John Adams - Wastelands 2

“It hasn’t been a fun few hours, I’ll admit.” She leaned in and raised her eyebrows with her voice. Cocked her chin.

“It’s all right. I can hear you fine.” It was Cantor who sounded hollow.

The woman leaned back, but her shoulders were still stiff.

Cantor glanced over the pages on the clipboard. “Ms. Burrell, you’re from Portland, Tennessee, correct?”

“Yes. We’re planning to go up to Ohio.”

Cantor grinned like a fool. Burrell’s eyelashes fluttered and her eyebrows frowned.

“My aunt lived in Clarksville,” Cantor said. “I don’t run into many people from the area. I used to spend summers there. My mom put me and my brothers on the 9-Rail.”

“9-Rail?” Burrell shook her head. She managed her first real smile. Of fondness. “Haven’t thought about the 9-Rail since it went underwater.”

“Yeah. Guess you can tell I haven’t been home in years.”

“Where was home?”

“Alabama. Mobile,” Cantor said. “Yeah… Went to school in Milwaukee and decided to stay. But Clarksville, I don’t think I’ve been there in fifteen years.”

“You wouldn’t recognize it. It turned into a real city almost overnight.”

Cantor laughed. “Man, I loved my aunt, but being trapped in that Podunk town?” Burrell laughed with her.

“I’ll miss it,” Burrell said.

And Cantor composed herself. “Where’d you meet Don Jackson?”

“Is he…?”

“He has a very high fever.”

Burrell unclasped her hands and pushed herself forward. “We were on our way back from the shore. His car broke down. I just wanted to help him out, especially with everything going down. I didn’t want him to get stuck, or worse.”

“When did you notice he was sick?”

She shrugged. She looked down, grinded her lips together like she was having a conversation with herself. “He was working under the hood, you know? And it was hot. He was sweating, and his face was red, but… I don’t know. He was in the car maybe ten minutes? He seemed really tired.”

“Did he tell you how he was feeling?”

“He said he felt really hot and he was getting a headache. He really couldn’t say much.”

“And how are you feeling?”

“Fine, considering. Can you tell me anything? When can I get my kids out of here?”

The clipboard fell against the desk. Cantor couldn’t look at her head on. Her eyes darted back and forth, back and forth seeking the response that would give Burrell some comfort knowing she and her children would be okay. Burrell stared, demanded an answer from her. “I understand how difficult the circumstances are, but you’ll have to stay for observation.” And that was the most Cantor would force herself to say. She wouldn’t let this woman know that her good deed could leave her whole family dead in a day.

Only Dr. Alagiah was in the makeshift lab. When the disease first manifested malaria symptoms, he’d kept his team optimistic. But as it proved itself to be contagious, the lab became haunted. A place they wished they could avoid. A place for work in silence as the weather reports hung over their heads.

Dr. Alagiah’s expressions, even behind the protective hood, were clear. “We’ve received… We need to…” He dropped his head.

“Dr. Alagiah?” Cantor said.

He closed his eyes. “We got word we’re to pack.”

When his eyes opened, Cantor found the filtering around her face insufficient. She choked on the fresh air. “We have no idea—”

“We don’t get more time. This didn’t come from the CDC.”

“We’re going to abandon them?”

Dr. Alagiah cupped her left elbow in his palm. His arm stayed steady, but the rest of him shook. “They’re hoping… it’ll be the end of the disease. It’s spreading too quickly in this heat—”

“With everybody evacuating, they’re assuming everyone who’s infected is here… or dead already.”

He was still shaking. “But we’ll have more time after the storms.”

She threw the clipboard to the asphalt.

Already, the exposed had been pushed deeper into the hospital. Precautionary measures, they’d been told, to protect non-infected patients. No windows here. A vast, cavernous waiting area with the TVs turned off. To conserve power, they were told, in case there were difficulties during the evacuation.

Cantor and her colleagues collected some samples to take with them. Maybe the blood would reveal answers after the flood, once the disease had been drowned in this outer rim. And the CDC would have a point of attack should it rise again and make its way north. These people were helpful, all things considered. They’d laugh at themselves for being afraid of the needle or picking the worst time to be stuck in a hospital. But when they looked at Cantor, she could feel them screaming, Please, please let me go now. I’m not sick .

And at what point would they realize no one would come for them? The doctors and nurses would no longer check on them. The disease detectives would be gone, too. What then? As they realized they’d be left to go under?

Her colleagues didn’t make eye contact as they worked as quickly and methodically as they could. They sweated behind their hoods. They said as little as possible. Cantor began to entertain a thought pricking her conscience— what will happen will happen . She could ignore it at first. Kept it at bay with rationalizations about her job and the nature of the disease. But these people… She saw the moment when they realized they were alone. When they freed themselves from this room, but all transportation was gone. When the tidal waves rose up to devour them. Worst-case scenario, she told herself, she at least tried to do something. She wondered if she was being selfish, but she didn’t let that bother her for long.

Her daughter draped across her knee asleep and her son sitting next to her vacant-eyed and kicking the wall beneath his chair, she watched Cantor approach her with detached weariness.

“Ms. Burrell, may I speak with you alone?”

*3*. OUTCASTS; forgotten or unseen persons.

Did he ask about them? He’d meant to. But he couldn’t remember. Now he was sure he was awake because he wasn’t shaking like this a minute ago. He came in and out, in and out, until being asleep was like consciousness. Then he’d open his eyes and find he’d been to another world and just returned to this bed. When the pain from the headache let him turn his head, he saw all the people in the room like him, stuck in hospital beds, infected with the same damn thing. But they’d multiplied. There was more sobbing. More vomiting. Did he ask about them? Did he find out if they were okay? She had been so kind to give him a lift. Were they still here? Did they get away from the storm, or had the storm passed? The CDC people, he didn’t see any now. They were never not around, giving him their “Don, how’re you doings?” even in his sleep. Perhaps he’d asked one of them about that family in his dreams. He would ask now if he could find anyone. At one point, when he could recall being awake, the CDC angels swarmed the room. Their bulbous heads peered into him. Their vacuum-hose wings swooshed even when they stood still. They poked him with their plastic blue skin, asked him lots of questions. He didn’t remember a mosquito bite. He didn’t feel any, anyway. He was thankful for that. Mosquito-bite itches drove him crazy, and his arms were jelly now. He wondered if some other insect had done this. Mites seemed to be running up and down his arms, his legs, his chest, under his skin when he was in the backseat. And the little boy was angry with him for getting in the car. They were on their way out of this place, and then he came along with his bugs. Did the insects jump off him and onto that little girl? To their mother? To the boy? A woman whimpered and moaned across the room. He listened to his own bed twitch as his limbs rumbled and threatened to snap at the elbows and knees. He wished they would. Then he couldn’t feel them anymore. He wanted to apologize. He really should apologize. He killed them. The blues said the family was still here. They were being checked on and poked up, too. If he didn’t make them sick, he’d forced the storm on them. Perhaps this was the storm raging in his bones. Like old people used to say they could tell a storm was coming by the creakiness in their joints. He wished it would hurry. He waited for the waters. In this bed he was alone. But if he was going to die, he wanted the sea to pick him up and carry him out where he could drown with everyone else.