The Pandemic Sequence (Book 1): The Tilian Virus (21 page)

On the third day after receiving his injuries, Lisa updated Mike regarding the Tils advancement. With their closer proximity, scouts had been able to more accurately place their number at eleven hundred. The number still staggered Mike whenever he thought about it. Unfortunately, their pace had increased. Though hoping to gain a two day head start, the refugees would only be one day ahead of the massive force of infected. If the parkways were not passable, or something happened to the vehicles, Mike feared that the infected would be able to over-take them quickly.

The remaining days passed quickly and soon the refugees found themselves waking on the morning of the departure. Not immune to the nervous excitement, Mike found that even he had woken well before the scheduled time. Stepping from his cabin, Gazelle by his side, he took in the broken-down camp site. The mountain camp had been his longest home over the last six years. Its establishment had offered him and the other refugees the first feeling of permanence and routine.

There was a part of him that yearned for this island salvation to exist, but he had learned not to give in to those emotions, so it was with guarded optimism that he joined the other refugees as they began the final descent down the mountain. Mike at first felt foolish for the nostalgia he was experiencing as he travelled further away from the camp. However he soon came to accept that
home
can come in many different forms, and somehow along the way their mountaintop camp had become its latest definition.

If pressed, Mike would have been unable to pinpoint when it had happened, but somewhere in the two months since relocating to the stone home in the Willow Falls Campground, the survivors had settled into a routine. Though he still keenly felt the desperation of their situation, he had begun to accept the enormity of what had befallen him and his companions.

As the temperatures steadily increased, and the rains began to fall more frequently, the current inhabitants of the house had developed into a family. Meals were always shared together, and much of the daily work became group activities. After the first foray into town to gather supplies, Mike had grown significantly more cautious on the two subsequent trips. Michelle, still recovering from the trauma of what had almost happened, declined to join them on those trips, opting instead to stay behind with Sarah, her young son, and Gazelle. Mike could see the change in the teenage girl. Perhaps more than the horror of the infected, what her fellow man had attempted traumatized her even more.

Both journeys into town since the altercation had been fraught with anxiety. Mike, along with Blaine, Josh, Erik, Derrick and Jenni, made sure they were very heavily armed and alert as they had gathered additional supplies. Once, they spotted a small group of survivors travelling along the road. With distrust still strong, Mike had ordered the others to hide in an alley as he warily watched the strangers. He saw no sign of weapons, but unsure as to their intentions, he chose not to reveal himself to them. While he loathed the suspicion of others that had replaced his compassion, he could not bring himself to jeopardize the safety of those already in his care. When the party had passed safely into the distance, he and the others resumed the scavenging and made their return to the campsite.

Of the many routines adopted by the survivors, operation of the battery-powered shortwave radio receiver was the one upon which they placed much faith. Derrick had discovered the radio in the small groundskeeper’s house on the eastern edge of the campground. Mike shared the responsibility with the others of scanning the radio waves for any incoming communication. Hopes rose at each interruption in the usual static, but quickly plummeted when the static returned without a message. On only one occasion did they discover signs of life in the world.

Andrew Weyland had been manning the radio several weeks into their stay when a voice was faintly heard amidst the static. The young boy jumped excitedly at the sound and immediately called out to the others. Like a black and white, World War-era photograph, they huddled close to the radio as Mike adjusted the dial slightly until the voice rose above the ambient noise. In what sounded like an Asian dialect, the male’s voice spoke calmly. Though unfamiliar with the language, Mike soon realized that the voice was repeating the same message several times. The message ended as abruptly as it had begun, and in the days that followed, continued to be absent from the radio waves. Not knowing its meaning or content, the group continued to spend much of their time scanning the frequencies with diminishing hope.

The supplies scavenged on the trips to town had not only kept the refugees adequately fed, cleansed and clothed, but also worked towards making their new home more livable. Blankets, sheets, pillows, and inflatable mattresses had been taken from a big-box chain store. Several small area rugs from the same store now covered the cold stone floor of the house. Sarah had even managed to hang curtains over the lone window in the large front room. Not soon to be featured in any interior design magazines, the dwelling had improved greatly since their arrival.

Each day after breakfast, everyone got to work on the various chores that had proven essential to the happy cohabitation of nine individuals. Laundry, food preparation and clean-up, and firewood collecting were perhaps the most time consuming tasks. The teenagers took to their various jobs with eager abandon. The steady enhancement of the house, as well as an increasing sense of security, had lightened their previous moods of despair and defeat.

In the evenings, once the chores had been completed and the evening meal served and consumed, it became common for several of the group to engage in card games, book reading, and even board games, all of which had been scavenged during their two month stay. Mike understood the need to resume some normalcy, but he also refused to allow complacency any entrance into his thoughts. While the stone home certainly proved serviceable, he doubted that nine people could continue to live in such close quarters. Additionally, the food supply would become cause for major concern. It was fine to rely on what could be scavenged from stores and homes in neighboring towns, but Mike feared that those sources of supply would soon reach an end. Each day that the radio aired no broadcast indicated that there was still no formal survival base.
We have to begin thinking in the long term,
Mike told himself often.

Lacking any real experience with agriculture, save for handing his grandmother tools in her garden when he was a young boy, Mike understood that this was the time for planting. If events did not change, and no help could be found, then the refugees would need to rely on their own food production if they hoped to survive through the winter. He knew the campground, with its thick canopy of trees and stone outcroppings, was not going to allow the growth of much.

Though he disliked the idea, and had not yet mentioned it to the others, Mike was quickly becoming convinced that, sooner rather than later, a search for a more habitable locale would need to begin and the stone house would have to be abandoned.

* * *

Another month had passed and the southern summer was evident with temperatures well above ninety degrees, and a humidity that was debilitating in its oppression. Mike had yet to broach the topic of relocation with the others. His remembered exhaustion and anxiety from the first days of the outbreak held his tongue. The dangers of staying versus leaving soon became his main thoughts, yet his mind could not determine a victor. The idea of being out in the open, on the road, gave him chills, yet starving in a frozen stone home did little to soothe him.

As he had suspected, the availability of food supplies in the neighboring towns had diminished substantially. Most stores were picked clean of non-perishable items, leaving only the rotting meats, fruits and vegetables to create a burning stench. Mike estimated that their current stock should, if well rationed, last this new family of his through the summer. The daily portions were adequate for basic nutrition but he could easily see the weight loss of his companions. His clothing hung far more loosely than similar sizes had before the outbreak. Though his gym attendance was certainly non-existent, the daily labors of this new life had continued to work his body to extremes.

Stripped to the waist, Mike carried a heavy bundle of wood across the stone walkway leading to the house. As he stacked the timber into a pile against an exterior wall, Sarah stepped out of the home to speak with him. In the months since their settlement, Sarah’s optimism never flagged. Whether out of motherly protection for her son, or a genuinely positive disposition, her spirit remained unclouded. Today, however, he could see an anxiety and wild fear in her eyes as she approached him.

“He’s sick,” she said to Mike as her hands twisted the hem of her yellow shirt. Her hair, normally pulled back into a neat pony-tail, now fell haphazardly to her shoulders, with some larger locks still held in an elastic band.

“Andrew?” Mike asked, assuming that her state could only be brought upon by concern for her own flesh and blood.

Nodding, Sarah’s eyes quickly filled with tears. Mike reached his hand to her shoulder to steady her and offer comfort.

“What’s wrong?”

“He has a fever. He woke up this morning looking a little pale, and then he complained that he was cold. I took his temperature…it’s high, Mike. And he can’t keep anything down,” she said in a nervous ramble.

Mike immediately understood her concern. Having lost the rest of her family to the virus, Sarah was quite familiar with its initial symptoms.

“
What if he’s…sick, Mike?” she asked. Her eyes betrayed her and it was clear that she had intended to say
infected
but could not bring herself to voice the possibility.

“You can’t think like that. Sarah, kids get sick all the time. It’s been three months, he would have gotten sick long ago if it was the virus.”

He spoke the words, yet his emotion lacked much conviction. There was so much about the virus they did not know. When the outbreak first spread, news reports had limited the potential victims to certain blood types.
If that was true
, Mike wondered,
then why did people who got bitten change? And, how could they change so rapidly?
He detested the lack of information available to him. On one of the missions into town, he’d even ordered a stop at the local library to collect as many books as possible on viruses, specifically the Inclusion Body Disease virus, the reptilian illness that had started it all.

Though some of the erratic behavior in infected humans mimicked diseased reptiles, Mike was unable to learn much else. Over the intervening months, he began to worry that the virus had struck with such devastating rapidity that maybe no one had had a chance to truly study it.

Following Sarah into the house, Mike soon found himself looking at the unconscious and frighteningly pale young boy. His mother had covered him with as many blankets as the small group had in their possession; with the warm summer air, the other children had no longer been using them when they slept. The boy’s small frame was cocooned in warmth, yet still his body shook while he slept. To Mike he looked like a typical person with the flu, but having not personally been near to anyone with an earlier stage infection, he could not rule out the possibility that what Andrew had was a danger to them all.

“Is he…?” Sarah asked him, but could not bring herself to finish the question.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Have the others been around him today?”

Sarah shook her head in response.

“Okay, for now, until we can be sure, they need to stay out of this room. If it’s not the virus, he still looks in pretty bad shape.”

Mike sat down on the bed and placed his hand on the boy’s forehead. The skin felt like fire to the touch. Searching his mind for answers, he recalled watching an episode of a hospital-based drama where the doctors helped break a patient’s fever through a warm bath. Hoping the method was grounded in some reality, Mike immediately went outside to retrieve the metal tub used for laundry. Bringing the tub into the room, Sarah helped him fill it with water from jugs. Though not large enough to fully accommodate a pre-teen boy, the tub was sufficient in submerging the boy’s trunk beneath the room-temperature water. Now out from under his shelter of blankets, Andrew’s body shook violently with shivers.

After twenty minutes in the tub, Mike removed the boy as his mother wrapped him in a large towel. He was unsure if the method had worked, but he thought Andrew felt somewhat cooler to the touch.
Wishful thinking most likely
.

Over the next two days, he and Sarah kept a steady vigil in the small bedroom. Mike had been forced to alert the others to the situation. He could see their emotions twist with concern for Andrew, and fear for themselves. After two days of being in close proximity with the boy, neither Sarah nor Mike showed any symptoms, which led him to believe that Andrew suffered from a strong flu, but not the Tilian Virus.

That hopeful assumption, however, did little to relieve his worry for the boy. His fever had diminished slightly, but still remained precariously high. Andrew had not eaten in over two days, and his already thin body seemed to be caving in upon itself. Though unconscious most of the time, when he did wake Andrew spoke with unintelligible words and sounds, the fever clearly clouding his motor skills and cognitive ability.