Jacqueline Druga - Healing

October 14 th

My name is Christian Hughes, but everyone calls me Chris. I’m thirteen. This is my first entry. I don’t know how much I’ll write or for how long.

My pap said I should write in a journal. He said it would help me get my feelings out. Don’t need to write in it every day, just when I feel like I have something on my mind. I asked him if he ever had one, he said he didn’t but saw no reason why I shouldn’t. I’m the talker.

I don’t know what I’m gonna write. Maybe tomorrow I will. Kind of explain what all happened and why I am writing.

In the morning we leave. Not for long and not far away.

I don’t even know what’s outside my town. Heck, I was rarely outside of my town before this all happened.

My stepfather is taking me and my little brother away. Just a trip. Just us three.

He said so we can find ourselves.

I hope he’s right. I hope I find myself. Because right now, I am so lost.

October 15 th

Two hours into the journey, Mick Owens pulled over. There was a rest area just before the end of the Ohio turnpike and it was a perfect place to stop.

Their drive had been an easy one, not that two hours in a car was all that long. It was peaceful driving. They spotted one car on the road and they were headed in the opposite direction. One car in two hours. It was only highway driving and what was ahead scared him.

Civilization. Or what was left of it.

The boys didn’t say much. Mick didn’t expect them to. It was part of the reason he was taking the boys away for a spell. Perhaps the further away from home, from the hurt, the more they would be themselves, if that was ever possible again.

They had lost. Mick and the boys had lost. Their mother, their grandmother, brother… it was too much to handle.

Mick not only saw those around him succumb to the flu and lose their lives, he had watched the spark of life leave Chris and Tigger.

Then again, it had only been a week. Time would heal. For that Mick prayed.

There wasn’t a soul at the rest area; it was eerily deserted and Mick put the SUV in park. Fall had set in and the leaves covered the parking lot like a layer of snow. Untouched, because no cars had passed through them.

He looked in the rearview mirror to six year old Tigger who due to a medical condition, was no bigger than a three year old. Tigger wiggled.

“You have to take a leak, Tig?” Mick asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m just dancing.”

“I’m sure.” Mick opened his door. “Chris, take your brother while I top off the gas.”

“Sure.” Chris started to open his door but stopped. He looked through the windshield at the silent rest area building. “You ain’t wanting me to take him in there, are you?”

“No, I—”

“Cause it’s not like I’m scared or anything, just… it’s…”

“Chris,” Mick said softly, “just take him a few feet from the truck. Not too far. I don’t want you boys far from me at all.”

Again, Chris started to open the door. “Why you topping off the gas, Mick? We running low already?”

“No,” Mick answered, shifting his eyes to the rearview mirror and to Tigger who wiggled more intensely. “I’d rather not stop when we are near Pittsburgh.”

“Cause that seems kind of fast, doesn’t it?”

“What’s seems kind of fast?”

“That we’re running low on gas.”

“We aren’t running low on gas, I just wanna top off.”

“What if we run out?”

“Chris…”

“I mean, with no electricity, how we gonna get gas?”

“I brought plenty.”

“How do you know?” Chris asked.

“I know. We’re not going all that far. Now take your brother to pee.”

From the backseat, Tigger said quietly, “Too late.”

Mick grumbled with a slight exhale and stepped out of the SUV. “I’ll get you fresh pants.”

“I’ll help ya, Tig, get you all dry,” Chris said. “Shame Mick made you pee your pants like that.” He too slid out, looked at Mick, and gave a smile. Not wide, but a smile that indicated he was kidding him.

A moment of breathlessness hit Mick and he was glad to see it. Chris hadn’t smiled in a week. Not that there was any reason to, but even when his father died long before the flu, Chris found a reason to smile.

Not this time, though. Mick hoped that somehow he’d put some ‘at ease’ on the thirteen year old boy’s face, in fact, he hoped that outcome for them all.

It had been weeks since Tom Roberts had opened his video store. He closed it for a spell when the government ordered all unnecessary businesses shut their doors. Then Mick shut the proverbial doors to Lodi, Ohio and Tom opened his store again. But not for long. A month or so, and then Lodi suffered the same fate as the rest of the world.

It faced the flu.

Tom was one of the first to get it. Lodi was ready, under the watchful eye of Lars Rayburn and the CDC, prepped with an experimental treatment.

The treatment worked on Tom. It worked on a lot of people, but it failed on so many. Tom didn’t just suffer from the after effects of the flu, he suffered from a broken heart he was certain would never mend.

His wife Marian… gone.

His daughter Dylan… gone.

And his grandson Dustin… gone.

Three times, three ways, Tom was crushed. The love of his life, the one he gave life, and his grandson.

Losing Marian was tough; he loved her and always would. Tom was certain, even if there were plenty of people left in the world, he’d never find another Marian.

Dylan was his flesh and blood and only child. It wasn’t right that he had to stay on this earth while watching his child leave. No parent should watch their child die.

If Tom could have changed places with any of them, he would have.

A pain shot through his heart when he thought of Dustin. How incredibly special Dustin was. Tom recalled when Dustin was born. How a spark of life like he had never before felt ignited within his being at the first moment he laid eyes on the baby boy.

It was an indescribable love that only a grandparent could feel. As if God Himself had reached into Tom’s heart and lit it aflame with an emotion he never realized he had.

From that moment on Tom was hooked on Dustin as if the child were an addictive drug. He loved his other grandchildren just the same, but Dustin… was his boy, the son he never had. He loved the fishing trips Dylan thought were too boring. Dustin did it all.

How Tom loved to torment the teenager when he waited on a new release at the video store. Tom would tell him he rented it out. Dustin would pout, whine and then switch up and say, “That’s okay. I’ll wait. It’ll be worth it. Thanks, Pap.”

Pap .

The bright young man, who so diligently watched for signs of the flu, was on target. He made it to treatment with minimal symptoms and was a prime candidate for success.

It didn’t work on him. It ravaged him in a way that was inhumane.

Nothing… nothing Dustin did in his young life warranted the suffering he experienced and nothing Dylan ever did warranted her having to witness it.