Jakarta Pandemic, The (21 page)

“Not really. They have everything you’d find in a camp, but no food or stuff like that. I know he has enough firewood to keep the stove going forever, and a well, but that wouldn’t work if the electricity died. He does have a propane tank for hot water and the stove.”

“We can keep it in mind. We can definitely get there on a single tank of gas.”

“Probably,” Kate said.

“Well, anyway, I won’t push the issue with my parents. God knows I’ve pushed it enough.”

Kate squeezed his hand, and he hugged her tightly.

“I think we made all of the offers we needed to make. I don’t feel guilty at all about it. If they come, we’ll have to deal with it. Within a few weeks, we’re going to have all the guilt we can handle around here,” she said, and they both headed down the stairs.

Chapter Seventeen

Friday, November 8, 2013

Ryan and Alex sat side by side on the edge of a dark brown couch, several feet in front of a large LCD screen TV. Alex was perched forward, intensely studying the screen. Both of them held Xbox controllers.

“Don’t do it, Dad. Use the remote optics on the rifle,” his son warned him.

“I got it. I…shit! There’s no way they could hit me,” he yelled, flying back into the couch.

“I told you to quit peeking around corners. Use the gun camera. If you lose your rifle, you can pick up another one, or use your secondary,” Ryan explained.

“But I was quick peeking,” he complained, demonstrating with his head, moving it back and forth quickly.

“Everyone knows that trick,” Ryan quipped.

“Can we reset to right before I got my head splattered? I don’t feel like fighting through the entire shopping mall again,” Alex pled.

The smartphone on the table next to the couch began to ring.

“Hold on, Ryan,” he said, grabbing for the phone and answering the call. “Hey, Mike, did they pepper spray you yet?”

“Go ahead without me, Ryan,” he told his son, and Ryan nodded his head affirmatively.

Alex got up and walked down the stairs from the third floor to his home office as Mike responded.

“No, not yet, but probably soon. I just resigned about twenty minutes ago. I’m headed back up the turnpike.”

“What happened, man? You don’t sound good,” Alex said.

“I’m fine. I just can’t believe I quit my job. Still in shock, I guess. Anyway, it was unbelievable down there. So get this. I wake up this morning and head down to breakfast at the Courtyard Marriot, and I run into one of the reps from Vermont, who’s also temp assigned to the area, and she’s hacking up a lung all over the fruit station. I made sure not to go anywhere near her. She sits down at a table with three other reps, and one of the guys looks like they just dug him out of his grave to work.”

“Which could very likely be a new official Biosphere policy,” Alex joked, causing Mike to burst out laughing.

“No shit, man. So I really start to rethink this whole thing. These people were fine at the beginning of the week. I remember seeing them at the orientation meeting. Now they look like extras from
Night of the Living Dead
. So I head out to my assigned area and start to make some office calls. Every office is like a scene from a zombie flick. I went into an internal med office in Methuen and walked right the fuck out. Three people in the waiting room were hacking and groaning. I’m not kidding, it was unreal. I sat in my car for a while thinking this over, after nearly taking a bath in hand sanitizer. I hope Biosphere didn’t cheap out on that stuff like they do everything else.”

“Have you been wearing a mask and gloves?” Alex asked.

“At first, but you feel like a complete douche bag walking into an office with a mask on your face. The gloves aren’t so bad, but what’s the point? If you touch your eyes or mouth with the gloves on, it doesn’t matter. The gloves only work if you throw them away after each office and don’t touch your face while you’re still in the office. I quit using them after day one. My hands are so dry from washing and using sanitizer that I could use them as sandpaper.”

“Dude, I’m glad you’re on your way home. Load up your cars, and caravan out to Colleen’s parents in North Conway. The number of cases is exploding. Did you talk to Michelle?”

“No, I talked to Ted. He didn’t take it very well. He wanted me to get in touch with the district manager down here and transfer my samples to her. I told him that I was already halfway home and would drop the stuff off at my storage locker for him to inventory.”

“You better recon the parking lot at the storage locker. He might be there waiting for you. And tell your wife to keep the door locked. Did you tell her what happened to Kate?”

“Yeah, she couldn’t believe it. Shit, how am I going to caravan out to North Conway if Ted repo’s my car?”

“Just pack up a load today and drive it out there tonight. It’s only a few hours away. Even if you only had one car, you could make multiple trips. Gas is still available everywhere for the moment. I’d make as many trips as you can with the company car and charge the gas to Biosphere,” Alex suggested.

“Yeah, that’s true. I keep thinking in terms of just making one final trip.”

“A few weeks from now, it might be a different story. One trip might be all you get,” Alex said.

“From what I saw down in Boston, that version of the story isn’t too far away. We were briefed by a Biosphere exec during a working breakfast yesterday. He proudly announced that Boston has one of the fastest growing numbers of cases. Almost three thousand confirmed cases so far, and the number of cases is expected to reach fifteen thousand by early next week. And that only takes into account the cases confirmed by a hospital lab. I saw at least twenty potential cases this morning alone and that’s just in a few offices. Not even big offices. I think this thing is about to break wide open.”

“How’s Colleen doing? Today’s Falmouth’s last day, right?” Alex asked.

“She’s relieved to get out of there. She didn’t want to call in sick or make up a story, but with the cases floating around the Falmouth schools, she was starting to get hysterical. She’s been off since Wednesday with the kids.”

“Good, good. Where are you now?” Alex asked.

“I’m coming up on the New Hampshire toll. I should be home in about an hour or so. Do you think I should skip the storage unit?”

“Do a drive-by and see. If he’s not there, I’d get the samples out of your possession. You don’t want him coming to your house looking for them. And make sure to tell him to stay clear of your house. You can tell him I’ll be over there showing you my favorite shotgun,” Alex said, laughing.

“I’m gonna buy him some pepper spray as a farewell present,” Mike said, laughing as well.

“I already took care of that,” Alex choked, barely able to get the words out through his own laughter.

“Hey, I gotta let you go. I’m gonna call Colleen and set this plan in motion.”

“All right, man, good luck and take good care. Okay?”

“You got it, man, same to you. Say hi to Kate and the kids for me. Salud.”

He put the phone in the front pocket of his jeans and returned to the attic to rejoin Ryan.

Chapter Eighteen

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Someone shook Alex’s right shoulder, and he involuntarily catapulted back into consciousness, hoping everything was all right. His eyelids felt heavy, and he was disoriented as he slowly opened his eyes. The room was dark, but not pitch black like the middle of the night. He heard the wind buffet the front of the bedroom, rattling the screens, as furious gusts of wind and rain blew in from the north. He turned his head to face Kate, the likely source of his premature awakening.

“You awake?” she asked as his eyes adjusted to her face.

“I am now. What’s up?”

For a moment, he perked up at the idea that she might have woken him up for sex.

“I think the power’s out,” she said. “I was going to get up and do the treadmill, but I don’t think the batteries are giving the house any power. Don’t you need to switch over the power?”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I thought you wanted to do me,” he grumbled and rolled over to grab his wristwatch off the nightstand. It read 6:42 a.m. He rolled back onto his stomach.

“You’re going to switch the power over. Right?”

Alex didn’t move. “You’re serious?”

“Uh, yeah. I committed to working out every day, and…I’d like to work out today. This morning,” she said.

“Right now?”

“Within the next fifteen minutes or so. I don’t want to have to worry about it later.”

“Because we have so much planned?” he said, laughing.

“I just like to exercise in the morning. Will you please go down and switch over the power? I’ll make it worth your while later tonight,” she promised, caressing his thigh under the sheets.

He flung off the covers and stood up out of bed, stretching his arms and yawning. “You better make this worthwhile,” he said. “I’m thinking one-way massage and another one-way activity.”

“Can’t I get a little massage, too?” she begged.

“We’ll see. It’ll be based on your performance.” He grinned devilishly and walked over to the closet.

“Hey, that’s sexual harassment.”

“Take it up with management,” he quipped.

“Great,” she said, throwing him a sarcastic smile.

**

Alex hung up the phone and yelled up the stairs to Kate.

“Honey, the Murrays are on their way over. They’re headed out to New York.”

He arrived at the bottom of the stairs as Kate appeared at the top.

“Right now?”

“Yeah. He said they were closing up the house. They should be here in a minute.”

“I can’t believe they’re leaving. I’m gonna throw on a sweatshirt. I’ll be right down,” she said and disappeared.

Alex heard her yell to the kids as he opened the front door. He took a few steps and glanced at the Thorntons’ house.

Wonder what that nutcase is up to?

The Murrays’ convoy materialized from behind the Thorntons’ house and glided around the corner, headed in Alex’s direction. As they approached, he saw Greg in the lead, driving their red four-door Honda Accord, and Carolyn picking up the rear in a black Honda Odyssey. Both vehicles had large, squat Yakima top carriers attached to the roof racks.

He walked back toward the top of his driveway and stopped near the walkway as the two cars pulled into the left side of the driveway. Greg opened the door of his car and hopped out. Alex heard the minivan doors slide open, and the kids burst out onto the driveway. They ran by him on their way toward the house.

“Hi, kids,” Alex said, mostly to himself.

Kate intercepted them in front of the mudroom door and redirected them through the garage to the backyard. Alex heard her say something about snacks and drinks on the picnic table.

“Loaded down for war here, I see,” Alex observed.

“Yeah, we’ll probably get eight miles per gallon,” Greg said ruefully.

“So how are you escaping from National Semi?”

“Vacation. I have over three weeks on the books since we never made it out to see Carolyn’s sister in Virginia. They encourage us to use it up before the end of the year, and sales have been great this year.”

Carolyn walked up to the two of them.

“How did you end up driving the loony wagon?” Alex asked her.

“I drew the short straw. We’re gonna switch every couple of hours, supposedly. We’re hoping the trip won’t take much longer than eight hours, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Plus, they have every electronic distraction available at Best Buy to keep them busy. Sorry we can’t stay too long, Alex.”

Alex stepped out of her way and motioned to the mudroom door. “No worries. We understand. Really. What’s important is that you guys get over to New York safely. Kate’s got all the kids out back. Dosing them up with sugary drinks and high fructose corn syrup snacks.”

“Somehow I doubt there’s any high fructose corn syrup in that entire house,” Carolyn said, as she walked through the garage to the door accessing the backyard.

“Sorry about your job, Alex. That really sucks.”

“I’m not sorry at all. That job had a limited half-life. Biosphere really sucked as a company, and my boss was clueless. He’s about six years younger than me, and all he ever talked about was Biosphere. This is all he’s ever done since college. I’ll miss the pay, but that’s about it.”

“Hey, maybe you could take your story to the Portland Paper. They’d love it. Local hero stands up to big pharma. You could sell them all your juicy stories about the pharmaceutical industry.”

“Unfortunately, there’s not much to sell, and the last thing I want to do is draw any attention to myself. Hey, before I forget, let me give you the TerraFlu samples we talked about. I’m giving you enough for twelve courses of therapy, which should cover everyone in your parents’ house,” Alex said, walking toward the garage. He turned around. “Remember, if anyone—”

“I know. If anyone shows flu symptoms, make sure we all take them. Got it,” Greg interrupted.

Alex laughed, grabbed a small plastic shopping bag filled with TerraFlu samples from a shelf near the mudroom door and handed them to Greg, who had followed him into the garage.

“What did you tell the kids about the trip?”

“Not much. Just that we’re going to visit my parents for a few weeks. I think the boys know what’s going on, but the girls really have no idea.”

“Yeah, same thing happening in our house, though I don’t think even Ryan really understands what this might mean for us.
I
probably don’t fully understand it.”

“No kidding. I keep thinking—hoping—that we’ll be able to come back in a few weeks. It still hasn’t sunk in that we might be gone for a lot longer. Carolyn said that it might take months to produce a vaccine.”

“Longer maybe,” Alex said grimly.

They spent the next ten minutes watching the kids run around the backyard before Carolyn and Greg reluctantly directed all of their kids back to their assigned seats in the cars. They all walked around the side of the garage to the driveway, and Kate helped Carolyn get her kids settled into the minivan as Emily and Ryan said goodbye and started to walk back up the driveway to their house. Alex walked over to the open sliding door on the right side of the minivan and poked his head in. He passed Kate, who was walking up the driveway to stand with their kids on the brick walkway next to the front light post.