“Are you okay?” Lizzy was examining him as the nearby gift shop appeared in double before him.
“I…don’t think so.”
Just then, Lizzy exclaimed, “It’s Marcy, with her two kids. Coming into the lobby from the stairs!”
Jason tried to concentrate, and through the haze of his affliction, saw his daughter and two her young children. It was all a blur, and she went out of focus.
He tried to speak her name. It didn’t sound right to his ears. Light and darkness alternated in his vision. Nothing was right. His head ached terribly.
The last thing he remembered was a long tunnel of darkness with Lizzy at the other end.
Chapter 79
Jason awoke to find himself in a hospital bed next to a wall in a long corridor. A string of beds stretched as far down the way as he could see. His mouth was dry, and his eyes burned. The smell of feces was strong around him. Pain in his head drove him back into the black void.
When he roused again, Lizzy stood at his bed. He had enough presence of mind to realize there was no space for a chair in that crowded corridor. She kissed him on the forehead, and he once more sank into oblivion.
Cold seemed to generate deep within him. It seeped through his veins, into his muscles and bones, and outward to his flesh. He shivered uncontrollably for an eternity. After the freezing of his body halted, a furnace arose within him. Paroxysms shook his frame without end. His brain felt on fire as his head thrashed back and forth.
Gentle hands, cool hands, cradled his throbbing head. They had a healing quality about them, and his convulsions subsided. As they did, he heard commotion—the sound of strident, desperate voices—all around. One that was calm, that he recognized as Lizzy’s, spoke soothingly. It brought peace to his ravaged soul.
***
The cold, damp bed caused him to awaken. He wasn’t sure if the bedsheets were soaked from the copious amounts of sweat his body had thrown off, or if was from a leaking catheter. He heard Lizzy arguing with someone.
“How can you let these patients molder in their own urine and sweat? What are you thinking?”
“Lady, if you’re so concerned for their welfare, why don’t you change them yourself? We’re tired. It’s been like this day and night for a week. We’ve had no time off. Do you think we’re superhuman? Look at all the beds! We’re understaffed and overworked. How do you think we’re supposed to cope with this disaster?” The female voice cracked. “I just want to go home.”
Lizzy’s tone changed as she said, “You’re right. Forgive me. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own concerns for my friend. Would you like some help? Let me change his bed, and I’ll pitch in and give you a hand.”
The other woman responded with a plaintive, “Really? Thank you. You can’t know what a blessing that will be.”
Jason drifted off even as his clothing and the sheets under him were changed.
***
He heard the soft calling of his name, “Jason, Jason.”
It brought a smile to his cracked lips. His eyes feasted on Lizzy.
“You’re back,” she said.
“Long time gone.” It was an effort to get the words out. His throat was parched, but his head felt clear.
“You’re one of the lucky ones.”
He noticed that he was no longer in the hospital corridor, rather the bed was in a room with a window view that allowed the sun to shine in.
“What happened?” he asked.
Lizzy helped him to sit up. There was a tray of food beside the bed. Before giving him an account, she urged him to take in a little nourishment. He found that several bites of orange jello and a small container of vanilla yogurt filled him, and he pushed the tray aside.
“What do you remember?”
Jason thought for a moment. “A cloud of mosquitoes. We made it inside the lobby of the Washington Monument. Marcy came in with the kids. So many people.”
Lizzy nodded and closed her eyes for a second. Taking a deep breath, she said, “The mosquitoes—they were an attack. Tiny drones, probably with artificial intelligence. There were tens of thousands of them. Pretty much everyone got bitten—or stung—like you. They carried a virus. EEE. Eastern Equine Encephalitis.”
Her hand tightened on his and she continued, “It was horrible. The majority of people there got infected. Adults, children, everyone. Only a few of us were immune.”
Jason recalled the cacophony of voices he’d heard in the throes of his delirium and mentioned it.
Tears ran down Lizzy’s cheeks. “That was the point when the vast majority of those in the hospital with the infection died.”
It felt like a blow to Jason’s chest. “Oh.”
“The death toll is staggering. This hospital is no different from the sixteen others in D.C. and the ones that took in victims in Maryland and Virginia. It’s estimated that five percent of everyone bitten contracted EEE. Of those, ten percent of them died.”
“Could have been worse.” Then Jason’s hands fell to his sides. His entire body felt limp as his brain started working. “Wait—what?—a million people were in attendance.”
“Yes.”
She let the word hang while he processed the numbers.
“Five thousand died?”
Recollection of those he loved jumped to his mind. “Marcy? Her two children? Nancy Evans?”
Lizzy placed a hand on his arm. “Marcy is alive. She woke up earlier this morning. I’m sorry, the children are gone. I spoke with Nancy in Chicago this morning; she’s okay.”
The news of his grandchildren floored Jason. Grief welled up, then was replaced with a surge of anger. “How? Why? Who are these people that would do this? Did Chicago have the same attack and results?”
He found that air in his lungs was in short supply. It was all so overwhelming. He wanted to kill someone. Anyone. Whoever did this.
Jason turned away from Lizzy who sat on the window side of the bed. A great bitterness flooded over him.
“Any news of Moriarty or Toomey?” he asked in a hushed and sour tone.
“No word on Moriarty. Toomey appears to have been untouched.”
“Too bad,” he muttered. He looked at her again and pleading, asked her, “How did you survive? I’m grateful, but how?”
“By God’s grace.”
That stopped him. He and Lizzy had been conversing about God, but she, like him, had never professed faith in Him or truly acknowledged any actions in their lives such as His grace.
“What do you mean?”
Suddenly, Lizzy’s face illuminated in a way he’d never seen. “When I spoke with Nancy earlier, we talked about God, His Son, His sacrificial gift, what Jesus did in dying on the cross for me—for you, too, Jason! How He rose from the dead to prove that he is God.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Jason, this experience brought me to faith. I believe!”
Tentatively, he said, “What do you believe?”
A smile stretched the limits of her face. “In Jesus Christ. As my Savior. As my Lord.”
“I don’t understand.” And he truly didn’t. A light had seemingly gone on within Lizzy, but no such illumination came into his mind or heart.
She began to bubble over. “I can’t explain it. On the phone with Nancy, somehow God’s mercy broke through the hard shell that kept me from Him. God loves us! He wants us to know Him, to love and follow Him. This isn’t like the religious stuff we’ve been exposed to. It’s personal, deep, relational. Jesus has become not only my God, but…” she choked up before getting out the rest of the words. “…my friend. Nancy said that when I accept Him into my heart, I also become a child of God. I feel that. I know it! I repented of my sins—too many to count—and God forgave me. In an instant! Jason, all this fear and anxiety I’ve had over you these past ten days and all the concerns about what’s happening in the world…Jesus tells me it’ll be okay. He’s got it handled, because He’s in charge. Isn’t that amazing?”
He didn’t know how to respond. All
he could say was, “That’s great. I’m happy for you. Do you think we could see Marcy?”
Chapter 80
Lizzy pushed Jason’s wheelchair down the hall to Marcy’s room. The door was partially closed, and they heard voices inside. Lizzy had kept tabs on Marcy’s situation, but other than knowing where Jason’s daughter was, she hadn’t spoken with her, wanting, as she explained, to leave first contact with him.
A nurse came out with a portable blood pressure unit, and acknowledged them by saying, “She’s up.”
Jason hadn’t come face-to-face with Marcy since he’d seen her at the school. At that time, she hadn’t even recognized him. Now, as Lizzy rolled him to Marcy’s bed, her sad countenance briefly lit up.
“Dad!”
It was almost more than he could take. He stumbled out of the chair and embraced her. “Marcy.”
It was a reunion he’d hoped for all these years. To hold his long-lost daughter. To know that she was all right. To feel the tears burn his eyes.
But it was also bittersweet.
“Joseph, Carolyn. They’re both dead.”
Jason remembered the names of his grandchildren from when Hugo had casually mentioned them so long ago when he and Tenor—that snake, Art Kerry—had abducted him the night of the HoneyCrest condominium explosion.
“Marcy.” He hugged her tighter. “I’m so sorry.”
They cried together until they had no more tears to shed. All the while, Lizzy waited patiently, although Jason had forgotten her in the emotion of the moment.
He finally said, “Marcy, this is Lizzy. You’re actually related to her, although she would be a distant aunt to you, a couple times removed.”
Over the next half hour, Lizzy showed Jason a side of her he hadn’t seen. It was a sweetness and caring that drew him to her more. Beyond that, he appreciated the tenderness and love she showed toward Marcy.
Both he and his daughter were scheduled to be released the next day and planned to leave together.
On the way back to his room, Lizzy asked Jason, “If Mary Sue is still alive, how do you think she’ll respond to this reconciliation?”
The thought curdled his stomach. Then another notion came to mind. He squeezed his eyes as he considered it. “Do you think the masterminds behind all this had an antidote or preventive inoculation?”
Lizzy helped him back into bed. After consideration, she replied, “It wouldn’t surprise me. It would keep people like Moriarty, Mary Sue, and Toomey safe. Maybe you and Nancy should discuss it.”
He reached Nancy Evans while she was in her car.
“Jason, I’m so glad you pulled through. It’s been so distressing. All these people around the world who died from this. It’s awful.”
He hadn’t thought through the implications about all the other gatherings in celebration of Universal Children’s Day. It was a planetary event. Maybe his mind had tried to shield him from its reality.
“Is there a final body count?”
“Numbers are still coming in, but they’re comparable to D.C. and Chicago. There were thirty similar venues—all those different countries—so many dead. Best estimates are close to two hundred thousand. It’s staggering.”
“Why?” was all he could ask.
“It’s got to be part of the grand plan. The Georgia Guidestones. Their philosophy has to be integral to it.”
“So, the United Nations with its radical partners is the source.”
“The Global Religions Initiative. Yes,” Evans said, “and Green Liberation. The eradication of mankind in homage to the Green agenda. But, here’s the thing: I think they failed.”
“Failed? How?”
“Look at the numbers. Think about it this way: What if it wasn’t five percent of the people who contracted this deadly encephalitis? What if it was fifty percent? And not just ten percent of them died, but ninety percent of them? In other words, with those kinds of numbers, the death toll could have exceeded thirteen million worldwide.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it? Is that kind of scope really beyond the thinking of these people? I don’t believe so. Remember their objective.”
Jason thought back to seeing the number etched in stone. “They want a total world population that doesn’t exceed five hundred million.”
“With the current populace around 7.6 billion, that’s a lot of people who have to disappear.”
“So, what they achieved at killing two hundred thousand is nothing.”
“Exactly. If this is the beginning of their efforts to purge the planet of humanity, this was a failure of massive proportions. It’s doubtful they’ll stop at this puny—for them—effort.”
“Nancy, we couldn’t do anything to stop this catastrophe we just went through. What in the world can we do going forward? We only know a couple players. There are obviously many more hiding behind governmental organizations and radical entities like Green Liberation.”
Jason found himself trembling at the very concept of this being just the beginning.
“I have no answer for you, Jason. All I can do is put my faith in God. He’s in charge. None of this has taken Him by surprise. Have you talked with Lizzy about this?”
“Yes. She says you convinced her to believe in Jesus.”
“No, Jason, it wasn’t me. It was the Holy Spirit convicting her and working in her heart. The only part I played was to tell her what Jesus had done for her salvation. The rest was up to God, and He did it.”
To Jason, it seemed a distinction without a difference. The rationale was beyond him.
“Look,” he said, “I’m coming back to Chicago. I don’t know if I still have a job, or what. But let’s plan to talk more about this when I get there. See if we can approach this in any other way. We have to stop it. Somehow. If we don’t, the world as we know it, is finished.”
Chapter 81
With Lizzy’s help, Jason and Marcy left the hospital the next day. The streets of Washington, D.C. were strangely empty as the aftermath of the debacle lingered. They remained one more night in the hotel where they‘d been staying. Lizzy had kept their room from before everything went south in the attack.
To Jason’s surprise, Lizzy had booked another room for him alone as well as for Marcy. He had anticipated that with his new lease on life coming out of the hospital, he and Lizzy would spend the night together. In his grief about the deaths of his grandchildren, the comfort that he’d gain from that seemed natural.
But she shook her head, “I can’t. I’ve been reading my Bible. I really am a new creation in Christ Jesus. We have to be celibate until we’re married. If we’re to be married.”
His jaw dropped. “Did Nancy tell you that?”
“No, just as I said: the Bible. God has standards because He doesn’t want His children hurt. Having sexual relations outside of marriage inevitably leads to problems. Bad things can happen to good people. Unanticipated children, sexual diseases, things that go wrong because people aren’t in the will of God.”
In a way, it made sense to him because of the God thoughts he’d had. They had touched on these issues previously in their intimacy discussion. Still, he would have appreciated sleeping at her side. The best she would allow him was to cuddle for a while, so he went to bed with his feelings hurt and his sorrow unabated. Surely, Marcy’s heartache was greater with the loss of her children; he knew that. Yet, he’d been bereft for so long because of Marcy’s absence that his selfish nature clamored for attention that it never got.
Nancy Evans met them at the airport. As she drove them to Jason’s house, she told them of the horrors she’d seen during the Millennium Park UCD rally with the incredible swarm of mosquitoes that literally maddened some people. Many went fleeing for the lake screaming their distress. There were even those who couldn’t swim who flung themselves in the water. Ten people drowned from that futile exercise.
As in D.C., the city had a sort of hang-over, even two weeks after the event. It had left people in
shock, not sure where to turn. Jason related to that.
In contrast, Lizzy had a different demeanor about her, similar to what he saw in Evans. Although the situation was grim because so many had died and the outlook was bleak in their inability to affect the future, each of the women appeared to have a hope about them that transcended the circumstances.
Jason found that Marcy retained some of the blankness that had marked his prior interaction with her. Her memory and love for him had returned, but other than knowing that her children had perished, she had little remembrance or understanding of what she’d undergone these last eight years. He hoped that would change with time.
Shockingly, the hospitals had made the decision to immediately cremate everyone who died from EEE in the mosquito attack. Jason later found out this had been forced on them by government dictate. No autopsies were performed, and no bodies were released to grieving family members. It was spectacularly unsatisfying.
Over the next couple of days, Jason, Lizzy, and Marcy arranged a memorial service for the two children, Joseph and Carolyn. They bought markers, purchased gravesites, and held the service in absentia of the little ones.
Nancy Evans said, “Their graves are empty because of the hand of man. Jesus’ tomb is empty because He rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of God, the Father, Almighty. Marcy, Jason, you can be assured that Joseph and Carolyn are with Him right now. God does not leave behind those who cannot make a choice to accept or reject Jesus because of their age and reasoning abilities or some other mental infirmity. They are in His loving arms right now.”
Marcy burst into fresh tears. Jason bowed his head and closed his eyes as warmth enveloped him. He pulled Marcy close and held her. Lizzy, on Marcy’s other side, murmured her thanks that Jesus was so gracious.
The day, for all its mourning, left them all with a feeling of peace.
Green Dreams Page 29