Ellie laughed and threw her arms around Hal, ignoring his surprised look. “You hear that? We finally have a signal!”
Chapter Ten: Contact
Nick was pretty sure the man outside had died overnight.
He hadn't so much as twitched all morning. He just lay there, curled up in a posture of pure misery, with no sign of anyone coming to offer help or take his body for burial. Nick had had to shoo a curious Ricky away from the window all day yesterday and a few times this morning, and Tallie had clung to him ever since yesterday morning in fear.
When his daughter wasn't clinging to him, he'd noticed her creeping around as if she expected a monster to jump out of hiding and lunge at her at any moment. When he finally asked her why, she confessed that she was terrified of Zolos germs, which she described like tiny little green buggies.
She was convinced some had come in through the window from the dying man and were lurking in the apartment, waiting to sneak up on her when she wasn't looking. Apparently she'd misunderstood the reason Nick was keeping her from the window, so she wouldn't have to see the awful sight of a someone dying, and thought the virus was coming through the glass and would hit her if she was anywhere in sight of the man outside.
Now that he knew what Tallie had been thinking, he felt terrible for not sitting his children down and explaining even more carefully what the Zolos virus was and how it was transmitted, so they wouldn't get any mistaken ideas about the danger. The knowledge that his little girl had been driving herself sick with worry made him feel sick himself.
It was good she realized the danger, and he wanted her to be careful, but he didn't want her to be constantly terrified of tiny green bugs seeping in through the windows and killing her in her sleep, either.
Nick had quickly rectified that misconception last night, gathering his children close to try to get them to understand about Zolos and what was happening in the outside world. Although he wasn't sure how much it helped, since his daughter continued to cling to him afterwards and even Ricky stayed close. They'd both insisted on sleeping on his bed, and Tallie had woken up once from a nightmare and spent almost ten minutes crying before he was able to coax her back to sleep.
Then again, part of that was almost certainly that they were sensing the distress Nick tried to hide, the way children did so well. He wasn't sure what he could do about that, either, since no matter how he tried to reassure his kids, he couldn't lie and pretend the world wasn't going crazy outside their apartment.
Because it was.
All efforts by top microbiologists, immunologists, and epidemiologists to develop a vaccine had thus far proven fruitless: Zolos was simply so hardy that attempts to culture it in a weakened state were hitting one roadblock after another. Although the eminently qualified people overseeing the project offered the good news that at least this strain of the virus seemed stable and slow to mutate, so once a vaccine was developed it would likely be effective for it, and any new strains would similarly be easy to develop vaccines for.
Although such assurances rang hollow, since the pandemic was spreading so rapidly that there was some question about whether anyone would be left by the time a vaccine was developed.
Even though it had only been a few days since the government publicly acknowledged the Zolos threat, the virus had already spread like wildfire. To the point that as more and more outbreaks spread across the globe, people began talking less and less about where the pandemic was and more and more about where it wasn't.
For a while Hawaii had seemed like it might remain unscathed, with its quick response closing itself off to the outside. Something Nick was intimately familiar with, considering Ellie had gotten caught up in that mess.
But after a couple days of all seeming well on the islands, a single breakout occurred at Honolulu Harbor. Even then, the swift quarantine response seemed like it had caught and contained the outbreak in time.
Then a dozen more outbreaks had occurred in swift succession, all over the island. Too many to contain, especially when that number became a hundred after just a few hours. Zolos, with its deceptively slow to present symptoms, had snuck past their best efforts.
Japan was another place that seemed like it would scrape by, to the point where Nick had almost found himself wishing Ellie had stayed there. Especially now that she'd disappeared without warning, and he couldn't get ahold of her or find out anything about what might've happened to her.
Everyone expected the caution the Japanese showed when it came to infection to make the difference, especially since it had led them to close the country off almost as quickly as Hawaii, and arguably far more efficiently.
Then yesterday an outbreak had flared up in Kyoto. They'd actually gone so far as to seal the city off, not even allowing aid workers in unless they planned to stay. Then another outbreak had hit Tokyo hard in the evening, and when the government moved to seal off their capitol, including most of Japan's leadership, the entire country had begun to unravel. Even that hadn't been enough to prevent the infection from spreading beyond the two cities.
There were countless other islands across the world, and most that didn't have airports or regularly used docks remained pockets of health. The deeper areas of Africa, largely untouched by the rest of the world, also stayed untouched for the moment. As did farther north territories in Canada and Russia, places that were simply too sparsely populated for an outbreak to really spread.
The problem was, whenever people heard of a place that had been spared Zolos, they immediately rushed there so they'd be safe, too. And, people being people, at least some of those refugees were carrying the deadly virus without realizing it.
Or, if someone was really monstrous, perhaps they were even spreading it on purpose; who could say, there had to be at least a few nutjobs out there doing that sort of thing. That might even be the explanation for how the infection had already spread to places that should've remained safe.
Unless of course the people with more chilling speculations were correct, and there was some group out there deliberately spreading Zolos as far and as fast as possible. That didn't seem likely, since if it was any specific country or organization there would've been at least some place in the world spared the outbreak. Unless of course whoever was doing it were complete zealots, willing to infect themselves along with their victims.
That, or as some real headcases online suggested, aliens were the source of the disease. Some extraterrestrials' way of wiping out humanity so they could take a fertile world like Earth intact. Some even went so far as to suggest that if it really did look as if humans might go extinct, they should blanket the planet with every nuclear warhead in existence to render it uninhabitable as a last “screw you” to the beings that had done this.
Nick had to wonder what was going through the heads of people like that, to concoct those sorts of ridiculous flights of fancy. He just hoped the world leaders with their hands on the nuclear launch codes weren't that irrational.
Although when it came to irrationality, the response by the vast majority of people came as a pleasant surprise.
Many had predicted that humanity would tear itself apart in the face of a disaster like Zolos. Maybe not literally, since nobody wanted to get close enough to possibly infected people for physical violence, at least aside from isolated incidents. But at least philosophically; during the days after the outbreak, experts had predicted that when it came to interpersonal interactions, even at a distance, everyone would become much more paranoid and hostile.
But surprisingly, that hadn't happened.
Instead, people had cooperated and worked overtime to create alternative ways to report and track outbreaks, so those who couldn't get the information they needed from overburdened public sources could find pertinent news online. Groups of volunteers risked their own safety to acquire hazmat suits so they could drive the sick to hospitals, transport the deceased to designated burial areas, and even care for the sick themselves in makeshift clinics.
Although unfortunately for suffering mankind, the numbers of those volunteers were far too few to make much more than a token effort in the crisis; for the same reasons that people couldn't tear each other apart physically during the panic, they also mostly only came together in spirit. People might've been filled with supportive sentiments and calls for sending aid where it was needed, but just about everyone who could had locked themselves into their homes with their families in voluntary quarantine.
It was taking its toll in many ways, not just where the economy was concerned. Humans were a social species, and enforced isolation wasn't good for mental or even physical health. Those who had no family or friends to fall back on became a source of concern for experts, who warned the world would see increasingly disturbing and erratic activity from those individuals as the weeks passed.
Which led many to conclude that if Zolos hadn't been forcing isolation, humanity would be tearing itself apart.
Closer to home things were just as bad, if not worse. Estimates had jumped up to forty percent exposed to Zolos in Kansas City. Garbagemen had collected the trash that morning in full hazmat suits, and even so it had taken most of the day because apparently half the staff hadn't shown up to work.
There were talks about a full citywide strike of all sanitation and maintenance crews until the crisis had passed, since dealing with human waste or highly trafficked areas had become a perilous job, and there'd been no corresponding increase in pay to make it worth the risk. Especially since many city workers insisted they wouldn't put themselves in that kind of danger for any amount of pay.
As for Ellie's mom, Nick's attempts to reach the nursing home all day yesterday and this morning had failed. There was no news of any incident there, although in the chaos that might not mean anything. Either way, he was getting more and more worried about the situation, concerned for Lois's welfare.
Adding that to his concern for Ellie, and the worry he stubbornly refused to acknowledge about his mom and her family, he was an emotional wreck. Especially since his kids were going stir crazy cooped up indoors; he never thought he'd see the day when they got tired of watching shows, but they'd been pestering him more and more to play with them, or at least sit with them watching something.
So he did.
After all, what else did he have to do? Watch the news for more and more terrible information about the Zolos pandemic? His consulting projects had all gone belly up, and his feelers with his regular contacts confirmed that absolutely nobody in the market was doing anything right now. Most of them had openly shut their businesses down to the bare minimum operations, handling only the most bare-bones necessary tasks.
It didn't seem to matter that those businesses were in the tech industry, and they could easily do all their work through commuting without any of the employees needing to be in the same city, let alone the same room. The economy had taken a nosedive as huge chunks of the population refused to go to work, and nobody was worrying about anything more than keeping the lights on until things settled down.
If they ever did.
Nick was still trying to figure out how to tell Tallie and Ricky that something might have happened to their grandma, if the fact that he couldn't get in touch with the nursing home meant a disaster and he wasn't just panicking. He hadn't told them yet, since there was no need to worry them until he knew one way or another. They were already worried enough about their mom, constantly demanding he call her, even as often as every five minutes, and leaving voicemails for her until her mailbox was full.
Which was why they both rushed to him when his phone rang a few hours before noon, jumping at his legs as he scrambled to pull it out and answer it. He actually shouted in relief when he saw Ellie's name, and rushed so much answering it that he missed the first swipe.
“Ellie!” he called over Tallie's and Ricky's own shouted greetings, switching to speakerphone so the kids could hear. “Are you okay? What happened?”
His ex-wife sounded like she was crying as she answered. “Oh Nick, thank God! Are you and the children all right? Are they showing any symptoms of Zolos from that scare at the school?”
“They're fine, we all are,” he babbled. “We've still got a bit more than a day when symptoms might show, but I'm feeling better and better about us being in the clear.”
“Mom, are you okay?” Tallie shouted directly into the phone. “We were so scared!”
“There's a dead guy outside!” Ricky added.
The next few minutes were chaos as Nick let the kids talk to their mom. Then he pried the phone away and shifted back to his own questions. “Where are you, Ells? What happened?”
Ellie was slow to answer. “In Southern Utah, a few miles from St. George. I let a couple carpool with me back to Missouri, and when we stopped to sleep they stole the car and left us stranded. We didn't have cell phone coverage, so we've been walking for the last couple days to get back to St. George. We'll try to get another car there, or find some other way home.”
“No cell phone coverage?” Nick frowned. “I'm pretty sure just about every mile of Interstate highways gets coverage.”
“Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Maybe not in the middle of nowhere in Southern Utah?”
“You'd think even there . . .” He switched to the internet on his phone, quickly typing in a search. “Ah, there you go. A few signal towers along I-15 north of St. George went down due to severe weather. With the Zolos scare telecommunications companies are having manpower issues, focusing on keeping coverage active in populated areas. So yeah, I guess the middle of nowhere in Southern Utah would be the place to lose it.”
There was an even longer pause, and when Ellie finally spoke she had that tone that suggested she was seriously ticked off but trying to be reasonable about it. “So you're saying we would've been able to call except for freak bad luck?”
“Pretty much,” Nick replied. Then he paused. “Hold up, we?”
His ex-wife's reply was impatient. “I was traveling with a young man on my flight who lives near KC, as well as the couple who stole my car. They left him stranded with me.”
He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. “Is he a threat? You should be-”
“Nick, he's a good kid. Don't worry, I'm fine.”
Well, not worrying was pretty much impossible. And this unexpected bit of news was the last push needed to cement his resolve. “Give me a bit to get me and the kids packed, and we'll be in the car and on our way to you in no time flat.”
There was a long pause before Ellie answered. When she did her tone was more serious than he'd ever heard it, even when she'd announced she wanted a divorce. “Nicholas Statton, under no circumstances are you to take our children out of that apartment.”
He stared at his phone incredulously for a second, then took it off speakerphone and brought it to his ear, lowering his voice. “Ells, you're stranded in the middle of a freaking desert with no car! That's not a joke, it's life and death. We could be to you in around twenty hours, then bring you home with no more fuss.”
His ex-wife's tone showed no hint of budging. “No, Nick. If the rest of the world is as crazy as Los Angeles was, it won't be just a simple trip. You are not going to risk exposing Tallie and Ricky to Zolos.”
“I could have someone watch them while I come get you. Gen would probably be happy to do it.” He'd have to drive them up to Stanberry first, but that shouldn't take too much longer.
“What part of “under no circumstances” was confusing you? The entire country is falling to pieces and tens of millions of people are infected with an invisible, deadly disease. Your job, your only job, is to keep our children in your apartment until Zolos is just a distant memory.”
“But-” he began helplessly.
Ellie again interrupted, tone gentler but no less resolute. “We're almost to St. George. We should be able to get a car there, even if I have to use my emergency credit card.”
Nick grudgingly accepted that. “Okay, but call me if you reach
St. George and can't find a car. Or if you run into any real disaster. We can figure something out to get help to you and still keep the kids safe.”
“Okay.” There was a short pause. “I need to worry about battery life, so if that's all . . .”
He abruptly remembered one of his main sources of concern over the last day or so, before her call had completely driven it from his head. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Hold on, Ells. I'm sorry, I hate to have to tell you this, but I haven't been able to contact your mom's nursing home for over a day.”
◆◆◆
Ellie stared at her phone with a sort of numb blankness.
Not content to take Nick's word for it, she'd tried calling the nursing home herself. The phone had rang and then gone to a full voicemail box three times in a row before she gave up. Then she'd looked up the numbers of some of the nursing home's staff and tried calling them, to similar results.
As a last desperate measure, she'd even tried to contact emergency services in KC to ask them what they knew. Only to find them, of course, so bogged down with other people calling in their own emergencies that she'd be waiting on the line until long after her phone's battery life ran out.
Something had happened, something bad.
Maybe the place had been hit with Zolos and evacuated to the nearest hospital, with no time to inform loved ones of the move. Or maybe the staff had all refused to come in to work, and her mom and dozens of other elderly people in need of special care were all helpless and suffering. Or maybe the local government had created a quarantine camp, like LA had, and her mom had been moved there as a precautionary measure.
The worst thing was that she had no way of knowing. Whether she should grieve or try to take action or simply fret helplessly.
Ellie had already done her best to resign herself to the fact that she might lose her mom, back when she'd been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. That even if her mom lived for a long time to come, before long she'd practically be a stranger. It was a heartbreaking reality that she'd struggled with for a long time, and still struggled with.
Isolation (Book 1): Shut In Page 17