But the Children Survived (32 page)

His friend Justin's father had been an apocalyptic nut who believed the Mayans had it right and the end of the world was approaching fast.  He had fortified his home and collected relics of the two world wars.  He found the perfect gas mask in a survivalist magazine and purchased enough for the whole family. 

Jason was grateful for David's fantasies as it gave him the perfect weapon against the smell of rotting flesh as he removed bodies for three weeks.  Jason thought about riding through Zombie Town, the areas that still had bodies littering the streets, and decided to get a mask from Justin’s house.

  Jason had taken care of Justin and his family the day after he buried his mom.  He also gave Nora a burial at sea.  The house that had been so full of life lay quiet and empty when Jason came over to get the mask. 

He remembered Justin showing him a satellite dish his father had installed.  It was anchored by huge beams drilled right through the house.  Justin's mother hadn’t been amused by that at all.  But Justin loved the thing, and he and Jason spent hours using it to pan over Europe and South America.  Jason hadn't thought about the satellite dish in ages.  After he checked out Farlands, he was going to spend some time on that dish.

He got onto Justin's scooter and headed for Farlands.  He passed the point of his body-clearing efforts and came upon Zombie Town.  After four weeks, there were nothing but bones and clothing left.  The smell wasn’t too bad either, as the sea breezes blew constantly. 

The streets were filled with parked cars, still occupied, still waiting for the light to turn green.  He weaved his way around them.  He found the Farlands Bank and parked in the parking lot.  He put the mask on and entered the bank. 

The hurricane that hit Pinellas County just days everyone died had knocked out the power.  For some reason, it had never been restored.  This place could have had a generator, but if so, it had stopped working.  The building was extremely hot. 

There was a guard by the door with keys in his hand.  There was a man behind a desk in one corner.  There were bodies both male and female behind the tellers’ cages.  Jason figured one of the desks had to be the bank manager's. 

He looked at the vault to the left of the tellers’ cages.  It was open.  They must have just opened for the day and the vault would be open for them to get money for the tellers’ drawers.  Jason walked over to the vault. 

There was a barred door that stood between him and the safe deposit boxes.  It did have a key lock.  If he could find the key, he could get to the boxes. 

Jason went back to the lobby and over to the desk where the man's body sat.  It was little more than bones and hair.  Jason moved him out of the way and he collapsed into a pile of bones inside his clothes.

“Sorry, buddy,” Jason said. 

He then began to open the drawers.  When he didn't find anything, it occurred to him that the key was probably in the guy's pockets.  He moved the guy's arm to get inside his suit jacket pocket.  He found nothing on the outside, or the inside.  Jason hated going through his pants pockets, but that was the most likely place they would be.  He put his hand inside the guy's pants pockets and, lo and behold, there was a small ring of keys. 

Jason walked over to the barred door.  He tried each key until he found one that fit.  The barred door swung open.  Jason went to the back of the bank to see if he could find a utility room.  He found a bathroom with a large trash can.  He brought the trash can out to the lobby and propped it against the barred door.  The vault door was held open by a stop.   

He found number 27.  He took the key out of his shirt and tried to open it.  It required two keys.  He took each key on the ring and tried it.  He was able to open the lock with the fifth key.  He then used his key to open the box. 

He slid the box out of the slot and put took it out of the vault.  He laid it on the manager's desk and opened it.  Inside was a notebook.  That was all.  Jason took it out of the box and stuffed it into his pocket.  He then walked out of the bank and took off his mask. 

The air felt good, although now he could smell himself.  He was glad he wore his old clothes.  He would throw them out.  He took the notebook out of his pocket and put it into the backpack before slinging it onto his back.  He then rode home to Ricky. 

When Jason got home he took off all his clothes before going in the house.  He ran to the shower and ran the water over himself for 20 minutes.  The smell had gotten into his nose.  He tried to brush it out with a toothbrush, but the head of the brush was too big.  He knew it would eventually go away, but he really hated that smell.

He dried off and put on his some clean
old
clothes.  If any smell should linger, he could throw them away, too. 

He went to the kitchen and threw some toaster pastries in the toaster.  When they popped, he put them on a paper plate and headed for the office.  He put the notebook on the desk.  He forgot something to drink and ran back to the kitchen to get some orange juice.  Now he was ready to read the notebook.

The notebook was filled from cover to cover.  Antonio's handwriting was careful and neat.  He had wanted the reader to be able to discern what he had to say. 

The story began with his finding Margaret DeMorte in Brazil, the Mortevida plant, his job at Wilmer and March, his discovery of George Ranier, and the fact that the doctor who had delivered Jason had been blackmailing his father in order to make Antonio give him the “Fetura” drug, a purple solution that cured cervical insufficiency.  There it was again.  His father had been working on a
purple
drug. 

Jason decided to stop skimming through it and read the notebook straight through.  He needed to know what his father was doing that had caused his death and why Jason had survived when everyone else had died.  He believed the answer was in this little notebook, a notebook his father had died protecting. 

It took Jason three hours to read the notebook.  His father had been very thorough in his explanations.  He described how Jason's grandmother had died during a miscarriage.  He wrote about his love of chemistry and how he had met Jason's mother.  He wrote about James Wilmer giving him money to go to Brazil where he met Margaret DeMorte and got his first Mortevida plants. 

Antonio also wrote about giving the drug to Chloe to prevent her miscarriage and how the puppies had been purple.  Suddenly Jason made the connection.  His mother must have taken Fetura.  He was the purple baby she and her friend were talking about.  He and Ricky had both been saved by this drug.  They had also been protected from whatever had killed everyone and everything else. 

Antonio wrote in detail how Dr. Tomlinson had given the drug to over 300 women without his knowledge.  Jason stopped.  If they had given the drug to that many women, then there had to be that many children somewhere in the world.  He wasn’t alone. 

Jason felt excited for the first time in weeks.  There were other people in the world.  Even though they were only 10 years old, they were living, breathing human beings.  Jason just had to figure out how to find them. 

There was a folded sheet of paper between the last two pages of the notebook.  It was a list.  There were 100 names on it, names and addresses of women.  Antonio had made a list of the mothers.

At that moment, Jason wished he could kiss his father.  He had known who those women were and where they had lived 10 years ago.  Now it was just a matter of finding their children.  Jason would need to find Tomlinson’s office.  If he had records, then Jason could find the children.  Jason was going to catch some sleep and then head over to Justin's and the big satellite dish.

Chapter 40

Jason took some bread out of the freezer and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  He fed Ricky, picked up the sandwich, and went to Justin's house.  Ricky trotted along beside him.  They entered Justin's house through the back door and went up the back staircase to the third level of the house. 

The whole top of the house looked like something out of a spy movie.  There were radios and several computer screens.  All around the room were built in window seats filled with weapons and ammunition.  One held the remaining gas masks.  The others had books on using the satellite dish, coordinates, and instructions on tracking infrared human figures. One of the monitors showed the weather, another one the Internet.

Jason had been busy moving bodies for three weeks and hadn’t been in the tower since the last time he and Justin had been there together.  There was a sign hanging over the entrance to the room that read “Command Central.”

Jason turned the main computer on.  He switched on the monitors and took a seat.  The monitors lite up and the Windows logo appeared.  Finally, the home screens loaded and Jason turned on the satellite dish feed. 

The second monitor switched to the satellite.  There was nothing but fuzz on the screen.  Jason switched the direction of the satellite and nothing happened.  Now he was getting pissed off. 

“Ricky, there must be something in the way up there.  I gotta go up and look.”

The little dog was sitting on one of the window seats looking out at the ocean.  He watched as Jason walked over to the ladder leading to the skylight.  There was a weatherproofed skylight / door on the ceiling that Jason unlatched and climbed through to get to the roof.  David Carson had often envisioned himself escaping through that door as intruders entered his house.  He could climb to safety within seconds, brandishing his AK 47. 

Jason stood on the roof walked over to the satellite dish.  It was a huge thing, and it had U.S. Air Force stamped on it.

“Jeez Mr. Carson, did you steal this thing from the government?” 

There was a ladder leading up to the satellite dish to enable repairs.  Jason hesitated.  He couldn’t afford to fall off anything without help being close by.  The ladder looked steady enough, but he was really high up, and the dish was at least another six feet above the roof.  He figured if he moved slowly he had only to peek over the edge of the dish to see if there was anything covering the receiver. 

Jason slowly climbed the ladder.  He needed only two steps to get a look over the edge of the dish.  There was a large palm frond covering the receiver.  The hurricane must have blown it off the giant palm tree David Carson had planted years ago.  Jason climbed up one more rung and held onto the ladder tightly. 

The wind was blowing harder up here.  He climbed up another rung and felt the wind shaking the dish. He wrapped one arm around the ladder.  With his other arm he reached for the frond.  He managed to grab the edge of it and pulled.  It was stuck on something.  Jason was afraid if he pulled too hard he would break off the end of the receiver.  He had to risk going higher. 

Jason went up another two rungs.  Now the edge of the dish was even with his waist.  He had nothing to hold tight to but the edge of the dish.  He bent over and reached as far as he could.  The frond was loosening.  A big gust of wind blew and Jason had to grab the edge of the dish.  The wind calmed down and he went back to gently pulling the frond.  A huge chunk came off in his hand.  He couldn’t tell if that would be enough to clear the lens.  He went up one more rung.  The edge of the dish was mid-thigh.  If the wind blew he would have to dive into the dish. 

He bent over, and just as he was about to get the frond off the dish, the wind blew hard, knocking him into the dish.  The dish rocked. 

Even though it was well anchored, Jason dared not move for fear of toppling the dish.  He stayed where he landed until the wind died down.  He slowly crawled over to the receiver, pulled the rest of that damn frond off and let it blow away.  Now he had to climb over the edge of the dish and down the ladder without losing his footing. 

Jason crawled back to the edge of the dish.  He carefully got on his knees and took hold of the handles on the inside of the dish.  He pulled himself up, swung his long left leg over the edge of the dish and landed it on the outside rung.  He took a deep breath of relief.  He then was able to get his right leg over and onto the rung.  Now all he had to do was climb down without falling. 

The wind had stayed light.  He took the rungs slowly, one at a time.  When his feet hit the roof he almost kissed it.  Jason sat down until he caught his breath.  He decided he didn't like adventures anymore. 

Jason climbed down the ladder into Command Central.  Ricky was dozing on his window seat.  He resumed his position in front of the monitors and again tried to bring up the satellite.  The weather tracking monitor came to life. 

Jason could see the Florida coastline.  It was clear.  He panned towards the ocean and could see various cloud patterns.  He then focused on bringing up the satellite he and Justin had used to pan over Europe. 

Thank God the satellite Internet worked.  Justin's father had paid through the nose for that.  It wasn’t available in their area, so David had to pay a pretty price to get a “private contractor” to set him up.  So far, no one had caught him.  Jason logged onto the Internet and up came the Yahoo logo.  The page was in French. 

Jason turned on the page translator.  The news feeds reported that the American Internet was still down and they hadn’t been able to contact anyone in the continental United States, Canada or South America.  They feared a terrorist attack. 

Obviously they had no idea what happened and were reluctant to come to North America to find out until they were sure there were no biological weapons involved or nuclear fallout.  There had been communication with Hawaii and Alaska.  Those reporters said that neither state could account for the blackout.  The article was dated a week ago. 

Jason tried to find something newer.  He found one dated yesterday that said the French, British, and German governments were sending out a plane to fly over the U.S. to try and discern why they had been unable to contact anyone.  The collapse of the United States would devastate the rest of the world.  They felt it was time to take initial steps to find some answers.  It didn’t say where they were sending the planes.  Jason wished he knew so he could camp out there and light huge bonfires to get their attention.