Jakarta Pandemic, The (30 page)

Alex got up swiftly and moved around the island toward Kate, who was laughing and circling the island. “Every now and then, the troops need to rise up and teach their leaders a lesson,” he said, closing in on her.

“Are you rising right now?”

“I could be,” he responded and made a move to grab her.

Kate dodged the attempt and ran toward the stairs. She ran up the stairs quickly, with Alex in hot pursuit, playfully remaining a few steps behind her. She rounded the top of the stairs and turned around to face him as she walked backward into the master bedroom. He followed her in and locked the door.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Friday, November 22, 2013

Alex sat at the great room computer desk, scanning the headlines from dozens of online newspapers. Since Wednesday, the situation nationwide had deteriorated significantly, as he had expected.

From the desk, he could see out of two sets of windows into the neighborhood. The skies overhead were completely clear, with some low scattered clouds on the western horizon. The temperature the past few days had been in the fifties, and the days had been sunny and clear, representing a welcome shift from the seemingly endless series of storms racking southern Maine over the past week. The change in weather had brought life back to the neighborhood, which he and his family mostly observed as spectators.

He saw Derek Sheppard in his backyard playing with his kids. From the corner window facing the street, Alex could see half of the Sheppards’ enormous wooden play set, and over the past thirty minutes, he had spotted all three of Derek’s kids and their dog, running around the play set. The only Sheppard he hadn’t seen today—or over the past week—was Ellen, and he hadn’t spoken with Derek since the neighborhood meeting.

The break in the weather also brought a few visitors, which they kept at a comfortable distance. Nancy and Paul Cooper stopped by Thursday morning to say hello while out for a walk with Max. Both of them had taken extended, unpaid leave from work, starting at the beginning of the week.

Charlie Thornton brought them some freshly cut venison steaks later that same day, compliments of the normally off-limits conservation land behind the Hewitt Park sports fields. Charlie said that the area was full of deer, and that he’d be willing to take Alex out there on his next foray. Alex invited him around back to the deck and produced a few chilled beers. Charlie looked thrilled by the invitation, and they sat there for about an hour talking about the neighborhood and the pandemic in general.

He found himself impressed by Charlie’s level of knowledge, most of it gained over the past few weeks. As they parted, he considered explaining to Charlie that they didn’t eat meat, but decided that it was better for him to accept Charlie’s gift than to risk insulting him. Kate almost passed out at the sight of the venison steaks on her kitchen island, and he suggested that they wrap and store the steaks in the basement freezer, for an emergency. Kate told him that it would take one hell of an emergency for her to eat deer meat.

He grabbed the neighborhood status board from the side of the computer table and turned toward the couch where Kate was sitting, reading a book and sipping coffee. Her accounting firm had closed indefinitely on Wednesday, and Kate hadn’t skipped a beat adjusting to a life of full-time leisure. Over the past two days, Alex mostly found her reading, napping upstairs, or taking long walks with Emily or Ryan. Despite the milder weather, Alex remained indoors, feeling that this was a better strategy for him, given the high profile he had been developing among his more hostile neighbors.

He unfolded the worn, smudged poster board and laid it on the coffee table. He had begun to highlight the names of confirmed or suspected sick neighbors with a yellow marker, and several yellow lines crossed the diagram, signifying known interactions with potentially infected neighbors. A red marker was used to indicate death. Currently, only one name was highlighted red: Matt McDaniel. He examined the diagram of the neighborhood and added a line connecting the Thompsons’ house to the McCarthys’, the apparent babysitting hub on their side of the Durham Road loop.

**

While sitting at the computer, Alex detected some movement down the street to the right. He didn’t have a good view from the southeast corner of the house, so he grabbed his binoculars and ran upstairs to the master bedroom, nearly knocking Kate over as she emerged from the bathroom. With the binoculars, he saw James Thompson push a stroller, with another small child in tow, right up to the McCarthys’ house, and then return by himself. A few minutes later, both he and his wife, Mary, left in their Toyota Sienna. Alex assumed that their third child was in the van with them. Judging from the stroller, he figured it had to be either Emily or Madison, since their baby had to be in the stroller.

The Thompsons’ departure made sense, given the information that had been shared with him yesterday by Ed. Sarah Quinn continued to collect, verify, and pass along information to the neighborhood regarding suspected or confirmed illnesses. Her latest download to Ed hadn’t surprised Alex.

According to Sarah, Mary Thompson had been fighting flu-like symptoms for a few days, and based on what he had just seen, one of their children was likely sick also. They were probably on their way to see a doctor. He highlighted Mary’s name in yellow and randomly selected Emily, age three, for the other highlight. He found it interesting that Mary and James would take their children to the McCarthys’, despite persistent rumors that Jennifer McCarthy and at least one of her children was also sick with flu-like symptoms.

Sarah Quinn knew this because four days before, Jennifer had asked her for two of the anti-viral treatment courses that Sarah held for the neighborhood. Jennifer refused to give Sarah any details, but insisted that they needed the anti-virals immediately. According to Sarah, she didn’t sound good over the phone, and Michael McCarthy picked up the drugs from Sarah just minutes after the phone call. She should have asked for five, one for each member of the family, but Alex was certain that neither Michael nor Jennifer had invested any time into researching effective pandemic anti-viral treatment strategies. Then again, it was unlikely that Sarah would have given her five courses of treatment without more information. This transaction had left eleven courses of treatment for the neighborhood, which didn’t last long, according to Sarah.

Owing to her close friendship with Nicki Bartlett, she also knew that Nicki and two of her children were sick with high fevers, muscle aches, and worsening coughs. Nicki and her kids had been sick since the weekend, and Sarah gave them three courses of anti-viral therapy, bringing the remaining total to eight.

Nicki’s husband, Jack, an endocrinologist, insisted that they could be adequately treated at home, under his care. Apparently, he had access to medical supplies from the diabetes center, though Alex couldn’t imagine that the center had any antibiotics left in their drug sample closet, which would be critical for treating flu-induced pneumonia. Few companies made antibiotics any more, and the only antibiotic Alex had managed to sparingly find in drug closets over the past few years was Levaquin.

Logically, since the Bartletts’ had been hit with the flu, he wasn’t surprised to learn that both the Bishops’ and the Greens’ had been hit as well. Sarah had delivered four courses of antiviral therapy to the Bishops on Tuesday after Stephanie called to tell Sarah that her entire family had developed flu symptoms simultaneously on Monday morning.

All of their children had been closely intertwined since school was cancelled, and the McDaniel girls stayed among the Bartletts’ and Bishops’ for several days, nearly guaranteeing that the flu would be spread. Sarah asked about Jamie’s girls, and Stephanie said that Katherine was still sick, but didn’t seem to be getting any worse, and that Amanda had no symptoms at all. After delivering drugs to both the Bartletts and Bishops, Sarah was left with only four remaining treatments. Two of those went to the Greens, and the remaining two to the Burtons, who each reported two possible cases of the flu in their households.

Within the span of a week and a half, all of the anti-virals were gone, and as far as Alex knew, the only remaining anti-virals in the neighborhood sat in his basement and somewhere within Ed’s house. Alex had given Ed enough for his family nearly a year ago.

Sarah heard from Jennifer McCarthy that Ken Hayes might be sick. Michelle stopped sending her kids over to the McCarthys’ on the same day that Jennifer McCarthy called Sarah to ask for anti-virals. She told Jennifer that they had decided to stay home from work for a few weeks, and that nearly everyone in her husband’s office was sick. Jennifer wondered if one of the Hayes’ kids had brought the virus into their house. He highlighted Ken Hayes on the chart.

The last piece of news from Ed hit Alex the hardest because he knew it meant trouble. Todd Perry’s wife was sick and had been refused treatment at Maine Medical Center. She was given a basic home treatment kit, with no prescription medications, only basic pain and fever relief medications. Worse yet, she had brought her nine-year-old son, Michael, who was also suffering from escalating flu symptoms, and he received the same kit. Both of them were turned away without explanation. Alex expected a knock on his door at any time from Todd, right after he knocked on Sarah’s door to get some of the promised anti-virals, only to be told that Alex’s original promise of twenty courses had materialized as thirteen.

He ensured that all of the highlights on the diagram were up to date and then folded the poster board in half. He sat back on the couch and exhaled deeply.

“Done with arts and crafts hour?” Kate quipped.

“Pretty much. You want to check out the updates?”

“Can you just summarize them for me?” she asked, continuing to focus on her book.

“Annoying. Anyway, I saw James deliver two of his kids over to the McCarthys’ house about thirty minutes ago, then take off with his wife and one of the kids in the minivan.”

Kate looked up from her book with a puzzled look. “Isn’t Jennifer McCarthy and at least one other person in that house sick?”

“Based on my intel, I assume that’s the case.”

“What is wrong with these people? Why would she send her kids over there? I saw Mary outside yesterday in the backyard playing with the dog. Why couldn’t she drive by herself?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she got worse and can’t drive. Either way, I’m surprised Jennifer agreed to watch the kids. None of it makes much sense.”

“Oh, I had meant to ask you earlier, but I forgot. Did the Carters leave town? I haven’t seen anything going on at their house since last week, and Kelso hasn’t greeted me on any of my recent walks,” she said, sounding more disappointed about not seeing the dog than the Carters.

“You mean Kelso hasn’t been rummaging around inside our house for the past few weeks?”

“Yeah, well, that’s unusual too,” she responded.

“I really don’t know, but I think you’re right. I circled their house on the board and put a big question mark next to it for the same reasons you mentioned. Ed hasn’t heard anything, so maybe they scooted out of town at night,” he surmised.

“Well, if Ed doesn’t know, then nobody knows.” She lowered her eyes back to her book.

“Maybe if I had an extra set of eyes on the neighborhood, we’d catch things like this.”

“Nice try. Besides, you’re doing a fantastic job right now, and it’s keeping you busy. You should consider staking out another window, like maybe the one up in the attic. Hey, who knows what you might see from a higher vantage point? Didn’t they teach you that in the Marine Corps?”

“Among other things. Like when someone was trying to get rid of you,” he said, picking up the poster board.

“Was I that obvious?” Kate asked.

“Oh no. Not at all.” He leaned over and kissed Kate on the forehead. “To the high ground,” he said and walked toward the stairs.

**

Alex emerged from the mudroom and set the phone down on the kitchen island. He walked over to the kitchen table and sat down without saying a word. Kate and the kids had already started to eat what had become a typical meal for the Fletchers since they’d exhausted most of their supply of perishable foods.

On a dark blue placemat in the middle of the table sat a bowl of seasoned pinto beans next to a small sauce pan filled with watery green beans. An open pressure cooker filled with a mixture of brown rice and barley sat on a separate placemat next to the beans.

The kids each had a glass of water in front of them, and a half-drained bottle of Syrah sat off to the side of the food. Alex served himself, still silent, as Kate eyed him nervously.

“They can’t seem to resist calling us right before dinner,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, still not committing to a conversation. He saw her glance at the kids, who seemed oblivious to the tension.

“How are your parents holding out?” she asked.

Alex took a deep breath and feigned a smile, not wanting to upset the kids. “They’re doing fine I suppose. Plugging along like everyone else, but they claim to be healthy, which I believe considering the fact that if one of them gets even a splinter, I usually hear every detail,” he said, forcing more of a smile.

Ryan did his best to generate a laugh, and even Emily muffled a snort, which let Alex know that the kids were better tuned in to his mood than he anticipated. Every time a call came into the house from a relative, the tension level rose significantly.

“How about your brother?” Kate asked, and he quickly shook his head, hoping the kids didn’t see him do it.

“Sounds like they’re doing fine, too,” he replied, staring at her with a serious face and shaking his head imperceptibly once again. He glanced at Emily and Ryan, who seemed too preoccupied with eating to have caught his wave off. Alex was amazed at how well they ate at meals, now that snacks were more or less a thing of the past. Two months ago, the two of them would have stared at this dinner in disbelief.