Jacqueline Druga - No Man's Land

There was gas in the car, I had siphoned some, it would take us into West Virginia. Things were going to be harder with the baby. I’d have to stop often, stay away from crowds and find a secure spot, because eventually he was going to wail like babies often did.

I spent the night talking to Edward, telling him I would find him clothes and get him food. I promised him I would do everything I could to protect him. All while talking to him, I kept watching Leah.

Dawn arrived. I could feel the shift in temperature and smell it in the air. Bag over my shoulder, I swaddled the baby as best as I could and peeked out the open board of the shed.

A fog had set in; it wasn’t thick, but enough to add a haze. I could see the car about a hundred feet away. The day before we pulled on to the property in a hurry, leaving the car in the front lawn. Holding the baby in my arms, I looked down to Leah.

“I have to go. I’m sorry. I will always love you.” I closed my eyes tightly, then quietly opened the door.

I looked from right to left and didn’t see any Vee. Baby in my arms, I hurriedly raced to the car and got there unnoticed.

The hoard of Vee had moved on, but they weren’t far, I could smell them in the air.

Edward whined and whimpered a little and it sounded so loud. I opened the car door, tossed in the backpack and slid inside.

I had to keep him in my arms and drive that way. Once the fog lifted and it was easier to see, I would pull over and find that baby carrier. I would strap him to my chest as I drove.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I told the baby, then pressed my lips to his head. “Shh.” I inserted the key in the ignition and started the car. “It will be—”

Slam!

The sound of something suddenly hitting my window caused me to jump. I quickly put the car in drive and readied to slam on the gas, when I saw.

It was Leah. She was at my side of the car.

Her hands kept hitting the window, squeaking as her fingers slid down.

After mouthing, “I’m sorry,” I slowly depressed the gas and pulled out. Carefully, I drove from the lawn to the driveway. I didn’t want to gun it and take a chance of hitting or running over something, damaging our only means of transportation.

Once I pulled to the street, I sighed in relief. The road seemed free and clear. Then I looked in the rearview mirror. My heart sunk.

I saw Leah. Her arms, bound at the wrist extended as if reaching out. The sad part was, she wasn’t just standing there, she was following us. Watching us go, staggering along, naked from the waist down from giving birth, trying her best to catch up, as if to say, “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”

I deliberately slowed down to see what she would do. Leah didn’t give up. She fell twice, got back up, and continued to try to get us. Even though I knew she was infected, that she was a Vee, it broke my heart to watch.

I couldn’t go any further.

I stopped the car.

Leah rambled that day. In fact, that was typical for her to do when she was nervous or anxious. Leah was on pins and needles. I didn’t know how to ease her mind. I was divided between checking my emails on my phone and listening to her while we sat in the waiting room of the doctor’s office.

“What if I’m not?” she asked.

“Then you’re not.”

“How can you be so insensitive?” she asked. She clutched her purse tight to her lap like a security blanket. Her legs tight together, her knees raised as her feet rested on the floor on her tiptoes. I could feel the vibration next to me when she slightly bounced her legs.

“I’m not being insensitive,” I said. “I’m not. Just… if you aren’t pregnant nothing I say or do is going to change that fact this very second, will it?”

“So you don’t think I am?”

I exhaled in frustration. “I didn’t say that. You should have taken the test at home.”

“No, what if it said I was and I wasn’t.”

“Oh my God.” I rested my head back against the wall. “Leah, stop this.”

“I want to be so bad.”

“I know.”

“I just can’t lose another baby, Calvin. I can’t.”

That made me stop. I understood that because I didn’t want to lose another one either. All the losses were early, but still losses nonetheless. The joy of finding out we were pregnant, then just before we’d hear the heartbeat, she’d miscarry. Three times it had happened and there was still no indication that anything was wrong. The doctors all said there was no reason she couldn’t carry one to term.

There we sat again, waiting to see the doctor. It was the first time we didn’t take one of the ‘pee on a stick’ tests. Leah suspected she was, but wanted to go to the doctor to be sure.

As odd as it sounded, all the anxiety that was with us that day, it was the last normal morning we would ever have. The last normal morning the world would have.

Things would forever change. The days of waking up to see the news about global conflicts, arguments about gun control, and people’s rights ended that afternoon. All that gradually became obsolete.

We as a human race were about to embark on a different fight. A fight for our very existence.

I don’t think when it happened, we pegged it as the day. But thinking back to that afternoon in the doctor’s office, we witnessed the start.

“Why is it taking so long?” she asked. “I mean really.”

“You’re impatient.”

A nap. I thought maybe if I closed my eyes, time would move faster and I’d be able to block out her constant neurotic talking. I was nervous, too. Wasn’t she even concerned about that?

Just as I closed my eyes, I heard the female voice ask, “Do you mind?”

I looked and the office nurse was standing there with a remote. She turned off the ‘I love Lucy’ reruns.

“I have to see,” she said and changed the channel to the news.

I sat up. Looked at the screen. A breaking news ribbon ran across the bottom, ‘Riot’s in Atlanta.’

“What’s going on?” Leah asked.

“I don’t know,” the nurse said. “It started with a few people attacking each other.”

“Drugs,” I said. “Must be drugs. Something new. You watch.”

“I don’t know.” The nurse shook her head. “They say they aren’t even stopping for the police.”

“Look at all that blood,” Leah commented. “What is this world coming to?”

It was rhetorical question, I suppose. I mean, how many times had I heard it said in my life?

Watch a fight…

What is this world coming to?

A war breaks out.

What is this world coming to?

Leah didn’t expect an answer, probably because she didn’t think there was one. But unknown to us in that room, that day there was finally an answer to that question.

What is this world coming to?

Its end.

Edward cried only a little bit. I feared his tiny lungs weren’t developed enough. That was something we learned in prenatal classes. He needed to cry, to scream to push his lung capacity. I felt horrible allowing him to fuss and cry, but there were no doctors, he had to be strong.

That was a must.

It was funny looking back to those classes. I imagined years or even months earlier those classes were different. Before the virus the classes probably taught how to prepare for birth, when to go to the hospital, how to recognize danger signs. All those things including nursing and post birth care.

It changed when we started classes after the outbreak. Sure it included all those things, but by government standards they had to include how to deliver a baby outside a hospital, and how to cut the cord and deal with the placenta. Although Leah handled that portion on her own.