happy outcome he was hoping for or the devastating outcome he feared. He worked solely in each moment, in each centimeter that he moved the baby’s head downward.

  He paused and wiped his brow with his forearm, and then went back to work. Everything had fallen away around him. Rachel and Max, even Erin herself seemed very far away. This was Adam and the baby, Adam and the future of their little community, perhaps the world beyond.

  Then it was done.

  He checked again and felt the baby’s head oriented in the proper position. He exhaled loudly; if it hadn’t worked, he would have had no choice but to perform an emergency C-section.

  Then he let the world back in; he found Erin eyeing him like a hawk, trying to read his face for any nugget she could interpret and obsess over as he conducted his work.

  “It’s going to be OK,” he said. “His head is in the right position now.”

  She cupped a hand at her lips and began to weep.

  #

  Eight hours later, and the time was drawing near.

  “One more big push,” Adam said. “Wait for the next contraction and then really bear down.”

  “I can’t,” Erin Thompson said. She was red-faced and sweaty. Her hair was matted down on her face. She was at the end of her rope. Thoughts that she wasn’t going to make it began to creep around the edges of his mind, and plans were being made for a C-section. They were equipped for it. Sort of. Adam had performed a few hundred of them, but it wouldn’t be the relative piece of cake it had used to be. Without proper equipment and infection control protocols, so many things could go wrong. And yes, the day would come where he’d have to perform one. He just didn’t want it to be today.

  “Yes, you can, Erin,” he said. Gentle but firm. “You lived through the last year. You can damn well make it through this.”

  “No! Please. I want to rest.”

  Rachel, who’d been at the bedside, watching, learning, leaned over and whispered into Erin’s ear. Erin listened, rapt, her eyes wide and unblinking. As Rachel spoke, Erin nodded a few times. Adam couldn’t say under oath that she’d smiled, but a look of peace came over her face. He didn’t know what Rachel had told her, and he didn’t much care, because the patient was back in the game now. They were getting to the end now; they’d survived the final crisis.

  “You ready, Erin?”

  “Hell yes,” she said. “Let’s get this baby out.”

  He heard her taking some deep breaths as he kept his eyes on her baby’s head, now crowning. One more push, and the baby would be out, and the clock would start all over again. He’d been dreading this day as much as he’d been looking forward to it. Again and again, his mind returned to the variables at play here. A naturally immune mother, a vaccinated father. Would the baby’s blood carry the necessary antibodies to fend off Medusa? Miles Chadwick had seemed to think so. Then Erin gave one mighty push, and all modesty was lost. A deep, manic howl of pain and effort, a small bowel movement, and then the shoulders were clear.

  “One more!”

  Another push, and out came baby Thompson, shining, glistening with viscera, and a little bit blue. Adam guided the little boy into the cleanest towel they had, one they’d been holding for this very moment; as he cleaned the baby off and checked his mouth and nostrils for any obstructions, he began marking the seconds on his watch, his old friend, the watch that now marked the way forward. At eight seconds, the baby whimpered once and then screamed. The blue skin tinge began to fade as the pink hue of health began seeping in like a morning sunrise. At one minute, he ran through the Apgar testing. Heart rate and breathing were good. Arms and legs flailing about. At five minutes, he repeated the testing, and the baby passed with flying colors.

  “Great job, mom,” he said to Erin. Rachel was leaned over, hugging the new mother. Both were crying. Max was looking down at his feet, his hand shielding his eyes. Even Adam felt a few tears well up.

  Erin Thompson held her swaddled baby close to her chest, and nuzzled the little boy’s forehead with the tip of her nose.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  #

  It was after midnight. A full moon hung in the sky, fat and happy and bright. Adam was far too jazzed up to sleep, and so he sat outside the clinic, smoking a cigar. He’d spent the last two hours monitoring Erin and her baby, but she seemed to be recovering quickly. Max and Rachel were tending to Erin now.

  The others were celebrating the news of the birth. It was a bit of a hollow celebration, given that they’d be on pins and needles for the next week to see if the baby would come down with Medusa. You didn’t need a medical degree to know which way the wind was blowing. But until then, they would have themselves a party. Someone had built a bonfire out in one of the fields, and they drank warm beer and toasted to the group’s good fortune. Several had come to congratulate Adam and invite him to the party, but he declined. He wanted to be near Erin.

  He heard the door behind him, and Rachel stepped outside the clinic and onto the porch with him.

  “How is it in there?” he asked.

  “Both asleep,” she said. “She tried nursing, but he didn’t seem terribly hungry.”

  “At this point, it’s more important that she goes through the motions, establishes a routine,” Adam said. “Babies usually aren’t super hungry the day they’re born. By tomorrow or the next day, that’s when he’ll start chowing down.”

  “Oh,” Rachel said. “And if the baby doesn’t nurse?”

  “We’ll go with formula.”

  “And, uh, if the baby gets sick?”

  “Then we’ll deal with that, too.”

  Rachel began to weep.

  “I don’t want that baby to die,” she said behind a curtain of tears.

  Adam plugged the cigar into the ashtray and got up from his chair. Rachel threw her arms around her father and buried her face into his shoulder. He held her tightly, letting her cry it out. He tried to remember the last time he’d held his daughter to console her, but he could not. He wasn’t sure he had ever done it.

  “There’s no way to know what’s going to happen,” Adam said.

  “I just wish there was something we could do,” she said.

  “I know,” Adam replied. “Me too. But all we can really do is wait. How about you wait with me?”

  Rachel nodded and sat down in one of the chairs. Adam reclaimed his cigar and sat down as well. The air was warm and redolent with the smells of summer. The cicadas chirped loudly and the fireflies pinged the farm with their warm yellow light.

  Together, they began to wait.

  ###

  The Living

  DEDICATION

  For my kids

  Food on the table

  All the stars in the sky

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To Dave Buckley, Mindy Heaton, Scott Weinstein, Wes Walker, and Rima Wiggin for their thoughtful notes and advice on early drafts of the manuscript.

  To Ann Rittenberg and Camille Goldin for their editorial notes and for handling the business side of bringing this book to life.

  To Steven Novak, for his wonderful cover design.

  To Jason and Marina at Polgarus Studio for their work formatting of the print edition of this novel.

  PROLOGUE

  San Diego, California

  Nina Kershaw nibbled on a thumbnail while they waited, pulling and tugging at the sliver of keratin, anxious to be rid of it. Then she
yanked a bit too hard, and she winced as the ragged nail came off with a tiny ribbon of skin. A bead of blood formed at the nail bed, which began throbbing like it had its own little heartbeat. Penance for flying too close to the nail-biting sun, she supposed, rather than leaving well enough alone until she could get her hands on some clippers. She sighed, tamping the blood with her index finger.

  Just one more thing.

  Her iPhone buzzed sharply. Another sigh, as the phone would undoubtedly be bearing bad news.

  A text message from her boss Eduardo. Eduardo, who had told her during the interview not to worry, he understood that family came first, but who gave her grief every time she had to take time off to deal with her daughter or with the car breaking down or even the time the dishwasher in her little house had blown a hose and flooded the kitchen.

  Where are you? Call me ASAP.

  She glanced at the clock on her phone. Nine-thirty. All her efforts this morning, setting two alarms, leaving the house by six to get ahead of San Diego’s morning rush, eating half-frozen waffles in the car, to make it here thirty minutes before they even unlocked the doors had been for naught.

  No, having things go her way would be simple, and simple was not part of Nina Kershaw’s life calculus. It was going to piss off Eduardo something fierce, but what could she do? Such was the life of a single mother. Although wouldn’t you know it, she wasn’t going to be a single mother much longer. After four years, Jerry had finally proposed. The wedding would take place the following spring. Okay, so maybe he didn’t knock her socks off, not like Adam Fisher, her daughter’s father, once had, but she was getting too old for that kind of nonsense. She needed some stability in her life, a little bit of goddamn peace. Besides, Jerry was ten times the father Adam was. Jerry treated her only child like she was his own, not an afterthought to be mollified by hundred-dollar checks tucked inside fancy Hallmark cards a few times per year.