A New World: Untold Stories (11 page)

That’s odd for this time of the morning, even with the sickness.

Normally, the streets would begin filling with cars carrying commuters who are attempting to beat the rush hour, especially with this being the last work day of the week. Along with the empty roads, the sidewalks are also bare of the usual pedestrian traffic.

Driving down the avenue leading to the freeway onramp, he feels a momentary surge of panic. He wonders if he may have missed a day and that last night was actually Friday.

Shit. I should have waxed the floors rather than mopping them.

He quickly glances at the watch that’s been with him for a number of years, another of his luxury purchases.

No, today is Friday. Did he miss a holiday? No, those are usually on Monday.

Shrugging, feeling relieved that he didn’t miss anything that would jeopardize his job, he turns onto the onramp and enters the freeway. The sun breaks over the hills and casts its rays across the brown landscape. The light shines brightly through his windshield causing him to blink with its radiance. A large crack, spreading across the entirety of the windshield, catches the beams and throws off small prisms of light.

Driving down the mostly empty road, he notes there are a few commuters speeding by in the other lanes. He imagines they are probably happy that they don’t have to contend with the usual early morning crowds. Without much to occupy his mind, Carlos wonders if the number of emergency vehicles he saw during his shift might have something to do with the lack of cars on the freeway.

Arriving at the turnoff for his shack, he pushes the events of the evening, and what they might portend, to the back of his mind. All he wants is to get home, find something to eat, and try to sleep through the heat of the day.

Sitting down with a meager dinner, he turns on the radio perched on the wobbly table. Turning through the stations, he finds that each one mentions attacks in the surrounding cities throughout the night by unknown assailants.

Having lived in the area for some time, he’s used to the occasional protests in the city by different elements. It’s certainly not what they experience down in the LA region, but they do sometimes get out of control. Perhaps what he saw was a small group branching off from some protest. That would explain the number of emergency vehicles. To an extent, it explains the attacks he witnessed, if not how they came about. It may even explain the lack of cars. Perhaps people were too worried about the continuing protests to venture into the city. Turning off the radio, he pulls the blackout curtains over the windows and falls asleep.

Later, preparing to drive into work, he tunes in the radio again. The focus of the evening show is on the attacks of the preceding night, telling of numerous, but without an exact number of casualties. The announcer cuts into several recordings made earlier.

“…we don’t think we’re witnessing a new form of terrorist activities, but we haven’t ruled that out as yet. The fact that we’re seeing this outbreak across the nation, and the sheer ferocity of the attacks, may point to something larger. What that may be, we aren’t sure at this time.”

More reports mention numerous break-ins, death tolls in the thousands, and some mention cannibalism.

“More on this as we continue to get updates,” the DJ says and goes on to list the number of reported dead from the flu, just as he does every evening since the sickness arrived.

Kids and their drugs
, Carlos thinks, filling his thermos.

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Sitting in his usual comfortable chair, Carlos looks out over the city. The binoculars will stay in the bag, but he’ll still watch. Across the city, there are still a number of emergency vehicles running through the streets, but not as many as the previous night. Near the San Francisco entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge, there is a concentration of flashing red and blue lights.

Curious, Carlos ventures to another executive office which affords him a better view of the bay. Near a long span that connects the city with Oakland, there is another concentration of emergency vehicles gathered. Across the bay, moonlight casts its rays on the water, highlighting cresting waves in silver ribbons. Near the Golden Gate Bridge, the city’s most prominent landmark, a fog bank hangs densely near the large suspension bridge, illuminated under the moonbeams like a solid silver wall.

Protesters must be blocking the bridges
, he thinks, settling into another chair.

A series of bright flashes roll across the Golden Gate Bridge, lighting up the waters far below and the surrounding hills. Following the flashes, large flames of orange and yellow boil outward, fading quickly and leaving the darkness of night behind. Carlos sits up, his breath caught in his throat. Seconds later, a blast of wind crashes against the windows, bowing them in and out in waves. A rumbling shakes the building and then, everything becomes still.

In the bright light of the moon, Carlos watches as the central span slowly tumbles into the waters below. Before he can react further, another series of exploding lights rocks the bridge to Oakland, knocking main sections into the chill waters of the bay.

Carlos comes out of the chair, staring at the madness below, not believing what he is seeing. Without waiting to see what further events transpire, he hurriedly leaves the office. He has one goal in mind, his kids.

He knows that when something as outrageous as this happens, things have gone way out of control. The more extreme the event, the more unruly things have become. Knocking the Golden Gate Bridge down is about as extreme as one can get.

Passing the buffing machine in the hall, he grabs his bag. Making sure he has his keys, he boards the elevator for the long ride down. He doesn’t bother clocking out as he knows his job ended the moment the first charges went off.

Starting the truck, he drives down the avenues, narrowly avoiding several groups who have charged into the streets. Screams, unheard from his safe perch atop the Transamerica building, erupt all around, and are perceived above the roar of the truck engine. He’s driven into madness, but nothing will stop him from getting out of town and to his kids. Several groups pound into the side of his truck as he passes, but he’s through them before they can slow him.

The lights are out as he arrives at his brother’s house. He leaves the engine running and pauses, thinking about what he witnessed just a little while before. His heart races as the images of the night cycle through his mind. There were several times when he heard people pleading for him to stop and help, but he kept his foot on the gas pedal.

Exiting his truck, he notices one of the front room lights come on. The door opens and his brother appears on the small concrete porch.

“Get the kids up. Something terrible has happened,” he says, barely able to speak with fear and dread filling him.

“Carlos. What’s wrong?” his brother asks in Spanish.

“There’s no time to explain. Get the kids, pack up what you can, and follow me,” Carlos replies.

His brother hesitates for a moment, but knows Carlos isn’t prone to panic. If Carlos is frightened, then there’s a good reason. Without another word, his brother turns and goes inside, his shouting heard from outside. With his sleepy-eyed kids in the truck, Carlos drives to his place with his brother following in his own beaten-up truck.

At his house, Carlos and his brother begin piling all of the belongings they can carry into the trucks, adding food and water. Carlos checks several of the fuel canisters around the house to make sure they’re full and adds them to the bed of the pickup.

Shooing his kids’ questions and complaints, Carlos heads back to the freeway, turning south rather than his usual turn to the north. Retirement or not, he knows when things have broken loose. With the killings he’s witnessed and the bridges being blown, he wants no part of what is happening. Checking that he has an almost full tank, and with the full gas cans in the rear, he’s headed back to his hometown in Mexico. If things calm down, he has his documents and he’ll return. He may not have his current job upon his return, but there are always others.

# # #

Carlos, his brother, and his kids made it to the border as things were breaking loose. They never made it to their village, having discovered quickly that the night runners held sway. They drove into the hills where they eked out a living, foraging from nearby crops. The meager game in the area provided some sustenance.

Andrea and Felisa huddle around the antique oak dining table. A late afternoon sun shines through partially opened curtains hanging limply over a window. The nice day outside, coupled with a scenic view across farm fields and vineyards, is in direct contrast to the somber mood within.

Seated along the other side of the table are two of their children, Donato and Mirella. Mirella just turned nine with Donato a year younger. As she unenthusiastically ladles beans and rice out of an iron pot, Felisa holds on to
Davide
, their baby son. Andrea takes a sip of water, the liquid still warm from being boiled, as he waits for his meager helpings.

The electricity went out some time ago, but thankfully they have a wood burning stove as that’s what Felisa likes to bake her bread with. Each day, Andrea heads out to gather wood that has become quite the chore lately, sapping most of his energy just to bring in a few of the split pieces. Thankfully, they have a large amount of wood already cut as he doesn’t know if he could swing the axe more than a few times. Everything anymore seems like a chore...even eating.

Andrea looks across the table toward Donato and Mirella, his heart sick with worry. They’ve all lost weight in the past weeks and their faces are gaunt, but that’s not what is causing his greatest worry. It’s their sunken eyes, black circles forming underneath. And their eyes, once filled with joy and laughter, look haunted with very little life left. He looks at Felisa next to him, her hair once thick, dark, and beautiful, now thin with clumps missing. The most sickening part is that he doesn’t know what to do for them.

The illness, dubbed the Cape Town virus, had taken its toll in the cities, but it didn’t seem to affect them in the countryside, at least at first. He’d heard the stories of the masses in the surrounding town sick and many not showing up for work. The huge death toll the news had been reporting seemed unlikely to Andrea. He just hadn’t seen that and had a biased opinion of the news. However, that didn’t stop him and Felisa from taking the kids out of school until the pandemic eased. That was up until a few weeks ago when the exodus started out of the cities.

He watched out of the windows or from the fields as the normally empty highways running along the edge of his farm began filling with vehicles of all types. They were coming from the larger, inland cities and heading west toward the coast. All were packed with possessions, some tied to the roofs, trunks stuffed and tied down, pickup beds filled to the point of tipping over.

When the jams became so heavy that traffic stalled to the point of becoming a parking lot, Andrea put down his tools and walked to the fence line to gather a little information about what was going on. There, several families told him that a new strain of rabies had hit the towns, apparently stemming from the virus. Those infected had turned on the others and started attacking, which resulted in numerous deaths. Overnight, many of the cities had been turned into ghost towns with the dead lying in the streets.

Andrea had said nothing, thinking the stories ridiculous and more than likely either fabricated or embellished with their having been handed down through several parties.

I mean, how do you get rabies from a flu virus? There’s only one way to get rabies and that’s from a carrier
, he thought at the time.

However, there must be something drastic happening for so many to be fleeing. Talking with several families that were stalled adjacent to his land, he noted several ill in the cars. For the most part, they only leaned back in the seats listlessly and stared out of the windows. When asked where they were heading, most mentioned that they were heading to the coast. They hadn’t a clue what they would do once they arrived except wait for whatever was happening to blow over.

“At least we won’t be in the city,” one driver had said.

Some talked about heading to Salerno and taking one of the ferries out of there. Andrea had listened and naysayed suggestions that he and his family also pack and head west. Most of the things that happen in the cities don’t affect them in the county, so he wished them well and went back to work. The traffic jam slowly resolved itself and moved on, the road clearing and becoming empty once again.

That was some time ago and, except for the occasional family slowly heading past with carts full of belongings, and the very rare car passing by, they haven’t seen anything since. For several days following, he expected the exodus to reverse itself with everyone heading back into the cities. That never happened. The TV and radio programs went off the air, and then the electricity failed. Andrea and his family went about their business like they did every day, with Andrea in the fields,
Felisa
minding
Davide
, and spending some time teaching the kids to keep them up with their studies.

It wasn’t until recently that things began to slide downhill, and quickly. At first, Andrea noticed more hair in the sink where they washed up. With the electricity gone, the well pump failed and he had to cart the water in by hand, heating it on the wood stove. Then the lethargic feeling began to steal over him. Tasks which he once did without effort or thought left him feeling spent and exhausted. Over time, that had only worsened.

The clink of a ladle against his bowl drags him out of his remembrance. He looks to Felisa and gives her a smile, or at least what he thinks of as one. He feels stinging sensations as his dry lips crack with the effort. He also knows his smile isn’t what it used to be with a couple of his teeth having fallen out. Felisa stares at him, her tired eyes reflecting the fear and worry that Andrea holds within.

They have plenty of food and a well. The canned food, they rid themselves of some time ago after figuring out what was happening. That wasn’t difficult to determine once their hair start falling out in clumps. Andrea gathered up the cans and buried them in an adjacent field. Since then, they’ve been eating from the sacks of beans and rice they kept on hand, along with some preserved food that
Felisa
made. She also baked bread, but that has become rare. Several times, they’ve all headed out to harvest from a few nearby orchards and vineyards but that, along with everything else, has become a chore that saps much of their meager energy. There hasn’t been any meat as the only livestock in the area are rotting in the fields.

Not feeling remotely hungry and worried about losing another tooth, he forces himself to slowly chew the meal. Just having his mouth full of food makes him nauseous. He forces it down and runs a tongue along the inside of his mouth to check that he hasn’t lost another one. There isn’t a word spoken throughout. There’s just the late sun shining in a ribbon of light across the table, the scraping of plastic spoons in the bowls, and the clunk of a water glass being set down.

Andrea’s heart freezes at the sight of Mirella’s glass. As she sets it down, there is a little redness to it that mixes and fades. A pinkish drop of water slowly dribbles down the side. His nausea and worry increase. If there was just something he could do, but he doesn’t know where to go that would be safe. They have food and water but he knows it’s the air that’s poisoning them.

How can you live when the very air you breathe is poison? Where could we go?
Andrea thinks, staring at a spoonful of rice and beans, dreading having to put it into his mouth.

“Andrea?” Felisa says, as if reading his mind and laying an arm on his. “We can’t stay here. We have to leave.”

Andrea looks from her hand on his arm, into her worried eyes, and down to his sleeping infant son. He’s like that most days anymore, sleeping. Only waking long enough to eat and then he’s back out. His cries that once kept them awake at nights, or echoed through the small house when his world wasn’t perfect, are now only whimpers, and weak ones at that.

Felisa
stopped breastfeeding a short while ago knowing that her own body was poisoned. It may not help overall, but it was the only thing she could think of. Luckily, they had a lot of formula, at least until it expired, but that wasn’t for some time.

“I know,” he replies dejectedly. “But where do we go? You’ve head the tales from the cities and saw the traffic. We haven’t seen anyone returning from the west. What if the infection is still out there?”

“It’s not about that, Andrea. We may not have seen anyone in some time, but we can’t stay here. It’s certain death if we do. Davide and the kids need clean food and water…they need clean air. You know what’s happening to us here. If we don’t leave, we’ll all die. Please, Andrea, we need to leave,” Felisa says, pleading.

“You’re right. We need to do something. Even if things don’t turn out well, it’s certain death here. Okay, hon, I’ll go see if the car will start. We’ll head west to the coast. Maybe some of those who passed by have set up camps and the air is clean there,” Andrea tiredly says.

“Thanks, Andrea,” Felisa says, attempting a smile and removing her hand.

A small bead of blood forms from Felisa’s cracked lips. If Andrea had the capability of crying at this point, he would have.

“You and the kids finish your dinner and start packing. We’ll leave in the morning.”

Andrea rises and shuffles out of the door. They’ve all tried to keep as clean as possible, but Andrea and Felisa have forgone their baths, allowing the warm water they heat to be used by the kids. At best, they’ve both cleaned with a cloth at the sink, occasionally washing their hair as well. The odor that follows him out tells of his lack of bathing. However, there is another smell underneath…more rank.

Opening the front door, the outside, although still warm, is almost refreshing. When they figured out what was happening, Andrea put towels along the window ledges and on the floor by the outside doors. This and the fact that they kept the windows closed at all times led to a stuffy environment inside. However, the interior atmosphere wasn’t only the result of the closed doors and windows.

Stepping off the porch, Andrea knows the pleasant air is a lie. The sun shining across the fields, the majestic view of the hills around them, the freshness of the slight breeze…all a lie.

His legs feel rubbery as he crosses the short distance to the open garage next to the house. Dust covers the top of their older model car, partially hiding the blue paint. The door creaks as Andrea opens it. Built up heat pours from inside and the seats are hot as he slides in. Being surrounded by so much metal worries him, but he can’t imagine that any of them have the energy to walk far. They’ll have to take the risk and abandon the vehicle when they reach an encampment, or someplace safe. He has to hold onto that ideal.

Fumbling with the keys, almost dropping them to the floor several times, he finds the right one and inserts it into the ignition. Turning it, nothing happens. There’s not even a hint of juice trying to turn the starter. The battery, weak to begin with, is now nothing more than an oversized paperweight.

No, it’s not even a paperweight. At least a paperweight has a function
.

Pulling himself out of the car, the very action tiring him further, he shambles to the hood latch. Raising the hood, he stares at the motor and wires hoping that something obvious shows itself. From what he can see, it looks fine. Wiggling the battery cables, he tries to start the engine again with the same result. They aren’t going anywhere in the car in its present condition.

Lowering the hood but not latching it, he ambles back inside. The kids stare listlessly into their half-eaten bowls. Felisa, trying to wake Davide to feed him some formula, looks up. Andrea shakes his head.

“The battery is dead,” he comments without emotion.

“Paolo up the road has a few vehicles. Can we go see if he has any to spare? I’m sure he won’t mind,” Felisa says, waking Davide to the point of him whimpering.

“That’s a mile away,” Andrea says, tired just thinking of having to walk.

Just a while ago, that wouldn’t have seemed like anything. He had worked his fields every day, walking everywhere. He had been in shape in a wiry, conditioned kind of way. He rarely tired from exertion. Now, just the thought of exerting himself beyond sitting is exhausting.

“I’ll take the wheelbarrow, but it’ll take me a while to get there and back. Let the kids finish eating and then start packing,” Andrea continues.

“Okay. And Andrea…thank you,” Felisa says, getting Davide to finally take a bottle of formula.

Andrea nods his reply and exits.

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The wheelbarrow is immeasurably heavy as he trudges down the dirt road toward Paolo’s. Even with nothing in it, it seems like he’s pushing a square boulder down the lane. Andrea’s shuffling steps kick up dust and the sun shining from the west seems overly bright. He focuses on one step at a time, knowing that each one is getting him closer to his destination.

He has to rest frequently, sitting beside wide ditches on both sides of the lane, the fields beyond filled with overgrown grass bending slightly in a small breeze. His progress is so slow that he wonders if he’ll make the two-mile round trip before dark. The walk to Paolo’s is one that should only take him fifteen minutes at the longest, but he’s already been on the road for far longer than that and he doubts if he’s halfway there. Needing a rest and with a sigh, he sets the wheelbarrow down. Now that he and Felisa have made the decision to leave, he wants to be gone. He shouldn’t have waited but really, who knew?