Nathan Jones - First Winter

That hour of waiting was agony, lasting an eternity with the time barely seeming to pass even though he waited as long as he could to check his phone, minutes at most. At 5:50 he carefully climbed out of bed. He was sure he woke up Jane, if she wasn’t already awake, but she said nothing as he pulled on his cold weather gear to the sound of his dad’s coughing in the other room. He eased open the outside door just enough to leave, stepping over more than a foot of drifted snow as he pulled it closed behind him.

Everything was white, the snow still falling in a wild flurry that reduced visibility to only a few feet in the light of his flashlight. His family’s house was between the Smiths and the Larsons, with ropes going to both as well as to Jane’s group’s cabin. He felt his way along the wall to the correct rope and held onto it as he hunched against the driving snow.

After almost a minute of quiet tapping a disheveled Matt came to the door, opening it a crack. “I need Terry,” Lewis said without preamble.

His friend flinched. “Your dad?” Lewis nodded grimly. “Just a second.” The door scraped shut.

After almost five minutes of waiting in the cold, wind burrowing through his clothes to chill him with alarming speed, the door opened and Terry and Matt trooped out, bundled up against the storm. “I’m sorry for bothering you so early,” he called over the wind, “but it’s getting really bad.”

“It’s all right,” Terry called back, voice kind in spite of the volume. “I’ve been expecting the need for a visit, although I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.”

Lewis led the way back to his cabin and entered through the front door. If he was worried about waking his family he needn’t have bothered; his mom and Mary were already awake, faces pale and pinched with worry, although they looked relieved to see Terry. Jane had emerged from their room at the sound of the door opening, padding over to stand by Lewis. His dad was leaning over a bowl of boiling water with a towel draped over his head to hold in the steam. As they entered he broke into a coughing fit and swayed, clutching at the table for balance.

Terry removed his coat and gloves but kept on his balaclava, pulling on a pair of latex gloves as he made his way over to the table. “Sorry to disturb you, Lucas,” he said gently as he set down his bag, which held all the medical tools he’d managed to scrape together. “I’d like you to tell me all about your illness, any details you can think of. Start at the beginning.” He glanced at the rest of them. “If you have something to add please speak up.”

While they described everything they could think of about Lucas’s condition since he first started coughing, Terry checked his pulse, his blood pressure, examined his throat, listened to his breathing, and felt for swelling around his throat. Then the young doctor asked to refer to Lewis’s medical texts.

Finally, after almost half an hour of mostly tense silence broken by Lucas coughing and spitting into a cup, Terry looked up grimly. “I think we’re looking at whooping cough, Lucas. The distinctive pattern of your coughing fits supports that diagnosis, along with other telltale symptoms.”

Lewis sucked in a sharp breath. That was very bad news. Of the three possible illnesses, whooping cough was potentially the most dangerous. For one thing the Bordetella pertussis bacterium was highly contagious, and his dad hadn’t made any effort to restrict contact other than the usual slight efforts people made when sick out of politeness. The disease also lasted the longest, not for nothing called the “100 day cough”. And worst of all, the coughing fits were so violent they could trigger vomiting, break ribs, and have other similarly dire effects.

Even though Lewis had been approaching that diagnosis himself he was still surprised by it. The medical texts he’d been reading covered diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of known diseases, but didn’t have much to say about their history or how common they were.

He wasn’t the only one wondering that, apparently. “Whooping cough’s still around?” Mary asked. “It’s an old-timey illness, isn’t it? I’ve never heard of anyone getting it.”

“It still crops up every now and again,” Terry replied heavily. “Most diseases never completely go away, and even with modern treatment and prevention you still see outbreaks. We’ll probably be seeing more of them now.” He turned back to Lucas. “Speaking of which, whooping cough is very contagious. We can hope most people in town have had their DTaP vaccine and their Tdap boosters, and that they’re still effective, but even so I must recommend quarantine. Not just for you but for the whole family, and ideally everyone you’ve come in contact with.”

Lucas nodded heavily. His face was gray, since he’d likely also been doing some reading and must understand what the diagnosis meant. “If Lewis and Jane don’t mind I can move into their room for now.”

“Absolutely,” Lewis said. “We’ll find a way to divert more heat from the stove into there so you’re comfortable.”

“What’s the treatment, Terry?” Eva asked worriedly, not liking the grim tones. “What can we do?”

Terry carefully removed the latex gloves and sealed them in a plastic baggy, then sat down on one of the cots. He spent a few minutes outlining the illness and what they could expect to see from it. Lewis watched his mom grow increasingly worried as their friend described vomiting and broken ribs, and when he admitted how long the illness could last and that there wasn’t much they could do without the aid of antibiotics she burst into tears.

Mary turned to Lewis hopefully. “But you’ve got antibiotics, right? That stock of medicine you prepared?”

He flinched, feeling lower than scum as he had to shake his head. “It’s all gone.”

“All of it?” his mom demanded through her tears. “You didn’t save any?”

Lewis looked away. “Too many life and death situations.”

“It is what it is,” his dad said in a low, disappointed voice. He was obviously suffering enough that he didn’t try to excuse Lewis’s decision, which made him feel even guiltier.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

No one responded. Lucas started to go to his wife to offer comfort, then remembered he needed to be quarantined. Instead he went to their bed and started gathering a few things to move. “Give me a hand, son.”

“I wish I could help,” Terry said, looking helpless and frustrated himself. “Your son was kind enough to provide medicine in several urgent cases, and now that you need it I can’t offer you any in return. We were hoping to get some from the military, or at least some cough medicine or painkillers. Mr. Orban didn’t have any of that to trade either.”

Eva pulled herself together enough to be gracious. “We can’t fault you for not providing what you don’t have.”

“Sure you can.” Terry shrugged uncomfortably. “And I’m sorry, Lucas. I’ll have Chauncey ask around after the storm clears, assuming travel is possible, but for now it looks as if you’ll have to suffer through this the hard way. Keep getting what rest you can, and drink plenty of clean water and eat as much as you’re able to. If you’ve had the cough for a week you’ll probably be contagious for another two weeks, but after that you can stop worrying about quarantine unless, God forbid, someone else in the family catches it.”

“Has anyone else in town reported symptoms?” Lucas asked, pausing in gathering up his pillows.

Terry hesitated. “Maybe.” He turned to look at Matt, who’d been quietly standing near the door the entire time.

Matt took a deep breath. He looked exhausted. “I’ll ask around about it, and also see about spreading the word and implementing quarantine. The last thing the town needs right now is a whooping cough epidemic.”