Jacqueline Druga - What Tomorrow Brings

He was ill. He coughed a lot, was thin and pale. Kit had spent so much time with him, she hadn’t noticed how bad he was until he was pulled aside at the camp.

No one ever stopped them because they probably assumed Abe was looking for medical attention.

They apprehended him immediately and because of all the highly contagious and infectious diseases that bred post bombs, they placed him in a mandatory quarantine for ten days.

They wouldn’t even let Kit near him. They did however give her updates after she fibbed and said he was her husband.

They had to rule out any communicable disease and hopefully he would recover.

Hopefully? Was he really that sick? Was Kit that caught up in her own search that she didn’t notice her new friend was dying?

What did he have? They said he was fevered and his lungs were filled with fluid. They were near certain it wasn’t Cholera, but they couldn’t be sure. Typhoid wasn’t ruled out. She learned that Cholera was an epidemic in the camp and already had taken the lives of over two hundred people. It seemed like a lot until Kit learned there were over five thousand people in that camp.

If her mother and daughter were anywhere, they were there. She would use that ten days, while waiting on Abe to look.

Ask every single person that she could, if they saw her daughter or mother, show them the picture.

It was a football field full of tents just for those transitioning, meaning those who were healing and those who were moving on. Outside the stadium where even larger housing tents.

Kit went from sun up to sun down searching.

She looked in every tent, every cot, every injured person. Heartbreaking as it was, she searched the burn ward, trying to find something in those so disfigured that they were unrecognizable. Any of them could have been her family.

Kit didn’t find them.

No one saw her daughter, or mother.

She did gather information on where the other camps were and made squares on her map.

One woman had told her about a huge camp that was made out of an old warehouse sections, it was six miles north and was almost all transition people. More than likely if her mother or daughter were there, they would have moved on, but perhaps someone had seen them.

During the ten days, Kit didn’t find her family, or anyone who knew about them. She however did a lot of thinking. She had been so focused on her daughter and mother she barely thought of anything else.

She reflected on how she had gotten to know Abe. He was a quiet man who had dedicated his life to his career. He didn’t have anyone except his brother and that was why he stuck with Kit. Where else and what else did he have to do?

Before he was quarantined, they found their own holding place until dawn. It was after a hard day of walking. Watching people reluctant to join tent cities, camped out in the streets, eating out of cans, some of the cans being dog food. It hadn’t even been that long. How much longer would it be before there was no food?

They saw children on the street alone. Watching the military occupation gather the children as they cried for their parents.

They were dirty and hungry and needed love and there wasn’t enough arms left in the world to hold them.

It was a desolate world, gray in color, dark in hope. It was a different world than in Maltese. They dealt with the sick, but the town was unscathed and preparing to hunker down and be its own self sufficient entity. Kit was optimistic about Maltese, but she wasn’t so positive about everywhere else.

While discouraged about the long term outcome of the human race, she told Abe. “It’s screwed up. You know we run into people who say they are helping the occupation, but plan to go off on their own. Some like Jonas, just want to find their family and see what tomorrow brings. Some people think they have it together. The truth is they can plan this, plan that, go here and there, but there is no certainty that it will work.”

“Well, I’m certain,” Abe said. “I have been thinking of a long term plan.”

“You have a long term plan that you’re certain will work?”

“Yep.” He nodded. “I want to get a yacht, a big one and find an island. Wanna come?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Kit chuckled. “You got that yacht idea when Jonas used it as an analogy for winning the war.”

“Yep.” He smiled.

She never did bother asking if he knew how to drive a yacht, if that was even what manning a boat was called. She liked his plan. If she ever found her family or learned of their fate, she would make it an option, no matter how outlandish it was. Abe probably did know where there were islands. After all, he probably flew over many.

Then there was Deana. She had to be alive, probably working herself to death helping others. For as mean spirited and angry as Deana projected, she had a good heart. Did Kit’s father ever find her, or come close?

Deana was her only sibling left. Regis and Mark were gone. Her last vision of them burned in her memory. She would never forget, their bodies facing the rubble, huddled together in an embrace, dying in a quest to find Mark’s son.

Kit couldn’t let her quest end in her death. It was something she had to think about. Each day she searched was a day she took a chance that anything could happen. It wasn’t as if she were alone, she still had Zeke. She was certain beyond any doubt, that Zeke was fine. Harland was taking good care of him. Probably working him hard, but her son was fine.

She had to remember he was out there, too.

All the time she spent alone without Abe, while he was quarantined, filled her with a sense of missing people and sadness. She missed her daughter with all of her heart and wanted so much to find her, but at what cost to Kit and even more so, what cost to Zeke?

On the tenth day, Abe was released from quarantine. The doctors wanted him to stay, but Abe refused. He looked gaunt, his speckled gray hair was even more gray and he lost at least ten more pounds. His thin arms were bruised from intravenous lines.

There was no way, if he didn’t eat right or rest properly that Abe was going to keep any strength.

He wanted to leave the camp as soon s possible, and urged Kit to gather her belongings.

It wasn’t much, it didn’t take long, and they were back on the road before noon.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Kit. “I’m sorry they kept me away for so long.”

“Don’t be silly, you were sick,” Kit replied. “This was a big camp. It took that long to check everybody.”

“No luck?”

“No.”

“Where now?” Abe asked. “Olympia?”

“I highly doubt they are all the way done there. There is still another big camp near Tacoma and more we haven’t hit in Seattle.”

“If we don’t get kicked out,” Abe said.

“They didn’t kick us out because they thought you had some sort of contagious disease, and were looking for help” Kit said as they walked. “I got news for you, you don’t look much better. We aren’t getting stopped.”

“Gee thanks. Do I look that bad?”

“Yeah, Abe, yeah you do.”

They headed toward the large camp Kit had heard about. Although, they didn’t really have a clue where it was Kit figured they’d keep heading north, eventually they’d stumble across something that big. They had a proximity, not an exact location.

During the six mile walk, they had to stop several times. Abe kept losing his breath and strength and would break into coughing fits.

Kit was angry not at Abe’s illness, but at herself. She was pushing him, even if he wanted to do it. She was debating on turning him into the next camp for being sick, just so he could get more treatments. She would search on her own. She’d rather have him mad at her than die on her.