A Flock of Ill Omens (6 page)

Grant didn't ask favors very often, but then when he did, they were never small. “What is it?”

“I need to get Ricky into the doctor, and I can't do it alone.”

“Is he hurt?”

“Sick,” he said.

“You didn't say anything yesterday. Is he okay?”

“There
wasn't
anything yesterday. We got our shots day before, then I dropped him off. He was having dinner with his mom last night and I worked today, so I told him I'd stop after. When I got here, he was a mess.”

Sid's stomach tightened. After learning what she just had about shots, she worried this was about to play out on people she knew. “Should you call an ambulance?”

“I suggested it, but you know Ricky. I'm the drama queen. He's embarrassed at the very idea of it. I exhaust him, he says. I figure we can just drive him up to urgent care and maybe he'll cooperate.”

Sid took a breath to keep calm. The part of her that managed to compartmentalize had to laugh at Grant's analysis. It was exactly their personalities. Ricky was soft-spoken and classy, not wanting to put anybody out for anything, and Grant believed all the world was a stage. Why waste your moment in the spotlight? Attention whore was how Ricky termed it—always with an affectionate smile.

“Sure. I have to drop off my stuff, but I'll be there in twenty.” She would have trouble parking in Northwest Portland and didn't want her car just sitting with her laptop in it. She was almost on top of their house anyway. Besides, she needed time to talk herself into the fact that Ricky was young and mostly healthy, not like all those people at the nursing home.

Unfortunately, her self-talk didn't work. Ricky seemed to get things worse than other people. Sid thought she knew why—she’d guessed a few years ago he was HIV positive, so this could be really bad. For all she knew, this was the complications of a cold, though she couldn't fight the bird image in her head. Or the news she was still digesting about the vaccine.

Sid drove back across the Broadway Bridge, repeating the mantra in her head.
Ricky is young. The doctors will help him. And Grant doesn't have HIV. He won't get it at all.
She only had limited success convincing herself, but was able to step back and try to focus on helping.

She knew why Grant needed help if it was really as bad as he suggested. Ricky lived on the third floor in a renovated northwest apartment. But renovated meant to historic grandeur, not modern convenience. There was no elevator, and Ricky was no pixie. He probably weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, topping Grant by about forty. That was a lot of person to get down three flights of stairs.

The other unfortunate feature of the gorgeous building was parking. It was hard to come by at the best of times, and rush hour was
not
the best of times. A quarter to six was the height of it. There were restaurants all over the neighborhood that people flocked to right after work. Ricky was partial owner of one of them. It was his reason for insisting he stick close, even when Grant had begged him to move to Northeast Portland closer to them, or even move
in
with them.

Sid managed to find a fifteen minute spot and hoped they would give her some leeway if it took twenty. Grant’s car wasn’t there since he never drove to work, so she was sure part of why he’d called her was for transportation.

Grant had left a flip-flop wedged in the outer door. Sparkly. That saved time and was a fashion statement to boot. The outer door was normally kept locked. Sid grabbed the flip-flop, wondering where a size eleven men's flip-flop could be purchased in purple sparkles. Probably Spartacus, the S&M store in Old Town. She climbed the staircase. It had a thick wooden banister and an oriental runner up the middle. It really was a pretty building. On the third floor she made a sharp right to the apartment on the end. That door was ajar, too, so she edged it open.

“Grant? Ricky?”

Grant came out of the bedroom running a hand through his hair. “It’s no good, Sid.”

“What’s no good?”

“I called. They don’t want him. I guess the ER has had dozens of these cases and they can’t do anything. Fluids and rest, they said. It’s a virus, so antibiotics won’t do anything. They sent me there.” He pointed an accusatory finger at the computer. “All the things to do with various stages of fever and signs he might be dehydrated—if that happens I can take him in—they can give him IV fluids. But not until it’s been twenty-four hours because they're too busy.”

Calm, calm, calm.
The last thing she needed was to react badly and have that exaggerated in Grant's response. “Man, that sucks. Can I get you guys anything then? Or do you want me to move my car and stay? I’m in a fifteen at the moment because I thought we were leaving.”

“Sprite? Chicken soup? What do sick people eat?”

“Those things, and maybe saltines.”

“Yeah. That’s good.”

She ran to the closest grocery and got what they needed, deep breathing all the way. When she got back she checked on Ricky, too. Purple blotches had formed under his eyes and the rest of his face was red from fever. He recognized her, but he wasn’t with-it enough to have a conversation. It almost sounded like he apologized for being too drunk to dance. He really wasn't coherent.

“Do you need any help with him?” she asked Grant when they’d shut the bedroom
door.

“No. I don’t want to expose you, too. I mean, I’ve already been exposed. He can’t have contracted this last night, and dinner with his mom is the only place he’s been that I wasn’t with him since last Friday.”

“What about his restaurant?”

“I called. Nobody else is sick there, and I’m
there
all the time, too, so if that's where he got it, I still would have been exposed.”

“I appreciate you not wanting to pass it on, but I'm checking on you later, okay?”

He started to hug her then changed his mind. “Consider yourself hugged, but in a germ-free way.”

She made a kissy face at him and left, fighting the urge to cry until she got to her car.

1.
7. Sarah McGrath:

Portland, Oregon

My Job Wants to Kill Me

Sarah and David were cooking dinner and discussing the death of the governor when Sid got home. The governor was the second state politician to die and it was reported that others were sick. Sarah almost mentioned it to Sid, but Sid's face stilled her.

“Ricky's sick,” Sid said without greeting them.

“Sick?”

“Flu.”

“But they just had the shots.” But Sarah knew they'd already had this conversation. Sid's brother Jeff was right—the vaccine wasn't doing any good.

“It's worse than that,” Sid went on. “A nursing home I visited in Astoria had a bunch of people die—death rate without the vaccine was about half. Death rate with it, nearly one hundred percent.”

“What?” That was too much to take in. Her defenses were keeping her from processing.

“The vaccine isn't just ineffective, it's dangerous,” Sid said, never one for vagaries where words were concerned.

“You're sure?” Sarah asked.

“Sure enough that I'm pursuing it, professionally speaking. I have to verify, as always.”

David threw Sarah a worried look. He knew she was worried about the vaccine and that work would make her get it. She stood to pace. She was normally calm and matter-of-fact, a nurse, trained to handle a crisis with cool efficiency. But she wasn't equipped to face this.

“Grant's fine, though, right?”

“He seemed fine.”

That was good. He'd had the vaccine, too. Sarah had been friends with Grant since grade school. They'd both grown up in Medford and Sarah knew she was the first person the teenage Grant had confessed to that he thought he was gay.

“Sarah, what's that matter?” Sid asked.

“Work is giving me seventy-two more hours to get it or they'll quit scheduling me.”

“I guess you have to, then. Grant's fine. I've only heard this about old or sick people, other than Ricky.”

It was a good point. And she didn't think Sid knew about Ricky's HIV, so it was even more true than Sid knew. But Sarah was still worried. “Ricky and Grant got the shot a couple days ago, right?”

“Yes?”

“What if the vaccine
made
Ricky sick?”

Sid took a breath and turned to David. “What do you think?”

David wiped his brow with a kitchen towel and Sarah saw he was pasty, with a trace of sweat on his brow. “My brother has a friend in the Navy who died last week—Jack posted the obituary today. The bug got their troop. Young, healthy guys.”

“Oh, geez. I’m sorry,” Sid said

Sarah stared at David. He hadn't told her this until now.

“I haven’t talked to Jack or asked about shots. But those guys always get their shots first. The military can’t afford the risk with the close quarters they keep.”

“Look,” Sid said. “If the vaccine isn’t working, like Jeff said, and if they got hit with exposure they weren’t protected, but that’s a fluke, right?” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself and Sarah knew it.

“I’m waiting,” Sarah said.

“For what?”

“If Grant is still fine on Thursday—last day before there are repercussions—I’ll get my damn shot. But I’m not willing to do it before then.”

Sid nodded. “Okay. Good compromise. Do you want me to try Jeff again and see if he knows any more?”

“Would you?”

“I will. Tomorrow. It’s after eleven there now, and if this is as huge an epidemic as it seems, he probably needs his sleep when he can get it.”

Sarah heard Sid try to call Jeff several times the next morning. David was at work and Sid's open laptop sat on the counter, a sad reminder that she hadn't been able to get through. Sarah sat in front of it, knowing Sid wouldn't mind, and opened her browser window. She wondered what other things Sid had been digging up. If she was pursuing this, there had to be something. She found a strange assortment of sites and Sarah remembered Sid talking about falling down rabbit holes when she researched for an article. That must have happened here. Sarah opened the most recently viewed page.

It was a map. Sid was a map junkie, as far as Sarah was concerned—very into patterns and trends. She liked aggregated information, where Sarah liked the personal stories. This was a map of the United States
in a rainbow of shades—the kind that normally glazed Sarah's eyes over—but this one took her breath away. It was flu deaths per thousand.

It shocked her for two reasons. First, the numbers were a lot higher than she'd guessed or heard. Not that they were huge, but in many places, almost 1% of the population had died from it already. Even more in a few. From Portland half a percent had. That didn't sound like much but she worked in health care and had had to study prevalence. In a metropolitan area with a million people that was five thousand. A lot. Percentage-wise, about the same as Astoria where Sid said they'd had forty deaths.

And as flu seasons went, this was still early in the progression. Some of the southern cities had been hit worse—Los Angeles, San Francisco. A lot of California had been hit hard. Washington State also had. Both were a little worse than Oregon, though Oregon was bad enough. All of that made sense to her. If this were an Asian bird flu of some sort, the West Coast was made up of the states closest to Asia, though California, with its better weather, might not be expected to get it as badly as the states farther north.

The thing that really struck Sarah was that the east coast had also been hit—New York, Massachusetts. Boston had lost a lot of people—nearly 20,000 people.

Why would the states furthest from Asia be hit even harder than they were? It didn't make any sense. DC appeared to have been devastated—almost 4% had died.

Sid ran in and looked at the clock. “Jeff never called me back. And when I tried Grant to see if I could bring anything to him and Ricky, he sounded like death when he answered.”

Shit.
Sarah put her head in her hands.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be. I just really want this not to be happening,” Sarah said.

“He only squeaked when I asked about needing anything. I could barely understand him.”

“We have to go.” Sarah stood to grab her things.

“I tried to convince him. He said no.”

“You don't know all Grant's weaknesses.” Sarah could convince him to let them come.

Sid grinned, picking up her own purse. “Atta girl.”

Sarah picked up her phone and called Grant. Sid was right. He did sound like death.

“Shut up, Grant. We're coming.”

“No.” His hoarse whisper nevertheless had force. “Don't want you to get it.”

“But you need someone to take care of you.”

“Ricky and me...” His voice fell off and she couldn't understand him, so she hung up and she and Sid went to her car. They picked up Thai soup at a take-out place. Thai restaurants were all over Portland, but this one was famous for a soup that had both chicken broth and ginger—two of the more healing things Sarah could think of.

When they got to the apartment they found parking, which was nice. In fact, the normally busy restaurant neighborhood was nearly deserted. But the easy parking was quickly counteracted by the locked building and their unwillingness to make two sick men climb down and then up three flights just to let them in. They buzzed first floor neighbors until they finally found one at home. Thankfully, she knew Ricky and Grant and was sympathetic to friends bringing soup to sick men. She let them in.

It took ten minutes of knocking to bring Grant to the door, but he still wouldn't let them in. It sounded like he slid down the door on the other side.

“I don't want to expose you.”

“Geez, Grant, just let us bring in the soup we brought,” Sid said.

“Leave it. I'll get it.”

Sarah tried to think of a compromise. She was too experienced with Grant's stubbornness to think they'd change his mind, but maybe there was a middle ground. “We'll leave it if you shove your key under the door so we can come back again tomorrow without bugging the neighbors.”

It seemed to take a long time for him to think that through, but finally a small packet with an alcohol-covered swab came under the door.

“What's this for?” Sid asked, but Sarah knew. Sterilization.

“Open it,” Grant said. “Use it to pick up and clean off the key before you touch it. And promise you'll wear a mask if you use it,” he said.

“Okay,” Sid said.

“Swear it!”

“Done,” Sarah said.

The key came through then and Sarah wiped it down with the alcohol before putting it on her key ring. “Okay, don't forget the soup is here.”

“I'll get it when I see you leave the building.”

Sarah knew he'd wait, too. He was more stubborn than she'd ever be, and she was no slouch at stubbornness. “We're going. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too, Nursikins. Love you, Scoop.”

Sid wiped her eyes on the way down the stairs. “He hasn't called me that for years. After I lost my job at the Oregonian, the nickname smarted. He never picked it up again when I finally got my freelance legs under me.”

‘Nursikins’ gave Sarah her own pang for how free and easy things had been back then—the three of them, young professionals in a new city. None of them was attached and they'd counted on each other for everything. She hoped there was some miracle that would make them able to all count on each other again, but it wasn't looking so good.

“Grant has it?” David asked when they got home.

Sarah turned to David and felt her eyes sting. “I'm not getting the shot.”

“I know, honey. I wouldn't want you to.”

“But we can't afford to live here if I don't have a job.”

“Probably it's just a few weeks and they'll have a better vaccine out. You can explain your fears and if you don't get that job back, you can get another one. Nurses are always needed.”

“But with crap hours. I don't want to start over.” Sarah had hated her years of nights.

“It's not worth it,” David said. “I mean, I know it's a small number, but we've heard too many cases of getting it after the vaccine and no cases of not getting it after the vaccine.”

“One,” Sid said.

Instead of asking what Sid meant, she asked for hope. “No luck reaching your brother?”

“Not yet.”

Sid tried him again, then took her laptop up to her room. Sarah followed her and stood in Sid's doorway as Sid dug for an address book, then used her computer access to dial what Sarah figured was Jeff''s house phone. She thought Sid was calling through the computer for her benefit, so they could both hear.

It was answered with a groan.

“Jeff?” Sid said.

“Nuh.”

“Pierre?”

“Yuh.”

He sounded worse than Grant did.

“Pierre, this is Sidney. Jeff's sister. Do you have the flu?”

“Yuh.”

“Is Jeff there? Does he have it?”

“Nuh.”

Sarah looked at her and Sid shrugged. She'd asked a double question and they didn't know which one he'd answered. “He's not there?”

“Nuh.”

“I can't get him at work.”

“Luckdun.”

“Luckdun? Oh! Lockdown? For the virus?”

“Yuh.”

“Holy crap! They locked the CDC down?”

He mumbled something incoherent. An explanation of some sort, but Sarah could tell it was wearing him out to talk. Sid let him go.

“Take care of yourself. Wait! Did you have the vaccine?”

“Nuh.”

“Okay—that's helpful. Thank you!”

She hung up and took a deep breath.

“What, exactly, does a lockdown at the CDC mean?” Sarah asked.

“It can't be good news. I wonder if this is confidential. Pierre probably only told me because he was delirious.”

Sid searched on the internet while Sarah stood watching her, feeling like a broken appliance. Sid didn't seem to be having much luck. Finally, when she'd tried a number of options, she leaned back. “I'm not finding anything about the CDC or what they're doing. Certainly nothing about a lockdown. Where the hell is this information?”