The Pandemic Executions.

TW: murder

It all started innocently enough, a cold here, a fever there…You would see it on the news, people in foreign countries wearing masks and staying indoors to control the outbreak “fear mongering” the man who would go down in history as the LAST PRESIDENT of the United States would say. Even with the precautions taken, the virus slouched from Bethlehem to our doorsteps. By then all there was to do was stock up on canned food and bolt your latches. What’s funny-well, more ironic to me is the way people behaved when the plague was just like the common cold. People got sick, some didn’t survive, and it was a tragedy… But what followed after, the true face of the plague- changed the shape of history and the future of every man woman and child on this planet.

             I remember my best friend Asher- after ghosting a massive bong hit and seeming to come to some sort am epiphany say “It’s a cull.” Dylan loaded another bong hit of what we had so candidly named our “apocalypse stash.” He’s taking a rip and I can hear Shayde from the kitchen, his high-pitched voice all excited at out little conspiracy theories expanding upon Dylan’s culling observation. The fact that we all were under the impression at the time were the elderly and autoimmune seemed to be the only ones dying from the infection. My intuition told me to keep my mouth shut, to wait, watch and listen. A trait that would save my life many times in the years to come- I was passed the bong and the ominous tone in the room seemed to calm. We were listening to something by Peach Pit with the news on mute. I coughed my lungs out, of course, and the guys all laughed at me. And the internal dread I felt, just melted away.

             Weeks later there was an outbreak in our town, a rifle wielding security fence kept us all quarantined while there were hospital tents set up all around town, everyone was getting tested for this new infection. These people that had come were taking temperatures and swabs and those who had the lightest of symptoms were taken away-just like that… To no one knows where. I couldn’t get my sister in the phone or anything, and when I tried to talk to one of the members of the hazmat-suit-national-guard that had been running our little town, I was told that she was in an overcrowded hospital full of people dying left and right. The way he said it was cold, but the look on his face told me he was sincere.

             A week passed, everything in our safe little realities changed, but it was like everyone was trying to keep a straight face. Daily trips to the medical tents, every day we seemed to lose someone to some kind of fever-or a positive test. Usually someone’s mother or grandmother, which would cause a family member to become aggressive-which was never a good thing. It was terrifying. They would leave being dragged away by people in hazmat suits, some kicking and screaming, some solemnly walking along; like they’d already given up-or maybe were feeling ill… It didn’t matter because once you scanned a red on one of the test panels, someone took you away and you never came back… Today things were tense, to say the least. A town of around 2,500 had reduced by almost half. Marshall Kennedy made a run for it through the fence and was shot, we were all so terrified, each time anyone made a move for help, they were taken away-maybe killed. Someone demanded to speak to the government, to which the hazmat-suit-soldiers replied that they were he government. Everything was off, no internet, no phones, no television, no information about or communication to the outside world.

 Nothing worked. Everyone was on edge, Noah, Samantha’s six-month-old-son was teething, whining and gumming a frozen ring. Samantha was literally shaking as she handed him to me and put a cold pack on his head for a moment, brushing his cheeks and chest and quickly tucked it back into her shirt. I know the fear- children often run fevers when teething and Samantha had obviously noticed a light rise. My heart dropped. I didn’t feel like they would make any exceptions to the rule and it was better to conceal the warmth. I helped her strip him to his diaper and asked, just to make sure he was given some kind of fever reducer.

“Of course, I did, Amber.” She whispered back at me stuffing the baby boy’s clothes into the bag containing the ice pack.

             Nervously Samantha stepped up to the scanner holding Noah, the technician; both looking and acting like a robot in her HAZMAT get-up swabbed his cheek and placed the sample in a refrigerator. Turning in her chair she quickly scanned the boy’s forehead, I held my breath, a green light read on the monitor, I exhaled. Samantha was overjoyed but did her best to conceal it as she allowed the tech to swab and scan her.

Red.

And everything was pure panic. I watched as two guards carried her away and as all this was going on, the nurse wasn’t paying the slightest of attention as she swabbed my cheek and scanned me. I didn’t protest, I was in shock.

                          “NOAH.” Samantha was pleading with the guards to take him. “He’s fine, he was green, he’s fine.”

             My horror was briefly interrupted by the technician, “Ma’am, you may go.” I glanced at the screen and saw the color green. Samantha was calling my name. Before I could answer, a guard carelessly tossed Noah into my arms. She pleaded with me to take care of him and I promised her I would as she was being dragged away, she screamed to him, “Noah, mommy loves you.” I cried the entire trip home, when I arrived at the apartment, I shared with the guys I told them what had happened. 

             “It’d not exactly like we have a choice, man, with the Gestapo on our doorsteps.” Came from Lilly, my best friend and Asher’s soon to be wife. She was laid back in a pair of pajamas, her hair in a messy bun. She picked Noah up and began to make cooing sounds at him.

             “That’s not the only thing.” I told her before I explained that Noah was running a fever because he was teething. With Lilly occupied with Noah, we decided to go on a run to the market-which we pretty much knew would be wiped out but we managed a few cans of bay food, formula and a pack of diapers that I later realized were too big for the little guy.

             We filled our bags with anything useful we could carry, batteries, canned goods, water and were leaving when we saw a light shining through the trees at us.

             “Reveal yourselves.” A man’s voice came from behind the gun pointed right at me.

             “Sir,” Asher said as he approached the man showing him a can of carrots. “We just needed food, there is nothing left.” As he approached the man, I realized that Asher was carrying a bat in his right arm. Once he was within reaching distance, I watched him knock the gun out of his hands and bash him in the head with a bat.

             Mortified yet somehow empowered, I quickly picked up his rifle, the man was mumbling something and so Asher removed his helmet to see an ordinary Joe looking guy. He was crying, bleeding from his ears. Asher bared the bat once again as I quickly realized I didn’t exactly know how to use the rifle, maybe the way I was staring at it. Shayde took it from my hand, finger on the trigger and pointed it at the man who was now on his knees.

             “This here is an M4 Carbine” Shayde announced, looking around the room. “It’s standard military issue.” I decided it would be best to stand behind Shayde until I learned to use a gun. “Now.” Shayde said with a menacing look on his face as he buried the rifle into the man’s chest. “You’re going to tell me just exactly what the fuck is going on here.”

             “The infection, it’s knocked out over half the world’s population, airborne.” The man told us.

             “So, what, you quarantine them till they get better?” Asher was ready to swing the bat.

             The doctor was crying. “They don’t get better.” We’ve run tests, we’ve tried multiple approaches to killing this virus.” He continued. “We were ordered to quarantine the sick.”

             “Where?” Shayde demanded.

             “The football stadium.” He said, “that’s where the busses took them.”

             The football stadium was miles past where the city was gated and guarded off, but it didn’t make sense, the medical tents were in the middle of town.

             “I can get us there.” Dylan knew the woods; he could find a shortcut to anywhere when we were kids.

             The man pleaded with us and so, using his own clothes we gagged and bound him, leaving him in the grocery store isle. It’s not like any of us actually considered killing him. The cover of darkness was our friend, that and Dylan’s knowledge of the best places to hide out and get high. There were a few instances of having to hide away from armed guards but after a week, we were already used to it. As we approached a clearing a light flashed and Shayde held up a cell phone. My heart jumped at the sight but when he tried to dial anything there was just a busy signal.

             Asher had continued walking; he knew where were. “Where are the medical tents?” He turned to us. Dylan took the phone from Shayde as if he thought he could make it work. “Toss that thing, the could be tracking it!” Shayde snaped. Asher was squeezing past a ripped gate, we all followed and once inside Dylan began recording video with the man’s phone.

             It was the smell first, something sulfuric and acrid, then Asher spotted it, the huge hole dug in the middle of the field. He was the first to reach it, he vomited, nearly falling into the hole. At the precipice of the hole, I could see it. I didn’t know what I was looking at until I was tiny boney little fingers that seemed to be reaching to me for help. I didn’t realize I had started screaming until I was being held down with a hand over my mouth by Asher, every expletive imaginable flying from Shayde, and Dylan was silent, still filming the mass grave of burned bodies. Our families and friends.

“Get down” Shayde whispered and everyone laid flat, holding our breaths, don’t know what or who was passing but their footsteps grew closer until they stopped and started toward another direction.

             Under the cover of the woods Dylan seemed to be doing his best to whisper to the camera- to explain our story and what had happened here, he was being too loud and shushed by all of us not wanting another run in with the Gestapo. He kept filming nonetheless.

             From behind us came a familiar voice. “Dylan?” His father was armed to the teeth, but that was dear ol’ Teddy, something told me he had been waiting for this to happen his whole life. He began to show his father the video, the first time I saw Teddy cry. “I know, son. I’ve been there.”

             “Why?” He asked his father, who answered “Looking for our mother.” Dylan was on his knees. Everyone fell silent as his father comforted him for as long as we could stand in one spot. “Get rid of that cellular device.” He warned as he stood.

             “We’ve got to get out of here.” Dylan repeated “I can put this online and show the world, somebody will help us, these fuckers have to pay.” His rage was all over him now, holding a pistol like he was praying for a reason to use it. But Teddy had warned us, with a crash-course lesson on how to use a gun-only to shoot as a last resort. Asher kept his bat and carried a pistol in his boot, I wielded a small glock 26 and we made our way back to the apartment.

             Once inside Teddy started filling every duffle, plastic, and trash bag with whatever he could find, not speaking a word and we all just watched in shocked silence.

             Shayde had picked up a front facing baby carrier at some point and Teddy eye’d Noah cautiously. Finally, he handed the carrier to his son and told us “I know a place.” Before he explained that his grandfather had built an underground bunker to survive the cold war… On the complete opposite side of town.

             “Dad, we can’t go back out there with a baby.” Dylan said solemnly and sat on the arm of the couch.

             With a sigh Teddy started rummaging through baby supplies he we’d gathered and pulled out a diaper when I realized that I hadn’t thought of wipes. He exclaimed “eureka” pulling out children’s Benadryl and almost certainly giving Noah more than the recommended dosages. The qualms we had with this were null and void once Noah was out like a lamp in ten minutes. The plan was simple, Lilly stayed in the middle of us in charge of keeping Noah as peaceful as possible. The rest of us would follow Teddy to the bunker. There were only three hours left until the sun rose and everyone would be expected to report to the medical tents. We ran, basically nonstop, and without any incident for a few hours, it was as if out of the blue we had been surrounded. I looked over and Asher was hit in the arm, all hell broke loose. I was shooting in the dark I had no idea if I hit anyone, I just kept firing rounds. Dylan was hit in the chest, Lilly and Noah were crouched behind a tree, Noah had started screaming, she was covering his mouth and shushing him but all the gunfire was obviously overpowering her maternal skills.

Dylan lay on the ground and his father ran to his side, pulling open his shirt to revel the bullet wound pumping the blood from his chest in spurts. “Dad- I” Blood was pouring from his mouth as he pulled cellphone from his chest. “I just wanted to show them what happened here.” His father took the phone, crushing it in his monstrous hands cried over his son, repeating “it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay” long after Dylan was gone. Asher, Shayde and I didn’t stop firing our weapons again until there was no return. Teddy stood; the mountain of a man’s face covered in tears. “We’ve attracted every soldier within earshot. Is everyone good to run? Lilly was feeding Noah a bottle and managed to get him quiet for the moment, after wrapping Asher’s arm and noting he was lucky that the bullet went straight through Teddy gave us a serious look. “Stay down, stay fast, stay quiet.” And with that it was a full sprint through the woods, so blinding that the moonlight seemed to offer no assistance. For hours, we exhaustedly followed Teddy into the pitch-black woods, stopping to rest only very seldomly, usually to calm the baby. I’m sure I wasn’t the first to wonder if he even knew where he was going, and when he stopped short, I expected him to decide we were at a stopping point.

Teddy leaned down and pulled a string and followed it to cement locked door, that he opened and welcomed us to this 50”s style underground bunker that looked as though it had been kept up with, there wasn’t the layer of dust I’d expect and the wall layered in canned goods seemed to be fairly new. There was electricity from solar panels Teddy had installed sometime close to December 2012, there were three sets of bunk beds, a fruit bearing garden I would later learn to tend, and a rainwater reservoir filled to the brim. 

             “Welcome home.” Teddy said, exhausted, covered in his own son’s blood he laid himself on a bed and closed his eyes.

One Year Later

             Asher and Lilly adopted Noah as their son and the bunker was full of laughter and love. Noah took to Teddy and the young boy seemed to soften the blow of all he lost. I tried not to think about it, any of them. This was life now. Shayde spent most of his time outside with Teddy guarding the perimeter and setting up traps and explosives to ward off any unwanted intruders. Once an exhausted group of three stumbled into one of the net traps, which was exquisite luck considering all the explosives. This was about a month ago. Gabriel, his sister Amigale and her daughter Ellie, according to them, it was all shit, and I believed it by the state of filth and starvation they arrived in. Teddy had told him his one rule, if they wanted to live this society, they had to have an active role- to which they proved themselves quite adept. Amigale proved her usefulness with a rifle, quickly stealing the heart of Shayde. And Gabriel could fix anything, his past life as a handyman had ensured his usefulness in any situation. I caught him glance my way and although he has the face of an angel, I have plants to tend and I cant afford any beautiful distractions. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the world, maybe things were back to normal. Maybe everything went to shit just like home. It doesn’t really matter. We survived, so the only thing left to do is to go on living.