The China Pandemic (14 page)

“Yeah, you can come in,” said Macy.

She was getting the first aid supplies out of the bag as Graham pushed a rubber stopper to hold the door open. “Macy, you and Bang refill those water bottles while I do this,” he said.

He took a deep breath and walked over to Marcy by the sink where she hopped on one leg with Macy’s help. “How’s it feeling?” he asked her.

“The cut throbs some but not as bad as before,” she said.

“Well, face the wall. I’ll try to be as gentle as I can,” he said as he washed and dried his hands. He started to peel away the soaked dressing.

She cringed a bit so he stopped. “It’s okay, Graham, just go ahead and do it,” she said.

Graham exposed the raw looking flesh. He gently dabbed at it with sterile gauze and washed it with more sterile saline. Then he dried it by patting lightly. He applied new ointment and recovered it with a clean bandage.

“I think we should just use the gauze to cover it after we get to the cabin to let more air get to it. Now, let’s get more meds into you and get going,” he said. Then he repacked their supplies and threw away the trash in the nearby gray trashcan. At this point, it would probably stay there for eternity. Then he looped an arm around her waist while toting his rifle with the other.

“Graham!” Macy called from the hallway, a little alarmed.

“What?” he said as he turned into the hall.

“Sheriff’s growling at something down the hall,” she said and when he followed the sound, Sheriff was crouched in front of them in the middle of the hallway, warning them of something beyond, down past the cheerful squirrel cutouts.

“It’s probably a dog, so come on, it’s time to go,” he said as he ushered them all to the doorway. Looking to make sure the coast was clear, he opened the door and shepherded them all back to the truck. He held Marcy up with one arm as she hopped on one leg.

“Come on, Sheriff!” he yelled. The dog dropped his warning and ran out, but instead of getting back into the truck right away, he ran over to the left of the door and lifted his leg at the nearest bush. All the while, he looked around for enemies.

Graham shook his head, but got the kids into their seats quickly and then called the dog over. He jumped into the back as before. Graham held up his rifle and scanned the outside of the building while he edged closer to his own door.

He got in and started driving away. As he looked back at the school, he noticed movement in his review mirror. He stopped and watched as someone ran across the street behind them. Graham rolled down his window and yelled, “Hey!”

The young man stopped and Sheriff started barking and the girls panicked. “No, Graham, keep going, please keep going,” they yelled.

“Shhh, he’s just a kid,” he said back to them.

The six foot figure turned out to be a teen, Graham guessed about eighteen or so. He wore a blue plaid flannel shirt over ratty denim jeans and boots. The boy stared at him through suspicious brown eyes and darker brown unkempt hair. Graham started to back up the truck, but the boy ran again and Graham put on the brakes and yelled, “Wait!”

The kid stopped once more but was ready to bolt at any time. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Graham paused then said, “Are you okay?”

“I don’t need your help.” The kid looked distraught.

“Okay, that’s good,” Graham said back, then after a minute of silence with just the sound of the truck’s engine running Graham added, “We’re going up to Cascade. Do you know where that is?”

The boy paused in thought, then nodded that he did.

“If you want to, you can come up there when you’re ready. Leave me a note at the post office and I’ll check it when I come into town, once a week or so. Do you understand?” Graham asked him.

The boy said, “Yeah, but I don’t want to leave them just yet,” and for the first time, Graham noticed the boy was armed as he pointed towards his home with his pistol that he’d had hidden behind his back.

“It’s all right, I understand. When you’re ready, you’re welcome. Leave me a note and stay somewhere safe in town. I’ll check for it,” Graham said. He did not know why but he trusted the kid.

He watched the teenager’s eyes light up with momentary interest and turned to see Macy staring out at him from the backseat window. Again, the youth hesitated, looking undecided. “Okay, I’ll probably come. But not yet,” he said and jogged away down a side street.

“Whew!” Macy said.

Graham rolled up his window and moved on down the road. “That was weird,” said Marcy.

Macy did not say anything.

“He’s all right,” Graham said. “He’s just scared. Maybe he’ll meet up with us after a while.”

“He had a gun,” Bang pointed out.

“He sure did. I think we’ll see a lot of that now, people wearing guns,” he said and picked up speed as he moved on. He reminded the kids to find something to eat in the back. Macy pulled out a package of cheese and peanut butter sandwich crackers and began passing them around. They each had their own refilled water bottle and Graham reminded Macy to give her sister more medicine. Soon, they were silent again, having finished off their light meal and gone off to their own thoughts again without having much to say to one another. The drive made things seem too normal, but at least it gave them time to consider things as they were now.

The pitch darkness of night descended as Graham pulled up to the narrow dirt road turnoff that led to the cabin. He was a little saddened and surprised that he’d gotten this far and only ran into the one young man with no other living soul’s path to cross. He became a little less optimistic about the future.

In the unfamiliar vehicle, Graham came to a complete stop and turned on the overhead light to see just how to put this vehicle into four-wheel drive, which caused the sleeping occupants to stir.

“Where are we?” asked Bang.

“We’re almost there. I have to get this thing in four-wheel drive. The road is a bit muddy up there. I hope there are no downed trees in the way. If there are, we’ll have to get out and walk,” Graham said.

Graham turned off the obtrusive light and drove the truck slowly over the singlewide dirt path going up and down, over the unseen dips in the road, leading up to the family cabin.

The long day had been difficult. Graham held back the memory of killing a man and having to save a life. He never thought he was capable of doing either, nor did he ever want to have the responsibility of such an action again soon. His father was that man, not him. He was a math professor or had been. His father was the brave one, a soldier who’d fought in Vietnam and Korea. Reluctantly, he realized that he was his father’s son after all, and it was a good thing he knew it now because their lives depended on it.

Graham peered through the light beams and saw a few brown deer that stared back at him before they leapt their way through the ferns and pines. He looked up ahead, noticed a faint light, and had a sinking feeling. He doused the headlights and by memory, drove closer. Soon it became apparent that someone was already in the cabin with the flickering light gleaming through the windows.

He pulled up slowly into the clearing and saw a little red Ford Escort up under the brush on the left side of the cabin by the tree line. “Damn, someone’s here,” he said as he turned off the engine.

“I’m going to check it out,” Graham said as he pulled out his rifle. “You guys lock the doors. Macy, can you drive?” he asked.

“Sorta,” she said.

“Good enough, anything happens to me, you get the hell out of here and go back to that boy we saw today, all right?” He wasn’t sure why, but he trusted the boy.

Sounding confused and scared by his tone she said, “Okay.”

He quietly pushed the door closed and Macy climbed over into the driver’s seat while Bang reached around and locked all the doors manually.

Graham scouted around to the side window to peek inside. Within the wavy dirty glass, Graham could see someone had started a fire in the woodstove that he and his dad had installed recently. Flames could be seen within the ceramic glass. No one was up walking around in the main room so he assumed the intruders were asleep. Quietly and slowly, he went up the wooden steps so as to not alert those inside. He tried the front door and found that the lock had been busted so he just pushed it in gently.

He peered inside and saw what he hadn’t from outside. The firelight danced on a woman who lay on the couch, sweating and shivering at the same time. She looked American Indian or some variation thereof and was obviously suffering from the virus or something similar.

Graham stepped halfway into the cabin, stopping at the sound of a rifle bolt clicking back to his right.

“Hold it right there, buddy,” a gravelly voice commanded, and Graham remained frozen in place. He couldn’t believe he’d been through this horrible day, only to be murdered at the very end of it.

“Who the hell are you?” the stranger said, coming into view. An ancient man stood before Graham. Probably the oldest man Graham had ever laid eyes on. His sparse white hair was a striking contrast to his black skin.

Graham pulled his right hand up and lowered his own rifle with his left but didn’t drop it entirely.

“It’s all right,” he said calmly as he tried to reassure the old man. “My name’s Graham Morgan and this is my cabin. My family’s cabin, that is,” he said.

“So you say,” the old man retorted.

“Really, it is. I’ve been coming up here every summer, my whole life. Now please lower that gun, before you hurt someone,”

The old man complied, then Graham asked, pointing to the woman, “Does she have the virus?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Don’t think so. She kidnapped me and took me here,” he said, complaining.

Graham walked over to her. Beads of sweat covered her exposed face. Graham pulled back the covers a little and saw that she was armed with a handy pistol at her stomach. She was unconscious so Graham removed the pistol just so there weren’t any accidents and placed it on the floor under the settee where she lay.

He listened to her breathing. Graham said, “Something’s not right. Her breathing is too clear for this to be the virus. It’s some other infection,” he said.

“I could’ve told you that, dummy,” the old man said.

Graham looked at the old man, irritated. “Do you know her name?” he asked.

“No, dumb girl said I had to come with her, is all,” he said then added, “I don’t know her. She said I had to come on account I wasn’t dying. I told her I couldn’t help it and she dragged me out here anyway.” The old man opened his arms wide, still holding onto the rifle.

“Put that gun down now,” Graham said and realized the old man was short a cell or two and couldn’t be trusted with a weapon.

“It’s not loaded,” the woman said quietly.

Graham looked back at her, surprised by her soft voice.

“Hi, I’m Graham. I can see you’re sick. Is it the virus?” he asked.

She swallowed and looked at him, “No, I had a miscarriage yesterday, I think there’s some kind of infection,” she said, tears flooding her eyes.

This news hit him in the gut. “I’m really sorry to hear that,” was all he could think to say.

“Do you have any water?” Graham asked.

“There’s some in my car. I just couldn’t make it back out there after getting him in here,” she said.

He stood up. “All right, I’ll get you some. Listen,” he said to both of them, “This is my family’s cabin. It’s fine if you stay here, but I want you to know I’ve got kids out in my truck and I need to bring them in here.” Then he added, “I’ll be right back.”

Before he reached the door, though, he strode over to the old man and grabbed the gun, pointing it at him. “You behave, mister,” he said and guided the cranky geriatric to a nearby chair.

Out at the truck, he informed the kids of the situation within. “Don’t be offended by the old man. He’s just cranky,” he said to them. “The lady’s really sick so we need to give her some of our antibiotics,” he said.

When the children finally stepped out into the cool night air, they held what belongings they could manage and walked through the cold dewy tall grass to the warm cabin within. Macy helped her sister and Sheriff walked along with Graham and Bang, nose twitching in response to the new smells along the way.

The girls stopped at the porch and Graham handed what he carried to Bang and lifted Marcy into his arms to climb the steps.

By the time they entered, the lady was asleep again. The old man silently beheld the new intruders.

“Them’s just children,” the old man said, a little disgusted, and pointed at them as if Graham promised him something else.

“That’s right, they’re children. You be nice to them,” Graham warned.

“They can’t fight,” he said.

“Fight what?” Graham asked him.

“This war!” the old man said indignantly

Then Macy and Bang stopped behind Graham and stared astonished.

“There’s no war right now,” Graham said.

“Dat’s what you think,” the old man said, and got up on his old bowed legs and made his way slowly into the bunkroom at the back of the cabin.

The kids clearly didn’t know what to make of all this and looked at Graham for an answer. He just shook his head with a little smile.

“Man, this has been the longest day ever,” he said and realized he was still carrying Marcy around.

Graham put her down in the chair the old man just vacated.

Sheriff walked over to the sleeping woman, sniffed at her and looked up at Graham. “I know, buddy, she’s sick,” he said.

“Marcy, let’s get your leg taken care of first. There’s a bathroom over here to the right,” he showed them and quickly redressed her wound, which didn’t look any different from this afternoon.

Back in the kitchen, he asked them if they were hungry but all three denied the fact and just wanted to know where they could sleep. Graham walked them into the back bunkroom where four hefty double-decker bunk beds stood like sentinels on guard. The old man appeared as a lump on the farthest back on the right. They quietly tiptoed over to the other side and Macy pulled back the covers on the bottom at the front end of the row, nearest the doorway. She motioned for Marcy to lie down. Graham helped her onto the mattress and Macy covered her up with a soft blanket he handed her from the stack that he pulled from a big, cedar chest at the end of the room.

Bang climbed the ladder at the end of Macy’s bed and settled down above her. Macy stood up on Marcy’s bunk for a moment and covered up the boy. “Goodnight, Bang,” she said and he smiled at her. Graham could tell Macy was the mothering type.

She tucked her sister in again and brushed back her hair, “Goodnight, Marcy,” she said.

“Goodnight, sis,” Marcy murmured sleepily.

Graham watched this all from the doorway, wondering how they could perform such a normal ritual after such a hellacious day. Macy got into the lower bunk by her sister, nearest the doorway on the left, and waved goodnight to Graham. They’d lost so much and yet life went on. He didn’t smile back but walked away, amazed, into the living area where another life lay in harm’s way.