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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:03:18 GMT -7
75.
Hank's car was pulled up to the back of Wal-Mart, next to the door they had forced open, and Bob and Hank were stacking boxes, cases of canned goods and assorted other goods on the concrete beside the trunk. They had even bagged some of the loose items to make it easier to pack them into the car. It almost felt like a normal shopping trip on a normal day, but of course it wasn't.
It didn't look like they were going to be able to fit everything into the car, and they didn't want to tie bundles on the roof.
"We could hotwire one of the cars in the parking lot out front," Hank suggested helpfully as he pushed another case of canned corn into the back seat.
"I know. I even saw a pickup out there. We'd be able to load lots more into that."
"It's up to you," Hank grunted as he squatted to lift a cardboard box off the ground. "As it is now, we've already broken into Wal-Mart and stole stuff. In for a penny, in for a pound I always say."
"Yeah, I know, but that's different. That's sort of...corporate. Taking some guy's pickup..." he shook his head and tossed a shoebox into the trunk, "that's just low, you know what I mean?"
Hank nodded. "I know what you mean. But let's be realistic. You see any pickup owners around here? Do you think that pickup's rightful owner has been around here in, say, the last three months?"
Bob was quiet as he loaded more bags and boxes into the trunk, wedging small things in among the larger items. He'd been in the sporting goods department and saw the canoe on display. There was a 4000 watt gas-powered generator in the aisle there, too. His mind started running down a list of things they could take if they only had a pickup for hauling them back home.
"I know what you're thinking," Hank interrupted his thoughts. "Gas cans, so we can siphon as much as possible. Garden tools. I saw a sweet little gas powered cultivator in there. Fishing gear. Lifejackets and Coleman lanterns and propane bottles. Clothes for everybody. It's all just sitting there, and now that we've breached this door, anyone who comes along can just sail right in there and help themselves. That is, if there's anyone left to do that."
"Yeah, there is that," Bob acknowledged with a grimace. "What the hell. Can you hotwire?"
"Oh you betcha. Learned when I was a teenager. Let's go get us a pickemup."
The pickup, an older model Chevy, only had about a quarter tank of gas in it, and it backfired when Hank got it started. "Water in the gas," he said and sighed, "but as soon as we get it back home we can drain and strain and it'll be good as new."
By the time they had the pickup pulled around to the back of the store, it was getting to be late afternoon. Neither of them had had anything to eat or drink since breakfast. They'd just been too focused on the store. But now they stopped to open cans and eat, and they drank cans of warm Coke from a six pack they found in one of the back rooms, an office from the looks of it.
"It's going to take us several more hours to fill up the pickup," Bob observed as they finished off pork and beans and canned cherry pie filling, eating out of the cans with white plastic spoons.
"I already figured we'd have to stay overnight. Whaddya want to do? Sleep here?"
"Might as well. We can put sleeping bags on the floor here near the door, so if anyone comes along and tries to get into the car or pickup, we'll hear 'em."
They worked by the light of battery-powered lanterns from sporting goods until late that night, knocking off at eleven to unroll down bags on the painted concrete floor of the back room. Even though they were both uneasy and on edge because of the circumstances, even though the safety of the family back home was at the forefront of both of their minds, as soon as their heads hit the pillows (king size extra firm foam core with 250 thread count slipcovers, 2 for $9.00) they were asleep. They both slept soundly, neither of them noticing when cockroaches and a mouse scurried near them, the mouse briefly sniffing Hank's sleeping bag before scampering away to eat part of an empty cardboard carton that had once held Cheetos. Nothing else moved in or around Wal-Mart all night long.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:05:07 GMT -7
76.
The next day dawned bright and clear. Bob and Hank were up at first light, breakfasting on warm Cokes and small pop-top cans of fruit cocktail, then they resumed loading up the vehicles. When they were satisfied that they could safely carry no more, Hank wedged the door shut again and they left.
They had agreed beforehand to take a look around town before going back home, Bob leading in Hank's car. They needed to try to understand why Centerville seemed so deserted. They would communicate with walkie-talkies, and each of them had a loaded weapon on the seat beside him, just in case.
Bob turned down a residential street about five blocks from Wal-Mart and slowly cruised the littered streets. The houses looked deserted. A few appeared to have been looted, and one house had been damaged in a fire.
"You see that? Over there, the yellow house on the left." The handset crackled and hissed in his ear as Hank listened to Bob's voice. "Is that dog on the front porch dead or alive?"
Hank stopped the pickup and waited for a few seconds, watching the black shape sprawled near three concrete steps leading down to the short entry sidewalk. "I don't see any breathing, but from here it doesn't look like a corpse. Skinny thing, isn't it?"
"Hey! What the...? Stop the car! Stop the car!" Bob was shouting amid the hissing of the airwaves. Hank could see him pointing off to the right, but he couldn't see anything, then a shape darted into view, a human form dressed in rags and tatters. Bob slammed the car into park, flung open the door and stood up, facing the man that now stood in a driveway between houses, looking at the two vehicles. The man wore a baseball cap turned backwards over long stringy filthy hair, a dirty tan colored tee shirt and athletic shorts. His arms and legs looked like bones covered with skin, his dark eyes were sunken in his dirty face, and he had a scraggly beard that reached to his breastbone.
"Hey! Who are you? What happened here? Where is everybody?" Bob shouted, making waving motions with his hand, gesturing for the man to come closer. But the man just stared at Bob, glanced at Hank through the windshield of the pickup, turned and awkwardly galloped off down the driveway toward the backs of the houses. As he ran the shoes he wore, big basketball sneakers with the laces untied, flopped on his feet, making clomping noises against the concrete. Before Bob could make a move to follow him, the skeleton man was gone. Bob shook his head and got back into the car and closed the door. On the opposite side of the street the black dog twitched the end of its tail then lay still again.
"Did you see that?" Bob shouted into the walkie-talkie, turning in his seat to look at Hank, pointing to where the man had been.
"I saw," Hank replied. "How could someone so skinny run so fast?"
"Beats me," Bob answered. "Now we know there's at least one survivor of whatever happened here." He put his car into gear and drove on down the street, Hank following close behind.
Back on another street near a looted chain drug store, they drove past a body lying on the sidewalk, but it had decomposed badly to the point that it was only possible to tell it was human, not whether it had been male or female. The drug store windows had been broken out and carts were scattered across the parking lot. The store sign erected at the corner of the parking lot, said "4 PK P DIALYT $14.9 TOD Y ONL "
They were cruising slowly down one of the main streets in town, heading back toward the road out, when suddenly a shot rang out. It seemed to come from somewhere to their right, and Bob's first thought was that they were under attack. He ducked lower in his seat and quickly scanned right and left and in the rear view mirror, but all he saw was Hank pulling his head down too and looking around. Bob couldn't say anything to Hank because he had grabbed his pistol with his right hand. Now he saw the scope end of the rifle appear in the cab of the pickup, so Hank had done the same thing. Hank revved his engine and Bob took it as a signal and accelerated, and within a few seconds they were two blocks farther along the street.
"Whew!" Hank's voice came over the walkie-talkie when they were safely away. "I think we were being shot at back there, Bob. You didn't take one, did you?"
"Nope," Bob replied through gritted teeth, "but it sure scared the hell out of me. I've had enough of this place, how about you?"
"You said it, good buddy. Let's get out of Dodge."
Hank was leading by the time they got to the gated dirt road that led to the house. Branches snagged and swept the tarp-covered load on the pickup as he negotiated the ruts and runoff channels of the narrow road, even narrower now than in years past because of the encroachment of bushes and trees that grew right up to the edge. He heard a ripping sound back on the upper part of the load more than once, could feel the truck pausing as bigger branches caught on the ropes and tarp. He hoped the tarp wouldn't get torn off, but at this point he wouldn't stop for anything. All he wanted was to get home.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the road widened a little bit and he could see the opening to the circular driveway ahead of him. In the rear view mirror, Bob was still right behind, his face a grim mask of concentration as he gripped the steering wheel. This should have been a joyful time for both of them, bringing home so many things for the family, presents and clothing and food and sorely needed supplies, but neither of them was happy. All they wanted was to be back home.
"Home again, home again," Hank started to say into the walkie-talkie, then he paused. "Oh crap." He stopped the pickup. "She's got the rifle trained on my windshield."
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:06:49 GMT -7
77.
Bob stopped right behind the pickup and put the car in park. He slowly opened his door and stepped out, but where he was he couldn't see past the truck into the clearing. Hank put the truck in park too, then rolled the window down and held both hands out. He reached for the handle on the outside of the door and opened the door, then slowly stepped out and moved away from the door so he could be clearly seen from the house. Bob could hear the shout from the house.
"Hank!! Oh my God, I almost shot you!!" It was Bonnie. Hank just stood there, his hands on his hips. He turned back to Bob and threw him a grin.
"Woman couldn't see who I was through the windshield," he quipped. "Coulda killed me!" He chuckled, then in the next moment Bonnie came flying up and threw her arms around him, sobbing and laughing at the same time.
"Oh Bob!" She caught sight of Bob standing beside the car and ran to him and Bob wrapped her in his arms and held her.
"Is everything okay here?" Bob asked, suddenly worried. Why was she so upset? "Where are the kids and Gladys?"
Tears were streaming down Bonnie's face as she leaned back in his arms and looked at him. "No, nothing's wrong, it's just...you didn't come home last night and we were so worried, and then this strange truck came up the road..." she gestured back toward the pickup, "and I couldn't see into the windshield because the sun was shining on it, and I thought..." She dug her face into Bob's chest and let loose with a fresh bout of crying.
Hank came toward them and laid one of his big hands on her shoulder. "Hey, honey, it's okay. Don't cry. Is Gladys inside?"
"Yes," Bonnie sobbed, "she's in there with the kids."
When they finally got her settled down, they drove up and around the circular driveway to park in front of the house. After a late lunch of sandwiches quickly made with homemade bread and leftover meat, the men spent the next hour unloading both vehicles while the women stacked the stuff in the family room. There would be plenty enough time later to put everything away. Now it was important to just get it inside. The sky was darkening with storm clouds and they could hear distant thunder on the mountains.
"Some pickup," Gladys observed to Hank. "Midnight Auto Sales?"
"Yeah. Might as well. Nobody else was using it. Long story. Don't worry. As soon as we get all this stuff inside we'll fill you both in." Hank was tired, feeling his years. He needed a good square meal and a hot shower and a long night's rest on a good bed, not a concrete floor.
Hank and Bob carried the canoe, which had traveled upside down on top of the load in the pickup, to the boat house beside the lake. They locked it securely inside, floating next to the old fishing boat. Some of the other stuff they'd brought home would ultimately go in there too, like the generator and garden cultivator and red steel rolling tool box full of tools. Gladys and Bonnie were already excited by everything they saw. It was like Christmas for all of them, even Lucy and Baby Bobby, who were sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace playing with new toys. Bonnie's eyes sparkled at the sight of the tied-shut plastic bags. She couldn't wait to tear into them. Gladys ooh'ed and ah'ed over cases of canning jars and a pressure canner. Just wait til the women see the shoes and clothes, Bob thought with a tingle of pleasure. It felt so good to bring the women and children these things. Life had been so hard for all of them up til now. They deserved a few treats and presents.
"Oh LOOK, Bonnie! Bolts of fabric!" Gladys squealed like a high school girl as Hank carried in the flat rectangular bolts of brightly colored cloth. "You brought us flannel! I can make warm pajamas for us!" She paused and looked at the cloth. "I don't suppose you happened to bring any sewing patterns too, did you?"
Hank looked sheepish, then bent over quickly and grabbed a plastic bag and held it out to her with a grin. "Did the best I could. I got thread, too."
Gladys yanked the bag open and a stack of patterns spilled out and onto the floor. She picked several up and looked at them, then squealed again, "you genius! These patterns have all the sizes in each one of them! How did you know?"
"Just read what it said on the front of the envelope. Seemed like they'd do."
Now Gladys dropped the patterns on the floor and ran and wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a hearty kiss. "I love you! It's perfect!"
Hank laughed self-consciously and Bob grinned as he stacked yet another box on the floor, then went back outside to carry in another load.
That night, they celebrated with a meal of rice, canned chili and canned peaches. It tasted wonderful to them. The children were ecstatic over the peaches. Baby Bobby had never tasted anything like canned peaches in his short life. His face positively glowed with delight as he shoved pieces into his mouth with his dripping hands.
The trip was a complete success. Not only had they brought home almost everything they needed, they had also acquired the pickup truck, the canoe and the generator. But their happiness was tempered when, after dinner, Bob and Hank told the women what Centerville looked like, how deserted it had been.
"What if it was a plague or something that killed everybody off there? What if you've brought it back here?" Bonnie whispered, her voice filled with anguish.
"We didn't have any contact with anyone there. None. If some virus killed the people off and it remained on surfaces inside WalMart, then I guess we need to worry. But frankly, I think chances are remote. If it would make you feel any better, I guess Hank and I can wash with antibacterial soap or alcohol or something, but I think it would be a waste of alcohol. Let's not borrow trouble, ok?"
"Daddy?" Lucy piped up, "can I have some more peaches?"
"What do you say?" Gladys replied automatically.
"Please, Daddy?" Lucy obediently added with a hopeful grin.
"Of course you can have more, honeybunch," Bob answered, reaching for the bowl to serve her, his heart full of love and gratitude. Even in such terrible, terrible times for humankind, it was still possible to feel joy, and for that he was humbly grateful.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:08:37 GMT -7
78.
Two days later, Bob woke up sick. He had a fever of 101 degrees, tightness in his chest and a bad headache. Bonnie, Hank and Gladys conferred at the dining table over a quick breakfast of oatmeal while Bob lay upstairs in bed with a wet cloth over his forehead.
"Now just calm down," Hank reassured Bonnie, "it's probably nothing at all! We've all been sick like this from time to time and it's nothing. This is not going to be any different, I promise you!"
"Come on, honey, eat it up. It's good for you," Gladys crooned to Bobby as she spooned oatmeal into him. "Good girl," she said to Lucy when the little girl cleaned her bowl and passed it across for another helping. Lucy always liked oatmeal, and wanted it with brown sugar, but there was no brown sugar now. There wasn't very much white sugar left either. The men hadn't been able to bring any back from their trip to WalMart.
"I know, I know," Bonnie replied as she sipped a cup of herbal tea. "But what if this time is different? What if this is whatever...whatever made everybody..." she drew in a quick shaky breath and stopped and just stared imploringly into Hank's eyes.
Hank didn't know what to say, so he ate a big spoonful of his oatmeal, blowing on it first to cool it down a little. Gladys watched the both of them from her side of the table, where she was wiping Bobby's mouth with a cloth.
"Okay, this is what we're going to do." Gladys stood up and put her hands on her hips. "I'm going to go up there and take care of him. Bonnie, you take care of the kids and do the cooking. I'm the most expendable one at this table. Bonnie, you're a young strong mother with children who need you. Hank," she held up her hand to shush him, "the whole family needs you. We can't afford to lose you. You're a hunter, you help guard the house, you have indispensable mechanical and construction knowledge that the family needs." When Bonnie began to protest, Gladys cut her off with her raised hand and a look. "No arguments! I have the most herbal medicine knowledge of anyone here! I'm older than you Bonnie, and certainly not about to be bearing children. And I've taught you everything I know about canning and sewing and gathering wild foods hereabouts. I'm the one who should take care of Bob right now!"
Neither Bonnie or Hank had anything to reply to that, so she continued. "Now Bonnie, go get me an apron and make a big mug of mint tea for your husband. Make up a tray with some canned fruit and oatmeal on it, too. He's probably not going to want to eat but he should anyway. He'll be needing to keep up his strength." As Bonnie hurried into the kitchen, Gladys called after her, "and put a glass of cold water and that little bottle of menthol ointment on the tray."
Now she turned to Hank and spoke as she stroked Lucy's head, bent over her bowl of oatmeal. "Hank, I'm going to isolate Bob and me in that bedroom. No point in exposing anyone else, is there? I know you and Bonnie and the kids will be fine out here, but don't let anyone come in there, okay? Better safe than sorry. Don't worry about me, my love. I'm going to be just fine. If I need anything, I'll call out from the door, but don't come in, just leave it on the floor outside the door and I'll get it."
Bonnie came out of the kitchen with a tray and sat it on the table, where she filled a bowl with oatmeal from the serving bowl in the middle. Her hands shook and there were unshed tears in her eyes. She had an apron folded and draped over her forearm, and she handed it to Gladys, who put it on and tied the strings in back.
"Now look, honey," said Gladys, putting a hand over one of Bonnie's on the tray handle, "You have to be strong right now. Your kids look to you, and you have to be strong for them. Just do everything the way we've been doing it all along. This will be over before you know it."
Bonnie nodded without speaking. Gladys took the tray and headed for the stairs. Hank stood up and began clearing dishes off the table, and Bonnie dropped back into her chair and tried not to cry. Lucy helped herself to another scoop of oatmeal from the serving bowl.
Gladys opened the bedroom door with one hand under the tray, then carried it into the bedroom. Bob lay on the bed, propped on pillows against the headboard. He had the sheet up to his chest, and he looked flushed and tired. His hair near his scalp was damp with sweat.
"Hi, Bob," Gladys said as she sat the tray on the foot of the bed. "I brought you something to eat. You must be thirsty, too, so I have a cup of tea and a glass of water here for you. I'm going to be taking care of you in here. Bonnie is going to take care of the house and kids and Hank is taking care of everything else. You and I are going to isolate ourselves here until you feel better. I'm a good nurse. I'll take good care of you and you'll be well before you know it. Is this okay with you? I figured this is better than exposing the others to whatever it is you have."
"Yeah, sure," Bob replied listlessly.
Gladys took a deep breath. "Okaaay, now. Well, you look thirsty. Here," she held out the glass of water, "Have a nice drink of water while I get you set up to eat."
Bob took the glass from her and drank the whole thing without pausing for breath, then he gasped and handed it back to her. "I'm not hungry," he said tiredly. "I don't want to eat anything."
"I know, I know," Gladys said in a placating tone of voice as she took the bowl from the tray and sat down in a boudoir chair next to Bob's side of the bed, "but why not try? It's really good today, and you look like you could use some meat on those bones." She held the bowl out to him and he reluctantly took it.
"When you finish that, I'll give you a back massage with menthol ointment. Won't that feel good?" She reached over and gently slipped the damp cloth off his forehead. It felt hot. "While you eat, I'll just pop into the master bath and refresh this with cold water. I bet a nice cold wet cloth will feel good on your forehead."
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:10:50 GMT -7
79.
After he finished the small bowl of canned fruit cocktail and some of the oatmeal on his tray, Gladys gave him the menthol ointment backrub as she had promised. He seemed to benefit from it, saying the tightness in his chest wasn't as bad as before, and afterwards slept until midafternoon. Gladys called quietly out the bedroom door for something to read, so Hank found an old copy of "Robinson Crusoe" somewhere and brought it to the door, where he left it on the floor.
She turned off the lights in the room so Bob could sleep and, pulling her chair over beside the window, sat and read until he woke up again about two o'clock. She took his temperature and found that it was over 103 degrees, and he complained weakly that his headache was worse, too. If they only had some analgesics! But the aspirins had run out a year ago. The best Gladys could do for him was coffee, so she called down for a cup, made specially from their carefully-rationed supply. Hank made it and brought it up, saying Bonnie was out on the deck with the children, helping Lucy with her numbers. This time Hank dawdled after setting the cup outside the door so that when Gladys opened it to take the cup inside, Hank stood across the hallway.
"How are ya, honey? You feeling okay?" He asked quietly.
"Don't worry about me. His fever is up to 103 now though, and he says the headache is worse. I wish we had something to give him! I wish we had willow bark, so I could make him tea!"
"I'll go through everything again, see what I can find. Maybe somewhere there's some aspirin we forgot about," Hank replied.
"No point in that. I know we don't have any, we used it up last fall. We have to start assigning priorities for stuff like that. Can't go using important supplies up for unimportant things like a regular headache." She turned her head to look at Bob, then looked back through the open door, "I gotta go, he's hurting. I love you. Bye." She bent quickly to pick up the cup of coffee and shut the door.
The coffee helped with the headache enough that Bob asked for something to eat, so once again Bonnie called out the door. A short time later, there was a knock on the door and when Gladys opened the door, the tray was there on the hallway floor. It held two bowls of some sort of soup and two thick slices of homemade bread. Gladys didn't realize how hungry she was, so she and Bob ate their meal together. Bob didn't want his bread, but Gladys gladly took it.
"Good soup," Gladys murmured as she brought another spoonful up to her lips.
"Umm hmmm, good," Bob agreed. "Thanks for the coffee. I think it's helping some."
Gladys spoke around a bite of bread. "I remembered that caffeine opens up blood vessels. Good for migraine headaches. Maybe that's what you have?"
"Maybe," he replied, "but I don't think migraines come with fever, do you?"
Gladys quickly changed the subject. "Finish your soup and I'll give you a quick sponge bath." Bob stopped in mid-chew to throw her an alarmed glance. "Oh don't get all worried. I'm not gonna go anywhere Bonnie wouldn't want me to I guarantee you, mister."
For the first time that day, that got a smile out of him. "Okay, then. You convinced me. A cool wipe off would feel good. I'm so hot!"
An hour later Gladys was tucking Bob back under the sheet. She had wiped his chest, back, arms and legs with a wet washcloth, dried him off and again massaged menthol ointment on him, this time on his chest. Now he wore a pair of pajamas, which he had put on himself in the privacy of the master bath. He said he felt better, but she suspected he said it to make her feel like she had accomplished something. He still felt very hot to her and he was listless. His eyes were dull, his face for the most part expressionless. He lay on the bed and tried to sleep, and Gladys was settling herself into the chair with her book. The light was failing and she would only be able to see the pages for a few more minutes.
There was a knock at the door. "Gladys?" It was Bonnie. "Would you come to the door, please?"
Bob opened his eyes tiredly. "Bonnie honey?"
"Shhhhh," Gladys whispered as she hurried across the room to stand next to the door. "What is it, Bonnie? Bob is about to go to sleep."
"I have something for you. It's an herbal tea. Open the door. I think it will help."
"What...?" Gladys said, "you been going through my books again? What did you make?" She opened the door a crack. Bonnie had retreated to about five feet down the hallway, and a cup filled with a pale lavender liquid sat outside the door on the floor.
"Yes, I admit it, I was reading your herbal book out on the deck, and I think I found something!" Her voice was excited. "I took Lucy out with me while Hank watched Bobby and I found what I needed over beyond the cattail patch, you know where we saw the rabbit family this spring? I remembered some bushes we saw back then."
"Yes, I remember the place. We always said we were going back there to categorize the plants but never got around to it. What did you find?" Gladys squatted so she could grab the cup without opening the door all the way.
"It's elder tea! I saw elder in the book, and elder flower tea is a specific for fever and elderberry tincture is a specific for flu and colds! But there weren't any berries on the bushes now."
"So what's this?" Gladys sniffed at the cup in her hands. "Smells good."
"That's elder flower tea! I found some flower heads that had dried on the bushes, so I collected all I could find. Give it to him. Maybe it will break his fever."
"Girl..." Gladys looked at Bonnie, "I'm darned proud of you. I can't even say how much. Like they say back where I come from, you done good."
"Thank you," Bonnie smiled tiredly. "Give it to him and let me know if you need anything else."
Gladys started to close the door, then had another thought. "Willows. We need willow bark. You ever see any around here?"
Bonnie thought for a second. "H'mmm. Maybe. Let me think about it. Now I gotta go start dinner. Fish tonight. Hank caught us a nice string of trout this afternoon. It was sprinkling a little and you know how he always says the fish bite like crazy when it's raining."
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:12:04 GMT -7
80. "Gladys?"
Gladys snorted once and twitched, and the book on her lap slipped off and fell onto the floor with a thud. That woke her all the way up. "Huh? What? What is it? I'm awake! I'm awake!" She stood up and groped her way through the darkness to the foot of the bed. She could feel one of Bob's feet under the covers. She felt her way up to the nightstand and flipped the lamp on.
"Hi." He looked up at her and managed a weak smile. "Sorry I woke you. I feel better."
She was still groggy. She put her hand on his forehead. His eyes were brighter, but that could have just been because of the little lamp, but his forehead was not as hot. "Sure thing. Do you know what time it is?"
"No, my watch is over on the dresser. It must be late though, look how dark it is outside. I'm really thirsty."
She groped on her wrist for her own watch and leaned closer to the lamp so she could read it. "Eight o'clock. Wow, we both slept, didn't we? You just stay right there and I'll get you a drink of water."
"I need the bathroom," he explained as he pushed the sheet and blanket off himself and swung his feet onto the floor and sat up.
"Good, okay, that's good. You go do that and I'll have someone bring up ice water. How about something to eat?" she called that last out to him as he disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door behind himself. His reply was muffled and unintelligible.
"Never mind," Gladys muttered to herself as she opened the bedroom door a little bit. "Bonnie? Hank? Anybody hear me? We need some ice water and food up here."
Hank yelled back from downstairs, "Okay, comin' right up."
A few minutes later Bonnie knocked on the door. When Gladys opened it the tray lay on the floor as before, and Bonnie waited just down the hall. "How is he?" she asked breathlessly. "I put another cup of the elder tea on the tray for him."
Gladys bent over and dragged the tray in through the doorway. She looked up and smiled at the young woman. "I think his fever's broke. He feels better and sounds better. When he's had this, I'm going to take his temperature again, and we'll have a better idea. But I think your tea did it for him!" Bonnie's face broke into a huge grin.
Bob ate his fish and johnny cake and finished off a tall glass of water, smacking his lips with satisfaction as he sat the empty glass down on the nightstand. "That felt so good! I must have really been dehydrated!" He reached for the cup of tea and began drinking that as well.
"Mmmmf," Gladys said with her mouth full of food, "want more?" Bob nodded, so Gladys sat her plate on the bed and took the glass into the bathroom to refill it.
"You're lookin much better tonight," she commented as she came back and handed the glass to him.
He drank thirstily, then put the glass on the nightstand and wiped his lips. "I need to sleep some more now, okay?"
"Can I take your temperature first?"
"Yeah, sure," he replied groggily as she removed the tray from his lap. "As long as I can sleep after that."
His temperature had come down to 101. By the time she had the thermometer shaken back down he was asleep again, so Gladys stacked the dirty dishes on the tray and put it back out in the hall. There was a sleeping bag out there beside the door, so she unrolled it out on the floor of the bedroom, quietly took a pillow from the other side of the bed and lay down to sleep. She hoped that when they woke up in the morning Bob would be himself again, but she worried that it would take more than one day for him to shake whatever this was. She also worried that Hank might come down with it, and then everyone else, but at least now she thought they had a handle on it with the elder flower tea. From what the men had said about Centerville, it looked like they were the only ones who had this cure. She prayed that those bushes had yielded enough dried flowers for everyone, if the worst happened.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:15:00 GMT -7
81.
It took three days before Bob was completely back to himself. His fever was gone, his chest and head no longer ached, and most importantly of all, he felt well. He had lost almost eight pounds on a frame that was already lean from their survival diet, but he could gain that back over time. None of the rest of them showed any symptoms, and no symptoms appeared in any of them for the next month. Maybe what he'd had was nothing more than an ordinary relatively unimportant virus. Maybe he'd just had a case of ordinary flu. Maybe the Black Flu had mutated into a far more benign virus, and this is what Bob had been stricken with. They would never know. But for now and for the future, they began stockpiling as many dried elderberry flower heads as they could find. Next year they would make a concerted effort to locate and harvest as much of the flowers and berries as was prudent to the continued survival of the bushes in their forest. They also resolved to begin a serious program of gathering, categorizing and storing all the medicinal herbals they could find. Better safe than sorry, a lesson learned and taken to heart with a vengeance.
Outside their forest holding, the world had been changed forever. Millions of people had died, first from the Black Flu, then from the opportunistic diseases that arose out of the chaos and disintegrating social structures of population centers. Those who remained were the strongest, the most prepared, or sometimes just the luckiest. Small towns like Centerville were the places that fared the best. In time, Centerville regrouped after the worst of the various diseases had passed over it like a black cloud of death. The unburied bodies were bulldozed into piles and burned, the greasy smears of charcoal colored smoke rising day after day, staining the sky a sooty gray. Community gardens were set up where households shared the work and grew vegetables and fruits to replace those that would now not come in on trucks off the highway. Not now, not for a long time, maybe not even in their lifetimes. But these people knew how to organize, knew how to start over, had the knowledge waiting in their small-town libraries so they could dig the wells, position the latrines safely, grow food and raise the livestock they would need to sustain them through the years ahead. Smaller towns could reorganize easier, could handle the diminished populations far better, could settle into routines more closely resembling ordinary life again. Huge cities were charnel houses where there was too much detritis and decay from the aftermath of disease to cope. Too few people survived the close quarters of disease in big city populations to be able to handle the massive buildup of decaying corpses that resulted, so for the most part, those who survived simply left or dwindled due to more disease and the crime that came out of despair and frustration. A small city could overcome a crippled water delivery or sewage system failure; a large metropolis could not. To go forward it was necessary to go backwards, but with the benefit of years of experience over the rockiest roads, those who survived knew how to get there. And if they didn't know how, they had the resource materials that told them how. It wasn't like they had to re-invent the wheel, just look in the self-help manuals for the blueprints. Life would go on but at a slower pace with more physical labor. There would be trouble and difficulties ahead, there would be tragedies that in the past could have been circumvented by the modern conveniences and medicines they no longer had or could make, but still life would go on.
In the end, the little family living in the house in the forest would thrive because they had each other, and they were each of them determined to stick together no matter what, working hard toward a common goal of making the best life they could in the wake of the worst plague that had ever engulfed mankind... The Black Flu.
The End
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2012 20:37:40 GMT -7
I have read it several times, saved it to my computer the first time I read it....as you posted it! Glad you put it back out here! I hope you do another book. You are a very talented writer!
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Post by ColcordMama on May 19, 2012 20:43:30 GMT -7
I have read it several times, saved it to my computer the first time I read it....as you posted it! Glad you put it back out here! I hope you do another book. You are a very talented writer! I have another one in the hopper, a zombie one, but having writer's block. Writer's block is when your imaginary friends won't talk to you. LOL
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2012 20:46:27 GMT -7
If its anything like a nerve block...I am so sorry! That is such a pain! I am eagerly looking forward to reading it when you are done!
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Post by cethlinn on Jan 2, 2014 21:26:39 GMT -7
Kay this is a great story!! Thank you so much for sharing this with us:)
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Post by insaneh on Jan 3, 2014 4:17:41 GMT -7
Looking forward to reading this. I've been toying with trying my hand at a story, but like most things, I hate doing anything I don't have the time to throw myself into and get it done right.
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