Before dawn, Alex came into their parents’ room and nudged his shoulder, disorienting him. It was still dark out.
“Wh-what is it, A?” Elijah whispered and rolled to a sitting position. Alex held his finger to his lips and motioned for Elijah to follow him.
He pulled on a hoodie and socks and followed his brother silently from the room. Wren had a nightmare last night in the middle of the night, so he knew she didn’t get a lot of sleep and didn’t want to disturb her.
“What’s going on?” he whispered in the hall after he pulled the bedroom door closed behind him.
“Lila’s dead,” he told him.
“Oh, shit,” Elijah responded quietly and ran a hand through his hair. “What…how do you know?”
“Come here,” he said and walked to his own bedroom. “Watch this shit. You’re never gonna believe this.”
He closed his brother’s bedroom door as Alex flipped on the television. He pressed the mute button.
“Look at what they’re doing,” he said, walking closer and pointing to the slowly scrolling white names on the black screen. It reminded him of the ending credits in a movie.
“What is that?”
“They’re people’s names, bro’, like people who are dead. Watch, it’s getting ready to restart,” he explained and unmuted the t.v. again.
There was an announcer’s voice on a black screen with a standing ring of flowers like you would see at a funeral next to a casket, but the subtitles were also explaining what the woman was saying.
“…there has been an unprecedented number of deaths in the United States. We understand your loss. Please accept our condolences…”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Elijah asked.
“She’s the Health and Human Services Director. Well, the new one. The last guy got the flu, too, and died. She’s in charge now.”
She droned on about the government feeling so sad for the people, dark times in our country, and how the healthcare industry was not prepared to deal with something on this scale. Then she explained that phone calls about deceased loved ones were simply not going to be possible anymore. There would be one-hour broadcasts every four hours to cover the names of the dead which would be updated in a database by healthcare workers handling the arrangements at the camps and hospitals around the country. It would break down by state and then county. For updates on family or friends out of the individual broadcast news network range, they’d established a website to handle each state, county, and city. International information would also eventually be merged with that site.
“You saw Lila’s name on this?” he asked his brother, who nodded. His eyes were bloodshot and tired.
“Your coach and trainer are both dead, too,” he told him. “Some of the teachers. I recognized their names from when I went there. Our sheriff’s dead. Guess they’ll have to fill his spot now, too.”
Alex went on telling him about people they knew or business owners they both knew in the area who were dead. It was overwhelming.
“They’re also telling people to stay home again and stay off the roads. Food vouchers are going to be handed out now so that people aren’t hoarding.”
“Like us?” Elijah asked.
“Nah, we got ours legit. But people are gonna have to turn in a food coupon to the military sites they’ve got listed to get food. Besides, if we don’t get as much as we can, we’re gonna fucking starve.”
“Yeah,” he said as the screen just kept sending out bad news. “Man,” he commented and paused a long time. “Alex, what the hell are we gonna do with Hope?”
“That’s the other reason I got you up. She’s sick,” he said.
“Shit,” Elijah swore. “With…with this flu?”
“I think she’s got the first one,” he said. “From what they’ve been saying on the news, kids don’t usually get the second. They only get the first, it doesn’t mutate on them, but they don’t usually recover.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know if the hospital will even take her,” he said and flipped the channel. “Look here. They’re posting openings in the different hospitals around the state. There aren’t any openings. That’s the update. It’s bullshit, man.”
“Where’s Jamie?”
“Not home yet,” he said. “I don’t know where the fuck that dude goes,” he said with a touch of antagonism. “But I think we’re gonna have to figure out how to help Hope from here. They’re posting treatments online, too. It’s bullshit. Like we’re all a bunch of fucking doctors or something. They even said you can go to the military medical sites and they’ll give you antibiotics. Whatever, man.”
“Let’s look it up then,” he said, swiping through his phone. The site was down. He relayed that to his brother.
“Typical government. Great. Now what?”
“We’ll have to figure something out,” Elijah told him as a soft tap at his brother’s bedroom door came. He opened it to find Wren there. Then he told her what was going on.
“I’ll get my gloves and a mask,” she said and rushed from the room.
Soon, they were all treating Hope as best as they could. Wren called Jamie to pick up instructions and meds from the military site, which he did. Hope did not look well at all. Jamie returned by mid-morning, and Elijah took Wren and went next door to see if Mrs. Crane could help them. She was a retired nurse.
He knocked on the back door, the one they used just like most people on their street with rear entry driveways. Their dog, Dixie, rushed over and licked their hands. Elijah knocked three more series and still didn’t get an answer. Their car was in the drive, too.
“Do they have family nearby that would’ve come for them?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, no family close by. I think their son lives in California.”
“Maybe he took them to California…”
“No,” Elijah stated firmly. “They wouldn’t have left their dog in the backyard. Mr. Crane loves Dixie. Walks her every morning.”
“Oh,” she replied in a sad tone, still petting Dixie’s big head.
She was a Belgian something or other. Mr. Crane told him a few times, but Elijah never could remember it. Mostly she just looked like a German Shepherd to him.
“I’m gonna try the door,” he said and found it locked. “We need to get in there. They could need our help.”
“Do you think they’re…sick?” she asked with trepidation in her soft voice.
“Good point,” he said. “We should probably get Jamie or Alex to go in with me. Not you.”
“I’ve got my pistol, Elijah,” she said and pointed at the one strapped to his pecs. “And you’ve got yours now, too. We’ll be fine. They’re busy trying to help Hope.”
“Right,” he nodded unsurely. “I’m gonna have to find a window. I don’t think I can kick in this door. It’s solid wood.”
“We could use the butt of one of the pistols and break the glass,” she suggested.
He nodded, not wanting to do it because of the wavy, leaded glass in the antique architectural fixture. Plus, he didn’t want other people to break in or for the cold to get in. It had snowed a little last night, leaving a dusting on the ground. Soon, it would snow inches and sometimes leave over a foot or two.
Elijah unholstered his 9 millimeter Ruger and made sure the safety was on before hammering the butt once against the glass pane nearest the handle. It broke easily, and he carefully peeled away the shards before sticking his hand in to search out the locking mechanism.
“Don’t let Dixie in…just in case,” he told Wren.
Elijah went first, and Wren slipped in behind him, closing the door but not locking it. The air in the house was stale, but it was warm. Mr. and Mrs. Crane were both close to eighty, so he called out more loudly than he would have for anyone else. No answer was the response he got from the old mansion. The layout was somewhat similar to his home, but they entered through a much smaller mudroom straight into a study with bookcases on every wall. He knew the Cranes were both avid readers. He was a professor up at the college in Canton, English Literature.
The house was silent as a tomb, which gave off an eerie feeling as they crept through it, the only sound the occasional creaking of a floorboard underfoot. The navy blue, heavyweight velvet curtains in the formal salon near the front of the house were drawn, making it dark in that room. Elijah pointed to the wide staircase and got a firm nod from her. Wren had also at some point drawn her pistol.
When they reached the top floor, Elijah recognized the smell. It was becoming all too familiar. He pressed down on the tiny metal nose clip on his protective face mask in an attempt to ward off some of the reek of death hanging in the thick air of the second floor.
The first few rooms were made up as guest bedrooms. The bathroom was neat and clean, orderly as if they were expecting guests. The final room on the right was the master bedroom. He remembered it well from when his father had helped Mr. Crane install a window air conditioning unit because the old houses on their block weren’t equipped with the ability to have centralized air conditioning. Strangely enough, it actually felt colder on this floor like the a/c was going. It sent a shiver across Elijah’s bare neck as if the hand of a ghostly apparition just touched there.
As they approached the master bedroom door, Elijah spotted a white sheet of paper taped to it. He and Wren lined up side by side to examine it. The note was hand-written in scrolling, cursive text.
To Whom It May Concern,
My wife, Mrs. Isabelle Crane, is sick with the stage 2 virus. She became ill after volunteering at one of the camps for the sick. I had no choice but to shackle her to our master bed. We led a beautiful, love-filled life together and raised a brilliant boy.
I find I cannot live without her, though, and shall follow her into the ever after at the conclusion of this letter. She was and will remain the love of my life, and I cannot bear to watch her suffer any longer. I hope this letter finds someone who will care for our dog, Dixie, as she was always a good and loyal pup. Isabelle has sleeping pills for those nights when she is restless. I am going to take about a dozen and force her to swallow the same amount.
I have turned on the air conditioning unit in our window in order to preserve our bodies as best as I can until the authorities can properly dispose of us. Please know that we are sorry for the inconvenience we may have caused anyone.
Sincerely,
Arthur M. Crane, Ph.D.
November 12, 2062
“We…we should not go in there,” she said and held a hand over her mask. Tears were brimming in her eyes.
“I have to see,” he said, her gaze jumping to his and growing large and horrified. “What if the pills didn’t work? What if Mr. Crane or Mrs. is suffering?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “I’ll go with you.”
“No, stay. Guard the hall, will ya’?”
“Alright,” she agreed.
Elijah twisted the knob and entered. It wasn’t as bad as the restaurant owner above his business. This was serene, peaceful almost. Their bodies were on the bed lying face up. He had dressed himself and his wife in proper clothing like they were going to church. She was still tied to the bed but did not seem violent or ill. He was holding her hand. It was obvious without going any further that they were both dead, so Elijah backed out of the room and pulled the door with him.
He shook his head at Wren, who blinked tears away above the mask, and led her back downstairs and into the study.
“Mrs. Crane was a nurse, some sort of advanced one like a doctor,” he said to her. “I bet she has…yep, right here.”
He pulled a medical textbook free from the bookcase and showed her.
“There are quite a few of them,” she remarked.
“We’ll take them all. I don’t know anything about medicine,” he said. “But we might need to start learning what we can.”
A ground jarring explosion somewhere that sounded close startled them both at the same time.
“What was that?” she hissed with big eyes.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We can come back later.”
They took Dixie with them and were met in the backyard of his home by Alex and Jamie, who’d come out to see, too.
“What…” she asked but was interrupted as another one went off. The dog whined and lowered her belly closer to the ground.
“They said they were gonna start rounding them up and dealing with them,” Jamie told them. “That’s the only thing I can think that would be. We should go inside.”
“Let me just grab her dog food from the neighbor’s house,” Elijah said and got a nod from their leader, who ushered Wren through the back door.
Elijah jogged back with Dixie on her leash and found her food in a fifty-pound bag near the back door in their mudroom. There was a note tacked to it that he missed earlier. It was another one from Mr. Crane explaining that he’d bought up about a six-month supply of her food and her favorite treats and put them in the shed out back. That was a relief. He’d have to come back later and move all of it.
She was yipping at his heels as he jogged back. Then she froze in her tracks and growled toward the six-foot-tall wooden privacy fence separating the Crane’s from their neighbors behind them, a couple Elijah didn’t know. Then he heard it, something. It sent another shiver across his neck and not from a ghost or the low outside temperature. Jumbled mumbling. He couldn’t fool himself into thinking it was something other than what it was. He just didn’t understand why the officials were telling people the infected, violent ones only moved around during the night. It was only eleven a.m. according to his watch. They definitely seemed more active at night, but there was surely one behind that fence. Dixie sensed it, too. She was tugging at her leash but not to go and pursue it. She wanted to run. So did Elijah.
Maybe that one didn’t get to wherever they were all hiding before the sun came up, but he didn’t care. Elijah jogged with the dog food and Dixie until he came to his fence, opened and went through it, and locked it behind them. Then he darted inside with the dog and double-locked their back door. For a long time, he stood there watching out the window to make sure it didn’t pursue them.
Later after the day came to an end again, and they were all settling in- minus Jamie, of course, who was out- Alex came into his room to talk to him, which wasn’t unusual and reminded Elijah of the many times his brother had done this very thing over the last few years acting as parent number one and two. He’d filled that role so easily.
“I wanted to bring something up with you. If you take her with you again, no more staying out overnight, okay?” his brother said. “You and Wren have done that two times, even stayed with other people. That’s not a good idea, E. You can’t trust people now. I know you’ve mostly been going with Jamie, but if you take her, don’t stay out overnight anywhere. You gotta make it home or call us for an evac.”
“I know,” he said, his brother referencing the other two nights this past week when they’d been stuck staying out when they couldn’t get home before dark. They’d holed up in an abandoned warehouse in lower Canton scoping out a restaurant wholesale supply company. An intense thunderstorm had moved in, which made everything dark outside even faster. “Sorry. I know it was stupid. It’s just that we got overrun. When there’s too many of them around, I just don’t feel like it’s safe to keep moving with her. We’ve found some nice groups to hole up with for the night. I kinda’ figured strength in numbers and all that.”
“Robbery and rape and shit more like,” Alex corrected, to which Elijah nodded with resignation.
“Right. I won’t take her overnight. Hopefully, I won’t have to take her at all. This shit’s just getting more and more dangerous.”
“Exactly,” Alex said and left.
Elijah had nightmares that night of Wren being hauled away by their principal. He’d startled awake in a ball of sweat and tangled sheets. Alex was right. She shouldn’t go with him anymore.