Bobby Adair - Ebola K

It wasn’t that Paul Cooper was pro-gun or anti-gun. He simply didn’t have one. He didn’t have any interest in hunting. He didn’t worry that his house would be burglarized or that he’d get mugged and have to shoot the mugger. He never imagined himself taking up arms against the government or threatening to shoot the neighbor’s dog. And though he often fantasized about shooting holes in the cars of particularly obnoxious drivers, those thoughts never evolved past the fantasy phase. There was no scenario in Paul’s imagination that required him to have a gun in his hands.

However, when the fifth case of Ebola on American soil was reported on the news, he worried. And he worried enough to find himself sitting in his truck before work, parked in a little strip mall parking lot, ambiguously positioned for access to the little barbecue joint or the gun store next door—a gun store he knew about only because it was next door to the barbeque joint—the only gun store he could find without Googling.

Five cases of Ebola in New York in two days.

The first had prompted that trip to Costco. Now he was sitting in front of a gun shop wondering if he was crazy for thinking prepper thoughts. Did Colorado have a mandatory waiting period on handguns? Would he pass a background check? Did that even pass in the last election? What about assault rifles? An AR-15 would be cool. At least that’s what he’d been thinking in the back of his mind ever since he’d held his buddy John’s AR-15. What about a shotgun? He remembered hearing that shotgun purchases didn’t require a waiting period. But the truth was, there wasn’t a thing he knew about guns that he didn’t pick up from watching TV. That meant he probably knew just enough to hurt himself with a gun.

And that brought his thoughts back around to the top of the circle. Did he need a gun? Was he overreacting to the news?

He’d had similar thoughts when he was stocking up with prepper food at Costco. And though it embarrassed him when Heidi told the neighbor, he felt better knowing he had it. Why? Because if an Ebola epidemic spread across the country, everything would go to shit. Of that, he was sure.

With people bleeding out in the street from Ebola, who would go to work at the grocery store—or anywhere for that matter? When contact with a coworker or a customer could lead to a horrific death, going to work would be the last thing on anyone’s mind. Not even the police or the National Guard would be on duty. They’d all be home, either afraid of the virus, or choosing to put the protection of their families above the protection of strangers. Not an unreasonable position to take.

That implied supply systems would break down. Law and order would crumble. Power systems might stop delivery, and water might stop flowing. The most modern country in the world would take a hard backward turn to the Dark Ages, leaving three hundred million people a few days or a few weeks away from their first ever experience with real hunger.

That’s when things would turn ugly.

Paul was a parent. And whenever he asked himself that one question—what wouldn’t he do for the welfare of his children—the answer was always the same. There was pretty much nothing he wouldn’t do for his children’s sake.

It stood to reason that other parents felt the same.

That led to the next step in the logical chain. A parent who had to look at his starving children would go to the grocery store and get the last of what was available, despite the infection risk and the risk that bad people would be out doing bad things. But it wouldn’t be long before even those grocery store shelves emptied out. Where would a man with hungry children turn after that?

The neighbors’ houses. That was the simple answer.

He’d look at his neighbors, but he’d be afraid to go into the houses where the residents had died of Ebola. Instead, he’d open his gun safe and decide that his odds were better going to the house of the guy who’d put the Obama sticker on the back of his car while living in one of the reddest counties in the country.

Because in Paul’s mind, people who voted Republican were more likely to own a gun than people who voted Democrat. He guessed he wasn’t the only person in the country who thought that way. So that bumper sticker—long since removed—was a target for those neighbors of his who remembered he’d put it there. It said, Come take my food. I don’t have a gun .

Of course, Paul knew he could be wrong. He was letting his fears run around in escalating circles, but he still thought rationally enough to know that. As he sat in his truck, looking at the gun shop, smelling barbecue, and working himself into a panic, he couldn’t get past the fear that Ebola was coming. And when the food ran out, his neighbors that were still alive were coming, too. They’d have their guns, and thanks to Heidi, they’d know he had a hoard of food in his basement.

Paul needed a gun.

Standing on the porch, evaluating his options, Najid waved his men away. “Dr. Kassis, stay up here with me.”

The other six men spread out by the Land Rovers and took to keeping lookout over what they could see of the village in the dark.

Najid turned to Dr. Kassis. “Do you think they are lying?”

“Who is to say? I was never good at reading other men’s hearts.”

“Always loathe to commit.” Najid’s derisiveness came through. He had respect for the doctor, for his skill and his loyalty, but deep down the man was never brave enough to speak his mind. “What they were saying about the virus being airborne. Does that make sense?”

The doctor looked back at the door they’d just come through. A ward full of dying townsfolk lay beyond. “I have no reason to believe they lied about the rapidity and seeming universal spread of the disease. If I accept that—” he looked back at the small collection of houses and businesses that made up Kapchorwa, and took a deep breath, “—I would have come to the same conclusion.”

“Would you be right?”

“Maybe,” the doctor replied.

“That is a guess even I could make. Tell me what you think the chances are.”

Dr. Kassis looked at the porch and used the toe of his rubber boot to grind something into the concrete while he thought. “Tomorrow’s reality—if this is an airborne strain of Ebola—is so horrific that it begs me to hope the evidence I seem to see here is wrong. But if these were our people, and this outbreak was in our homeland, I would say the same. I would beg for help from the WHO, even the Americans. I would beg you not to take Rashid out of here until I knew the disease was not airborne.”

“And how can I find out for sure?” Najid asked.

“That would be a long process with many tests and many specialized doctors, and he could die before we find out. Otherwise, we may not know for months.”

“But if it is airborne, that knowledge will come too late for these people, am I right?”

“You are correct.” Dr. Kassis nodded obsequiously. It was a habit of Kassis’s that irritated Najid endlessly.

The doctor went on to say, “On this continent, it will be obvious to every doctor that this strain of Ebola is airborne a long time before the tests confirm it. It will be obvious in the mountains of bodies—bodies of the millions who die because they have no access to healthcare that could potentially save some of their lives.” He was looking out at the dark sky when he absently repeated, “Some.”

“What will happen then?”

“As soon as that Italian doctor notifies his superiors and convinces them to come, the world will start to change. Slowly at first, but as the evidence builds over the coming days and weeks, the Western countries will close down every airport in the world. Commerce will stop. They will do whatever they can to save their own people. They will have their telethons, make ads showing sick children, cry for the suffering, but this part of the world will still be ravaged by the disease.”