(Reserved for Lady_Mornington and TinyDuchess)
September 15
Juneau, Alaska
"Really, honey, you worry about me every year," Frederick Gibson, Professor of Natural History of the University of Miami, spoke over the hotel room's phone to his wife. "And how many times have I failed to come back?"
"Fred, you're being an idiot again," Sarah Gibson, Professor of English Literature of the University of Miami, chided him over the line, but with little malice. "You're not twenty-five, any more. And you're not Shackleton or Amundsen. Still thinking you're going to find some new specimen of penguin or whatever the hell it is you look for up there?"
"Honey, how many times do I need to tell you that penguins are in the other pole?" Fred flipped on the TV, flicking through the channels. The last night he would have a TV for over a month. He wanted to savor it, so the isolation in nature would be all that more magnificent. "And it's not about me discovering anything, although that could happen at any time and is more likely the more times I go out, as you well know. It's about taking a break from the hustle and bustle. It's about reconnecting to nature, observing one of the last unspoilt vistas in the country, before the big oil companies fuck it all up in a few years. It's about getting more material for my book. And no, before you ask, I will not keep my radio on the whole time," he anticipated. "It would suck the batteries out, for one, and disrupt the total immersion, for another, and for lastly, it is totally unnecessary. If a polar bear tries to eat me, I can call for help; if not, I think
I can handle myself after all this time. I didn't serve in the Tenth Mountain for nothing."
He clicked down on the remote, going from ESPN to CNN. It was the international news brief. The Prime Minister of Britain was involved in some minor political scandal over elections demanded by the opposition. A meteor had landed in the middle of some town in Peru, but had caused no more damage than a few broken windows caused by the shock wave. Russia was claiming the natural gas reserves of the North Pole. Santa wouldn't like that.
"That better be one damn good book, after all this time," Sarah said, and Fred could feel the poke through the thousands of miles of phone line between Juneau and Miami. "Well, as usual, I suppose by now I can't do anything. Just promise me you'll be careful, all right?"
Fred chuckled good naturedly over the phone. "Trust me, hon, I don't think this will be any different than all the times I've done it before."
September 19
Carancas, Peru
"No, no, no," Dr. Betsy Gerund said, dismissing another one of the Peruvian villagers. She turned to her companion. "Tell her that there's nothing seriously wrong with her. As far as I can tell, it's just arsenic poisoning. They'll need fresh water, and the meteorite will need to be taken away, but that's all that there is, here."
Dr. Miguel Chavez spoke to the villager, then returned to the American doctor. "This is what our Ministry of Health stated," he said with an air of vindication. "There are lots of groundwater pockets in this area. Arsenic deposits are not unheard of. When the meteor landed, it would have been superheated by atmospheric friction. The heat causes the arsenic to leech into the groundwater." His eyes slid up to meet hers. "So it seems even the World Health Organization was unable to top us South American country doctors."
Gerund shrugged. "You got it right. I don't hold it against you, just like you shouldn't hold my coming here against me. I didn't make the policy, after all. A strange sickness occurs in the area - you shouldn't be upset that the WHO offered its help." She paused, tapping a pen against her lips. "There's just one thing that doesn't quite fit. Headaches, stomach cramps, vomiting, sweating - that all fits in with arsenic poisoning. Convulsions, delirium, and death following, but I doubt anyone here will die of it now that the cause is known. But the coughing..."
As if on cue, one of the villagers started coughing, with it spreading to several of the others. The WHO doctor shrugged again. "Well, arsenic poisoning doesn't cause that. I guess it's from the fumes caused by the impact event."
Dr. Chavez nodded. "That makes sense to me," he said. "In a few days, I'm certain they'll all be feeling better."
That evening, Dr. Gerund was on a plane flying back to the WHO Regional Office for the Americas in Washington, DC. By the time the plane she was on landed at Dulles International Airport, she too was coughing. Her plane contained seventy-seven other passengers and crew, who were heading on to sixteen different destinations from Washington, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London, Paris, and Geneva. Within twenty four hours, all of them - and all of the individuals they encountered, spoke to, or breathed on in those cities - were also coughing.
September 21
New York City
"We got another one," the paramedic said, hopping down from the ambulance as it backed back into the loading bay of the Corleoni Memorial Hospital.
"Polka Dot Syndrome?" Frankie asked, walking over to take a look in the body that was being lowered down on its stretcher. Jim, his paramedic friend from the ambulance, nodded.
"Seventh one today. From Midtown. Some UN person, just like the rest." He read the name tag information. "Dr. Betsy Gerund, from the World Health Organization. How's that for irony?" He shook his head. "Said she just came back from Peru or Bolivia or some place like that. You don't suppose this is some kind of South American tropical disease, do you?"
"Don't be an idiot, Jim," Frankie said, directing several of the orderlies to take the body to the morgue. "Only African jungles create diseases like that - typhoid, Ebola, that kind of thing." A consummate Michael Crichton fan, Frankie was well aware of these sorts of things. "Besides, the pathology reports all came back negative for the others. It's not like something will get by us that easily. This is the twenty-first century. If there's a disease on Earth we can't at least identify, I'll eat my hat." He look at his clipboard again. "No, all the people dead so far were all people who were just back from South America. Probably eat something they shouldn't have - vomiting, abdominal pain, joint pain, it would explain all the symptoms. And the skin disorder - probably something very specific. Jungle frog or something. Christ, I would never go to one of those Third World shitholes." Frankie shook his head.
"Whatever." Jim was more than willing to let it go. He could feel a headache coming on, had felt it coming since yesterday evening, really. This damn job, he figured. He was letting it get to him. "Let's get back to the game." Before the call had come in, Jim, Frankie, and Bob had all been indulging in their nightly poker match. Now, however, Jim looked around. "Hey, where's Bob?"
"He had to go home," Frankie said, sitting back down. "Said he wasn't feeling well, felt like he caught some kind of bug or something."
"Shit," Jim said, sitting down across from his friend and rifling through Bob's discarded deck of cards. "Hope it's not anything contagious."
September 22
Joint Operations Command Center
The Pentagon
"Carancas. Population exactly one week ago when the impact event occurred, six hundred and seventy-four. As of today, we believe all are dead, possibly minus several who may have been evacuated by the Peruvian Army Biological Hazard Unit."
The slide - satellite images of Peruvian military forces in biohazard suits burning an entire town in a mass grave, switched to show images of urban fighting, a sight familiar to many in the room from several years of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Lima. Population one week ago, 9.2 million including its metropolitan area. Population now, five million with as many as three of those millions sick."
"Jesus", breathed the White House Chief of Staff. The speaker, Colonel Grayson, blanched, quickly continuing:
"Of course, that is largely due to the large migration of people from the city into the countryside and other cities once rumors began of the, ah, sickness spreading. As far as we can tell, Ministry of Health and other government officials contracted the disease when investigating the initial reports of the sickness in Carancas, and then tracked them back to Lima. Of course, those who are leaving the city, we must assume, have also been subjected to the...agent by now, and so their evacuation will likely only cause the disease to spread further throughout Peru."
The slide - really a computer display - switched again, to a map of the United States. A single small, pale red dot appeared in Washington's location on the map. "Similarly, it is believed the WHO team sent to Carancas contracted the disease while investigating the villagers there, and brought it with them when returning to the United States. They passed it on to others, who passed it on to others. Now, the map here illustrates the number of reported cases by increasing size of the red circles, while number of deaths from it are represented by the shade of the circle."
Starting with the single Washington dot, a network of red circles began to spread across the country, gaining size and color in a way uncannily similar to that of the spread of the skin sores on the infected.
"Jesus," the Chief of Staff repeated. "Just how the hell did we let it spread this far?"
"Sir," Colonel Grayson retorted somewhat defensively, "at first we had no indication that there was any disease at all. The pathology screens came back negative - still do, in fact - and the symptoms were believed to be arsenic poisoning originally. That, combined with the several days it takes to demonstrate symptoms of infection and thereby making it initially difficult to determine that we were dealing with a communicable pathogen-"
"Spare me your excuses," the Presidential advisor waved his hand. "How bad is it?"
Colonel Grayson and several of the other officers in the room eyed each other. "Sir, so far we have over a million reported cases, with more each day. It appears to be growing at a near-geometric rate. We have several thousand reported dead so far. But as to the total casualties..."
The colonel seemed at a loss for word, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services took up the lead. "You have to understand, we are dealing with something that we have never dealt with before. Something that could very well be extraterrestrial in nature. No pathology screens have been able to identify it yet, and no known treatments have effect. It could take us months, perhaps years, for us to do so. Meanwhile, symptoms take several days to develop, making it difficult to know who to isolate and quarantine until after they have had contact with unknown numbers of people."
"Cut to the chase. I need to be back at the White House in an hour. What's the bottom line?"
Secretary Wheeler gulped. "The bottom line is, we have a disease that we can't detect and can't treat. It takes several days for symptoms to manifest, which allows it plenty of chances to spread. It is extremely communicable - airborne, certainly, probably through touch or bodily fluids as well. The communicability rate is near one hundred percent, as far as we can determine. And..." He gulped again. "So is the fatality rate."
There was silence throughout the room. Finally, the Chief of Staff let out a croak. "What. What did you say? How is that possible? You said there was over a million cases already, but only a few thousand deaths-"
"So far." Secretary Wheeler nodded, looking faint. "But it took a week for those initially exposed to the meteorite to finally succumb to it. And the most severe symptoms don't seem to manifest until the last few days. For those with healthier bodies or stronger immune systems, it might take longer, but...This highlights why we need an immediate quarantine of the country. Stop all flights in and out, seal the borders, declare martial law, stop all traffic within the country."
"Absolutely not." The Presidential advisor's response was immediate and firm, and he seemed jolted out of his initial shock by the Secretary's statement.
"Coming clean immediately, the sooner the better, imposing limits on infected people moving across the country, states, even counties and towns, telling the citizens to stay away from others, distribute biosuits...This is the only way possible to even limit what might be a catastrophic plague," Wheeler maintained.
"And cause a panic? I don't think so." The Chief of Staff rose. "The President has faith in our Heavenly Father to see us through this crisis, as He has seen us through crises before. He will not release information, that you admit may be partially or entirely unsubstantiated at the moment, that may result in panics and an economic crash that would prove even more dangerous to the United States."
"I'll go public." Wheeler's voice was insistent, something new for him, but he found that he was enjoying this new inner strength. "I'll hold a press conference, release statements to the newspapers, anything. If the President isn't willing to save lives because he's worried about his legacy, I'm not. I know how serious this is. I'll go public."
"That," the Chief of Staff said in his reedy voice, "would be a very bad mistake on your part, I think."
September 25
"...Although evidence is hard to come by, it is believed that at least ten million and up to thirty million are exhibiting what may be symptoms of the disease, while the death toll has reportedly passed the five-hundred-thousand mark. The government has refused to comment on what is being referred to as "Red Death", "Peruvian bird flu", "Captain Trips", or "Andromeda Strain", with the White House Press Secretary stating outright today that "there is no plague in the United States." What is made all the more extraordinary than its sudden, one would almost say meteoric rise, is that the disease was totally unknown before this, leaving many to speculate that it is somehow connected with the meteorite impact in Peru earlier this month, at the epicenter of the infection. The government of Peru has claimed in the United Nations that it was actually a biological weapon launched by Chile, resulting in the military flare-up between those two nations this week.
As many as half of Peru's population may have already died from the sickness, and while doctors in the United States are publicly confident that our medical and healthcare system is much more capable than that of Peru, privately a number have confessed to our reporters that the scope of the disease may be comparable to the Black Death that resulted in one third of the population of Europe being decimated in the Middle Ages."
"Frightening stuff, Diane. Turning now to domestic news, Secretary of Health and Human Services James Wheeler was found dead this morning in his Maryland home. Investigators have said that the cause of death appears to be natural. The President, speaking from an undisclosed location, released a statement of regret towards Secretary Wheeler, who he called 'a patriot of the highest degree'..."
October 1
Boise, Idaho
Oscar Santos lay bleeding outside the Bronco Stadium. He had served in the first Gulf War, and had for a time been a police officer, but had never been so much as scratched while in the line of duty. He had always felt safe at night, with his children and wife able to sleep without worrying about being blasted away like it was the San Fernando Valley outside. Of course, given what was happening, even the SFV might be a quiet enough place soon. Oscar laughed at that, and the laugh made him cough. Not the cough of the infection, although he had caught that also. No, this was the cough caused by his lungs filling with blood.
At long last, Oscar had been shot.
It had occurred during what was in retrospect his last garbage haul. Hispanics being fit for nothing better than menial tasks like garbage men was a stereotype that had no position in twenty-first century America in Oscar's mind, and he normally worked as an accountant in a nice white-collar job. All that was behind him now, of course. The local government, or what was left of it, had organized Bronco Stadium into a crematorium, hiring volunteers to collect the bodies of those fallen to the Great Pestilence to be incinerated for 'health reasons.' The news - what little got through these days, of course - was touting examples of people who were immune to the plague, survived it without a single sniffle. Oscar was not one of those people. Neither were his wife and two daughters, who had died the week before. Oscar knew he was as dead as they were, and that any attempt to try to clean up the city was most likely just the government trying to convince people
that there would be people left to enjoy the corpse-free streets. But he couldn't completely discount the possibility, and as long as it was something to do to distract him from the increasing pain of his stomach and joints...
Then, delivering a load of bodies in the garbage truck, a gang had attacked him. He was shot once in the gut, then unceremoniously dumped out of the cabin, just as his load of bodies had been. The gang - three or four of them, in the little dust masks you could get in CVS and were laughable now - had hopped in, and driven off. Oscar had no idea whether they were several immune people, or were in for one last laugh before they passed on. Neither did he really care. It figured that, even when the Day of Judgment was at hand, there were still punks who were unwilling to let decent men like him do a job that would benefit them all.
He coughed again, and more blood spilled onto the ground. Then again, he should thank them, really. Now he wouldn't need to wait the extra few days before he could see his family again.
October 5
North American Air Defense Command
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
First Lieutenant Kelly Martinez coughed as she watched the strategic overlay map that filled the entire front of NORAD's command center. The red blotches on her skin were livid, and it wouldn't be long now. The room, built to hold hundreds of soldiers and officers, contained only a handful of others. Most of them were so still and quiet that they might already be dead. Somehow, that more than anything drove home to Kelly the frightening magnitude of the situation.
Which was saying something, given what she was looking at. The United States wasn't the only nation to be going through its final days of the plague. After all, it had started in South America. And as the leaders of nations abroad had contemplated the possibility that they might be able to contain the plague outside their own borders - or worse, that their ancient enemies might be able to do so while spreading it within their own territory - and with the knowledge that the countries of North America and Western Europe were de facto gone and unable to defend their traditional allies, the political and military leaders of southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia had taken their pick.
The SARS outbreak had left the Chinese with an appreciation of how important it was to act quickly, but as with then, the population's immense size, even when limited to the initial centers of infection in Hong Kong and Shanghai, made it economically, politically, and almost physically possible to contain it. The Peru sickness was spreading like wildfire throughout the countryside and urban settings, while Taiwan had managed to isolate itself reasonable quickly. The PLA had put an end to that, just as the North Koreans had took the American distraction as their chance to force a 'reunification' with the South. In the Middle East, Israel saw its longtime protection from the West fading, and initiated pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and even its allies in Egypt and Jordan. The Arab states had replied with a biological and chemical attack on Israel. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan had not taken long to be involved in a tidy little
atomic war of their own.
If there was a humorous side to this, Kelly considered, it was that the Third World shitholes where the average life expectancy was in the thirties were the places that had been protected from this new super-plague for the longest period of time, by virtue that no one wanted to go there anyways. But even now, cases were beginning to spring up in Zimbabwe and Somalia and Uzbektistan. In the global economy, total isolation was not possible. They might last a month or two longer, but soon, even those shithole corners of the world would become plague-scrubbed waste lands.
Nor was the US itself unaffected. Christian fundamentalist terrorists welcoming the 'cleansing of the unjust' had destroyed the Cooper Nuclear Power Plant in Nebraska, releasing a Chernobyl-level blast of radiation to the area. A Native American radical had used a Vietnam-era RPG to deface Mount Rushmore. And someone had destroyed the Hoover Dam - although given what was going on, who could tell if it was intentional or not. The Acting President had given orders that all lawbreakers would be hunted down and brought to justice, but the mere fact that there was an Acting President was evidence that the government wouldn't even survive much longer within their Cold War-era bunkers. And in any case, the government's claim to maintain law and order was somewhat muddled by the fact that the last order of the old President before his death had been to execute all of the prisoners of death row and Guantanamo Bay.
Perhaps the persistence of the shithole tinpot dictatorships from the ravages of the plague wasn't the only thing that amused Kelly. The plague wasn't universally deadly. There were those who were naturally immune. Some gave the number to be five or ten out of every thousand, some three or four, others only one per thousand; but there definitely were those who were immune, and would survive the plague's decimation. No, the funny part was that, with the clouds of radiation and sarin and weaponized anthrax that everyone was hurrying to use before their own expiration date, the survivors might have a hell of a time of it. Even given the slight reprieve of Mother Nature by letting a few of her children survive the plague, humanity might still succeed in killing them off from beyond the collective grave.
As Kelly sat back in her chair in NORAD, her laugh at that was the final spasm to go through her body.
October 10
From the final issue of The New York Times
OBITUARIES
ADAMS, A.B.
ADAMS, A.C.
ADAMS, A.E.
ADAMS, A.J.
ADAMS, A.K.
ADAMS, B.P.
ADAMS, E.F.
ADAMS, F.F.
ADAMS, F.Y.
ADAMS, G.H.
ADAMS, G.I.
ADAMS, G.J. (JAKE)
ADAMS, G.J. (JOHN)
ADAMS, G.M.
ADAMS, G.P.
ADAMS, J.K.
ADAMS, J.O.
ADAMS, L.W. (LUCAS)
ADAMS, L.W. (LUKE)
ADAMS, M.O.
ADAMS, M.P.
ADAMS, P.I.
ADAMS, P.P.
ADAMS, P.S.
ADAMS, S.T.
ADAMS, T.S.
ADAMS, V.E.
ADAMS, V.F.
ADAMS, V.F.S.
ADAMS, Z
ADDAMS, A.C.
CONTINUED ON PAGES B2-D12
ADAMS, A.B.
ADAMS, A.C.
ADAMS, A.E.
ADAMS, A.J.
ADAMS, A.K.
ADAMS, B.P.
ADAMS, E.F.
ADAMS, F.F.
ADAMS, F.Y.
ADAMS, G.H.
ADAMS, G.I.
ADAMS, G.J. (JAKE)
ADAMS, G.J. (JOHN)
ADAMS, G.M.
ADAMS, G.P.
ADAMS, J.K.
ADAMS, J.O.
ADAMS, L.W. (LUCAS)
ADAMS, L.W. (LUKE)
ADAMS, M.O.
ADAMS, M.P.
ADAMS, P.I.
ADAMS, P.P.
ADAMS, P.S.
ADAMS, S.T.
ADAMS, T.S.
ADAMS, V.E.
ADAMS, V.F.
ADAMS, V.F.S.
ADAMS, Z
ADDAMS, A.C.
CONTINUED ON PAGES B2-D12
October 15
San Francisco, California
The hills of San Fran were silent. No trolleys ran today - or would, ever again. Prior to the plague, the city itself, discounting the metropolitan area, had a population of 3.2 million. Of those, all but three thousand or so had succumbed to the plague. Of the remainder, some had left the city already, and some had taken their own lives when confronted with the specter of living virtually alone afterwards - or had their lives taken from them as the last acts of people bitter and frightened by their own sickness.
Of those who still lived within the city, disease would claim many soon, as even in October the millions of undisposed bodies would begin to rot and breed pestilence. For whatever reason that had never been learned and now never would, the plague had only effected humans. Animals - from plague rats to carrion vultures to microscopic bacteria - had escaped unharmed. Beyond that, wind patterns would soon drive clouds containing the radioactive and bio-weapon laced clouds from the final flashpoint wars of Asia over the American coast.
For those who escaped disease, attempts to find food would eventually drive them from the city. Those who remained would be little more than final custodians in what had become one of the world's largest cemetaries. Even now, with those few thousand still scattered among the city, San Francisco was still as quiet as a tomb. No one remained to operate its electrical plants. No one remained to drive its cars or operate its trolleys. Its naval facilities and airports remained static, already beginning to rust on a microscopic level. Other than the odd rat or dog tearing flesh from a decomposing corpse, or the flutter of a scrap of newspaper down a street along the breeze from the sea, San Francisco had already become what it would be for the rest of eternity: a ghost town, a monument to a race that had become all but extinct within the matter of a month.
October 20
Juneau, Alaska
"For fuck's sake, at last," Fred Gibson grunted angrily, scaling the last hillock of ice in his 'borrowed' Sno-Cat. It had taken him five extra days to get here, but he finally had arrived - and he was pissed. He had spent his normal month in the wilderness, immersed in nature for just long enough to fortify him for the return to the daily slog back home at the University of Miami. However, when he had returned to the ranger station on the edge of the preserve he had been on, no one had been there. The entire shack had been locked up tight and boarded up. Someone had apparently disconnected the emergency phone there, also, as it hadn't worked. So Fred had tried his own radio, but apparently, for the first time ever, that was broken - it had seemed to turn on just fine, but it only picked up static. Or maybe its broadcasting capability had been damaged. In any case, it didn't seem able to pick up any transmissions. So he had gone to several other ranger
stations nearby, but it had all been the same story. Finally, at the least, he had found one with ice vehicles still there, and he had managed to 'liberate' his present Sno-Cat and set course for Juneau.
Now, however, his anger was beginning to give way to a vague sense of unease. Juneau had a population of about thirty thousand; small in relation to Miami, but big for Alaska, and this close to its outskirts, he should be able to hear some noise or sign of city life. No cars seemed to be running, no one seemed to be blaring any loud music, and although it was still Alaskan day, there didn't seem to be any lights on. His unease grew and grew, until finally, by the time he saw his first corpse on the road, sprawling half-out of the driver's seat of an SUV, he had mentally prepared for some kind of disaster. Still, he turned off the Sno-Cat, jumping out to get a first-hand look. Down the street a bit more, a car had crashed into a corner store, and now that he was out of the cabin of the vehicle, he could smell a hint of smoke in the air, as if a fire had raged across town.
Going over to the sidewalk, Fred smashed open a newspaper box, pulling out a copy of the local Juneau Empire newspaper. It was dated almost two weeks ago, and the headline - the words slightly jumbled and out of alignment, as if whoever had set them had been in a hurry - simply read:
GOD HELP US ALL
Over the next hour, Fred read and re-read the paper a dozen times, getting a quick rundown on the end of the world. Some mystery virus that apparently came from some meteorite in Bolivia - why did that sound familiar, somehow? - and before it could be contained, spread across the entire world. Only a few people out of every thousand were immune. Looting and rioting in the major cities, actual nuclear war in Asia and the Middle East. A reflexive last gasp of the pinnacle of human achievement and development.
Fred sat there, his ass in the dirty snow, for a long time. Finally, he put the newspaper down and stood up. He had obviously survived - and even if he just hadn't been exposed before, and now only had a week or so to live, so what? There were survivors, according to the newspaper, and that was good enough for him. His objective had become clear in an instant. Sarah might also be alive, and he would go to her. Never mind that she was in Miami, about as far as you could get from Juneau while still being in the US, and that things like airplanes and trains and highways were probably no longer in the most ideal of conditions, so to speak.
From its population, Juneau probably had at least a few dozen survivors. Knowing what the typical Alaskan was like even in good times, Fred didn't feel quite like standing up and shouting to announce his presence. And even now, perhaps especially now, he didn't think they would take kindly to strangers rifling through their stuff. So, stealthily then, his immediate goals would be to get a car decent for long range driving up here, stock it up with as much food and gas as he could find - at least enough to make it to the nearest city - and then head south. South and east, probably, along Route 1 into British Columbia, towards Terrace or Prince Rupert or whichever city was closest. If he could make it at least that far, he would be able to get more supplies, before heading south. Hopefully he could skirt the desert and Rocky Mountains, and before too long, he would be back in the good ol' US of A. From there, it was but a mainline to Miami.
At least, he hoped so, but he suspected it would be just a bit more difficult than all of that. He shrugged, and got back into the Sno-Cat, going slowly down the street, looking for a suitable car to appropriate. It might take longer than he had anticipated and even now he was steeling himself for the fact that it might be one big colossal waste of time, but so what? He had all the time in the world, now.
