Plague: Death was only the beginning! (7 page)

“Wind, wind, blow hard! We have death at the door and wolves in the corn.”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 19

Worldwide Deaths: 15,110,000 est.

The winds did seem to blow hard as Jim pulled his tired truck, and family, up to his gate. Tom was standing by again in full containment gear, and he washed down Jim’s truck and trailer with the hot, heavy bleach solution as he had done with Jim and Kim Rains’ vehicles the day before. They could not take any chances of contamination on the vehicles themselves. And while the family wanted to get out of the truck, they waited for Tom to finish. Finally, it was okay to leave the truck, and each of the tired travelers crawled out of the front and back seats and moved painfully to the front door. Finished spraying, Tom moved his equipment over to the far side of the compound and used it to spray the hose and sprayer with bleach. Lastly, he sprayed himself, especially his legs and booties to ensure every inch was covered well. It had done its job for now.

Earlier that afternoon, Tony’s Gulfstream had come in heavily loaded and parked at the far end of the small airfield. Thankfully, Tony had called ahead and let Tom and Sally know that they would need a heavy trailer to carry all the bags that were coming. Waving the people away from the vehicles until the last minute, Tom and Sally used full military MOPP 4 gear this time to load the bags into the trailer. The plastic containment gear would tear and expose them too easily, so the heavy gloves, chemically treated coat and pants, and rubber boots were used. The rubber mask and hood entirely covered their heads, and they would be sprayed down well before going inside their home again. Some of Tony’s party complained as their suitcases and garment bags were tossed quickly into the trailer. And comments about designers’ suits and dresses followed. They didn’t hear Tom shout “F$%K off!” inside his mask. If it weren’t for Tony’s contract with Tom to share hold the complex, they would have had to walk. Finished, Sally handed each person a heavy N98 facemask and motioned for them to put them on.

“Do it or they’ll leave you here. They mean it too!” Tony shouted over the wind. “It’s a long walk from here, and I for one want to get out of this cold.”

More complaining came over having to ride in the back of the truck. But, at least Tom and Sally had put on the sides and tops to keep them out of the wind, as well as some crude box seats to comfort a tender butt or two. Tom and Sally could still hear the cussing and swearing in the back of their trucks as they pulled off the blacktop and onto the harsh gravel roads. Bouncing up to the gate, Tom got out and punched in the combination. The electrical gate rolled to the side, and Tom and Sally pulled their vehicles inside the compound. Quickly motioning the people out, they again unloaded them and their gear before pulling away. Tom and Sally still had to spray down their trucks and trailer before they could rest.

Tony smiled and gestured toward the front door. One platinum blonde gestured right back to tell him what she thought of the whole affair before walking to the door and going inside. The other men and woman looked at Tony and wondered who was going to carry in their bags. Tony settled it by grabbing his bag and walking to the door. The others could only stare before they picked up what they could carry and followed.

Turning to the group, as they finally stopped in the large living room, Tony waved his hand around as if to display the scene. A warm log fire was burning in the fireplace, and a hearty stew was simmering on the stove.

“Well, that was fun. When are they coming back to carry in the rest of our bags?” one man asked. “I didn’t pay you to carry shit!”

“Sorry, but for the next week or so, we are on our own here. We have a well-stocked bar and wine cellar. Plenty of foodstuff and firewood to keep us for some time. And there are movies and books by the thousands in the library,” Tony replied. “I would plan to be here for some time to come, and I wouldn’t try to leave just now. Conditions outside are bad, very bad. The U.S. Government has completely collapsed, and the plague is running through town like a fast train to hell.”

“So, what are we going to do, read?”

“Yes, you paid me to get you all to safety. I did so,” he replied. “The facility is completely self-contained and self-powered. We have our own well, solar panels for lights, and plenty of firewood for the central boiler and in-floor heating. The food supplies will last for a number of years, and we have the ability to grow more if needed.”

“Oh, now we are farmers? No damn way. I can fly your jet; give me the keys to the truck outside. I’m leaving,” a silver-haired gentleman stated. “I should have gotten on my boat like I wanted it. Until you talked me out of it.”

A small silver handgun appeared as if by magic in Tony’s hand. The man glanced at it and turned away. Picking up his suitcase and garment bag, he walked down the hall in search of a room.

“Anything on the left is open. My room is the last one on the right. Stay out of it.”

Picking up his own bags, he walked to the last room. As he opened the door he heard, “My God, what is wrong with these people! There is meat in this …” He closed the door and locked it.

“Gently, child, gently! The knife is sharp!”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 20

Worldwide Deaths: 27,900,000 est.

Chevy Sands looked both directions before he pulled out his crowbar and jimmied the outside door. He wasn’t afraid of the alarms going off as the power to the entire city had stopped two days ago. And over the last week or two, he had watched everyone die around him. His mother and sister went first, and he stayed in the apartment with their dead bodies until the smell drove him out. First living on the street and later in abandoned cars, he survived. Maybe, just maybe, he was the only one in all of New York City, who was either not already sick, or dead from the plague. Wow, he was the King of New York!

The next night, he found rooms in one of the few hotels that did not smell of death. So many people traveled to New York for business. and they stayed in some of the finest hotels in the country. Those same hotels had become their tombs as the casual brush of a stranger or a cough from a maid spread the plague as quickly as an injection.

Now, he had the run of the best hotels in town, and he couldn’t walk into the front door. And him the King too! He finally found one place that had better insulation or just wasn’t as crowded. But then, he faced the other problem! No power! No power, no lights, NO elevators! And even the emergency lights had died long ago. After one flight of stairs in the dark, he said the hell with it and made his way back down. Searching behind the front desk, he finally found a big red metal flashlight that still worked and tried again. The other thing he found was a master key card that could unlock all of the electronic doors. Someone had even marked it with magic marker so that it stood out in the drawer of used key cards.

Now climbing the stairs with a flashlight and master key card, he thought of how far up he should go. Should he get the penthouse? Very nice, but that was more than twenty stories up. No way was he walking that! Maybe the Embassy Suite would do. He had seen that it was a corner suite on the seventh floor that overlooked the park. Perfect!

Opening the fire door to the seventh floor, he stuck his head out and took a big whiff of air. Not too bad, he had smelled worse to be sure over the last month. He stepped out into the hallway and tried to find the right door. He had turned around so many times on the stairs that he had lost all sense of direction, but a sign ahead pointed him in the right way. Soon he was standing in front of the ornate double doors and putting his passkey in the lock. Green! He turned the door handle and opened the door.

In front of him was a vast open corner suite that opened out into a balcony that overlooked the park. To his right was a massive fireplace and living room set that must have cost more than he could even think of. To his left was a glass and gold bar with bottles of liqueur of every size, shape, and flavor imaginable.

Walking to the right, he approached the huge double doors leading to the bedroom. He stopped; for some reason the smell was stronger. Finally, he brushed it off as just the stale air and opened the door. A wave of death and decay filled his senses as the horror of what he was seeing overwhelmed him.

Stretched before him on the massive oak bed were two bodies. One had platinum blonde hair that rolled in waves down her chest. The other was an old man who sported a $45,000 diamond Rolex watch and nothing else. Blood and vomit now covered the woman’s oversized breasts, fake no doubt, and a black stinking mass of something covered her hips and lower legs. As he approached the bed, his eyes drawn toward the man’s watch, he stopped. Something wasn’t right. But, greed overcame caution, and he stepped right up to the dead man and pulled at the watchband. It was stuck! He pulled harder and the skin tore open. Black blood pooled on the man’s chest and began to run down the side of his chest. Chevy followed it with his eyes and stopped. The man’s eyes were open, and he was looking right at him from only inches away! Chevy screamed as the man vomited up a mass of black blood that covered Chevy’s face and arms.

He struggled to break free as the man reached out to him. Alive, the bastard was still alive! Falling backward, he began crawling quickly away from the bed, still screaming in his horror of it all. Finally making his way to his feet by the double doors, he looked behind him. The shrunken old man was somehow on his feet and moving toward him. How could this be! Chevy screamed again and ran for the door and freedom. He slammed the still open hallway door and ran, right into the darkness. He had forgotten his flashlight. It was only the start of a very bad day.

“Darkness, only darkness reflects the soul.”

-Thoughts from the Author.

Chapter 21

Worldwide Deaths: 72,900,000 est.

Chevy struggled for more than an hour before he could find the fire escape door and make his way back to the ground. Fear and sickness had emptied his stomach on the floors above, and he was weak and shaking as he reached the street again. He had never seen anything like that! His skin still crawled from where the vomited mass had covered his face and hands. God, the smell! It was horrible, and he searched for somewhere to clean up. An upscale clothiers filled the bill as he used clothes off the rack to wipe away the smell. Then he wandered through the darkened store until he found something he liked. New shoes, shirt, pullover sweater, and woolen slacks covered his thin frame. He topped it off with a leather jacket and felt hat that he set at a rakish angle. Now, that was better! The king needed to look like a king and not some lowly pickpocket—that was before.

Two hours later, he was using a crowbar to open a locked high-rise front door. People pay all that money and the bloody doorman takes the day off. Go figure! The lock resisted before failing with a loud crack. Inside, he stepped into a large lobby area with dying potted ferns and junk mail. Someone had been slipping on the cleaning again, and he walked toward the stairwell and looked up at the glass-enclosed walkup. This was better. There wouldn’t be any more darkness for him. He now carried three big flashlights just to be sure.

Reaching the top floor, he popped the condo’s front door in seconds and looked inside. Nothing seemed out of place. Mail was still lying on the hall table, and no keys were in the dish that would normally hold them. Walking quickly, he cased the entire apartment and found it empty. Dropping his backpack on the hardwood floors, he opened doors and cabinets in the kitchen, taking stock. The refrigerator was toast and smelled it too. He found a trash bag and bagged the bad food up in seconds. This place, he liked! The view was great, and the apartment sported a balcony, just like the room at the hotel.

He spent the rest of that day rummaging through the other apartments and local shops until his arms gave out from moving his haul. He had found a camping stove and green bottles of propane for it at one place, and cases of expensive bottled water in another. Now he could heat up cans of soup and stuff. He never did learn to cook for himself. But, now he had time to learn. He had all the time in the world as he was the King of New York and he ruled.

Far away in the Missouri Ozarks, Heather, the surviving RN in the ICU unit at Ozark Regional Hospital closed the door to her last patient. He had been a local author with cardiac issues. His scarred lungs were easy prey for the Yersinia Pestis bacilli, and he had tried hard to warn everyone that it was coming this way. But fate, or chance, had selected him as the first to fall. Heather shed a single tear for this proud man as his struggle ended. He had always brought smiles and laughter to the ward on his other visits. She remembered the time when he had tears in his own eyes for a simple kindness she had done, un-asked. She had opened the condiments package for him because his hands were so crippled. The only one, besides his wife, to ever do so. And his thanks was deep and heartfelt.

The rest of her ward was filled with the sick and dying as the plague spread like a wildfire through the hills and valleys of the Ozarks. Heather pulled down her mask and took a deep breath before she moved on. Lights were flashing for nearly every room, and she was already getting hardened to what she would find. Room 106-1 didn’t need her anymore, and she had work to do here.

It was seven hours later before she could take another deep breath. Her rounds had revealed six more dead and three going downhill fast. Only oxygen was being given to her patients as nothing in the pharmacy was working on this bug. Even some of the new experimental drugs that had fought well against Ebola in 2014 had not worked. Something had changed, maybe the new environment of New York, had induced a genetic change in the Pestis bacilli’s makeup. As in its normal environment of Madagascar, it had remained deadly but stable. Now it had drastically changed and had mutated only after the plague had mixed with the New York City rat population. Even the micrograms had shown the different hair-like structures that seemed to repel antibodies quite effectively. And it may have allowed the bacteria to float for longer periods on the air.