LeRoy Clary - Humanaty's Blight

“Tell me whyI shouldn’t just shoot you right now,” the young woman said. She was holding a rifle pointed at my chest. Her tone was emotionless.

After a few seconds of self-recrimination for allowing myself to be ambushed so easily, I told her the truth. “The fact is, you should. If you want to survive, pull the trigger and hope no one nearby hears the shot and comes to investigate. That makes the most sense, but I suspect you already know that.”

I wouldn’t beg. I refused to. Besides, it wouldn’t do any good.

Two weeks earlier, when the mysterious new strain of a (H1-N1) mutated flu first struck and people started falling ill and swiftly dying by the hundreds, and then by the thousands, I was tucked safely away inside the basement of my parent’s home sitting in front of my computer and TV where I’d pretty much spent the last couple of years.

Home was located on the edge of Arlington, a sleepy little town at the foot of the Cascades in northwestern Washington State. On the first day, I had huddled down there in the dark basement, windows closed, even the furnace turned off to prevent it from taking in contaminated air from outside. Scared. Alone. My fingers had flown over the keyboard to glean any new information about the flu pandemic the media called a human blight, like a cancerous disease on stalks of wheat.

The news became increasingly worse as the flu spread by the hour. Animated maps on television initially showed contamination in small isolated pockets on the east coast, mostly in the major cities.

Later that same day, those “isolated pockets” had spread far larger areas, and there were colored blotches showing up in other parts of the country. By midnight, the first red pockets of new outbreaks appeared in the west. By then, the east coast was almost completely blanketed in that short time. The breakouts were also hitting the mid-west cities. All aircraft in America were grounded, and other travel was suspended to prevent further spread.

The dire news degenerated by the hour. The blight was everywhere and affected everything. Food riots broke out as grocery stores closed for lack of deliveries of new stock. Employees failed to show up to sell what little remained. It didn’t matter. People broke down the doors and emptied the shelves of the meager contents.

Within a few days, over a million deaths were estimated. There were no social services, police, schools, or ambulances to transport people to overcrowded hospitals. Bodies were left where they fell. There was nobody to collect and bury them. Runs on sporting goods stores with weapons had emptied the shelves there too.

Almost all businesses had closed in major cities by day three. Local travel was restricted. Martial law was declared for the nation on the evening of day three, but few of those in the military or national guard responded to enforce it because those still alive were either down with the flu or caring for family members or friends who were infected or dying.

Eastern cities had turned into warzones by day four, followed quickly by major cities in the west. The highways were empty except for a few abandoned cars and trucks that had attempted fleeing the cities. The president called for civil order and martial law a day before he died. The vice president died two days earlier. Nobody could seem to find a judge in authority who could swear in the Speaker of the House—and then she died, and I heard no more about other successors.

The Internet and television also died about then, too. And radio. My cell phone lasted two more days as I jumped into our family car and drove like a scared puppy running from a neighborhood bulldog—straight to the nearest snow-covered mountain. I avoided contact with everyone along the way. My route was entirely on obscure backroads and a trip of only about twenty miles. The only things I took with me were those few already in my basement. I didn’t trust anything else upstairs in our house to not be infected. There were few belongings that would benefit me besides my old twenty-two pistol, a good pair of hiking boots, my heaviest coat, and a few changes of clothes.

Fleeing and surviving the next few days were simple choices based on nothing more than luck and common sense. With so many dying so fast, it seemed reasonable that a biological weapon had struck the world. According to reports, the CDC had barely managed to define it. There had been no time to develop a vaccine. The mutated strain struck humanity like no other. It only took two days to bring the entire country almost to a stop, and two more to a standstill.

I didn’t know what else to do but run and hide. My limited knowledge coupled with the hysterical posts on social media by people I’m certain wouldn’t lie or spread crazy rumors, suggested altitude and a cold climate limited the spread of biological diseases. Avoiding people does the same. Where I headed met all three goals… and it was an hour away. It was fairly high in altitude, very cold, and isolated.

That decision had been made over a week ago and all had been fine since then, if you consider the lack of current news and being scared all the time I would fall ill and die within two days, fine . I was lonely, sure. Terrified, yes. However, I faced a laundry list of unknowns, so the fear was mostly composed of vague boogeymen waiting to pounce. If one thing didn’t kill me, another would.

Speaking of killing me, the dirty-faced little female who only stood about five feet tall, her features hidden under a fur hat with felt ear-flaps like the loggers used to wear a century ago still faced me. The rifle trained on me was all that mattered.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Shut up.”

Only a portion of the girl’s face and eyes was uncovered, and around her neck and chin was one of those elastic scarf things people sometimes wear when they rob convenience stores or work in the garden. The image was an impossibly wide smile with teeth a half-inch tall on a white skull. It covered the nose and below. The felt flap on the hat covered her forehead and ears. The rest of the woman was dressed for the knee-deep snow we stood in. About all I could see were her dark smoldering eyes.

The barrel of the weapon hadn’t wavered while I stood and thought, but it had not been all that long. My thoughts were racing so despite the number, not a lot of time had passed. She should have listened to me and shot me a long time ago. It was the right thing to do under the circumstance. She should also have fired her military-style rifle at me back then when we had stood five steps apart because we now faced each other from a distance of only a few feet. I had edged closer and closer while talking gently to her. My limp hands hung loosely at my sides, never threatening. Yet, they could easily reach the end of the rifle barrel and slap it aside before she could fire. No problem. Little risk. Before she recovered, I’d be on her. It would happen soon.

Only one item held me back. She could have shot anytime in the last three minutes when we’d first encountered each other—and hadn’t. When my eyes lowered to the rifle again, an ugly black thing that screamed military, her trigger finger tightened in response. So, she was not as stupid as I had believed, and she was willing to shoot me if I flinched.