PANDEMIC

The TV screen flashed once and writing appeared, all caps, all white against the black background.

WE WILL EAT YOU!

“Wooooow!” exclaimed Ben, eyes as big as saucers.

The screen flashed again and a multitude of images were strewn out over the next ten seconds, suspense music accompanied them to a crescendo: a burning house, people in hazmat suits running down a street, the army fighting a horde of zombies and the sun setting on a city in chaos. The screen flashed once more and writing appeared again, larger this time, all caps, all white against black, and slowly filling from top to bottom with blood red. It spelled:

PANDEMIC

“Woooooow!” exclaimed Ben again.

Ben Roth was not very brave, but with practice he liked to believe that he was becoming braver and braver every day.

He wasn’t a coward, really, although once he did have a little accident when Mrs. Johnson’s dog caught him by surprise as he was walking home from school. Luckily the dog had been tied up and Mrs. Johnson was just two houses away so nobody found out. When the trailer had finished playing he jumped up from where he was lying on the carpet and ran to the kitchen to sell it to his mother. “Mom, Mom, can I stay up to watch a movie tonight? It’s about…”

His mother was on the phone talking intently with someone. She waved a hand to cut the explanation short. “Just a second Jack, my son’s talking to me. What did you say darling?”

“Can I stay up tonight? There’s this really great movie about …” Ben started again with renewed enthusiasm.

“Sure, honey! Just make sure to finish your homework first.”

Ben grinned. The only due homework was for Spanish and Ms. Stevenson had paired him up with Enrique. Enrique was one of the smartest boys in his school and they had finished their homework right after class. “All done!” he said triumphantly.

“That’s great honey. Now go outside and play, I need to finish my conversation with Jack.”

“Kay.” Ben trotted out. As the door closed behind him, he laughed. He would get to be brave and watch the movie and then he would get to tell everyone at school about it and kids like John wouldn’t be able to make fun of him anymore.

They lived right across from the playground, so Mom and Dad let him play there as much as he wanted to, as long as he made it back to dinner on time. He didn’t go directly across the street but turned left at the end of the driveway. Once, he had been in a hurry to get to the playground and didn’t go left but straight across. He had looked both ways just as Mom and Dad had told him to, but they got mad anyway and didn’t let him watch TV for a week. He definitely wasn’t in a hurry today.

There weren’t many rides and he knew them all by heart by now, there was the seesaw, the two swing sets, a jungle gym, the sandbox where all the little kids played, and a roundabout, that was his favorite. Once, Dad had spun him so fast that he couldn’t walk straight for five whole minutes. The rides were well taken care of, Mr. Peterson the playground supervisor came every week and checked to make sure that everything was safe, and the ground was made of soft rubber so even if you fell you it didn’t hurt too much.

Andrew waved at him from the swing, he was there with his mother. She always sat on one of the benches by the trees and read. Mom said that whoever read so many books didn’t have too many important things to do. He skipped to where the seesaw was and bid Andrew to come and join him. The seesaw was his second favorite ride, he liked it because he could see all the way to the end of the street from the top.

His heart was racing and all he could think about was the movie. Once he had seen it he would prove to everybody that he was very very brave. He felt the need to tell Andrew about it but stopped. Andrew’s Mom and Dad only let him watch TV for one hour every day and only cartoons. Besides, Andrew didn’t like to do anything brave. Once, they had gone with John and Bill over at Mr. Parkin’s to pick cherries. Mr. Perkin had a very huge cherry tree in the backyard but you had to jump over a ditch to get to it, Andrew said that he didn’t like cherries, but he knew Andrew had lied, he loved cherries.

They had been going back and forth on the seesaw for several minutes now when he heard a sharp sound coming from the end of the street: nee-naw, nee-naw. He knew the sound from when he had been driving together with Mom and Dad. Dad always pulled the car over when he heard it and when Ben asked why, Dad had said that someone was in trouble and this is the way they helped.

“Andrew, hold me up a bit.”

“Ok, what did you see?”

He saw a red van pull up in front of Mrs. Johnson’s house. There were flashing blue lights on top of it and they moved in tone with the sound: nee flash naw, nee flash naw. The sound stopped and four people got out, two from the front and two through the back doors. As he saw them his heart started racing faster and faster, thump … thump, thump .. thump, thump thump.

“What did you see, Ben? Tell me!”

“There are some people in front of Mrs. Johnson’s house. They’re dressed all in orange and they’re carrying some sort of tube.”

“Ohh, those are the people from the pandemic. Mrs. Johnson must be sick.”

He felt something cold touch his back at the nape and felt the iron bar of his seat grow slick against his palms. “What do you mean people from the pandemic?”

“Yeah, Dad said that people from the pandemic come to take you away if you’re sick. They put you in a plastic tube and they carry you away.”

“They can do that?”

“Yeah, Daddy said that if you don’t go with them they can call the army men to come and make you go with them. He even saw some near the bridge at Hawthorn. They had uniforms and guns, just like in the movies.”

Jasper, Mrs. Johnson’s dog was barking up a storm in the backyard. The four were exciting the house and were making their way to the van. The orange of their suits was highly contrasted against the green and whites of the yard.

He heard a second van coming down the street and saw it stop just a little ways off from the first one. The other people were loading up the plastic tube now. It had looked heavy, all four had carried it coming back.

He looked at Andrew wide-eyed and muttered: “I need to go warn them!” He jumped from the seat and started running towards the gate not sparing a second glance at him.

“What?!”

He was in a hurry this time so he went right across the street but not before looking both ways. To the left he saw more of those figures coming down, some were going from door to door and one was coming right towards him.

He made his way up the driveway, through the front door and ran straight into the living room. Mom was still on the phone and the TV was on. It was showing images of people in white and orange walking between beads and at the bottom of the screen white on blue the words flashed brightly: Pandemic - 46 deaths so far!

“Mom, Mom, they’re coming. We need to hide! Mom, come on!”

“I’m on the phone, honey.” came her reply.

“Mom, you don’t understand. They’re here to take us away. They’re from the pandemic.”

The door bell rang and he felt the hollow sound resound within his shrinking heart. He ran and grabbed his mother by the hand and pulled her towards the door to the garage. “Come on Mom, we need to hide, they’re here!”

“Ben, stop it!” she slapped his hand away “Coming!”

As she was walking to answer, he ran towards the garage and hid. Head pressed on the door frame he could hear his mother out front.

“Hi! … Yes! … Just me and my son.”

He knew he had to be brave, he needed to act fast, he needed to run. Across the playground there was an old shed where he, John and Bill played. He had to get there fast before it was too late.

Crawling underneath the garage door he scampered behind Mom’s rose bushes to the side and ran across the street.

Mom and Dad had always told him to look both ways before crossing.

He didn’t.