Babies, Babies Everywhere

Everyone was going there. I do not understand why, it does not interest me even a tiny bit, however almost everyone in town decided they needed to be there. Some people said they heard it calling to them, telling them they needed to go. Some people just simply left their homes, their jobs, their families and went without telling anyone.

I saw a story on the news on the first day it appeared, before most of the news people left, stating a mass exodus was beginning. Forget mass exodus I think I have only seen about ten adults walking around, many people confined in their homes by disability or illness, and lots of babies in our town of 25,000 during the past several days. It probably would not be so bad except almost everyone left without taking anything with them, including their family members. They did not even drive their automobiles; they simply took off walking and have not come back yet.

I have started going into everyone's abandoned houses and making sure all the power has been shut off since I saw a couple of homes burn down the second day people started leaving. Without anybody here to keep our electrical grid running, I am not sure how much longer I will have power. I did find an unaffected nurse at the local hospital, so when I find sick or disabled people, I take them to the hospital. The nurse told me she would continue to stay at the hospital 24/7 to care for the people requiring medical assistance as much as possible.

I have 14 babies at my house because I did not feel right pushing constant care for babies in addition to sick adults on the obviously overworked nurse. Fortunately, I was able to raid the homes in which I found the babies for clothes, diapers, formula, bottles, and toys. I am worried however about the houses I have not gotten to yet. I simply hope those other people roaming the town are finding left behind invalids and babies and taking care of them too.

I have tried to talk to the people I have seen the past several days, however they either run away from me or they do not seem to understand me when I talked to them. I have decided the people who do not seem to understand me must be walking through town on their way to where everyone else is going and the people who run away might simply be afraid. I get it, I am a little scared too.

I sure would like some help with all these babies, so I keep trying to connect with someone. I do not think I have slept more than four hours total the past few days because I have been searching the town for food and more babies. I start my day at sunup and tradeoff between an hour looking for food, stranded people, and babies and two hours with the babies changing diapers, getting bottles, making sure the babies are safely corralled and unable to get away when I am searching for more people to rescue.

I did find a radio station that still has one person broadcasting a few times a day. The reporter has been trying to find out information about the exodus of people because he lives a few miles from where they all appear to be congregating. He said there are some unaffected people trying to feed and give water to the people who seem to be in a trance, standing there just looking at it.

Today is going to be the day. I will find a person who understands me, will not run away from me, and wants to help me with all these babies. As I left the house, I saw a woman walking toward me.

“Are you the one collecting all the babies?” she asked.

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

“Jennifer at the hospital told me to look for you. I can help you take care of the babies. I am happy to stay here if you have a bed for me to sleep on so you can get some sleep too. Jennifer told me you have been searching for food and those left behind during the day so I will take the night shift for the babies while you sleep. My name is Stacy.” She had an engaging smile and at this point I was desperate enough to accept any help offered. Stacy did not look like the type of person who would harm the babies, so I told her I had the babies secured for the next two hours if she wanted to go back to her home for personal items.

I found two people to take to the hospital and another baby to bring home. Stacy came running out of the house when I returned yelling, “They are all gone! They are all gone!”

I rushed into the house thinking something had happened to the babies, but once I was inside, I saw them all safely in their cribs. “Who is gone?” I demanded.

“The people summoned by the green light have all disappeared according to the man on the radio. He was there an hour ago and hundreds of thousands of people simply disappeared. The unaffected people who were trying to take care of the others are still there, but everyone else is gone.” Tears were running down Stacy's face.

I took a moment to think and then said, “I will drive to the radio station building tonight to leave a note for the reporter asking him to make an announce requesting local survivors to return to town to help us save the sick, disabled, and babies. I will drive to the green light location on my way back to find out if anyone there wants to ride back with me. I do not think three people will be enough to save everyone left in town and now that we know the others are not coming back, we need all the help we can get.” I turned around to leave the house again on another rescue mission. Time was quickly running out and I could always sleep tomorrow.