Humanity Gone: After the Plague (5 page)

             
The campground is far removed from the city, but it doesn’t take too much longer for us to get there.  That market sits on the outskirts of town, so the rest of the drive is primarily highway.  Some daylight still remains as we approach the park entrance.

             
As we pull into the campground, it seems empty.  A steel gate blocks the access road and I see the lock hanging from the chain binding the gate’s entrance. Going around it isn’t an option because of the deep ditches and densely packed trees  on either side of the road.  The ranger station is just beyond this obstacle.  The key should be inside.

“
I’m going to go see if there’s a key,” I quietly say to Jo and the girls.  “Stay here; I won’t be long.”

The sun is going down and the trees cast eerie long shadows against the station’s walls. I walk up the steps and knock on the fading burgundy door of the silver trailer.

              No answer.  I knock louder. “Hello, is there anyone in there?” I shout into the trailer as I turn the doorknob.  The light on the porch projects into the dark room.  It seems empty.  I feel the wall for a switch.  My hand finds the toggle and the lights come on.  It's relieving to know the power was still on in some places.  Nothing. The room is empty.

             
I exhale a sigh of relief.  Then, I feel a hand grab my ankle.

Chapter 9: Jonathon

             
A scream exits my mouth for the first time in years.  I look straight down and see a man sprawled out on the floor.  One hand is around my leg and the other is stretched out beside him.  The floor around him is smeared with blood.   The man looks up at me, his face swollen with a blistering rash covering its side.  This is the worst case of the infection I have ever seen, and it’s the most horrified I’ve ever felt.  I can’t help but silently pray that I will never end up on the ground gasping for air and soaking in my own blood. 

My fears are interrupted by a pleading groan from the ranger.  His bloodshot eyes look up at me, and they beg for help.

              I feel bad that I screamed.

             
Without much hesitation, I bend down turn him over and carry him into the main room.   He is very light and his ranger uniform is noticeably loose; there is almost nothing to him.  I set him down delicately on the couch.  As I pull away, I pause at the blood stains that are now on my own clothes.  He looks up at me with grateful eyes and manages a small smile.  I guess he is around forty years old, but now he seems more like a helpless child. I notice his right hand hanging over the side is shaking.  A blanket rests on the chair beside him and I throw it over him.  His eyes again show thanks.  I can tell he is trying to speak, but he fails and quickly gives up.

             
The door to the trailer flies open.  My sister walks in with the gun at the ready.  She heard my scream.  It only takes a second for her to see the ranger.  She immediately looks at me, her eyebrows show an immediate empathy. She kneels beside him, at a lost for words. 

             
Then she musters up the courage and delicately says, “What can we do?”  His bloodshot eyes stare back into hers.  His chest expands as he gasps for air.  After a moment, he changes his gaze to the kitchen. 

             
“Medicine? Painkillers? Water?” Jo questions the man.  He manages to shake his head just a little. Jo looks back at me. “Go to the kitchen and see if you can find anything.”

             
There are no decorations, and the only appliances are a tiny stove and a fridge.  Between them is a table big enough for one.  On the table is a vinyl tablecloth and a handwritten note sits on top of that. That won't help him.

             
“Ask him if it’s in a cabinet or something.”  I start to open drawers.  I hear Jo speaking to him, but I don’t hear a response.  I go through drawer after drawer and find nothing aside from some aspirin.  The fridge has some food but nothing helpful. I walk back over and kneel beside my sister.

             
“There isn't anything I can find. What do you need?” I calmly ask. I want to help him more than anything.  Again, his eyes go to the kitchen then back to mine.  Then his eyes drop to his hand.  With his hand he presses two fingers together with his thumb and slowly moves it back and forth.  I begin to run through all the things he could be doing. What does he...a pencil.  He is writing.  I look around the room for a second.  Maybe a prescription.  Then I remember the note.

             
“The note?” I curiously ask. He nods a fraction of an inch. I hurry to grab the note and bring it back to him.  He sees it and nods again.  I hold it out so my sister can also see it, and we both begin reading.

Chapter 10: William

Never before have I experienced pain like I bear now.  It has been nearly a week since I first showed the signs and somehow I have managed this long.  It began when I noticed my chest was a bright red color in the mirror.  Then the rest of the horrors followed. However, none of the pain I physically dealt with prepared me for what was to come.

             
It was the day after I had become ill that I saw my wife succumb to the same illness.  When I first saw the rash on her back, I walked into the bathroom and cried my eyes out.  The disease at that point was all over the country.  I thought we could avoid it if we secluded ourselves at the ranger station in the woods.

             
I was wrong.  It infected me and she refused to leave.

             
A month ago, I had held my wife's hand as she fought against cancer. Those tears and long nights seemed to be worth every minute when the doctor told us that it had gone into remission.  I had never felt so happy as we held each other in tears of joy.  It seemed we had managed through better or worse.   Things became much worse.  A month after her remission, we were in the middle of the woods trying to fight another disease.  It all seemed futile.

             
The plague was much harder on her.  She was bedridden that night and needed to rest constantly.  I think it was my love to take care of her that helped me to hold on so long while fighting my own symptoms.  She died the following night in my arms as I sat in bed.  I prayed that I would just die at that moment too, but I knew I wasn’t going to get any breaks.  I kissed her forehead. 

         
The virus had quickly changed her face, but she was still beautiful to me.

             
I wanted to take care of her body properly.  I took a shovel from the shed and I buried her behind the station.  The sores became worse and each time I drove the spade into the earth-I ripped more skin open. After lashing together two pathetic looking crosses the job was finished despite the debilitating pain.  I carried her in, buried her, and read what prayers I could remember from church.  I doubted God was listening, but it is what she would have wanted.  Then I stuck in the one cross.  The other, I hoped would be mine one day- right beside her. When I finished I realized how exhausted I was.  My shirt stuck to my body with sweat and blood.  I fell to my knees twice on the way to the ranger station alone.  I didn't have anything left in me.

             
I walked to the bathroom, stripped, and turned the shower on.  I tried to remain standing, but it was not to be.  My knees fell to the floor, and they stayed there.  The water turned pink as it washed off my body.  I was in pain all over.  The campground relied on a ground water source and should keep running for a long time.  I stumbled out of the bathroom and changed into my uniform- the last clean clothes.  In the kitchen, I tried to eat some food, but I threw it back up into the sink.  The only thing that I could manage was a few sips of water.  I fell into a chair at the table.  A tablet and pen rested on it from when my wife and I planned to make a shopping list just a few days before.  I saw her handwriting.  Milk, marshmallows, strawberries...  It was too much; sobs erupted uncontrolled from my throat.  Each item brought up the simplest of memories that I couldn’t repress. I told her I didn’t need my lactose intolerance pills as I ate a bowl of cereal.  I was up that entire night, and she never said I told you so. I once had teased her about how terrible she was at roasting marshmallows, as I pulled my own pathetic, sticky, black blob on a stick out of the fire pit. The sweet strawberries were her favorite on the hottest of days and blackest of nights.

Dots of salt water consume the paper until I finally muster the strength and courage to grasp the pen.  I didn't know who I was writing to, but I need someone to talk to.  Even if it is only a piece of paper.

              “To whoever finds this-

             
I don't have long left.  Burying my beloved wife robbed me of the last strength I had.  She lies behind this ranger station.  I am sure you can find the place beneath the soft soil.  We tried our best to hide from death, but we were not so fortunate as to escape its wrath.  My time is short.  If one of the poor children left behind should find this note soon, throughout this station you will find food and water that my wife and I hoped would sustain us.  Now I hope it may sustain you in your time of need.  There is a safe in the back with a rifle.  These woods are full of game, and if the virus has not spread to animals, you should be able to survive for a long time on the campground.”

             
I glance over my writing.  It slowly becomes harder and harder to read.  My hands are shaking; my vision blurs worse.  I am thirsty.  I am cold.  I scribble a few more words, the combination to the safe, and lay it on the table.  My legs carry me, barely, to the main room.  They feel like rubber, and my entire body aches.  Every breath burns my insides.  I support myself from the couch then to the wall but my own weight becomes too much for me. I slide down the wall to my knees.  The lights turn off; I must have hit the switch.  I struggle my left arm up the wall, but I cannot find it.  The little air in my lungs bursts through my mouth as I fall forward onto my chest.  The bathroom is just a few feet away.  I want to crawl in the shower and turn on the water so bad.  I can feel my shirt again sticking to the blood slowly oozing from the sores all over me again.

             
I can't crawl.  I can't yell.  My body shuts down.  I give up and close my eyes.  Maybe someone will find this station.  I'll be dead, but maybe, just maybe, I will have helped them.

Chapter 11: Jocelyn

              Jon and I finish the note, and he sets it on the coffee table.  Many of the strokes had been unintelligible, and I don’t think either one of us have the heart to try to interpret them.  I look up into the ranger's eyes.  His pain seems to be gone.  A small smile hides in the corners of his lips.  I don't know how much stuff he left us, but it may save all of our lives.  I bring my hand to his hair and rub my thumb on his forehead.  His hair is sticky.  I whisper, “Thank you.” The smile leaves his face.  His eyes close and his body finally gives out.  Jon is standing next to me, and he squeezes my shoulder delicately before reaching for the blanket.  He clasps the edge and pulls the cover gently over the man’s peaceful face.             

*     *     *

              After a few moments I stick my head out to check on the girls.  Both of them are in the passenger seat with their eyes locked on the door.  I should have told them everything was okay a while ago.  My brother has already begun to search the trailer, so I catch up.  We find more food, gallons of fresh water, and some tools including an ax, saw, and shovel.  The two of us manage to stuff everything in the trunk of the car along with a first aid kit attached to the front of the trailer.  We make our final trip through the ranger’s home.  I was to get the rifle, and Jon needed to find the key to the gate.

“
It’s so quiet…” I whisper to myself.  The crickets don’t even seem to feel like talking right now.  Carefully turning the dial on the gun safe breaks the silence.  He has an assortment of guns. A rifle, shotgun, and several boxes of bullets are all inside.  I stuff the boxes in my pack and sling the guns over my shoulder.  These will definitely come in handy.

             
As I walk out of the bedroom I see Jon shaking the key.  “It was in a nail on the wall,” he says.  His eyes turn to the man on the couch.  “I will come back tomorrow and bury his body-next to his wife.”

             
“We all will come back.” I reply.

             
“No,” he snaps back. “Sorry, I want to do it myself.  I can't explain it.”  I was in no mood to question him now; I would in the morning.

             
We shut the lights off and I join the girls in the backseat.  The least bit of dust is kicked up behind Jon as he walks purposefully to the gate, key in hand.  He jogs back as soon as the lock is open, and we drive through.  Not too long after we pass, he slams on the brakes and puts it in park.  I give him an odd look.  He swings open the door and walks back to the gate.  I begin to open my door to yell at him.  However, I see him shutting the gate and locking it.  He returns to the car and we continue to the cabin.