Anomoly, Part 1

We aren’t supposed to be alive right now.

Sure, there’s still a few million people out there scrapping together more time, but we’re not supposed to be among them.

“Mommy, fix it!”

My two-year-old thrusts the non-functioning iPad at me. Her eyebrows are scrunched up into an adorable scowl underneath her whispy blond hair. I take the useless brick out of her hands and offer a sympathetic smile.

“Is it broken?” I ask, putting just the right amount of concern into my voice.

She nods. I’ve hit the nail on the head. She can’t watch videos on a dead iPad.

“Fix it and bring puppies back,” she says, putting two chubby palms up in a gesture she’s seen us both do so often.

I stifle the smirk that threatens to dance across my lips and instead give the iPad a skeptical look. I give it my best, audible Hmmmm, and tap the screen.

“I don’t know….” I say.

“Please,” she begs.

“Oh, okay.” I relent the game and carry it over to the countertop. I hear the pitter  patter of little feet as she follows me, eager to understand the magic I use to rule the world.

If only she could understand that it’s not magic. If only the world could understand, then they might get why we’re still alive.

I unwrap the thin sheet that contains the solar cells— it’s better if they aren’t exposed if there isn’t a battery to charge— and plug the iPad in. It only takes a moment before the charge symbol flashes on the screen. Maybe it’s frivolous to keep charging the iPad. I’m sure that other survivors might say so, but they don’t have a toddler to keep entertained all day. It’s not frivolous to me.

A sharp pain pulls all my attention. I put a hand up to my temple and trace the laces of agony as they shoot down my neck. The headache is back…

Moved by habit, I reach for the other frivolous device and wrap the cuff around my arm. I know what I’ll see, but I need to follow the trend. The machine does its work and reports the results: 146/82. That’s higher than before, but I’m not in trouble— not yet anyway.

“Mommy Okay?” Britt asks, tentatively appearing at my side. She peers up at me through dark lashes with wide, curious eyes.

I put a comforting hand on her shoulder and pull her into my leg. Without hesitation she wraps her arms around it in an ironclad embrace. I know I need this comfort as much as she does.

“Yes Dear, Mommy’s okay.”

I feel her relax. After a brief moment a chubby toddler hand snakes it’s way up to my rounded belly and rests where my belly button sticks out.

“Baby okay?” She asks.

“Yeah Sweetie, she’s okay too,” I say.

I get up and walk over to the medicine cabinet. I pull out the bottle of labatalol and stare at the label as if it could give me the advice I need. In the wake of its stubborn silence I extract two pills—double the last dose— and offer a silent prayer into the nothing that this will be enough. That this will get us to delivery.

Matias hasn’t been able to find any more blood pressure medicine, and the likelihood that he’s going to be able to find picotin is even lower. We have to try, though. In a world where doctors and hospitals are a thing of the past, not getting ahead of this thing could be fatal. That’s why he’s been gone these last two days. And, that’s why I’m going to have to go looking for him if he doesn’t come back soon.

~ ~ ~

An iron bar of pain wraps its way around my stomach and pulls, making the world spin. I stagger on uneven footing to the bathroom and empty my meager dinner into the toilet. After repeating several more times I fall back and rest my throbbing head against the cool glass of the shower door. It’s the wrong kind of pain.

I never experienced any labor with Britt, but I know that these stomach cramps aren’t contractions. Something very different is happening to my body. Downstairs again I let the cuff do it’s job, bracing myself for the worst.

148/90. Still not fatal, but the trend is clear. I’m not at the maximum dose for what I have at home, but I’m getting closer at every 8-hour interval with no signs of labor anytime soon. It’s not safe to wait around any longer.

I swallow three pills and make my final decision. I’ve been ready for this for a while now. Not really ready per-se, but mentally considering how necessary my next course of action might end up being.

I had preeclampsia with Britt. It was a pretty bad case, too. She ended up being born at 30 weeks on the dot, just a wee-little thing at 2 pounds and 2 ounces. The way the doctors explained it, the placenta just gave out. Between Britt’s sheer will to survive and my body’s attempts to make it happen, the ill-understood mechanisms of the placenta triggered the sequence of events that lead to the condition. My blood pressure skyrocketed into scary territory, topping 220/180 by the time they were racing us into surgery. Britt gave out a cry that sounded more like a squeak when she was born, then she was rushed off to the neonatal intensive care unit so doctors and machines could keep her alive while I was being stitched back up.

Matias missed the whole thing—that’s how fast it happened. One minute I was checking into a routine prenatal appointment and the next I was getting rushed to the delivery ward. I spent two days in the ICU and Britt spent 80 horrifying days in the NICU. We almost lost her a couple of times. Matias and I nearly lost each other.

It took us a long time to recover from the whole ordeal. For a while, Matias would panic every time he had to leave us for more than a couple hours. For a while longer than that I would wake up sweat-drenched and paranoid that I was about to lose my baby all over again. Britt, though, was a champion through the whole thing. You wouldn’t know what she’d been through to look at her now. She’s unflappable. Tenacious is her middle name.

We’re blessed to have such an incredible little thing. Ultimately that’s why we decided it was worth the risk to try again, but that was before people started dying…

Two weeks after we had our first positive pregnancy test the news started reporting about a strange respiratory illness that was sweeping through Europe. Infection rates were high and fatality hovered somewhere around 85%. It seemed unreal that something could be so dangerous in this modern age.

For another week or two people continued to go out and live their lives like nothing had changed. There’s actually a name for that sort of phenomenon—where people don’t react correctly to a dangerous situation. It’s the normalcy bias, or maybe it’s the outcome bias… it’s been a while since I read about it. The idea is that people have a hard time believing that a situation is as dangerous as it actually is. People affected by this sort of bias can’t actually see how dangerous the situation is and they’re blind to the errors they and others are making. It affects something like 70% of the population, and in this case, that was enough to seal our fate.

By the first month there were thousands reported case in every country in the world. The United States lead the charts with more than 200,000 potential infections. The world was on lockdown. No one was permitted to venture outside of their home unless it was an emergency. Some folks were already starving.

But it was too little, too late. Even though the world shut down, the virus was spreading. Supply chains were already crumbling. Hospitals were overrun and doctors were dying faster than anyone else. By month three, without doctors and without space in hospitals, the death rate went from 85% to 95% and some experts suggested that those numbers might climb up to 98% before leveling off.

Things went dark in the middle of month four. Scavengers and roaming gangs had taken to looting houses and taking whatever supplies they could find. They didn’t just take from the empty houses where everyone had died. Things got violent.

I saw it coming that first day. There’s a name for that, too. It’s called the survivorship bias. It turns out that when you’ve been through a really hard thing already—a trauma or a disaster—it actually makes you a better decision maker when it happens again. I sent Matias to buy every-last bit of non-perishable food he could fit in the car along with the solar stuff. He went to six different stores that night. We bought everything from rice, to powdered lemonade to baby aspirin, band aids and copper wire. Then we stayed inside.

We were ready for whatever might happen… except for this.

Sure, we both knew it was a possibility, but it was one we couldn’t do much about. In the beginning I messaged my doctor about getting medication, just in case. But he blew me off. Then regular medical offices shut down. By the time the power went out the US death count had just topped two million… it’s impossible to know for sure where it is now, but it’s exponentially higher. There aren’t any open hospitals. There’s no one to call for advice. We’re on our own.

I lug the pack onto my back and look down at Britt, who’s sleeping peacefully on Matias’s side of the bed. If it were her right now, she wouldn’t make it. Me neither, probably. Surviving at 30 weeks in our situation was a small miracle even with all the doctors and technology. I should be thrilled that my body has made it this far. 37 weeks and this baby can make it on the outside, but that’s only if I can get it on the outside. With my blood pressure climbing, I know there’s only a small window left to get us both through this safely. Safely might be a stretch for a description, but I have to believe it’s possible. That Matias was able to find medication. That I’ll be able to find him, and that we’ll get through it together.

I have to believe it, or Britt will be left alone.

I brush my hand over her hair. She stirs from her sleep, looking up at me through her two bright orbs.

“It’s time to go Sweetie,” I whisper.

Britt nods and allows me to scoop her up into my arms.

~ ~ ~

We talked about this possibility, Matias and I, but talking about it and living it are two different things. Living it is terrifying.

Every single street smells like rotting meat. I try not to think about why.

“It’s yucky, Mommy,” Britt says in a voice that’s way too loud for the silence.

“I know, Baby, it will smell better when we get to the River,” I whisper.

She buries her face in my chest and allows me to wrap my arms around her and hold her close. We’ve walked less than a mile and already I feel the strings of exhaustion pulling me down. It would be faster to take the surface streets. They offered the most direct path to the city hospital…

I could use the last quarter tank of gas to drive there. We’d make it in 10 minutes. If Matias is there, we’d find him immediately and we could begin to get this whole nightmare under control…

But the streets were dangerous. The remaining population was dangerous. Hungry and desperate, they would do anything for a few more supplies. Driving the car would make us even more of a target.

The gentle slope of the levee entrance to the river looms ahead of me like a jagged mountainside. My heart is racing and the burden of both Britt and the pack are becoming too much. My head screams with the pain of the elevated pressure. It makes my stomach turn and all my muscles clench.

I stare at the levee for another second before turning around.

“We’re going to take the car,” I tell Britt. She nods ascent as we make our retreat.

~ ~ ~

What if I go blind?

The thought nags at me, making my arms feel tense and jumpy as I turn the steering wheel and back the car onto the dark, barren road. Vision loss is one of those sudden, unpredictable symptoms of preeclampsia that means that things are getting serious.

Things are already getting serious as it is. The constant pounding behind my eyes and at the back of my neck promise it, along with the persistent nausea and heart palpitations.

“If I go, I go. We’ll figure it out,” I whisper, turning toward the highway.

“We’ll figure it out, Mommy,” Brit agrees. Her sleepy voice wafts up from the back seat, putting determination behind my hollow words.

The highway is thankfully empty. Though I’m tempted to speed, I don’t. Just because the road looks empty doesn’t mean it is. People did all sorts of stupid stuff leading up to the end.

Ahead, a crumpled mass of twisted metal comes into view. A massive semi is splayed out across both lanes, toppled onto its side so that the contents of the freight are spilled out over the cars that made impact. Too bad for scavengers those contents were nothing more than a bunch of pool toys.

That’s what you get when you have an apocalypse in the summer. I think as I slow the car to a crawl and pull onto the shoulder to pass the mess.

“What are you doing?” Britt asks. The bump and crunch of gravel must have woken her up again.

“I’m passing a big truck so we can get to the hospital,” I say.

“Time for the baby?” She asks.

My stomach twists. I sure hope so.

“Yeah, it’s time,” I say.

~ ~ ~

It’s the last place I want to be right now. The hospital looks like a scene from a war movie. Cars have been left abandoned in the middle of the parking lot. The wreckage of two ambulances blocks the emergency entrance and it appears that every glass window or door has been smashed through. To make matters worse, I know without a shadow of a doubt that people were sick in there…

The baby jams a knee or elbow into my ribs. Its sudden motion makes me realize that I haven’t felt it in a while. This, of course, makes me worry that he or she is in distress.

Britt was in distress. First the placenta went, then my body reacted. The umbilical cord wasn’t giving her the oxygen and nutrients she needed to survive, but somehow, through it all, she hung on. I can only hope that this one will hang on too.

I open the door to the backseat. I thought that Britt would be asleep, but she’s just sitting there silently. Her stoicism makes it clear that she knows something serious is happening. I crumble a little under the weight of that thought.

“Let’s go get Daddy, Mommy,” Britt says. Her voice is so much quieter than before.

“We’re going to try to find him,” I promise, unclipping her from her carseat.

I pull her into my arms, abandoning the idea of the backpack. I can’t handle both. I’m not even sure I can handle Britt, but I refuse to leave her. I keep telling myself we’ll figure it out.

~ ~ ~

It’s clear we aren’t the first people to come here looking for supplies. The place is ransacked and smells like death. I skip over the pharmacy, deciding that it will be cleared out of useful medication. Besides, we’re too far past the usefulness of a few more blood pressure pills. It’s time for delivery.

I squint into the darkness and begin making my way into the belly of the hospital where they might keep supplies for in-patients.

“It’s spooky,” Britt says, clinging so tightly to my neck that it’s hard to breathe.

“Yeah. Really spooky,” I agree, figuring there’s no use in shielding her from what she can clearly see.

I trip over something in the dark. My whole body pitches forward. I scramble to get my legs under me, but it’s no use. My belly and Britt have me too unbalanced for recovery. After two staggering steps I go down on my side, absorbing the impact from my stomach and Britt.

She screams before impact, then things go dark.

~ ~ ~

“I got you Mommy. It’s going to be okay.”

The sweet whisper pulls me from the darkness. I detect the earthy smell of Britt’s unwashed hair through the stench of rotting bodies. I reach for her and pull her into me.

“I got you too,” I whisper back.

She sits quietly in my embrace for a moment, but then starts to squirm. She looks up at me and says, “Mommy, you’re wet.”

That’s when I realize it. It’s too dark to tell if it’s water or blood, but I know for certain where it’s coming from.

About ten feet away a door opens, revealing a splice of light from someone’s flashlight.

Terrified, I pull Britt into my chest and put a finger up to my lips. She nods, eyes wide.

The person carrying the light sweeps the flashlight around the hall, so that the light settles on us.

My heart stops.