The Last Town on Earth (24 page)

Silence. The ranks of passing millworkers had thinned, and now only a few stragglers passed them on the road. The first spittle of an approaching rain began to fall.

Rankle said, “Yeah. I think so, too.” It was clear: no one had been sick before the soldier had come to town, and now contagion was rampant.

Mo didn’t know what he thought, tell the truth, but he gave a sort of nod crossed with a shrug.

“So what do we do about it?” Graham asked.

“Graham,” Rankle said, his gray eyes steadily aimed at his friend, “we just gotta hold tight and hope things turn out okay.”

“You don’t have any family that can get sick, Jarred.”

Rankle squared his shoulders. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not taking any stupid risks, Graham. I’m just trying to keep you from taking any.”

Graham looked away again. “I’m not taking any risks. I just don’t plan on standing around while everyone around me starts dying.”

“
One
person has died. Even if more people do get sick, we don’t know anyone’s going to die.”

Rankle and Graham looked at each other evenly.

“Wish this town hadn’t dried up,” Mo said to break the tension as the rain became steady. “I could use a drink.”

But then he seemed to remember too late that both his companions had given up drink after their past tragedies. He stammered a bit, a brief and unintelligible mumble.

“Yeah,” Rankle sighed, not seeming to mind. “Me, too.”

“I should head home, fellas,” Graham said. “I have to see to Amelia and the baby.”

“All right,” Rankle said, eying his friend with concern. “Take care of yourself.”

“You two both.” Graham nodded at them, then walked off.

It was dark when Elsie flipped the
OPEN
/
CLOSED
sign in the front window, her tired eyes reflected back at her.

The shelves in Metzger’s General Store had never looked so barren. A couple hours ago she had helped her father bring up everything from the cellar, so whatever sat in the aisles was all that was left. At this rate, the store would be emptied in less than a week.

“I think everyone knows we’re running low,” Alfred said, apparently reading his daughter’s thoughts, “so they’re hurrying to buy what they can before it’s too late.”

“Do we have much at home?”

“We’ll get by.”

At the desk, Flora coughed again. She looked dazed, her posture less commanding than usual. She coughed again, cupping her hand in front of her mouth. After she stopped, Flora left her hand by her face, her fingers caressing the side of her nose, tracing the rim of her eye sockets.

“Are you feeling well, Mother?”

After a second, Flora responded, “No, dear, I don’t believe I am.”

V

P
hilip let out a long sigh, exhausted by his first day back in the world. It was after dinner and he was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, his fingers laced behind his head. As strange and terrible as that day had been, he found himself thinking neither about the flu nor about Frank. He was thinking about Elsie.

He wanted to thank her for the letter she’d left him at the storage building, for the bright light she’d shone on his dark stay in the prison. But he didn’t know how he would say this, even as Frank’s words about kissing her rang in his ears. She had written that she didn’t blame him for letting Frank into town, but would she change her mind when she learned that the flu had been let loose in Commonwealth? Philip was too afraid to find out, which was why he hadn’t ventured over to pay a visit to the Metzgers.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he said, sitting up.

In walked Laura, carrying a small satchel. “Hi,” she said, closing the door behind her. Then she reached into the satchel and took out two of the fighter-pilot books, one of which Philip himself hadn’t read. He would never read it, he had already decided.

“Thought I’d bring these back,” she said. Philip shrugged, then rose from the bed and opened his closet door. After the books were safely buried beneath a baseball glove, Philip resumed his position on the bed. Laura sat on the edge.

“Everybody at school’s scared,” she told him. “Mom’s even thinking about closing it down for a while.”

“Are any kids sick?”

She shook her head. “But I heard Mom and Dad talking about which men from the mill are sick, and three of them have kids at school. The kids could catch it from them.”

They were silent for a short while.

“Did people at school talk about me while I was…gone?” Philip asked.

“Sure, a little bit. It was pretty big news and all.”

“Were people angry at me?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“For letting the soldier in.”

Laura shrugged. “I don’t think anybody blamed you.”

“But now people are getting sick.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Thanks for the cornbread while I was in there, by the way.”

“Welcome.”

“Frank says you’re a good cook.”

“So is he really a spy?”

Philip looked at her. “You aren’t supposed to know about that.”

“I can keep secrets.”

“You keeping any other secrets I should know about?” He was thinking of Elsie.

She raised an eyebrow mockingly. “So tell me about the spy.”

Philip thought for a moment. “I don’t think he’s a spy.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause he’s a nice guy. He’s just a carpenter from Montana. He misses his girlfriend.”

“Maybe he tricked you. Spies are devious—that’s a requirement for the job.”

Philip didn’t like to think he’d been deceived. “I just don’t think he is.”

“Did he have an accent?”

Philip just rolled his eyes.

“Well, did he sound like maybe he was trying to
disguise
one?”

“
No.
But he did ask me if I knew of any good places to hide bombs, and he went on and on about how he loves sauerkraut.”

“How am I supposed to know? Just because someone’s a German spy doesn’t mean he’s actually from Germany. Maybe he’s just an American who loves Germany or hates America. Maybe he has relatives in Germany and he’s more loyal to them than to people over here.”

“Elsie has relatives in Germany. Should we put her parents in prison, too?”

Laura sighed impatiently and got up. “You’re impossible sometimes,” she said disgustedly as she headed out the door.

“Good night, fräulein.”

She closed the door just short of a slam.

Philip wished that joking with his sister meant things could be perfectly normal again. But people in town were sick, and Frank was locked in a cellar. Philip wanted to see him, to ask him more about who he was and where he’d come from—to exonerate him or to learn something that would cast new light on Charles’s suspicions. Maybe Frank, guilt-stricken for deceiving Philip, would burst into tears and confess everything. Or maybe he’d be dead from flu in the morning. If Frank were to die, Philip would never know the truth about him. But if Frank died, maybe Philip would be next. Philip swallowed to see if his throat was sore.

He fell asleep with the light on. When he woke up in the middle of the night, he was so disoriented by the bright light that he thought he’d emerged into some transitory world where souls prepared for their final journey. Even after he had turned off the light, he lay awake for hours, staring into the darkness.

VI

Y
olen was blue the next morning.

It had started in his fingertips, Jeanine told Doc Banes when he arrived. She had noticed it the night before when she had tried to give Yolen something to drink. He had fumbled at the glass and dropped it, pieces shattering across the floor. When she woke up this morning, her husband’s condition had worsened: his temples were dark blue as well. The blue smear had spread to his cheeks and neck, and his lips, too, were the color of the sky minutes after sunset, as were his ears. He coughed violently as Doc Banes inspected him, nearly dislodging the thermometer.

His temperature was unchanged. That it hadn’t increased was the only good news.

Banes knew that Yolen was drowning, slowly suffocating as his fluid-filled lungs failed to extract enough oxygen from the air around him. Banes had never seen such a thing. Even after he’d read about this in Dr. Pierce’s letters, he had scarcely believed it possible. But here it was staring at him, eyes wide and helpless.

Banes put his hand on Yolen’s forehead, trying to be reassuring. Yolen was disoriented and foggy; his mind could not escape from the blaze immolating his body. Banes told him to sleep.

Banes and Jeanine closed the door and went into the dining room, where she slumped into a battered wooden chair.

“Isn’t there anything else you can do? What do those blue spots mean?”

Banes talked a bit about what caused the blue spots without telling her they might herald death.

“And why are people guarding my house? I’m a prisoner in my own home!” She stood up suddenly, as if prepared to fight Banes or whatever demon had cast its imprecation on her door.

“We can’t let this spread through the town, Jeanine. It isn’t you they’re keeping in here, it’s the flu.”

Even as he said it, Banes realized that the need to guard this house or any other had already dissolved. As the previous day had worn on, he’d been forced to acknowledge that the flu was already spreading uncontrollably. Soon there would be more infected homes than the town could possibly quarantine.

“So I’m just supposed to stay in here until my husband dies?” Jeanine’s eyes were tearing up, her momentary anger already displaced by fear. She had noticed that this time the doctor had put on the mask before he’d knocked on the front door. He was wearing it still, hiding behind it even as he tried to reassure her.

Banes said they shouldn’t give up on Yolen yet. As bad as this flu could be, plenty of people pulled through. Leonard had died, but he’d had no one to take care of him. Jeanine could be the difference for her husband. Was there anything she needed, anything Banes could send over?

She shook her head and sat back down, staring at the floor and crying.

People should be here, Doc knew. Neighbors, family. Nurses. But the women who ordinarily served as his nurses in extreme times had all steadfastly refused to do so now—they didn’t want to risk bringing flu home to their families. And the neighbors who should be cooking Jeanine’s meals and visiting to keep her spirits strong were hiding as well, peeking at her house through closed blinds and praying that the scourge would not wander across their yard. Jeanine was as alone as her husband.

Most likely she would soon be alone without him, Banes knew.

Banes told her he would be back that evening. She didn’t reply as he walked through the front door, past the guard with the gun. It was Deacon, who had been out there all night silently staring at those covered windows, wondering with a detached curiosity why the devil had chosen to strike this particular house.

I
t was the next patient who worried Banes the most.

Elsie Metzger had knocked on his door early that morning, requesting his visit. Walking into their home, he felt the noose tightening around Commonwealth’s neck.

Flora Metzger had never been so silent in her life, he thought. Her voice usually rang through the house, but Banes didn’t hear a sound as Elsie led him through the parlor, up the stairs, and into her parents’ bedroom. When he finally heard her, a moment before opening the bedroom door, it wasn’t her customary bright chatter but a cough, deep and husky.

Flora didn’t look pale yet, but she probably would soon. Her temperature was nearly 105, and she was shivering uncontrollably, her hair damp with sweat. She appeared to be covered by every blanket the family owned.

“I want to take a look at your eyes,” Banes said.

“Later. The light hurts too much.”

Flora told the doctor she’d felt fine the previous morning, but at some point in the early afternoon, it had begun. Within two hours, she’d gone from perfectly healthy to miserable. And it had only gotten worse.

“I think my legs are broke,” Flora whimpered after he’d listened to her lungs and peered into her nose and throat.

“Excuse me?”

“My legs. They’re broken.”

Banes paused. “Did you fall?”

“Don’t remember.”

Banes looked up at Elsie, hoping she might volunteer some information, but the girl’s eyes were fixed on her mother’s tensed face.

“I’ll have a look.” The doctor pulled the blankets up from the side, so Flora’s chest and neck could stay covered, and slid her nightgown up to her knees. She winced through clenched teeth as he did so, in so much pain that Banes would have expected to see shattered bones poking through her skin. Yet her thick white legs were free of the slightest bruise or inflammation. He gingerly touched one of her knees and she gasped, which triggered another coughing spell. Aches were common with the flu, but her reaction was extreme. He pulled the blankets back over her.

“There’s nothing broken. They’re just going to be sore a while.” He stepped into the hallway, Elsie following. “Has she been coughing much?”

“All night.”

Banes nodded, thinking. “Run and get your father; tell him to just close the store for now.”

By the time Elsie and her father returned, Flora was shivering so badly her teeth were chattering as loud as Elsie had ever heard. It sounded like rats gnawing through a wall.

Banes spoke to her father in the hallway, closing the bedroom door. He did not remove his mask. Elsie always felt somewhat unnerved in his presence, but now he looked particularly haunting.

He told them Flora had the flu, a bad case.

“Have any of your friends taken ill?” Banes asked. “Has anyone been coughing or sneezing in the store?”

Alfred’s face turned pale. “Just her.”

“How busy was the store yesterday?”

“Busy as it’s ever been. Everybody’s trying to get what they can.”

Banes said, “I want you to leave the store closed. Stay here and tend to your wife. And Elsie’s not to go to school.” He reached into his satchel and handed them two gauze masks from his already dwindling supply. “Wear these when you’re in her room. Wear gloves when you touch her, and wash your hands as often as possible.”

Alfred looked stunned. From behind the door, Flora started coughing again. “Doc, I can’t close the store. People are running out of food, and they need to—”

“Alfred, your wife probably caught this from someone who came to the store. God only knows who. Most likely it was someone who didn’t know he was sick, someone who didn’t feel it yet. If there’s been sickness in that store, it means anyone else who comes there could get it, too. Just stay home for a few days, until she’s recovered.”

Alfred nodded. “All right. I’ll just head back there and…put up a sign explaining things.”

Elsie didn’t like the defeated tone in her father’s voice. And her mother’s coughs were a tangible force, all but knocking on the closed door. She leaned back against the wall, hugging herself to keep from crying in front of Doc Banes, whom she never wanted to see again.

At first Banes tried to trace the emergence of the flu in Commonwealth, but every time he thought he’d found its path, the trail disappeared. Yolen was friends with Leonard, who had died within two days of falling ill. The night before Yolen had taken sick, according to Jeanine, he’d had a few drinks with his friends Otto and Ray, two rowdy shingle weavers. Ray had fallen ill the same day as Yolen and was in roughly the same condition, though not quite as advanced. Otto was one of the men who had reported to work at the mill the previous day but had left in the afternoon, overcome. By the time Banes made it to Otto’s house, the man was lying in bed, coughing and delirious. At first Otto had thought Doc Banes was his long-dead father and had launched into some sort of apology for the old man’s death. Banes had to interrupt him to ask about his symptoms.

Otto said he had felt fine, better than fine, that very morning. He had been standing at his position in the mill at about one o’clock and had abruptly felt struck down, as if by a blow square in the chest. His lungs were so constricted by coughs that he had doubled over and fallen to his knees. By the time he was able to get on his feet—with no help from his coworkers, who had backed away at the sight of his agony—his body was shaking and he felt so weak he could barely stand.
How could that happen, Dad?

Banes wished he knew. He didn’t understand how Leonard had become sick, and since the victim wasn’t able to answer any questions, it seemed futile to investigate. Still, Banes asked Otto for a list of Leonard’s friends in town and made a note to visit all of them, to find out if more of them were visibly sick and, if not, to warn them to keep to themselves in case they were on the verge of showing symptoms.

But now that Flora Metzger was ill, and so many people had come through her store the day before—signing the ledger book with her pen, standing there breathing while she went on and on with one of her stories—there no longer seemed a point to tracing the flu’s spread.

Doc told worried families how to nurse their sick and told the afflicted to rest, unnecessary advice since the patients could barely raise their heads, let alone do anything else. Still, Banes wished he had a medical staff at his disposal, if only to visit each patient, but there was just one of him to answer their questions and to give them some reason to hope. He needed to see Charles and find out who else had left the mill due to illness, and he needed to get to the school and inquire about sick children and decide what to do about the youngsters with stricken parents. At the same time, there was little he could do but be a witness, a witness to events that were beyond his skill and beyond his reckoning.

Every time Banes knocked on a door, he saw people in the street watching him, faces peering at him through windows in nearby houses. Not a soul came by to inquire about their neighbors’ health or to offer aid. They simply saw Banes’s approach and retreated into the safety of their homes.

The gauze mask had become a permanent part of his face. Though he usually made his rounds on foot, using the excuse to get some exercise, he now drove through town in his horse-drawn carriage, aware that time was too precious and that, more important, he needed to maintain his energy; he could not afford to tire from too much walking back and forth across town. He wanted to see every sick person at least twice a day, but this would surely be impossible by tomorrow, if the infection rate continued at its current pace.

The symptoms were as ghastly as they were widespread. Some victims suffered nosebleeds that, combined with their coughs, often left them choking on their blood—which would explain the mess Banes had discovered in Leonard’s room. Before noon Doc’s shirt was stained by several patients’ bloody coughs; he stopped at home to change, to avoid carrying the contagion farther in his travels.

Many people were nauseated, vomiting into buckets that their aggrieved family members could not empty quickly enough. Others had earaches and dizziness from middle ears so inflamed that Doc had already used his needles to drain the pus from four pairs of ears that day—finally, something he could do to alleviate symptoms, relieve pain. Hopefully that would quell the pounding, he told them, would cause the earth to stop wobbling around them, would ease the headaches so severe that more than one person had voiced fears that his brain was somehow growing beyond the capacity of his skull.

Banes was tired, but there were more names on his list. Again he felt a sick and surely immoral gratitude that his wife wasn’t alive to see this. She had always been such a talker, and she had hated the days he would come home too demoralized or broken by what he had seen to chat with her. But what if she were still home now—what would she think if she saw him stumble through the door and slump into his chair, staring emptily at the wall, too overcome for any words at all?

But he wasn’t home yet; there was still more to be done. And was it getting dark out already? Was this really night? Like the flu, it had come so quickly, almost without warning. Had he even eaten today? He couldn’t remember. He was sweaty from moving in and out of hot, stuffy rooms, and his clothes were a mess again from so much blood and saliva. It was indeed dark out now, but there were still others to visit, others to console. What should they do about the school? And what about the mill?

And had anyone taken away Leonard’s body yet? The town had one undertaker, an elderly man named Krugman. The small town had been filled mostly with people in the prime of their lives, and the undertaker’s services had rarely been called upon. Doc feared that the next few days would more than make up for Krugman’s prior inactivity. As Banes rode in his carriage along the river, he saw the many logs bobbing on the water’s surface like corpses, and he realized he should tell Charles to set aside some of the lesser pieces of wood. The town would need coffins—many of them.