The Pollen Plague

Charles started coughing, and the fit was so strong that he doubled over clutching his chest.

When he calmed down he pushed the stop button on his phone’s recorder and looked out the window. Months ago he was on a business trip to Seattle before the government started locking everyone in their homes. He had just stopped in DeRidder to visit his father and brothers when the pollen had spread over all of south-west Louisiana, at first a light dusting, yet it was enough to send a hundred people to the hospital.

But now…

Now, looking out the window, all he could see was yellow. The buildings, the streets, and even the rivers were covered in the stuff. Charles had to give them Washington boys credit, they sure made an effective killer, whether they meant to or not. The first plants they created were supposed to be the only ones that could produce the pollen, but somehow the yellow death was carried from plant to plant, so that even a rose could produce the stuff.

No one knew how the pollen spread to begin with, but it didn’t matter.

Because all of America was covered in it, and maybe it already spread to the rest of the world, but since communications were down, one couldn’t be sure. Yet for Charles this motel room was all that was left of his world now--everyone else in DeRidder might be dead, or dead in another part of the country.

He’ll be dead himself pretty soon. All he had to do was look in the mirror to see his pale skin, and the rash spreading from his arms, despite limiting his exposure to the outside world, and making this motel room his prison.

He clutched his mothers heart shaped locket, praying that his father and brother’s death had been peaceful; and he prayed that God would give him the strength to step outside this room, to go to them, and give them a proper burial. But first he had to finish this recording.

When he pressed play again he started rambling on about his first drive into DeRidder, how the pollen came in waves the next morning, growing into an even denser fog of death. Then there came the government, telling everyone all was fine, and to remain calm; remain calm even though the hospitals were full to bursting, and the dead were piling up in the street; remain calm even though the pollen was now spreading to the west coast, and was getting worse from there.

Remain calm, as their leaders lied to them about the severity of the pollen, and how they weren’t responsible, even when the truth was exposed. Good God, the facility where the plants were made wasn’t even two miles from DeRidder.

When he was done he had at least an hour’s worth of recording, and he left the phone on the table as he put on the hazmat suit, given to him during the first days of the plague. He wondered if he should hide it, but who would listen to it? Even if things got better, the government couldn’t deny any of this. His story was just one of thousands.

In fact maybe his story probably wasn’t even the worst. In some places the government might’ve executed dissenters, or experimented on those wasting away.

So he stood before the door, his hand feeling for the locket beneath the rubbery material. He took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Without a word, or a second thought, he stepped out into the world’s last plague.