Storiesonline.net ------- Grappling With Survival by Crumbly Writer Copyright© 2013 by Crumbly Writer ------- Description: A Post-Apocalyptic world unlike any other. Instead of banding together or fighting each other, here the survivors find a world with few resources, little trust and no desire to intermingle. Fears of disease prevent survivors from reaching out for help. How does society survive if the survivors won’t participate? The 2nd installment of the “Great Death” series, it’s much less bleak, and reading the first book isn’t necessary. Codes: MF Mult cons rom het PostApoc ------- ------- Cast of Characters A list of characters in "Grappling with Survival". This is meant as a reference only, to be checked any time you encounter a character you don't recognize. Reading ahead may spoil story surprises and is not recommended. Let me know if you spot any errors and I'll fix them. I'm also open to suggestions on how to improve it. ------- Book 1: Adrian Malcox: A 19-year-old community college student who helps set up an FM broadcasting station at David's house after their college loses all power. Alice Scott: David's daughter, who feels protective of her dad and feels it necessary to help him whether he wants it or not. Amy Holmes: Alice's closest friend, she's a nerdish tomboy who dreams of becoming a superheroine. Usually follows Alice's lead because Alice typically undertakes more aggressive tasks. Benjamin Adams: The local Sheriff, who partners with the local police in trying to maintain order after society begins to fall apart. He deputizes David so he can help out. Betty (Betts) Bennett: A friend of Linda Scott's and mother of Sara, one of Alice's schoolmates. When Linda seeks out her ex-husband after the initial meteor story, she accompanies her, though he feels it necessary to return to check on her family afterwards. Billy Adams: A 20-year-old community college student who helps set David up with their FM broadcasting station. Blossom Elmsford: Flora's 15-year-old sister who died when her house collapsed. Bob Lind: A blind friend of David's who he turns to when the communications network fails. His knowledge of ham radios allows the survivors to stay in radio communications with the world. Branch Elmsford: Flora's 13-year-old brother who disappeared after their house collapsed, never to be seen again. Caitlyn Harrison: One of Alice's friends from school, Caitlyn was the 'cute girl' ringleader back at school, but takes a lesser role when things change at David's house. David Scott: The story's protagonist, an 34-year-old retired accountant who invested all his money in a remote house in the country that others gathered at when things turned bad. Debbie Peters: An ex-dental hygenist who takes up with George Winters as a survivalist and helps him attack the local police in search of guns and ammunition. Ellen Parker: A blonde woman that David rescues during the initial meteor shower. David's 'main squeeze'. Erica Dixon: Alice's classmate, the youngest of the girls, she always tries hard to keep up with the other girls. Initially injured during the long drive to David's, she's usually up for anything the others are interested in. Flora Elmsford: A college coed that David rescues when her house is detroyed the second night of the meteor storm. Having lost her entire family, she sees David as the source of her new life, and clings to him in unexpected ways. Frank Morre: An 18-year-old community college student who accompanies Adrian Malcox and Billy Adams when they seek refuge at David's house. General Clarence Pendril: A low-level backroom military general who props up President Daniels and encourages him to suppress criticism rather than addressing problems. George Winters: An ex-plumber that David knows who turns to survivalist and attacks the local police station in search of weapons and ammunition. Julie Chi: One of Alice's friends from school. Of Asian-American extraction, she fights the traditional role her family has always expected her to undertake. Linda Scott: David's ex-wife from a less than amicable divorce. Despite their troubles, she turns to him when the meteor showers begin, bringing several of Alice's schoolmates with her. Mary (Ma) Lind: Bob Lind's wife and a nurse at the nearby hospital. Maggie Sinclair: Wife of local pharmacist Reggie Sinclair. A local outdoor woman, she takes up with David, bringing a supply of drugs and pharmaceuticals. Nancy Evens: The receptionist at the local police station that helps Sheriff Benjamin Adams out. President Daniels: A low scale politician who becomes President of the United States after most of the cabinet are wiped out during the inital meteor storm. Terrified of his new responsibilities, he follows the lead of the mysterious General Pendril, producing terrifying results as they try to curtail protests rather than trying to help anyone. Reggie Sinclair: A long-time friend of David's and the local pharmacist. Though he works with David, he spends most of the story watching over his store, though he sends his wife, Maggie, to David's for protection. Samuel Riggins: A 38-year-old local policeman that David originally speaks to regarding Flora. Sara Bennett: Daughter of Betts Bennett and schoolmate of Alice's. Labeled 'thing one' by David, she's a reticient brunette that stays largely in the background. ------- Book 2: Aristotle: An infected but recovered horse that David and Alice rescue from the Phillips farm. Betty (no last name): 21-year-old woman, one of three people who hiked cross-country to find David based on stories they heard at Ma's hospital. Debbie Allen: 14-year-old girl who'd injured herself burying her family. Seeking help at the abandoned hospital, she encounters Monique Lehr, who gets David to provide needed antibiotics and tetanus medications for her. Curly: One of four llamas that David and Alice rescue from a farm that Alice names after the 3 Stooges because she doesn't think they're very bright. Dewey: An infected coot that Alice rescues from their pond. Geoffrey: Man that David encounters in a Library while looking for some books. Never heard from again. Greg Adams: 50-year-old cable company employee. One of three people who hiked cross-country to find David, based on stories they heard at Ma's hospital. Jacob: A piglet that Alice rescues on the Jacob's farm that they take home. James Jacob: 53-year-old owner/operator of the organic "Jacobs Farm". David finds him and his wife, Martha, in their farm house. John-John: Tom's dog that helped him recover when he became ill. Very odd with multiple personality disorders, including OCD and fear of new things which help save it from infection. Larry: One of four llamas that David and Alice rescue from a farm that Alice names after the 3 Stooges because she doesn't think they're very bright. Lassie: A female dog that Alice befriends and rescues in town. Lucky: A sick infected Rooster that Alice rescues from the Jacobs' Farm in chapter 1. Martha Jacob: 54-year-old wife of James Jacob, who assisted her husband on their organic farm near David's house. Melissa Eisenmann: 35-year-old overweight woman. One of three people who hiked cross-country to find David based on stories they heard at Ma's hospital. Moe: One of four llamas that David and Alice rescue from a farm that Alice names after the 3 Stooges because she doesn't think they're very bright. Monique Lehr: Young black nurse David meets at Ma's old hospital. She follows him home in order to save Debbie Allen. Regina Phillips: 59-year-old wife of Rodger Phillips, the owner of the Phillips ranch near David's house. Rodger Phillips: 63-year-old owner/operator of "Phillips Farm", specializing in crops and locally raised cattle. David finds him and his wife, Regina, in their farmhouse near his home. Shemp: One of four llamas that David and Alice rescue from a farm that Alice names after the 3 Stooges because she doesn't think they're very bright. Tobias: A Bahamas resident Alice reaches via short wave radio (ch. 4), and helps guide to safety. Tom Landers: A medical researcher that became ill while searching for David, after hearing he had access to someone who'd survived the Great Death. Yertle: A turtle that Alice rescues from their family pond. ------- Prologue Just a warning note, much of this chapter is repeated in the following first chapter, but they're meant to serve two separate purposes. The first chapter's recap is meant to explain what happened for anyone who tends to skip prologues as being 'immaterial', whereas this one focuses on who they'd left behind, and what it meant for them, rather than what specifically happened. ------- Alice watched her father, David Scott, as he stood observing the farmhouse. She knew he was anxious about it. Hell, she was too. As much as they'd been through, neither one was ready for any more heartache. As much as they both wanted to find someone else alive, they both knew the odds were that they wouldn't find them here, yet they were equally threatened by the fact that they just might. That not only would they find someone else, but that they'd be drawn to them, take them into their lives, only to have them die on them just like everyone else had. It had been a difficult thing, watching the world implode without a sound. Well, maybe not without a sound. There was the wheezing, the gasping, the groaning and the cursing, but there was no major explosions, no fire and brimstone, no armed conflict that signaled the end of the world. It had started with what seemed like a lucky sighting. Alice had been riding with her father, who she only got to see every other weekend because her mother thought he was deluded, wanting to hide away from life rather than embracing it with both arms as she chose to. But they'd been driving to his house in the country when she saw something she'd never seen before, a meteor streaking through the midafternoon sky. Her father, David, proceeded to explain all about what they were seeing, describing the physical phenomenon. He'd always taken his role of father seriously, and he wouldn't let an educational opportunity slip by. But as he described it, they noticed another, then another, and before long, the sky was full of them. The entire sky, which had at first been clear, was suddenly lit up with fire. But then they began crashing to the Earth. There were no huge impacts or massive strikes like you see in the movies, instead there was simply a steady rain of tiny fragments, tiny shards of death traveling hundreds of miles an hour. But it wasn't the meteors that were threatening; after all, if one hit you you'd be dead long before you ever realized you were in trouble. No, the real danger was the debris cast off when those little rocks struck something, like a paved road, a car, or a building. David had driven as fast as he could, trying to get beyond it, but it was soon clear he couldn't outrun it. And even that attempt proved short lived, as they came across a larger impact site that had left a large crater in the middle of the road, where a woman sat trying to protect herself by huddling inside her diabled car. Her father had issued strict instructions; she was to run for all she was worth, ignoring him. To seek out the lowest spot she could find, far enough away from the road that she wouldn't be hit by any cast off debris, and she wasn't to as much as lean up, looking back to see if he was OK. What's more, if he was injured, she wasn't to try to help him until the meteor storm was safely passed. But he'd come through, just like he always did, carrying the stranger on his shoulder, apparently because she couldn't respond quickly enough and was threatening not just herself but him as well. Alice had called out, and he'd literally thrown her on the ground before collapsing from the effort of running full tilt in an attempt to escape. But along with the fear, they were soon plagued by boredom, a strange companion to fright. The storm didn't end; instead it stretched out for hours. They talked, and it was immediately apparent that her father was taken with the woman, one Ellen Parker, and as they talked, Alice began to scheme. She'd always worried about her father. For such an intelligent, caring and capable man, he seemed helpless socially and emotionally. He cared too much, and when he hurt, he pulled away from everyone else. So when his wife—Alice's mother, Linda—had left him years ago, he'd escaped by withdrawing into himself. He worked until he'd keel over in exhaustion every night, never allowing anyone else into his life. So here, in this woman, Alice saw a way of paying her father back for everything he'd done for her. She'd get the two of them together, and this woman, this Ellen, would rescue her father for her. They were both so cute. They thought they were innocently flirting, but they were both terrible at it. Her father went on about how this worked and that operated, and Ellen would laugh, even when it wasn't funny. But it was clear where things were heading. So Alice helped it along. She talked her father up, describing fascinating and potentially embarrassing things in his life, letting him spin them into delightful stories that reflected the personality he was afraid to reveal on his own. And it had worked too. Alice had pretended to listen to her music while they tried to be discreet, but it was obvious when they had sex there in the middle of the field, and Alice was glad to see them do it; not because of any interest in observing such a thing—because frankly, that weirded her out—but because it meant that her father would finally be OK, and would stop obsessing about her damn mother. The meteor storm, however, continued unabated. It lasted long into the night, and only stopped then because it had moved westward. David gathered them up and hurried them both to his house, a little mountain redoubt that he'd built into the side of a mountain in eastern West Virginia. The next day, anxious to know what was happening after the power and communications went out, David had reached out to one of his few friends, a blind man by the name of Bobby, who just happened to be a wiz at radios, and his wife Ma, short for Mary. In exchange for putting them up until they could have their house repaired, Bobby agreed to provide them with news of the world. And while they were terrified when the meteor shower restarted, it was comforting to know that they were protected, sheltered, and knew more about what was happening than anyone else thanks to Bobby's ham radios. However, they didn't stay alone for long. As they sat, watching the meteor streaked sky, who showed up but her mother, bringing several of her schoolmates and another mother. They'd left after the shower had ended the previous night and had driven even after the shower resumed later that day. They'd kept going because they knew if they stopped they'd never be safe, but Alice's mother, Linda, felt sure that her ex-husband would provide them a safe refuge. When they'd finally arrived they were battered and bruised, with one girl suffering a broken arm and another with a large gash in her side. But luckily, Ma was a nurse, and another friend of David's had sent his wife, Maggie, to stay with him. She'd brought medications he'd rescued from his damaged pharmacy, knowing that David had power for the refrigeration to preserve the perishable medicines the locals would soon be needing. So they were able to treat those few injuries. But that was when Alice's plan began to unravel. First of all, her mother suddenly began resurrecting her old feelings for David, feelings that he'd never given up on himself. And unknown to Alice, Ellen decided to give David his freedom to explore whether he still had feelings for his ex. And he did have strong feelings for her; even after all he'd been through since they split up. But he resisted, telling her that he didn't trust her not to change her mind, and he insisted that he was committed to Ellen. Alice never found out about this until the next day, a day they'd rescued a young woman from down the street whose house had collapsed. And when she did, she'd hit the roof, upset that her mother had almost single-handedly destroyed what she'd worked so hard to achieve, threatening to drag her father back into his black abyss. But Alice underestimated Ellen. Instead of being scared off, she committed herself to him, knowing that he'd stick with her through thick and thin. But her way of strengthening that relationship was a bit twisted. She encouraged the ex-spouses to continue to explore their feelings for each other, and when that worked out, she encouraged the other women in the house to cozy up with him as well, figuring he'd remain true, and that it would keep everyone from going crazy. And it wasn't just the adults who were acting crazily. Her friends all decided that her father was hot, and while it was clear he wasn't interested, they took to listening in while the adults made love, something that was easy enough to do since the kids couldn't sleep, the house was small, and there really wasn't anything else to do. But again, it wasn't any real carnal desire that drove them. Instead they were trying to express their newfound sense of adulthood. They'd each been forced to grow up tremendously in a very short time, and they demanded to be treated like adults. While none of them were ready to crawl into bed with the adults, they didn't want to be sheltered anymore, and they wanted to be treated as at least partial adults. And thus they formed an uneasy alliance, where the adults knew they were being observed, and the kids would tease them about it, but no one ever crossed the thin line dividing observation and action. None, that is, but the college age girl, Flora, that David had rescued. But the problem was that the difficulties begun by the world wide meteor shower continued long after the shower itself finally halted, days later. While there was no massive destruction caused by a large meteor—no earthquake, tsunami, or major strike—it had disrupted the many ties to modern life. There wasn't any major item of destruction, but it was the many small ones that had doomed society. The meteors had struck everything, and while they'd caused a few building to fall, and sparked wildfires out west, they'd devastated the electrical and communication systems of the world. They'd felled telephone lines and radio towers, blown transformers, and damaged the roadways needed to restore the damaged equipment. In a world build around 'interconnectedness', it turned out that the multiple single points of failure began to fail across the board, creating incredibly complex situations out of a series of relatively 'simple' problems. Suddenly society was thrown into a silent darkness. Now as bad as that was, it wouldn't have been that bad. True, it would have taken decades to recover, but it had introduced something much worse into play. It seemed the meteor storm carried with it abundant samples of microscopic life, protected in the frozen ice surrounding them. But those little frozen bits of primordial life proved resilient. Not only did they survive the explosion that had destroyed their home world, and the absolute cold of space, and the span of eons, but they also survived a hostile reception on their new home world. There must have been millions of microscopic organisms in those frozen rocks, exposed when the frozen water on the meteors broke loose and evaporated when they entered the atmosphere. And while surely most of those little life forms must have perished, a few proved persistent, and they found a way to not only survive, but they discovered a new host to give them a chance at life. They discovered they could live off humans. Only, in their rush to evolve into a whole new life form in only a matter of weeks, they overcompensated. Instead of merely finding a balanced approach of just taking enough from the host for both the host and them to survive, they went into overdrive, killing the very things that offered them a chance at survival. People began to die in droves. It started slowly. At first the hospitals were filled with the injuries from the meteor shower itself, and then there were a slew of unexplained anaphylactic shock cases. But there were also multiple strange cases that the doctors assumed were simply 'stress events', illnesses they couldn't identify that could only be explained by the patients' overactive imaginations. Only that theory didn't hold up as more people began to die. David, being highly intelligent, having Bobby's many radios, and having one of the few truly sheltered independent sources of electricity, began raising alarms in both the medical and scientific communities. While there weren't many equipped to respond, the hospitals began studying these 'mysterious' illnesses, and one researcher in California actually identified a new 'alien' cell that had never been recorded before that seemed to correspond to the illnesses. However, in the absence of a reliable scientific response, the information was too little, too late. Even as the country struggled to recover, more and more of the very people attempting to recover fell ill, until soon there weren't enough people left to keep the electrical systems working anymore, and then the entire world fell into silence. Through it all, David and his new 'family' struggled to keep the world from falling apart. They spoke over the radios to anyone they thought they could help, or who might have more information. They got some kids from the local community college to transfer and erect their FM radio tower, so now David and the girls could transmit their messages to the world at large, or at least to some of the surrounding states. And David struggled with people who were losing hope. Even as people were falling ill, others attempted to take advantage of the situation, attacking people, trying to steal not only enough to survive, but also attacked anyone with ready weapons in an attempt to survive the decay of civilization they imagined approaching. In a strange way, those who thought they were preparing for the collapse actually hastened it, killing innocents in their rush to provide for an uncertain future. And David had stood up to that, just as he'd stood up to the collapse of the electrical and communication systems. He became a volunteer policeman, deputized by his friend, Ben Adams, the local Sheriff. However, it was a difficult struggle holding back the ravages of panic. Alice had watched as her own mother was killed in front of her; though it was never clear whether she died trying to protect David and Alice, or whether she was trying to commit suicide, knowing she was infected with one of a number of plagues that came to be known as the "Great Death". They called it that because it wasn't just a single disease, but a whole host of them, each one similarly effective, and each one rapidly mutating. They became more efficient over time, killing their hosts faster, and they evolved to adapt to more species, spreading beyond humans to most other animals as well. Somehow, David's little hole in the mountains had provided security for a long time, but the college kids they'd welcomed in amongst them finally brought the disease with them, and they began to watch as their own began dying. One by one they fell ill, each dying only days later. The one college kid, Billy, got incredibly ill but miraculously survived; only to fall ill and subsequently die from yet another plague. Alice watched her friends die one after another. Maggie, another of her father's several lovers, died from being exposed when she attempted to save Linda, Alice's mother. Her best friend, Amy, died when some crazy old coot shot her with a shotgun, and introduced the plague directly into her blood steam. Everyone had gotten sick and died, until one day David had awoken and discovered that everyone sharing his bed, Ellen, Flora and Alice herself, had been infected with different plagues. Resigning themselves to the inevitability of their deaths, they sealed the house up, shut down the turbine, and set up house in the sick ward they'd set up outside. But David never gave up. He kept pushing everyone to struggle to survive; not just for themselves, and not just for him, but because it was only by surviving that they'd find a solution to the Great Death. Surely someone would provide a response to it, and if they did, then hopefully they could spread it, either scientifically or else genetically. But in the end, that effort seemed too far away, and they'd all fallen, one after another. But then a miracle had occurred. David had recovered after an incredibly painful, agonizing illness that went on for well over a week, although no one knew how long since he'd drifted in and out of consciousness the entire time. When he came to, he was sure that everyone else was dead, since he'd seen them pass away. Ignoring the new love of his life, Ellen, he rushed to the last person he'd seen alive, Alice herself, and she, like him, miraculously pulled through. In the week it took for them to recover their strength enough to restart the electricity and clean the property of all the dead animal carcasses, they figured out that they'd survived—when no one else had—because they shared some specific genetic advantage, one that provided the key to surviving the disease. It didn't seem to be a genetic mutation, or at least not one triggered by the diseases themselves, but something they both shared beforehand which allowed them to survive it. Although they had no proof yet, they were both sure they were now immune, since they'd both suffered from each of the diseases, and bore the marks on their flesh as testament to that fact. Thus, no matter what else happened, at least they, and their children—supposedly—would survive to repopulate the Earth. Now it was just a question of who else, if anyone, had survived the final die off. And that was what they were doing now. They really didn't expect to find anyone else at this empty farm, there was certainly no signs of life they could observe, but Alice's father was insistent. Not only did he want to find other survivors, but he realized it was vitally important to save any surviving animals, as each one would be a cog in the machinery necessary for humanity to rebuild and survive their final test. David was positive that there was even more death lying ahead of them. The temperature had already dropped at least ten degrees, and that was in the heat of summer, when there was more sunlight hitting the surface. When winter came, that temperature change would surely worsen, and whoever survived would face a non-nuclear Nuclear Winter, as the debris thrown off by the burning meteors covered the Earth, hiding the sun and causing the Earth to cool, stealing life from both the surviving plants and those few surviving things that depended on them to continue. Yet for all that, Alice was focused on a single thing. Her father, for as strong and as resilient as he was, was his own worst enemy. Left to himself, he'd do what he'd always done. He'd retreat into himself, cutting himself off from others in an attempt to hide from the pain he'd suffered as his friends and family had died around him. Alice realized it was probably a problem that every survivor would face, but she knew from personal experience that her father was even more prone to it. Not only was he a perpetual optimist, thinking that no matter how bad things got that somehow they'd survive, but it was only by taking care of others that he found the strength to continue. Yet Alice knew that as close as the two of them were, strength made even stronger by their mutual survival and what they'd experienced together, her father needed more. He needed someone to love, someone to cling to, and someone to draw him back to life. To allow him to resume his humanity and to accept love into his life once again. Now all she needed was to find someone—virtually anyone—that could fill that role in his life! ------- Chapter 1: A Couple Days on the Farm "This is Radio Scott, back on the air after a brief absence of ... well, it's been a while. We have no idea if anyone is listening, but we'll try to broadcast at our previous times. Since we were the only broadcaster before, we doubt there's anyone else out there able to transmit. As you've no doubt guessed, the plague, or more accurately 'plagues' which we've taken to collectively calling 'The Great Death', have devastated the country and, we assume, the entire world. As far as we can tell it's struck most animal species. We've got dead animals of all sorts around here, and of the farm animals we'd picked up to last us through the winter, all that's left are two chickens, both hens. The only other critter that survived was a single wild rabbit, and luckily it's pregnant. It's not much to start restocking with, but it's a start. We can't eat them since they'll become breeding stock, assuming we can find any more, and we won't eat any eggs until we're sure they aren't sick, but we consider ourselves lucky to have even that much. It's also reached into the plant world, but only affecting certain species. The pine trees that the modern world has come to rely on are mostly gone at this point. What's more, it seems the soft wood trees were more heavily damaged. I don't know whether it's safe to burn these dead trees or not, so be careful using them. Weeds seem to have had no problem as our property already needs a lot of work, but we can only assume that certain types have survived while others haven't. Grasses have done well, so any animals that have survived should be able to fend for themselves. We're assuming that most carnivores have been wiped out, since they have likely been feeding on the diseased carcasses. Again, we'll have to determine which farm plants have survived. For now, be cautious of fruits you find on the vine, and try to focus on vegetables that grow underground, like potatoes, carrots and beets. We have no reports of the world yet, and haven't even managed to explore our own town, so if you have access to a ham radio, please call us so we can report on what's happened. We plan on conducting some surveys to see what's survived and what hasn't, so we'll be focusing on that for the next few broadcasts. For those of you who don't know, it appears the plagues were caused by the meteor storm we suffered a few ... a short time ago. It seems they were from some planet with a healthy aquatic environment, which we imagine was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, freezing solid when exposed to the near absolute cold of outer space and preserving the microbial life forms. When they entered the Earth's atmosphere, these ice balls broke free from the meteoroids, rapidly melting and releasing the alien life into our air. Since these microbes were alien to our planet it took them time to adjust, and we can only imagine that the vast majority of them died, but those that survived proved to be very robust. As they struggled to adapt to the Earth's environment, they learned how to acclimate to whatever life form they encountered, and each time they crossed species they became stronger and more adaptable. We personally counted four separate diseases that we could identify from the symptoms alone, and we know that there were at least two that were detected in various labs. However there were probably more, as viruses can't be detected without an electron microscope, which are not readily available. If you've survived the sicknesses you still need to be careful, as you've likely only survived a single strain. You'll also need to start preparing for what's going to come next. It looks like the vaporized meteors produced a significant cooling, so we're preparing for a very extreme winter. You'll need to harvest any leftover crops you can find, canning, drying or preparing them so they'll last—not just this coming year, but for the next several years after that. Anyone that has access to seeds, surviving livestock or foodstuffs, be cautious with it, but don't hoard it either. We need to survive, and we'll need each other if we're going to do that. For now, assume we have a barter economy. Find anything useful you can, and be prepared to trade a portion of it either for other items or for goodwill. What's more, let's try not to kill each other, folks. We realize you'll need to arm yourselves for protection, but try not to hurt anyone if you can avoid it. Each person you shoot is one more survivor you cut out of the gene pool we'll need for humanity to recover. However, like animals that have learned to feed on man, you need to treat anyone who kills other humans as a future danger both to yourself and to other survivors. Don't let anyone you capture attacking innocent people walk away to do it again. Theft can be forgiven, as it can help those without options survive, but murder is punishable by death. That's all for now. We hope to have more information after we explore a little more. We'll also begin adding details on how to prepare for the coming winter. Tune in again for our six PM broadcast, and stay safe." ------- After finishing her broadcast, Alice sat back and considered everything that had led up to the present. It had been a very hard several weeks. What had started out as a simple weekend trip to spend the weekend with her father at his country house had turned disastrous when a meteor storm started up, wiping out nearly everything in its path before continuing on, sweeping westward and affecting most of the world. It had wiped out the communication satellites in outer space, slowing most communications. The meteors that fell on the Earth, while uniformly small, effectively wiped out the exposed power and communications networks of the entire world. Any wire, telephone pole, relay station or transformer exposed were likely to have been hit somewhere along the line, and the entire country lost both its communications and electricity at the same time. All the single points of failure the interconnected modern world had developed, all managed to fail at the same time. While it could recover from any single failure, it couldn't cope with that many occurring at once. While the deaths from the initial storm seemed modest, mainly because no one ever got any official reports of the dead, the troubles the meteors caused were widespread. They damaged cars, buildings and infrastructure indiscriminately, leaving useless hulks of abandoned cars lying across the roads, while the many potholes created by tiny meteors rendered most of the roads impassable. There had been reports of widespread fires in the dry areas to the west, but it had rained enough locally to prevent that particular problem. As the power companies got to work trying to reestablish electricity, most of the rest of society simply fell apart. People were willing to work, but their inability to get there kept most places closed, and the lack of electricity meant they couldn't do anything even if they did make it in. City and State workers mostly refused to work without guarantees that they were going to be paid, and that belief seemed justified, as most governmental agencies simply stopped functioning. Private businesses, with most of their employees unable to reach work, simply shut down until conditions improved. No word was heard from the Federal government in DC for a couple of weeks, and the few people that came to work found themselves without much to do. Instead, David and the people he'd managed to collect around him began taking on the roles the government had previously played in maintaining order in the surrounding community. The federal government finally revealed what had happened to it. It seems the President and most of the leading governmental elite still remaining in DC had flown directly into the path of the storm and had all been killed. Trying to cobble together a functioning government, they picked a relatively minor official who was terrified of the job ahead of him, so he relied on another minor Pentagon official, who led him to institute martial law, closing the banks and establishing restrictions meant to preserve their delicate hold on power rather than trying to help anyone. That had ultimately resulted in armed attacks by the military against nearby cities that had only ended when a surviving nuclear sub had shown up in DC and lobbed a few well-placed rounds near the Pentagon. The efforts to restore power also failed as several unexplained diseases began cropping up, wiping out the few people willing to work, and plant after plant ended up either closing down or failing due to damages suffered earlier. Riots broke out in many communities over food shortages, but most people were pretty reasonable about it, assuming that someone would set everything right if they waited long enough. However, as more people got sick and help never arrived, that positive outlook soon turned sour. They'd finally figured out that the meteors contained multiple minute life forms—both microbial and viral—trapped in the frozen water surrounding them. As they entered the atmosphere the ice broke off, melting from the heat of reentry, releasing the alien microbial life into the atmosphere. It was assumed the vast majority of those alien life forms died out, but the few which survived had actually thrived. It took several weeks, but once they found hosts to support them, there were no preexisting defense mechanisms to resist them. Several different diseases became endemic, even though most doctors couldn't differentiate them. What's more, as devastating as the diseases were, they rapidly mutated, crossing inter-species barriers quickly and easily, crossing from humans to deer to other animals. Alice and David Scott, along with the people they gathered around them, had fared better than most. Thanks to David's attention to detail in building his little hideaway tucked into the side of a mountain, it had escaped physical damage. They'd maintained their electricity thanks to a wind turbine on top of the hill over their heads, and their elevation and remoteness kept the spreading plagues away from their door. However, those benefits proved short lived. The diseases arrived with additional people, and they surmised the sources of the diseases were now airborne as well, meaning that there was no way to avoid them. Everyone in the house had gotten sick, one by one, with the death rate rising as the diseases had time to adapt; acting faster and killing quicker. Both Alice and her father had thought they were the last to die, but they'd managed to awaken an untold amount of time later, exhausted, famished, dehydrated and weak. They didn't know why they'd been spared when no one else had, but David was sure it was due to some genetic fluke giving them an edge that no one else had seemed to enjoy. Now they appeared to be alone in the world, and David had announced his plans to try to find anyone else still alive, and to help them adapt to the continuing complications he saw rapidly approaching as most of the conveniences of modern life had been stripped, and it looked like the weather was going to turn much colder due to the soot the burning meteors had left in the atmosphere. There was one thing that Alice was sure of, even given how horrible things had gotten. She was glad her father had been one of the survivors, because if anyone could figure out how to survive, it would be him. ------- "Keep your rifle handy," David reminded his daughter, Alice, as they climbed out of their SUV at the Jacob's farm, one of the local farms that grew produce for the local market. Since they weren't large enough to sell their goods to the larger produce dealers, they instead specialized in growing organic crops. David wasn't as interested in that at the moment, instead he wanted to know what crops survived the Great Death that had killed everyone off. What's more, he wanted to save any unharvested plants that might otherwise rot on the ground. "I'm pretty sure the plague killed off most of the carnivores, since anything that feeds on dead or sick animals has likely died, but that still leaves plenty of omnivores that may react strangely after what they've experienced lately." "Yeah, like the way humans have been responding the last ... since we last ventured out," Alice responded, not wanting to recount what had happened during their last conflict with others. Having lost both her mother and best friend to those conflicts they still unnerved her, even though she felt prepared for whatever they encountered. They watched their surroundings as they approached. About all they could see on the way in was that the corn crops looked to have been decimated, but that was about all they could observe easily. What they did notice though, was just how quiet everything was. Despite the sound of the leaves blowing in the gentle wind, there were no other sounds. No children playing, no birds singing, no trucks passing on the nearby road, no jets passing overhead. Instead an eerie silence hung ever everything, accentuated by the isolated sounds of the breeze, calling out just how silent the world they were in now really was. There was no way to mistake just how alone they were. "Martha, James!" David called out, wanting to warn the owners before they showed up bearing guns. However he received no response in return, and the stark contrast between David's yell and the silence around them struck them as overly harsh, causing them both to recoil hearing it. "Dad, if the carnivores are dead, won't that screw up the ecosystem?" Alice asked, filling in the renewed silence following her father's inquiry. "Yeah, it will, honey. While it will allow the other animals to recover more quickly, there won't be anything to prevent them from quickly overpopulating the environment. In a few years things are going to be nuts." "Yeah, like they're perfectly normal now," Alice smirked. They'd reached the door by then, so they halted their conversation while David loudly knocked on the door. When no one responded he tried the door. Finding it open, he entered and they split up, checking out the house. David took the upstairs, where he knew the bedrooms were, while Alice took the downstairs where she could check on the kitchen supplies. Entering the master bedroom, David took in the silent silhouette lying in the bed, surrounded by the frozen tableau undisturbed by the passage of time. There was a layer of dust over everything, but nothing else had been disturbed for some time. When he peeled back the twisted covers, he discovered the long dead form of Martha Jacob, and he assumed she must have already buried James before she succumbed. Since she'd been lying in their bed for so long, he knew they'd have to carry her and the bed out, disposing of it after they buried the body. "Dad, James is down here in the den," Alice called out. "OK, Martha's up here. I'll come down and help you get James out, then we'll come back for Martha." While it was obvious that Martha had died from the Great Death, looking gaunt and bearing the telltale pox on her flesh, James didn't bear the obvious signs of it. He still had the marks of the disease on his flesh, but it didn't look like it had progressed as far. So David guessed that the strain of the disease had set off his heart problems, saving him the agonizing end that eventually took his wife. However they could both imagine her waiting for him, crying out in her pain for him to return to comfort her in her last hours. There was no escaping it, no matter how dispassionately you attempted to handle such scenes, each one made your heart ache. It took a while, but they got the two bodies out, and David managed to start up one of the Jacob's tractors to dig a quick pit to bury the bodies in. They did so, and stood silently over their makeshift grave without saying anything, Alice simply crossing herself. Neither thought anything they could say would make much of a difference. However that wasn't it for the bodies yet. There were three dead cats inside the house they buried with the owners of the farm, but after that they went to check on the various farm animals. This farm kept chickens, a few pigs and a couple of lambs. What they found was anything but encouraging. The Jacob's family dogs were found dead in the garage, and another was found under the house where it had apparently curled up to die. The henhouse looked like it had been decimated, with dead chickens everywhere. They didn't know how long the eggs had been unprotected, so they chucked all of them as well. "Dad, I think I've found something here," Alice announced as she worked her way through the pile of dead chickens, handing them to her father who dumped them into the wheelbarrow they were using to carry them to the burial pit. Curious, David looked over Alice's shoulder. There, covered by other chicken carcasses, lay a feeble, thin, disheveled rooster which twitched pathetically. "Lift it carefully, the Jacob's water is off due to their lack of electricity, but I'll give it some water from my bottle," he told Alice. As Alice lifted the poor animal up, David dribbled a few drops of water into the animal's beak, which it seemed to try desperately to swallow. He maintained a very slow trickle of water, only allowing it to access a small amount at a time, and it seemed to calm somewhat as it got the water it desired. "It still feels hot," Alice observed. "It's probably still infected," David observed. "It may or may not live as a result, but at least this will give it a chance. If we take it with us we'll have to keep it separated from the other animals, since we don't want to contaminate the others, but any animals we can save would make a lot of difference." "It doesn't seem that hot. I think it still has a fever, but I suspect it's already over the worst." "It would be a major coup if you're right. Since we already have two hens, this will allow us to potentially breed some plague resistant chickens. Let's see if we can find a box to put it in. It's still sick enough we don't have to worry about it getting out, and that will help ensure it doesn't contaminate the car seats." Even though he tried to prepare Alice for the worst, David knew that if the animal was strong enough to move around and respond on its own that it was probably already mostly recovered. The same thing had happened to both Alice and him, and he knew the fever would pass in only a short time. Once they got the rooster settled, Alice wandered off, finding some chicken feed which it ate, even though it couldn't manage much. She finally left it in the truck, returning to her father. After cleaning out the chicken coop, they removed the three dead lambs and then examined the pigs, which were a bigger problem since they were too heavy to easily lift into the wheelbarrow. The farm clearly had some tackle for lifting the large animals, but David, being unfamiliar with the equipment, was unsure how to maneuver it to where the animals had died. Out of desperation, David finally tied a chain to the tractor and dragged the animals one by one to the burial pit. He'd gotten the first two out of the way, and Alice was trying to get the others ready before David returned, when she noticed a small plaintive cry. Looking around, she finally located the source of the call coming from under the body of a mid-sized pig carcass. Grabbing a spare two-by-four, she shifted one animal while probing under it until she found a small piglet. Its calls had been hidden by its larger brethren and its call were so weak it hardly sounded like a piggish grunt, sounding more like a cat's plaintive cry. Alice managed to get the animal loose with some work. It was, as expected, not in very good shape. It too looked scrawny, weak and exhausted, bearing the tell-tale sunken look of something too weak to either eat or drink for several long days. Following her father's lead, she used her own water bottle to dribble small amounts of water into its mouth, then when it began responding she started pouring a small but constant stream into its mouth, which it hungrily lapped up. "What do you have there?" David asked when he returned to find her cradling something in her arms. "It's a baby pig. Somehow it survived all this time under its mother. It's weak but it's responding. I'll need to find something for it to eat. It may be old enough to eat solid foods, but milk would be the best thing for it." "That may be, but there's no way for us to lay our hands on any. We froze several cartons of it at home to last us, but we didn't think about bringing any here. I'll check inside. It's possible they may have some canned condensed milk inside which may have survived, but even that's going to be a stretch. Frankly, anything you can get it to eat would help." "This one doesn't seem to have a fever, and it also doesn't have the convulsions the rooster had. I think it's a survivor like us." "You know, for finding only two survivors, that's actually incredibly lucky. Considering how many people have died, we were lucky to have found any animals surviving here." "Still, as we've seen, they get awfully big. Do we have enough food to raise one, especially if there's no hope of finding it a mate eventually?" Alice asked plaintively, not asking the obvious question aloud. "If nothing else, we can always eat it later if we need to, but right now any animals we can save, we should, just because it makes sense to try to save as much life as we can. Again, these animals potentially represent those that have beaten the odds, so they may provide a weapon to producing resistance in other animals. It's worth taking care of. After all, they can eat our scraps. That's how farmers used to feed them years ago, and it looks like the Jacobs left plenty of pig chow behind as well. If you can feed it some kind of mush it should be fine." "I think I'll call this one Jacob," Alice decided. "And it's only partly because we found them on the Jacobs' farm. We're laying out the future of his species in his lap, just as God laid out Jacob's people's future before him in the Old Testament. I think I'll call the rooster Lucky, for obvious reasons." "Yeah, I just hope he's lucky enough to earn the name," David commented. "You do realize that naming animals isn't the best thing in the world if we aren't keeping them as pets. If we end up having to eat them, it could prove traumatic if you've grown too attached to them." "But I thought you just said we were trying to save these animals for the future of their species?" Alice asked, confused by his contradictory comments. "I'm just keeping our options open. If we can, we'll try to keep them alive, but it's very possible these are too sick, and Lucky might not live long even under the best of circumstances. If things get tough for us in terms of finding food, we may have to decide on saving ourselves rather than trying to preserve pigs that may not have survived elsewhere." "Oh, then I guess I'll be OK. I mean, after what we've been through, I can understand what's necessary for survival. But if it's all the same to you, I think I'll keep the names. It makes me work harder to keep them going if I can think of them as individuals rather than just two animals." "OK, you'd better lay it down and give it some of that feed while I get busy getting rid of the rest of these. I'm still anxious to check on how the plants here have survived." What he found when they managed to get out and examine them was better than they'd expected. As they'd observed on the way in, the corn had been wiped out, apparently having been infected by a variant of the plagues which seemed to demonstrate the diseases were actually viruses, attacking the victim species' DNA. "By cracking the DNA, it's easier for it to cross from one species to another, but because the plants are so different from animals, it's still a harder barrier to cross," David explained to his daughter. "So why do you think it only affected the corn?" "I really don't know. Maybe it has to do with the way it transmits material to its cells, maybe it's due to how plants accepts outside elements, relying on bees and other airborne pollen to fertilize it, or it could be something else entirely. Frankly, we should probably burn the entire field to prevent this crop from cross infecting anything else, but I don't trust lighting such a large source of dry material. It could easily get away from us. "Besides, burning it would pass the infected material to every other plant nearby. What we need is to pick each infected plant and bury it in a separate refuse area where it won't infect anything else, but we simply don't have the time or manpower for that." "I suspect anything it would infect has already been infected," Alice suggested. "Have you noticed how there are no insects around? Not only the buzzing insects like gnats and mosquitoes, either. I tried examining the ground looking for any signs of them, but I can hardly find anything. What do you think happened to them?" "I don't know. They serve a vital niche in the Earth's ecosystem, as they generally recycle the dead, thus I'd assume they were more directly exposed to the viruses than other animals, just as the carnivores were." "I've noticed certain weeds seem to have died out, and one of the plants from their private garden, though I'm not sure what it was," Alice observed. "I bagged it so we can identify it later. But otherwise not much was affected. So what do we do about all these plants?" "Well, we need to maintain them and store as much as we can. However, since we can't easily take over the farm, our best bet is to take cuttings to try to grow them in our own garden and greenhouse. We'll also have to try to find any seeds they had that we can use in the future. While I hate to take everything on the off chance anyone else survived and needs something to eat, we should take as much as what's already ripe so it doesn't go to waste. Likewise, we should take the seeds with us to ensure they're saved. If someone else were to come in and lay claim here, they may not know enough to save them." "Couldn't we just let the spinach die out?" Alice asked playfully. "Personally, I could stand a life without that vile plant." "Nope, the more things we have in the future, the better it will be for everything. Even if we choose not to eat it, it's still better for other animals to eat. Why don't you search for the seeds in the house while I start taking a series of cuttings. When you're done, you can start picking any ripe fruits or vegetables we can use. This is turning into a much bigger project than I'd planned, and we're already going to be getting home late." ------- The trip back, like the trip out, was interesting. The streets were unoccupied, but that doesn't mean they were empty. Surprisingly, the streets no longer contained the many dead bodies stacked along the curb, which David attributed to the fact that people had probably been too sick to deposit anyone else on the streets. As for the people falling over on the side of the road, he figured that people had been too sick to venture out, no matter how dire their situations were. What there were, though, were hundreds of animal carcasses. Birds seemingly dropped from the sky, mice and rats fled their underground lairs for unknowable reasons to die on the streets. There were also the occasional woodland animals, seeing as they were in a fairly remote region. David doubted they'd have been as likely to venture into the heavily populated and well-travelled areas. Still, there were plenty of small animal carcasses. David and Alice picked up what they could of these animals, but they realized they couldn't spend all their time doing it, as there were simply too many. They'd get what they could, but it would take a long time before they'd get the region cleared of them. David stopped by the police station once again, even though they'd stopped by on the way out, on the off chance they might find some sign of someone, but they didn't see anyone. The door was firmly locked, showing that no one had died inside, instead choosing to close up when they'd finally abandoned it, but that left no clue whether they'd survived or not. David scrawled a note and stuck it to the door. If anyone is alive, contact me. David P.S. I'll be by periodically, so if you don't know where I am, just leave a note here. After that he checked around back. There weren't any new burial pits dug, even though both the tractor and the pickup the boys had used to collect bodies remained there. "You know, we can at least pick up the dead animals from here, making it look a little more hospitable," he suggested. "If anyone passes by and sees that it's been taken care of, they'll be more likely to investigate. That is, if anyone happens by." "There is that," Alice agreed. "I'll tell you what, after I dump the animal carcasses from around here, how about if you drive the pickup back home with us. I figure we'll be doing this a lot more often, and it would be handy having a vehicle we can toss the dead into while we're traveling. We no longer have to worry about you not having a license, but as long as you're careful, you aren't likely to run into anyone." "Very funny," she responded. "Do you think you can find the keys for it?" "Billy told me where they hid the keys. They wanted to ensure that people could still collect and bury the dead if anything happened to them, and that looks like what happened." "Sure, I don't mind learning how to drive. It's an automatic so I shouldn't have a problem; though don't panic if I swerve occasionally to avoid the dead animals in the road." Again, there were really too many dead to collect them all, so they just did the immediate area around the police station, leaving the ones around the main downtown area alone. They'd get to them eventually, but they still had stuff to drop off, and a couple of sick animals to take care of. ------- Reaching home, David took care of unloading the truck while Alice handled the late broadcast, since it was already early evening. They still had no idea if anyone was listening, but chances were if anyone was, they'd appreciate hearing from them. He put Jacob in his own cage near the other animals, but kept the rooster quarantined separately, not wanting to risk further infections. They'd have to check on them throughout the night, but Jacob was already looking better and happily ate the fruit that David fed him. Lucky managed to drink some more water as well as eating a little feed, but was still too weak and feverish to eat much, even for a chicken. After seriously scrubbing his hands, David set about fixing dinner. Alice showed up shortly, having prepared what she was going to say during their drive home. Not knowing who was listening, she didn't worry about making errors from speaking without a prepared script. For now people would be relieved knowing that someone else was alive. They'd be unlikely to quibble over proper broadcast etiquette. "So do you think it'll be like that everywhere?" Alice asked her father as he served their dinner. He merely shrugged. "There's no telling. It seems to have hit animals harder than the plant world, and I suspect it hit humans harder than it did the other wildlife, given the survivors we've found. Though I suspect we'll have our hands full cleaning up the dead if the carnivores and insects were as badly hurt as we suspect. It'll take a long time for the bodies to rot, and it'll make traveling nearby difficult. I've decided to start washing the used masks instead of treating them all as disposable, since we only have so many. Hopefully they'll still work like that, but with our supplies running low, we don't have much of an option." "How are they doing?" she asked, not bothering to specify who as she dug into her food. As disturbing as all those dead were, she'd gotten largely inured to it over the past several weeks, now focused on herself instead of worrying about the health of others. "Actually, I think you were right about Lucky. The whole time I was taking care of him he was watching me, which is better than when we found him. Jacob is still too weak to do much, but he's revived pretty well. It'll take several days before he can regain his muscle tone enough to get around, and it'll take weeks or months before any of us put on the weight we lost, but I think they'll both pull through." "So were the hens happy to see Lucky?" Alice teased. "Frankly, there were only interested in being fed and watered. They've seen their friends and neighbors die just like we have, so if Lucky survives they'll be pleased, but right now they don't seem particularly concerned one way or the other." They remained silent as they continued to eat. After that Alice quizzed her father on his plans for the next day, and after checking on the animals, they simply spent their evening in quiet contemplation, listening to music and playing a few games. As glad as each one was to be alive, neither felt very talkative at the moment. David was sure that damn would burst eventually, and all their emotions would pour forth, but for then, silence seemed better than the alternative, which was contemplating what the death of all their friends and family implied. When David figured he'd had enough, planning another full day tomorrow, Alice followed him as he headed off to bed. Ever since they both woke up from their plague induced semi-comas, the two of them couldn't stand to be far from each other. What they'd experienced together, especially what David had shared with her while trying to encourage her and Ellen to live, was so intense that their lives would never be the same. Although there was no way she wanted to have sex with him, Alice made a habit of sleeping with her father; craving the close physical comfort and reassurance he offered. It wasn't without its problems, though. Each night, David would visit the restroom after Alice finished preparing for bed. He'd work hard for a few minutes, burning off the day's frustrations and relieving any unwanted physical reactions to his daughter, then he'd come out, smile awkwardly at her, and climb into bed. But David had to admit, even though being this close to one's daughter could be awkward at times, he couldn't imagine doing anything else. After having watched everyone else perish, he clung to Alice like she was the last person on Earth, for as far as he knew, she was. And she clung to him too, feeling not only safe and secure in his arms, but both cared for and understood like no one else could possibly imagine. Curling up beside him, she snuggled in, appreciating the comforting strength he offered, and the reassuring warmth of a warm body. When one thinks that they're not only dying, but that those closest to them are dying too—each suffering more than they ever have, and knowing the others were suffering the same things—they'd established a reliance on each other that would be hard to comprehend if you hadn't been through it. David was more than just a father to her, he was the only other person on the planet that could appreciate what she'd experienced, and when he was nearby, the nightmares of what she'd experienced remained quiet. ------- Heading out early the next morning, they traveled a little further to the other nearby farm, the Phillips' place. The Phillips raised organic beef, mostly grass fed, but they also kept horses for people, so David hoped they'd have a few surviving animals. He also knew they raised a variety of plants, but about all that David remembered seeing previously were pumpkins during the fall and strawberries, apples and peaches during the spring and summer. When he and Alice arrived, he checked his pistol before getting out. A rifle would be more useful, but he knew they'd need both hands to do what needed to be done. Instead of running back and forth, David carried extra tarps and cleaners in a backpack this time. Not noticing anything obviously out of place, they approached the house, noting the eerie quiet once again. Although David knocked, he didn't bother waiting before he tried the door, finding it unlocked. Entering, David again took the upstairs while Alice checked the downstairs. David found Rodger Phillips in his bed beside his wife Regina. Although Rodger looked peaceful in death, Regina looked like she'd suffered. David suspected that Rodger had passed first, and that Regina has straightened him up before she died alone. But that meant that their son hadn't been around at that point. "Alice, I found Rodger and Regina, but I don't see their son or either of their dogs." "I don't see them either. Things are pretty neat down here, except in the kitchen, which has had food sitting out for a long time. It's pretty moldy." "OK, I'll check out back. I suspect they probably buried the boy and the pets before they died. Dump the food, we'll bury it with the bodies. Let's get them settled before we check on the animals." The couple was easier to transport than James Jacob had been, since they were both older and had been thin even before their sickness emaciated them. As David expected, he found a gravesite in the backyard, as well as one behind the barn where they'd buried some of the animals before they'd died themselves. There was only a simple cross on their son's grave, so David buried them beside him, shifting the marker over to serve for the whole family. He didn't think anyone taking over the farm in the future would care who resided there before, so it didn't make sense marking their names for anyone else to mourn them. The barn stank when they entered it, and the reason was immediately clear. There were dead animal carcasses all over. And not just any animals, but large ones, each one left to rot in the heat of the enclosed barn. All the cows and the few pigs they kept for themselves were dead. David wondered why the cattle were all in the barn, as they typically don't sleep inside such structures, but he decided the Phillips must have corralled and confined them to the barn when they realized that both they and the cattle were infected, hoping to control the spread of the disease. Knowing it would take a long time to remove the bodies, David left them alone for the moment, moving behind the barn to check on the horses. There they found a clear surprise. David had forgotten that they also raised llamas. There wasn't a big demand for them, but they made for a nice conversation piece, attracting a fair number of tourists to the farm, and they'd used them to create sweaters they sold locally, as well. But what was surprising was that all four of the llamas were in perfect health. They'd finished off whatever feed had been left for them and they were looking lean, but they didn't look like they'd ever been sick. "What's up with them?" Alice asked, pointing at the llamas who were staring at them. "I'm not sure, but I suspect it's a question of a breaking point. With humans, there were so many that the diseases developed, adapted to a new host, and mutated rapidly, meaning that few people escaped. The same was true with the large number of cows, just as it did with the deer. Most of the dogs and cats we've seen perished as well, since they were nearly as numerous as humans. The llama, however, didn't have the numbers that would give the diseases the opportunity to gain a foothold, thus they escaped unscathed. If they'd been in South America, where llamas are more numerous, they'd probably all be dead, but here, they're all untouched." "So what the hell are we going to do with llamas?" "I guess we're going to keep them. If we can't find any remaining cows, they may become our go to food source. If not, we borrow the Phillips' loom and weave our own blankets to help us survive the winters. But right now we're the only humans around, and there's only a handful of animals remaining. We can hardly get picky as to which animals we adopt." "That makes sense, but if one of those suckers spits at me, I'm taking it out," Alice promised him. "I'll ask them to be polite," David offered, reflecting on how much Alice had matured in such a short time. She now spoke bluntly and more clearly than she had before, and he had no doubt she could easily do as she'd threatened. "Let's check the horses." "I suspect they'll have suffered because there are a fair number of horses in this region, but they'll probably do better than the other animals," Alice guessed as they headed to the stable. "That's what I'm guessing," her father answered. When David swung the heavy wooden door open, the smell was again overpowering. They entered, seeing one dead horse after another, until they neared the back. There hadn't been that many horses, since horses aren't exactly wildly popular anymore, but the Phillips had used them to round up the cattle, and they also housed the horses owned by the local girls in the region. In the third stall from the end, they found a tall proud horse staring back at them. When it looked them squarely in the eyes, it whinnied, shaking its head, shocking David and Alice since they were unused to sounds coming from anything beside themselves. The horse was older, and looked like it had been sick. It was thin, gaunt, its hair was matted and dirty, and its skin and eyes looked sunken. But it was standing on its own without assistance. "Alice, run grab some apples from the trees in the back, if they're OK. I'll give him some water. He looks like he needs time to recover, and the sooner we get him started the better." "What about the other horses?" "I'll check them after I've given this one some attention, but I don't hear any motions, and I suspect the rest are dead. Now go on, I suspect he's hungry." "His name is Aristotle," Alice called as she ran out, and she was gone before David could ask her about the name choice. Not wanting to risk contaminating the bottle, David looked around and found a pan. He suspected the Phillips had an old water pump he could use to carry buckets to give Aristotle more water, but he needed to watch his intake at this stage. When he set the pan out, the horse lapped it up, glancing up at David after he'd finished. Shrugging, David poured the rest of his water out for him. Alice ran back in, carrying several ripe apples in her shirt, holding it like a scoop. "I didn't know how much he could eat," she said, seeing her father's doubtful expression. David left her to her task and checked the other stalls, but he found one other dead horse, with the other stalls being empty. "So why Aristotle?" he asked when he returned, watching as Alice held the apples for the horse to pick out of her hand. "Because he found his fame as an old man, his early years forgotten to history, and he's remembered for surviving his master and teacher," she explained. "That makes sense. See if you can lead him out so he's not exposed to this anymore," David said, indicating the other dead horses. "Remember to not touch him directly, after all, we don't know if what he had was different than what we suffered from. We'll wash him down and check to see what symptoms he had to see if we can identify what strain he had. Take him out by the llamas, but don't put him close enough for him to infect them. Got all that?" "Yeah, Dad, I can manage that. What are you going to do?" "I'm going to try to find some tackle we can use to lift these animals. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. Hopefully we may be able to get Aristotle to help if I can find the right equipment. If not, maybe I can hook something up with one of the trucks." "Are you sure it makes sense going to all this work?" Alice asked, scratching her head. "I mean, seeing as there are dead carcasses everywhere, what's the point?" "The point is that I'd love for someone to come along, see an abandoned farm, and decide to take it over. However, if they came upon it looking like this," David said, making a wide sweeping gesture of all the dead animals, "they'd run for the hills. What we're doing it making it easy to take over. We can't afford to do it ourselves, since we have so many resources at home, but that doesn't mean that others couldn't do so. I'll also leave a note telling anyone who comes by that we have the animals and seed." "In that case, if we're taking the animals with us, maybe it would be better to just burn the barn?" Alice suggested. "No, that's not really an option. If the fire isn't hot enough, burning the bodies would just spread the disease that much more. What's more, if anyone wants to take over, I'd like them to be able to succeed. I doubt anyone showing up will be anxious to raise a brand new barn, nor will they likely have enough people to do it either." "OK, I'll come and help as soon as I get Aristotle settled." "And see if you can find some water for the llamas as well. They'll all need more," he added as she headed out the door with Aristotle walking calmly behind her. ------- "Dad, about this theory of yours," Alice asked, as she guided Aristotle as he lifted another animal off the floor using the manual pulley system that her father had found, "about how the more animals there are, the more likely they are to get infected?" "Yeah," he responded as he guided the beef carcass so it would line up with the Phillips' pickup, which he was using to transport the bodies outside for burial. The Phillips probably had better equipment for this, but David thought searching for the proper equipment and getting it prepared would take too long. "Well wouldn't that mean that the more members a species has, the worse they'd be affected?" "Yeah, we've already seen that. The llamas were unaffected, while the cattle were wiped out. Spinach and carrots are fine, but corn has been eliminated." "Wouldn't that mean that the most populous animal species, namely humans, would then die off at a higher rate, with the diseases getting worse and worse as it mutates among the various people with it?" "That's exactly what it means, but again, it's a statistics game," David replied as he released the hitch, causing the cow to fall the remaining distance with a thud, shaking the entire truck. Alice pulled Aristotle back so he could cool down. He was still weak, but he realized he needed the humans to survive, and was thus willing to do whatever he could to assure they'd take him in. That meant that Alice had to watch over him, because he was likely to work himself literally to death. Multiple times so far she'd had to restrain him so he wouldn't overwork himself. "With large numbers comes greater exposure and increased complications," her father continued. "But it also means that there are more responses. If there are enough test subjects, then some will respond in the right manner. Hopefully some will find a successful response. Like we have. If human's weren't as widespread as they were, we might not have made it, but because there are so many, that's why we managed to survive." "But how many others would? If there are millions of humans in the U.S., then wouldn't a bunch survive like we have?" "That's hard to guesstimate," David responded as he moved the tackle over to the next carcass. The truck wouldn't hold many bodies, but it had room for another, maybe another two if they were smaller. "We have no idea exactly why we survived. Since we both did, it seems to be based on genetics, so it may be that only those with those specific genes survived, though we don't know which genes those are. We'll only know by observation." "Well Lucky and Aristotle survived. If they did, then surely out of millions of humans a lot of people would as well." "That depends on a lot of things we don't know," he said, getting the next animals hooked up, giving Alice the signal to begin lifting. She led Aristotle forward, and after struggling for a moment, the carcass began rising, easing the strain on Aristotle. "Given the number of horses in the US, it may be that horses were only exposed to a single strain, so Aristotle may have survived that one, much like Billy survived his first attack. However, because there are so many people, many different deadly strains developed. If you'll remember, Billy died only days later of a different disease." "Man, this gets complicated." "Yes, it does, even more so since we're only guessing at the moment. If we knew specifically what was happening, it would be easier to understand." As the body rose high enough, David began shifting it towards the truck again. "But that's why I kept encouraging everyone to keep struggling, and for others not to let anyone go. We needed each person to struggle to survive, because only through suffering through the sickness would they have the opportunity to develop the antibodies that would save both them and their offspring." Alice remembered the scenes he'd described when he'd come upon a group intent on burning down the house of a family trying to dispose of a dead body. Their intent was to burn the entire family along with their house, all their possessions and the infected body. Somehow he'd managed to convince them not only to let them live, but to assist them and anyone else who got sick, teaching them how to safeguard themselves. "So what you're saying is you have no idea whether anyone else survived?" Alice asked, sounded weary of not getting a clear answer. "No, I'm convinced there are plenty of survivors. I just have no idea how many there are, or how many we're likely to encounter. The fact that we survived means the odds aren't insurmountable. The fact Aristotle and Lucky survived means that even the few animals here managed to survive at least one strain, so figuring the sheer number of humans, they'd be likely to survive even if the odds increased exponentially." Getting that carcass positioned, David again released the cinch, dropping it into the back of the pickup. The body dropped with a sickening wet smack as the truck reverberated with the force of its fall. Alice again pulled Aristotle back, giving him another apple slice as encouragement. "But if it's purely a numbers game, then what about the dead lambs we found yesterday? Surely there aren't that many lambs running around, so why would they all be wiped out, while something as prevalent as grass survived?" Alice asked, clearly unable to work out the seeming contradictions as her father got the carcass settled. "That's a bit more difficult. Sometimes a mutation occurs quickly, like the infection spreading to the lambs, and sometimes it doesn't, like humans surviving the Great Death. It's not always so clear cut. But I'd be willing to bet that we'll find other lambs that are uninfected, since there aren't enough of them to spread the strain they died of easily. That is, if they didn't die from a strain from another animals that they were vulnerable to without its having to mutate." "I was right, this stuff really gets complicated," Alice answered as she fed Aristotle another bite of apple. He still couldn't eat much, but she found that after working, he was able to eat a little more, and the moisture from the apple seemed to be as beneficial as the nutrients were. "OK, I'll be getting these to the dump site. You take Aristotle back out for some more water and a walk, he deserves it. In order to give him a break I'll take a look at the plants the Phillips were growing. I'm anxious to see what survived, and what we might be able to use." "Yeah, it looks like both corn and potatoes are gone. I'm going to miss a world without popcorn," Alice lamented. "Well, I'm sure there are plenty of bags lying around in people's houses, so I don't imagine you'll miss it completely, but there's a good chance your children may never know what corn tastes like." "What about bugs? What do you think a world without bugs will be like?" "As much as it seems counterintuitive, I think it'll be worse. As annoying as mosquitoes, ticks and roaches can be, they all served specific purposes. If they're truly gone, then we're going to have an incomplete life cycle. I have a feeling the dead bodies lying around are going to be there a long time if nothing feeds on them." "After I walk Aristotle, I'll check the house for seed packets or books on farming and animal husbandry," Alice suggested. "That's good, we need to grab those to ensure that anyone who may stumble on the farm here doesn't waste or spoil them. I don't mind people helping themselves to the spoils here, but we can't afford to waste resources." ------- "Man, I'm glad we don't have that many farms around here," Alice observed as they finally reached the house and she and David were taking the animals out of the horse trailers they'd found. Luckily, the Phillips had more than one, so they were able to transport the llamas and Aristotle in separate vehicles, avoiding cross contamination. The llamas may be unlikely to contract whatever affected Aristotle, but there wasn't any sense exposing them if it could be avoided. After all, it was only through repeated exposure that the virus found a way to adapt. They'd worked like dogs, or rather horses, all day. Between burying the family, pigs, cattle and horses, it had been quite an ordeal. The vehicles they'd 'borrowed' from the Phillips to carry the animals were loaded down with produce, both ripe for eating as well as transplantable cuttings. They'd also loaded a couple bales of hay to feed the animals with, as well as more bags of animal feed, animal antibiotics and whatever books Alice had found to help them take care of both the animals and plants they'd recovered. It would take several more trips to get enough hay to keep the animals going for years, but they had time to go back at some point in the future. They had enough for the moment. "It's too bad about the potatoes," Alice commented. "Yeah, it's like I was saying, with potatoes being the nation's number one crop, it was a likely candidate to suffer heavily from the plagues. The entire potato crop was wiped out. We'll either have to find another source of carbohydrates, or we'll have to eat a lot more lower-carbohydrate foods in the future." "Just another thing I'm going to miss in this new world of ours," Alice observed. Somehow it was easier imagining a world without electricity and cars that it was one without French fries. "So what did you think about that thing I saw?" David sighed. He hadn't seen it himself, driving in a separate vehicle, but then neither had Alice, as she had no idea what she may have seen. Yet she couldn't let the idea that it may have been something go. "I don't think it was anything. It could have been anything from a casual breeze to a small animal, to your imagination being sparked by your desire to find someone else who'd survived." "I'm still convinced I saw someone," she insisted. "I'm not saying it's impossible, but if so, then why wouldn't he, she or it stick around? Why wouldn't he approach us for help? I can't imagine it was a person, nor am I convinced anything as large as a deer would have survived. The deer were heavily infected before people started dying in large numbers. Again, deer are among the most numerous of wild animals in the US, so they'd have suffered heavily not only from exposure, but also to additional mutations and adaptations." "But not plentiful enough to develop survival adaptations?" Alice guessed, relying on what he'd already taught her. "No, I'm sure there are probably a lot of survivors among the deer, but I doubt they'd be plentiful enough for us to be seeing any of them yet." "I guess that's why the pines are all dead now?" Alice asked. "It's the most populous tree, thanks to the timber industry planting them everywhere they went. In regions where the pine never grew natively before, pine now accounts for the majority of trees. Or at least they did." "Still, whatever it was, I saw something, and it obviously ran away." Alice insisted, veering away from that particular topic. "It may have been a fox. They're small, but they're the largest animals I can imagine would have survived. But then, they're omnivores, so they'd be in danger as well from the dead animals they'd be likely to eat." "I'll take the llamas and Aristotle, I'll leave the hay for you," Alice suggested. "I'll need help to pull them out. We won't need the pulley system, but Aristotle can help drag them out of the back of the truck. By the way, what are you going to call the llamas?" "I think I'll call them Moe, Shemp, Larry and Curly." "I'm impressed. I never thought you were that impressed by the Stooges." "I'm not, that's why I named them that. I figure llamas aren't much brighter than they were. I really can't think of a dumber animal," Alice replied, winkling her nose at the idea of having to take care of them. "Yet you managed to remember the name of all four of them?" "Yeah, well, you made me watch them enough when we were young. It took a while to remember Shemp's name, but I remembered the others right off the bat." "You do realize that three of the llamas are female, as is Jacob. I checked as we were loading them." "Yeah, but I don't think they'll mind the names, as I said, llamas aren't terribly bright." "Dad," Alice asked as she led the llamas out one by one, "do you miss Ellen?" "That's a silly question," David responded. "I miss her terribly. When she died, I wanted nothing more than to join her, but it was my concern for you that kept me going. I wanted to be there for you, so I left her behind and carried you to the accompanying bed. "What's more, I miss each of the women: Linda, even though I was surprised when Ellen forced us together, or Maggie, when she surprised me by telling me that her husband didn't mind her sleeping with me, or even Flora. Ellen got me to accept each of them, and I did it for her. She felt they needed to be included, and I wanted to keep her happy." "So you keep saying, but once you slept with each, you never looked back," Alice responded. "That I did, and I cherish each of them, but it was Ellen that held my heart. Not that your mother didn't, as well, but we'd had a lot more distance between us, as Ellen held the central role in my heart." "Don't you think you'd like to meet someone else," Alice asked, revealing what David considered to be the heart of the matter. "Frankly, as much as I loved all of them, it was stressful handling them all, especially with you girls watching us. Not only that, but after watching them die, I feel a bit emotionally exhausted. I don't think I'm ready for love, and probably won't be for a while. I know how much you were responsible for getting us together, and I know how much you think I need someone else in my life, but not only do I think it's unlikely, I just don't think I'll be ready for it for a very long time." "That may be, but you may not have much of a choice in the matter. Not only will that depend on whoever we meet, but you've got to consider both the psychological stresses on people, and the need for us to recover. Between wanting to get together, and our need to repopulate the species, I think you'll be pressed into service again." "That may very well be true, but it doesn't mean I'll fall in love with them. After watching four lovers all die within days of each other, you grow a bit distant, and you don't want to expose yourself emotionally again. Chances are I'd be happy to go the rest of my life without getting together with anyone, and it'll take a lot before I could truly care again," David responded honestly. "I don't know, Dad, just watching you with me and with these animals. You've got a way of caring about anyone. If we were to meet a new survivor, I suspect you'd care deeply for them. Given a little interest on their part, I have a feeling you'd fall for them just as hard as you fell for the rest." "Well, as much as I hate to say it, I suspect we'll have a long time before we're in that situation. First we have to meet other survivors, then we've got to find any interested in sex, and after that we'd have to find someone interested in me." "I think you're underestimating the odds on all three counts," Alice told him confidently as she led the four Stooges away. "I suspect you're going to be quite surprised just how soon it'll happen." ------- Chapter 2: Picking up a New Charge "This is Radio Scott once again. This is our... ," Alice halted, unsure just how long they'd been broadcasting for, "well, frankly we've given up trying to keep track of time. Since the Great Death was so significant to all our lives, it's made every other historic event pale into insignificance. While history remains good for teaching, dating everything in the current world according to when everything else occurred now makes little sense. Although we still have clocks, we've zeroed them out starting from the day we recovered, since that's how we now view the world. Anyway, we're unsure whether anyone is listening to us at the moment, although we're going with the assumption that someone is. At the moment, we've seen no sign of anyone else even being alive. What we have done is to check on the plants and animals around us, to see just how far the Great Death has extended. It seems to have affected most life on the planet, but has affected plants much less than the animal kingdom. What we've observed is that there seems to be a weird inverse relationship between numbers and exposure. The more of any species there is, the higher the death rate. Thus while mice, rats, roaches, ants and yes, humans have been essentially wiped out, we found a whole family of llamas who were unaffected, simply because the plagues didn't have the opportunity to gain a foothold with them. Likewise, in the plant world, it seems the more common plants have been wiped out. These include the ubiquitous pine trees, potatoes and corn; each of which appears to be a thing of the past. If you have any of these that is unaffected, don't be afraid to eat anything what was packaged previously, but realize you'll likely never see it again. Likewise, if you have some planted near you, don't burn them or plow them under, as that will only spread their diseases to whatever else you plant. Instead you'll have to pull them up individually and bury them in a pit where any new plant growth won't reach. For the pines I suggest you simply leave them, as we don't have any suggestions concerning how to handle them. Just don't burn them in your fireplace! What we've determined is that these diseases need an entry point into any given species, and that the more numerous the species is, the more likely it is for it to gain that foothold. However, that same limitation of numbers also works to help save us. When there are that many viable entities, there's also a greater chance that they'll find a way of combating the disease. Thus it's entirely possible there might be some thriving corn and potato plants, but if you find them, don't eat them, because they are needed to ... propagate ... their surviving genes. A case in point is pigs. Although they seem to have been hit hard, we have at least one surviving animal. However, we suspect this is very different in the North Carolina region, home of many pig farms. What's more, we suspect that the traditional farming mentality has worked against itself. If the tendency of farmers is to isolate and slaughter any individual that might affect the rest of the herd, then they guarantee that none of those animals will survive, because there won't be any individuals who will be able to survive the affliction. Since pigs aren't as numerous around here, they had a better chance to survive. But the key is that everyone has to marshal their resources. Though you might be hungry, don't eat the remaining livestock. We need the few survivors more than we need a free meal. Let's hope that they'll be able to recover and regenerate quickly, so they once again serve as a food source in the future, but please; don't threaten both them and us by slaughtering them indiscriminately. So far we've managed to save a sprinkling of the existing animals, and we've done better with the edible plants, but we've got to do better. The best bet for now, is to survive off of the existing excesses of yesterday. Live off of the store products you've saved, or that you can find in your neighbors cupboards. Again, we emphasize that everyone should stay away from grocery stores, since the produce there was exposed to too many different people, giving the diseases a chance to adapt and spread, but there should be enough left in individual cabinets to allow us to prepare for the future. While picking through the kitchens of the deceased may seem risky, it's probably less so than venturing into the grocery stores. Again, the first order of importance is to plan for the future. You'll need warmth, fuel is handy if you have access to it, but it'll only last for so long. You need to plan to survive without it. You also need to focus on supplies. Stock up on as much safe food as you can find, and by that I mean sealed containers of food that haven't been exposed to anything. Beyond that, you need to establish gardens, because this surplus of packaged products is going to be temporary, and we need to plan to survive long after they're gone. The coming winter is going to be quite hard. Expect a much colder than normal winter with significant snowfall. You'll need to find a place that allows you to be self-sufficient, with water, food and other resources nearby, because once winter sets in you may not be able to move about easily. We'll continue to offer advice and news as we discover it, but for now, stay safe and protect yourselves." ------- Setting off early, David and Alice first stopped at the police station again. They took two vehicles this time, David taking his SUV bearing the hole in the windshield from when Maggie had shot someone trying to highjack them at a roadblock, while Alice drove the 'dead truck' they'd picked up there the previous day. As expected, there was no one there and no sign that anyone had been by. Telling Alice to get busy cleaning up what they'd missed the day before, David set about breaking in. Despite being a police station, it was surprisingly easy to get in. Being a small community they only had a couple of cells, which mainly served occasionally as a drunk tank. They never had any serious crime, and if they did they'd transport them to more secure facilities elsewhere. They'd never had a need for reinforcements or bars on the windows. It was well built, as the recent gun battle that had occurred there showed, the bricks outside showing the multiple nicks resulting from rifle fire on it, but now there was no one to defend it. It didn't take David long to find what he wanted. As a deputized officer, the police chief had already given David all their guns, body armor and other weapons, since he had more people and could protect them better, but David was interested in other things. Breaking into the filing cabinet, he found the personnel records and looked up the addresses of the last officers he'd known to still be alive. With that accomplished, he locked everything up again and headed out to rejoin Alice. First they visited the home of Ben Adams, David's friend and the local sheriff. Even though the sheriff's position was a county one, he lived in the immediate vicinity. As they expected, there was no sign of life from outside. "You stay here and clean up outside, I'll be back in a minute," he instructed his daughter. "The hell I will," she told him. "I'm going wherever you do. There's no telling what you may find, and I've already seen enough death so I won't be shocked by whatever we find." David just shrugged, leading the way as he approached the house. Finding the front door locked, rather than trying to break in they checked the back door and windows, finding most of the windows open given the summer heat without any air conditioning. Climbing in, David helped Alice in, and then they both explored the house. They found Ben in the master bedroom. As expected, he was dead. His wife had passed away earlier, so there wasn't anyone else in the house. After they carried the body outside, David suggested Alice grab anything they could use from the kitchen while he searched for his handgun. He found it in the bedside table, as well as a spare hunting rifle in the bedroom closet. There were also a few boxes of ammo. It didn't amount to much, but he'd prefer not leaving them for someone else to find. For some reason, David didn't like the idea of anyone picking up a policeman's firearm, even though he'd suggested everyone arm themselves over the radio. They checked Frank Simmons' place next, the last officer remaining on duty before David and Alice had gotten sick. They discovered the same thing, finding him dead on his couch. His dog curled up under him, looking like it had suffered as much as he had. They did what they had before, removing the bodies, taking anything they could use, and closing the house up but leaving it unlocked. Walking out the front door, David saw something that attracted his attention, and walked across the street. There, tied to a corner of the front porch, were the remains of a family dog, dead of a shotgun blast from close range. It was a bit grisly, and would have been more so if there were any flies nearby. It seemed clear the owner of the house decided to take his frustration and anger out on the family pet, probably after he discovered it had infected him only after petting it extensively. Or maybe after it had infected his wife or children. In either case, it seemed a stupid thing to do, because not only had he only infected himself from the blowback of the animal's blood, but he'd also infected the whole sidewalk in front of the house. Anyone who wanted to access the house would need to carefully clean the entire area with bleach, including the grass and dirt where the animal now rested. It left both David and Alice feeling uneasy about how disruptive things had gotten by the end. Finally they checked on Nancy Evens, the receptionist who remained on the force, helping Sheriff Adams when the police station had been assaulted by some gun toting locals looking to steal the police weapons. That short firefight had killed Alice's mother, David's ex, so David had been watching her to see how she reacted, but she hadn't shown any outward signs of distress. They found no signs of Nancy, or of any household pets, despite finding a cat box. They also didn't find the handgun and rifle they knew Ben had left her with, afraid the police station would be attacked again. Once more, they left the house open as they left. "It doesn't look like anyone in town is left," Alice observed, stating the obvious. "No, but I had to check." "Why did you leave the houses open?" she asked. "If anyone comes along and needs something, it'd be easier for everyone involved if they didn't have to break in or damage anything. All these empty houses will decay if left unoccupied, and any house that we don't remove bodies from will soon become uninhabitable from the smell. Leaving a few houses habitable means we'll have some places nearby that other people can use." "Doesn't that mean we should empty the houses near us? Just in case we find anyone who wants to join us?" "Yeah, I was planning on that, but I wanted to check on everyone else first. We'll do that tomorrow morning. I'll also see if I can arrange to switch the circuits so I can power those houses, just in case we need to in the future." She didn't respond, merely nodding in understanding as they headed out to the two vehicles again. Though they'd expected it, their inability to find any other survivors was disconcerting. Before they'd surmised as much, but then it had only been a general assumption. Now they knew they were alone, and that minor difference seemed fairly major now. Even though they lived in a small town; that meant the Great Death had wiped out an incredible number of people and the implications left Alice's head reeling. Continuing on, they didn't pick up a lot of bodies, but they stopped for any large animals they found in the middle of the road, as well as tossing the human bodies they'd found investigating their friends' houses. Small animal carcasses wouldn't impede their traffic, while large ones would. And human remains, well, they were simply too disturbing to leave exposed if they had any choice. Having nowhere else to check locally, they set out, seeing what they could find nearby. Stopping to move a deer carcass off the road, David was backing the dead truck so it would be easier to lift the deer while Alice busied herself picking up the various small carcasses. David got out and was approaching the animal when Alice called out. "Hey, you!" Jerking around, David saw Alice taking off at a run. "Alice!" he called, before taking off after her, not knowing what she was doing. He followed her around the corner, a short distance away, only to find her glancing around looking for something. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded, upset and nervous about any number of things that might go wrong. Having seen so many of his close friends die recently, he was now extra cautious of his daughter, even if it wasn't justified in this case. "I was sure I saw someone," she explained, spinning around in a slow circle, taking in all the avenues of escape, "but I can't find him now." "I'm sure you're mistaken. It's probably just like yesterday. You're so busy looking for survivors that you're interpreting any gust of wind or change in the lighting as being someone. Why would someone try to avoid the only other surviving people they'd encountered?" David asked. "I don't know, maybe because they're afraid of armed survivalists?" Alice asked him snidely. "Yeah, there is that," he conceded. "Anyway, they're gone now, if there was anyone, and unless you want to search each house looking for them, I suggest we get back to business." "Yeah, I was probably mistaken," she agreed, even though she didn't sound sincere about it as they returned to the truck where she helped him lift the deer onto the truck. "You know, you must be right about the insects," David observed. "Normally if you tried to touch a deer this time of year, you'd be covered in ticks. Now, I don't see a single one." "Well, if there's one animal I don't miss, it's the tick. I can't see them adding anything to the overall animal kingdom." "Still, it's a major change to the ecosystem, and I don't trust major changes. They always involve unexpected complications. Hopefully the cooling from the asteroids will solve the massive storms the global warming was causing, but it'll probably produce just as much trouble anyway." "Dad, in case you haven't noticed, the whole ecosystem has just been turned on its head. There's no one else left, and most of the animals are dead." "Yeah, you've got a point," he conceded. "Anyway, we can continue now that this is out of the road. I guess we can avoid the rest of the animals, unless of course you want to make life easier for your mysterious strangers." "No, thanks, I'm sure they're fine on their own," she laughed as they both got into their separate vehicles. "After all, I wouldn't want to take away the only thing remaining they have to do." ------- "Why did we stop here?" Alice asked as they exited their cars in front of a house she didn't recognize. "This is the house where I shot that dog and had that confrontation with the two boys," David explained. "The father seemed like he knew how to prepare, so I'd like to check on them. They said they'd listen to our broadcasts, so hopefully they won't be too freaked out to meet us." "Yeah, that's if they're still alive," Alice complained. She remembered his story about the incident. He'd come upon a dog gnawing on the exposed flesh of a dead man left on the street for the city to dispose of, something the town hadn't been able to do. David had put the dog down, figuring that once a dog learned to associate humans with food it would always be dangerous. That had provoked a natural response, as the animal's owners had come running out of the house with their guns drawn. But instead of resisting, or fleeing in panic, David had remained where he sat, telling the boys why he'd done what he had, and also telling them how to prepare for the future. He'd eventually won them over, and hoped that acceptance had extended to their father, whom he'd never met. "That's always the understanding," her father replied as they approached the house. Of course no one answered, not even to demand who they were. Surprisingly, David found the front door open, which surprised him considering how wary the family had been before. Entering cautiously, they looked around, finding the father upstairs in bed and one son crumpled up in an easy chair downstairs, both dead, and both having obviously died from the Great Death. "Let's take care of them; they deserve to be buried, even if it's not a proper ceremony. After that we'll see if they have anything we can use. I'm guessing since they were preparing for the long haul, that they probably collected some things worth keeping." Alice agreed, so they returned to the truck to collect some heavy duty plastic sheets. They were almost to the truck, preparing their gloves, when they were surprised. "Hold it right there. Don't move a muscle, I know how to shoot." Moving very slowly, David turned to see a young girl with blonde hair, clear skin marred only by the remnants of the plague's pox marks, and probably no older than ten or twelve. She was wearing a cap sitting askew on her head, but looked healthy otherwise, though she had a bit of a deadened look to her eyes. "I'm sure you do. What is it you wanted?" David asked patiently. "I want you to leave my family's property alone. It doesn't belong to you, and it's not for you to steal whatever you want." "You look like you've been through a lot," David said, taken a slow step towards the girl now pointing a rifle at him while waving Alice back. "I can see it's taken a real toll on you." "I've shot things before, I'm not afraid to shoot you," she insisted. "I don't doubt it. I can see the resolve in your eyes. I'm sure your father was very proud of you." "Not really, he took the boys out all the time, but he hardly had time for me," she said, hardly able to keep the sad expression from her face. Her response surprised Alice, since she was revealing her innermost secrets to someone she was preparing to shoot, but she figured it reflected what it was like finding yourself all alone, with no one else to talk to or confide in. "Well, I'm sure he's sorry he never managed to," David continued, still moving slowly towards her. "Sometimes parents have a hard time relating to their kids. If he had, I'm sure he'd tell you that you're holding that rifle improperly. If you were to fire it now, you'd likely injure yourself, missing your target as you threw yourself off balance." "Really?" she asked, looking at him skeptically. "I'll tell you what, I've got a pistol I think would be better for you. It's small and harder to aim, but you can hide it better, and while it also has a kick I'm sure we can show you how to fire it." Alice had no idea what her father was trying to do, tempting a nervous young kid to shoot him, but she trusted his judgment. Still, she watched the two of them as she angled around to the side, so that she'd be out of firing range in case things got out of hand. "I'm not lowering the gun," the girl warned him. "Hey, I'm willing to trade you a loaded pistol for your rifle, it's an even trade. I'm not planning on keeping the rifle, I just don't want to see you get injured using it improperly," David responded, not directly addressing her threat. "You'd give me the gun and show me how to use it?" "Yeah. If you don't object, I'm going to reach for it now. Just so you know; I've got two in my waistband. I'm going to give you the smaller one." "OK, just no sudden moves," she cautioned, her eyes studying his every movement, though she'd occasionally glance at Alice watching for any unexpected movements from either one. She was certainly expecting the worst. He slowly pulled the pistol out of his pants and held it out to her, using only two fingers and holding it barrel down by a loose grip on the handle. She glanced at it, then lowered her rifle slightly. When she did, David stepped closer to her. "The safety is on. Like most guns, it's got a kick to it, so you'd best use two hands holding it." He took another step and handed her the gun. She looked hesitantly at it, then at her own rifle, finally making her decision. She lowered her rifle and reached for the pistol. "Mind if I hold your rifle for you?" David asked. She looked at him in indecision for a moment, then shook her head as she took the gun from him and examined it. "You think I can shoot someone with this?" "I think you could use some practice, otherwise you're likely to miss more often than you hit anything, but I'd be willing to teach you. I taught Alice here." "Who are you?" she asked, glancing up at him while she sighted along the barrel pointing it away from him. "I'm David Scott and this is my daughter, Alice. Who are you? I was here a couple weeks ago and met your brothers." "I remember that," she told him. "They told Dad about what you were doing, and why you shot our dog. We listened to your broadcasts, until they went off the air, that is. Only one of the two boys was my brother." "We just saw your father and brother. I'm sorry you had to see them like that." "Could you help me move them? They buried my Mom and Terrance, but then both Dad and James died the same night, and they were both too big for me to move. They started to smell, so I moved next door. The owners died a while back, so Dad had the boys move the bodies out. I've been living there ever since." "We'd be glad to do that for you. That's why we were coming back out, to get some tarps to wrap the bodies in." "That would be nice. Then I can move back in, and they'd be buried proper," she replied, finally lowering the gun. "I take it you were sick too?" he asked. "Yeah, after everyone else died and I moved here, I got real sick. I thought I was gonna die, but then I got better." "Yeah, we had something similar. All our friends and family died at the same time." "What about that girl who did the 12 o'clock news?" she asked, looking concerned. "That was Sara, and she didn't make it." Alice answered, moving closer now that she was no longer aiming at them. "That's too bad, I liked her voice best. Though I liked yours too," she hurriedly added for Alice's sake. "You did the six o'clock?" "Yeah, that was me," Alice told her, now standing near the others. "I like your voice too. You always sound so smart, but the other girl sounded more like the people I knew," she added, looking mildly upset at yet another death piled on top of all the others she'd suffered through. Her lip trembled a bit at the memories that thought provoked, but she quickly squelched that reaction, looking up at them again. "I'll tell you what," Alice suggested, taking her father's actions as a guide, "we've got a shooting range at our property. We've got electricity, food, and some animals. If you come with us, I'll show you how to shoot both guns." "If you help with Dad and James, and get my stuff for me, I will," she told them. "I was worried how I'd survive on my own, but Dad always said not to trust anyone I met. He said they'd try to trick me and take everything we had." "Don't worry, we won't take any of it. If you want we'll take it with us, and if you ever decide to leave, you can take it all with you," David assured her. "You're David, right?" she asked. When he nodded his head she continued. "If you help take care of everything, I'd be happy to join you. I was worried how I'd manage on my own. I knew I'd have to find someone else to join up with, but I was afraid of who I might meet." "Well, I think you'll like working with us. Now let's see if we can give your family a decent burial and give them some peace." David got everyone organized after that, getting everyone protected and carting the tarps into the house. "Are you sure you want to be here for this? If you don't, we'll come and get you after we're finished." "No, I need to be sure they've been treated properly. It'll help me say goodbye to them finally. I need to be here for this." "OK, let Alice and me handle the bodies. You can get their things organized and supervise what we do," he told her as he led them inside. She was actually helpful, showing them where they kept their supplies, following along as he and Alice carried the big men outside one by one. After they got the bodies set onto the truck, explaining that they planned to bury them at their house since they didn't have the equipment to bury them here, they started loading her stuff. She nodded that she understood and helped them locate everything they might need. The Malcolms had been pretty organized. While their setup wasn't as nice as David's, they'd stocked up on a lot of canned supplies, had stockpiled quite a collection of guns, and had also collected a lot of books on a variety of topics, something that David hadn't even considered yet. They also had a generator, which David thought they'd better take as well, even if they didn't really need it. If nothing else it would be there when Mattie needed it, or they could use it if they visited one of the farms again. It took quite a while to load everything, and when they did it took most of both trucks. When they finished, they left Mattie to say her goodbyes, which she did quickly and silently and then they headed off, heading home instead of continuing to look for other survivors. ------- Traveling only about a dozen miles, David noticed Alice stopping behind him. Mattie had chosen to ride with him, proudly holding her gun at the ready. Applying his own brakes, he observed Alice climbing out of her car and running off into a nearby field between two houses, just like she'd done the other day. He shoved the car into reverse and quickly backed up, hoping to catch up with her. "Damn that kid," he swore. "What's she doing?" Mattie asked, glancing back to see what was happening. "She thinks she sees someone else. She's so anxious to meet other people that she's looking everywhere for them. Stay here, I'll be back soon," he instructed her, taking off after Alice. Alice was sure she'd seen something this time, but once she stopped they'd taken off, fleeing from her. Unable to understand what they were doing, she took out after them, calling out for them to stop. She heard her father rapidly reversing, but knew he'd follow, always being protective of her, but she couldn't afford to let his opportunity slip past. Entering an open field, she saw the person, a man in a coat, at the end of the field. It looked like he'd been sick as well, as he wasn't making very fast progress. Though Alice wasn't in very good shape yet either, it seemed like she'd been recovering longer than this guy had, as she was catching up to him. "Alice!" her father called out, but she didn't bother stopping to answer him. They couldn't let this person get away. She didn't mind if he didn't want to join them, but she wanted to offer him the option if nothing else. As she closed in on him, he glanced back, and seeing her progress, turned and fumbled with his coat, pulling a pistol out and pointed it at her. "Stop! Come any closer and I'll shoot!" Alice ground to a halt, looking at the man in disbelief. "We just wanted to let you know that there are others still alive like you. You don't have to join us if you—" "Just get the hell away from me," he shouted. He was thin, gaunt and unshaven for at least a good week. His clothes were also filthy and wrinkled. "I've seen what's happened to everyone else. I'm not about to get sick again. If you come any closer I'll kill you where you stand." Alice could hear her father approaching from behind, but she figured she'd try what he'd done with Mattie, and took a slow step ahead. "We don't mean you any harm. We just want to..." The man fired at her. Alice had no idea where the bullet went, but she quickly backed up several steps. Her father caught up to her then and stood in front of her, ostensibly to protect her. "Just let me take her back," he called out. "We'll leave you alone. If you ever want to join us—" "I won't," he assured them. "Joining people means death. I'd rather be alive alone than dead with friends." Then he turned and ran off, leaving them alone in the field. "Can you believe that?" Alice asked her father. "We'd better get back. I had to leave Mattie when you took off, and she's going to be spooked by the gunshot." "Why would someone rather be alone when we have all kinds of things to help them?" "You heard him, he's afraid of the Great Death. He's afraid if he gets too close to us, we'll expose him." "But we've already had it. From what you described, that means that what we have is already dead and it isn't contagious." "As far as we know," he cautioned her. "We still have no idea how these diseases work, and it's safer to be cautious than to take unnecessary risks. Give him time. Maybe he'll reconsider, but in either case, it's his choice to make to join us or not." "How about if we leave him a peace offering?" Alice suggested. "If the guy is gunning for us, I think it's best if we just got in our car and left," David countered. "But we need to show him we mean him no harm. Maybe just some food and a note telling him to tune us in on the radio?" "That's assuming he has a working radio," her father reminded her. "Still, it's something," she replied. "OK, we'll do that much," he conceded as they reached the road and saw Mattie again. She was standing outside the truck, aiming her rifle behind them. Luckily she knew enough to know when to use a pistol and when to choose the rifle. Even if her father hadn't personally trained her, he at least taught her much of what she needed to know. When they rejoined Mattie, she wanted to know what'd happened, and Alice excitedly described the encounter while David hurried to leave Alice's gift. They got it set up, leaving a short note under some canned food explaining about the radio station and how they were trying to help people prepare for what was coming. After that he directed them to their cars and got them moving, afraid what the man might do if he returned to find them still there. "Shit, I can't stop shaking", Alice complained as they headed to their vehicles once again. "That's the adrenaline. You'll be like that for a couple hours," her father warned her. "It's odd. I didn't respond like this when I was involved in a gunfight, but someone pulls a pistol on me from too far off to hit me, and I fall apart." Mattie cocked her head at this admission by Alice, but chose not to ask anything about it then. "It's different each time," David said, even though he only had limited experience with it himself. "You probably felt you didn't have a choice then, so you reacted decisively, whereas here you felt helpless." "Yeah, I guess," Alice groused as she got into her truck, ending the discussion. Driving off, Alice glanced back, wondering how that man's mind worked and how he could value starving on his own over having people looking out for him. She hoped he'd be OK on his own, but she suspected that if he hadn't gotten sick yet, it wouldn't be long until he did, and she didn't know how long he'd survive on his own. ------- "So he didn't want to talk at all?" Mattie asked as they settled into the house after having unloaded the truck. "Nope," Alice replied, having finished the nightly broadcast. "He didn't want to have anything to do with us. Apparently he was so afraid of getting sick he wasn't willing to risk any human interaction at all." "Actually, I can't say I blame them," Mattie reflected, still staring at all the functioning electronics they had. "I joined you because I didn't think I had a chance on my own. If I can't even take care of myself, or know how to fire a gun properly, then I won't be able to survive by myself. But my Dad told me to avoid anyone I met, that they'd either expose me or take advantage of me." "Still, but I'd expect he'd at least listen to what we had to say," Alice countered, still trying to figure out what was motivating the person who'd shot at her. "He's trying to survive," David tried to explain, serving them both some ice cream, something they both stared hungrily at. "They've seen everyone die around them after having been exposed, so they figure the only way to survive is to avoid any human contact." "But you can't live without human contact," she argued. "That may be, in the long run, but if you're only interested in living as long as you can, it's safer avoiding any contact than it is risking being comforted by someone." "Still, I can't understand it. We accomplished so much by working together, and what did this guy manage to do on his own? Did he help anyone? Did he save anyone? Is he helping rebuild the world?" "No, as I said, he's just trying to survive," David tried explaining again, even as he dug into his own ice cream. Although they had some in the freezer, they didn't have a lot, so this was a special treat in honor of Mattie joining them. Unless they could find an ice cream maker and a living cow, it wouldn't be long before this was only a distant memory. "Well, I'm not sure I can understand such thinking, but it's clear I'm not going to figure it out now," Alice concluded. "So Mattie, tell us more about your family. Which one was your brother, and who was the other kid?" "James was my brother. He was just about to go to college, working construction for the summer. My father, Charles, worked at a coal plant south of here until it closed, but was on disability since then. He had 'black lung' or something. He coughed a lot." "And the other boy that tried to shoot my father?" Alice prompted. "Oh, that was Terrance White. He was a friend of James. They went to the same high school. When everything got messed up, he came to stay with us. His parents died early on. But he died after my mother did. My Mom died before David showed up at our house." "Wow, you've had it rough as well," Alice observed. "I was lonely after everyone died," she admitted. "I was afraid to cry, scared that I'd need to defend myself and that I wouldn't be able to if I was crying. I kept waking up at night, terrified that someone would try to kidnap, kill or rape me." Alice felt terribly for her, moving in to give her a hug, but she recoiled from her touch, so Alice eased back, granting the young girl her space. This new world was going to take some getting used to. "So this is all yours?" Mattie asked before correcting herself. "I mean, it was yours before everything, well... ?" "Yeah, I built it after I split up from my ex-wife, Alice's mother," David said. "I wanted to get away from everything bad I felt we'd been exposed to in the city, so I spent what little money I had making it special, including the wind turbine that's now supplying our power, the freezers we've got stocked, and the hard to find entrance to the property." "And all the animals out front?" she asked, wondering why they'd keep their own mini zoo. "That's Dad playing Noah," Alice teased. "He thinks it's necessary to save anything surviving the Great Death so we'll have access to it later. He's afraid it'll be too dangerous to leave them on their own in the wild. He thinks he knows more about surviving than they do, despite the fact they've been doing it all their lives. But he's hoping to nurture them and hopefully utilize them in the future." "Yeah, we can use the wool from the llamas, ride the horse after the available gas spoils, and eventually eat the other animals, but only after they've recovered. The main idea is to keep our options open. But it shouldn't take long to do that. They say that 24 rabbits were released in Australia in the late eighteen hundreds, and that they numbered in the millions only six years later. I'm hoping we have something similar here, and that we can either trade them with other survivors, or let some of them loose to breed in the wild." "I didn't examine them closely," Mattie admitted, "not knowing whether it was safe to or not. I only noticed the horse and the llamas because they were so obvious. Were the llamas from that farm nearby?" "Yeah, the old Philips farm. They used to show them to the local kids," David explained. "Yeah, I visited there a couple of times. I didn't think there were a lot of wild llamas wandering around. Why are there so many llamas and so few horses? Shouldn't it be the other way around?" So Alice and her father explained his theory about why uncommon animals stood a better chance of survival, and how those with large numbers suffered exceptionally, but also stand a better chance of recovery in the long run. She had trouble with a couple of the concepts, but grasped the basics. "So can I keep a pet rabbit?" "You can keep one of the babies if you want, but frankly, you'll probably be helping to raise all of them, so keeping one might seem a bit less special by then," David suggested. "Still, I think it'd be nice to have something soft to cuddle with," she replied. "Something we're not afraid to touch," Alice offered, guessing what she left unsaid. Instead of answering they both looked at David. "Sure, as long as we're sure they're doing fine otherwise. I'd like to keep some of them essentially wild, so we'll have to separate the domesticated ones from the others." They both nodded eagerly, so David let the subject pass without further comment. "We'll need to do some general stuff around home tomorrow. I figure we should check the pond, see whether the Great Death affected the fish there as well. I'll put out a couple traps that you two can check, just to see if there's anything else that lived through this locally. I'll also take you out to practice shooting, Mattie. But after that Alice and I'll need to clean out the neighboring houses." "You're going to leave me here?" Mattie asked, sounding nervous. "Sure, we'll just be at the end of the road, and anyone that comes along will have to drive by us. You should be fine, after all, you've been living on your own for a while now, haven't you?" "Yeah, I guess, but now that you're here, I'd really rather not be alone if I can avoid it," she informed them. "When I didn't have a choice I thought about how much I missed people, so now I'm not anxious to be alone again." "Well, we were planning to gather the dead from the homes nearby, so I was hoping to avoid having to expose you to that," David admitted. "Please, I watched my own parents die, and we'd been dumping bodies on the side of the road before you told us not to anymore. I've seen dead people before. I won't be shocked by it." "I'm not so sure of that, but I'll concede the point," David said. "We'll let you search the properties for useful items like books, flashlights, batteries, canned goods or anything else you can find. That'll free us to concentrate on what we need to do." "Dad's hoping we'll be able to find enough survivors that we can use the nearby houses to house them," Alice explained. "You mean you think there will be enough they won't all fit in here?" Mattie asked as she stared at the massive interior of the house. "This place is HUGE!" "It's actually not as big as it looks," David tried to explain. "The high ceilings make it look big, but there aren't that many separate rooms, and I imagine if there are any families they'll want separate living quarters." Mattie didn't seem convinced, shaking her head in disagreement. "OK, what's wrong with that?" David asked, trying to get her to open up instead of merely disagreeing. He needed to teach her that he respected her opinion, and would need it in the future so he didn't overlook anything simple that could threaten their survival. "I don't think anyone will want to live anywhere else, and I doubt there are many families left," she said. "That may be, but it's better to empty them now. If nothing else, we can use them for supplies or to keep the animals in if we don't have enough room here," David suggested. "It's better to use the buildings than simply leaving them to deteriorate, though there's no rush to do it now." Although there was a lot more that everyone wanted to discuss, the opportunities to do so were limited. There were the animals to feed, the plants to take care of, the supplies to be stored, and maintenance to be done. Everyone ended up heading to bed soon after the ten o'clock broadcast, too exhausted to contemplate what tomorrow might bring. ------- After David insisted everyone retire for the night, Mattie was assigned to the spare bedroom, the one they both assured her was 'surgically clean'. Yet as she lay down, something was bothering her. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but David and Alice just weren't acting normally. They'd been acting strangely, like they were hiding something. Unable to shake her suspicions, she finally got up and crept out, looking for any sign of the other two. Not seeing either one, nor any lights, she finally opened Alice's door and peeked in. Unable to see clearly, but not seeing the recognizable shape she expected, she walked in for a closer look. Only realizing once she drew near that Alice wasn't even there, and her bed hadn't even been slept in. Mattie knew there was only one other place she could be, and that thought scared her as she could only imagine one reason why she'd be there. Still, they seemed like decent people, so she couldn't really believe they'd do that. Moving delicately, she approached their door, pressing her ear against it and listening for any sign of activity. When she heard nothing but the sound of the regular breath of sleep, she relaxed. If they were doing anything, then surely they'd still be at it by now. Still, she didn't feel very relieved. She'd keep their little secret, hoping that either one would come to her and admit what was going on. But she didn't know what she'd do if they didn't. She'd already committed to them, and she knew that although she had, she couldn't hope to survive without them. Yes, she'd had plenty of canned food at home, but it would only last for so long, and it was only so long until some other people came wandering by, looking for anything they could find. She may be able to stand up to them, possibly even shoot one, but if it came to that, she knew she wouldn't stand a chance. Returning to her room, she decided she needed to consider this and contemplate her options. Whatever happened, she needed choices. Her father and David both survived as long as they had because they planned ahead. That was something she needed to do too. ------- Chapter 3: Strangers, both Present and Absent "Radio Scott here again with some exciting news, for us at least. We've found other survivors. But so far it's been a mixed blessing. We managed to rescue a young girl whose family died. Unable to dispose of their bodies on her own, she did the sensible thing and abandoned her home, finding a safer refuge. When we met her she was sensibly cautious about us, but decided she was safer with us than she was on her own. However, we also encountered someone else with a different opinion of the world. He wanted nothing whatsoever to do with us. Not even enough to listen to what we had to say. When we attempted to communicate with him, he shot at us. We ended up leaving him a short message and some food as enticement to read it with an open mind, but we don't know whether that approach worked or not. That said, you need to be cautious about approaching people. It seems that many people are more concerned with the threat of disease than they are with the challenges of surviving what's approaching. There's no sense getting yourself killed, so if anyone doesn't approach you, do not approach them unless you're sure they'll respond to you positively. We need survivors, and you can't do that if you're getting yourself killed by other survivors. However, that brings up another topic. Although we don't have any references here, I did a quick calculation. Without knowing the exact population of our county, which includes four separate towns, I assumed twenty thousand, probably on the low side. Out of that, there are only four survivors. That means only a two hundredth of a single percentage survival rate! Such a number is unbelievably low. If we assume a world population of some six billion people, that would mean that only one million and two hundred thousand are alive today. Out of a population of three hundred million, that would only leave sixty thousand alive in the entire United States. Those are some sobering statistics, but it illustrates what we're facing. The world has changed, people, and you've got to be prepared for what that implies. Again, that means that we can't continue to fight among ourselves. If you want to be left alone, don't try to kill those that only want to communicate with you. If you need something, grab what's available rather than trying to steal it from other survivors. Each additional death means the odds of your surviving goes down. We need a certain genetic diversity to survive as a species, and with so few people remaining, it's going to be hard to achieve. If the Great Death didn't kill us, then the other home grown diseases just might. We need enough survivors that we can endure whatever else we're faced with. And don't assume that the diseases we've encountered are the end of the threat to us. If we faced this many separate diseases after these microbes adjusted to our environment in only a few weeks' time, then surely they'll continue to adapt, and more diseases of different types will continue to develop over time. Thus it's important to remain vigilant. Let's help each other survive. If there are people near you, even if they don't want to associate with you, you'll need to help each other. Figure out how to trade services and resources. If you have a garden, trade for gasoline. If you have gas, then trade for electricity. It's only by cooperating that we'll survive this, folks. The odds are stacked heavily against us, and we can only continue if we use our numbers to our advantage!" ------- The next morning Mattie found both Alice and her father quite energized and ready to begin the new day. "I don't know how you do it," she whispered to Alice as she prepared toast and Alice was pouring juice. "Frankly, I'm still exhausted. I could hardly sleep. Every time I close my eyes I have visions of the dead. I bolt awake in the middle of the night, shaking and terrified. Yet here the two of you are, looking fresh as daisies. How the hell do you do it?" Mattie wasn't just fishing for information about whether Alice and her father were having sex. She still assumed they weren't, even though she wasn't sure about it. But still, despite being so young, she realized getting your rocks off only relaxed you for so long. If there was some trick to shutting out the nightmares, she wanted to know what it was, because she not only wasn't sleeping soundly, she was also scared of closing her eyes at night. "Actually, I've learned from my father. We work hard during the day, not giving us enough time to think of anything else. That way, when night comes, we're both too exhausted to think about anything else." Mattie looked at her skeptically, the knife buttering the bread completely forgotten in her hand. "I can't believe that's enough. It's one thing to not focus on something, but my problem isn't that I don't think about it, it's that the visions come to me on their own. I can't escape them. They seek me out and grab me in the middle of the night. I just can't shut them down." "It sounds like you're having PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's what happens when your brain can't handle what you've been through. You should really talk to Dad. He may know more about it than I do. Since I haven't had it, it's hard for me to suggest how to deal with it." "But how could you have avoided it?" Mattie asked, ignoring breakfast and turning to face her new friend. "I mean, all your friends have died. True, you still have your father, but you lost your mother, actually watching her get killed in front of you, and you've watched the entire would fall apart around you. Why the hell aren't you terrified?" Alice had to stop and think about it for a bit. It was a simple enough question, and one she'd actually asked herself more than a few times as survivor's guilt had assaulted her several times. "I don't really know, but I'm fairly relaxed with where we are. Sure, I'm sad that everyone died, but I feel safe, I feel secure, I know that my Dad knows what to do, and with your help we can prepare for the future. It'll be tough, but we'll pull through." "OK, that makes sense. I feel safer knowing we have power and you can help protect me from marauders, but again, it's not the same thing. How do you avoid the dreams? the fear? the doubts? the regrets?" Alice took a moment to think of her response. She glanced at her father, seeing he was busy preparing some canned Spam. "Actually, I think it's the result of what Dad and I experienced," she admitted. "It developed an incredible level of trust, and that trust produces its own peace. We decided that as long as we have each other, that we can put aside everything else and just concentrate on each other. Plus, as I said, we drive out distractions through hard work, but our focus on each other seems to keep the fears at bay as well." "Well, I'll tell you, if you figure out how you did that, tell me, because I could stand to sleep peacefully for once. I haven't been able to sleep the night through since this whole thing started, and it's only gotten worse with each additional death." "Frankly, I had the same reaction, but not as bad. Whenever I got scared, I had my friends and family around me to support me." "And after they were gone?" Mattie asked, driving the point home. "Then I had my dad," she answered simply, picking up the juice and taking it to the table, effectively ending the discussion. Mattie wasn't sure that settled it for her, though. She'd have to watch these two. They had their own secrets, both things they kept from themselves, and those they didn't even realize they had. But whatever it was, it seemed to make their lives much simpler. And Mattie wanted that. She wanted her life to be simple for once, as it hadn't been for a long time. ------- After breakfast the trio began work on a variety of tasks. David set out several traps, hoping to capture any local animals left alive for treatment. Alice announced she was going to check the pond to see whether there were any fish left in it, while Mattie concentrated on feeding the rescued animals and watering the plants. Once the traps were set, David provided fertilizer for the new cuttings he'd taken from the farms they'd visited. As they were finishing, Alice returned clearly excited. "I found a couple of animals," she stated proudly. "I've got a sick duck. It looks like it flew in and then got too sick to fly out again. I've also got a turtle, but I can't tell if it was sick or not." "Technically it's not a duck, it's a coot," her father explained as he examined it. "It's smaller and not as widespread as the bigger ducks, like mallards." As she'd described, the poor thing didn't look very healthy, looking quite thin and having lost quite a few feathers. The turtle, once she set it down, eventually poked it's head out of its shell, but David also wasn't able to tell if it had been sick or not. "What should we do with the turtle?" Alice asked. "We should keep it here until we're sure it's healthy enough to survive on its own. Then we should free it in the hopes it can find a mate. For all we know, it might have a family hidden nearby. As for the coot, it may not be able to fly, but at least it can still serve as breeding stock if we find any more." "What about the fish you went looking for?" Mattie asked. "It doesn't look good," Alice replied. The lake is covered with dead fish. "I couldn't tell if there were any left or not, but it looks like a massive die off." "That's what I figured happened," David relayed. "Most of the dead fish are probably still under the surface, though, as it takes some time for them to decompose enough to float. The only way to find out if any survived is to try to catch some by either fishing or catching them with a net, but I'd rather wait so any survivors have had a chance to recover before I traumatize them any more. We'll have to use nets, extracting all the dead fish from the surface." "There's really not much left alive, is there?" Mattie asked, looking concerned now that she'd considered the problem for the first time. "No, there isn't. But actually, it looks like the animals around here have fared better than we have. That's why we're collecting them. I hope we can give them a slightly better chance of survival than they'd have if left to their own, though frankly, those left would probably survive if left alone. But at least they won't have to forage for food while they're recovering." "Are you going to name them?" Mattie asked Alice. "After all, you named the other animals." "I was thinking Dewey," Alice replied. "He may be a bit old for the name, but he's small, so it seems to fit. I couldn't burden him with a name like Daffy," she replied with a grin. "I would have picked Fillmore," Mattie said. "Fillmore?" David asked, intrigued. "Yeah, Fillmore Duck. It's from the cartoon series, Mallard Fillmore." "Ah, yeah, I think I remember him now. He's supposed to be a conservative reporter. I think his name was taken from Millard Fillmore, who was known as a member of the Know-Nothing movement," David said, smiling at the memory of simpler times. "Well, I'll keep that name as an option if we find any mallards," Alice offered, even though she knew that was unlikely to happen. "What about the turtle?" Mattie asked. "Well, seeing as how I've named the rest, how about you pick one?" Alice suggested. "How about Yertle?" "That's as good as anything I could have come up with, and I've always been a fan of Dr. Seuss. How about you put him in a pen by himself and feed him some lettuce?" "When you're done, I'll give you a quick lesson on how to fire both your rifle and your pistol. That way, whenever you have time, you can come out and practice until you feel comfortable with it." "That's a good idea. Alice already showed me how to clean and load it." "Good, that's the second most important part. After all, a dirty gun is a sure way to injure yourself, either from an accidental misfire or by getting shot when your gun doesn't fire," David explained. ------- "Alice, can I ask you something personal?" Mattie nervously asked as they finished clearing up one of the houses at the end of David's road—one of the ones near where Flora had lived—after Alice and David had removed the bodies and were helping Mattie carry the goods she'd found out to the cars. "Yeah, sure, go ahead. Right now we're about as close as you can get, so I'm not sure you can get 'too personal'." "I was wondering about you and your dad. Are you ... uh, are you sleeping together?" she said in a rush, trying to get the difficult question out before she died of embarrassment, hoping that Alice wouldn't be offended. Instead she laughed. "Heavens no," Alice assured her, not taking the question literally, but instead as it had been intended. "Although I learned more about my father's sexuality than I ever wanted to know before we got sick, we've got no desire to fool around." "Well, I'm sorry if I offended you, but I noticed that you spent the night in his room, and I was wondering..." "Yes, we did 'sleep together' last night, just as we have every night since we both recovered, but what you saw was a form of therapy rather than anything sexual. Before we got sick we started to sleep together as a group, cuddling together after the adults finished their 'business'. When we were ill we curled up together, probably sharing our illnesses, but it also built on our closeness and helped give us strength. "Now that we've recovered, we've kept that close physical connection, and since Dad isn't sexually involved with anyone, and doesn't really want to be at the moment, it isn't an issue. Dad and I both take time to 'take care of ourselves' in the bathroom before we go to bed, where we simply cuddle up. You should really try it, it's the best therapy you can buy now, and it's probably the only thing keeping me sane at this point. I know you're afraid of touching anyone at this point, but the close physical contact really helps." "Hmm, I'll have to consider it," Mattie responded, relieved there wasn't anything kinky going on that she had to be on guard against. She really hadn't wanted to consider leaving. "It would be nice having someone I can relate to like that, and not have to worry about it becoming sexual. My father and I were never all that close as he was a real 'man's man' and we never quite saw eye to eye. It would be great to develop it now, but it's a pretty big jump for me." "Just so you're warned, I'm not suggesting that sex doesn't make itself known," Alice told her. "Generally Dad gets erections during the night, so I try not to rub against him too much, and if he has a problem he just gets up and heads to the bathroom for anywhere from five to twenty minutes, then he's OK again for a while. It's not a perfect system, but it works for us. I'm sure it'll change if I can find a girlfriend for Dad, but I'll take advantage of it as long as I can." "You're looking for a girlfriend for your dad?" Mattie asked, confused by the very concept. "Absolutely," Alice said. "I got him and his previous girlfriend together. They'd never have done anything if I hadn't helped set it up. My dad's really a big geek, and if left to his own desires, he'd live all by himself and never talk to anyone. But he really needs someone in his life, and as soon as I can find someone for him, someone that will bring out the best in him, I'll gladly step aside. I worry about him. If he's left alone for too long, he tends to get obsessive. He needs someone to temper him, to distract and motivate him. He really needs women around him to make him more human." "Hmm, he seems human enough to me," Mattie said, contemplating him in a whole new light, but the discussion was interrupted as David entered the room, urging them to hurry it up as he had several things he still wanted to get done. ------- After they cleaned out the homes nearest David's house, they drove to the center of town to bury the dead they'd accumulated by the police station using the tractor the sheriff had left there. While David and Alice loaded the bodies, Mattie had raided the cabinets, throwing out any questionable food and loading anything useful into their car. She also checked out the rest of the houses for anything useful; finding several schoolbooks the children who used to live there had used. They weren't ones that either Alice or she would need, but they might be useful in the future or for someone else. David also turned off the electricity so it would be easier to switch the power on, turned the water off and made sure the burners for the heat and the stove were off. The last thing he needed was to restore power and cause the house to explode. When they arrived in town, David worked the tractor while Alice shifted the bodies to the edge of the truck's bed. "David?" Mattie asked, running up to him. "Yeah?" he asked, shutting the engine off so he could hear her. "Someone left you a message. I was looking around, and I noticed something written at the end of your note." That certainly got David's attention, so he climbed off the tractor and went to check it out. He found the following note where he'd told anyone stopping by to check the police station where he'd check by occasionally. David, Anxious to meet you. I've been looking for you for some time (assuming you're the David I've been looking for). I'll continue looking on my own, but I'll also check back here later today. Tom "Who do you think it is?" Alice asked. "Do you know anyone named Tom?" Mattie added. "I've got no clue, and I can't think of any Toms that would be looking for me." "Maybe it's someone who's been listening to the radio broadcasts?" Alice suggested. "Doubtful. We've never used my name on the air." "Speak for yourself. I always introduce the broadcast as 'Radio Scott'," Alice confessed. "Yeah, but as far as I know, you've never given my first name. No, this must be someone else, but I don't know who it might be." "Maybe he's looking for someone else?" Mattie suggested. "Then he's going to be disappointed, as we're the only ones remaining, or at least that's what we thought until now," David replied. "So what'll we do until he shows up?" Mattie asked. "We continue doing what we were doing. He said something about stopping by later, but it doesn't say what day or what time, so we'll have to assume it'll be late. We'll bury the bodies and clean up a bit more, but if he doesn't show up by then, we'll try later. I still wanted to do some other things today." So they returned to the now routine task of burying the bodies of people they hadn't even known. David dug a new pit, then Alice backed her dead truck up to it and they tossed in the bodies and accumulated animal carcasses, while Mattie busied herself cleaning up the remaining animals along the main street. David finished by dumping about a foot of cover on the bodies, but leaving the pit open, since he knew they'd be returning to bury more in the days to come. They each got busy after that trying to clean up the main business district, collecting the assorted small animal carcasses and leaving scattered plastic bags of them for when they returned. They made steady progress, each working a different area, but soon David noticed that the girls weren't keeping up. Looking back, he noticed Mattie cleaning up around the storefronts, but he couldn't see Alice. Wandering back, trying to locate her, he eventually saw her walking towards the woods surrounding the small park in the center of town. Being such a small community, the woods backed right up to the town proper, and this looked to be where Alice was heading. She wasn't moving directly there, however; instead she'd advance a few steps, stop and listen carefully before moving again, as if she was tracking something. David knew then that she hadn't learned her lesson the other day, and was doing the same thing. She'd apparently noticed someone who hadn't wanted to be noticed, maybe even the mysterious Tom trying to observe them, wanting to see if he actually knew them. But he also knew better than to yell at her. If she was tracking them down, then calling their attention to it would likely get her shot at again. So instead he tried to stealthily and quickly move to catch up with her. Just as he expected, he saw her duck into the woods beyond the park's clearing. Swearing to himself, he tried to catch up without attracting attention, which was difficult because the long grass, which hadn't been cut in some time, hid assorted sticks, pot holes and carcasses that would make noise if he stumbled over them, so he proceeded cautiously. Finally entered the woods, he stopped again to listen, trying to locate her. "Here boy, here boy," he heard from off to the left, although he couldn't see her. He had no idea what she'd found, though it sounded like she'd found a small child, maybe the child of one of the locals that had been hiding since the great die off. Thus he approached even more cautiously. Coming around some bushes, he entered an area where the large trees overhead, many of them now dead pine trees, let in more light but had kept the undergrowth under control, keeping the area clear. It was on a slope and was a bit rocky as well. There crouched Alice, holding her hand out. David couldn't tell who she was trying to communicate with, and he peered around the intervening trees carefully trying to see who it was, but he couldn't make them out. "It's all right. We're not going to hurt you," Alice said in a light sing-song, enticing voice. Again, David couldn't see who she was talking to, although he once again quietly moved closer. As he did, he caught a movement, causing him to freeze and refocus his eyes. There, standing part way up a slight incline stood a large dog, its dark brown color causing it to blend into its surroundings, obscuring it from his vision before. He wasn't sure of the breed, since he wasn't up on the different dog breeds, but he guessed it was either a very dirty golden, or possibly some breed of hunting dog. He swore to himself, angry that Alice had wandered off again, but even angrier that she'd unwittingly put herself at so much risk. Dogs, despite being faithful companions for so long, were carnivores, which meant they had no problem eating dead things if that was all that was available, and dogs were well known to love dead things even in the best of times. What's more, as the dogs he'd shot at Mattie's family's place a couple weeks ago demonstrated, once they got a taste of eating human flesh, dogs would begin to associate humans with food, likely turning on them if pushed. And clearly, a dog that thin and haggard looking looked like it had been pushed to extremes already. Thus the dog was likely both diseased and a threat. David moved several steps forward, trying not to frighten the dog, then knelt and drew his pistol, wishing he'd brought his rifle as the pistol would be unreliable at this distance. "It's OK boy, we're friendly," Alice continued to plead, but the animal was aware of David now, and was watching him as much as it did Alice. "Alice!" David hissed, trying to keep his volume and the timbre of his voice down so he wouldn't startle the animal. It was only then that she realized he was there, and turning to glance at him, saw him with his pistol ready. "Dad! Put that away," she insisted, keeping her own voice low and calm as she argued with him. "He's not threatening anyone. He's scared, alone and needs help." "He's turned feral and is thus a threat. There's no telling what he's eaten, or how many dead bodies he's chewed to survive," David answered back, watching the animal cock its head as it listened to them, edging to the side to keep well away from whatever he planned. He didn't know just how smart the animal was, but it was doing the right things, because it was putting several obstacles between them, preventing him from getting a clean shot at it. Not that he could expect to hit it from this distance anyway. "Nonsense," Alice answered. "Just look at him, would an animal eating dead carcasses be so scrawny? Anyway, you're scaring him. Go get some food so I can earn his trust." "It would if it was sick. How about if you go for the food while I keep him in my sights?" David stressed, not relaxing his guard. "No, you're scaring him, and I almost have him convinced. But I'll never get him to come down if you stay here. Trust me on this. I'll be fine." David could see she had a point, even if he didn't want to concede it. The dog looked like it hadn't eaten in some time, looking like it might just pass out where it stood. And while it was dirty and filthy, it didn't have the blank eyed look the recently sick typically had. As much as he disliked it, he had to make a decision; either fire in the air, scaring the dog away for good, or comply with Alice's wishes and leave her alone with an animal he didn't know or trust. Swearing to himself, he dropped his pistol and retreated. He continued backing away, never taking his eyes off of either of them until he got near the underbrush which had obscured them from sight before. At that point he finally turned, disappearing from sight, cursing his daughter for being a naïve trusting soul. Normally it was something he'd encourage, but in the frightening new world they found themselves in, he realized it could very well get her killed. Entering the overgrown clearing, David saw Mattie, cautiously watching him emerge from the woods. He was encouraged that she had her rifle with her, so she at least had enough sense to prepare herself. He jogged to her, stopping a short distance away, not wanting to get too far away in case his daughter might need him to intervene. "It's Alice," he told her anxiously. "She's found a dog, which she's trying to get to come to her, but I don't trust it. She wants some sort of treat, but I don't want to leave her alone." "Damn, I don't know what to get for a dog," Mattie responded. "We brought some canned goods to trade with, but we don't have any biscuits or balls it'd be interested in, and we can't very well give it an open can to eat from, because it'll cut itself and be exposed to the Death." Damn the two kids, they both had good points, even if he wasn't in the mood to encourage creative thinking at that moment. He jogged past her—assuming she'd know enough to not put herself in jeopardy while Alice was—and headed for the truck, which was a ways away. He was out of breath when he reached it, since it was only a short time since they'd recovered from near death and they hadn't gotten their stamina back yet. He fished through the few cans they'd brought along in case they needed to trade or give them away to make friends, but didn't see anything he could offer a dog. As Mattie had said, simply opening a can and letting a dog stick its snout and tongue in it was just asking for trouble, especially with the ever present fear of disease surrounding them. He finally decided on a can on peach slices in heavy syrup and one of Vienna sausages. The syrup would be wasted, obviously, but if they poured it out on the ground the dog could at least eat the fruit and get a little moisture as well. The sausages would be enticing, and could be used to draw the dog in closer. Grabbing a can opener, he struggled to open the two cans as he ran back. He jogged back to Mattie, now standing at the edge of the forest, and stopped to regain his breath before continuing. Trying to ease the strain on himself, he moved carefully, trying to avoid making any untoward noises, all the while listening carefully for any sounds of distress. Surely if Alice had encountered any trouble Mattie would either have done something, or warned him when he'd arrived, so he felt sure that she was safe, for the moment at least. Drawing near, he saw Alice now sitting, still trying to entice the reluctant dog. It looked like its resolve was weakening, but it remained leery, and when David approached, it ran back several yards, but still kept a wary eye on them both. Trying his best to ignore it, he walked to Alice, placing the two cans by her knee, and then retreated. This was her baby, she'd have to play it out as she saw fit. If she ran into trouble, she'd be the one to pay the fiddler, but he'd be nearby in case it happened. After her father disappeared, creating a huge ruckus in the silent woods, Alice turned back to the poor dog. After this much time, she could see it hadn't been loose for long, although it appeared to be without its owners for some time. She quietly got up and advanced on it a little, pouring the peaches where it could see them, then leaving a trail of Vienna sausages leading back to where she once more sat down to encourage the animal to trust her. The animal warily watched her the entire time, never quite trusting her, but not fleeing either. They were apparently both here to stick this out, whichever way it turned out. When Alice sat down, the dog watched to make sure no one else was moving, then began sniffing the air. The dog was a bitch, something that Alice had determined after watching it a while. The scent of the peaches, the syrup and the packaged meat was enough to attract her attention, and she began salivating at the mere thought of what was being offered her. Gradually, she began edging forward, ever watchful for any signs of deceit. She'd been tricked and betrayed enough recently. Moving forward, she started moving more assuredly the closer she approached, until she reached the peaches at the base of the rise. Sniffing them, she tried one, trying to detect any sign of sickness in them. Finding none, and relishing the taste, she wolfed down the rest, trying to lick up any of the remaining syrup. While that was delicious, and certainly made her want more as it had been a long time since she'd trusted herself to eat anything, she remained cautious. The mysterious girl wasn't threatening her, and the first of the tiny sausages was only a short distance from where she was now. Taking a few hesitant steps more she sniffed the first one, quickly grabbing it. Hardly taking the time to chew, she swallowed it and knew just that little bit would allow her to continue for at least a few more days. But there were more yet waiting for her. The pull was too much and she couldn't resist. She advanced to the next one, then the next, and the one after that. Finally she was eyeing the girl, who held several in one hand while holding one out for her in the other. The girl certainly looked honest, and didn't appear to be threatening, but that's how Bonita had thought of her owners before they'd left her tied up in the back yard to slowly die of starvation. However, she ignored her trepidation and decided to risk trusting humans again, advancing far enough to sniff the girl's hand. When the girl didn't jerk the treat back she gingerly picked it out of her hand, backing up a couple steps to wolf it down again. Since her stomach had shrunk so much recently, she'd already had more than enough to keep her for a couple of days, but she knew how rare this was, and how she couldn't trust any other food source she might encounter, so she risked advancing again. She took the next treat the girl offered, and this time she didn't pull back after she ate it, waiting for the girl to offer the next. While she supplied another, Alice reached up and took hold of the dirty collar she still wore, simply holding her lightly as she fed her more. When Bonita had eaten all there was, Alice simply held her empty hand out to her as if offering proof she had no more, but by then Bonita was hooked. When the girl showed her the can, she sniffed it and tried to lick the remains of the sausages, but that was more for effect than anything else. Alice and the dog exited the woods a few minutes later, the dog patiently walking beside Alice who held its well-worn collar. Seeing her father and Mattie, Alice called out. "It's OK. She trusts me now, but approach slowly as she doesn't know either of you yet." "Are you sure she's safe?" David asked, remaining skeptical. "Yeah, she apparently chewed through her restraints, which must have taken a while. She's also torn her collar up, so she probably struggled with it for a while. I don't think she'd been sick, but obviously her owners died while she was tied outside. When she escaped, I'm guessing she avoided anything that smelled like it might be infected, or maybe she just avoided the smell of death. It doesn't look like she's eaten anything for a long time." Alice held the dog as Mattie slowly approached it, and the animal flinched slightly as she reached out to pet it. Finding no threatening actions, she let herself be petted, glad she'd finally found some humans she could trust once again. "You realize just how lucky you are it didn't attack you?" David grilled his daughter, venting some of his frustration. "It could easily have been either infected or vicious, and it was clearly desperate in either case. What's more, you didn't know if there was anyone or anything else nearby." "Yeah, I realize all of that, but when I recognized there was something watching us, I couldn't ignore it. I figured if I approached it slowly that she wouldn't be scared, and that approach worked. She didn't run, and she eventually trusted me enough to approach on her own." "Where are we supposed to keep her?" David asked. "We can't put her in the dead truck if she hasn't already been exposed, and I don't like the idea of keeping her in the cab with either you or Mattie." "I'll keep her with me, since she doesn't trust the two of you yet. She should be fine. I think she's too exhausted to cause any trouble. Maybe we should stop by the library and see if we can find anything on training dogs. It seems to me we'd better train her so we can keep her from doing anything that might get her in trouble." "Yeah, we can do that. I think it's time we headed out anyway. Come on, Mattie; help me pick up all these plastic bags. Obviously Alice has her hands full." "What are you going to name her?" Mattie asked, more concerned with such a trivial detail rather than David instructions. "I'm thinking I'll call her Lassie. She's the wrong kind of dog, but I'm hoping she can help us, and she's female like Lassie was." "Actually, Lassie was usually played by male dogs," David informed them, even though that factoid didn't weigh much on their current mindsets. "That makes sense," Mattie replied, ignoring the adult voice of reason. "Have you tried calling her that yet?" "Not yet, I figure I'll start using it slowly, with things she can clearly associate it with," Alice explained. "Hey, this is wonderful news, but we've got a lot of other things to do yet," David insisted, trying to hurry them along. "Let's get a move on so we can get out of here." "What about the guy we're waiting for?" Mattie asked. "We can't wait all day for him, and if he hasn't showed up yet, we'll try to catch him later. I'll leave him a note telling him we'll be back at ten in the morning. Hopefully that's specific enough he can figure out how long to wait even if he doesn't have a watch. But I wanted to check out more of the surrounding towns to see if there are any more signs of life." So they headed off, a father and a little girl, picking up bags of dead animal carcasses, while an older girl walked behind them with a cautious but accepting dog she didn't know following behind them, each heading into the great unknown, trusting the others to be there for them. ------- They got situated in the two vehicles and took off to investigate the other nearby communities, so Alice took Lassie, and David took Mattie while they remained in contact via radios. David had left the note he'd promised, but he really didn't want to waste the whole day waiting for someone who might never show up. They headed off in a new direction, heading northwest of the town along a small two lane road. As expected, there were several obstructions, both dead bodies and abandoned cars, but usually they could just drive around them, crossing over the shoulder to avoid the obstructions. They also had to stop frequently to load another carcass into Alice's dead truck. Traveling quite a ways and seeing no signs of anyone else, and no signs of human habitation, they come up on yet another town, Riverdale, noticing an obstruction across the road. Completely blocking the roadway were two cars, standing end to end. In front of the cars were a pile of human bodies, tossed haphazardly as a potential warning to anyone coming upon the scene. There was also a crudely painted sign leaning against the abandoned cars blocking the road that read "No Admittance. Keep your sickness to yourself!" David had no idea if the bodies in the pile had died from the Great Death, or whether some had been killed by the people who'd set up the roadblock, but David wasn't about to let someone block public access for their personal benefit. He hadn't stood for it when individuals where holding people up, and he wouldn't do it for anyone trying to protect themselves from exposure either. There was too much depending on people's free transit. Seeing no one nearby, but being cognizant of the likelihood of their being observed, David pulled to a stop and motioned Alice up to join them. "I'm going to remove the obstruction and clean up the bodies for them. Hopefully they'll forgive our meddling if they see we're willing to help them by removing their dead for them. If they're hoping to avoid illness, they certainly won't accomplish it by leaving that much death lying just outside their door." "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Mattie asked worriedly, even though Alice simply accepted what he suggested without question. She knew him well enough to know how he thought. "I mean, they might try to stop us," Mattie pressed. "The idea that anyone can obstruct the free passage of individuals trying to survive is a bad idea. If these people want to isolate themselves, then they're free to do that. But they can do that by staying indoors in their own refuge. They can't do it be restricting the freedom and movement of other people trying to survive. Moving this obstruction is a message I want to establish. I don't mind people wanting to be left alone, but I want to allow people to do whatever they need to survive. "However, we do run the risk of an armed conflict, so you'll have to watch and guard us with your rifle, Mattie. We'll leave our rifles nearby and keep our pistols handy, but hopefully we can get it cleaned up and moved aside before they're even aware we're here." "Yeah, like driving up in a couple of big trucks when there's no other noise around, and spending hours moving bodies and abandoned cars around isn't likely to attract attention," Mattie replied, even as she grabbed her guns and staked out a decent defensive position. As they got busy, with Alice backing her truck up to make the loading of bodies easier, David reconsidered how he'd chosen to prepare for this trip. Clearly next time he was going to carry both the body armor and the headsets they'd recovered from the armory after it had been attacked by survivalists. They'd have been sensible in this instance. David had no idea if this was the work of a single person, a couple or even a whole community, but he didn't like the idea of people taking pot shots at them. He'd chosen to travel light because he figured the likelihood of encountering anyone was pretty remote, but that clearly wasn't the case. They'd traveled a good distance, and there were survivors around. How many they didn't know yet, and it didn't look like anyone was going to make taking a census an easy task. David and Alice worked quickly so they wouldn't remain sitting ducks while doing so for long. Alice had left Lassie in her car, afraid she might not know to leave the bodies alone or how she'd respond to other people. Whether she chose to chase or avoid them, either one could be a bad choice considering how things occurred, and not knowing how she'd respond could make a bad situation even worse. It took a while, but they finally got the last of the bodies stowed. David then turned to the next task at hand. "Alice, make sure the brakes are released on those cars. I'll try pushing them aside with my truck." "Forget that," Alice countered. "It'll be easier if we simply push the cars out of the way. That's how it looks like they did it in the first place, and it won't risk damaging your car. It shouldn't take us much to move it, and you can guard us while Mattie and I try to move them." "There's no way the two of you are strong enough to manage those cars. I'll have to help you. Mattie, you've got guard duty again. Keep an eye on our surroundings," he said as he led the way to the two cars. As expected, both cars were pock marked with multiple meteoroid inflicted punctures. But while he was sure the gas tanks had been drained, the tires were inflated, and the cars weren't damaged enough to prevent them from manually moving them. Between the two of them, they soon got the one car rolling onto the road's shoulder, and once they'd cleared that one, they did the same to the other one. Having accomplished that, David grabbed the notepad he always carried with him and wrote a quick note, which he stuck in the side window of the car where anyone trying to move it would immediately notice it. We can't allow you to block public passage, and this is a point we're willing to defend with arms if necessary. If you want to avoid sickness, then avoid people, but don't obstruct their free movement. Below that, as an addendum, he added the following: We're trying to reach people in need, offering to trade food or other resources. If you want to be left alone, that's fine. But if you need anything, either meet us this evening or leave a note and we'll see if we can help. David P.S. We broadcast daily messages over the radio if you want to know what we stand for and that we mean you no harm. If you have working radios, listen to channel 100.0 tonight at 10pm. With that out of the way, they climbed back in their vehicles and moved past the obstructions; David remaining nervous about someone taking a shot at them as they passed. "That was pretty brave, but maybe just a little stupid," Mattie suggested once they were on their way again. "Maybe, but it was necessary. Someone needs to make sure that people act sensibly, and if anyone stands in the way of anyone else's survival, then it's something we can't allow to stand," David told her. "I'm not saying it's not important," Mattie argued, "but I'm just asking what you would have done if someone had taken a shot at us?" She was actually more interested in what to expect than in David's actions, since she was sure the situation was bound to come up, even if it hadn't this time. "I would have tried talking to them," he insisted. "And if that didn't work, I would have defended us. If they injured one of us, I'd either get us out of here, or I'd make them sorry they made a nuisance of themselves. That's another thing we can't stand for, is people hurting others for their own benefit. There are too few people to allow anyone to wantonly kill others. We've already killed several people who felt that basic human morality no longer applied to them, and I'm not afraid to teach someone that lesson again," he answered with a note of finality. That was all that Mattie had really wanted, simply a clarification on how they were supposed to handle situations. She wanted to know whether she was expected to kill an opponent as soon as he appeared, when he fired the first shot, or whether she was supposed to reason with him first. While his answer wasn't clear, it at least told her his intent, and that was enough for the moment. She spent the rest of the trip steeling herself for when she'd have to take a life on her own, since she realized it was no longer a remote possibility. Driving further, they again observed no signs of life, neither living individuals, animal life nor even any signs of human activity. However, that soon changed when they passed a neighborhood complex that had four bodies hanging from trees by the gate to the complex. It was a grisly sight, as the bodies were long dead, both shriveled and with body parts having fallen off, their skin blackened and graying by exposure to the elements. Since the insect and bird populations had been so decimated, bodies didn't decay as rapidly as they usually did, so these looked almost petrified. Not even mold seemed to grow on them. Chances are the bits that had fallen off had been struck by falling limbs rather than simply rotting off. David figured that was a good time to turn around. He didn't think it represented a particular threat to them. After all, they had no idea if the people who'd strung the people up were still alive or not, but he realized their trip was taking them too far out of their way, and if they hoped to connect with their mysterious stranger, they needed to be getting back. "That's pretty disgusting," Mattie observed as David performed a slow three point U-turn, and then waited while Alice did the same after he'd finished. "We did something similar ourselves," he informed her. "The sheriff deputized me, authorizing me to act with the full authority of the police, complete with badge and everything. We went out trying to see what trouble people were getting up to when we ran into a group stopping people with a roadblock they'd set up at a bridge. It turns out they were killing the men, robbing everyone, then raping the women. We killed them all, then I set their heads up on spikes I'd carried with me for just that purpose, both facing incoming and outgoing traffic across the bridge as a warning to others. It's a messy way to convey a message, but it's a necessary message to get across. It basically says that we won't put up with lawlessness just because the social fabric has shredded, and that the people who live here are willing to enforce society's laws on their own if they need to." "Yeah, I got that message," she assured him. "Though it doesn't exactly encourage anyone to stick around and discuss the topic," she added, looking back at the dangling bodies as they drove away. David considered it strange that she'd find those three bodies so disturbing when she hadn't batted an eyelash over the many dead bodies they'd handled over the course of the day. But then, he figured these represented people that someone had killed, as opposed to those who'd simply died, and that it thus represented a new level of reality for her. They got back late, late enough that they missed the six o'clock broadcast that evening. They'd stopped at the previous roadblock, but didn't see any clear sign of his messages acceptance or rejection, so he left a couple of cans of food simply as a sign of good will before continuing on. When they reached their own town square, there was no sign of the mysterious Tom. There was also no additional notes on the door of the police station, so after glancing around and burying their new load of dead bodies, they returned home, not sure whether they were disappointed or relieved to have not met anyone that day. Reaching home, Alice ran inside to perform a late 7:30 broadcast. She'd walked Lassie while they'd buried the bodies. Mattie watered and fed the animals while David emptied the vehicles of everything they'd picked up during the day, with David noticing they'd never stopped by the library, something he planned to rectify the next day. ------- "Mattie was worried about our sleeping together," Alice told her father as they cuddled together in bed that night after they'd settle down for the evening. "She was afraid it was sexual." "Yeah, I was afraid she'd pick up on that," he complained. "I'd been meaning to tackle the topic, but I just couldn't quite think of an opening. So far she's been pretty reserved and hasn't really opened up to either of us yet." "Well, she's been through a lot, and just like you, she's chosen to shut down her emotions rather than risk getting hurt that badly again. She'll come around eventually, just like you will, but it's going to take time. But I told her that what we shared wasn't sexual, going as far as describing how we avoided any unpleasantries, so I think she'll come to accept it, but it may take some time." "You know, for someone so young, you've certainly become quite mature." Alice merely looked at her father like he was a dufus who'd missed the past several weeks. "A lot has changed, and we've all been forced to grow up rapidly," she informed him. "Even Mattie is quite mature for her age. She had no problem with the idea of defending us, and she took to that firing range like it had been a life's dream for her. I think she's well aware of what's going to be required of her, despite her years." "Yeah, I got that message long ago when you girls started stating your independence by getting in our face about what we were doing sexually," he responded, remembering events of only a short time ago that now felt like the 'good old days', despite being only a few weeks past. "That was necessary," Alice informed him. "You were ready to keep us as we were, as the innocent naïve young girls we'd been. It seemed the easiest way of getting through to you, and you've got to admit, you were pretty hard to ignore." "Us?" David protested. "At least we didn't camp outside of your bedroom listening in to whatever happened inside." "No, but the chemistry was clear between each of you, and we wanted to show that we wanted to be considered equals, even if we weren't ready for sex ourselves. Though I feel bad for all my friends. They all died without ever having become women." "Each of your friends were very capable and mature women. Having sex isn't what defines a person; it's simply a footnote in your life. A footnote that you can easily move forwards or backwards in your life, but it ultimately doesn't matter as to who you are as a person. I like to think they knew they were loved and protected, if not by their families then at least by us. I hope that was enough for them," he answered as an awkward silence descended over them, as each contemplated one more time what each had lost in such a short amount of time. ------- Chapter 04: Another New Face or Two "This is Radio Scott again, signing on a bit late today since we no longer have the support staff we once did. We had an interesting time exploring today, making new discoveries and finding new signs of life. We discovered several new animals including a coot, a smaller duck if you're unfamiliar with them, a turtle and a fully grown dog that hadn't yet turned aggressive or suffered a major bout of sickness. Whether the dog can continue to avoid it will remain to be seen, but I'm hoping that the death of so many of his species will actually improve his odds. Which brings up an interesting point, while we were busy playing Noah, trying to find at least two of each species to help propagate the planet, it leaves certain questions remaining. While we're fighting against a massive extinction event for hundreds if not thousands of species, we potentially have a wonderful opportunity in hand to enrich the future genetic stock. I'm talking zoos. I imagine they've been left abandoned, and chances are most of the animals have already died, but if they haven't, they provide a wonderful opportunity for us. The idea is that numbers mean everything now. A species with a lot of members stands a higher risk of dying out, while an even higher number can mean their eventual survival. In the case of these exotic species, I'm sure their relatives back in their homelands are gone by now. I can't picture tigers being prevalent enough in the wild to survive this blight, though they're probably just numerous enough to acquire the disease, especially since they're carnivorous and live killing weaker or sick animals. However, in America they remain exotic enough that the disease variants that affect their species at home won't have a chance to reach here. Thus we may find that most of the animals in zoos, assuming they survive starvation, may escape with nary a cough. Now I'm not suggesting anyone go out and set these wild animals loose on the public. Instead I'm asking if there's anyone nearby an existing zoo, if they can't stop by and give the animals at least a fighting chance? Just tossing them some leftover food would help, and it would make repopulating the world with enough genetic diversity much more likely. We're already facing a world without any carnivores, and with only a sprinkling of omnivores. Such a scenario doesn't sound promising for our long term survival as an established ecosystem. So if you can, adopt a zoo, even if it's just a little bit at a time. Any animals you help survive may make repopulating their homelands a reality after this disaster passes. Now on to other news: we've noticed that people are not being very helpful towards each other. We've seen threats, blockades and signs of fights throughout our travels, and it needs to stop. We can't survive if that means that everyone around you has to perish. There is no reason to block public access roads, restricting survivors from reaching whatever resources they need to survive. As my father says, if you want to avoid other people, that's fine. That's what your refuges and homes are for. But you can't restrict others from doing what's necessary to survive. That's just criminal, and if we encounter it, we'll fight it with whatever it takes. That said, we'll reiterate that we won't stand for anyone trying to kill other people. If you encounter anyone that's purposely killed other survivors for their own benefit, or who attempts to harm other survivors, those people must be put down immediately. We're too weak now to allow criminals to whittle down those lucky enough to survive. We need the strong to rise, not those too lazy to work, only trying to steal what others have struggled to achieve. Anyway, although this seems like contradictory advice, you'll need to plan out your actions. Simple decisions affect not only your survival, but everyone else's as well. We need to get everyone working together, even if they don't interact with each other. But harming each other, or making their lives that much harder, are simply not valid options. Sorry for getting so worked up about these elements. Tomorrow I'll try to relate some more ideas about long term survival and what you'll need to know to get your plumbing, septic and heat to work in time for this winter. It ain't going to be easy folks, which is why you need to start planning for it now." ------- "It's certainly a surprise seeing you two up before me this morning," David announced by way of greeting as he descended the stairs to find the two girls working on breakfast. "Lassie woke me, needing to pee," Alice explained, "so I've already gotten some exercise." "And I got up when Alice and Lassie did," Mattie said. "I started the coffee and breakfast while they were out." "I hope someone remembered to tell you how I like it," David commented when she handed him a coffee as he looked at it skeptically. But he smiled, thanking her after taking a sip. "Good job, mate, welcome to the team." Mattie smiled at that simple rejoinder and hurried to finish the toast. Although David had the foresight to freeze several loafs of bread when the disaster had first struck, they had stopped shopping when the Great Deaths first appeared, and now their bread supplies were running low. David realized he'd need to learn to bake his own bread, and he'd have to do it from unprocessed grain instead of using packaged supplies. They could always rely on bread machines for a while, but it wasn't a very long term option. He wasn't sure he was up to that challenge quite yet. He decided they needed to visit the library like they'd planned that day. "So how is Lassie behaving?" he asked. "It's odd, she's wonderful and follows me everywhere. In case you didn't notice, she slept beside us all night long. But she's funny about a lot of things. She won't taste anything without sniffing it, and she won't eat anything she hasn't experienced before. And since we don't have any dog food, it's interesting trying to get her to eat anything. I ended up mixing the various animal chows, figuring she'd eat whichever she found to her liking." "I guess that's my fault," David admitted. "When I was picking up the supplies and trying to fit them into our limited space, I never considered the likelihood that we'd adopt a dog. I kind of figured they'd end up killing themselves eating every stinky thing they found lying beside the road." "But that's just it; Lassie doesn't do any such thing. Not only won't she eat it, she also won't lick anything she doesn't like the smell of. What's more, she won't even go near the burial site. She seems to know what's there and simply won't cross over it. Instead she'll run all the way around it in order to avoid crossing it." "Hm, that is interesting. Maybe the diseases and pathogens have some unique smell? Or maybe the organs give off a certain scent when they fail that she can identify? That would explain both why she never ate the wrong things and why she's been able to survive for so long." "As I said, she tore off her leash, but I checked after I gave her a bath yesterday, which she appreciated, by the way, and I found the remains of a name tag. Apparently her name began with 'Bon'." "Maybe her name was 'Bon-Bon'," Mattie suggested with a smile. "God, I hope not," Alice replied, rolling her eyes. Alice took after her father too much, and like him preferred workings dogs that were able to do things, rather than cute animals that one carried around with them. Mattie immediately glanced at David, trying to gage how he reacted to Alice's language, but seeing how he didn't react, she relaxed, not worrying about it quite as much. "So what plans do we have for the day?" Mattie asked. "Another trip along a different road?" "Not today," David answered. "Today we're supposed to meet Tom, whoever he is, at ten o'clock. We'll visit the library beforehand in order to kill time, but I suspect he'll show up early. That is, if he even saw our message yesterday." "Man, it's going to be strange meeting someone who's not trying to shoot us," Alice idly commented. "Hey, I never planned to shoot," Mattie objected. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't trying to steal my stuff." "I hadn't really meant you, but you're right, I was wrong about that," Alice replied, holding her hands up in surrender as she smiled at her younger companion. "You'd better keep your hands up," Mattie warned. "I'm getting better with both guns, and I plan on getting good enough to be able to hold my own in a firefight." "Don't speak too soon," Alice told her. "I'd only had a handful of lessons before I ended up in my first gunfight, and I ended up getting shot too." "Really?" Mattie asked, her eyes growing large. "She did, but only because someone surprised her. She and her friend both killed someone, saving my life earlier, and we were hunting a whole group of survivalists hidden in an armory equipped with the very best weapons. I was lucky to have her there." "Wow! Now I'm really going to practice. If she can get shot, even knowing as much as she does, then I'm going to have to be twice as good if I'm going to keep up as small as I am. It's hard to aim when you're shorter than everyone else is." "Don't worry, you'll get better, and I'm sure you'll get some experience under your belt before long, as well," he said as he jostled her hair in a jocular fashion. She was already growing on him, and David was already beginning to think of her as his own kid. Beginning to, at least, they weren't quite there yet. ------- "I'm really surprised this Tom wasn't waiting for us," David said entering the local library. They'd arrived early, since the girls had gotten up and organized so soon, so maybe it was understandable, but David figured if someone had been looking for him for that long, that they'd wait around to avoid missing a potential opportunity. Again, it was hard working out how people thought in this new environment. To both Alice and David, it made sense to connect with others who could help you survive in the long run, but everyone else seemed to be more concerned with short term goals—like staying alive. "That's what you get when we arrive just after dawn," Mattie told them looking around at all the books. Despite the sun's being up and the many windows, the place was still dark inside. When they'd arrived they'd found it locked up tight. David had been prepared to break in when Alice noticed a side door already broken in, so they entered via that route. Mattie flicked on one of the several flashlights they'd brought with them. "Remember, we're looking for specific information," David told them. "Mattie, look up any school books appropriate to your current school year. Alice, after you look up your dog training book, I want you to check schoolbooks as well. I'll be looking for both science and farming books. But any Do-It-Yourself book would be helpful. We need to learn how to do everything we've had done for us in the past." "Got it, Chief," Alice said, saluting him before the two girls took off, running between the stacks, laughing as they went. Apparently libraries still held good memories for them, and being back in one let them feel like children again, even if they hadn't been children since the asteroid storm first struck the Earth weeks ago. David tried looking for books on weaving, bread making, plumbing and handmade electric generators, but found the available references in short supply. Apparently someone had already been there and had already grabbed the best titles, leaving nothing but duplicate copies. David assumed they must have struck before everyone had died off, proving that other people had been planning ahead of even him. Still, the few books he managed to find would be useful, even if it left gaps in their knowledge. But even knowledge with specific gaps was better than not knowing at all. After looking through the Do-It-Yourself sections, David moved over to the science section, picking up whatever looked like it could be used for educational purposes, then shifted over to the math section. Despite his own math background, he considered teaching math and sciences more important than ever now that they'd lost most of what they once had. If they hoped to preserve that knowledge, they'd have to train the next generation, and instill in them just how important the principles were, even if they couldn't apply them for many more decades, or possibly even centuries. After that he visited the education section, which the girls had already abandoned, and picked up several books he thought they'd be able to use in the future. He also found a couple of volumes on the topics he'd missed before concerning plumbing, electricity and construction. His stack of books was already becoming quite large, so he started moving stacks of books near the door to carry out when they left. He met the girls there, as they were carrying a variety of fiction works to the cars, preparing for many future nights reading. Though they had the benefit of electricity that many others didn't, that didn't mean it would last indefinitely, and Alice and David hadn't relied on their electronics for entertainments much since disaster had struck. Instead they'd spent much of their time talking, or simply doing busy work. Alice had also collected several books on broadcasting and radio technology, which David thought was a good idea. "OK, that's a good start. We'll have to try again when we have a better idea of what we need, but we'd better leave if we want to get to the meeting early," David told the girls. Nodding, they all carried their latest books to the cars. ------- Arriving at the police station, they saw someone sitting on the step, and a white van parked nearby. The guy looked to be in his late twenties or mid-thirties, long scraggly hair and bore several days' worth of beard. Curious, David parked and cautioned the girls before getting out. Walking up, he broached the conversation first. "Tom?" "David?" he asked in return, standing up as well. "Excuse me, but how do we know each other?" "Oh, you don't know me at all," Tom assured him. "I was told about you from someone associated with the local hospital. I worked at a university near DC, but lost my job when all the power went out. They restricted access to the power, but when they ran the generators dry they simply closed up shop. I wanted to research what was happening, but without a reliable power supply, I couldn't do much. I came out to be near my family, but couldn't find them when I got here. I'm Tom Landers, by the way, though I'm not sure what meaning last names will have in this new world, seeing as how no one knows my family anymore." "Glad to meet you, excuse me if I don't shake your hand, but that may be yet another casualty of our new reality," David responded. "This is my daughter Alice and someone we just met named Mattie." "Oh, you both survived the plagues?" Tom asked with unconcealed excitement. "We not only survived it, we survived all four variations we were aware of. We drifted in and out of consciousness for days; sure we were both moments from death the entire time. It was rough, but we're pretty sure we're safe from contracting it again, and we're also confident we can't spread it anymore as well." "Oh, great. I learned about you when someone mentioned that you had someone here who'd survived the plague. You mentioned he was available for testing if anyone could make it up to collect his samples." "Oh, that was Billy. Yeah, he survived one plague, but then died from a different strain only a few days later. Alice and I got sick at the same time along with the last people remaining here, and we each had a separate strain. Figuring it was too late to avoid it, we took to bed together and held each other as each one passed. Both Alice and I were sure the other had died and we each waited to pass away as well, but were surprised when we both survived." "That's even better than I was planning," he told them. "I set out as soon as I heard about this other fellow, but no one knew quite where you lived. They told me what station to listen to your broadcasts on, and they knew what town you lived in because they knew someone who'd lived here, but she never gave them a specific address or directions." "Yeah, that was Ma. She was the wife of the person who taught us how to communicate using ham radios," David explained, wondering what this supposed researcher was hoping to achieve. "I loaded all my stuff—I managed to grab a lot of equipment from the university when I left—and I drove up here, but didn't know where to look for you. They'd mentioned you lived by the mountains, so I started driving down all the outlying roads. But then I got sick. Like you, I was sure I was going to die. Not wanting to spoil the expensive tools I brought with me, I set up by the side of the road in a tent. I was sick for days but I think I only had a single strain, since I was well aware of what was going on the entire time, and I knew when the symptoms finally eased off." "Yeah, in our case we knew when one disease eased up, but then we'd get hit with a different strain, and then another one after that," Alice explained, including herself in the discussion. "When I recovered it took me a while to regain my strength, and then I set about finding you again," Tom continued, not letting Alice sidetrack his discussion. David had a feeling he was pretty single focused, tending to ignore anything that didn't concern what he was currently dealing with. "But by then there wasn't anyone left alive to ask where you lived. I've been searching for you ever since." "So what kind of equipment did you bring with you?" David asked, interested in moving the conversation along. "I've got a bunch of stuff. Microscopes, blood filters, plasma separators. I even have a DNA sequencer. I had to borrow a friend's van after he got sick, but I managed to carry most of it. They told me that you had a reliable 24/7 power supply." "Wow, you've got a whole lab here. Yeah, we've got a wind turbine set up on the side of a nearby mountain. It kept us from being exposed as well. It didn't stop the diseases, but it allowed us to avoid it as long as possible," David explained. "So do you think you may be able to isolate what it is that allowed us to survive?" "Possibly. I'm encouraged that you both survived, as that reinforces the notion that you survived because of your shared DNA. I've got most of what I need, but if the diseases are virus based, they'll have infected everyone's DNA, meaning I'd need an electron microscope, and there's no way I could carry that out of the university. If we need too, we can always travel there and try to get the lab working long enough for me to examine some samples, but that would be a final step." "Yeah, yeah, but the important thing is, do you think you could isolate what kept us alive?" "I'm hoping to. That's what I came up for. I'm hoping I can discover a treatment for this, hopefully becoming known as the person to cure this disease." "We've taken to calling it the 'Great Death', since there's no single disease but a whole variety. We thought the term better described what everyone was facing." "Yeah, I listened to your broadcasts. Unfortunately I never stopped to consider bringing any signal based tools, otherwise I could have triangulated your signal. But I heard your descriptions of the diseases, as well as your ideas about what caused it. I must say, you had the best explanation I've heard, and you sounded like the first person to describe just what was happening." "So, is it just you?" David asked, even though he knew it was a stupid question. "No, actually I've got my dog, John-John. He's a Jack Russell terrier. I left him in the van so he wouldn't annoy you. I knew this meeting was going to be important." "That's interesting. We just found another dog, so if you're particular about the pure-breed status of any pups, you might want to keep them separated. At least until we determine whether there are any other dogs. But I'm assuming most dogs died off based upon their habits of eating or rolling in anything they encounter." "Not John-John," Tom laughed. "He's a real psychotic. He's got ADD, attention deficit disorder, and some compulsive disorders. He's paranoid and refuses to touch anything I haven't personally cleaned for him. He's a pain in the ass, but he was with me the entire time I was sick, so now I feel like I owe him my life." "Yeah, we know the feeling," Alice replied. "Dad and I are closer than we've ever been since we recovered. We were there for each other before, during and after our illness, and there really isn't anything that's quite as personal as that." "So what about food?" David asked. "Have you and John-John had enough to eat lately?" "Not really. I've been scrounging for whatever I could find, venturing into abandoned houses, but I've been afraid to touch anything with dead bodies in the house, so I haven't been able to collect much. Frankly, I'd love to eat a solid meal again." "I figured that might be the case. We brought a picnic basket, but it looks like we should return home to get your stuff safely stowed away where you can use it." "That'd be great. I really appreciate this. The people at the hospital had nothing but wonderful things to say about you." "That's all based on what Bobby and Ma told them, as I never talked to anyone there." "Yeah, they said you were pretty understated, but that you really came through for those that depend on you. That means a lot based on what we've been through." "Well, let's get on the road. The sooner we get going, the sooner you can eat. You don't have a problem with handling dead bodies, do you?" David asked after considering it for a while. "Not if it's necessary I guess, though John-John won't get near any such thing," he teased. "Good, we shouldn't have a problem then. As I'm sure you've noticed, there are dead all over, and they'll eventually have to be cleaned up, and since there's no one else to do it, that job falls on us. Come on, let's get you on the road," David said as they headed back to their car after Mattie handed him the lunch bag they'd prepare for him. ------- "Wow, this place is incredible!" Tom stated, twirling in place looking at the layout of David's house." "Come on, it's not that big or that fancy," David said, starting to get tired of everyone treating it as it were the Taj Mahal. "No, I mean, it's so protected, it opens up inside so you don't know what's here from outside, and there are so many working things," Tom gasped. "I know," Mattie said, joining in with his reaction. "Not only does he have lights and music, they can repower all their portable devices, they've got video, movies, and even have a working washing machine, dryer and dish washer!" That was what got David to stop protesting. They weren't talking about how big or fancy his little hide-away was, they were shocked at how little it had been damaged, and in Tom's case, how protected it was against outside invaders. Times had certainly changed. "So where are we going to put your lab equipment?" David asked. "We have that little shack outside we can fix up." "Heavens, no," Tom responded, sounding mildly outraged by the very idea. "It's open to the environment; I need a climate controlled area. What's in that far room?" "That's where we have all our radios to communicate with the outside world, as well as the broadcast booth to air the radio program." "Then I guess I'll have to set up here," Tom announced. "Here, but this is our living room. This is where..." David had been about to say where they all spent their time playing games and listening to the radio, but he realized the people he'd done that with were gone. Now, with only four of them, there wasn't really the need for a large open area anymore. "All right, but try to leave part of it open for the rest of us, if you can," he suggested. "Great, I'll get started right away," Tom announced, as John-John nosed around, closely examining everything but not willing to touch anything. Alice tried to pet him, but he didn't want any part of it and kept his distance. "Uh, I hate to ask this, but is there enough power for all of this?" Mattie asked. "I mean, I know you have your own power, but I didn't think a single turbine provided that much energy on its own." "Ah, but that's the beauty of this system," David replied, taking obvious delight in bragging about the system he partially designed. "I use a large set of storage batteries, to protect against periods with no wind. Thus if he uses more power than we've got, he just drains the battery, and when he shuts it down for the night, it replenishes itself. Even if he runs it 24-7, it'll drain the battery, but unless he runs it continuously for weeks, we should be fine. It's also not your typical domestic turbine. I managed to land one of those industrial units they use for wind farms that generate a lot more energy than a normal household could use." "OK, as long as I don't miss being able to listen to my music," Mattie teased. "By the way," Tom said, jumping back to their previous conversation. "I noticed the girls carrying in a bunch of books. I don't know what you have available, but I visited your library about a week ago and grabbed a bunch of stuff I thought may be useful. I just wish I'd thought to have raided the university library, but there were still a lot of people there at the time, and frankly, it simply hadn't occurred to me." "I was wondering who had broken in. We finally got around to it this morning and I found many of the books I wanted gone. I'm glad they weren't lost." "No, they weren't, but frankly, the little library here wasn't really stocked with much. We should try a few in the larger cities around here before something happens to them. We'll need a lot more science, math, applied physics, chemistry and engineering books." "Whoa, hold on there. I'm just looking for the basics at the moment. Right now I'm interested in getting enough grade school, middle school and high school text books for the girls to get a basic education, and for us to teach anyone else who comes along, including children in the future. We don't have enough room in here to create the library of your dreams." "Really? But there's so much we have to save. Although libraries are good, without power they're prone to a variety of book molds. Books nowadays won't last long as it is, due to their acidic papers, but if they're left to sit out, they won't last long at all. You know, if we make better use of the lay out in here, I'm sure we could create a lot of space. Say putting a wall of books along here, and placing shelves above that other useless crap on the walls." "That other useless crap happens to be the radio, TV and my family pic... , OK, I'll think about it, but can we hold off changing everything until you've been here for a little while." "Sure thing. I did manage to bring many of my college textbooks for reference, so those will help cover the basics. Let's start bringing stuff in. I've been worried about driving around with everything for so long. I'll have to check each piece of equipment to make sure it wasn't jostled too much, or collected too much vapor. I'll need to disassemble anything that isn't in prime condition. Wow, do you realize we're going to have the only fully functional lab in the country?" "I doubt that," David said, waving the suggestion off. "I'm sure there are several universities remaining, or possibly the CDC or some other government labs." "No, most of those no longer have a staff, and even if they have power, they've lost the ability to access it. You may not think you have much here, but by having an undisturbed environment, you have more than anyone else could dream of. I can do some amazing things here. Now we just need to find some specialists. Maybe a geneticist, a chemist, possibly an engineering grad student to repair anything that may break in the future." "I think you're the one dreaming now," David informed him. "Come on, quit fantasizing and let's get your stuff. Girls, we're going to need your help here. Mattie, you can grab all the little stuff, but make sure you keep it organized and ask Tom what everything goes with. I'd hate for him to become disorganized. It would probably kill him," he added with a laugh. ------- "Dad, come quick," Alice yelled from the door of the radio room, "I've got something here you need to hear." Lassie, as if adding impact to her announcement, barked loudly a couple of times before turned to her, excitedly wagging her tail. She could tell something important was happening. With that, Alice hurried back to the ham radio setup she'd been scanning for any source of information about the world. She knew her father would have heard her, and if not, someone else could easily get him, but this was important. It was their first contact with the outside world. Her father had commented on her keeping the dog inside the house, telling her it completely negated the point of keeping a dog for protection or getting them used to surviving on their own, but she'd replied by telling him she couldn't tie her up after what she'd been through before. He'd accepted that, and grudgingly acceded to her presence in the house. They hadn't exactly been hitting it off yet, as Lassie wasn't exactly trusting of others at this point. Having been tied up outside and left to die tends to do strange things to one's sense of trust. "OK, I'm back, are you still there?" she asked. "Yeah, I've got nowhere else to go," the man on the other end responded. Tom entered the makeshift radio room, looking to see if there was anything he could help with. Alice motioned for him to sit down while she continued. "Yeah, I'm here, what's up?" David asked as he burst into the room. Lassie barked again, though it was unclear whether it was simply in excitement, or to tell him to hush up so they could all hear the response on the radio. Alice waved him forward as Mattie entered the room as well. "I've finally gotten everyone here, could you repeat what you told me," Alice told the man over the radio. "Yeah, my name is Tobias, and I'm in the Bahamas. The island of Great Exuma to be specific. The problem is, I just recovered from a long illness, and I haven't been able to find any other survivors here, so I was reaching out for information and you're the first people I could find." "Ask him about the state of the island," David told her. "What state is the island in?" Alice said, conveying David's question. "The island's fine, aside from there being no one left alive on it," Tobias answered, sounding tired and exasperated. "There are dead bodies everywhere; some on the streets but the rest in people's houses." "What about the animals?" David asked, taking the microphone from Alice so he wouldn't have to keep going through her. "Is there anything left alive there?" "Actually, I haven't been looking, but no, I haven't noticed anything alive. Normally this island is filled with birds, but so far I haven't heard a single one." "You haven't noted any bird carcasses?" "Well, normally the birds have their nesting area on one end of the island, so I'd guess if they'd gotten sick they would have stayed there, rather than venturing out. But there are other dead animals lying everywhere." "What's the normal population of the island?" David prompted. "About two thousand, there's only seven thousand for all the islands in Exuma, which consists of some 360 islands." "Well, out of a normal population of twenty thousand here in our local county, only four survived, and two of us are related, so we might not even count. But we've been collecting whatever animals we can find, hoping to keep the various animals safe so that when people recover, they'll have something they can rely on. Right now we consider this a major extinction event, and we need to save whatever species we can simply for their genetic diversity." "Yeah, I'll save what I can," Tobias responded, "but I was calling to ask if you knew where I could go from here. I'm afraid that if there's no one left here, that whatever other island I go to will be empty as well." "Sorry to tell you, but you're the first person we've been able to reach via ham radio. We've only seen a few people around here, but so far most don't want to communicate with anyone, so it may be there are survivors but they just won't reach out to anyone. We've managed to add two more people to our home, but so far that's been it." "And where are you?" "We're in West Virginia in the States. We're about seventy to eighty miles outside of D.C." "Well, that doesn't really help me much. I've got no idea what to do. I've got a boat, but it's not that big and I'm not sure how well it will do on a long trip. It would be helpful for anyone left if I checked each of the islands, but I'm afraid of wearing the engine out. I'd hate to abandon anyone needing help, but I need to think of myself as well." "Your best bet would be to simply claim the best boat you can find. The chances are that most will have been heavily damaged by the initial meteoroid shower, but grab the most seaworthy one you can find. Do you have a gas pump?" "I've got a water pump I might be able to use," Tobias answered. "Good, that's what we've been using. I was lucky enough to have a battery powered pump that we've been using to access gas from abandoned gas stations. See if you can use your water pump to top off the tanks before you set off." "What do you think I should do? Should I search for survivors, or set off on my own for the mainland?" "That's a tough question, and we really don't have any maps around here to check. I'd assume any boat you grab will have the appropriate nautical charts, you can check the details then. I suspect if you leave, you'll always question who you left behind, so I'd check a few of the larger nearby islands at the very least. When you do, check on the surviving wildlife, and grab anything useful you can save. Of particular interest are seeds, farming supplies, repair equipment, books on how to do anything you're not familiar with, things like that. You'll have to play it by ear. And whatever you do, take your ham radio with you so you can touch base with us. If we reach anyone else down there, we'll relay your information." "Thanks. It's not real encouraging, and not a lot of assistance, but it's nice to know that someone else survived. Don't worry about the radio; they come equipped on most of the larger boats down here. Do you have any guestimates on survival rates?" "We're guessing about a hundredth of a percent," Alice said, speaking over her father's shoulder. "That doesn't sound good. New Providence, the largest island in the Bahamas, only has a base population of two hundred and fifty thousand. Tourists could easily double or triple that number, but that still wouldn't leave any survivors. But this is also the slow summer season where a lot of tourists stay away due to the heat and the hurricane season." "No, that would leave roughly between 25 and 75 given that size population," Alice corrected him. "And we're not at all sure of those numbers. Those are only based on our experience, and as we said, we figure that a lot of people don't want to be found yet. It'll be a long time before we have any hard numbers." "OK, that gives me something to go on then, as well as a warning to be wary of people's reactions. Has anyone tried to attack you up there?" "They haven't exactly attacked, but they've shot at us to keep us away," David relayed. "Before the final big die off we had encounters with survivalists trying to steal government weapons, and people setting up road blocks to steal whatever they could find, but so far we haven't encountered that of late." "Well, hopefully all the criminals have died off, but I'm not going to count on that." "If you can, try breaking into the local police station and grabbing plenty of guns and ammo, but more importantly, grab whatever communications and body armor they have. It's better to be safe than sorry, and if there's no one else there to use it, it's better to grab it now than to leave it to whoever shows up looking for it." "All good advice. It'll probably take me most of tomorrow to prepare, so maybe then or the day after I'll leave. I figure it'll take a couple of days to find out what's happening around here, but I'll try to check in periodically if I can, but I don't know when I'll be able to relay any messages." "We're usually out of the house during the day, so early evening like now is generally the best time to reach us." "OK, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for all the help, and I'll let you know what's going on." "Thanks, Tobias, and good luck. I'm afraid you may need it." With that he finally signed off. "Wow, I had no idea it was that bad," Tom replied. "Yeah, it was a pretty devastating pandemic," David replied sadly. "It gives the term 'decimate' a whole new meaning. Decimate originally meant one tenth, but even that's a massive overestimate in this case." "It's a thousand-fold difference," Alice told him, showing she'd been playing with the numbers enough to be comfortable with them. "We're going to need to teach the rest of you how to use the equipment, so hopefully we can monitor the radio more frequently and you can broadcast if we don't make it back in time during the day. What's more, we can cover more territory if there are more of us using additional vehicles," David suggested. "That makes sense," Tom responded, sounding excited about learning something new. "How about we start right now? I'm anxious to learn. The fact we can potentially tie together survivors across the rest of the continent is strangely reassuring. It means there's hope we can reach more people." ------- "Wow, Tom really comes with a lot of baggage, doesn't he?" Alice teasingly punned, as she and her father cuddled after the end of a long day spent unpacking, organizing and sterilizing equipment. "Both physical and mental." "Him and his little dog, too," David joked back, doing a bad Wicked Witch of the West imitation. "That he does. But I don't think you get a lot of 'normal' people willing to dedicate the time and energy into the kinds of things he studies." "By the way, what was it that he specializes in? I mean, does it even apply to what we need to do?" "Actually, I never asked. All I know is that he can run lab tests, and seems to know enough to do some basic research on the Great Death plagues. That's enough of a start for me. After all, I'm not looking to set up a university here." "Yeah, both him and his crazy little dog. I'd thought he was kidding about him, but that little dog is seriously wacko. And apparently he's been that way for some time, so he can't even blame it on what he's been through." "Yeah, they're going to be a handful. They both seem to require pretty delicate handling, but maybe once we get them out into the real world, have them deal with some real life and death issues, they'll learn to adjust a bit." "Speaking of idle fantasies," Alice teased, "I think you're really dreaming now." David was about to reply when they were interrupted by a knock on the bedroom door. David was about to make a smart aleck remark about the girls knowing better, but caught himself before he said anything as he realized that only applied to people who'd been dead for some time now. Seeing her father was having trouble responding, Alice answered for him. "Yeah?" The door opened to reveal a small nervous face. "I was wondering if I could get that cuddle you were mentioning before?" Mattie asked. "Sure, come on in," Alice replied. "Dad's used to people piling on in the evenings." "Yeah, that's what I was afraid of," Mattie replied giggling, showing she hadn't really meant it. However, David blushed anyway, knowing that Alice had already spilled the beans about his private life. He wondered whether Tom knew about his past sex life already. Somehow David didn't think introducing themselves to new people by telling how he slept with a bed full of young girls was the best strategy for making friends. Mattie came running to the bed, wearing what seemed to be the traditional attire of pre-teens nowadays, a t-shirt and panties. She climbed in the bed and cuddled up to David, so he now had a girl on either side of him. "I thought you weren't ready for this yet?" David asked, trying to get her to talk about it. "I wasn't, but Alice and I talked earlier, and I decided I could use the comfort now. She seems to have dealt with everything that's happened better than I have, and I figured maybe the way you both cuddle up at night might have something to do with it." "Well, I like to think so," David replied. "If I didn't think it was helping, I wouldn't do it." "You're not ... uh... ," Mattie asked, unable to ask what she wanted. "No, I'm not into girls," David assured her. "Alice can tell you, we had a house full of girls her age, each of which was very interested in my sex life, but I was never interested in any of them sexually. While I encourage you to open up and feel free to hug me, I'm not going to try anything with you." "That said, there's a lot more to add to the subject," Alice whispered conspiratorially to her. "Please, she doesn't need innuendo, she needs to know what she can expect," David emphasized. "If you want to guess what's lurking in my primitive subconscious, then please leave that to your fantasies. It's not based on my actions." "That's true enough," she answered. "He never tried anything with any of my friends, and he had to be forced into getting together with Flora, who was in her twenties." "Man, you certainly had an interesting sex life while everyone else was ... uh... ," Mattie responded, before realizing it wasn't the best subject to bring up just then. "It wasn't quite how it sounds, and we can discuss what motivated our actions some other time, but seeing as none of those people are here anymore—other than in our memories, that is—let's just deal with the three of us. Was there anything you wanted to talk about?" "No, I just wanted to hold someone and feel another living breathing person. Frankly, my dad and I never hugged much, and my brother was always annoying. But Mom and I hugged all the time, and I'd often cuddle in bed with my dog, Benji." "So I'm essentially a poor substitute for Benji then?" David asked in a serious expression, enjoying teasing the little girl. "No, no, not at all," she hurried to reply, afraid she'd offended him. "Because Lassie's lying on the floor beside you, if you'd rather sleep with her instead," David offered, but he wasn't able to maintain a straight face, and ended up laughing with the two girls as Lassie looked up, wondering why they were calling her by that strange name again. "Anyway, if you don't want to talk, then let's get some sleep. It's been a full day, and I'm sure tomorrow will be as well." With that he gave each of the girls a kiss and they all settled in to sleep, Mattie smiling like she'd found a long lost toy she'd thought had been lost forever. As they settled down, with David once more taking the position of lying on his back, cuddling two women lying on his chest, he tried to blank his mind out, lest he harken back to other memories he'd rather not wrestle with at the moment. He was startled when a hand suddenly drifted down and quickly groped him. Making a face, even knowing she couldn't see him, he gently took her hand and moved it back up, clearly marking forbidden territory. But he suspected it was as much a test of his sincerity as much as anything else. Still, she was young, and she'd likely lost any chance of playing doctor with a neighbor at this age. With that minor milestone out of the way, everyone relaxed, and both Mattie and Alice fell asleep comforted by the reassuring touch of someone who cared for them, and who'd protect them both from their fears, and from the wider dangers of this dangerous new world. David, though, couldn't help but consider a few of those dangers as he wrestled with sleep, trying to figure out just how he could protect them in the future. ------- Chapter 05: Decisions and their Ramifications David woke up unexpectedly, not to the early morning sun, but instead to the unexpected sensation of having something cold and wet pressing against his face. As his brain finally kicked in, he realized that Lassie was nosing him while whining. Pulling back, he leaned up, stretching his arms over his head. "Jeez, OK, OK. I take it you want to go out. I'll take you girl, just hold on," he told her softly, trying not to awaken the girls. But instead of being calmed, she seemed even more anxious, dancing around as if she were desperate to pee. Figuring she really needed to go out badly, David sat up and glanced at the two girls lying beside him. Alice had been asleep with her face on his chest, and when he'd moved she'd fallen off and was now lying face down on the bed. Mattie, though, was curled up in a little ball beside him. He thought it was cute, but realized it probably reflected how she wasn't quite comfortable with them yet, and was likely a defensive posture. Lassie, though, wasn't willing to wait. She continued to dance, and as David started to climb over Mattie she seemed to get even more upset. David didn't understand why she was so bothered, since it was obvious he was getting up, but as he continued getting up he brushed Mattie and she rolled over onto her back, revealing her angelic looking face. That was when David froze, and Lassie began barking. "What the hell?" Alice asked, slowly coming awake to the din she was being subjected to. "Shit," David swore. "Alice, stay where you are. Mattie, you need to get up, honey." "Umm?" she asked, not really aware of what was happening. "You need to get up, Mattie," David insisted, sounding upset. Curious, Alice sat up and looked past her father, trying to see what was getting everyone so excited. It was then that she saw it, and she thought her whole world would come to a screeching halt. She wasn't ready for this again. Not yet. "Holy FUCK!" she yelled, which proceeded to scare Mattie half to death, waking her from her early morning sleepiness. "What the heck?" she protested, rubbing her eyes. "Mattie, stop that," David insisted, grabbing her hands to keep her from rubbing her face. "Mattie, you need to remove your shirt." She looked at David, confused by his suggestion, finally turning to Alice to see if she could offer any clues, but she looked horrified, and that damn dog just wouldn't shut up. Finally Alice just pointed. Confused even more, Mattie looked behind her, but seeing nothing, she looked back at Alice. "What?" she asked simply. "Alice, don't point. This is hard enough as it is," David responded. "Get her a mirror." Alice jumped up and ran to the attached bathroom, her frantic pace not making Mattie feel any better about what was going on. Lassie was now running around in circles, barking wildly and looking between Alice in the bathroom, David standing over Mattie, and Mattie herself. "What's wrong?" she asked. But David's attention was distracted when Alice returned. David turned to accept the mirror and simply handed it to Mattie, as if that was all the explanation required. She again looked at him quizzically, and then hesitantly held the mirror up. She feared what she'd find, already having an idea what it would be. "Damn!" she shouted, dropping the mirror. "What the hell is going on?" Tom asked, swinging the door open to find a dancing dog, two upset girls, and David kneeling over Mattie, the single figure seemingly in control of himself. "It's Mattie," he replied. "She's got the plague." "You already said she had it," Tom said, confused by this change in topic. They'd already told him their histories, so he didn't know why David was telling him what he already knew. "No, she's got different symptoms. She's got a different disease this time. We must have infected her," he stated before freezing as the thought grabbed his attention. "Shit. No, I infected her. We touched for the first time last night, apparently I'm still contagious, I've killed her," he responded, sounding shocked. "You did no such thing," Alice responded quickly, coming to his defense. "We discussed this before. The viruses are drifting in the air." "She's been exposed to the air for weeks and she never caught it," David objected. "Maybe it was something she touched in the house that hadn't been cleaned," Tom suggested. "Or maybe one of those bodies or the supplies she picked up. It could have come from anything." "No, the last thing she did before becoming infected was to curl up in my arms, and now she'd infected. It's clear what happened to her," David insisted. "Not to us it's not," Alice said, moving her father back, away from Mattie, who hadn't seemed to have recovered from seeing her face. "For all we know, it could have been Tom. After all, we didn't put him into quarantine like we did everyone else. He could have brought it in with him." Alice moved in, attempting to give Mattie a reassuring hug, but held herself back at the last minute when she drew the parallels between what she was doing and what they were discussing. "That's not likely," Tom assured them. "Since I have the equipment, and since I'm so concerned with the potential of exposure, I've been checking myself repeatedly. I haven't had any signs of anything. No fevers, no flushed skin, no increases in heart rate or anything else. What more, if you'll remember, while you were bringing my equipment in, I stayed inside so I wouldn't rub up against anyone. I've seen enough death to know to be careful, and apparently you have too. While the two of you carried my stuff in, you sent Mattie to work with the animals, so she wouldn't be exposed to any of my stuff, or to me or John-John." "Still, it's possible to spread something without getting sick yourself," Alice argued. "Look at Typhoid Mary. She was fine, but she infected thousands of others." "Yes, but she'd gotten sick enough to develop antibodies to it. What I suffered from isn't what Mattie has now," Tom pointed out. "I'm pretty sure I'm not culpable here." "No, you're not," David said, wanting to end this pointless debate. "The best answer is usually the simplest. We spent the night cuddling her, and now she's sick. While we may be immune to it, it seems we're still contagious. This changes everything. We'll have to rethink our entire approach to how we deal with survivors from here on out." With that, David took a minute to consider things, contemplating what he'd done. "Tom," David asked, seemingly coming out of his stupor, "how long will it take to prepare a plasma infusion from my blood?" "Tom," David asked, seemingly coming out of his stupor, "how long will it take to prepare a plasma infusion from my blood?" "Uh, I don't know. I haven't gotten all the stuff unpacked and cleaned yet," he replied. "Well fuck, Tom, I think this qualifies as a priority. Get the damn plasma separator and get it working. She doesn't have much time, and although she survived once, she'd not likely to survive a second time." "Uh, it's more complicated than that," Tom argued. "I'll need to test both your blood types. The chances are she isn't even the right blood type." "Damn, that's a problem. Both Alice and I are AB-, which means only some people can accept our blood," David said, fretting nervously. "No, you've got that backwards. Although being AB negative makes it difficult to give blood, the opposite is true for plasma. The very things that cause antigens to concentrate in red blood cells ensures your plasma, where the red blood cells are removed, is antigen free. Actually, AB is considered the universal plasma donor." "Hell, I've avoided giving blood all these years because no one wanted to accept it, and now it looks like I was simply giving the wrong type. Well come on then. Get your stuff ready, if she can accept my plasma we need to act fast if we're going to make a difference." Tom looked at them both for a moment, then spun and ran down the hall. Lassie, strangely, seemed to finally settle down, as if now that everyone else was upset, things were finally being handled and she no longer had to be upset herself. She continued to look on, watching everything, but she didn't make any more noise. John-John poked his nose in, curious what was going on, but as was typical of him, he wasn't about to explore anything he wasn't familiar with. "Come on, honey, come with me and we'll get you some breakfast and we can talk about this. While it's major, it's something we're finally equipped to deal with. We'll figure this out. It's not as bad as it looks," he said, even though no one there believed him, not even John-John, who still didn't know why everyone was upset yet. ------- "You know, it's really not that easy," Tom explained as he inserted the needle to extract David's blood. "Transferring your plasma won't transfer your immunity; it'll just help temporarily, maybe buying her a little more time. In order to do any good, you'll have to do it over and over. It's really not a cure, it's only a temporary treatment." "Look, Tom, if we don't do this, she's likely to die. She somehow managed to survive once, but she survived astronomical odds doing so, and she's not likely to do so again. Frankly, I've seen too many people close to me die. I'm not willing to let another one go without a fight. If I can give her time, at least enough time for her own body to rally and help fight this, then hopefully it will make a difference." "I just think you need to prepare yourself if it isn't successful, or more likely, if it only works for a little while, and then you find yourself giving plasma time and again in a never ending effort to keep ahead of the inevitable." "That may very well be, but at least I'll have done something. There wasn't anything I could do with the others, so I didn't even have the option. At least now I can try, and that's better than nothing." "You can't blame yourself for her getting sick," Alice tried to convince her father. "I'm not so sure about that," he replied with a sour face. "She was fine while the whole rest of the country died, then after spending a single night touching me, suddenly she gets infected? Somehow I'm not a big believer in blind bad luck. I believe in cause and effect. I caused this, and thus I'm responsible for her." "Can you explain what you're doing?" Mattie asked, breaking the uneasy silence she'd been keeping, watching David make this grand gesture for her, even as they kept telling her it wasn't likely to save her. She at least wanted to know what was happening, and if she could get them to shut up about it at the same time, all the better. "Sure," Tom answered. "We're drawing David's blood, we need a fair amount to do this, but we'll then put it into the separator. Basically it spins really fast, separating the blood. The red blood cells, which are the part that cause the different blood types, the thing that causes people to reject blood from other people, is separated from the blood plasma, basically the rest of the blood. We then transfer the red blood cells back into David, keeping him healthy, while transferring the plasma to you." "And just what is the plasma supposed to do? David says it's supposed to help me, but how does it do that?" "Well, David's got something in his blood that seems to fight the infection. We're not sure quite how it works yet, but if it's an immune response, then transferring his plasma to you will transfer his healthy immune response to you so it can fight the infection in your own body. However, since your body can't produce its own, it can only provide protection for so long until it wears out, so it's not a long term solution." "OK, I think I got it," she said. "But if he's got something in his blood that fights the infection, then why was he sick for so long? I mean, if he can fight the infection, then shouldn't he have recovered sooner?" "Ah, good question. I'm guessing that what he has is only part of the answer. When he got sick, his body had no immunity to it. No one had any immunity to it yet. But when he got it and suffered through it, his body managed to find a way to fight it, and that's what we're hoping to transfer to you. Hopefully, if it can keep you healthy long enough, your body will have time to develop its own defenses." "Right, just like it has for the millions of other people who've had it," Mattie asked skeptically, sounding a bit bitter about being fed a bill of goods they couldn't actually pay for. Lassie walked by and nudged David's arm, the one they were extracting blood from. The animal was really an odd duck. For some reason she wouldn't go near Mattie, even though she loved the dog and could use the attention, but she was suddenly warming up to David for no clear reason. Meanwhile, Tom's neurotic dog, John-John, didn't want to have anything to do with anyone, spending it's time hiding between his legs, which made his working with all the delicate equipment precarious at best. "So if it's a strain taking too much blood from Dad, couldn't you also take it from me?" Alice asked, worried about what her father might do to himself in a misguided attempt to rescue someone that he couldn't actually save. "You both have the same genes, we're assuming, and you both survived the same plague elements. Plus you both have type 'AB' blood, so I'd assume so. But again, we don't know whether the immunity is transferable. It really depends on how his immunity works. If it works by strengthening the immune system, it would make sense, but it's not like healthy people survived while the unhealthy died. Instead everyone died, healthy or not, rich or poor, previously exposed or not. If his immune system attacked the infection directly, then it would also help, but I seriously doubt it will be that simple, because otherwise we'd have had more survivors. Thus I suspect there's more involved in the two of you surviving all the strains other than your immune response. If that's the case, then this probably won't have much of an effect." "You know, you're a real chipper guy," David quipped. "Couldn't you say something encouraging?" "Not if it isn't true," he replied. "In that case, the honorable thing is to lie a little. Tell them it will help until you know it won't. That's called encouragement. You make them feel better about their chances so they have a better mental attitude, which will hopefully allow them to resist the sickness that much longer." "Yeah, yeah, I understand the whole concept behind lying, I just don't believe in it myself," Tom answered. "But in your case, yes, this will not only cure everything it touches, but it will make your blood smell minty fresh as well." "Now that's why you don't lie. Not because it doesn't work, but just because you're so bloody bad at it," David responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. "How long is this going to take?" Mattie asked, again trying to keep the people from fighting over her. As badly as she felt about what was likely to happen to her, she really didn't want everyone else to fall apart over her. She'd really expected to fall ill eventually. After all, everyone else had, and it was only a matter of time until she did as well. As much as she appreciated the help, she didn't want to hurt these wonderful people if she could avoid it. After having watched everyone she knew and loved die, one by one, death—while still terrifying—didn't seem to be quite as horrific as it once did. "It won't take long," Tom assured her. "A little while to finish collecting the blood, only a little while to separate the plasma, and then we pump it back into him. Once that's done, we can start your treatment." "And how long until we know whether it works or not?" "In your case, you're currently showing symptoms, but you haven't actually gotten sick yet, so we probably won't see much of a reaction. But chances are you'll get sick pretty soon, within a day or two. So if you last that long without getting sick then we'll consider it a success." "Alice, could you turn on a movie or something?" Mattie asked. "I think I know everything I need to know, and frankly, any more will just upset me. I think I'd rather watch some cartoons just so I don't have to think about what's happening anymore." ------- Watching Sponge Bob chase Patrick across the seafloor, Mattie's mind was distracted, the cartoons couldn't keep her mind at bay. Tom had started her infusion, and the adults had finally shut up, but Mattie's mind continually flashed back to what she knew was coming. Despite Tom's assurances that they'd know if this treatment worked if she lasted for two days, she knew that was just a load of bull. Towards the end the Great Death had gotten more efficient, and most people rarely lasted as long as two days. When she'd gotten ill, she'd only been sick for a couple of days. While it was true that she had symptoms for longer than that, it still didn't erase the fact that two days seemed completely unrealistic. She'd been horribly sick, but it hadn't lasted as long as Tom was now suggesting. If she lasted all of two days, she'd consider the treatment a cure, as she'd have lasted much longer than she could possibly dream of doing otherwise. But it only showed that Tom, for as 'honest' as he was, had simply been putting a brave face on what they all knew was going to occur. While Mattie was tired of fighting, and was more than willing to go 'quietly into the night', she knew it wouldn't be like that. She'd seen it too many times already. Simply going to sleep and not waking up was easy, but the Great Death was anything but. No, it was painful, horrifyingly painful. Excruciating was a more fitting term. She's watched her family suffering their last few days, and although she'd been relieved when they'd seemingly lost consciousness, she now knew from David and Alice that they hadn't been, that they'd continued to suffer even then. What's more, as much as a quick death would be preferable, and as much as she wanted to believe she'd be made whole again in heaven, there was a part of her that simply couldn't believe it. She desperately wanted to believe that her family and friends weren't gone for good, that God would rescue everyone in the afterlife and that they could all be together again, but after everything was said and done, she knew that death was death, and there were no do-overs in life. No, there were the quick and the dead, and the dead weren't quick and they didn't dance or reminisce about their past lives. Once you were gone, there was no way back. There was no way to become whole again. There was no way to suddenly wake up, whole and healthy again. Death was the absence of life, not the continuation of it. As comforting as heaven was, she couldn't shake the terror dying held, the fear that once she was gone she'd exist no more. She'd be no more than a distant memory in the minds of a few people she'd only met a couple days ago, people who already had too many dead to remember, and who already seemed to be forgetting those who'd already passed away. They had more important things to do than worrying about those who no longer demanded their attention, and they weren't haunted by their demons like she was. So, for as much as she didn't believe a word of what the others told her about her chances, she was willing to grab onto what they were offering with both hands. Even if she could survive only a few hours more, she'd take it. After all, a few hours meant that much more of a chance of surviving. She'd survived a couple days of hell, so if she could survive that long again, by any means possible, then it would mean she'd be likely to survive again. Thus even if this treatment didn't amount to much, it meant a hell of a lot more than the alternative offered, and that was all that counted. ------- "OK, we've done the blood transfusion. It'll either work or it won't, there's no sense sitting around wondering what's working and what's not," Alice complained about everyone sitting around fretting about whether it would help Mattie or not. "Let's get out and do something. There's still a lot more that we can do. There are more crops to collect, more seeds to protect, more animals to discover, more people to connect with, and more facts to check. How about we get off our asses and do something?" David looked hesitantly at both Tom and Mattie. Tom merely shrugged and Mattie nodded that she agreed with Alice. "If I'm not going to make it, I'd rather go down fighting rather than simply having given up," she explained, as if that covered everything, but David seemed to accept it. "All right, that makes sense. There are a couple of farms that I'm interested in visiting farther out. I guess I'll drive my SUV, and Alice will take the dead truck as usual, but it would help if Tom takes the horse trailer so we can bring back anything we find. Does that make sense?" "Yeah, but I don't have any training in how to drive a trailer," Tom cautioned. "You don't need a license anymore, and you don't have to worry about traffic. If you get stuck, I'll switch vehicles and pull you out. You should be fine," David assured him as he got up, finally tiring of his own pointless fretting. For once, it seemed ignoring the most obvious problem was the best choice. ------- As David turned off the main road onto a rough unpaved private drive, a large sign proclaimed where they were heading: Deerbrook Farms Growing Food for America Corn Potatoes Wheat Alfalfa The drive there had taken them on a route familiar to both Alice and Mattie, as it took them beyond Mattie's former home. She'd stared out the window as they passed by, but didn't say anything. What David was afraid would be an awkward silence was instead filled with Tom grilling everyone on a variety of topics, keeping the walkie-talkies in the SUV busy with questions. Despite David's insistence they each wear bulletproof vests and personal communication headsets they'd gotten from the armory, he wouldn't let them use them in the car, wanting to ensure they'd have a full charge if and when it was necessary Tom wanted to know things they weren't aware of, like mean elevation, Ph balances, populations, ethnic breakdowns, average incomes, home values, and a whole variety of topics that David couldn't decipher any overriding theme from. Instead it just sounded like Tom was a random facts guy. He just liked to accumulate details in the hope that it would eventually prove useful someday. The others answered as best they could, but finally David promised they'd stop at another library so he could research the answers. That seemed to satisfy him, although David wasn't sure they'd have enough time if they hoped to get back home in time for their evening's broadcast, especially with as much work as he knew would be facing them. Driving further, past rolling fields of golden wheat on one side and brown dying corn on the other, Tom proceeded to ask a variety of questions about their growing conditions which David again couldn't answer, but that he didn't think had anything to do with their health. Soon the road divided and they took the left fork, driving under a sign stating: Deerbrook Ranch Serving West Virginia's Free Range Dinner Needs Beef Lamb Goat's Milk Exotic chicken "A ranch? Seriously? Out here?" Alice asked skeptically. "It's not one like you're thinking of, certainly," David answered. "Instead they're located on the side of a hill, one side of the farm that's unusable as cropland. Here they let the animals freely roam over the hillside, keeping the grasses down and utilizing otherwise unusable land. They'd come home on their own in the evenings, even though they had horses and ATVs to track down any that didn't return in time. Again, being a smaller operation, they focused on a local exotic market for naturally raised animals. Since many of the people living around here came from the city, they were anxious to avoid the pesticides they suspected were in the foods found in the city, and were willing to pay for animals raised without processed feed, antibiotics or raised in cages." "You'd rather look at dead animals rather than trying to save what crops we can gather?" Tom asked, taking what seemed to him to be a more practical approach. "The crops will keep till later. Right now we're focused on burying the dead animals, making the farm usable for anyone who might want to take it over in the future. Anyone coming upon it will likely avoid it if it's filled with stinking animal carcasses. We need people to take over these farms if we're going to survive without a nationwide distribution system. Plus, we're trying to rescue any surviving animals we can find." "But I thought the cattle you'd found earlier were all dead?" "They were, but I'm more interested in the animals more likely to have survived, the more exotic ones." "So that's why you brought me, to help lift several hundred dead cows?" Tom complained, not liking the idea of heavy physical labor. "We'll only concentrate on those around the barn for now. But this gives us a better idea of the general survival rates of other species. Once we know what to expect, we can advise those listening to our broadcast of what to expect in their areas," David explained as they entered the ranch itself, which as he'd explained was really a rocky irregular mountain side. Pulling to a stop, David and Mattie climbed out and both David and Alice grabbed their guns, both their pistols and rifles. Alice drove her dead truck further, stopping by the barn where they knew most of the dead animals would be found. With Mattie flanking him, mostly because he didn't trust Tom to be able to shoot straight, David knocked loudly on the front door. Hearing no response he tried the door and found it unlocked. "Hello? Anyone home?" David called out as he entered, gun drawn just to be sure. Without warning, there was a sudden movement from the kitchen as something rushed him. He almost took a shot at it, but years of learning caution while hunting had taught him not to shoot unless he was had a clear target. Instead he found himself surrounded by a couple of clucking chickens running around his feet. "Chickens? Who the hell keeps chickens in their house?" Mattie asked as she came forward to examine the strange animals, her own rifle drawn. "These are special chickens. Didn't you see the sign proclaiming 'exotic chickens'? These are specialty chickens from somewhere in South America. They lay the cutest green eggs that are supposedly very low in cholesterol and high in protein. However, the other chickens hate them, so they kept them mostly in the house with them." "Green eggs?" Tom asked. "Need I ask the obvious question?" "Hey, check for yourself. They've obviously been here for a while, there should be some sitting here somewhere. And no, there's no green ham to go along with it." When Mattie headed into the kitchen to check, the curious banded black and white chickens following her, David called a warning. "Watch out for pellets." "Pellets? What, are the damn chickens armed?" she called back. "That's what we country people call chicken shit when we're trying to avoid saying it. You may want to clean your shoes off now. As I said, it looks like the owners left enough food and water for them when they took ill, but they look like they need to eat. See if you can get them some water and see if there's a bag of chicken feed in there." "How'd you ever learn so much about country life?" Tom asked. "You're clearly not from here." "No, I'm not, but I pay attention to what people tell me, and I visited here a few times. The owners were a real hoot. Seems their son took up collecting exotic chickens while in 4H, then lost interest when he went away to school, so the mother took over the business, selling the eggs to the locals as exotic treats. They're really good. When the egg business took off, along with the free range beef they already had, they decided to branch out into other exotic animals as well and added the goats and sheep." "I never knew West Virginians were so into such nouveau cuisine," Tom teased. "Normally they aren't. But there are so many people who come up here from DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia that they've learned to cater to their tastes. The extra income helps maintain the local farms and allows them to do more native farming as opposed to the corporate farming they do in most of the rest of the country. They even ship much of what they raise here back to the city for the better restaurants there." "I found it," Mattie called. "I've already given them some water and I'm feeding them now." The water she fed them came from a thermos, which Alice had warned her she'd need, since without electricity there was no indoor plumbing. "Hey, Dad," Alice called, entered the house with Lassie from the rear door facing the barn in the back. "Someone's been eating the chickens here. I found a bunch of feathers and some non-farmer footprints. They also left the stripped carcasses lying out in the open." "See, that just shows why we need to grab all these animals before these idiots do untold damage," David responded, growling angrily. "The livestock suffered as much as we humans did, and we need to stabilize them so we can depend on them in the future. It won't be long until the available gas and supplies run out, and then we'll have to depend on local stock. These people taking whatever they want could mean future generations starving because there isn't enough genetic diversity in the farm stock to keep them going." "Most of them are OK," Alice assured him. "There aren't any normal chickens, and all the ones out there survived, but there are all different kinds out there." "Yeah, that's why we came. I figured these exotic animals would have survived where the others haven't." "That may be, the few sheep and the goats seem to have survived OK, but there are dead cattle all over the place. Not just in the barn, but lying all over the hillside as well." "That's what I was expecting," David told her. "I wasn't sure about the sheep, and there's probably quite a few that are still wandering the property loose. They would always pen the goats up since they don't return on their own, while the sheep tend to be fairly domesticated and will." "Dad, I think the family is upstairs. Lassie won't go near the stairs." "Damn, we need to figure out how that dog does that," Tom commented. "I'd love to develop a diagnostic test on whatever she's using to figure it out." "That'll have to wait," David insisted, getting back into command mode now that they knew the house was secure. "Alice, you help Mattie and grab whatever seeds, books or supplies you can find in the kitchen. Tom and I will take care of the family." "And their dogs," Mattie told him, returning carrying several pastel green eggs in her shirt. "The bodies of the dogs are lying in the kitchen. Those poor chickens were probably traumatized. You were right about the eggs, though. I'll take these out so we can have them in the morning." "Normally I'd caution you about eating eggs until we've watched the chickens for a while, but I think these are esoteric enough they won't have come down with anything, so go ahead. I'm sure they've got cages for all the chickens and crates for the eggs as well," he called as he headed up the stairs with Tom following behind him. "You know, David, I was thinking," Tom said as they were preparing the bodies, wrapping them up in the available sheets. "You should really try to protect your property. With everything you have there, as soon as someone discovers what you have they're likely to try to take it." "Yeah, we really should do something about that, but I'm hoping we can make it easier for them to trade with us than steal what we have. If they trade, they can get as much as they want, whereas if they try to drive us out they'll kill all the livestock and likely destroy the house. As you've seen, the house is built directly in the mountain, and the window isn't accessible from the ground. In order to take the house they'd have to heavily damage it. "As for the approach to the house, they'll have a hard time there as well. I don't actually own all that land leading up to it. I only purchased 24 acres, and I got a decent price on that because, like the surrounding land, it's largely unusable. Between numerous creeks, uneven rocky ground and the occasional swampy area, most of it either isn't perkable or would take a massive effort to build houses on, so it would be difficult for anyone to advance on the house except along the road. Without both a compass and knowledge of the house, I doubt anyone could even find it by wandering through the woods." "Still, we should do something to protect it. We're just asking for trouble leaving it open," Tom continued. "Yeah, you're right. I'll have to look it over. But right now, there are a lot of more important things we need to do first, like save whatever animals we can before it's too late," David replied, as they carried the bodies down the stairs. Outside he saw what was left of the animals. Like Alice had said, there were still a lot of chickens, of several different species, although David was sure they were mostly females. If you're selling eggs, it doesn't really pay to keep the roosters since you can simply buy new eggs rather than trying to control the rowdy things. But there were quite a few different species, several of each type. Looking closer, he corrected himself, there did seem to be at least one roster as there were several chicks running around as well. He also saw the loose feathers where someone had killed a few for their own dinner. Alice must have cleaned the carcasses up as he saw where it had been butchered against the henhouse. There were about 20 goats, he wasn't sure how they were going to transport that many, and about ten sheep. However the most obvious thing was the scent from the barn. He knew without looking that all the cattle had already died and begun rotting in there. What's worse, without the benefit of insects, the carcasses weren't breaking down on their own, so they'd have to do something about it. David knew if someone were to come upon such a mess, they'd turn around and leave rather than trying to clean it up. If it was neat and easier to manage, they might choose to take over the farm on their own. He'd have to leave a note in the kitchen explaining where all the livestock was in case someone wanted to try. Despite not being used to heavy lifting, Tom was fascinated enough with the levers and pulleys to take to the task. It was hard work, which Alice helped with, moving her truck to where they needed to dump the bodies, but it was a long and difficult process. David noted Mattie tiring, and asked Tom to check her out. He reported she had a low grade fever so they should get her back soon. "We'll have to bury the animals we have first, so you should lay down in the truck Mattie," David suggested. Once she was gone he continued. "You and Alice will have to take her back, there's a lot I still need to do here." "The hell we will," Alice insisted. "You're coming with us. You won't have anyone to defend you out here on your own, and you've seen how ready people are to take pot shots at us. We can always come back later." "No, we can't, and that's why you need to head back," he insisted, although Tom was willing to hear him out before objecting to the suggestion. "You need to do the nightly broadcast, and Tom needs to be there to monitor Mattie and to continue the treatment. We prepared an extra dose of plasma, so you won't need me, and if I don't make it back in time you can produce additional doses, Alice. If I were to head back, I'd be too wrapped up in how she's doing to be any use, and as you can see, when we drive all the way out here we don't have enough time to do much. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish before heading back." "He makes a good point," Tom offered. "I don't really care what he says; I'm not leaving my father out here in the middle of the country without backup. What if something happens to you? We'd never even know where to look for you. It'll be like Betts all over again," she said, referencing the mother who'd left their house after the initial meteor storm never to return. Since they had no idea where she'd disappeared, they never mounted a rescue effort to try to find her. Instead the rapid spread of the Great Death had scared them off. "I'll keep in radio contact, and I'll tell you where I plan on going so you can track me. We won't be able to use the walkie-talkies to communicate for long, but I installed one of Bob's radios in my truck, so you can call me once you get home. If Mattie takes a turn for the worse I'll head home, but I really want to get as much done around here as I can." "What else do you need?" Alice asked. "Wouldn't it be easier if we all worked together so you could finish up sooner?" "No, Mattie needs the treatment as soon as possible. In fact, the treatment may not even be working. But beside the farm, I also wanted to check the bigger library here as well as checking Ma's hospital for medical equipment we'll need. We've got plenty of medicines, but no equipment for surgeries, setting bones, checking blood pressures or delivering medicines." "I should probably be there to tell you what we'd need from the hospital," Tom told him. "Make me a list and call me with a revision tonight. I'm sure I won't get there before morning. Since you know what to look for, I figured you'd want to do autopsies or necropsies." "Yeah, there's a lot I'll need from there. Grab whatever surgical equipment you can find as well as any medical reference books. What's more, since you have so many animals you'll probably want to try any vet's offices you pass. That would allow us to treat the animals. He's got a point, we'll need all of that stuff, and the sooner we have it the better it would be." "Fine, I don't have to like it though," Alice insisted. "Make sure you call me, OK?" "I'll call you every hour if you want, just so you'll know if anything happened to me. But I'm sure I'll be fine. It'll just be an extra day, tops, and I won't even go far, just a couple of stops. So far we haven't seen but a few people, and most of them refuse to have anything to do with us, so I doubt I'll have any trouble." "I'm still going to worry, but if we're going to leave, we'd better help you bury these cattle because you'll never manage it without our help," she said as she began shifting the pulley assembly to the next area. ------- Alice, of course, continued to communicate with her father as long as they were still in range, as he visited the nearby Deerbrook Farm. Though he didn't have a lot of space to store delicate produce, he loaded up a farm pickup for them to retrieve later, knowing that anyone could happen by and drive it off at any time. Instead he'd focused on seeds, books on farming or other useful information such as milking goat, shearing sheep and, of course, weaving wool. The rest of the trip home was uneventful, though everyone continued to worry. Mattie still wasn't feeling well, and her fever was getting worse. Tom had laid her out in the back seat, so he couldn't really maintain a check on her condition. The dead truck that they'd taken from the police station in town had a tow hitch on it, so they'd hooked up another horse carrier where they'd placed many of the sheep and goats. They released the ones they couldn't carry so they could feed themselves on the ranch property which was still fenced in. They had enough to raise and to ensure they'd survive, hopefully someone else would come along and adopt the remainder rather than simply choosing to eat them. The additional weight and the need to not jostle the animals too much over the rough roads meant the return trip took a lot longer than the trip in, so they arrived late in the evening. Not bothering to check the town square again, they headed directly home. Once they arrived, the first thing they did was to help Mattie in, with Tom checking her while Alice got the animals settled. They now had so many animals they'd have to dedicate someone to watching over them on a more regular basis, rather than risking leaving them unattended. "Alice, you'd better come inside," Tom called to her, leaning out the front door. "What's up?" she asked when she entered several minutes later. "It's Mattie. Not only is she getting worse, showing that the plasma infusion hasn't helped, but she's showing additional symptoms she wasn't before. I'm afraid to say it, but she's got more than just the one disease now." "Damn, how could that occur?" "Well, I don't know if it was the plasma or just being around the two of you, but apparently you haven't quite beaten the diseases you've suffered from. It seems more likely that you're simply asymptomatic and that you can transmit the diseases. That implies that there may be no safe survivors of the Great Death." "Wait, what about you then? Shouldn't you be wearing a mask or something? Are you going to move out so you're not exposed to us?" "I wear the mask whenever I'm around her, as she's highly contagious right now. But no, although the risk remains, I'm assuming that because she only picked this up after spending the night with the two of you, that means that it isn't quite as viral as it was, and that it requires direct skin to skin contact of some sort. I'll stick around, mainly because it's the only way I can continue to do research on it, but I'll also make sure to document what I accomplish, so that if anything happens to me then someone else can continue my work." "Shit, this is the worst possible news. How is she?" "She's gotten worse. Given the trajectory of the disease, I'm guessing she has maybe another day to a day and a half. That's why I called you in. I think you should be the one to tell your father about this. After all, he's likely to take the news pretty hard, and he'll probably take it better coming from you." "Absolutely not," she insisted. "You're right, he'll take it badly and he'll feel directly responsible for it. Not only will he abandon whatever he's doing there now, but he'll drop everything and rush back as fast as he can, which we both know, given the shape of the roads, would be fairly dangerous. "We won't tell him until he gets here and we can discuss it with him face to face. He decided he needed to do several things while he's down there and it makes sense for him to do them, whether or not Mattie survives. He'll probably blame me for not telling him, but I don't think he'd be able to change anything if he was here. So, do you think we should continue the plasma transfers?" "Honestly, I have mixed feelings about that. I'm guessing he managed to infect Mattie initially, but that the plasma transfer infected her with everything else the two of you survived. But at the same time, continuing it won't stop the initial infection, and personally I'd like to see whether it has any effect. After all, although she's getting sick she may still be healthy enough for it to make some slight difference. We may not get another chance to test this treatment, so it bears seeing what overall effect it'll have. I mean, it's not likely to make the end result any worse, now is it?" "No, that makes sense. All right, continue the treatment. Give her the plasma that dad prepared and when you're done I'll donate another sample. But document everything, and take pictures of her through the procedure so people can understand what's happening if we try to explain why it did or didn't work later." "OK, I'll do that, but you'll have to take the fall for not telling your father. I have a feeling he's going to be very upset about being kept in the dark." "Relax, he may be upset, but he'll blame himself, not anyone else. When he makes a commitment to someone or something, he's very good about sticking with it. You'd have to do a lot more than just doing something he doesn't like to get thrown out. You'd have to hurt the other people he's trying to protect. So you'll be fine." "All right, I'll get everything set up then. You can finish up with the animals and I'll draw some blood when you return. How about the broadcast?" "Well, we already missed one, but we've been telling people that we're having trouble keeping to the same schedule we were before, so hopefully they'll understand. I think we've got the equipment to rebroadcast earlier shows, so I'll see if I can figure out how to repeat earlier updates so people don't get dead air when they check in." "That sounds like a good solution. While you're busy with that, I'll start a late dinner once I'm finished." Alice considered the ramifications of what she'd chosen to do as she headed outside to take care of the animals. She could very possibly be doing what Ellen had accused her father of earlier, choosing to ignore those you care about to chase less important details. She was sure her father would be upset if he returned home to find Mattie sick, or worse, already dead. But she remained resolute about her decision. She'd just have to see how it all played out. ------- Chapter 6: Distractions "Today we have some more information on the animal front: as expected, cattle, deer and the majority of pigs are officially history, as are corn and potatoes. Other species were impacted, but they seem to have survived to an extent. We're sure there were a lot of mass extinctions, like insects, carnivores, frogs, mice, rats as well as other vermin. It'll be years before we have any kind of official list. If anyone is so inclined, we desperately need people to take over existing farms before they fall into disarray. We're trying to rescue the surviving animals at many sites in the immediate area, but we can only reach so many. If you can save the animals, seeds, take cuttings or rescue existing produce, you could easily trade it for whatever you need in the future. But with the breakdown of the nationwide distribution system, we'll have to produce everything locally, and having dependable crops is essential. If you decide to undertake this task, we've got a collection of animals and seeds we'd be glad to share with anyone, with the understanding that we can only share a small amount of what we have. It's better for these resources to be distributed as broadly as possible. If you want to take over a farm, make sure it's uninhabited first, then you'll have to remove any bodies. You probably shouldn't worry about electricity or water supplies, though. The immediate concern is harvesting the current crops, and preparing for smaller plantings and harvests in the future. There's no way you can manage hundreds of acres of crops, and even if you could, there simply aren't enough people remaining to purchase them. Since we're expecting a significant cooling this winter, most plantings should be moved indoors, so you'll need to either find, take possession of, or build your own greenhouses, as well as passages between your homes and those structures. Don't assume you'll be able to freely wander around your properties during the winter. If you have access to a supply of gas and diesel, you can use the existing farm machinery, but don't assume you can use them for long. Untreated gas will only last so long, and the gas treatment products will run out before long, so you'll need to figure out how to farm by hand. We'd suggest the old fashioned methods, either find a draft animal—which is going to be tough—or you'll have to use family to muscle through it. If you wish to communicate with us, we'll be glad to transmit your information to a wider audience. You can reach us with a working ham radio. Though these will be hard to find, there are many that work on battery power, and we're assuming there are still plenty of those for the moment. You might try a local ham radio club, older repair or pawn shops. We monitor the radio regularly, but we don't do it by any existing schedule. But if we hear anyone, we'll respond. Right now our main responsibility is in getting you the information you'll need to survive the next couple of years. We also know that people are still concerned about the Great Death. We're happy to report that we've located a medical researcher who can continue to research it, and we potentially have a treatment protocol, although we'll have to see whether it's successful or not. If you don't have a properly staffed lab, we'd recommend you NOT try such research on your own. It can clearly be dangerous, and it would be easy to compromise any research you do yourself without sufficient controls over the experiments. As always, we'll relay whatever we discover on the subject. That said, if anyone out there is thinking that we're ripe for stealing resources from, just be advised you'll be stealing information that others need to survive, and if you launch an attack, our medical facilities will probably compromise anything you can make off with. Frankly, there's enough left unclaimed that you really don't need to steal from anyone else. As we keep saying, trade is your best bet. There's no way any one group can possibly do everything they'll need to survive, so letting each group specialize on a specific task is the best bet for our combined survival. ------- David hurried through the farm after everyone else left, picking up just what he could safely carry without trouble. He'd found another trailer, which he partially loaded, but it would slow him too much to take it with him. He'd either have to pick it up on his way back, or they'd have to come back for it. He also got the bodies out of the farm house: the farmer, his wife, son, two dogs and three cats. It took a long time doing it alone, but he didn't waste time. He simply wrapped them in sheets and dragged them along the floor and down the stairs. It wasn't pretty, but he wasn't trying to impress anyone. As he'd suspected, there was some gas in a spare tractor, so he could bury them easily enough, though getting them to the burial site was harder than the entire burial process. But once that task was done he was anxious to accomplish a few other tasks before he stopped for the night. He'd be both safer and more comfortable staying put for the night, especially since he'd already removed the dead bodies. If he stopped somewhere else for the night, he'd either have to repeat the process or sleep in his car. But grabbing the bare essentials, he climbed into his SUV and headed into town. The farm was located only a few miles from the town where Ma's hospital stood, and as such they had a fairly built up downtown region, thus he hoped he'd be able to find some useful supplies, and maybe even some survivors. Whether or not they'd want to be found he had no clue, but he'd see how it went. Just to be sure, though, he put on the body armor they'd taken from the National Guard armory. Driving through town, he checked out the stores he passed, trying to take note of anything that might prove useful in the future. He'd have to look for a phone book, they were relatively useless relics nowadays, at least before that fateful meteor shower. Now it seemed like a virtual treasure map. He'd been here several times in the past so he had a vague idea where a lot of things were, but he'd never really paid much attention, so he really didn't trust his memory. Recalling one place, he ended up driving around a four block area multiple times trying different streets, attempting to find the one shop he remembered. Finding it, he simply parked in the middle of the street before getting out. He'd been hoping to find an electronics store like a Best Buy, but instead he settled for an AT&T store. They wouldn't have the range of products, but they had what he was looking for, and he didn't particularly care about what network they were connected to since there were no existing networks anymore. Studying possibly accesses, he ended up simply smashing the glass door. It would have set off the alarm, but the electricity had been off for a long time by then. Going through the displays, he picked up several mobile phones of different makes. The exact features weren't important to him, as he planned to use them as gifts for anyone he met. He'd leave recorded messages and whatever they could load on them, then leave them for people to find already fully charged. It wouldn't be worth much, as most people couldn't recharge them, but at least they could get their message across more easily and more personally than they could with a simple note. The music, though not essential, was simply a nice way of saying 'thanks for listening'. He also grabbed a couple of laptops they had on display with much the same thought, as well as car chargers for all the equipment. Even with as many resources as they'd collected, he knew the most valuable trade product he had right now was gasoline, of which he had several containers in the back of his car. While animals, food and information were nice, having the ability to get somewhere, as well as being able to charge up electrical devices, was seemingly invaluable to people deprived of the conveniences of modern technology. When done he scrounged up some packaging material and papered over the broken window with cardboard, leaving a short note to anyone following him without the benefit of phone messages. Those would take time to record and load. Continuing on, he pulled into a nearby gas station, once again filling up the tank with his portable gas pump. While they hadn't met anyone needing it yet, it still stood as a useful trading item and he didn't want to risk running short. Though the place was locked up tight, he broke in and tossed out all the expired material, dumping them in the large dumpster in the back, leaving another note on the door telling people about the radio broadcasts. Next up was a trip downtown, where he stopped off at the municipal library. Parking near the entrance, he was surprised to find it open. Expecting to find bodies inside, he prepared his gloves and returned to the truck for another plastic sheet. After this long, they'd realized the plastic sheets they used were a limited supply, so they'd come up with a bleach spray they used to wash them down with after they finished with them. It was diluted just enough to not dissolve the material, but hopefully strong enough to kill whatever pathogens remained on the plastic. Entering the library, he stood in the entranceway glancing around, trying to get the layout of the place. He started to head to the librarians' offices when a shot rang out. David immediately dropped and rolled to the nearby checkout counter. Bracing himself against the wood counter, he sat up, pulling out his own pistol, readying it. Damn, he knew he should have called Alice before entering. Now no one knew where he was, so if anything happened to him, he'd be out of luck. Grabbing a book off the counter above him, he tossed it into the air and another shot rang out, although it never hit the book, which fell noisily on the tile floor. That was both good and bad. Obviously the person firing wasn't very experienced in either shooting or combat situations, but on the other hand, they were prepared to shoot at anything at all without taking the time to consider what it was. "Look, I don't know what you want, but you can't lay claim to a library," David called out, hoping to initiate a dialogue. "Somehow I don't quite trust your qualification to judge who deserves access to the accumulated wisdom of mankind." "Fuck you," someone hissed from the racks of books off to the side. "This is my home and you're not welcome here. Take your filthy disease and get the hell out of here." "Look, as I said, I don't mean to invade your space, but you're hoarding a common resource a lot of people are going to want access to. While I appreciate your wanting access to reading material, you can't claim exclusive domain over them. If you want, just leave and give me about twenty minutes and I'll leave, not exposing you or anything else to—" He didn't get any farther when another shot rang out. "Look buddy. You can waste all the bullets you want, but I'm not leaving, and it's stupid to risk your life over access to a couple of books." There was no response so he continued. "Just tell me what you're interested in and I won't take those, but I need information on a variety of topics." "I don't care what you need," the guy answered. "I want to be left alone. Find your own place." "Ah, but I'm not interested in living here. I'm simply here for the books. I've got gloves and a face mask, so I won't infect anything, but if you insist on fighting, I'll take you on and one of us will end up dead. Do you really want that when all I need is a half an hour to an hour of time?" "I don't trust you. How do I know you aren't infected?" "Frankly, you don't. But as I said, I've got no interest in kissing you. All I want is access to some information." When the man didn't respond for several moments, David decided to try a more personal approach. "I'm curious, how did you end up taking up residence in a public library?" The man was silent for a short time, then responded. Proving that despite his wanting to be left alone, he was still desperate to communicate with others. "I used to live in an apartment building. First several people got sick, and then more and more started dying. I left and looked for other places to live, but I wouldn't enter anyplace with dead bodies, or where infected people might have touched things. I finally picked this because, well frankly, there's not much to do anymore besides reading." "So you're only interested in fiction then?" David guessed, inviting him to respond. When he didn't David took the next conversational step himself. "I'm interested in the science section, as well as textbooks and material on farming, weaving and milling grains." Again it was silent for several moments before there was a response. "You actually have a need for that, other than just idle curiosity? I mean, do you have enough people to teach, or are you just dreaming you're going to start some hidden sect with lots of women and children?" "No, I actually have three other people with me. We're trying to preserve as much as we can, so we're trying to identify what's survived and how to maintain it. You'd do better if you quit hiding here and started preparing for what's coming next." "And what's that?" the other man responded after a short delay. David wasn't sure, but he suspected the man might be trying to circle around him, so he shifted to the other side of the checkout counter where he thought he'd be better protected, since it wrapped around, providing limited protection on three sides. "In case you haven't noticed, the burning meteors left enough dirt in the atmosphere to block out much of the sun. That's already dropped the temperature, and it's going to get worse come winter. If you're not prepared, you're liable to freeze come winter, and even if you don't, you could very well starve if you haven't stockpiled food." "I've got food," the other guy answered. "That's sensible, but it's not enough. Canned and packaged food will only last so long, and once it's gone you'll need something that will last for the next twenty years. What's more, you can't hunt animals because you don't know what's infected, and if you find something that isn't, you're only killing future breeding stock." "You sure seem to think you have all the answers," rang out a sneering response, his voice coming from a different direction this time. "I don't have the answers, but I'm trying to find as many as I can. I don't know if you have access to a radio, but we're broadcasting a couple times each day, trying to tell people what they need to know." David had been hoping he'd respond, showing he'd already listened to their broadcast. When he didn't, it made David think the other man was afraid of revealing his position, possibly preparing for an attack. Each response had been a little closer, so he wasn't far off now. David pulled two items from his flak jacket, a flash grenade and a smoke bomb. He hated to get violent, but he wasn't about to wait around for this guy to try to kill him either. "You know, my friends will be back to check on me in a little while, and if I'm not here they're likely to lay siege to this place. If you're not anxious to communicate, they could easily just wait for you to exit. So it's either get killed by me, or get killed by my friends. Don't make it come down to that." When the man still didn't respond, David turned, crouching down facing the counter in front of him so he'd be prepared to react quickly. "Don't try it," David warned. "If you do, you'll end up dead, and I've got no desire to kill anyone. Like I said, I only want access to a few books." "Ha, I've got nothing to lose," the man yelled, giving his location away, which was only a short distance away. It looked like he'd circled around on his earlier position, hoping to be able to get a clean shot at David. "My friends and family are all dead, I've got no job and nothing to look forward to. All I want is to be left alone, and instead you come barging in, trying to kill me with your fuckin' infection." "I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm immune. I've already suffered though each of the plagues, and survived. I'm no longer contagious, which you'd know if you'd been listening to our broadcasts. While I don't expect you to believe me, trying to kill me would mean killing one of the only people looking for a way out. That's even stupider than trying to get yourself shot or not preparing for the future. You've got to stop thinking about what you've lost and consider what's best for everyone's survival. The continued survival of humanity as a species is more important than either one of us." "I don't care about no one else!" he shouted, showing David's attempt to placate him were getting nowhere. Instead his frustration was getting the better of him. But at least he was still talking instead of trying to attack, which David was thankful for. There was at least hope for eventually reaching him. David really wasn't worried about the threat that this man presented. After all, he was a lousy shot, and he appeared too high strung to keep to his initial scheme. Besides, David had the benefit of both better weapons and body armor. Instead David was trying to prevent having to kill him. The poor guy had given up on life, and David didn't want to be the one forced to put him out of his misery. "Look, as bad as things are, it isn't impossible. But don't take my word for it. Take your time. Consider what I'm saying. Listen to our broadcasts and see what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. If in a couple of weeks' time you decide it isn't worth it, then you've lost nothing and you're free to do whatever you want. But don't risk getting killed because you're depressed now. Depression is normal after what we've been through." "What? Now you're going to write me a prescription for some Prozac?" "Actually, we've stocked up on medicines we considered essential, but I didn't think to bring them with me. Personally, I'd recommend you try breaking into a pharmacy if you can find one that hasn't already been ripped to shreds. Things aren't hopeless, but they are much more serious than you're giving them credit for." "If I let you do what you want, what do I get for it?" the man asked after several more tension filled minutes, during which David was preparing for an attack. He had to shift his position because he was starting to get cramps in his legs from his awkward position. But this was a good turn of events. Instead of attacking, which is what the man had been intent on doing, he was now willing to bargain. That was an avenue David was ready for. "That depends. I don't have much with me at the moment, and probably nothing you can use immediately. However, probably the most useful thing I have is access to gasoline. That way you can use a car and either start collecting supplies, like we are, or try your luck in a different location. It would give you more options, not to mention it would give you temporary access to electricity. If nothing else you could use it to turn on the radio a couple times a day and listen to all the information we have for how you can survive. At worst, you can simply trade it for something you need more. After all, it's a very limited commodity right now." Again, the man remained silent, but David wasn't as concerned anymore. It meant he was considering his offer rather than debating an attack. Of course, he may just decide to try to kill him and take whatever David had. But if he did, he picked the wrong man, as David was sure he was better prepared for combat than this lone man was. "How much gas?" the man finally asked. "I don't have any containers to spare, so I'll give you five gallons in the vehicle of your choice. I don't know when I'll return this way, but if I do I'll try to look you up to trade you some more. If you aren't here any longer, just leave a note where I can find you." "Yeah, so any Tom Dick or Harry can hunt me down?" "I'll tell you what. Leave your address in a copy of Time magazine behind the counter here. No one else will ever bother looking for it there, so you'll be protected. What's more, you don't have to worry about our attacking since you'll pick the location where we'll meet." Again, the man was silent for several minutes as he contemplated the offer. He seemed to be actively debating his alternatives. "Five gallons is all you can spare?" "I don't have any larger containers, and I'm not going to give the containers away as they're too valuable to waste," David said, even though he had more gas than that, but he wanted to save some in case he ran into anyone else. "But I'll tell you what. When I return, I'll bring a fully loaded smart phone you can use to play games, listen to music and make notes with. You can always recharge it with your car and a recharger I'll supply. You won't even need to reveal where you're living. I'll just leave it here in the library when I pass through." The man considered it again, but when he responded his voice sounded excited for a change. The idea he could listen to music meaning more to him than the chance to get away or prepare for the future. "You've got yourself a deal. All I ask is that you don't take everything." "I was already assuming that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if other people eventually stop by for some information of their own. You can always trade access to your books for whatever they have to trade with. But just remember to trade carefully, if you make the price too high, they may decide to take what they want by force," David informed him, reminding him that was what he'd been planning himself. "OK, you can come out. I won't interfere with you, but I'll stay here so I can make sure you don't try to damage anything." "You're not going to try to shoot me, are you?" David asked warily, not really wanting to expose himself if they guy was lying in wait. "No, I'm past that." Taking a deep breath, and holding the flash grenade behind him ready to throw, David stood. He figured if the guy tried to shoot him, he'd likely aim for the head, which was a difficult shot in the best of times with a pistol. Standing, David examined the man he'd been talking to for so long. Recognizing how vulnerable David was, the man stepped forward to show he wasn't aiming at him, although he kept his pistol ready. "Thanks for not shooting," David said. "By the way, my name is David. What's yours?" "What's it really matter?" the man responded. "Just call me George. Or better yet, in case you meet another George, just call me Geoffrey. That'll be my new name from now on." George, or Geoffrey, certainly looked like he'd been living by himself for some time. While David made it a point to shave and shower regularly, for his daughter if nothing else, this man had let his beard grow into a haphazard patchwork. While he kept a mustache, it appeared he'd only had an electric razor before the disaster, as it looked like he'd been trimming his facial hair with a pair of scissors. He had a gruff expression and a rugged face. He also wore a dirty t-shirt and had his hair cut short in a similar unsteady fashion to how he shaved. He'd obviously not been expecting company today. "It's a nice name. Sounds like something I might pick for myself, but I'm counting on people recognizing my name from the radio, which is Scott, by the way. Let me get the gasoline for you. You pick out a car you can use and I'll transfer it. Then I'll come back and grab several books. After I leave I'll refill the container, and on my way back tomorrow, I'll give you an extra five gallons. How's that?" "It sounds more than fair, but I'm not about to shake your hand over the deal. I'll keep my distance if you don't mind. I just want to make sure you're actually on the level. After all, anyone can claim they're the man on the radio." "Fair enough, I'll be back in a few minutes with the gasoline. Then you can watch me while I pick what books I'll need." It actually took longer than a half hour to locate and carry out the books he wanted. He tried to only take duplicates, but he told the man which solitaire copies he was taking, offering to transfer portions of the text to the smart phone when he brought it. "Nah, I'll never use those," Geoffrey admitted. "Take what you need. Chances I'll get more out of what you broadcast later." So David left with more text books; books on chemistry, electronics, radio transmissions, wheat production, modern farming and several on medicine, including emergency medicine. He also threw in a few books he thought the girls would like. Geoffrey watched him as he packed them away and finally drove off, while David planned to return the next day with more gasoline for him. All in all, though protracted, it turned out nicely in the end. He'd managed to get someone on the right track, getting him to abandon his previous head-in-the-sand lifestyle and hopefully created a local contact and future trading partner. ------- "So what did you accomplish today?" Alice asked, sounding surprisingly happy speaking to her father that evening. "Not much," her father answered. "I grabbed what I could, but I also packed a trailer with stuff that I'll either grab on the way home or we'll have to come back for. I also stopped by the library, but that took longer than expected," he said, not wanting to worry her unnecessarily with details of something already settled. "No trouble, I hope. After all, I'm worried about you being on your own with no one to watch your back." "No, no troubles at all. It was just harder to find what I wanted is all," David said, lying as completely as his daughter. "How's Mattie?" "She's not doing that well, but you'll see that when you get back. I'm sure she'd appreciate seeing you as soon as possible, as you've become very important to her in only a short time. Right now, you're the most important person in her life," Alice said, hoping to encourage David to return as soon as possible, but not guilting him into panic mode. "Well, I should be home a little after noon tomorrow. I've got several more places to stop. I picked up a map and phone book, so now I know where to find things. It shouldn't take too long, but I'll have to drive slowly on the way back. I'll leave at first light tomorrow in order to get out of here as soon as possible." "Just don't take any chances," Alice cautioned him. "We don't want to risk losing you. You're too important; not only to me but to everything we're planning. You're the man who's making all the plans, without you we'd all be fumbling." "Well, I'll try to return with a few new plans," David replied with a laugh, glad that Mattie wasn't doing too badly. "Should I stop and bring you a new doll like I used to when I went away on business trips?" Alice laughed at that thought. "Maybe you should pick one or two up for Mattie. She's having a hard time of it. I'm sure that little thought would mean a lot to her." "OK, I'd better let you go. I'll call you tomorrow morning before I leave." "Sure thing, Dad. I'll talk to you then." With that Alice hung up, hoping her father would forgive her for her deception, but she knew that if Mattie died before he returned, he might have trouble doing so. ------- Setting off early the next morning, David's first stop was at a Pep Boys store at a local strip mall. It was clear that no one was in the market to loot auto stores, as the place looked undisturbed. David looked for anything that looked useful, checking the catalogue for any car parts for his vehicles, as well as standard backups like batteries, spark plugs, and as many gasoline extenders as he could find. On second thought, he left a few for anyone who came after him, but he still took the majority of them. The mall also contained a small candle shop, so he stocked up on several cases worth. Next he stopped off at an antique shop, where he had to poke around a bit, but he finally found some old lanterns. Even better, he found both lantern oil and some hurricane lamps, which would protect the wick from blowing winds. Although they had electricity for now, he knew they'd need it for locations that didn't have it, and there was no telling when his own electricity might go out. He didn't bother checking upstairs for the bodies of the shop owners. After that he headed for the hospital, which while necessary, also brought back a lot of painful memories, both of Ma—who'd died there—and of all those people they'd communicated with who used to work there. The place was even more depressing than he'd imagined, looking stark with the windows all broken out, and the lower level windows covered with tarps. Outside stood a pile of rotting bodies, some of which looked like they'd been pulled off the pile by animals, of which there was no sign of anymore. Parking in the Ambulance bay of the Emergency room, David walked right in. Although the electric doors weren't working he could have forced them, but instead he used the glass door, which opened without any problem. The stench immediately assaulted him. There were bodies all over the waiting room, where people had died waiting to be seen, sleeping on chairs and against the walls. David wondered where the smell would come from if the plagues had killed the microbes and other things that broke down biologic matter, but figured it wasn't worth pursuing. The bodies might not rot as quickly, but it didn't make them any more pleasant. Entering the emergency room itself, he found multiple bodies stacked up on various gurneys and beds. Trying to control his gag reflex, he hurriedly searched for whatever he could find. He grabbed several critical care monitors, blood pressure cuffs and small cases of supplies like cotton balls and cloth wrappings. Strangely he couldn't find any scalpels or stethoscopes, some of the things he'd specifically come looking for. He also dumped a few bodies, carrying his supplies to the door on a couple of folding gurneys, which he positioned outside, then headed inside the hospital itself. Here too, the stink of death permeated the building, but there weren't as many bodies out in the open as there had been in the Emergency Room. He expected most of the bodies were either in the individual rooms of patients, or in the break rooms the doctors might use. This time he walked up the stifling staircase to where the operating rooms were. Here he found the anesthesia supplies, and grabbed the basic equipment plus a few tanks of anesthesia. He found a room with several cases of hospital gowns, but there didn't seem to be a lot remaining, and the disposable gloves were in short supply as well. The rest of the hospital was filled with dead bodies, either leaning against the walls, dumped in a pile, or lying on abandoned gurneys. The place looked like a scene from a horror movie. Not a creature was stirring, and without a breeze, nothing moved either. The only sign there was anything alive in the entire hospital was the sound of David's footsteps. He finally managed to find a couple of stethoscopes by taking them from dead doctors he found lying where they'd collapsed. Deciding he'd had enough, David had to run out. He'd found some stuff, but not the treasure trove he'd been expecting. Instead it looked like the hospital had been overwhelmed, exhausting their supplies and simply warehousing bodies until they passed, then simply dumping them outside while they were able to, simply leaving them in the hallways after that. David felt he should set fire to the entire place, just to scour the scourge he'd found within, but he knew that was unrealistic. Thinking of it, he jotted a short note telling anyone arriving looking for supplies to listen to the radio station for how to find supplies. He didn't think they'd announce where they were over the air, but at least he could supply clues on how to find supplies to anyone who needed them. Finally, remembering one last item of note, he dashed inside again, searching for the radio that Ma had brought and used to communicate with Bobby. Finding it after a prolonged search in a private office near an exposed portable generator, he grabbed both, tossed them onto another spare gurney, and ran out again. Taking a while to recover from the stench, David loaded what he'd found into his vehicle. Figuring there was nothing else of worth in the mausoleum of death, he headed out again. Heading for the facility's exit, someone dashed in front of him, pointing a rifle at him. Slamming on the breaks, he waited to see what she'd do, slowly extracting his own handgun from his belt under the dashboard, so his actions wouldn't be obvious. The young woman blocking his path, a light skinned black with a short fro, was wearing a hospital smock, jeans, face mask and gloves. Though David could easily have driven around her, he wanted to hear what she might want. After all, there weren't many survivors, and it was worth chancing a risk if he could connect with someone. Rolling his window down, he stuck his head out, calling to her. "Can I help you?" The woman, her eyes looking a bit wild, wasn't actually pointing the rifle at him, using it mainly to get his attention and to warn him she wasn't afraid to use it if necessary. Seeing David wasn't dissuaded by it, she slowly approached the vehicle, stopping a safe distance away but close enough they could communicate. "I saw you entering the hospital, there's nothing there but death," she informed him. "Yeah, I noticed that. Still, I had to get a few things." "Such as?" she asked, though whether she was curious or was testing him, he didn't know. "I wanted the monitors and testing equipment. I also wanted surgical supplies, but couldn't find any." "Are you a doctor?" she demanded. "No, I'm not, but we're trying to stockpile supplies we might need in the future. If you know of one, I'd love to meet him." She ignored that comment, continuing her own information quest. "Do you have any antibiotics?" "Some, yeah, but I don't have them with me. Why?" "The damn hospital wasted all theirs handing them out to plague victims they couldn't help. Now I've no more left, and I need some." "To repeat your own question, why?" David asked. "It clearly doesn't work on the plagues." "I've got someone who injured herself. Her wound isn't looking good, and she needs some intravenous antibiotics as quickly as you can get them." "My supplies are a ways away. I'll be glad to take you, but it'll take several hours to reach." "Are you sick?" "Me, no. I caught each of the various plagues and survived, I'm asymptomatic now. I should be safe, but it's always safer keeping your distance," he told her, not bothering to mention how Mattie had disproven that theory the previous day. "She really needs your help. Could you lead us there, then let us take what we need and leave again?" "Sure, I've no problems with that, but it would be easier to discuss if you weren't pointing a loaded weapon at me." "Oh," she responded, as if noticing her rifle for the first time. "Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure you'd stop and weren't a threat," she said as she dropped it by her side. David finally turned the car off, leaning out the window so it would be easier to talk. "What are you doing here?" David asked, curious whether she had any training he could capitalize on. "Were you associated with the hospital or did you come here looking for assistance?" "I'm a nurse. I worked here until everything fell apart. Once the staff started dying, I grabbed all the supplies I could carry and set up camp over there," she said, pointing to an outdoor tent he hadn't noticed. "Field hospital?" David asked. "Yeah, sort of," she replied. "Although after the big die off no one has stopped by, so there's really no point remaining here." "Where's the injured person?" David asked, glancing back at the make-shift structure. The woman waved and a young girl poked her head up. She looked young, around Alice's age. She had long curly hair that danced as she moved, and she bristled with youthful exuberance. She moved towards them, walking with a slight limp. "Tell her not to walk. I'll drive over to her." "That's OK. We'd rather not ride with you. Not that we don't trust you, but there's no sense risking exposure." "That's fine. How are you going to get to my supplies?" "We've got a car. We don't have a lot of gas, but we hopefully have enough to get there." "That sounds good. I can supply you with any more you need, and enough to return if you decide to. I'm David, by the way. David Scott." "Scott? You wouldn't be the Scott from the radio, would you?" "Guilty as charged," David replied with a grin, glad to finally encounter proof that someone had been listening to their broadcasts. "I'm Monique Lehr, the girl is Debbie Allen. She came in yesterday. She said her family died and she'd injured herself trying to bury them. She knew she faced possible infection, so she rode her bike here. It started to get red in the time it took to get here. She'll also need something for tetanus. Diazepam or valium will suffice as no one seems to have any refrigerated medicines anymore." "I do, but I'm not sure precisely which medicines we have on stock. I do know we've got antibiotics, both oral and IV. Do you have any hospital supplies with you? We could trade: drugs for surgical supplies?" "Yeah, I've got some, and I'd love access to some drugs I could use." "Did you get sick? Either you or the girl?" "I lost consciousness for several days. Debbie claims she did too, though I didn't get many details." "I figure it's better to have survived some of the diseases than not to have been exposed to them at all. If you haven't dealt with them previously, I'd be nervous about exposing you at all." "I have no idea what's a safe level of exposure, but I've survived this long. Give me some time to get my stuff and I'll follow you out." "Wait. I've got a spare walkie-talkie. You can use it to communicate with me. I've got another stop or two before we head back. If you think she can wait that long, it would mean a lot if I can get a few more essentials." "She should have a while before she turns critical, but you'd better have the supplies you promised." "Don't worry, I've got plenty of supplies." "You have electricity, or you charged the walkie-talkies with your car?" she asked, apparently having missed David's earlier references. David figured she just found the concept hard to accept. "No, we've got an electrical generator," David explained, not wanting to reveal too much information too early. "Wow, I didn't think anyone had anything left. I grabbed a portable generator from the hospital. Could you possibly pull it behind your car? I should also warn you, if you've turned off the generator to save gasoline or change the fuel, your medical supplies might be questionable." "Oh, don't worry. We've managed to arrange for full time coverage. The refrigerated material sat out for a little initially before we got ahold of them, but I'm pretty sure it's still good. I've also got a trailer hitch, but it's not a good idea trying to use it. Besides wanting to carry some livestock, it's likely to damage the generator trying to transport it over bad roads. As I said, we've got plenty of power where we're going, and if you want you can always return here to reclaim it afterwards." "OK, whatever you think is best. But if you've got a few stops to make, we'd better get moving," she said as she hurried off, throwing her rifle over she shoulder as she ran off. David watched her as she headed off, picking up the transceiver to alert Alice that they'd be getting some company. ------- The next stop was the Adams Veterinary Clinic, which David noticed as they were passing it on the way back after David stopped off to pay back the gas he'd promised Geoffrey. Monique proved her worth by, of all things, picking the lock, saving David from having to break the window. "I used to break into my sister's room to go through her stuff," she explained. "Then I started breaking into my Dad's filing cabinet to see what he was hiding. Soon I was breaking into my girlfriends' rooms in college to play pranks on them, and on their boyfriend's rooms to see if they were cheating or not. All pretty innocent, but I got fairly good at it." They ran through the place pretty quickly. Monique grabbed a whole reference set on veterinary medicine, David raided the pharmacy and grabbed a lot of tools like muzzle anesthesia masks, and they saved the only surviving animal, a ferret. Not knowing what to do with the ferret, David was getting ready to release it into his truck when Debbie asked if she could hold it. Figuring it would be easier not having it climbing under his feet, David agreed, which pleased Debbie to no end. Monique insisted she wear gloves while handling it, though. They stopped off at the farm on their way out of the city, where David hooked up the trailer he'd prepared the day before, and they were off again. ------- "Alice, we're about twenty minutes out and we've got someone needing medical attention," David said, not bothering to provide any details. "You'll need to locate an emergency antibiotic and infusion set, and something to treat tetanus with. I'll give you the specifics as soon as you get a pen and paper." "OK, I'll try to find it. We'll be ready for you in any case. I'll have to delay the noon broadcast, but we've already missed so many of those I don't know if it will really matter." "Maybe you could have Mattie check, or Tom?" "No, Tom's busy and Mattie is ... uh ... she's outside at the moment feeding the animals," Alice extemporized. "OK, do what you have to. I'm sure people will understand if we can't make a single broadcast." "Just suggest an emergency came up on your next broadcast," Monique suggested, the walkie-talkie speaking over the open connection. "Is that a woman's voice I hear?" Alice asked, clearly intrigued. "We'll discuss that when I get there," David said, not wanting to discuss details over the open air. Debbie's leg was inflamed and she was having trouble, keeping it elevated as best she could. David was nervous about both her and Mattie. Alice had been strangely reluctant to discuss how she was faring, so David was anxious to get home and get everything settled. Someone had taken a pot shot at them as they'd passed earlier, but rather than stop and confront them—risking two untrained individuals and the animals—they'd pressed on. They'd have to deal with whoever it was and the risk they presented to innocent travelers later. Right now he wanted to settle the matters at hand before deciding what to do next. ------- Chapter 7: Unappreciative House Guests Pulling up in front of the house, Alice ran out before David could even get out of the vehicle. It had turned overcast, and looked like it was about to pour. David climbed out of his SUV and waved Monique's car up so Debbie could make it into the house without having to limp too far. Monique took in the Humvee and the military tanker parked a ways off, making her own assumptions about what David was trying to do here, though she didn't bother to voice them out loud. "Uh, Dad, I've got some bad news for you," Alice said, ignoring the new people, new vehicles and new animals. Those few words struck a sense of dread in David's heart. As concerned as he was for these new people, they were still strangers who didn't rely on him, and would likely take off as soon as they got the medication they came for. Mattie, though, was not only important to him, but he felt personally responsible for her being ill. "Mattie?" he asked, turning to gage Alice's reaction. She simply nodded, a lump forming in her throat as she dreaded having to explain the details to her father, who she knew wouldn't appreciate what she had to tell him. "Is she... ?" he asked, unable to ask the question he was dreading. His biggest fear, after watching so many people die, was that he wouldn't be there for the people who needed him. He knew death was inevitable, especially in this new world they found themselves in, but that someone could die painfully while he was out cavorting struck him deeply. He hadn't been there for Erica due to similar circumstances, and that memory haunted him, and flavored how he'd responded to everyone since. "No, she's still alive, but she's very sick. But there's more." Alice took another breath, preparing what she was going to say as Monique was helping Debbie from her car. Debbie's leg was inflamed and red, and she needed the medication as soon as they could get it. "She's got each of the plagues we suffered from, and it's not the four that you keep telling everyone about. There's at least five. If you'll remember, we were exposed to some that had no visible symptoms." "You mean she got them from me? From the plasma?" David asked, making the obvious connection. Alice merely nodded her head unhappily, looking like she was ready to cry. "Wait a minute," Monique said, interrupting them as she helped Debbie head towards the house a safe distance from them. "Do you mean to tell me that you're still contagious?" Knowing it was time to face the unfortunate confrontation he knew he couldn't avoid, David turned to face their newest guests. "It looks like it. I hadn't mentioned it before because we weren't sure, but I think I infected someone recently. That's borne out by what's happened since. We tried to treat her with my plasma, but we ended up making it worse, giving her even more infections, so our attempt to help her has only made her worse," he admitted, even though he didn't know the specifics himself. "And you expect us to walk into an active plague house with several people who could expose us?" Monique asked, backing away even more. "That's why I suggested you keep your distance when we first met," David argued. "We kept our distance because we knew better than to trust what someone told us, something you've just proven. If Debbie didn't need this treatment we'd be so out of here, but I can't take the chance. Could you bring the medicine out here and I'll treat her so we can be on our way? We'll get by without your assistance. We don't have much gas left, but getting a few more miles away won't help if we're infected." "Nonsense, we've maintained a very careful regime of safeguards," David protested. "Mattie only got infected because I let my guard down and gave her a very human hug when she needed one. I'd thought I was safe, but I know better now. Tom, inside, is also at risk but he's fine. It's going to pour in a minute, and you can't apply the medication as well as he can. We'll all keep our distance, but there's no sense taking off immediately." "Yeah, you're going to tell me that you maintain a sterile environment in that little wooden shack?" Monique asked, indicating the entrance to his house, which was hardly an imposing exterior. "How about we stay out here, or maybe use the trailer?" "I think you'll be surprised once you see it," David offered. "It's really much nicer than it looks like from the outside," Alice suggested. "Besides, the trailer is the last place you want to be. Both it and the outbuilding over here were used as isolation wards. A lot of people have died here, and while we've scrubbed it down, I wouldn't recommend using them." Monique looked at them doubtfully, and then turned to consider Debbie. "Could I please lie down?" Debbie asked. "My leg is killing me. I don't think I could stand getting back in the car again." That made up Monique's mind. "I just want everyone to keep their distances. I don't know why you people would want to purposefully infect people, but I'm not afraid to defend ourselves." As if to provide her with additional safeguards, David pulled his pistol from his waistband, wiped it down with an antiseptic wipe and placed it on the ground between them before stepping back. The meaning was clear; he was offering them the means to keep them at bay if they attempted anything. Monique grunted, not trusting a simple hand wipe to protect against possible infection. Refusing to pick it up, they made their way towards the house anyway. David and Alice fell in behind them after he picked his pistol back up, still maintaining their distance. Tom opened the door for them as they approached. "I've got the medicine ready inside," he said. Monique again simply grunted, still not sure she trusted these people. "So just how sick is Mattie and why didn't you tell me this sooner, when I could have done something?" David asked his daughter. Instead of sounding angry, apparently the discussion with Monique had tempered his own reactions and now he simply sounded resigned. Something that made Alice feel even worse, since she knew he'd eventually internalize it anyway. She felt it would be better for him to vent for a while before that occurred. "There wasn't anything you could do, and the fact that you arrived with two people needing help proves you needed to be there. Being here wouldn't have helped anyone," Alice answered, speaking with a conviction she didn't exactly feel at the moment. "Mattie's very sick, but so far she's holding on. She's drifting in and out of consciousness, so we don't know how long she'll last, but we're keeping our fingers crossed." "OK, we'll talk about keeping secrets from me later; right now I need to see Mattie. If reaching out to me is what did her in, then I at least want to be there to help console her in her last remaining moments," David said as they entered the house, closing the door just as the skies opened up. "Shit! How the hell do you hide this from the outside?" Monique asked as they both gaped at what they saw laid out before them. "Look, they have lights, music, all the modern conveniences we thought were gone," Debbie marveled. "You haven't seen anything yet," Tom told them. "Step into my parlor, said... ," Tom wisely shut up before finishing the badly fitting analogy he'd been about to make. Leading them into the living room, they saw all the electronics, the huge ceiling and the tremendous view of the storm blowing outside. They also saw all the medical and testing devices that Tom had working there, as well as observing Mattie, laid out on a temporary bed on the other side of the room from them. "Just bring the equipment, I know enough to apply it," Monique told him. "Better yet, just point out where it is and I'll get it myself." Alice leaned over, whispering to her dad. "She's really cute. I can see why you brought her home." David cast a warning glance at her in response, but chose not to say anything they might overhear. He didn't think it was an appropriate thing to say, especially now that it looked certain they'd leave as quickly as they could, ending not only Alice's hopes of a romantic liaison, but also a further link to other survivors. As Tom showed her where he had the medicine, David quickly introduced everyone. "Can we get you anything?" Alice asked, playing the gracious host, even if it wasn't appreciated. "We've got several things to drink, anything from hot chocolate on a cold night to a shot of bourbon." "We could use some surgical masks more than anything else, but I wouldn't trust them to be unused. Honestly, if you're still contagious, I'd rather avoid anything," Monique replied, though it was obvious that Debbie was disappointed. She'd positively lit up at the offer of hot chocolate. "We're got paper cups if that's any better," Alice offered. "Just leave it on the counter," Monique interjected, speaking for Debbie as she prepared the two syringes. "I'll pour it myself." "You know, I think you're underestimating just how safe David keeps this place," Tom told them. "Well apparently it wasn't safe enough to prevent this poor girl from becoming deathly ill. Thanks, but we'd rather remain alive rather than bowing to social conventions just to be polite," Monique responded sharply. Unseen by her, David waved Tom off, letting him know to give them their space. Meanwhile, Monique gave Debbie her antibiotics injection. Walking up to Mattie, David took her hand in his and looked her over. He'd already put on gloves, even though he technically didn't need them, but he hoped she could tell he was there. The gloves were actually more for Monique and Debbie's benefit more than they were for Mattie, since David was already thinking it was too late to do much for her. After all, he couldn't infect her any worse than she already was, and he knew just how deadly even a single strain of the Great Death was. "There's not much you can do," Tom told him. "She lost consciousness a long time ago." "That's where you're wrong," David snapped in response. "We've been where she is now, and her consciousness comes and goes, so she's aware not only of the pain, but also of how alone she is. I promised I'd be here for her, and here is where I'm going to remain." However, when he noticed Monique and Debbie looking at him, he reconsidered his stance. "Are you still doing the plasma treatments?" he asked Tom. "We have been, but I'm not sure they're doing any good at this point." "OK, in deference to everyone else, I'll take her out to the trailer. Alice, could you bring us some food and water, and the other stuff we used to keep outside for this. I'm going to remain by her side though this, however long it takes." His stance was strengthened when he felt Mattie weakly squeezing his hand, showing she was somewhat conscious, and was at least aware that he was present, though he had no idea if she understood anything they'd been discussing. When Alice nodded, David picked the slight girl up and carried her out, with Alice hurrying ahead to open the door for them. "Were they close?" Debbie asked after they both disappeared, her concern for the girl she didn't know written across her face. "Not until she finally opened up to him the night before she came down with the virus. She'd been infected and survived another strain before, as well as having watched her entire family die before her eyes. She was forced to abandon her home in order to protect herself, thus she was a little gun shy. But I think the way David responded to her made a big difference to her. At least for a short term," he sighed. "And you're still OK?" Monique asked guardedly. "You've never been sick yet?" "Oh, no, I got sick too, before I met them, but I recovered. But just like with David and Alice, my dog John-John was there for me, and having someone there when you're that close to death really means the world to you. However, I haven't caught the other contagions since I've been here, so we're doing something right." "Then how did this Maggie get sick?" Monique pressed, still feeling they were trying to pull the wool over her eyes. "The name is Mattie," Tom pointed out, just as strongly. He was already building an intense dislike for this aggressive shrew, but he tempered his reaction, knowing how vital it would be to have someone knowledgeable about medicine available to them, even if she didn't live there. "She'd been watching how close David and Alice were, and how that closeness allowed them to recover and heal emotionally. She decided she wanted some of that, so she cuddled up with David the other night. When she woke up the next morning, she was already showing the signs of infection." "And how long ago was that?" "Not quite two days," Tom admitted, relaxing his more aggressive stance. "About a day and a half." "That fits the scenario I've observed. She probably doesn't have much longer." "Have you seen much of this yourself?" Tom asked. "Yeah, I worked at the hospital. There we didn't manage to keep everything quite as clean, but we also didn't interact with the victims quite as personally." "Both David and Alice believe in this very strongly. Not only have they both been through it themselves, experiencing agony you can only dream of, but they also nursed a lot of friends and family through it as well. It's very personal for them. They aren't just warehousing them as the hospitals were doing," Tom responded. Monique looked down at that rebuke, but then looked at Debbie again. "How you doing, honey?" "Honestly, I could use something to drink. Otherwise my leg still aches." "Yeah, I just gave you the antibiotic, so it's going to be a while before it feels any better," Monique told her as she got up and headed into the kitchen. "So has anyone else died since they've 'recovered'?" Monique asked from the other room as she turned on the faucet with her elbow. "Mattie and I were the first human survivors David and Alice found, though they've been rescuing a bunch of animals. So far, none of them have gotten any worse, although a few were sick when they found them." "They didn't touch them, did they?" Monique asked in alarm as she reappeared carrying a small paper cup with water. "They did, but they know the risks. They've been broadcasting to others the best approach to dealing with the situation. They always wear gloves and face masks when dealing with others, as well as using disposable clothing, though they've been running low of those now. "Frankly, they've had enough experience to know what works and what doesn't. They've been helping people for some time, and not just by sticking them somewhere and waiting for them to die, but actually taking care of them, talking to them, and constantly monitoring them." "Well, I'll admit, this place looks immaculate," Monique conceded, "and the medical supplies are certainly clean. They don't appear to be cross contaminating anything." "But the animals are doing better?" Debbie asked, taking a sip of the water, but not appreciating it as much as she would have the hot chocolate. "Let me see; they picked up a very sick wild duck, which is still weak but doing better, a rooster who was near death but is almost ready to join the several hens we have, and a horse named Aristotle that was already recovering when they found him. They're all doing quite well." "Ooh, a horse. I love horses," Debbie exclaimed. "I'd love to see one again." "You can forget that, missy. I want you to live through this experience. I'm not about to let you compromise your health just because you see something cute. And that goes for Mr. David too," she whispered off-handedly to herself. Alice reentered the house again and addressed them. "Dad plans on staying with Mattie for as long as she needs. I've wiped down everything we've touched, like door handles. He also wanted me to tell you that I can take you to get your gas tank refilled, or if it's more convenient, you can simply siphon enough from the other vehicles, just as long as you don't drain any of them completely." "Tell him that's very kind of him. I think we'll do the latter. I'm still anxious to get out of here," Monique confessed, still sounding uneasy. "Are you sure?" Debbie asked. "This can't be any riskier than that stupid tent we were living in; the scent of all those dead bodies wafting over us all night long. That couldn't have been any better for us." "There's a difference between unavoidable dead bodies a safe distance away and living sources of contagion in the same house," Monique warned her. "I don't know if it'll make a difference," Alice suggested, "but we cleaned out the houses nearest us at the end of our driveway. They should be safe. We removed the dead bodies, sterilized everything and got rid of the infected mattresses. We could also supply you with some food if you needed it while staying there." "That's very kind, but if you cleaned it, you may not have cleaned what you yourselves contaminated," Monique informed her. "I still think it's best if we keep our distance. As it is, I'm only waiting until Debbie is strong enough to walk again." "If you want, there's a spare bed upstairs," Alice offered, still hoping to make a good impression for her father's benefit, hoping there was a chance for Monique and her father to somehow hit it off, though that was looking ever more unlikely. "It's clean, it's got a plastic cover on it we've cleaned repeatedly with a bleach wipe, and only Mattie's used it recently before she got infected," Alice offered. Monique looked at Debbie, trying to gauge its relative safety versus their ability to safely leave the premises. "Please?" Debbie asked pleadingly. "I really need to rest, and having a bed of my own to do it in would be tremendous." "Oh, yeah, Dad also mentioned he's got some spare smartphones we can let you have. It'll take some time for me to load them with stuff, but it's probably the last source of new music you're likely to encounter." "We have CDs in my car," Monique responded. "Yeah, with Luther Vandros and rap and rock songs from the 80s and 90s," Debbie complained. "OK, but don't get adventurous," Monique cautioned her, finally relenting. "Keep your curiosity in check and don't touch anything. I'll wipe down the handset and the earphones before we use them." "Oh thanks," Debbie gushed, almost giving Monique a hug before catching herself, the age old human habit being very hard to break. "Can I at least talk to Alice?" Debbie asked, pushing the issue. "It's been ages since I've talked to anyone my age, and it would mean a lot to spend some time tal—" "That's not a good idea," Monique insisted. "It doesn't pay getting to know people if we're going to be leaving soon." It sounded to Alice like she was speaking from experience, and she figured she'd spent some time not getting to know people. Debbie, though, looked upset; despite the good news she could stay and appreciate the nice clean comfortable house with all the modern conveniences. Alice felt for her, knowing what it was like not having anyone her age to talk to. "I'll show you where it's at," Alice offered, as Monique helped Debbie stand. Tom offered to carry her, even though she was already moving better than she had when she arrived, but Monique told him no, saying she needed to exercise the leg now. With that they hobbled up the stairs. "I don't think we're going to convince them," Alice commented when she came back downstairs without them. "No, everyone has to make their own choices. If she worked at the hospital, she's certainly seen a lot of people die. You can't ask her to make the same choices you did. Yours were flavored with some degree of success. I don't think hers have been. Apparently she only met Debbie the other day, and neither one has gotten sick yet." "No, you're wrong about that," Alice informed him. "It's subtle, but when someone recovers from one of the plagues, they still bear the symptoms of it on their skin. It's not as pronounced, but they never quite go away. In fact, I could even tell you what they had." "That may be, but it doesn't change their circumstances. She's more leery than we are and she has good reason to be. You've got to let her make her own decision." Alice was about to respond when Monique reappeared, descending the stairs. "If you still have that bourbon, I might just risk it." She looked like she wasn't weathering this much better than the others. ------- "Hello?" Monique called, knocking on the door of the trailer as the afternoon rain beat down, reinforcing the depressing scene occurring within. David was anything but happy to be disturbed. He'd been sitting with Mattie for some time, and while she appeared unresponsive to the casual observer, she repeatedly grasped his hand, squeezing it weakly before loosening it again as she was wracked with pain, only to fall unconscious several minutes later. David could tell from her gasping breath she was in a great deal of pain, but knew she appeared to be in an uneasy sleep. Yet he was also conscious of just how much she was aware of what was happening to her and that someone was here for her. He really didn't want to take any time from her during her time of need. "Yeah?" he called back, figuring he'd better hear her out. "We're going to be taking off. We thank you for everything you've done, and while we appreciate your hospitality ... screw it. Enough with the pleasantries, while you've got a nice set up here, I'm terrified of dying in a 'nice' environment when we're fine on our own. I wish you the best of luck, but if I were you, I'd avoid everyone else while you're still contagious. Otherwise, their deaths will be on you," she responded with more than a little anger, as if she blamed him personally for exposing her to something that might kill them at any moment. "Glad I could be of assistance," David responded sarcastically. He thought about it a moment and just had to check. "Did you get anything to travel on?" "Oh yeah, that's what's taken so long. I let Debbie rest while I suctioned gas from your vehicles. Not knowing which you'd use, I tried to take an equal amount from all of them, so I don't think you'll be terribly impacted. But Debbie had a nice chance to recover, so we're ready to travel again. Your daughter pointed us to some food, so I fixed some sandwiches for our return trip. We should be fine from here." "Well, that makes me feel a little better at least," he responded. "Where are you going from here? Back to where you were?" "Frankly, I don't know yet. I've got to ask Debbie if she left anything behind. If not we may strike out on our own. The region around here is a little dead, a little too 'country' for my tastes, but where we were had too many infected people still lurking about, or at least it did before the big die off, so I'm not sure which avenue we'll take." "Well good luck whichever choice you make," David replied, glad to finally be done with her. While he didn't object to helping them out, he didn't appreciate them interrupting his personal time with Mattie, time he knew was very likely her last. He simply didn't feel comfortable filling it with idle chit chat with someone he'd never see again. She wandered off without any additional comment. He heard them drive off, never hearing from Debbie, who'd he'd originally thought was the perfect age for Alice. He couldn't blame them for their decision, but he certainly didn't mourn their leaving. He continued nursing Mattie, trying to force her to drink something until he was disturbed again. Only this time he didn't object so much. It was Alice, informing him he needed to come in and eat, as it wouldn't help anyone if he let himself get sick due to his not taking care for himself. "I can't very well leave her alone," he protested. "After all, this might be her final moments." "Fine," Alice said, climbing into the trailer, "I'll sit with her while you go eat. I figured you'd do this, so I already ate before coming out. It's easier if we relieve each other. We can't very well spend all our available time ignoring everything else." "Have you taken care of the animals?" David asked as he relinquished control of Mattie to his daughter. "Yep, they're all taken care of. Anything I should be aware of?" "Yeah, I've been talking to her, and she seems to respond to it. I think it gives her something to focus on whenever she comes around. I've been trying to encourage her to continue, telling her how I expect her to help us with our work." At that Alice just glared at him, but he just shrugged. "Hey, there's no harm being optimistic. If it helps her rally, then it's worth it." "OK, there's been some other news that you should be aware of," Alice said, accepting his comment. "Tobias called back. He's reached Nassau, located on the most populated island in the Bahamas with some 200,000 inhabitants, probably a bit less since it's the summer season right now. He stopped at the... , let me see if I've got this right... , the "Palm City Marina", which is on the south side of the island. Most of the inhabitants and the bigger port are on the north side, but that was farther away. "He said that the place looked deserted with heavy damage, especially to the boating areas and docks, with most of the boats sunk. However, as he tried exploring the houses accessible by boat he was shot at three separate times, so he figured that there were survivors, but that it wasn't worth risking trying to communicate with them, so he's taken off for Florida. Since he's not familiar with celestial navigation, he's simply heading northwest using dead reckoning, a compass and his nautical maps, so he doesn't know exactly where he's likely to end up. He'll contact us as soon as he lands." "OK, that's pretty useful. It means that people have survived, but that they're either concerned with looting or afraid of exposure. That helps, but right now I'm too tired to deal with it, I'll concentrate on it later." With that, he retreated to the house and ate with Tom, who really didn't have much to say other than asking about his patient. Finishing dinner, David stopped for a quick shot of whiskey, observing they didn't have much left, realizing there wouldn't be any way of replenishing it once it was gone, but figuring he needed something to help him make it through the night. He put on some soothing music before he left, leaving Tom playing with his microscope, searching for some elusive clue they'd previously missed, but David realized that Mattie was beyond any miracle discoveries. The rest of humanity probably was as well, he resigned himself. When he relieved Alice she gave him a quick kiss before she headed inside, telling him she'd relieve him so he could get some rest later, and then headed inside. David was so focused on Mattie and how she was responding, talking or singing to her like he'd done with Ellen and Alice so long ago, that he was shocked when Alice called to him again. He literally had no idea how long it had been since she'd left, but it had seemed only a few moments ago. "Dad, you should know that someone is coming up the driveway. I could see them approaching from inside the house. I can only imagine its Monique. Maybe she decided the weather is too bad to head out tonight, but she'll probably want to speak to you." "Damn, when is that idiot woman going to leave us alone? We're not threatening her as much as she's putting herself at risk continually asking us for help," he complained as Alice moved in to take over his watch. He stood up, disinfecting his hands, though he knew it wouldn't make any difference. He still couldn't shake anyone's hand. Stepping outside he checked his sidearm, which he'd kept on him out of force of habit. It wasn't an old habit, but he'd ingrained it pretty quickly once things started heading south, and now he was never far from it. Although it was still wet outside and the sky was heavily overcast, the rain had let up for a little while, so he could at least wait a little while without getting drenched. Seeing headlights approaching he waited until the car appeared, then noted that it was in fact Monique's car, even though he couldn't see anything else because of the bright headlights. His mind danced with imagined retorts, but he knew he'd never stoop to that level. If she needed something, he'd give it since that's what was needed. Life was hard enough now, and people were more worried about surviving than they were with social decorum. Hopefully she wouldn't need anything that would take too long. Parking a short distance away, safe enough not to expose one another, she turned her headlights off, relying on David's flashlight and the setting sun to provide the light they needed. He observed both front doors opening, which was strange since he figured Debbie should still be resting her leg. But he was further confused when he heard the other doors open as well. Curious, David flicked the flashlight up, exposing several individuals accompanying Monique. Surprisingly he counted five people, including Monique and Debbie. The new additions included an older man, kind of rugged looking with gray hair, and two women. David had no clue where Monique might have found so many friends so close at hand, unless they'd been waiting nearby somehow. "Hey, David," Monique called out. "We were all set to leave, but drove by the town square to see if there was some place we could crash for the night when we noticed some people sitting around the police station. While cautious, and not really wanting to get involved, I left Debbie and asked them what they wanted. "It seems they've been looking for you," she explained. "They walked here from God knows where, and knowing they didn't have transportation, I couldn't very well leave them alone. They all claim to be free of disease, so if I inadvertently infected them, or them me, then you're to blame for all of us, but I thought you'd want to at least talk to them." David took the chance of stepping forward, nervous about frightening them, so he could see them better, once again flashing his light across their faces. There was a heavy set woman, whose bright smile in the dark night seemed odd considering she couldn't know whether she'd be welcomed or what fate would await meeting contagious people would be. The other woman was younger, looking to be about Flora's age, probably still attending college before the meteor shower put an end to that. While older than Alice, she was just about as flat chested as she was, with long blonde hair that could definitely use a comb. They looked exhausted, like they'd been hiking for several days straight. "Are you Mr. Scott from the radio?" the older man in the worn Levis jacket asked. "I am," David responded. "Prove it," the man demanded. "I've got a Driver's License, if that will help. But all that means is that I potentially stumbled over his body." "What about your animals? What do you have and where did you find them?" the man asked. David risked another quick check with the flashlight, even though he knew it was annoying. "Let's see, if you've been listening to us, I've got a sick rooster and a duck, actually a coot. I have a recovered horse named Aristotle, and—" "Yeah, yeah, so you're listening as much as we have. What was the name of your ex-wife?" That struck David as odd. That wasn't something they would have gotten from the broadcasts, as they were careful not to reveal private details. Still, he figured these people deserved honest answers. "Her name was Linda. Unfortunately she was killed by some survivalists we encountered attacking a nearby armory." "It really is you," the man announced, barreling past the others and rapidly approached David, causing him to back up almost as rapidly. Seeing the man holding his arms out to wrap him in a big bear hug he knew he had to warn him off. "HEY! No touching until I know everyone is immune. We've had some problems with subsequent infections and I don't want anyone else's death on my hands," David insisted. That brought the man up short. "Sorry, man, I didn't mean anything by it. I'm Greg Adams, these others are Melissa Eisenmann and just plain Betty. Seems Betty's given up on the whole concept of last names." The trio looked like they'd seen some difficult times, but were used to hard work. They looked lean and rugged. Greg was older, dressed in a jean jacket with short graying hair combed to the side and a steely stare. Melissa and Betty were about as unmatched a pair as you could find, with Melissa being hefty and curvy, while Betty looked like the proverbial stick. "Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that going around," David responded. "Look, I'm currently looking after someone who's sick—" "I've got Mattie covered," Alice yelled out the window of the trailer. "You take care of business." David wasn't sure he appreciated his daughter's help right then, as he really wanted to get back to Mattie, but he knew he had to deal with these new people. "Well, as my daughter said, I guess I've got a few spare minutes. I'm not sure how comfortable any of you are with others at the—" "Are you kidding me? You're The David Scott. The only one who's beaten this damn plague, this 'Great Death' of yours. If you're not safe, then no one is," Greg responded, once again looking like he wanted to hug David. "It may not be as simple as that," David struggled to explain. "Since then we've had one of us fall victim to another variation of the plague, and I may have been responsible for infecting her." That brought the others up short, but then Greg smiled again. "Hell, I'm sure if anyone knows how to minimize risks, it's you. If she got infected, I'm sure it couldn't have been avoided. We trust you. You're the only thing that's been keeping us going these last couple of weeks. We were worried to death when you went off the air but—" "Wait, this is all a bit much to take in all at once, and we're all getting drenched standing out here in this drizzle. Come inside, stay as far away from me as you want, and let's hash out what you're here for." David was a bit stunned when the three newcomers broke into a big cheer and happily marched past him. After they'd moved past, Monique approached, helping Debbie, smiling at David sheepishly, but saying nothing to account for her change in behavior. Tom, having watched the whole proceedings, opened the door for them and ushered them into the house. They were, of course, astounded by the interior of David's house, and at everything he had up and running. Tom introduced himself, explaining where everything was and what he was currently working on. On learning of the working bathrooms, the women quickly headed for them. "Hold on, let me get you some fresh towels. I don't want you getting exposed to our germs," David called out. "Don't worry, we planned ahead and brought our own," Melissa responded with a pleasant smile. It was only then that David realized they each had a heavily loaded backpack complete with a bedroll attached. He watched the girls ascending the stairs, and then called up after them. "There a master bathroom in my bedroom to the left, and one smaller one connected to Alice's bedroom on the right. The master shower is big enough for anyone adventurous enough to try it." "Damn, hot water and everything," Greg exclaimed. "Tell me again how you managed to get here?" David asked. "Oh, I came up from D.C.," Greg explained. "I left with some others when the military started striking out, and we just kept going. One of the guys had family near here, and after we visited the hospital to find out what was happening, they told us about you. They said that one of the nurses knew you personally, and that you were well equipped to survive whatever came. It seemed she'd already died, but the other nurses knew what town you were from, at least. "But we no longer had a car," he continued, "or at least, we no longer had gas for it. It seemed there were several people that took to siphoning all the gas out of the standing cars, stockpiling it as well as hoarding all the available gas cans. They were charging a fortune to anyone who could pay for it. I met Betty who lived nearby, who knew one of the guys selling the bootleg gas. Of my other friends, who'd come with me from DC, one got sick and another didn't stick around, so when Melissa asked if she could tag along we welcomed her. We walked to this guy's house to buy some gas. However, once we got there the house was quiet. We knocked and then entered, only to find his two roommates shot dead and the guy gone. Apparently he killed his roommates when he discovered they'd gotten sick, and taken off somewhere, likely dying before he could do anything with it. So now it looks like all the available gasoline in that region is hidden somewhere no one can find it." "That's free enterprise run amuck for you," Melissa replied from the top of the stairs. "Man, you won't believe how wonderful hot water is. I figured I'd give you each a shot at it before we start fighting over who gets the first shower." "Come on down, we're telling David our story," Greg told her, so she happily ran down. "Actually, running water is amazing enough. Hot water is just more than we could imagine after all this time," he admitted to David while waiting for her to join them. "Anyway, since the guy's house was on the outskirts of town, we decided to just hoof it from there," Greg continued. "We raided a few stores and rifled through a couple of abandoned houses, collecting camping gear and enough food to get by, we also grabbed a couple of radios and enough batteries to last us." "We already knew who you were from your broadcasts, and you seemed to be the only one making plans for the future, or who even knew what to expect, so we figured you'd know what we should do," Melissa said. She was plump, but not obese by any stretch of the imagination. David wondered what she'd looked like before they started their long hike, as she must have lost a lot of weight along the way. "It was a long haul, but we walked the whole distance from the hospital to here, stopping each night and having to duck the occasional wild assed wackos. Just before the final die off, people were getting really crazy, but you'd already warned us about it, so we knew to hide whenever anyone came along," Greg continued. "We continued checking various houses, picking up what we could but avoiding any dead bodies along the way. You told us what we needed to know to keep from becoming infected. We even talked a local hardware superstore out of some masks they'd hidden away, so we were covered." "That takes us up to the present," Monique added from behind David, causing him to spin, seeing her standing beside Debbie, who was sitting on the counter. "When we left here, we found them by the police station. Apparently when they came to town they didn't know where to go from there, but headed there based on the stories you told about the police here being so in control of things." "Only there wasn't anyone there," Melissa said. "But we found that note between you and Tom, where you said you'd stop by occasionally to try to catch him. We figured the area was so clean that you must have spent a fair amount of time there recently." "They were crouched by the front door, trying to keep dry while keeping a watch for you," Monique explained. "When they saw my car they ran out into the rain until I fired a shot over their heads, asking who the hell they were." "She came closer to talk, and we explained our history," Greg said. "She gave us her sandwichs and told us she knew where you lived, but explained about the trouble you were having. When we asked if she could give us a ride she seemed conflicted, but she gave in when she saw how desperate we were." "They made a really sad group," Monique replied. "A bunch of wet, tired white people unused to living on the land, I wasn't sure how to carry them without risking exposure if they were lying, but hopefully everyone is as healthy as they claim to be." "Man, you won't believe his shower," Betty shouted from the top of the stairs. "It's big enough for all of us, and it's got a bunch of nozzles that all work." "So you're all uninfected, never having gotten sick before?" David asked cautiously. "Yep. We followed your advice and escaped getting exposed," Greg explained. "There was another one of us, another guy, but he got ill and we were afraid to stay with him. We were hoping we could go back for him, but well, it's been quite a while since then, and I'm sure he didn't make it." "Wait, the problem is that while Alice and I have been exposed to each of the viruses, none of you have," David tried to explain the danger he was exposing them to. "So while we're immune, we're likely carriers, which means you're exposing yourselves by staying here." That news got their attention, but didn't seem to dissuade them for long. "That's OK, man, you taught us how to deal with people who are infected. We're sorry we couldn't dispose of the bodies like you asked, but we didn't have access to the equipment necessary to bury everyone," Greg explained, looking troubled by just how much death they'd been exposed to, but then his face lit up again when he continued. "We know you're more careful than anyone else, so we trust you to do the right thing." "While I appreciate the trust you have for me, I'm still reeling from having infected someone close to me, who even now is agonizing outside," David told them. "While it's true the exposure was stupid, and knowledgeable, I'm still uncomfortable risking exposing the rest of you." "You could always let them use the other houses you said you cleaned up," Monique offered. "Yeah, if you knew someplace that was safe to stay, we'd be fine. As long as we're nearby, can turn to you for help, and can assist you in any way we can, we'll be fine," Greg asserted. "I'll have to consider this, but in the meantime, can I get you anything? We're running low on things like milk and orange juice, but we have plenty of fresh water, hot tea, coffee and a bunch of soda we stocked up on as soon as we realized we were in trouble. They immediately started ordering drinks, which Tom hurried to organize. David told them to make themselves comfortable but to watch what they touched, telling them he needed to check on someone while he thought about how best to handle them. With that he headed outside to the trailer again. "So how is everyone?" Alice asked when her father entered. "It's a mad house. I've never seen a bunch of happier people. They drove from DC, and then walked all the way from the hospital to here." "Really, I wonder why we never saw them?" "Apparently I put the fear of God and man into them with our broadcasts, so they avoided anyone along the way." "Man, it's crazy; we probably passed them several times and never even knew it." "Yeah, it's crazy all right. Now I've got to decide on the safest approach; keep them here where we may expose them, or send them packing after they've come all this way?" "Well you certainly can't send them away," Alice insisted. "They've come here because of you. They understand the risks and they trust us to manage those risks. They'll understand if someone gets sick, but they stand a better chance with us then they do on their own." "You may be right, but I've got to think this through," David responded. "How's Mattie holding up?" "Surprisingly, she seems to be doing pretty well. She's obviously in a lot of pain, but she seems to be stable at the moment." "Yeah, but remember, most of the deaths we experienced happened overnight, after everyone had gone to bed," David cautioned her. "Yeah, but you can't stay up all night babysitting her. Let me go in and introduce myself, then I'll come out and relieve you for five or six hours, then you can spell me for a while. Whatever happens, one of us will be here for her," she assured him. "You know, I have no idea how I'd ever have survived without you. Now I've just got to decide what to do with everyone, including Monique and Debbie. They didn't look like they're planning on heading out yet." "Well, if anyone can figure it out, it's you. Let me go say hello, assign everyone quarters, get them fed and cleaned, take a short nap and then I'll be out to relieve you again. By then everyone should be asleep so you won't be disturbed. And Dad?" she asked just before she reached the door. "Yeah?" "I knew Monique would be back. While she can protest all she wants, I know there's something between the two of you." "You keep hoping, but I'm telling you, I'm done with romance. I can't go through another death. I allowed myself to love not just one person but four, and each one died on me. That's enough heartache to teach me never to do that again," he yelled after her as she scampered towards the house, but he didn't know if she was listening to his protests or not. Just as well, he figured. She'd learn in time. ------- Chapter 8: A Miracle of Science or Nature? "Dad?" Alice asked the next morning, knocking on the door of the trailer before entering, adjusting her gloves as she did. "Yeah, I'm still awake. Each time I start to slip off, Mattie grips my hand, waking me again." "It's a good sign she's lasted so long. I mean, towards the end everyone else died before two full days, and in her case she's fighting not only one disease but several, that's pretty positive," Alice said, as if trying to convince herself as well as her father. "I'd like to think so, and I keep encouraging her, but I'm afraid to get my hopes up," David admitted. "Don't forget how long we suffered, and she's at risk the entire time." "Well, come on inside. We've got breakfast ready and everyone wants to talk." "Yeah, I can imagine. Honestly, I was ready for an emotional ordeal here, but Mattie's lasted a lot longer than I'd thought, and while I'm pleased, it's leaving me exhausted." "Well go get something to eat. I've already grabbed something so I'll be good for a while. Take your time, grab some sleep and then you can relieve me when you wake up." "I'm not so sure I'll be able to sleep," he admitted, giving Mattie's hand one last squeeze before abandoning his spot beside her to Alice, moving to the sink to scrub up. If he and Alice were now carriers, rather than merely immune, they'd have to be much more aware of how they conducted themselves, especially with so many people around them again. He glanced at his clothing, considering what it had been exposed to. "I brought a spare change of clothing, it's there on the counter," Alice informed him, guessing exactly what he was worried about. "And don't worry about stripping down, I've seen it all so I won't be shocked," she said, even though she didn't turn around. David quickly changed and headed in, not even taking notice of their collected plants and animals. Entering the house, everyone quickly moved aside to make room for him, making David wonder what motivated such behavior; a sense of respect or fear of exposure? "How's the girl?" Monique asked, sounding concerned. "Not well. Mattie's been suffering for a long time. It's hard to imagine just how painful this is if you haven't experienced it, and when you compound it several times by adding the number of plagues, it's very hard to conceive of. But she's still around, so we're hoping for the best, but she could realistically go at any moment." "It's got to be difficult watching that," she observed, looking at David with a newfound respect. "I've sat with many a sick child before, and it's always agonizing watching them suffer, especially if there's nothing you can do for them." "Well, when you add in the fact that I'm the reason she's suffering, it makes it harder. Plus, having gone through it myself, I realize that she's aware of what's going on. That's why I'm there for her so much. And it's not like there's nothing we can do. We can't give her anything to ease the pain, since we don't know what will help and what will hurt, but I'm there for her, and I know she realizes that." "Well, our thoughts are with you both," Monique added as Betty brought him some breakfast. "Despite treating so many people with the Great Death at the hospital, we never spent as much time with a single patient as you are." "Again, it's because I've been through it, and I realize just how aware they are and how much they suffer. Now, tell me about yourselves. How are all of you? Where the heck did you all sleep last night?" "Alice said she wanted to disinfect the other bedrooms again before anyone used them, so we camped out in the living room," Melissa replied. "You slept on the floor? Couldn't we find you anyplace better to sleep?" David asked, sounding outraged he'd slipped up so badly in welcoming his guests. "Actually, Alice finished off the one bedroom and that's where Monique and I slept," Debbie answered. "The others said they've been sleeping out on the open ground for the last couple of weeks, so it wasn't a big deal to them." "You'd better believe it, a nice stable place with running water and electricity certainly beats staying up all night guarding against marauders or risking infection," Greg answered. "Speaking of infection, are you all—" David tried to ask. "Hey, you taught us how to take care of ourselves," Greg argued. "Everyone else was busy hiding away, but since we know how to protect ourselves we're not as concerned about it. Besides, Tom says that he doesn't think you're actually that contagious. He says both he and Mattie were here without getting infected even though you all shared the same space, used the same utensils and handled the same stuff. He thinks you have a severely weakened case of it, and that as long as we keep a little distance we should be fine." "So you don't think it's transmitted through the air?" David asked Tom, who perked up when someone asked him about his research. "No, I don't, at least not in your case. I think it's primarily spread via direct contact, and especially via liquid transference. When passed through the air, I suspect it is transferred via moisture rather than in the air itself. However, in your case that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I'm not sure if your cases have mutated, or whether they're in retreat after being attacked by your immune systems, but it doesn't seem to be as aggressive." "Try telling that to Mattie," David groused. "Yeah, I'm not saying the risks aren't still tremendous, just that the transmission seems to have been contained," Tom elaborated. "So what's in the cards for each of you? What do you have planned?" "We came here looking for you," Melissa explained, "so you tell us. What do you need us to do?" "Well, I think the first thing is to find yourselves your own living space. Staying here is still taking an unnecessary risk, and I'm sure you'd be more comfortable on your own." "Don't count on it," Betty answered. "Although we depended on each other while traveling, we also kept our distance to prevent any potential troubles. Whenever Greg would get in the mood he'd walk off into the woods, so we're not ready to set up house anytime soon. And we're rather partial to the services that you have here." "Actually, I don't know if Alice mentioned it, but I think I generate enough electricity to run power to the other houses farther out on the road. I don't have the traditional domestic turbine, instead I got one of the industrial ones they use on wind farms. I actually got paid by the electric company more often then they'd ever charge me, and they'd only charge me very small amounts." "She mentioned that. She also said that you'd already cleaned the houses out," Melissa said. "Yeah, we did, though I'll have to see what it'll take to run the electric lines. When I built the place, I buried the electric cables under the road when it was first laid, so it was protected from the storm. I never really looked at the lines out on the street, but I don't recall seeing any broken poles or downed lines, so I don't think it'll take much to set it up again. We only need to cut the houses from the rest of the power grid." "Actually, I may be able to help with that," Greg volunteered. "I'm certainly no electrician, but I'm used to dealing with electricity, so I might be able to help out." "What is it you did?" David asked him. "I worked for Comcast, the cable company, as an installer and repair guy. As such I worked with a lot of electrical systems. Never on the high powered lines, but I've got a good basic understanding of what's involved. But that's not all. I was considering your radio broadcasts. You already have a good transmission, but I think we can easily boost it. Radio stations were always limited as to the amount of power they could apply to their transmissions because it would bleed over to the other stations, especially at night when the signals transfer farther. But those restrictions don't apply in your case, and there aren't any regulators to complain about it anyway." "Hey, that sounds great. I believe we already get pretty good range because we're high up, and the ground drops down away from us giving us a clear area to broadcast. The mountains behind us block the signal from reaching very far to the west, but we've got a good reach to the east. As far as I know, there isn't anyone else offering advice like we are, so if we can help more people it could potentially help a lot of people." "Exactly what I was thinking," Greg replied with a smile. "You know, the other thing to consider is farming," David offered. "Are any of you into farming?" "Here, or somewhere else?" Betty asked skeptically. "No, I'm thinking of a local farm near here. You'd grow your own food, you'd be independent even though we'd support you, and best of all you'd be able to trade for anything else you might need with any other survivors in the area." "Yeah, but you've been warning that crop production might be limited by heavy snowfalls this year and reduced sunlight beyond that," Melissa observed. "It seems to me it's risky, plus we'd be isolated and without electricity, and farming is a lonely occupation even in the best of times. Now that there isn't anyone else nearby, it would be tremendously hard." "Well, think about it at least. We've been trying to save all the seed we can find as well as any surviving animals. So far we've got a fair number of chickens and sheep, though everything thing else seems fairly iffy." "What about weaving?" Melissa asked. "I don't really know much about it, but that's what our ancestors did. After all, I'm part Irish," she added, flashing her big grin. "If you could do that it would be great, but I'd wait on it. We'll only need to worry about it when it's time to shear the sheep, and then only if we have enough to do anything with. With the few we have, I suspect it'll be a while before you can actually produce much, plus we already have plenty of clothing. I think that's a lower priority item to keep in reserve for later when things get worse. Likewise, pottery and glassblowing will eventually become important, but right now there's nothing we'd need, so if we get snowed in over the winter they'd be good things to study up on." "You certainly have your hands in a lot of pies," Monique observed with an odd look to her eyes. "You seem to know something about a whole variety of topics." "Well, we need to do everything that's always been done for us, so we'll need to start taking on more tasks than we ever had to before," David explained, getting impatient since he interpreted her look to mean she thought he was just showing off. "So what do you need us to do right away?" Betty asked, looking like she was ready to start work immediately. "Let's get the nearby houses fixed up first, but after that, as much as I hate to suggest it, I think cleanup is the most pressing thing. Each of the houses around here likely has one or more dead bodies in them. For a while people were dumping their bodies out on the street, but that only works if there are still people capable of doing it. If we can't get the dead bodies out, pretty soon the houses won't be worth a damn. Actually, with as many empty houses as we have now, most will simply rot away, but we should prioritize them and try to clean out as many as we can. "Start with the downtown region. Get the shops and nearby houses cleaned up. That way anyone passing will notice it's a functioning community, and if anyone wants to move in they can. Hopefully that will draw more people to us. What's more, we're worried about the surviving animal population. I'm guessing a lot of people left animals behind, and if they haven't already died, they're probably getting quite hungry by now." "Yeah, that'll take a while to work through. Plus I'm guessing you want to do the nearby communities as well?" Melissa guessed. "Yeah, we've been trying to do it wherever we go," David explained. "I'm sure you noticed how clean the downtown and the street leading to us is of dead animals. We've been picking up some each day. We figure it'll alert anyone passing by that there's a healthy community living here." "Are you sure that's such a good thing to advertise?" Greg asked, sounding skeptical. "Right now, we've got to try to pull people together. We had a lot of trouble with people behaving like animals before the big die off, but I'm betting that people are too shell shocked by death to want to spread more of it right now. That said, I want each of you armed and getting target practice. We've got plenty of firearms, both pistols, rifles and automatics, plus a little body armor and supplies. Alice has already been in several gunfights, so she can get you started. So far no one has tried to attack us, although we have been shot at several times, but I had the impression those were only to keep us at a distance. But it won't hurt you to be prepared." "Aye-aye, sir. Sounds like a plan," Betty responded, saluting sharply, even if a bit improperly. "When you're checking the houses, also check for anything of value," David added, trying to avoid looking at Monique, since he didn't think she'd be interested and he didn't want to deal with her disapproval at the moment. "Stored food would be good, any equipment we don't have, or anything we could potentially trade at some point." "Yeah, yeah, we get the idea," Greg replied. "Don't keep selling when we've already bought into the plan." "OK, that should keep the three of you busy, what about the rest of you? Tom, I'm assuming you're going to focus on research. What about you, Monique and Debbie?" "Well, as you know, I was all for taking off," Monique replied, speaking for the two of them. "But once we left, we realized we didn't have anywhere else to go. Then Debbie started in. Seems she likes it here, and she likes the idea of there being another girl her age here as well." "Yeah, I'll do whatever I need to say here," Debbie assured him. "You just focus on getting healthy for now. When you're ready, there should be plenty for you to do," David replied. "What about you Monique? You don't sound convinced yet." "No, I'm pretty sold. You've got a very nice set up here. It's got all the modern conveniences; it's protected from the coming cold and also from any attacks. What I don't like is everyone taking the risk of infection so lightly. But everyone seems to know the risk, and they're willing to accept it, so who am I to argue with them?" "So does that mean you want to stay, or merely settle nearby?" David asked, trying to figure out how she was thinking. "I'm a nurse. It makes sense for me to be where the people are. And if anyone is going to get sick, it's going to be you people. While David and Alice are probably better at doctoring plague victims, I'm here for everything else. I'm willing to stay here, but I'll keep my distance if it's all the same to you." "Hey, it's no skin off my back," David assured her. "If you're willing to help out and offer your expertise, I'm glad to have you; however you want to play it." "So what about you? What are your plans?" Debbie asked, sounding concerned for him. "Yeah, the last thing we need is for you to be making yourself sick," Melissa reminded him. "I'll be OK, but right now Mattie is my number one priority. I'm still hoping for the best, but I'm also a realist. The chances of her surviving are pretty low, so I'm guessing she doesn't have much longer. Right now I'll try taking a nap, and then I'll relieve Alice. I'll take you downstairs and equip you with some weapons and tools, and hopefully Alice can help familiarize you with them. But I doubt that I'm going to be much good until Mattie is, uh..." David was afraid to finish, to actually say the words. Everyone sitting there nodded their heads in understanding, as the meaning was abundantly clear. ------- "Honestly, Dad," Alice loudly exclaimed as she entered the trailer in the early morning only to find her father slumped against a cabinet, utterly exhausted. "You've got to take better care of yourself. The way you're going, you're going to end up killing yourself. Everyone has been working hard the past couple of days, but you've been doing nothing but wearing yourself raw. Now you've got to come inside, eat something, and go to bed so you can recover a little." David looked up, his eyes tired and bloodshot from lack of sleep. He groggily nodded his acceptance of what she was telling him, but he found himself having trouble acting on it. "Seriously, you can't even respond you're so tired? I think I'm doing to tie you down in your bed so you can't get up. Maybe I'll have Tom give you something so you'll sleep for the next couple of days." David, knowing his daughter was correct, finally got to his feet, his thinking still foggy, and started stumbling towards the door. Alice turned and watched her father to ensure he actually made it out of the trailer. "A ... Alice... ?" a weak voice whispered. Surprised, Alice spun around to find Mattie, pale emaciated and worn, staring up at her with recognition in her eyes, even if they too were like her father's, bloodshot and red-rimmed. "Mattie, you're OK!" Alice exclaimed, bringing her father up short. "Weak," Mattie managed to squeak out. "Need water, food." "I've been trying to keep her hydrated, but she hasn't been able to eat or drink anything," David explained, rushing back. "Tom tried giving her an intravenous drip, but she fought it, and she's been losing hydration throughout her illness." "You take care of her," Alice instructed her father, forgetting her earlier admonitions about his taking care of himself, "I'll grab her something to drink and get Tom and Monique. They're not going to believe this." "How are you feeling, sweetie?" David asked, kneeling beside her bed and grasping her hand, bending over to kiss her forehead. "Better," she gasped through parched lips. "Before, I'd wake for short moments ... and then drift off again." She had to stop and began coughing, unused to speaking. David held her steady as she did, holding a glass of water that Alice had poured for her to sip, though she couldn't drink much yet. "Don't try to talk," he insisted. "Just lie still and regain your strength. Between your shivering and restlessness, you've worn out what little resilience you have left." She complied, simply letting herself be held as she contemplated what this meant, now that she'd returned once more to the world of the living. There was a commotion outside, and soon Alice entered again, followed by Tom and Monique, with the others remaining outside, observing them from a distance. "Be careful," David warned. "She still has a slight fever." "Don't worry, as you can see I've got gloves and a mask, so I should be fine," Monique insisted, shoving Tom, who hadn't thought to bring his own mask, aside. However Alice, entering before them, responded first. "Give her a sip of this," she instructed her father, giving him a small glass orange juice. "It'll give her body something to rebuild with as well as refresh her. After she'd had a little, I've got some raisins, they're probably better as they're small and contain more concentrated fructose." Monique, moving in beside David and Alice, felt Mattie's forehead for herself, and then shoved a thermometer in her mouth after Alice slipped her a couple raisins to suck on. "This is amazing," Tom marveled. "This makes her the third person to have recovered from each of the plagues. This is just too unlikely to be completely random. I can see you and Alice each doing so, since you share DNA, but she wouldn't share that with you. Other people have survived one plague disease, but usually never more than one." "Not now," Monique hissed at him as she pulled the thermometer from Maggie's mouth and checked it. "Just as you guessed, she still has a slight fever, but it's nothing serious and is probably helping her recover a little faster, so we'll let it run its course. The raisins were a good idea, Alice. Can you speak now, Mattie?" "Yeah, who the hell are you? And who are ... all those people?" she asked, looking at the other dubiously. Both David and Alice laughed at that response, although Monique shot them both a dirty look. "They're people who've joined us since you fell ill," David explained. "Monique is a nurse. The others we'll introduce later." "Yeah, yeah, but how are you feeling?" Monique pressed. "Anything we need to be concerned with?" Mattie shook her head. "No, I'm tired and achy, but feel OK. Feel like I need to move though." "That's because you've been lying in bed for several days. Your muscles have atrophied a bit, and you're feeling the need to get the blood flowing again," Monique explained. "Once you've recovered a little more David and Alice can help you stand." "Does this mean she's going to be OK?" Greg asked from outside the trailer. "It looks like it," Monique answered. "She's still recovering, so she's probably more contagious than David and Alice yet, but she seems to be past any serious threats." "Damn, this certainly calls for a celebration," Betty commented. "As soon as you can eat again, we'll have to bake you a cake." "Ugh," Mattie replied, making a face. "As nice as that sounds, I don't think I could stand it yet. I'm hungry, but I know I can't manage much." "OK, we shouldn't be stressing her out," Tom informed everyone, herding them out. "I'll make her a shake that should be easier to get down, it's the best way to get nutritious food into her, but there's really no reason for us all to be crowding her now. We can wait until she can join us." "I think that goes for me too," Monique added. "I think she's recovering enough on her own that I'm not really adding anything here. If you need anything, give me a call. Just make sure you get some sleep yourself, David." "Don't worry, I will, but right now I'm so excited I doubt I could sleep, so I think I'll just sit here and enjoy having Mattie back," David responded. After everyone had left, Mattie glanced up at David. "Thank you," she told him, smiling at both him and Alice, but her eyes were focused on David. "I don't know if I could have made it without you, and knowing you were there for me any hour of the day or night meant a lot." "I'm glad sweetheart, I was never sure whether you'd recover or not, but I wanted to be here for you in either case," he assured her as they all reflected on how close they'd come to losing her. The thoughts of what her survival ultimately meant were put off for later. ------- David and Alice eventually helped Mattie into the house, easing her into a chair in the kitchen to the cheers of everyone observing. Smiling gratefully, she thanked them, but remained quiet as she recovered from the effort the short trip had taken out of her. It demonstrated just how drained her body was. She still couldn't eat much, so Tom presented her with another of his special shakes, designed to give her the most calories and nutrients in the easiest consumable form. Everyone seemed enthused by her miraculous recovery, but Monique in particular seemed impressed by what David had achieved. Debbie was also fascinated, seeming like she wanted to cozy up to Alice, but was aware of the risk she presented. Welcoming her back, Tom and Monique decided to take the opportunity to discuss what her recovery implied. "You know, as much as I appreciate having her back, Mattie's survival is not only surprising, but it signifies there's a lot more going on here than a simple immune response." "Yeah, I figured you'd tell me how she wasn't supposed to survive," David replied, a little sourly. "We're not unhappy she survived, but the fact that the three of you are the only ones we know of to survive all the plague strains tells us a great deal," Monique explained. "We have to assume she didn't do this on her own, that somehow the plasma transfer kick started her immune system," Tom said, "but it really couldn't have done that." "The idea behind a plasma transfer is that you lend a few of your antibodies to someone who's healthy, and that those antibodies will increase over time," Monique added, in what sounded suspiciously like a prearranged lecture. "But there hasn't been enough time for that to have occurred, and she wasn't that healthy to begin with." "Alternately, you can give it to someone who's already sick," Tom said, maintaining their alternating points, "but in that case, those antibodies don't last long, and it will only buy you a little time, requiring multiple continued plasma transfusions, hoping to keep the person healthy long enough for their own body to begin producing the antibodies itself. But we discontinued the plasma transfers when the new people arrived, so that whole premise collapses." "What we're left with is that the plasma managed to trigger something we're unaware of," Monique continued. "Since I'm assuming that you and Alice survived based on some specific genetic trait, I can only assume you've somehow transferred that genetic advantage, but again, that isn't really possible." "It's not unheard of; viruses can write themselves into a victim's DNA using a 'transposon' process that allows it to gain access to the DNA. Transposons are like keys to DNA, and sometimes viruses can attach themselves to these keys. We're guessing somehow your DNA is also taking advantage of one, and that the plasma transfer somehow managed to transfer your genetic advantage to Mattie, allowing her to generate new cells capable of either resisting or actively fighting these diseases." "That might explain why she had to get so sick, giving her time to create new cells capable of fighting the disease, but that's also unlikely," Monique continued. "You've probably heard how the body regenerates all its cells every seven years, but that's kind of a gross ballpark figure. The fact, though, is that it takes several weeks to replace blood cells, taking much longer to completely replace all of them. So the idea that her body could produce enough cells in only several days, all while being devastatingly sick, is hard to fathom." "Well, technically the red blood cells take the longest to replace," Monique corrected, as if that minor detail was David's main point of contention. "The plasma treatment removed all of those to reduce the risks of rejection. However, merely transferring a few healthy white blood cells doesn't cause the body to begin generating duplicate antibodies." "Yet, she seems to have done all those things," David observed, growing angry at their consistent negativity when he wanted to focus on the miracle of her survival. "Do you have anything to suggest other than that she shouldn't have lived?" "We're saying that while we don't understand it, that there's something amazing going on here. We don't know how to apply it, but the three of you might represent the best hope of fighting these plagues. We really need to either figure out what's occurring, or at least how we can capitalize on it." "Yeah, I can see your being excited at those prospects, but the fact of the matter is that my plasma gave her the very diseases she hadn't been exposed to yet, and that they almost killed her. She managed to survive by the skin of her teeth. So I can't see this as much of a treatment. I can't see asking for volunteers. 'We've got this amazing new treatment that can protect you from the Great Death, the only problem is we have to give you all the diseases associated with it and hope you survive, and that if you do, you'll be a walking carrier of the disease. How soon do you want to try your treatments?' Somehow, I can't see anyone buying into that." "That's a problem, and normally we could get around that by doing lab experiments if we had a big enough lab with enough staff and equipment, but we don't," Tom pointed out. "Alternately, we could do it like they used to, by doing animal studies, but the very animals closest to humans seem to have suffered even worse than we have. About the only animal we have that we could use as a test subject is Jacob, Alice's piglet." Alice head snapped up at this latest suggestion. While she'd been having trouble keeping up with the discussion so far, she knew what they were suggesting now could kill off one of the animals they'd struggled so hard to save. "You're NOT about to threaten the only remaining member of her species we have on the off chance it might tell you something," David warned them sternly. "No, we don't have enough of any animal to do any kinds of studies," Tom acknowledged. "What's more, the only animals we have in sufficient quantity don't bear any real similarities to humans, making them bad choices." "So what you're saying is you want to take advantage of this new insight, an insight you neither understand nor can reconcile, but you have no way to take advantage of it?" Both Tom and Monique hung their heads, looking defeated. "Yeah, I guess that was our whole point," Tom admitted. "Look, while I can see you being excited at learning something new, or being challenged by something, we need to focus on solutions. Nothing you've said points to a viable solution to any of our problems. I think we'd do better focusing on solving the problems we have rather than wasting our time on those we can't do anything about. We can't cure the Great Death. What we have is one case where someone managed to survive, and it may not mean anything other than that she's one tough individual. I suggest we focus on keeping everyone healthy and minimizing everyone's exposure to the disease, rather than fretting about cures we have no way of achieving," David lectured them, having grown incredibly tired of their yammering. Not only didn't they have any specific point, but they picked the wrong time to discuss it, spoiling what should have been a victory party for Mattie, possibly crushing everyone else's hopes by pointing out how impossible survival was in the process. "Now, if you don't mind, we're going to treat Mattie to a little celebration. I'd suggest you both make yourselves scarce and think of more productive uses for your time than scaring everyone. Me, I've got much better things to do," and with that he summarily dismissed them from his attention, turning to focus on Mattie once again. "I'm glad you stood up for Jacob," Alice quietly commented. "Imagine wanting to experiment on the only surviving pig!" ------- Chapter 9: Stupid Ideas Justified "We have some new information on the plagues that constitute The Great Death that everyone listening should be aware of. It may not help you avoid it, but at least it will give everyone a common frame of reference. There appear to be at least five different component plagues of the Great Death. We've decided to name them in reference to specific figures, not because of any specific reason, but just because we needed some terms we could easily use. Normally one uses Latin names, but never having attended Catholic school, no one here is up on their Latin. The first, GD1, or Lindasis, a favorite of mine since it's named after my mother, is denoted by little purple pimples with radiating blue veins leading away from it. It seems to impact the blood stream, causing the blood supply to become sluggish, starving the various organs of vital nutrients. The next, GD2, or Ellenosis, is marked by the open bleeding sores on the flesh. This is a slightly more contagious variant as the exposed blood is more easily passed between victim and caregiver. Victims also tend to bleed internally and spit up blood unexpectedly. This seems to occur when the liver and stomach lining ruptures. This one has been noted in various animal forms as well. GD3, named Sinclarium, is observed by a slight bluish cast to the skin. Again, this is the result of restricted blood flow, often intermittent. GD4, called Floraosis, is marked by non-bleeding pimples, similar to those found in Ellenosis, although it doesn't affect the blood directly. Finally, GD5 or Amiosis doesn't have any obvious marks on the face or skin, but it's fairly clear when someone has it simply because of how sick they become without any clear symptoms. We aren't exactly sure whether it's a single disease or a compilation of other non-symptematic ones, but it's important to note that not all sufferers or survivors will bear specific distinguishing marks. It's important to note that surviving any one of these will make you immune to it, but it won't provide any protection from the other variants. There seems to currently be an easing in the transmission rates, but we suspect that's because the number of transmission sources (i.e. living entities that can pass blood, saliva or contaminated exhalations) have died out. It's been suggested that these diseases were largely spread by insects, mosquito, ticks and even dust mites, but these and other insects that feed on sick individuals have seemingly died off, easing the risk of exposure. However, that doesn't mean you're safe. Always use security precautions such as we've described when outside where you may encounter anyone. It doesn't take much to become contaminated, a stray cough, a light touch, or even touching the same surface. Personally, we live off of collected bottles of antiseptic hand lotions. Since there's no cure, the only way to survive it is to avoid it in the first place. Of the five possible disease transmission modes, these plagues use all five. They're air-borne, they're transmitted via both direct and indirect contact, they can be transmitted via shared food or utensils, as we said they can be transmitted via insect bites, and although we haven't documented it, we're assuming that since these appear to be viral that it's also transmitted from mother to child. It seems to be transmitted via bodily fluids, anything from sweat, saliva, blood or damp skin cells. Finally, we learned something particularly useful, though hard to apply. We've discovered that dogs have the ability to smell the Great Death contagions. The only problem, as most of you probably already know, is that dogs—given their tendency to lick roll around in and eat dead things—have been hit particularly hard by these plagues. However, if you can find one, or any other animal that can be trained to sniff and alert, you stand a much better chance of avoiding infections, either directly via another person or indirectly by touching something previously touched by an infected person. Anyway, that's all for today. We still don't know if anyone is listening, but if they are, we wish you the best in coping in these hard times, and hope you're working together to prepare for the difficult times ahead." ------- "Dad, just so you're aware, there are several things you've missed over the past couple of days," Alice informed her father over a belated breakfast while the others prepared to head out. Mattie was currently resting, David had showered, and everyone else had put off doing anything else until they'd gotten the two of them settled. "Greg got everyone to clear the dead fish from off the surface of the pond. It may not be 'clean' yet, but at least it doesn't look quite so horrific. "But perhaps of more interest, Tobias finally radioed back. He finally made it to Florida yesterday. Not knowing where he was, he headed up the coast looking for an inlet rather than having to beach one of the few functioning boats. That took him even further off course, but he entered the ... uh ... the Boynton Beach Inlet, where he's taken refuge until he figures out where to go from there. That puts him just outside Palm Beach, which is a ways north of Miami. He planned to leave his boat in a private marina he found, grab a local car and drive north along the coast, seeing what he can find. He'll report in if and when he finds anything." "He should do more than that," David reminded her. "There's no telling what he's going to find. He should be checking in at specific times so we'll know if something has happened to him." "And what would we do if anything has happened to him?" Greg asked from behind the counter. "We can't exactly hop on a plane and fly down to help him out, or even call the local cops to look for him. Face it, he's on his own. He'll either succeed for fail on his own, with no help from us. If he can provide decent intel, then so much the better. But if he doesn't, that's sad, but it doesn't really change anything." "Yeah, I guess, but we're in contact with so few people, I hate to lose any of them," David responded. "That's understandable, but you can't take what happens to them personally, as you've got no control over their lives. They're only distant voices, and they're outside of your control. Try to keep that in mind and don't claim them as your own as yet," Greg cautioned. David simply nodded, anxious to be underway. Finishing, David was ready to get back out and interact with the world again. But when he tried to follow the others as they headed out, Alice reminded him he had some things he'd left undone that the others were depending on; namely establishing power to the other homes. When she broached the subject, Greg told him he'd already disconnected the houses from the larger power grid from the overhead power line on the street, so all he'd have to do it flip the power on when he switched the power on from the house. However they couldn't wait around while he did that, so they left, telling him where to find them if he wanted to join them later. Despite feeling mildly frustrated, David could hardly object. He'd been out of it for days, and he'd fallen way behind on a variety of tasks. The others had been very accommodating by picking up his work, but there were certain things that only he could do. However, he was amazed once again at how weak he felt after being largely immobile for several days, and it hadn't been that long since he'd been so sick himself. He could only imagine what Mattie felt like at the moment. Although Alice had assisted him, she'd also been helping the others finding things in town and getting them acclimated with their weapons, so she'd been getting out and moving about more than he had. It didn't take long to switch the power over to the outside line. Since it had been shut off, Greg had been free to handle all the high power lines without fear of electrocution, but he'd left the power off at each house, so David now had to go to each one, turning it on, testing it and ensuring they didn't burn anything down in the process. They still hadn't worked out who was going to live where. For now everyone seemed happy with remaining with them, although the topic worried David. With three contagious carriers, four unexposed 'plague virgins' and one other still vulnerable to other infections, it seemed like an unacceptable risk to him. But if they chose to accept it, then it didn't make much sense in his second guessing their judgments. As much as he worried about it, he would hate losing Tom or Monique, even if they only moved to the end of the long driveway. Turning on the power at each house was easy enough, although it was a bit tedious. Basically he had to drive to each house, find the main fuse box in the dark house using a flashlight, check all the connections one last time and flip the power on, then check the various electronics in the house. Once he finished, he turned it off again and went to the next house. He assumed if anyone wanted to move out, they'd select whichever house they wanted, so it made no sense leaving the power on at any one house. Still, getting them set up was a major milestone. It meant that they were now ready to house other residents in the comfort they'd grown accustomed to, even if they hadn't been able to appreciate it for some weeks now. He had to use the walkie-talkies to locate the others as they were making such steady progress they'd moved away from their starting point. They'd worked out quite a system. Greg and Melissa would carry the bodies out while Monique carted out any infected sheets, mattresses or other items that looked like they'd been compromised. Alice, having already trained Lassie a bit, was putting him to use inspecting carpets, couches and towels for the scent of disease. Anything he turned his nose up at went out. It turned out they were storing everything in a trailer they'd found. The plan was to dispose of them later, probably by burning them. They couldn't do so safely, but Greg assured him he had a plan to take care of it. Betty and Melissa scoured the street and yards, picking up all the animal carcasses they found, tossing them on the dead truck. After they finished, Alice and Monique carried out the boxes of supplies they'd scavenged to the truck that Greg was using, one of the ones David 'rescued' from the armory attack. However, David suggested they leave some staples there, arguing they didn't have unlimited space, and anyone hoping to use the houses in the future would appreciate them. Still, they were working as a well-organized unit, and they were making steady progress. "We found a juicer, a nut grinder and some canning supplies," Monique told David. "That will allow us to keep vegetables throughout the year, or if things turn bad, for however long it takes before we can grow them again." "It doesn't sound like much, but it's little things like that which will keep us going when the gas and other supplies run out," David said, congratulating her. They moved to the next block and started again, when Melissa called for David. Curious, Alice and Lassie followed. Walking across the street, they entered a modest house, walked through the entranceway to a small back room, where Melissa made a grand sweeping gesture, revealing a pottery room, complete with potter's wheel, kiln, various glazes and clay working tools. "Wow, this is big. I'd heard about a local artisan who did pottery, but I never met her and had no idea where she lived." "Well, she didn't survive, but there's a lot of other stuff. Not only are there a bunch of paintings she did, but apparently she collected and traded other people's artwork as well, so we can grab anything that grabs your fancy." "It'll take a while to cart all this stuff off. We can't leave it here, since we'd need electricity to run it and it's too valuable in the long run to risk losing. So, do any of you have an inkling for pottery? It could become a new career path in our new economy." "I don't know about the pottery, but I wouldn't mind playing around with the paints," Betty said, entering from the other room carrying some sample prints. "She also has a small printing press." "I'm not sure being a free-lance painter will be as useful as being a potter would be. I suspect there's too many existing pieces of art hanging abandoned in people's homes as it is." "Yeah, but I did fair amount of painting in school, and I wouldn't mind doing some more," she objected. "That's fine, but just don't confuse that with the more essential tasks we have ahead of us. It'll be better to focus on it when we're snowed in over the winter." "What about the printing press?" Alice asked. "Will that be helpful?" "Eventually, I guess, but in the short term we still have printers, and I doubt it's a high volume typographical press. While it's probably good for doing artwork, it would be pretty useless for printing books. It's more geared for low-volume high-quality prints rather than the low-quality mass productions we'd be interested in." "I guess that means we should try to find a printing press," Alice suggested. "That makes sense, although there's been no large scale printing with presses in a long time. We'd have to try searching antique houses or specialty book makers, which would involve searching a nearby city. We'll have to keep our eyes open, but it's not a high priority, as the likelihood of finding any is pretty low." "Still, nothing says we can't look," she replied, leafing through the artwork. "I like this one," she said, picking out a picture of an angelic figure flying into the sky. David wondered why she found it attractive, suspecting it may be the imagery and the implications behind it, but he chose not to comment on it. "Well, this is too much for us to carry. You'll have to go dump the bodies while I return to get a truck big enough to cart this stuff back. You others can divvy up the other stuff." "Sounds like a plan," Melissa agreed, "though we should leave most of the stuff here, since we'll start again tomorrow." "Sounds good, but it's getting late and I'm still anxious about leaving Mattie for too long," David added. ------- "Dad, I've got Tobias on the line again," Alice called out. She'd gone in to prepare her nightly broadcast after they'd returned home, but had decided to check the ham radio to see if she could reach anyone again. "Good, it's about time I talked to him," David said entering the radio room—what had once been his own private office—but which was now littered with various bits of radio technology. It was made even worse as Tom had taken to dumping his various books here until they could get some better shelving up in what had once been David's living room. "Go ahead, Tobias, where are you now and what's been happening to you?" Alice prompted their faraway friend. Since they were the only ones on the open airwaves, they'd given up following the traditional ham radio protocols. "Well, first let me say that it wasn't as noticeable out on the open sea, but the beaches here in Florida are littered with dead animals of all kinds. Fish, dolphin, turtles, whales, birds, mice, crabs, you name it. There aren't that many human bodies, but it's apparent as soon as you enter any of the houses that they've been rotting in the hot unair-conditioned homes. What's more, most of these massive seaside homes with the beautiful ocean side windows are now exposed to the unfiltered ocean air and mold is growing rampantly, so most of them are no longer habitable. No one has built a home suited for the oceanfront environment here for at least a good fifty years now." "That's fascinating, but we're hoping to get more specific information," David related. He quickly introduced himself before getting to his point. "Is there anyone there that's still alive? Any sign of an organized community?" "Well, I drove into South Palm Beach, normally a pretty busy oceanfront tourist area, but most of the homes and businesses here are either boarded up, or were never repaired after the meteor storm, showing that they haven't been occupied for some time. It looks like the whole town has been abandoned. I thought I saw a couple of people, but I only got fleeting images of them and could never confirm what I'd thought I saw." "Yeah, we had the same thing here," Alice informed him. "People are afraid to interact. They're still afraid that the plagues are carried on the wind, and that if they get downwind of you, you'll infect them." "I guess I can see that, but it makes it difficult trying to do a tally. I've been checking out various houses and businesses, and most of them have already been stripped of food, although there's plenty of fancy furniture and electronics, so there's no widespread looting going on." "That may have happened before the big die-off," David suggested. "Chances are everyone on the beach ate all the available food, and then when the heat started making things difficult, they split." "That may very well be. I managed to find a locked storeroom in a beach club which had a lot of canned goods in it, so that'll hold me for a while. There are some big-assed hotels here, and while there are a few dead bodies stinking up the place, most of the rooms are empty. But the big news is that I found someone, a woman, who like me was hiding out in an abandoned hotel. She was desperate to get off the island so she decided to join me." "Does she know what happened there?" David asked. "No, she says she got sick and woke up to find everyone dead. But she was from a ways up the beach. She'd been avoiding people, but when she discovered there wasn't anyone else, she walked to the hotel here." "Is it that hard to get off the island?" Alice asked, confused as she'd thought the barrier islands were fairly well connected to the mainland. "That's the other news I had to report. When we tried to exit the island, heading to South Palm Beach proper, we came under fire. It seems that someone, or a group of people, are preventing anyone from crossing the bridges. I'm planning on heading back to my boat and sailing around the area to Palm Beach itself, hoping I'll find a slightly friendlier reception." "It sounds like they forcibly isolated the infected people in the community to the beach, and are still keeping a watch to prevent their return," David suggested. "That may be, but I'm guessing any organized effort to isolate people probably ended when most of their members died. I'd guess that this was organized after the big die-off," Tobias responded. "Well, at least you know there are survivors," David said. "What you need is some way to reach out to them, either there or in Palm Beach. Grab what you can while you're there, but you need to be looking for things like generators, bottled water, used smartphones or iPods you can charge up to trade with. You'll probably have to leave things with anyone you see to entice them to trust you. If you charge up an old iPod, record a message explaining what you're trying to do, and leave it with some food, you may be able to win them over." "That makes sense, but the people guarding the bridge don't seem to be very open to negotiations. I've tried a couple of different bridges, and each one has been similar, so rather than driving up the coast, trying one bridge after another, I figured sailing around the trouble might be a better option. "Wait, posting guards on a number of brides and staffing it 24/7 has got to require a significant number of people. It sounds like there's a LOT of survivors there," David pointed out. "Not really. We only tried the two bridges, and the second one wasn't actually guarded, per se. Instead it was closed with a large notice announcing it had been shut down due to damage from the initial meteor storm. We walked out on it, working our way past the blockade, but Olivia pointed out that someone had hidden spikes in several of the potholes, so we were afraid to venture very far across. The other bridges we tried were either too hard to reach, or were too heavily damaged. I'm not sure there are a lot of people involved, but it seems to be a very concerted effort to restrict access." "Damn, that's something I'm fighting here as well. We can't have people willy-nilly deciding who's allowed to access public roads and bridges," David fumed. "That may be a solid philosophical stand, but we weren't about to argue the point sitting on a bridge with someone firing at us. Chances are the bridge isn't guarded consistently, but we aren't willing to try it again, figuring they won't be as forgiving about letting us go the next time." "Still, it just irks the hell out of me," David responded, sounding like he wanted to drive down and set the situation right then and there. "Anyway, we spent last night in a very exclusive hotel executive suite overlooking the ocean. We'll do the same tonight and then double back to my boat in the morning. I'm curious, though, is there anything I should look for besides people and food?" "You should visit any clinics you can find to look for medical supplies. Don't bother with the hospitals, as they'll all be horribly contaminated since they were warehousing plague victims. Hopefully the clinics all closed down and wouldn't be seriously compromised, but make sure you get in and out quickly. "You won't be able to use any refrigerated medicines, but if you can stumble across some antibiotic pills it would help. Surgical tools, stethoscopes, things like that would be helpful, even if you can't use them right away. Wraps, cast materials, things like that will help if anyone breaks a leg." "Check the local schools or a library for books on how to do anything you're not familiar with," Alice suggested. "If you don't grab them now, you may not have access to them in the future." "OK, the odds are we'll encounter more people in South Beach, but we'll see just how receptive they are. If they're as inhospitable as the one's here are, we may just pull into a private dock and establish a home for ourselves, only venturing out to explore later. I'd rather one of us was safe if the other one comes under fire." David and Alice heard an argument break out over the radio at that point, showing the unidentified woman didn't agree with that strategy, but Tobias came back online before long. "Anyway, we'll let you know what we find later. Right now there are still some places I'd like to check before we leave." "Well, good luck. You'll probably need it. We're pulling for you," David said before they signed off. "That's certainly not very encouraging," he said, turning to Alice. "I'm hoping we have better luck than that when we begin exploring more, but it shows the common mindset of people." "Well, it's encouraging to know that people have survived, even if they aren't receptive to helping each other," Alice observed. ------- "David, I want to bring up a fairly delicate topic, so I hope you'll listen first and then respond only after seriously considering it," Monique began after they'd finished dinner, while everyone was relaxing before getting up to clean away the dishes. "Go on, I'm listening," David responded. "After all, it doesn't help if we belittle ideas or keep people from suggesting things." "OK," she said, taking a deep breath before beginning, steeling herself for his reaction. "As we've observed, there seems to be something you passed to Mattie that allowed her to survive, even though the plasma transfer infected her and made her sick in the first place." "And very nearly killed her in the process," David reminded her. Monique didn't respond, merely staring at him, so he decided he was supposed to be quiet like he'd suggested. When he didn't say anything else she continued. "Anyway, if this wasn't a completely random occurrence, it holds enormous potential in terms of a possible cure. We'd have to figure out what the active component in your plasma is, and how we can limit and control it, but it holds such amazing potential that we can't ignore it." She stopped, watching his reaction as if waiting for a response. When he didn't, she continued again, observing that everyone else was watching the discussion attentively, watching him nervously as she did so. "So what I'm suggesting is that we need to establish that it wasn't a random occurrence, and that there's something in your blood that allows people to survive the multiple plagues. However, instead of applying the plasma therapy in a haphazard method, stopping as soon as the individual becomes ill, we need to apply it to a healthy test subject, and continue the treatment for the course of the illness, and measure whether it affects the course of the disease." "Wait, are you suggesting we do animal testing? Because I believe we already ruled that out until they have time to recover. Besides, there aren't any animals remaining that are that similar to human physiology." "I never suggested testing animals," she answered levelly, staring him straight in the eye. "Uh, so what are you suggesting?" he asked, afraid of the obvious implications. "I'm suggesting the oldest method of scientific discovery. When previous generations of scientists were convinced of their new methods of treatment, they were willing to bet their lives on it by testing it on themselves. Scientists like Madame Curie testing radium, Stephen Hoffman testing irradiated mosquitoes, or even Jonas Salk, who tested the polio vaccine on himself." Even though David was ready to jump out of his chair in response, he willed himself to stay seated, squeezing his fists to control his emotions. Monique finally signaled that he was allowed to respond, so he leaned forward, getting visible upset. "You mean you want to infect yourself with the Great Death, which is very likely to not only kill you, but to make you die an incredibly painful excruciating death as well?" "That's exactly what I'm suggesting," she replied levelly, meeting his challenging stare without blinking. She knew she had to be convincing if he was ever to buy into this argument, so she couldn't afford to show any doubt she might have at the idea. "We need to do the test on someone healthy and that understands the importance of the research. Who's willing to potentially sacrifice themselves in the hopes it can help others survive." "But we have no way of knowing whether it will work or not. We only have a single case to judge this from. We have no idea of what kinds of odds you'd be facing, what kind of survival rate the process grants someone." "No, and unless we try it, we'll never know. But the idea of testing it on people who've already started showing symptoms is problematic. Not only are their immune systems already compromised, but the timing is incredibly difficult to arrange with any certainty." "No, there's no way I'd agree to that," David insisted, even while his mind was busy dancing with the very idea. "Actually, she makes a lot of sense," Tom suggested. "We need to know if this treatment would be safer or have less drastic effects if applied to someone healthy. You may have given it to Mattie too late for it to have its full effect. We don't have enough animals to do testing on, but now we at least have enough people, and here we have one who's actually volunteering for it." "Still, we have too few people remaining to intentionally infect one of our own," David insisted. "But if we can determine the success of this option, and broadcast the results, we could potentially have dozens of researchers working on it. With a lot of eyes studying it, we should be able to identify what's in your plasma that aids in someone's survival," Tom argued, sounding like he was already convinced. That only made David wonder whether they'd already agreed in advance about this, preparing to hit him with a prearranged one-two punch. "With such a low survival rate, anything we can do to increase the recovery odds would be a tremendous help." "Right, we're going to reach dozens of researchers with fully functioning labs when we've only been able to contact a single person so far?" David countered. "We've been broadcasting steadily for a while now. We have no idea who may be listening to us, or what facilities they may have. And even if their labs aren't fully equipped, they can still do a lot of the legwork," Tom countered. "That may be, but there's no way I'll allow you, Monique, to do this," David countered. He knew their arguments were well rehearsed and formidable, so he was hoping to short circuit them, cutting their points out from under them. "You're our only available medical person. While you may not be able to help with the Great Death cases, you'll be essential if someone breaks an arm, or needs their appendix removed. No, you're too valuable to risk. And Tom can't do it either," David pressed, hoping to head off his suggesting himself. "He's the only one who could do any subsequent research, so we can't afford to lose either of you." Both Tom and Monique sat in a confused silence. They hadn't expected this particular response. While they'd expected a fight, they hadn't counted on his refusing on quite these grounds. All their prearranged arguments were for naught, and they didn't know how to respond to this very basic question. "Then how about me?" Betty asked from the end of the table, where no one was paying her much attention. Everyone instantly stared at her, trying to determine whether she was serious or not. "I don't have any specialized skills, I'm young, fit and in good physical health, and frankly, I'm tired of living in fear. If I can do this and guarantee I'll be protected from contracting this horrendous disease for the rest of my life, then I say it's worth the risk, if only so I don't have to live in fear for the rest of my life." "But surely you can't believe that?" David asked, not sure he could believe it himself. "You're willing to risk your life on a risky procedure that may prove nothing at all after everything is said and done?" "Absolutely," she answered with conviction. "The rest of you seem to have accepted that you need to avoid everyone else in your lives, but watching you and your daughter, and how attentive you were with Mattie while she was sick, reminds me of what I miss most about the old world, the intimacy of human contact that we've lost. We're all afraid to touch each other, afraid someone might contaminate us." "Uh, haven't you and Greg, uh... ?" David asked, not wanting to accuse anyone of something they may not have actually done. "No, neither Melissa nor I have ever fooled around with Greg the entire time we were traveling together. We knew if we did the tensions between the other person would drive us all apart, and we could never trust that one of us might not actually be infected and simply didn't know it yet. Instead whenever we got an itch, we took care of it ourselves. Greg would wander off into the bushes, while Melissa and I would scrunch down in our sleeping bags and try to not make any noise." "Still, death is a pretty severe price to pay because you miss being touched." "It's not just being touched, it's being human," Betty responded, her eyes blazing with conviction as she decided herself she was serious about this. "It's allowing yourself to be free, to relax and not have to fear what allowing someone to touch you might mean. Or what will happen if a glove tears, or a filter fails, or a bleach cleaning will do to protective clothing and masks. If all we have to look forward to is fear, then we've lost most of our humanity already. I'm willing to sacrifice myself for a shot to get my innocence back. I want to have fun again, without fearing letting my hair down might kill someone." "But if you do this, you still won't be able to touch anyone," David reminded her. "I haven't been able to even shake any of your hands since you've gotten here. I haven't hugged anyone besides Alice and Mattie, and when I finally gave Mattie the hug she wanted, she got ill." "Hmph," she grunted in disgust. "I haven't been able to touch anyone anyway. We're all afraid that someone else might get sick at any moment, so we all keep to ourselves, afraid to get within downwind range of anyone else. Still, I see how close the three of you are. It's clear that Mattie already thinks the world of you. I want a small piece of that. I want to be able to hug someone again. I want to share a chair, someone's shirt, or even someone's lap, without wondering if it'll kill me." "Still... ," David tried to argue, but found no ready objections to dissuade her with. "She's got a point, Dad. They all do," Alice said. She was impressed at everyone's response. Not only had Monique been willing to do this herself, speaking forcefully to her father in an effort to do it herself, but when she'd been shot down, both Tom and Betty had shown they were willing to do it too. She was also convinced that if her father could convince Betty not to, that the others in the room would each volunteer for this onerous duty. "If we can figure out how to survive this, we may single-handedly save humanity. How long do you think everyone can avoid anyone else? Even sitting here, sharing a common table is a life or death challenge. All it would take is a single cough, or dropping a fork or a pea that rolls to someone else's plate. We need to do this. If it doesn't work, then at least we'll know it isn't that reliable. But to do nothing when we might have a solution the entire world is waiting for, because we're afraid of the death everyone is already facing on a daily basis, is just plain silly." "Wait a minute, while what she says makes sense, I don't want anyone else taking my risks for me," Monique said, acting upset that Betty was stealing her thunder. "While Betty may be willing to undergo this, I'm a better candidate. Not only do I have the objective distance to make a better informed decision, but I'll know what's happening so I can relate and record what's happening to me, and having already suffered from one variant, I should have a better chance at recovery than anyone else would." "The hell with that," David replied with a sour expression. "Once you get sick, you won't even be able to look anyone in the eyes much less write in your damn notebook. Your education won't make a bit of difference once you're lying there sweating and shaking. No, if we do this we need someone as healthy as possible, rather than someone we can't afford to lose." "But... ," Monique tried to argue before David cut her off. "Just shut up for a moment. This is all coming at me too fast and furious. I need to contemplate it. This is serious shit we're talking about here, and we're talking about me purposefully infecting someone with something that could very well kill them. Let me think about it without confusing me. OK?" Everyone was quiet, waiting with bated breath as David silently contemplated these insane ideas. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, trying to block everyone else's arguments out of his mind as he evaluated the points already argued. Finally he looked up. He didn't notice it, but all three potential volunteers seemed to be poised for his decision, anxiously waiting to see if he'd select them. "OK, I'll agree to it. God help me, but I'll do it. Just be aware, if this goes wrong I'll never forgive myself for agreeing to it. In fact, I can't imagine putting anyone through what Alice, Mattie and I have gone through, so I think the rest of you simply don't know what you're suggesting. But if you're all convinced it's necessary and that it's what you want to do, I'm hardly qualified to convince you you're wrong," he told them tiredly, as if he'd suddenly accepted a heavy load on his shoulders which was already weighing him down. "Which of us should do it then?" Betty asked, not sure since three separate people had volunteered for it. "As I said, I don't think expertise means diddly, and we need both Monique and Tom, so it'll have to be Betty. Sorry, Betty, but I'm afraid you'll have to suffer with this. I hope you can forgive me once we start." "Don't worry, I think I know what I'm getting into, and even if I don't, I at least know that there isn't much of a choice. Someone has to do it, and if I can help change the future of mankind, then I'm willing to sacrifice myself," she told him with a false conviction intended to convince him as much as herself. "I'll get started drawing blood and separating the plasma," Tom offered, ready to begin working on it immediately he was so excited by it. "If we're going to do this, we should have plenty of plasma on hand." "We also need to set up the cabin better," Monique suggested. Despite being disappointed at not being selected, she was still excited at what this may or may not reveal. This was major, and could change everything! "We need to set up IVs, which means we'll have to restrain the patient," she continued, her eyes positively sparkling. "I know you like to let the patients thrash around like gasping fish, but it's really not ideal if we're going to try to treat them at the same time." David wasn't sure he liked how he handled those suffering the agony of the Great Death reduced to such a dismissive summation, but someone else spoke up before he could object. "We'll also need to monitor them the entire time," Tom said. "We'll need to be much more involved this time. We need to time the various stages of the disease, monitor vitals, document which diseases peak at which times. All this is vital information that would give us important insights, both to the procedure and concerning the diseases as well." "This will take a couple days to prepare, so we can all continue working until then," Greg decided, "just so we don't lose that much time. After all, once you begin, it'll involve most of us." "You people aren't going anywhere near there," David warned them. "During the worst of it, everyone had diarrhea, excessive sweating, and were prone to vomiting. They couldn't control their bowels or when they'd pee themselves, and there was blood, sweat and shit everywhere. There are just too many sources of contamination. Alice and I can clean up the mess, but if you get in there you're sure to become infected as well." "I'll tell you what, I'll sit in the corner and quietly observe," Monique suggested. "As you said, Tom is too vital to risk. I may not be any less valuable, but I at least know what to measure and what to look for. I'll hand you the new IVs, and tell you what you need to know, but I'll also be able to observe the entire process, which will be important if we want to understand how the diseases progresses and how best to treat them in the future." "Yeah, even if this is a complete failure, at least we'll learn more about the diseases," Tom suggested. "Why thanks," Betty replied sarcastically. "I'm glad my death will mean so much to you." "Sorry, that clearly wasn't what I meant," he said, trying to apologize, even though everyone there knew that was exactly what he'd meant. ------- Everyone headed out, anxious to get as much accomplished as they could before the big event. Even though only a few people could actually participate, they were all eager to see what happened, but they also knew that while it was occurring, their numbers would be substantially restricted. While the others went about their tasks, Tom and Monique set about getting things ready. They took blood from both David and Alice, not wanting to risk taking Mattie's yet while she was still recovering, noting they'd also take some in the afternoon and the next couple days as well. Normally no one would take that much blood so quickly, but they felt the situation called for it, and they figured that David would be fine if he was weaker while watching over Betty. After all, he wouldn't be walking around or operating any heavy machinery. After they finished drawing their blood, Greg, Alice and the girls headed back to where they'd left off the day before, while David and Betty focused on setting one of the homes they'd connected power to as the new 'art studio', installing the kilns, potter's wheel and other supplies. It took a bit to wrestle everything into place, but between the two of them it wasn't hard to accomplish. As they were beginning to leave, David had a burst of inspiration. "Where are we heading?" Betty asked. "The guys were going to be working in that direction, and that way is home." David had noticed that Betty had been sticking to his side since they'd decided this new course of action, as if she was afraid to be far from him. "I'm heading somewhere else. I just thought of something we hadn't stopped to consider yet, and I'd like to see what we can grab now while we have the chance." He drove them to the community college that Billy, Adrian and Frank had come from and where he'd gotten his radio broadcasting equipment from after the college lost their ability to use it due to their loss of electricity. While it was a regional school, it was still several towns away, so the drive took a little while. Betty didn't bother to ask what they were looking for, although she could think of several different things. Instead she just waited to see where they headed. They pulled up in front of one of the administration buildings, and David got out and headed in, with Betty hurrying after him. "I'm looking for where they store the college's servers. I want to find where they keep any online course material. If we can find them and take them back, we should be able to make copies of the self-study college degree programs that we can use in the future to ensure we don't lose too much knowledge in the coming years. "Start checking each of the rooms. If you see computers, note where they were. If you see a room of servers, basically shelves of computer components, yell. If you see any laptops, grab them. Otherwise ignore everything unless something unusual catches your eye." It took some time, and a change of buildings before they found what they were looking for. They had to work a while to unplug everything, trace the various cables and note what connected to where, then a lot of effort to lug everything outside, but they managed to find a place for much of it by breaking down the equipment into its component pieces. "Well, that should give us something to do. It's too bad you won't be in any condition to investigate this stuff, since you've been to college more recently than the rest of us, but this next bit should help with that. We've got several places to check out. I'm going to hit the college bookstore, picking up at least one copy of everything I can find. We won't find any great treasures here, since this is only a community college and doesn't cover any of the more advanced subjects, but it should provide a decent base. I want you to go through the dorms. Don't worry about any bodies you find. From what I understand most people left after the power went out initially. If you find any, just be sure to open the windows to ventilate the place so they don't make it inhabitable in the future. Instead focus on unique finds. Try to grab student laptops, thumb drives, any interesting books you can find. This may be the last chance you get to find new music, and hopefully these students had some more esoteric tastes. After that we'll hit the lecture halls and professor's offices to see if we can find any course material we can find a use for." All those efforts took quite a while, so they ended up arriving home late with their SUV fully loaded down. However, they also found the keys to the school's security staff's truck, so Betty drove that after they'd loaded it with additional supplies. It took longer to drive home, since they didn't want to risk jostling their cargos on the rough roads. They arrived home fairly late. When they began carrying the computer equipment into the house, they attracted a lot of attention, and when they explained what they'd found, everyone helped them carry the equipment in. They finally decided they didn't have the room for it all in the main house and would shift it to one of the other houses, but Tom thought they could set up the server computers by his lab equipment so they could examine what was stored on each of the servers. While Tom was busy with other things, Betty and Melissa were more than happy to examine the contents of the machines, while Alice and Debbie examined each of the laptops they'd recovered, looking for interesting cultural artifacts worth saving. Unfortunately, they also found a lot of saved internet porn, which they didn't think was quite as valuable. However, rather than deleting it, they figured they'd just leave it. After all, there was no telling what someone might want to save when left to their own desires. As a result of their searches, they soon had quite an eclectic mix playing on the house's speakers, filling their home with an interesting collection of new music. It helped lighten everyone's mood. Something they all needed since they knew what was about to occur. That evening they threw a party. It was actually a combination party for both Mattie and Betty. While they'd had a small celebration for Mattie before, she'd been too weak to really appreciate it, so Melissa had taken the time to prepare a cake for the occasion. However, everyone knew that this wasn't so much a celebration party as it was a goodbye party for Betty. As much as everyone insisted she would be fine, they were well aware this might be their final memories of her. Monique drew more blood from David and Alice, while Tom processed it, separating out the plasma and reinjecting the red blood cells to help maintain their immune systems. Although everyone had a good time, the mood was somber, as everyone contemplated what might happen over the next several days, and how it would impact each and every one of them. David tried on a couple of opportunities to talk Betty out of it, but she was insistent. She wanted to do this, whatever the results. David still didn't think she appreciated just how painful and difficult the process was, but it was hard for anyone who hadn't been through it to understand, so he gave up trying to argue about it. Alice noted with pride that Monique's attitude towards her father had been progressing over the past several days. It had moved from grudging admiration, to amazement at his dedication, to respect for his decisions and choices. But lately it looked to be progressing even beyond that. Now she looked at him with a new regard, glancing at him surreptitiously whenever he wasn't looking. She hoped things would progress in the direction she was hoping for, but she wasn't about to jinx anything by speaking too soon. She knew they both needed to progress at their own pace. "David, I hate to tell you this, but the school's servers were a bust," Melissa revealed to him while everyone was busy talking about everything but the bull in the room. "There wasn't anything on them except homework assignments, class schedules and the like. I suspect students that needed other classes online signed up with other universities." "That's too bad," David responded, frowning. "I wasn't really expecting to find much, but I was hoping we might get lucky." At that, Betty giggled, causing David to regard her oddly, then he noticed Melissa smiling as well. "That's not to say we didn't find anything, though," Melissa continued. "We found one student's laptop who had been taking a couple of online courses. While she didn't have the actual courses on her computer, we managed to get her notes, the online books she'd downloaded and all the associated course work. With that, we can pretty much put the class together on our own. About all we're missing are lectures and answer sheets." "Well, that's better, but it's only two courses. We'll still need to visit some larger universities and see if we can find more material and hopefully some of the actual online course work. I'm not sure it'll be any more useful than the course material, but it's something I'd hate to lose. We've lost most of the expertise in a whole host of different fields, and retaining any portion of their knowledge for future generations would be worth a lot." "We'll keep it in mind, but I suspect you're going to have your hands full for several days," Melissa replied with a sad smile, glancing at Betty. "Anyway, I'll continue checking the other computers and thumb drives we found, and let you know if we discover anything new." ------- The next day, after more blood extractions, they set off to continue cleaning up the local community. Except this time, while Greg, Alice, Lassie and Melissa continued with their house-to-house cleanup, David drove his own dead truck, and with Debbie and Betty's help, they struck out for the nearby highway. The same one that David, Alice and their other housemates had cleaned up and repaired. As they worked to clean the dead animals off of it, mostly birds and small rodents, David recollected how Flora had lent her expertise helping Sheriff Ben Adams determine whether the large bridge crossing the river into town was stable. His eyes got a little misty at that recollection, and he wished he still had that knowledge, but more importantly that same youthful excitement and enthusiasm. The two girls with him now, while both young and energetic, seemed much older. Just as the young girls in the house previously had seemed to have matured rapidly, acknowledging the sexual relationships of the adults and openly teasing them about it, these girls seemed to have aged even more, now acting much more like weary people in the 40s or 50s. He knew they'd already seen too much to be quite that carefree ever again, and he regretting that fact too. They spent a long time at it, cleaning off a large stretch of road in both directions surrounding the exit. David wanted it kept clean since it would alert anyone traveling along the old highway that not only were there survivors here, but that they took care of their community and were working to rebuild it. It might not make a difference, but he hoped it would get any travelers passing this region to stop by and investigate the area. The road about a half mile in either direction was clean, free of debris, clear of potholes and empty of abandoned cars. It had taken a lot of work, both before and now, but David thought it was noticeable. He also noted the ominous warnings he'd left there earlier, a sign reading "No Highway Robbery" with three decapitated human heads mounted on poles still remained, showing little sign of decay. The eyes were vacant and the skin shriveled, but they hadn't been picked apart by either birds or insects, so he suspected his warning would remain intact for some time. Something else he was glad would greet anyone entering the community in the future. Finished, they climbed back in their vehicles and headed back. "I'll have to put up another sign, this one welcoming people and telling them to check the police station. That way it won't alert anyone where we are, but will allow us to find them." "Or provide a handy place for them to set up an ambush," Betty suggested a bit dourly. "Yeah, there's always that possibility, but at least we'd have a bit more control over it. As you know, I've left a working walkie-talkie there, so if anyone arrives they can radio us. Even if their intentions aren't the best, they'd call just because they wouldn't know where we were. That way we'll know when they arrive and can prepare for any possible confrontations." "As the military academies used to always say, 'you can't prepare for the unexpected', and nothing about an ambush is 'expected' by its very definition," Betty commented. "Still, I think we'll find more people interested in joining us than we will enemies," David argued. "All it takes is one group of bad guys," Debbie observed. "They can end all the good works of everyone else we meet." "That's true, but I refuse to stand by and let any other survivors pass us by without reaching out to them. I've done as much as I can to shield us from anyone malicious. Beyond that, we just have to be both hopeful and cautious." They buried the bodies in a different spot this time. Since they'd buried so many bodies near the police station before the massive die-off, they'd had to abandon it for further burials. Now they were using the same tractor to dig further mass graves for human and animal carcasses in the smallish public park a short distance away. The way they were going, David figured it wouldn't be long before they completely overturned and replanted the entire park. "I'll tell you what, the grass around here is getting pretty overgrown," he told Debbie. "We've got goats, while I'm busy the next several days, why don't you grab an adult and bring them down here and see if they can keep the place looking a little less ... deserted." "Sure, I can do that, though I should be fine doing it on my own, as well. Although we have more people now, with the rest of you preoccupied, we'll be stretched pretty thin." "No, I want you to always be cautious. We've already been shot at several times, and I don't want anyone going anywhere alone, unarmed or without proper communications. Got it?" "Yes, sir, I get it," she answered with a mock salute, even though she looked a bit disappointed that David didn't seem to trust her on her own. David figured he'd have to have Alice speak to her about her experiences. Maybe it would reach her more than he could. Joining the others, who had gotten through much of the town and were now working on the outskirts. They each took on their previous roles while David helped Greg carrying the bodies out of the houses and to the truck. While doing so, David asked something that was bothering him. "Find any animals?" "Yeah, but as you expected, most were dead." "Recently, or did they die of starvation?" "Frankly, I couldn't tell. Since there aren't any bugs to eat them, it's harder guessing how long something's been dead. As for how they died, starvation or the plague, they both look similar, and I wasn't anxious to inspect them by hand. It's one thing to carry a body for disposal, it's another to poke and prod it." "That's OK, I was just curious." "That accounts for most of them," Greg concluded. "However, we have found a few that have survived," he added with a smile. "Really? Which ones?" David asked, getting excited despite it being a minor issue that he'd have figure out on his own soon enough anyway. "One parrot, two ferrets and a few fish." "Hmm, the parrot is interesting but will be hard to control, the ferrets are great news, since with three we should have enough to produce babies. What kind of fish are they?" "Tropical fish. We found two different fish tanks. One held goldfish; the other held three carnivorous fish. I think they're called Oscars." "Hmm, that's even more problematic. I'm not sure we have room to house multiple fish tanks in the house, and we can't combine them or half would end up as lunch. We also can't release them into the pond, so we're stuck with what to do with them." "I'll ask the girls, someone may be interested in keeping them. That would make it easier. Otherwise we could always put a tank divider in to separate them; then we wouldn't need both tanks." "Yeah, but we need to decide how far to take the animal rescue project. I can see rescuing mammals and turtles, even birds if we can, but tropical fish? I'm not sure how much they'll help the genetic diversity of the American animal population." "That's the problem with assuming tasks. They quickly spiral out of control. You now have a mini-zoo, a couple of farms that need some farmers, a few hundred lots needing trimming, and you're only getting started." "Yeah, I also don't have the time to address it. I basically figured it would just be nursing a few stray animals until we managed to find some others to pair them up with, then when they recovered and began having babies trading them to other groups or releasing them to spread their genes around." "You know what they say about the best laid plans, don't you?" "Yeah, they often go astray," David replied. "No, they got laid because they're so anxious to screw you," Greg answered with a laugh. "I'm glad I'm not in charge. You decide what needs to be done, I'll support you, but I don't like the idea of deciding how best to rebuild society." ------- Note: I'm going to issue next week's Chapter 10 on Saturday--instead of Wednesday--as an experiment on how many SOL readers I can reach by posting on a different day. I'll let you know the results in my blog, but I'll post on either next Wednesday or Saturday, depending on how it works out. ------- To Be Continued... ------- Posted: 2013-01-02 Last Modified: 2013-03-05 / 10:51:07 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------