This Plague of Days Season One (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) (12 page)

“Down,” he said. “About six feet…but I don’t think about this stuff much, Anna. I was brought up in the church, too. We all were back then. I remember I was probably as old as Jaimie is now before I stopped worrying about burning in hell.”

Anna’s eyes were wide and her face serious. “How’d you stop worrying?”

“I just stopped thinking about it,” he said. “I figured out that if I spent my life worrying about death, I wouldn’t have much of a life. That’s worked out just fine.”

“Till now,” Jack said.

“Still.”
 

Jaimie spotted a little electrical arc spark between them. His mother poured the coffee and handed Theo two mugs. “Go back. Ring Mrs. Bendham’s bell, and leave the mug on her front step. I think we can spare a couple cupcakes, don’t you?”

“It must be genetic,” Theo said. “Anybody dies and since there’s nothing else to do, people bring food. Must be the comfort of the sugar and a dopamine reward for the brain to offset the grief.”

An annoyed look swept over Jack’s face. Jaimie did not read her facial expression. Such nuances often escaped him. However, he saw the scarlet flare of anger that reached her corona.
 

Theo shrugged and nodded his assent and took the coffee to Mrs. Bendham.
 

“If nobody comes by tomorrow…we’ll dig a grave in her backyard.”

“
Mom!
”

“Take it easy, Anna. It’s supposed to be warm over the next few days. We can’t just leave him in the house. That’s not safe.”

Anna looked shaky. “What about the police or a funeral home or…?”

“I’d say from what we know, the authorities are really busy right now. Don’t worry about this. This is all going to blow over. In the meantime, we’re going to have to take care of more things for ourselves. Just for a while.”

That was Jack’s mother’s fourth lie, but Jaimie thought she believed that one.

For a moment Jaimie thought Anna was going to cry but a rancid puce around the twist of her mouth told him it was repulsion that washed over her in waves.
 

His mother must have sensed it, too, because she seemed anxious to calm Anna, to act as if all this was normal. “Have a coffee, Anna. It’s decaf. Relax a little and uh, gather your thoughts. Then I want you and Jaimie to gather up every bucket, pail, bowl and receptacle in the house. You guys have showers tonight and after we’re all done in there, we’ll fill the bathtub.”

“What are we doing? Are we getting ready for a tornado or the flu pandemic?”

“We’ll wash every bucket and bowl really clean,” she said. “It’ll rain tonight. That’s a couple of blessings. We’ll save the water in case we need it later and…the ground will be soft in the morning. If we need it.”

Theo leaned forward and gave Jack a kiss on the cheek. “All this time I thought you were wasting time praying. I guess you were using the time to think.”

“You’re confused, heathen. They’re the same thing.” She moved to her husband’s side, wrapped an arm around him and gave him a squeeze. “Rough weather ahead, Theo. Things are changing fast. Maybe you’ll rethink a few of these issues before things go back on smooth and easy autopilot.”

“Highly doubtful,” he said. “Pray all you want, but when it comes to it, I’m betting you’ll take whatever vaccine the government has for us instead of a prayer.”

“The first thing we have to assume under the circumstances is that the government is too busy to be of much help. Or they’re somewhere else looking after their own families. If there’s no vaccine to look forward to anytime soon, prayer may be all that we have left to rely on for now.”

“Well, then God help us,” Theo said, “…or the Buddha or Vishnu or whatever. I won’t be too picky.”

Jaimie turned back to the living room to look up the word heathen, but his mother told him to wait. “Have a bath after Anna’s done her shower, Jaimie.” She handed him the last mug of steaming coffee. His first.

He held the hot cup between his palms, enjoying the aroma. When he tasted it, he was disappointed. Its smell was nutty but the taste was acidic and he burned his tongue. He made a face and his mother laughed.

Jack’s look of confidence and reassurance broke when the sound of air raid sirens rose in the far distance. The howl strengthened and ebbed but did not stop, like a wolf that never ran out of breath.

Roast together: Ugly, Good and Bad

T
he morning the Spencers were going to bury Al Bendham, an unexpected emissary arrived at dawn with terrible news. Douglas Oliver lived across the street from the Spencers with his dog, a German Shepherd named Steve. Though his two-storey house faced their own, the Spencers’ interaction with him had been limited to exchanging waves as he drove his green Mercedes in and out of his garage.
 

Oliver’s backyard was fenced in so they never saw him walking his big dog, either. Sometimes Steve barked late at night and they heard Oliver yelling the dog’s name, swearing at him to be quiet.
 

Jaimie enjoyed listening to him. Born in Australia, Oliver sometimes did strange, unexpected things with vowels.
 

When they did see Oliver, it was in the warmer months when he practiced putting in his side yard. He said he wasn’t welcome in his old church so golf was his new church. Jaimie thought golf was a strange religion, though no stranger than the others. Theo said Mr. Oliver tried to convert him once when he borrowed a crosscut saw from the old man.
 

“You interested in golf?” Oliver had asked.
 

Theo said no. Oliver told him about his golf game, anyway. Jaimie didn’t understand the story. It started out with a ball you addressed and hit with a club. Then Oliver got a bird and Jaimie lost the thread entirely. Jaimie couldn’t understand why anyone would chase a ball with a club when they could stay inside and read a dictionary.

When Oliver finished his story, he looked at Theo so expectantly, Jaimie guessed he was waiting for applause like they did with Show and Tell at school. Jaimie clapped, which made the old man laugh.
 

Theo grinned, thanked the neighbor for the saw and explained that he was an atheist when it came to golf (and just about everything else). “The only time I played, I got a hole-in-one, but that clown’s mouth was pretty wide.”
 

Jaimie didn’t understand the mystery of the clown mouth, either. The discomfort of bafflement was small compared to the effort it took to speak. If people knew how much he didn’t understand, Jaimie was certain they’d think he was stupid. Staying mute was the most intelligent course.

That cordial exchange between neighbors was the most anyone in the Spencer family had spoken to Douglas Oliver until he rapped on their front door to give them news of the plague.
 

The Spencer family was already up. Anna said it was all the coffee she drank the night before. “Decaffeinated doesn’t mean no caffeine. It just means less, right? Besides, those sirens kept me up till three. What was the point of that?”

“I suspect,” Theo said, “that they let the air raid sirens go to make sure everyone turned on a computer or TV or radio so they knew what was going on. When the National Guard starts arresting people out past curfew, they don’t want to have to give the ‘Ignorance of martial law is no excuse speech’.”

“Whatever. I’m getting used to this. No more school, no more books, no more teacher’s judgmental eyes,” she sang to herself. “I’m wired and electrified. And I want more coffee.”

When the knock at the door came, Theo drew the meat cleaver from the knife block. Jack answered the door wearing a surgical mask.

Douglas Oliver swayed on his feet, looking gray. “The university hospital is a death house. Despite all the plans put in place for the flu pandemic, there aren’t enough people to put those plans into action. Whatever you’ve been picturing, it’s worse.”

“How do you know?” Jack asked.
 

“I got sick and I went there. I’ve seen it from the inside…but don’t worry. No fever and I’m past it. I’m not contagious anymore.”

“How do you know for sure?” Anna asked, clinging to the door frame at the entrance to the kitchen.

“Because I ate the Sutr Virus for breakfast, young lady. It tried to eat me up and I ate it. I was horribly sick for days. I went to the hospital last week, though I’m not sure which day it was. I was too feverish. Lost track of the time. Just got back. My dog is gone.”

“As in, dead?” Anna’s eyebrows knit together.
 

“No, no! I assume not, anyway. He’s doggone gone is all. I can see where he tried to get into the house — ripped the screen to my glass doors, poor, silly bugger. He must have had designs on his dog dish. Or maybe he planned to raid the fridge.”
 

He gave Jaimie a wink. “Steve dug his way out under the fence. Must be off, nipping down to the market for a flan and a doggy bone. His favorite treats were those pigs ears. I wish I’d treated Steve with those more often. Maybe he’ll come back for more.”

“I’m sorry,” Theo said. “We didn’t even know you were sick. We’d have taken care of the dog had we known.”

Jack gestured for Oliver to sit and he flopped down, beads of sweat on his forehead.
 

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “I kicked virus ass, but the fight went all twelve rounds. Damn near got me. I’m still weak as a kitten. I wouldn’t have made the walk home except a kind young couple gave me a ride most of the way.”

Jack left the room and returned a moment later with the cup of coffee she’d made for herself. Oliver nodded without saying thank you and asked for toast. “Just a bit of dry white or a rye if you’ve got it and I’ll tell you what’s really going on.”

Theo and Jack looked at each other. Oliver surrendered an embarrassed smile. “Just a bit of quid pro quo for the news of the world,” he said. “I’m finding myself a bit too tired to make my own toast.” Sensing the pause stretch out, he added, “And my bread got pretty moldy while I was incapacitated. Maybe you folks should eat it for the antibiotic boost, hm?”

Quid pro quo.
It was a relief for Jaimie to hear someone speak such elegant words out loud. Jaimie wondered if he could have a conversation with Mr. Oliver. Maybe the old man could understand him better than others.

Mr. Oliver ate first, with one hand cupped under his plate to catch crumbs. He did not speak until he finished eating.
 

“Last week, I took my temperature. It was 102 degrees and I had no appetite after throwing up through the night. You know those dry heaves where there’s nothing left to give and it comes up from, uh…your groin?”

Mrs. Bendham drove him to emergency. There was no parking within blocks of the hospital. “We left the car in a convenience store parking lot. My beautiful Mercedes is gone. There was some broken glass where I left it. Mrs. Bendham helped me make it to the entrance at Emerge. I would never have made it without her.”
 

Mr. Oliver’s eyes took on a wet sheen. Jaimie watched him go grayer. His vibrancy faded. “I knocked on Mrs. Bendham’s door before I knocked on yours. She told me about Al. Poor old, blind coot. If I’d gotten home last night, maybe I could have caught him in time to say goodbye.”

He was quiet for a moment so Jaimie looked up the word
coot
. Good word, coot.
 

“Last week, I sure didn’t think I’d be alive and he’d be the one laid out.” Oliver wiped his eyes with the back of his big hands and pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket. “Blind men make lousy golfers, but I tried to coach him at the driving range. Al always tried to muscle the drive. Never got into a smooth pendulum swing…a good friend, though. He said he’d take care of feeding Steve and I guess he did until he couldn’t anymore.”

“Tell us about the hospital,” Jack said.

“Well, unusual doings. There weren’t many doctors or nurses. I was one of the few patients who should have been there since I don’t have family to take care of me. The original plan was isolation, but that takes personnel. Things stayed organized for a while, but without staff, they just opened the doors and told everybody to find a bed if they could. Most of the younger doctors and nurses stopped coming into work.”

“How could they abandon people like that?” Anna said.

“Oh, don’t be too hard on them. I think they were the smart ones, exercising the better part of valour. When the ship is sinking, you don’t prove anything by going down with it. Suicide can be courageous, but the Sutr Virus doesn’t need all those young people sacrificing themselves on the altar of misplaced duty.”

“But all those sick people — ”Anna said.

“All those sick people,” Oliver raised his voice for the first time, “were going to be dead or not. We’re so used to there being convenient solutions for everything and everyone dying in apple pie order, oldest first. Nature has other opinions.”

He snuffled, blew his nose and gave Anna a soft look of apology. When he spoke again, it was in a low voice. “What I saw was families taking care of their own. I’ve seen the same in the Third World. People on cots in hallways, on roofs, anywhere there’s a space for a body to lie down and die. Mothers and sisters and brothers and fathers camp out next to them and pray and wait because there is little or no medicine. That’s what we’ve got for this. No medicine but water and caring looks. All we’ve got to rely on now is our individual immune systems.”

“How long were you there?” Theo asked.

“Seven days, I think. This is Tuesday, right?”

“Wednesday.”

Oliver went ashen,
Jaimie thought. I love the word
ashen
.

 
“Wednesday. I guess the delirium lasted longer than I thought. It seemed like each time I came around there were different people in the beds beside me. We didn’t talk much, except for Charlotte.”

The old man looked from face to face and his tears came faster. Jaimie watched each tear track, slipping over the burst capillaries of Oliver’s cheeks. Anna and Theo watched the living room carpet as Jack disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with the last of the coffee.