A Matter of Days (28 page)

Zack peered up and shook his head. “I thought your grandfather lived off the grid?”

“Yeah, well, I guess surveillance doesn’t count.” I shrugged.

“Let’s just hope that someone friendly is on the other end of that camera.” Zack bumped his arm and swore.

“I don’t see a red light. Maybe it’s not even working.” Rabbit slung on a fanny pack and tried to pick up Zack’s backpack. He almost fell over. “What’s in here?”

“Food. Water. Rocks.” Zack took the bag and slung it over his good arm. I could tell he was trying to put on a brave face, but he flinched with every step and wouldn’t let me look at his arm again.

Rabbit took the lead with Al on his hat. I grabbed the pack from Zack, who didn’t argue with me at all, then wrapped Twawki’s leash around my wrist. Zack took up the rear and didn’t seem to mind. We set a slow and deliberate pace, even though my heart sped along, tripping over itself in nerves.

“North side of the tree, white
J
at the base. We’re on the right trail, guys. Come on.” Rabbit nodded and started counting his steps.

The deciduous trees spread their arms around and over us, acting like umbrellas in the sunlight. Insects filled the air with buzzing and biting. I gave up trying to swat them all and simply itched where the mosquitoes left welts.

The humidity made it feel twenty degrees warmer than it was and not a single ounce of breeze blew through the forest to cool us down.

At one hundred steps, Rabbit checked the trees for an
O
. By the sixth one he’d found the letter.

By the time we got to
S
, we were so deep into the mountainside that I had no idea where we’d left the bikes.

“Guys?” Zack asked, turning in circles, surrounded by brambles and branches.

“Rabbit?” I asked, also unsure about the next step. I thought we’d find the last tree and it would lead us to the mine.

“Now we sit and wait.” He plunked down onto a tree stump.

“We what?” Zack asked, incredulous.

“We wait for sunset.” Rabbit held up a roly-poly bug for Al to peck at.

“You think that’s what he meant?”

“Yep. Bean will come at sunset every day to see if we’ve made it.”

Zack glanced at me and seemed appalled that after all this we would sit and wait. With a sigh he sank into the shade and swatted at the biting no-see-ums.

I couldn’t bear to look at either of them, let alone make small talk while we waited. Twawki lay in the dirt and took a nap with his belly in the air and his tail draped over Rab’s legs.

I felt like crawling out of my skin, when a quiet voice said,
from almost on top of us, “Red lights on cameras make them visible to Tangos. They work. Had to make sure you were mine and not just wandering in. Welcome home, kids.”

I think I squealed as Zack leapt to his feet.

“Pappi?” Rabbit’s chin quivered as the man leaned down to help him stand up.

“Robert Jr., aka Rabbit, I assume? And Nadia?” Pappi was tall and lanky, like Dad and Bean. His face was darkened by the sun, wrinkles around his eyes and bracketing his mouth. His green eyes blazed under bushy white eyebrows and close-shaved white hair. His camouflage cargo pants seemed to have something in every pocket and his olive-green cotton T-shirt matched any in Dad’s closet. His boots were shiny black leather and he carried a bladder of water slung across his back, a machete on his thigh, and a shoulder holster for a handgun.

“You need water?” He handed me the straw. “We still have a hike up to the top. I’m their Pappi; I assume you’re a friend of theirs?” He eyed Zack.

“Zack saved Twawki and helped us.” Rabbit started babbling, spilling the story in mixed-up torrents. It was odd after all this time to have a new person to talk to.

Al flew to Pappi’s shoulder and after a moment Pappi simply shrugged and let the little bird cling.

I waited until Rabbit paused for breath to ask, “Uncle Bean?”

“He’s here. Sleeping. Had the night shift, so I let him sleep. Figure you’re a present to wake up to. Thought you’d be here weeks ago.”

“Mom,” I said with a glance at Rabbit. I shook my head, I’d explain later.

“Sorry, kids.” He immediately turned to Rabbit and asked, “So how the hell did this dog get stuck with a call sign like Twawki. He piss you off? Sounds like you’re spitting out a hair ball every time you say it.” Pappi demonstrated until Rabbit was laughing too hard to miss Mom. “He stinks like geese shit—he bathe in it?”

“Pappi!” Rabbit giggled at Pappi’s gruff language and demeanor.

Pappi took all our bags on his shoulders even though he and Zack seemed to tug over possession a little.

“Your wing broken?” he asked Zack.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“You pee on it?” Pappi asked me.

“Yes, it didn’t really help.”

“His arm fall off yet?” Pappi quirked an eyebrow at me.

“No?” I answered, checking quick to make sure it was still attached.

“I say it worked.” Pappi turned away.

Rabbit chattered up the mountain to what looked like a pile of rocks from a rockslide.

“Home sweet home.”

Zack paused and I knew what he was thinking. When Pappi stepped to the side and seemed to disappear in front of us, I realized the rocks were positioned to completely obscure the entrance.

Rabbit was next. “Bean!” he yelped.

I walked to the rocks, and it wasn’t until I was right on top of the doorway that I saw it.

“Impressive,” Zack said from right behind me. He tugged on my hand.

A low hallway opened up into a cavern with smaller hallways branching off to other rooms and other tunnels.

“We got cockroaches in this family,” Pappi called to Bean. “A family of survivors.” He nodded at Zack and me in obvious pride and delight. “All of them,” he added as Al started to sing “La Cucaracha.”

My feet froze to the ground for a moment. I’d forgotten that Uncle Bean looked like Dad. Sounded like Dad.

Bean hugged me. “You made it. I knew you could do it.”

I fell into his arms and clung. Hugged like Dad. “We made it. We’re here.”

“Your father’s so proud of you. Your mom, too.”

“She tried to come,” I gasped into his shoulder. “I didn’t inject her with it soon enough.”

I felt my legs give out as Bean held me. How many steps had we walked? How many moments of thinking this was it, the end of it all? How many times had I reminded myself to be a cockroach, to live up to my name, to do what Dad and even Mom tried to teach us?

“It’s okay, Nadia, I’ve got you,” Bean repeated, until I felt the rest of my fear and worry slip away.

“Come on, son,” Pappi said to Zack. “Follow me down to the infirmary and let’s see what we need to do for your wing. You too, Rabbit. I’ll show you where you’ve gotta bathe that dog. Won’t have our house smelling like a geese latrine.”

“You have a bathtub?” Rabbit sounded awed.

“Warm water from the sun, shower and laundry. Even have a wood oven to bake up bread once a week. Maybe even a pizza.”

“Ice cream?” Rabbit chattered excitedly as he followed, until it was just Bean and me in the entrance.

“When you’re ready you can brief me on your adventure, okay? Right now I think you look like you could stand to clean up and then sleep for a week. Sound good?” Bean asked.

I nodded, my tongue too big for my mouth, my story too big to know where to start.

He must have sensed my frustration. “Take your time. Now that you’re here there’ll be some adjustment necessary. It’s called letdown. You have to reacclimate to life standing still.”

“It’s over? It’s really over?”

He nodded. “You made it. We’ll have to work hard each day, but we’ll be fine and we’ll thrive in this new life. Tell me about Zack—do I need to clean my guns in front of him and question his intentions toward my niece?” Bean’s smile was Dad’s for a moment.

I grinned and blushed.

We were safe. We were home. We’d be ready for whatever came next.

I
have always been fascinated by viruses and how they operate. I read
The Hot Zone
by Richard Preston when I was in middle school, getting my first taste of the power of viruses and the intricacies of studying them. I followed that by reading one of my all-time favorite novels,
The Stand
by Stephen King. In another life, I would have loved a career studying viruses and vaccines or working for the Centers for Disease Control out in the field as an epidemiologist. It’s normal to wonder what might happen “if,” whether that “if” is being locked into a mall, surviving a
Titanic
-like disaster, or witnessing an alien invasion! Lots of people dream about those what-ifs! I do it all the time when I’m writing. With Nadia and Rabbit’s story I got to live out one fantasy of a worst-case-scenario pandemic.

The BluStar virus in this story is a conglomerate of viruses like Marburg and Ebola that cause hemorrhagic (meaning bleeding) fever and an influenza strain like the one that killed millions of people early in the twentieth century. BluStar doesn’t exist outside the pages of this book, but something like it could exist at some point in the future. Viruses mutate all the time on their own—it’s part of what makes them so fascinating! For the purposes of this story, I gave BluStar a very high kill rate, one that has never been seen in a global pandemic, so this should not be read as anything other than a fictional story of survival.

Viruses are geniuses when it comes to survival—much better than humans! Everyone gets sick. When bacteria are the culprit, doctors can prescribe antibiotics. Viruses, however, are
not always treatable, which is what leads to fears about pandemics. An infectious virus can cause either an epidemic or a pandemic, depending on how many people in the world are affected.

A pandemic is “a worldwide epidemic of a disease,” according to the World Health Organization. There were influenza pandemics in 1918, 1967, and 2009. Other historic pandemics include the plague, which ravaged Europe from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Current large-scale pandemics include HIV/AIDS, polio, tuberculosis, and malaria, to name a few. In this book, BluStar killed many more people than would be likely should we have an influenza pandemic during your lifetime. If you’re interested in learning more about viruses, careers working with disease, or the history of pandemics, I highly recommend these books:
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It
by Gina Kolata,
Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World
by C. J. Peters and Mark Olshaker, and
Panic in Level 4
by Richard Preston.

None of this information is supposed to scare you. There are plenty of times in your life when you or someone you love will get sick, and they will get better because they will receive medical attention and their bodies will fight off the disease. What can you do? First of all, don’t panic if someone in your family gets sick. Odds are good they will get better with rest, drinking lots of fluids to help their body fight off the attack, and most importantly getting medical care from a doctor of medicine, or a homeopathic physician. Nothing in this book is intended to be applied to real-life scenarios—always seek medical help when someone is sick.

I know you’ve heard this a lot, but you can do a lot for
yourself, your friends, and family if you wash your hands regularly, rubbing them for twenty seconds each time under running water. If it’s not possible to wash your hands, try to keep antibacterial gel in your backpack or purse and use it before and after you eat, shake hands, touch money, or blow your noise. The big thing is to prevent the spread of germs if you’re sick, and to avoid infecting yourself with someone else’s germs. It sounds silly, and too easy, but if everyone washed their hands, far fewer people would get sick each year. However, you don’t need to go overboard—everything should be done in moderation and with common sense. If you have questions, find an adult you trust and seek out information. Information is always the best tool!

Again, you probably won’t face a pandemic like Nadia and Rabbit but you may live in a place where there are earthquakes, hurricanes, or other weather-related disasters. You’ll go a long way to helping your family, and yourself, if you know ahead of time how best to handle a situation. If you’re interested in learning more about how to survive, these are a few of the books I’d highly recommend: Cody Lundin’s
When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes
and
98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive!
, James Wesley Rawles’s
How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques and Technologies for Uncertain Times
, and John “Lofty” Wiseman’s
SAS Urban Survival Handbook
. If you’re interested in reading about people who have survived extreme experiences, check out Ben Sherwood’s
The Survivor’s Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life
, where you can also take a quiz and learn what kind of survivor you are and how to maximize your strengths in any situation.

All of these books contain potentially scary information—
it’s hard to think about bad things happening to our world and the people we love. It’s normal to feel fear, especially of the unknown, which is why I’ve included information about these other books. You don’t need to be afraid, and in most cases it’s my hope that adults and authority figures around you will help you not only survive, but thrive in any circumstance. Information is the best tool for fighting fear—we fear the unknown, and often our imaginations run wild, making things seem much worse than they are.

If you find yourself passionate about any of these topics, there are great careers out there for you to explore. But if you feel you’re not ready to read on in any of these subjects, then don’t! I don’t want anyone getting nightmares after reading—that’s horrible!

I hope you enjoyed reading Nadia and Rabbit’s journey as much as I enjoyed writing it. And remember, BE THE COCKROACH!

S
pecial thanks to: