After the End: Survival Page 2

  "Ugh.”

  "That's some good stuff, isn't it?"

  A weak but emphatic shake of the child's head was his answer.

  Later that morning, Pete took out the IV needle and told Karen to give the youngster chicken broth and to change the chamomile soaked dressings every two hours.

  Stumbling home, Pete was tired but euphoric. Walking through the front door, he went to the living room and took a long pull of whiskey. It burned all the way down and gave his gut a fine, familiar warmth. Lying down on a filthy blanket he fell dreamlessly to sleep.

  In two days Kyle was walking unsteadily around the porch. By the end of the week Karen had to speak sharply to him to lie down and take a nap.

  It was the start of Pete's new career as a healer, although he wasn't always successful. A man in his late sixties died of a heart attack after two long and painful days. And a middle-aged woman, diagnosed as a borderline diabetic before the Change went into a coma before succumbing, her dying breaths filling the room with a sweet odor.

  But more often than not, what he tried, worked. Amarillo's "real" doctor, Jay Flood ran the area's only hospital, a converted church and often had Pete assist in invasive procedures. As a team they were able to set broken bones, suture deep lacerations and perform some surgery, appendectomies and tendon repairs. Contributing his knowledge of herbs to help prevent infection, Pete was instrumental in making those surgeries possible. Both men became well-known and respected throughout the area.

  "Damn, Pete, I've spent so much time around you the last few days I swear you're beginning to look good." Jay Flood washed his hands as he spoke. The two had spent the last three days with patients from the Woflin community. Food poisoning from under-cooked pork during a barbecue had left some thirty people with nausea and diarrhea. The subsequent dehydration had robbed an elderly woman of her body's supply of potassium. The resulting chemical imbalance had thrown her heart into an arrhythmia. Death was fairly quick. Most of the affected were responding well to a tea made of dried blackberry leaves and copious amounts of water boiled in alfalfa. A few needed IVs.

  "I'd say you need a good pair of glasses," Pete responded, "although I've got to admit, ugly guys with bad breath and bags under their eyes have always been a turn on for me."

  "Uh-huh. I think we've got this deal wrapped up. I'm gonna deecee Judge Coleman's IV and head for home. What do you think?"

  "I think I'll hang around till this evening, anyway. Just to make sure. Go. I'll take care of the IV." Pete slurred as he spoke, his exhaustion coming over him in waves.

  "Hey, you want me to stay for a while?" Jay noticed the slurring. "I mean it."

  "Nah. I'll get a couple hours sleep, check on stuff and be right behind you."

  "OK. In that case, I'm outta here. As usual, the pleasure's been all yours. See you later."

  "Right. Later."

  Pete watched Doc Flood walk out the door of the hospital. Rising from a brown velour rocker, he ambled over to a heavy-set man of sixty. Dark eyes peered from behind a face framed with a mass of tangled gray hair.

  "I hope ‘deecee’ means you are going to remove this needle from my arm."

  "Judge, you're a mind reader." Pete shut off the valve on the clear plastic IV line, and removed the tape securing the tubing to a muscular, hairy arm. The tape came off reluctantly, clinging stubbornly to the thick mass of hair.

  "Sorry about that." Covering the IV entry site with a dry square of cotton that had been boiled in water, Pete grasped the top of the needle.

  "Little sting now," he said, smoothly pulling the needle out of the vein. While applying pressure to the cloth over the entry site, he deftly ran the needle through a hole at the top of the IV bag.

  "Doctor, I thank you for all you've done for me and the people of this community." Judge Coleman emphasized the word ‘Doctor’. Unlike Pete, who had acquired his title by circumstances, Coleman really had been a judge in Potter County's 100th Circuit Court. "Without your skill and knowledge, I believe many lives would have been lost. My own included."

  "Get me a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and I'll consider us square."

  "I'll see what I can do, Pete."

  Swaying slightly, Pete shuddered once from lack of sleep.

  "Right now, you're going to get your little fanny into bed." Latesha Williams, tall, spare and black, had been a charge nurse at the V.A. Hospital. She was smart, aggressive, and took pleasure in telling people how best to do things. She was usually right. Steering Pete to a nearby bed, she continued, "Doctor Flood told me you were tired, like it was news. You will lie down here," she said, making an expansive gesture with her arm, "and sleep. Now. I will wake you up if necessary." Sounding like it was unlikely.

  "Ok, wake me up in two hours."

  "Two hours. Yes, sir."

  "Ah, he lives."

  Squinting blearily above him, Pete saw the face of nurse Williams peering back at him with a conspiring smile. He felt drugged, the side of his face wet from drool. His boots had been removed. He did not remember taking them off. He sat up on the edge of the bed and slipped them back on.

  "What time is it?"

  "Eight thirty-five. A.M.," she added with emphasis.

  "I slept fourteen hours? Dammit, I told you to wake me up after two hours."

  "Yes, you did," she said sweetly, handing him a warm cup of thin brown fluid. "Have some tea."

  Holding the cup in both hands, he took a cautious sip.

  "Ephedra," he stated.

  "That's right. Mormon tea."

  "FDA's gonna shut you down. Where's Judge Coleman?" he asked, taking another sip.

  "He left at sunrise." She pointed her finger at him as he started to object. "Vital signs were normal, no nausea or diarrhea, tolerating liquids well, his urine was clear. And he said your snoring was keeping him awake."

  "All right, all right. I'm going home. Get a hold of me if you need me. It's been fun." He smiled wickedly. "Thanks for your help, honey."

  Latesha lived with a short, plump woman whose blond hair was always perfect.

  "Honey, your ass. Go." Pointing to the door.

  "I'm gone."

  CHAPTER 3

  "Seven-fifty-nine, music from Jerry Garcia, “Truckin’,” and that's just what we're doing this morning, truckin' right along. Say, that reminds me, Holman's just got in a truck load of Russet potatoes, fresh from Happy, Texas. These thin-skinned beauties boil into the tenderest, tastiest tubers you ever laid a tongue on. You'll need to head over to Holman's quick-like though, ‘cause when they're gone, they're gone! Now accepting gold and diamond jewelry, double A batteries and sugar. Just south of I-40 on Western, that's Holman's Wholesome Foods."

  Reaching up as he spoke, Larry Maxwell started a CD player, paused a few seconds, then lowered the music level on the control board as he spoke over the introduction, "Hey, let's turn it loose. Here's Wynonna and Naomi, gonna tell us about it on KAMR, Amarillo radio."

  Checking off the commercial he'd just read on the log sheet, Larry got another CD ready for play in one of three CD machines. The red light on his intercom started flashing. He pushed a switch.

  "Yup."

  "Sheriff's office just called. They said to come over as soon as you can."

  Larry considered this. Usually, he made a news run to the "Cop Shop" around ten o'clock each day. When they called him to come over ASAP it meant something big.

  "OK, Val, tell 'em I'll be there right after my air shift. About nine-fifteen."

  Tall with blond hair and piercing blue eyes, Larry Maxwell had been in radio broadcasting more than twenty years. Starting in high school his junior year, he'd worked weekends at an AM station in Provo, Utah. Rebelling against a strict Mormon upbringing, he dropped out of high school two months short of graduation, taking a full-time broadcasting job in Elko, Nevada. Other stops included Boise and a management opportunity in Leadville, Colorado. That’s where things kinda went downhill. A poor economy, combined with his own lackluster perform
ance ("Year-round skiing and too much nose candy," he recalled later on, "a lethal combination.") and it wasn't long before the station went dark. . . bankrupt and off the air. His girlfriend managed to get a job at the Pantex nuclear facility in the Texas Panhandle. So they rented a U-Haul and made the move to sunny Amarillo. Just two days after his arrival, the afternoon slot at "Country Giant" KMML came open. Larry convinced the suits that he was perfect for it. Hell, he was a decent announcer, he could write copy, sell air time and could rewrite news out of the local newspaper to make it sound like he'd done all the research himself. One day during the noon hour the Professional Businesswomen's Club of Amarillo arrived for a scheduled tour of the station. The station manager had lost track of the time, and was enthusiastically receiving fellatio from a billing secretary when the group blundered into his office. Larry was promoted to station manager the next day.

  His first official act as manager was to rehire the billing secretary. "An irreplaceable asset," he explained to the skeptical station owner.

  Four years later, Larry Maxwell was firmly entrenched as station manager. The station was profitable and rated number two in the market ages 12+ by Arbitron. He was living in the Willow Glen apartment complex ("Three Swimming Pools, Clubhouse, Washer and Dryer in Each Apartment") with girlfriend number three since his arrival to Amarillo. She was a former barrel racing champion who worked as one of several directors at the American Quarter Horse Heritage Center. She was tall and slender with brunette hair cut in a short page boy. Lately, Cynthia had been reminding Larry about her friends who'd been married recently. Larry gave her two, three months max before she'd be gone.

  The Change began shortly after the first reports of a deadly virus in Uganda, central east Africa. Larry followed the story the way any professional would. Early information was sketchy. Small villages near Lake Victoria were essentially wiped out. Victims all shared the same symptoms. One minute they'd be fine, working, or sharing a meal with family, joking with friends. The next minute, an excruciating headache, weakness, soaking in sweat. Over the next three days the affliction caused joint swelling and stiffness of such magnitude it was laborious just managing a comfortable position. The throat became so dry and swollen that even swallowing became difficult, and eating impossible.

  Then on the fourth or fifth day, the bleeding began.

  The victim would bleed from the gums, vomit blood, urinate blood, and defecate blood. Death would soon follow. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia quickly flew three epidemiologists to the area to conduct autopsies. The trio landed at the airport at Kampala late on a Tuesday evening. By six-thirty the following morning, a makeshift morgue had been set up in an old hangar. A little after eight AM, an ancient Mercedes dump truck noisily backed up to the sheet metal building, stopping, and then raising the hydraulic bed. Seven bodies slid out the back, falling in a tangled heap on the ground. Spewing blue smoke, the truck lowered its bed, and sped off. Wearing bright orange Racal rubber "space suits," with a battery powered positive pressure system, the three systematically autopsied the swollen corpses. Cause of death was due to either massive blood loss or pulmonary edema, with leaking veins flooding the lungs with fluid, effectively drowning the individual. A virus was causing the veins to dissolve, leaking as though they were made of a thin fabric.

  Although not immediately confirmed, it was believed the virus could be transmitted by air. This assumption was verified sixteen days later when one of the three medical investigators died while in quarantine at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Exposure probably occurred when the man had removed his breather in the sweltering building for several minutes when he was some sixty feet from the autopsy site.

  By this time, trying to contain the virus was like trying to plug a broken levee. Roads connecting all cities and villages along the northern shore of Lake Victoria were sealed off by the military. However, guards were easily bribed and the mortality rate among units sent to cordon off the area was close to ninety percent. A single infected person on an airplane could contaminate three out of four of his fellow passengers, who in turn would pass the virus on to most of those they came near. Frantic efforts by various world governments proved futile. Even the most draconian efforts merely delayed the inevitable. In the space of six months more than ninety-five percent of the world's population was dead. Roughly twenty percent of the survivors died in the months that followed because basic systems began to fail, systems everyone took for granted. There was no electricity to provide clean drinking water and space heating. Natural gas, used by millions to heat and cook could no longer be distributed as it relied upon electricity to run the pumps for refining and distribution. The world's petroleum industry came to a standstill, but not before the deadly virus had been spread across the entire world. In the more developed countries dysentery, cholera, and even simple exposure took its toll on the survivors. Depression and suicide accounted for more. Those in Third World countries fared a little better since they did not rely on electricity as part of their day-to- day living.

  News reports became increasingly sketchy as the virus spread. First, newspapers and magazines stopped publishing, then television and finally radio services were suspended. Larry remembered the day the Xcel Energy cut power to the area, giving a one day notice ("Due to circumstances beyond our control...") by phone and fax to the broadcasting media still on the air. Four area radio stations were still broadcasting using auxiliary generators, but the lack of available fuel forced these stations to limit broadcasting to just a few hours a day. The last to run out of fuel was a little AM station running two hundred-fifty watts, its power derived from a small propane powered generator.

  It took a few months for a balding, pot-bellied radio engineer to remember the origin of all FM radio signals came from a little transmitter called an exciter. It used only fifty watts of power and could be powered by direct current like that from a car battery. He wondered if maybe he could rig up a little radio station that was battery powered. He found out he could, and he did.

  A man named Gary Blakely learned of the engineer's success, and helped him obtain everything necessary to build a fully functional radio station, including a wind generator liberated from nearby Canyon's West Texas A. & M. University and solar panels from the huge array at the V.A. Hospital to keep the batteries charged.

  Larry approached the two with an offer to manage the facility. It turned out to be a ground-floor opportunity.

  All-in-all, Larry mused, as he turned the controls over to his relief disc jockey ("Big Ed"), things could be a lot worse. He could be dead, and that sure had a way of putting things into perspective. He wondered again why his presence was so urgently needed at the Sheriffs Office.

  CHAPTER 4

  In his dream, Pete was standing next to his wife. They were under a huge elm tree, watching their two grandchildren ride bicycles. Tan colored dust came in puffs behind the tires as the bicycles turned lazy circles on the open ground. Then the boy straightened his course and headed out across a brown prairie. The granddaughter followed, her red hair shimmering in the bright light. Feeling uneasy, Pete turned to his wife. She was gone. Panic. His eyes jerked open. The brightness remained and Pete squinted into the morning light streaming through the window.

  "Shit."

  It had been the first time in a while he had dreamed of family and he considered that a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he enjoyed reliving their life together, seeing their faces, hearing their voices, even feeling his wife's touch. But waking up was painful and the resulting gloom could last for days.

  He closed his eyes, trying to grasp the remnants of the fading dream. If he was tired enough he could reenter the illusion, changing its course and prevent the images from fading. He gave up as his MURS radio crackled with the voice of the sheriff's dispatcher, Patty White.

  "Doc Wilson, this is Amarillo Sheriff. Do you copy, Pete."

  Reaching over to the microphone, Pe
te squeezed the transmit switch.

  "Hello, Patty. Pete here."

  "Hi, Pete. It's not an emergency, but could you come over to the S.O. as soon as possible?"

  Pete hesitated a few seconds to gauge time and distance.

  "Sure. Can you give me twenty minutes?”

  "That'll be fine. S.O. clear."

  Pete had been up till almost 3 A.M. delivering a baby. It was nine now. Still tired, he was grateful for the distraction work would bring. He got dressed, rinsed his mouth and brushed his hair and beard. Driving his county owned SUV to the Sheriffs Office, with its governmental allocation of natural gas, he wondered why the dispatcher had not gone into more detail.

  Walking into the familiar building, Pete waved to Patty as he walked through the doors. She flashed him a quick smile and pointed to the door of Sheriff Robert ("Call me Rob.") Westlake. Pete walked into the office.

  "Pete, good to see you." Rob Westlake rose from his chair and extended a beefy hand, practically engulfing Pete's as they shook.

  “Hey, Rob."

  “Pull up a chair." Rob Westlake was in his late forties. Six foot three, two hundred thirty pounds with not much gone to fat. He moved like the high school running back he used to be, slightly bowlegged with a loose, light step. His face was round and a little doughy, topped with a crew cut from another era. His dark eyes never left the face of anyone he was speaking with. Pete considered him a tough, intelligent man and liked him but also understood the political nature of the job. Trust but verify.

  "Have you been keeping out of trouble? I know you've been busy. They sure do appreciate you over at Woflin. Judge Coleman was telling me just yesterday what all you'd done for them over there." The sheriff gave his head an ain't-life-a-bitch shake, paused, his eyes never leaving the smaller man's face.

  "Yeah, I imagine it'll be a while before they feel like eating BBQ again."

  "That's for sure." The sheriff laughed. "That's for damn sure."

  OK Rob. Time to cut to the chase.