“You may tell them your aunt’s name tomorrow, and they can look up her statistics in the big book.”
Tara meekly assented. Commander Myers’s demeanor made her afraid to say much else. Only Kevin’s eyes moved in his frozen face, following Tara as two of the guards led her out. Panic at being separated from him welled up in her chest, and she wanted to protest but knew that might seem even more suspicious.
Don’t make waves, Tara
. Apparently, they weren’t quite done with Kevin yet.
Tara gave Kevin one last imploring look as she passed by. His eyes were haunted, but it was beyond their control now. She felt guilty at being the cause of this whole thing.
What else could I do?
If only he hadn’t gone up front, we’d be home by now.
“What are they going to do to Kevin?” she asked her guard as they descended the steps.
“Oh, ask him a few questions, that sort of thing. Keep moving.”
The guards led her the opposite way down the aisle this time, in front of the new wall that ran behind the checkout lanes. At the end was a door where they exited to the outside. Tara saw a long barracks-type building just across from them. Another small door—a brand new one from the looks of it—was just beside the one they exited.
So they’ve totally separated the back half of the store from the front.
As the guards pushed her inside, one told her to find a bed, and then the door slammed behind her.
Oh, dear God.
Tara held her breath as she took in the cavernous space lined with cots. There were people everywhere, sprawled out asleep on them. Young, old, fat, thin, the sheer crush of humanity, along with the reek of unwashed flesh overwhelmed her. It sure didn’t look or smell like a hospital, not at all sanitary. Mothers with children curled against them, families bunched together around several cots, humped forms under blankets all greeted her eye in the dim nightlights that lined the walls. Not all had blankets, and she could see immediately that everyone appeared just as if they’d stepped in off the street in rumpled, dirty civilian clothes.
Tara stood frozen against the closed door, unsure what to do. Fear and panic almost choked her.
Where’s Julie?
If she could just find Julie, at least she would know what was expected. Getting her bearings, Tara decided to head toward the rear. The exercise yard would be back there somewhere.
Holding her breath, she sent up a prayer of thanks for the thin surgical mask she still wore. At least it would keep her safer than not having one at all. These people didn’t look sick though, so that was a bonus. Nevertheless, they were very still, almost lifeless seeming. For a moment, Tara thought they might be dead bodies and her fear ramped up. She tried to calm herself and be rational.
Maybe all the barracks hold different levels of recovery, and these folks have survived Ebola.
Tara hoped so.
As she walked quietly down the long aisle, she could see a door in the far left corner of the rear wall.
The exercise pen!
This is where she headed. In the half-light, she noticed movement near there. It was Julie—she was waving her arms. She’d been watching for Tara
. God bless her!
Her little boy Ben was lying on a cot near the door, wrapped in a blanket. A second empty cot—Julie’s obviously, sat beside it.
Julie wrapped her arms around Tara, whispering frantically. “Oh, Tara, my God, I can’t believe they caught you! I’m so sorry.”
Tara wanted to cry, but held it together. If this poor woman could go through all she had gone through, Tara was ashamed to show her own weakness over simply being brought there.
“Julie, I’m so glad I’m here with you though! I don’t know where Kevin is. They kept him in the office.” Tara glanced around frightened. “I told them he came with me to look for my missing aunt.”
The rumpled people sleeping around them still lay suspiciously still, almost as though they were drugged. Just as Tara had this thought, Julie sank down as though exhausted onto the cot beside Ben. “You can take that empty cot, Tara. We traded with some other people to get near the door. I can sleep with Ben on mine.”
“Are you okay?” Tara asked her. She glanced at all the others passed out near them. “No one’s moving much. Are they alright?”
“We’re okay, just very weak. They take too much out of us.”
Tara tilted her head, not understanding. “Too much what?”
“We’re donors, Tara. They sell it to the highest bidder.”
Shock radiated through her as Julie went on.
“At best, in a healthy person, you can maybe donate twice a week. Lately, they’ve been doing it three times every other week. They don’t care if they kill us.”
Horror stopped Tara’s voice.
How can this be? It can’t be true. It’s a government run facility!
At the look on Tara’s face, Julie explained further.
“They’re taking plasma from us. Ben’s too little, but they don’t care. It’s a blood and plasma factory, Tara, and they’ll never let us survivors go. They’re selling our lifeblood to wealthy people. It’s the only cure, the only way to survive Ebola.”
“Oh, my God.” It was all Tara could say.
“We’re all so weak. We bleed with the slightest bump or scratch—because our platelets are low. Some die. They’re taking too much, too often.”
Tara stared at Julie’s pretty but haggard face, her blonde hair stringy and dirty hanging limply beside it. The huge circles beneath her eyes underscored her words. Tara tried to absorb the scale of this revelation, but couldn’t yet. Her mind was spinning.
Julie watched her with compassion, obviously knowing how traumatic the truth of the camp was to those who had just arrived. Like Auschwitz must have been to the Jews.
Tara slumped down on the empty cot beside Julie’s. “How can this be?” she somehow finally squeezed out.
“The guy who runs it, he’s not government—I mean, yeah, he was originally I think—but that stopped long ago, after so many died. His guys wear the CDC suits, but they’re not CDC. The good guys lost control a long time ago, Tara. And this guy, Meyers, is one of the bad guys.” Julie paused a moment and snorted a cynical laugh, “One of the now very
rich
bad guys!”
Tara stared around the huge dimly lit room.
There must be five hundred cots in here, very few unoccupied.
Why do they need to take so much from them?
Julie seemed to read her thoughts.
“It’s still not enough, not enough for him at least. They started a vaccination program to inject people with Ebola—house to house. Everyone gets the virus shot. Two thirds are earmarked as donors—so they get treatment with survivor’s plasma, and they usually live. They paint a yellow stripe on those houses, going back to collect them later, to bring them here to the camp. The other third get the shot, but no treatment—they want those poor souls to act as human petri dishes. After all, what better way to grow Ebola without a lab than a dead body full of the largest amount of virus at its most virulent stage? But there are worse things…” Tara stared at Julie, waiting. “There are rumors of a barracks down at the end of the line, where they do experiments.”
Tara felt herself beginning to tremble. It was an involuntary reaction she couldn’t stop. All she could think about was Lee.
“Do the petri-dish houses get the red stripe?” she whispered.
“Yes.” At the expression on Tara’s face, Julie suddenly seemed to realize what had happened. She leaned forward and weakly took Tara’s still-gloved hand.
“Did your house get a red stripe?” Tara nodded as her tears finally spilled over. She lowered her head and cried for Lee, Mary, for all of them. She choked out the story of how she and Julie’s mom Mary had come home to find Lee had taken the vaccination.
Julie moved slowly over to her cot and held her as she cried. Tara was grateful and let the younger woman comfort her as she tried to comprehend the level of evil it would take to create such a thing as this terrible place.
Chapter 13
Julie held Tara for a long time. Finally, Tara’s sense of guilt over poor Julie having to do all the comforting after what she had been through rose inside her. She pulled away, thanked the younger woman, and began to tell Julie about their rescue plan. Tara knew this was the best way to show her gratitude—to give Julie hope.
Julie’s little boy Ben stirred on the cot beside her, whimpering a little. “I’m hungry,” he said. Julie pulled him close and shushed him. She dug in her pants pocket and brought out a small, rubbery-looking piece of something Tara couldn’t quite make out. Julie popped it in the boy’s mouth. He chewed silently, snuggling back into his mom’s shoulder, contented. She laid him gently down on the cot.
“I saved a couple carrots from the soup yesterday. He gets so hungry.”
Tara stared at Julie, horrified as Julie began to explain the routine there.
“They serve us all food once a day in the barracks next door, usually a soup. I’m glad you’ve got the mask though.” Julie looked away, then back up at Tara apologetically. “They do shifts of patients in there—all the patients. They use the same building for everyone.” Julie paused, as though not wanting to tell her more. Finally, she seemed to decide to go ahead and say it. Her shoulders slumped. “The sick ones eat there too. No one disinfects it. We’re on our own.”
Tara took this all in and sat mute, unable to think, let alone speak. Julie went on.
“I think that’s how Ben and I got sick. We were one of the early batches here, before they started the vaccination program. I think we caught it from the food line. I guess now they figure whoever gets it naturally, it just saves them the trouble of giving it to them on purpose.”
Tara finally found her voice. “How did you survive it, Julie?”
Julie tucked the blanket tighter around Ben’s sleeping form, stroking his hair lovingly. “Mel,” she answered, “My friend Melanie. If it weren’t for her, we’d be dead.”
She told Tara how her nurse friend had come upon them, both sick with the virus, and taken them under her skillful wing. She had even secured a single dose of survivor’s blood, which Julie insisted be given to Ben. Soon after, Mel risked her life to bring a second bag to Julie in the dead of night. When Julie explained the gravity transfusion procedure, and how you could squeeze it in quicker by hand in emergency situations, Tara knew this was what she needed for Lee, but they had to escape first.
“Julie, I really believe the Resistance might be back to get us out of here. I need the equipment to do a transfusion on Lee, or any of us for that matter, if we get sick.”
“Well, if she could steal blood or plasma, and we could get it into Lee quick, he’ll be alright. After that, whoever else gets sick, we don’t have the resources to make or store plasma or blood. The generators here run the freezers day and night. We’d have to wing it.”
“We’ll need tubing and needles too, Julie. Where is this friend of yours? Does she make rounds here?”
“Yes, but not often. Sometimes she checks patients in the line at the cafeteria and does blood typing. So we may see her tomorrow at lunch.”
Lunch seemed a long way off. “Can we go sit outside, just in case the Resistance comes back?” Julie said yes and left Ben to sleep on the cot. “If he wakes up, he’ll know where I am. Poor little guy. He sleeps most of the time, and to be honest, I’m glad.”
Julie opened the door to the freezing night air. “They usually stoke the bonfire just before dawn. It won’t be long now,” she said, looking at the sky toward the east.
“Wait,” Tara told her. She unwound her scarf, then ripped it in half lengthwise, handing the second piece to Julie. Then she slipped off one of her gloves and passed it over as well. Tara remembered her coat had a zip-out lining. She shrugged herself out of it and slipped it on Julie. It made a sort of puffy vest for her, and the girl hugged Tara gratefully.
“This is the warmest I’ve been since I got here,” she said. Tara smiled and followed Julie outside. They walked to the bench where Tara first spotted Julie, and sat close together there for warmth. Tara pulled the surgical mask down around her neck, breathing the cold night air deeply into her lungs. Julie began to speak of her mother and about how badly she missed her. Tara told her how much Mary’s love for Julie and Ben kept her going. “You’ll see her again soon, I know it.”
The stars were bright, and Tara glanced at them often, listening for any sounds outside the fence, but there were none. The women huddled together, one full of hope now, the other filled with growing apprehension.
~
The sound of approaching footfalls from the rear of the camp pulled Tara’s attention away from Julie’s story. A faint streak of dawn in the eastern sky announced the time. Several men in spaceman-like suits, their dark shadows anonymous in a frightening way, pulled a large cart around to the bonfire. Tara could see the men clearly from their vantage point in the exercise yard. They began to toss brush and logs onto the smoldering bonfire.
When the flames finally took hold, they rose in a crimson blaze, shedding light around the entire area. Julie motioned Tara to be still. It was quite a way off, but close enough for sound to travel and movement to be seen. The women watched as the men wrestled something else from the cart. Each one took an end, turning it toward Tara and Julie. They began to swing this thing back and forth between them, back and forth, until its arc was large enough to propel the heavy item up onto the hottest spot in the center of the bonfire when they let go.
In the hectic glow of the flames, the last arc of the object clearly illuminated it—the blood streaked body of Kevin, her comrade and classmate.
Tara screamed and stood up. Julie sprang into action, pushing her back into the building as Tara sobbed inconsolably.
“Lay down, quick,” directed Julie, leading Tara to her cot. “For the love of God, Tara, stop crying. You must!”
Julie curled up with Ben, and Tara somehow pushed the vision of Kevin’s bloody face out of her mind, stifling her sobs and lying quietly. Just moments later, the door up front opened and a strong beam of light swept across the sleeping forms in the large room. The light passed back and forth several times as Tara lay frozen in fear, eyes closed. She was still numb with shock over Kevin, but survival instinct had kicked in.
Be still, you’re okay. We’re going to get out of here.
Finally, the beam switched off, and a few moments later, they heard the door shut.
Julie reached across the space between the cots and squeezed Tara’s arm, a look of compassion on her face. Tara began to sob again, silently. “It’s my fault. I made Kevin come,” she choked.
Julie rubbed her arm and sighed. “First, the logs always go on. Under the logs are the bodies. They throw the dead on the fire every morning. It used to take several trips, but now the dying has slowed some.” Tara stared into Julie’s eyes as she whispered these abominable things with the matter-of-factness of announcing what she had for dinner.
“I saw the doctor’s body one day, Dr. Clemons, the man who was in charge of the medical side. He wasn’t sick. He was fine one day and dead the next.”
Tara shuddered and closed her eyes, her stomach nauseous. Somehow, she finally managed to drift off to a fitful sleep, dreaming of Lee.
~
Mary focused on the means to bake the bread as soon as she returned from the crabapple trees. Since Lee had gotten sick, it was up to her to tend the potbellied stove. Lee had dragged and stacked the neighbor’s firewood just outside their back door. Mary fumbled around in the dark and brought in several large logs and some kindling, trying to estimate roughly just how much it would take to bake the bread. Then she got to work washing and cleaning the crabapples and mixing the dough.
She chopped the fruit very finely this time. Her stomach growled, but as hungry as she was, this was for Lee. If it was the only thing he had an appetite for, then so be it. Mary put in extra sugar for more nutrients, and made the batter as light and smooth as she could for his weakened digestive system.
Her watch still worked just fine, and so did the battery-operated clocks in the house. They had removed most of the batteries to hold in reserve, but kept the wall clock in the kitchen running. Mary couldn’t stop glancing first at her watch and then at the wall, as though they might tell her something different. She was thinking Tara should be back by now with Julie and Ben. The minutes crawled by, and the later it got, the more her fear grew.
She carried the cast iron skillet of batter down to the stove and set it on, then poked at the logs, which were burning nicely. She stood back, wiping her hands on her apron, and her stomach growled again. She decided to look in the small root cellar where Tara had stored their foraging spoils. She was hungry.
The small dirt-floored room was lined with old shelves. It was cold here, closed off from the stove, perfect for storing food. Mary found the rest of the large mushroom pieces, and took down a big chunk. There were also some more dahlia roots and daylily tubers, and she held up her apron to make a carryall. She grabbed several chestnuts to add to the mix and returned upstairs. There was no meat left and no time to make a squirrel trap. She wished for a moment she had some of the celebration stew Tara took to Clyde. Mary thought about the old man for a moment.
I wonder if Tara made it there on her way to see the Resistance. Maybe Clyde knows something more.
This occupied her mind as she washed and prepped the mushrooms, chestnuts and tubers. She cubed them, tossed them all in oil, salt and pepper, and put them in a frying pan. As she carried them down to the stove, she had a final thought.
Maybe I should go see Clyde soon.
The crabapple bread was baking nicely. She returned upstairs, peeling the dahlia roots next, and then shaving off thin slices for a salad. After mixing some vinegar and oil with a little sugar, she stood at the bar eating her concoction. It was delicious and gave her poor stomach something to work on besides itself. She’d all but decided to make the trip to Clyde’s, and she resolved to save a little of this meal for him too, as a Christmas present.
She returned to the basement to stir the frying pan contents and when they were done, ate her share right out of the pan with a fork. She put the rest for the old man into a tinfoil packet. At least she was full now, and her belly was one less thing to worry about. Mary wished she could calm her mind as easily.
Lee was sleeping once the bread was done, so she decided to wait until he woke to feed it to him. It was all she could do not to cut herself a huge golden-brown wedge.
Mary spent a restless night, unable to sleep. She awakened almost every hour, worrying about Tara, Julie, Lee, and Ben. She heard Lee moving around upstairs a few times and checked in on him once. He was sleeping fitfully again by the time she got up there, and she didn’t want to disturb him. He looked awful. She saw the glass of ORS she had set out for him on the bedside table; it was half empty. So at least he was trying. Mary knew it would be hard to drink a gallon of this a day now as the virus progressed. Both eating and drinking would become difficult once the vomiting started. She hoped he could eat the crabapple bread and it helped get some calories into him. Mary went back to bed and finally drifted off, with visions of Tara being shot along the fenced-in exercise yard waking her up whimpering.
Early the next morning, she woke with a start to the sound of Lee retching violently. She knew it was bad by virtue of the fact she could hear him all the way downstairs. She ran up to check him, dressing quickly in her protective gear outside his door.
Lee had finished vomiting for the moment and was lying back on the pillows, his face white. He just stared at her. “I’m bleeding,” he whispered. Mary nodded, alarmed, but keeping her expression neutral so as not to scare him any worse. She simply touched his arm gently. It was difficult to be reassuring, but at least she could let him know he wasn’t alone. She set a small wedge of the crabapple bread she’d made at his bedside, but doubted he could eat it. Lee seemed to be watching her closely and Mary realized he was hoping Tara was back.
“She’s not home yet.” Lee closed his eyes. They both knew what this likely meant. Lee rolled toward the wall. Mary refilled the glass of ORS and begged him to drink it, reassuring him Tara would be back soon.
“Tomorrow’s Christmas, Lee.” Lee made no sign of acknowledgement.
Mary took the pans of bloody vomit and diarrhea out with her. Never in all her years as a nurse had she had to deal with a situation like this. She knew that now the real work would begin—disposing of the toxic waste, trying not to contaminate the rest of the house, using the utmost care not to catch it herself.
The day started with the clean-up routine, the trip out back to bury Lee’s waste, and dispose of her gloves and mask. She was so tired. She’d tried to hold off thinking the worst for as long as she could, but with the light of day, Mary knew now, just as poor Lee did; something had gone horribly wrong with the rescue.
As she wearily dumped and covered the contents of the pans, it started to snow. Mary stood there for a moment after she finished, face to the sky, fluffy flakes melting on her skin. She opened her mouth to catch a snowflake.
Tonight is Christmas Eve.
Her heart ached.