Spring Allergies

This is the first short story I ever wrote, a sort of challenge to see if I could do it. It became a very long story that has been edited many times over the years. Some of the ideas in it are outdated, like tabloid magazines at the grocery checkout. All we see now are celebrity gossip rags. But the underlying question of how you respond when your world is falling apart remains.

It was written long before COVID became a thing, but now felt like a good time to dust it off.

All day long Dr. Susan McMillan’s patients had been telling her there was a storm coming.

“Last one of the spring, but it’ll be a big one,” Homer Reed told her at lunch time. Mr. Reed, who was 93, was one of Dr. Susan’s favorite patients. Born and raised on a southern Illinois soybean farm, he was one of her few patients who didn’t use his aching bones to predict the weather. He used the farm animals.

“Cows were all huddled up in the northeast pasture this morning and it’s too cold yet for tornadoes, so we’re in for some snow.”

The weather channel this morning had said the same thing, so Susan smiled as she asked, “How much?”

“Well, the weather man says we’ll get an inch or two, but I expect he’s probably wrong. He usually is. Last time I saw snow this late, we got almost two feet of that heavy, wet stuff. Had to call my boy John out to plow it for me. Couldn’t get out to the barn to milk the cows.”

“Mr. Reed, do you still milk those cows every day?”

“Naw, I gave it up a couple years back. Weren’t no market for it anymore. Even the Amish over at Ava seem to be buying milk in the store these days.”

That was exactly what led Susan to standing in a line with six people in front of her and her two hyperactive children wanting to go home for dinner – milk. And bread and a couple other staples to get them through, just in case Mr. Reed and not the weatherman was right about the storm.

Looking around the crowded market, Susan smiled at all her friends and neighbors hurrying to get bread and milk. By the time she got to leave the clinic and pick the children up, it was nearly 6 p.m. before she got to the grocery. It seemed as though the whole town had the same idea, finish up at work and get groceries before settling in for the storm.

Susan thought it was remarkable how it seemed like the only people who didn’t watch the weather were the ones who scheduled staff for the supermarket. The harried-looking cashier was one of only four store employees visible from Susan’s place in the line. Many of the store shelves were disorganized and picked over. The French toast crowd, as her mother-in-law liked to call them, believed that every storm required running to the store for bread, eggs and milk. No storm stood a chance against the staples.

Shelby, Susan’s five-year-old daughter, entertained herself, hanging off the handle of the shopping cart, doing twirls and talking to everyone in sight. Michael, her son, was sulking on a bench near the door, upset that the shopping trip was making him miss his nightly dose of The Simpsons. Tapping her toes inside her sensible white shoes, Susan tried not to show her growing impatience. The guy at the front of the line had 23 items, clearly more than the 15 or less proclaimed by the express lane sign. He also wanted to write a check, but waited until the cashier gave him his total to begin digging for the checkbook. He didn't have a pen or his identification.

Susan sighed in exasperation. It was definitely going to be one of those nights.

“Mommy, Mommy, look! There’s a monster on that magazine,” Shelby said, having grown tired of twirls. The other harried shoppers had smiled obligingly at her antics at first, but no one seemed interested anymore. Having lost her audience, she demanded he mother’s attention instead.

“That newspaper says the D-E-A-D are walking. What is D_E_A_D? I don’t know that word.”

Distracted, Susan said, “Sound it out,” before she even processed what Shelby was asking. As realization of the girl’s question struck, she turned to peer after Shelby. “What are you looking anyway?”

“This newspaper with the picture of the ugly, monster man on it.”

“Shelby, that’s not a real newspaper. It’s like your fairy stories that we read at bed time. It’s make believe,” Susan said, deciding that was the best way to explain The Weekly World News to a kindergartener. The headline and accompanying photo were the same type of preposterous nonsense the tabloid produced every week. The photo looked as though it were shot from a long distance away, with something as sophisticated as a first generation camera phone. It could have been the Loch Ness monster for all the clarity it had and the headline proclaimed in 2-inch type, “The Real Walking DEAD”.

She might not have noticed the headline if Shelby hadn’t said something, but once she saw it, Susan was locked in a battle with her logical self, desperately wanting to read the report and knowing full well that it was tabloid garbage. She could almost hear the doctor in her, clucking her tongue at the notion of buying and reading a tabloid. But she silenced that annoying little voice and was reaching out to pick up the paper when she heard someone calling her name.

“Dr. Susan, Dr. Susan.”

Susan snatched her hand away from the tabloid like a child caught reaching for the cookie jar and turned to face Willadene Meyers, the most self-absorbed, know-everything, busy-bodied old lady in town. Willadene had been Susan’s biggest opponent when she first joined the local medical office and been very outspoken about it. She had been hard to win over, convinced women should be home with the children, not practicing medicine. No one ever had to guess about Willadene’s opinion. Willadene was happy to share.

But, Willadene was also fiercely loyal and once Susan had helped her with her arthritis, Willadene became her biggest fan. It would definitely not be prudent to let Willadene see her buy a tabloid.

“Hi, Mrs. Meyers,” Shelby answered, before Susan got the chance. “Are you here to see my Mommy?”

The cranky old lady in Willadene turned into milk-and-cookies grandma when she saw Shelby. Shelby had that effect on people.

“Why, yes, Miss Shelby, I am here to see your Mommy. I wanted to ask her what to do about this cold. Do you think she can help me?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Meyers. Mommy can make you all better. She’s the bestest doctor in the whole world.”

“Best doctor in the whole world, Miss Shelby.”

Turns out, Willadene was an English teacher at the local university back when women didn’t teach at universities.

“That’s what I said,” Shelby replied, smiling.

“Willadene, there are some over-the-counter cold remedies on Aisle Four, but they only treat the symptoms. The only thing that really helps with a cold is time and rest.” Susan told her, standing up a little straighter and using her best doctor tone.

“You’d think with all this modern medicine you could come up with something better than take two aspirin and call me in the morning,” Willadene grumbled.

Susan had seen Willadene in these moods before and when she decided to be an old goat, there was nothing to do except give it back just as good. Willadene was a teetotaler, had been all her life. She would expound on the dangers of alcohol on any given podium.

“Funny you should mention that, Willadene. Actually, the fastest-acting cold remedy I ever had was passed on to me from an Italian friend. She told me her grandmother always said she should warm up a cup of red wine for a minute or so, add some honey and then drink it with two aspirin. Then, go directly to bed. That remedy got me through medical school.”

Willadene sputtered and glared at Susan for a moment. “I think it’s your turn now, Dr. Susan. Thank you for the help,” she said, and walked off toward the cold remedies. She strode with purpose, using her cane to punctuate her steps rather than support her.

Something in the southern Illinois air must keep people healthy, because all my patients have exceeded the normal life expectancy, Susan thought, quickly grabbing the milk, bread and cereal from her shopping cart and putting them onto the conveyor belt.

She looked again at the cashier, a young woman who was not one of her usual patients, snatched the newspaper and threw it in with the organic carrots and whole-wheat rolls she was buying. Even doctors have to be frivolous sometimes.

Michael helped Shelby into her booster seat in the back seat of the van while Susan loaded the two small bags of groceries. Feeling like a fool for giving in to the temptation, Susan took the tabloid from the bag and stuffed it into her briefcase, among her medical journals, just in case her husband offered to bring in the groceries. She felt so silly for buying it. She really didn’t want to have to explain it to him. She wasn’t sure she could explain why she needed to read that particular story.

Adam had left the garage door open and his truck in the driveway, beating Susan home for the first time in ages. As the children ran into the house to regale Daddy with tales of the day, Susan brought in the groceries, deliberately leaving her briefcase in the van.

Susan made it into the kitchen before she met Adam, with Shelby in his arms, coming to help her with the groceries. Maybe it was because she was the baby, or maybe it was because little girls always win if Daddy is involved, but whatever the reason, Shelby was being carried through the house despite the fact that Susan had told her she was too big for that. Still, Susan smiled at her blonde little angel with Shirley Temple curls, whispering conspiratorially with her father.

“Now, Shelby, what have I told you about walking?”

“I know, Mommy. I’m big enough to walk on my own, but Daddy had a long day and needed a big hug,” Shelby told her mother, putting on her best innocent look. Adam clearly had decided to go with that answer.

“Shel, Mommy had a hard day too. Should we give her a big hug?”

Susan snuggled into her husband’s strong arms, and smiled as he rested his chin on her head. “You are spoiling her rotten, you know,” she said.

“I know.”

She felt him smiling back as they enjoyed their first few minutes together for the day. He had been out of bed and gone long before Susan and the children got up for the day. “What’s for dinner?”

“Well, I thought I would violate all my principals today and go for quick and easy, especially since I got stuck at the store for so long. Cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese? I could throw together some salads too...” The salads were really an afterthought and Susan didn’t want to take the time to make them, but she felt guilty about giving the kids dinner with no vegetables in it.

“How about we skip the veggies, just this once? The kids will think it’s Christmas,” Adam said, still smiling.

Susan knew he was right. Despite all her best efforts to make her family eat healthy, she knew Adam would rather have steak and potatoes than salmon and steamed vegetables. The kids agreed with their father.

“You know, we have the only kids in the neighborhood who think that hot dogs are only available at the ballpark,” Adam had teased her once.

“Okay, you win. No veggies tonight. Cheeseburgers with extra grease and mac and cheese, but you get oat bran in the morning.”

As he started to groan at the thought, Susan shooed him and Shelby into the other room so she could work on dinner. Susan bit her lip while she dug her saucepan out and filled it with water. She really should just mention to Adam that she had bought the news-rag. He wouldn’t object, but he might tease her a bit about being silly. Even to herself, Susan couldn’t explain her need to read the story. She knew that 90 percent of the weekly reports were nothing more than figments of someone’s overactive imagination. On the other hand, she rationalized, the tabloids sometimes caught things that other people missed or couldn’t write about because there was no proof.

They knew about Brad and Angelina long before Jen did. Their sources seemed accurate at reporting celebrity pregnancies and affairs, if nothing else, she thought as she fidgeted

“Michael, it’s your turn to set the table,” she called out to the family room, where Adam had one child on each side of him watching cartoons he had recorded for them earlier in the day. As she took dinner to the dining room, Susan decided she would just read the story once the kids were in bed and be done with it.

Over dinner, which Michael pronounced “Awesome!”, Shelby captivated them with tales of the supermarket, explaining their visit with Mrs. Meyers to her father. “So, then, she said Mommy was the bestest doctor in the world and I told her that’s what I just said. And, Mommy told her to take wine and aspirin and call her in the morning.”

Adam raised his eyebrow when Shelby told him Susan had recommended wine to Willadene. She shrugged and smiled in return. “She was complaining that we couldn’t cure the common cold. I really didn’t want to hear it.”

“Mom, can we play a game after dinner?” Michael wanted to know.

“We have to do your homework first and Shelby has to practice writing her letters.”

“But we’re gonna have a snow day tomorrow Mom, I just know it.”

“Homework, just in case you have school tomorrow. If we really do get a snow day, we can play all day tomorrow while your Mom is at work,” Adam told his petulant son.

Michael was just old enough to realize that since his father worked in construction, snow days at school usually meant Dad was home too. “We get to stay with you tomorrow?”

“Only if there isn’t school.”

“Is it snowing yet?”

#

Adam did the dinner dishes while Susan gave Shelby her bath and Michael wrote his spelling words for the week. Then, they met in the family room for hot chocolate and “Cats Don’t Dance”, an old video that was one of Shelby's favorites, before it was time for bed. Michael seemed distracted by the idea of spending the following day with his father and all thoughts of a game were pushed aside.

“Mom, can we look at the snow before we go to sleep?” Michael asked.

“Sure, go look out the back door.”

“Mom, I think we’re gonna need more hot chocolate.” Michael said as Susan felt the chill from the door being opened.

What had been sleet and a cold rain had turned to pounds and pounds of snow.

“Can we stay up?”

“No, bedtime doesn’t change with the weather. But, I do think you get to spend tomorrow with Dad,” Susan smiled to soften her answer.

Clearly excited about the snow, both of the children were hard to get to settle down for the night. By the time they were asleep, Adam was curled up on the couch, snoring while the end of something played on ESPN. Susan decided to let him nap and went to the garage to get her briefcase.

Stepping into the garage to retrieve her newspaper and her paperwork, Susan shivered. The garage was chilly, but the gooseflesh that covered her arms filled her with more of a sense of dread and despair than cold. Susan was sure that something was dreadfully amiss and she blamed that newspaper article.

The story did very little to ease her concerns. It said police in Hong Kong had captured a photo of a man walking the streets after he died. Police said the man had been sick with what many believed was bird flu, and then died. Susan thought the story fell short even by the sensationalistic standards set forth by the Weekly World News. There were no doomsday predictions and no dire warnings, just a very grainy photo and annoyingly short cutline to accompany it.

Disappointed in herself for giving in to the tabloid gossip, Susan tried to remember the last time she’d heard an update about the bird flu. The Department of Health and Human Services had stopped issuing its dire warnings about an impending pandemic if the bird flu ever mutated. In fact, after almost daily news coverage on the spread of the virus, the news had dried up. Since then there had been ebola, and the resurgence of measles and whooping cough and the bird flu had completely fallen off the radar.

Susan wasn’t sure when the last notes she had read about it were, but she thought it had been a few years. Some smart-ass reporter said the flu was a “pandemic if you’re a bird and a nuisance if you’re a human.” Since then there was the "pandemic" of H1N1, an overblown worry about a variant of the swine flu, but overall, the nation's health infrastructure seemed to be doing its job very well.

Her curiosity got the better of her and Susan decided to use the information super highway for all its worth. Still feeling silly and somewhat paranoid about her curiosity, she pulled up two windows on her computer. One, a respected medical research site, was discussing the newest treatment for environment-related diabetes. The second was the website for the Weekly World News.

Strangely, the last issue of the paper was not available at their website. In fact, where the website had been was a simple 404 error indicating the page had been removed or relocated or deleted. Susan used every search engine she could to try to find the new address for the page. Nothing worked. Then, she searched for the bird flu. She received less than a dozen hits.

Assuming it was her search term causing the problem, she switched first to avian flu and then to H5N1, the more scientific name for the influenza strain. When she still had only very outdated references and less than a hundred hits, the paranoia turned to a sinking feeling in her stomach. Information on the internet didn’t just disappear like this without a concerted effort.

Susan had never been a big fan of conspiracy theories, because, well, it didn’t seem logical that something truly important could be hidden completely. She assumed that if the moon landing had been faked in a Hollywood sound stage or aliens had crash-landed in the New Mexico desert, someone somewhere would have been able to produce credible evidence. Still, the lack of information of the bird flu had the little voice in her head shouting “COVER UP!” at the top of its lungs. Even if it was just casual, blog-type entries, there should have been hundreds of thousands of sites that mentioned the virus.

Knowing that what she was about to do would irritate Adam and cause a fight she wasn’t in the mood to rehash again, Susan tiptoed back to the living room to make sure he was still asleep on the couch before picking up her cellphone. Then she retreated to her office at the back of the house.

It wasn’t that she liked to keep things from Adam, but every time she mentioned talking to Tom, Adam would be wounded and pout for a week. For a big handsome guy, he had an enormously fragile ego, especially where her ex-fiance was concerned. Susan hadn’t seen Tom since the day she and Adam got married, even though he did send cards and gifts for the kids on a regular basis. Adam had even thrown a fit about Tom coming to the wedding, somehow afraid she was going to leave with Tom instead of him. “You worked together and he’s a doctor. He’ll make millions in research. I’m just a big lug who builds things,” Adam had insisted at their rehearsal dinner.

For the day, Adam seemed to accept her answer that she loved him and had ended things with Tom as soon as she met him. Still, after twelve years together, Adam wasn’t completely convinced. The last time she mentioned Tom, she slept alone for a week and walked on eggshells for two more after that. Just like Willadene didn’t need to see me buy a tabloid, Adam didn’t need to know she was calling Tom.

Susan dialed Tom’s cell phone first and was puzzled when she got no answer. Then, remembering one of the reasons she had not been able to plan a life with Tom, she dialed his office number.

“Williams. Have you got the numbers?”

Susan laughed. Tom was always the same. No pleasantries, no friendly chatter. All business. “No, Tom, I don’t have the numbers. Got a minute?”

“Suzie Q? For anyone else in the world, I’d say no. For you? Always. Are you ready to leave the big dope and run off to Jamaica with me?”

“Tom...”

“Yeah, I know, you love him. And, he makes you happy. That makes it okay, I guess. How are the kids?”

“Monsters, as usual. I can’t remember what I did without them,” she said.

She could hear in Tom’s response, or lack thereof, that her answer was rehashing old wounds, so she dove right into her questions. “Tom, you sound busy so I’ll save the boring stories about my terrific kids for another night. I really need to talk to you about the strangest thing I read today.”

The phone was quiet for a minute and then she heard him. “Damn. They must not have gotten them all pulled in time.” It sounded as though he was talking to himself. Then, in a louder voice, he asked, “So you saw the picture, huh?”

The gnawing ache in her stomach turned hot and burning, as though her stomach would rupture, when Susan realized that without asking, Tom had figured out exactly why she called. The fact that Tom knew exactly what she was asking about worried Susan immediately. She was sure that could only mean her instincts were right. The story, and the lack of information available about it, was true.

“I’m not sure what I saw, Tom,” she said, willing herself to be calm. “It was in a rag, not exactly a reputable source, and the picture was grainy and out of focus. How ‘bout you tell me what I saw?”

“Are you near your computer?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll send you a video. I just shot it a couple hours ago. After you see it, call me back and we can talk. And, Suzie Q,”

“Yes, Tom?”

“As soon as I finish running the numbers, this is going to become a matter of national security. You can’t tell anyone, not even Adam, okay?”

“Tom, I can’t keep things from him....I just can’t”

“Tell me that again after you see the video.”

Susan heard the click as he hung up the phone and laid down her cell phone as she set the computer to receive the video file Tom had sent her. Even the file name brought the shivers back to her spine. “CDCP Eyes Only/Walking Dead”

As the computer was downloading, Susan walked back to the living room, stopping long enough to grab a blanket to cover Adam’s sleeping form. She was uncomfortable keeping secrets from him and knew he would never forgive her for keeping secrets with Tom of all people. Tom knew that too, so it had to be important. She shivered again and started back to her computer to watch the video.

Tom had left the time/date stamp intact on the video, so she could see he had been shooting the video in his lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta about the time she had been feeding the children their dinner.

A man in his mid-30s was connected to an IV drip and a heart monitor and had an oxygen monitor on his right hand. About 30 seconds into the video, his breathing became ragged and he was gasping for air. Then, his heart monitor stopped and the oxygen monitor showed plummeting oxygen levels in his blood. Susan was dismayed that no one came running when the man’s vital signs failed. She had expected the CDC to try to keep its test patients alive. She picked up the phone to call Tom, to tell him what she thought of him for letting the man just die. Then, the man on the screen spoke, “Hey doc, I think your machine broke.” The man’s speech was slow at first, as though he had just awakened. “I feel a lot better now. Do you think we could turn that beeping off?”

Susan dropped her phone. She had seen people die before, usually not people that young, but still, she knew what it looked like. Not the heavy drama from the television, but the last few ragged gasps for breath and then nothing.

There were several minutes more of video of Tom, in full containment gear looking like he was ready for a moon landing, performing basic checks on the subject and recording the results on a computerized clipboard. Then, the screen went black and came back to a shot of Tom, sitting in his office by his computer.

His hair was longer than he usually kept it and maybe a little more gray than the last time Susan had seen him. The gray was actually most noticeable in the stubble on his chin. Judging from experience, Susan decided it had been about three days since the last time he shaved.

“Patient expired at 8:17:08 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. He began speaking again at 8:18:45 p.m. At this point the subject has shallow intake of air, though no evidence of true respiration. There is no heart action, though some brain activity appears to be continuing. We are beginning an EEG to monitor brain activity. Patient reports that he is a little nauseated, but feels significantly better than earlier today. He has no desire for food or drink, but did ask to watch the Lakers game. Reflex response is slow, but complete and there is no indication of decreased mobility.”

Susan bent over and picked up the phone from where it had fallen under her computer desk. She turned it on and hit redial, still not certain what she was going to say.

“Williams. Go...”

“Tom,” Susan began, her voice shaking as she tried to determine what to ask.

“I know, Suzie, I know. I was expecting it and I still didn’t believe it. We had these reports, but they were all out Asia, and we’re never sure how reliable their information is. We got the President to okay a complete media blackout until we had a chance to study it, but someone forgot to tell The Weekly World News. Maybe no one actually expected them to pick up on the biggest news story in the world. Or maybe they thought breaking the story was more important than people’s safety. Hell, I don’t know. All I know is now I’ve got a killer plague on American soil and I don’t even know how it’s passed from one person to the next.”

Susan knew that the CDC labs were in Atlanta, knew the implication was that Tom was investigating an outbreak somewhere in the United States. But her rational brain shut down and she asked with her heart, her mother's instincts, and her fear, “American soil? Where and how many people? Can we contain it? How do I protect my family?”

“I don’t know. It’s a long way from you still. A couple people in Los Angeles and well, my test subject here in Atlanta, but we’ve only had five reports at this point. Of course, it could be that people don’t know yet that they’re dead. The Asians tell us that people remain active for about 24 hours after they die, following their usual routines, and infecting everyone they love.”

“Tommy, what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t make that call, Suzie. I’d recommend the entire country stay home and wear surgical masks until we figure this thing out, but you know the suits aren’t going to let that happen. Something silly like a global economy that could fall apart...”

“As if money matters at this point.”

“It does to some people, Suzie. There’s also the public safety issue. People will be scared when they find out, especially if we don’t have an organized plan of action. People will be killing their neighbors if they so much as sniffle and it’s spring, Suzie. Millions of allergy sufferers could be shot because of the pollen count. We don’t know yet how this thing is spread. If we have mass hysteria, people will riot and when they riot, they will all be out there together, possibly spreading the infection,” he said.

“Jesus, Tommy, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s not your job to think of things like that, sweetheart. It’s mine. Now, I need that promise from you.”

“I won’t tell anyone. Not even Adam. But, Tommy, find an answer soon. I can’t lose them.”

“I know, Suzie.”

Believe me, I know, Tom thought as he hung up the phone and looked back at his research. It had been in the back of his mind, since the first calls came in regarding the mutation. He had loved Susan since long before she became Dr. McMillan and though she had fallen in love and married someone else, he knew that he had to save her and the people who were precious to her. Just knowing she was out there, hearing her voice once or twice a year had been the only thing that ever drew him away from his work. Now, it was drawing him to it.

Glancing at the phone, he resisted the temptation to call her again, to demand that she bring her family here, where he could keep them safe. Instead, he picked up the initial report of the incident in Los Angeles, looking for clues to how the virus spread. Beginning with a transcript of the pilot's original call for a faster landing due to an onboard medical emergency, the report was simple and to the point. No one onboard the airline had noticed the passenger, Jeff Lewis, when he boarded the plane in Hong Kong. The couple returning from their honeymoon, who sat in the same aisle of the plane, said he had been sniffling a bit, but they were focused on their in-flight movies and paid little attention. Somewhere over the Pacific, he began coughing violently, waking the soldier sitting in front of him. The flight attendants provided Mr. Lewis with drinks and over the counter remedies; they called in the medical emergency when he began having trouble breathing.

As soon as the plane landed, Lewis was taken to a nearby medical facility where he expired. The attending physician called in local CDC officials when Mr. Lewis began talking again. The CDC office in LA had tracked down the 257 people on board the plane. So, far they had 5 confirmed infected in the area. The problem was, they weren’t all from the plane. The man Tom had just watched die was part of the airline’s cleaning crew and the honeymooning couple seemed to be healthy.

#

Sitting at her desk, Susan was shaken after her conversation with Tom. If it had come from anyone else, she might have believed it was all part of an elaborate hoax. Coming from him, she knew the information was true. He had always been that way, accurate and truthful even when the truth hurt. She worried her lip, and made a mental, if not physical list of the pros and cons of doing as Tom had asked. Terrified and with no one to turn to, she closed her office door, curled up into a tiny ball against the door and began to sob.

Susan allowed herself the luxury of crying for half an hour and then decided. National security be damned, I am going to take care of my family the best way I can and if that means breaking my promise and telling Adam, so be it. The issue resolved in her mind, Susan washed her face and dressed for bed before going to the living room sofa to rouse Adam. “Come on sleepyhead, let’s go to bed...”

Susan kissed his cheek and curled up in Adam's arms, determined to tell him the truth the next day.

#

The snowstorm became the type of spring storm of legend. For four days, people were all but locked in their homes. A clinic administrator in a four-wheel drive Navigator took Susan to and from work and Adam stayed home with the kids. The news, nationally, was about the blizzard.

On the fifth day after the storm, a Saturday, the spring sun became a major melting force, turning the slushy, cinder-covered roads into streams and muddy messes. By Sunday, as if by a miracle, the snow-covered ground had turned green with fresh grass and the warm air brought rain to wash away the last remnants of the storm. The evening news brought the story Susan had been dreading. While they had been locked in the house for the storm, she had been able to ignore the trouble brewing across the nation.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today announced that the avian flu has mutated into a form that can be passed from human to human. CDC officials say that the first cases in the continental U.S. were reported a week ago and has instituted a quarantine of the cities currently affected by the virus. Travel to New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles is now limited to military and medical personnel. At this point, CDC officials say persons outside of these cities have nothing to worry about. If you live within one of the affected cities, please tune in to emergency broadcast stations in the area for details and instructions.”

The phone began to ring as the news cast ended. Adam looked over his shoulder at Susan, “So that’s what you’ve been so upset about.”

Leaving her to answer the phone, Adam took the children into the family room and Susan heard the familiar sounds of “Anastasia”, Shelby’s favorite movie beginning.

“Hello, McMillan residence,” she answered, feeling the terror seeping back into her soul.

“I still don’t know how it spreads, but...”

“Hello to you too, Tom.”

“Hi, Susan. Chit-chat seemed like a waste of time. You know who this is.”

“I knew the moment the phone rang. What is it that they aren’t reporting, Tom?”

“I didn’t know when we talked before. The Asians had told us, but we didn’t believe them.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Get to the computer and I’ll show you.”

This time, Susan wanted Adam to know she was talking to Tom and asked him to join her in the office. Even though she thought the children would remain in another part of the house, she locked her office door as the computer started receiving the file.

“I saw an article about it last week in the Weekly World News and Tom confirmed that it was true. People are dying of bird flu and then getting up and walking around as if nothing happened. On Monday, he said there were only 5 cases in the country and now they’ve quarantined three major cities. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.” Susan stared at her feet as she confessed her deception to her husband.

Adam took her in his arms and let her rest her face against his chest. “You should have told me, Susie. There was no reason for you to bear this alone.”

His voice was stern, but not angry and Susan sighed in relief as she explained. “Tom said they were calling it a matter of national security and the nearest case to us was in Atlanta. Then there was the storm and I, well, I ignored it all week,” she said.

“So what’s he sending us now?”

“I don’t know exactly, but he wouldn’t say it on the phone and he called the house phone, not my cell. It can’t be good,” Susan said, finishing her analysis just as the computer chirped signaling that it was done receiving the video file.

“I guess we find out now.”

Tom’s face filled the computer screen and Susan thought he looked as though he had aged a decade in the past week. “I’ll summarize the first couple days rather than send you the time lapse video. The clip I’m sending came from the second day, after the airline worker died. For the first 24 hours, he followed essentially normal patterns, talking, operating devices like the television remote control and exhibiting his normal interests, mostly sports and internet porn. He did not sleep or eat or drink during this time. Toward the end of the first day, he seemed to become more agitated and less coherent in his ramblings. We’ll join the tape 26 hours after death...”

Adam turned to Susan, clearly intending to ask about the continued references to “after the airline worker died,” but stopped as a new image filled the screen. The victim was lying quietly on his hospital bed when a worker in a CDC containment suit entered the room.

“Mr. Crawford, I need to take some new readings is that okay?” a perky female voice asked from inside the suit.

At first, the man on the bed did not respond and then in a flurry of action and noise he lunged for the nurse, growling deep in his throat and pushing her to the ground. Except for the speed that he was moving in, the man did not appear any differently than he had in the video Susan had seen previously.

Through the speakers, Susan heard the man snarl like a wild animal and watched as he bore the CDC nurse to the ground and released the buckles securing her containment suit. Then, sitting on her chest, he removed her helmet and bent forward, making Susan believe for just one second that he intended to kiss or even rape the young woman. It was not until he was inches from the woman’s face that he suddenly bared his teeth. Then, he bit into the soft flesh of her nose.

The woman’s screams echoed through the computer speakers. Through the commotion, and scream after scream, Susan heard and saw the airlock door open and Tom enter the room with a pistol in his hand.

The screen went black for just a moment and then went back to Tom, obviously sitting inside a containment unit. “It’s been four days now and I am exhibiting no symptoms at all. Katherine, the nurse Crawford attacked, had bites wounds to the neck, nose and ears. Basically, anything he could get his teeth into. The wounds were cleaned and she was given an intravenous antibiotic. She died this afternoon, presumably of the avian flu. The autopsy is pending.

“I’m sorry, Suzie Q, I didn’t mean to go and get myself exposed, but I couldn’t let that thing eat her. The Asians had told us they became flesh eaters, but we ignored them as having seen too many movies. We were wrong. And, Crawford at least, was smart. He knew to remove her gear and pin her arms while he attacked.

“While we were trying to figure this thing out and find out how it spreads, some people with it got out of L.A. and we’ve now seen cases in New York and here in Atlanta. We are sending out the alerts to all major medical facilities tomorrow morning. Suzie, I need you to head up the task force in southern Illinois. I’ll transmit everything I know by morning. Keep Adam and the kids home and away from people. The powers that be won’t let us make the quarantine widespread enough to get them all, so I’ll need your help to find out how this thing spreads. We already know that, right now, we don’t have a cure.

“The media blackout won’t last much longer. Someone will get word out of L.A. or New York and people will start going crazy. The CDC and National Guard will try to keep it under control, but there really aren’t enough of them. Once it spreads to the small towns, it’ll be up to the locals like you to keep people alive. They trust you, Suzie. Save them.”

The video cut off and the phone began to ring again. This time Adam answered the phone. “Suzie, go check on the kids. Hi, Tom. Still feeling okay?”

Adam shooed her toward the door, making it clear he wanted to talk to Tom without her. Once, the idea would have terrified her. Now, it seemed like a good chance to escape for a minute and collect her thoughts. Tom might be infected...it had been four days...did that mean he was safe....did everyone get this who was exposed?

The questions ran through her mind non-stop as she made her way across the house to the family room where Shelby and Michael were arguing loudly about the merits of Anastasia and Buzz Lightyear. They seemed to believe that whoever yelled the loudest would win the argument.

Susan wiped the tears from her eyes, knowing Adam had seen them there when they heard Tom might be infected. All Tom had ever wanted to do was protect people and he always, always, followed protocol. It was one of the things that they had fought about a decade earlier. She argued that sometimes, you had to follow your instincts. He argued that instincts were a myth and you followed science.

This one time, he listened to me and now…Susan refused to finish the thought, but she knew what it meant. Since he was potentially compromised, he wasn’t in the lab figuring out how this thing spread and he might be dying.

Knowing she wasn’t the greatest actress, Susan thought about not even correcting the kids’ poor behavior, but figured that would definitely tip them off that something was wrong. So, she summoned her best mom voice from somewhere in the depths of her mind and yelled, confident that her children would be so surprised that she was yelling that they would not have time to notice her tears. “You two stop it right now or I’ll throw both movies away!” she threatened toothlessly. She knew she would never do it and they probably did too.

But, they looked very shocked to hear their normally calm mother yelling. “Now, you can either sit and watch the movie quietly, together, or you can go to bed early tonight. What’s it gonna be?”

Michael looked bashfully up at his mother and then over to his younger sister, “I’m sorry, Mom. We’ll be good.”

“That’s important, Mikey. Now, I need you and Shelby to be very good and then when Daddy and I get off the phone, we’ll have some dessert, okay?” Given the circumstances, Susan was not above resorting to bribery, and she needed to get back to the phone.

As soon as Susan shut the door behind her to go check on the kids, Adam was demanding the truth from Tom. “How bad is it really, Tom? You can try to hide it from her, but well, I don’t love you the way she does and I can hear it in your voice.”

“Adam, I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t still love her. She can’t find out, but I’m fairly certain I’m infected. I started getting the sniffles this morning. At the rate it attacked others, I’ve got maybe three days. Two before it’s obvious that I’m sick, maybe less. I’ve got my best team trying to figure this out, but as near as we can tell, there is no cure. The only good news is that we don’t think it’s airborne, at least not in the truest sense of the word. We’re leaning toward fluid contact, like a common cold, only with much more serious repercussions,” he said.

“So what do we do to keep her alive?”

“She’s going to want to be out there helping people, in the thick of it. I’ve gotten her assigned as the head of the southern Illinois containment project. That’ll mean that she’s assigned to work at a screening center, where all the medical protocols will be in place. That will protect her. But you can’t let the kids go to school and you shouldn’t be out there in it either.”

“As soon as they quarantine Chicago or St. Louis, my Guard unit will be called up. I guess we need to figure out what to do with the kids then,” Adam said.

“You need to wear your mask and gloves at all times and shoot them if they get too close, Adam. And, yeah, that will probably be tomorrow or Tuesday.”

“That fast?”

“Maybe even tonight, if this is spreading like I think it is.”

“Jesus....”

Adam stopped speaking when he heard the door to the office reopen. “Suze, Tom tells me I might need to plan on getting called to active duty sometime in the next day or so. Where can we send the kids?”

“Emma’s. She runs the Amish school in Ava. That way the kids are still in school, but not with 400 other children bringing in God-knows-what,” Susan answered without a moment’s hesitation. She had just been thinking about the possibility of sending the kids back to school and decided there was no way that she was sending them to a germ-infested public school.

“Besides, Emma’s likely to understand if I don’t give her all the details, but insist the kids wipe down everything with antibacterial wipes before they touch it.”

“Sounds like a good plan, Suzie Q. The information on your new project will be on the fax machine in the morning. Basically, the CDC is going to set up screening centers. A simple blood test will show if people are infected or not. It’s going to be incredibly expensive, but better than a national epidemic. We’ll start with the highest risk people first, those who have traveled outside the country in the last 30 days or to New York or Los Angeles. The reports will hit the airwaves tonight. Take good care of them, Adam. I’ll be in touch.”

Tom hung up the phone before giving either of them a chance to say anymore, afraid the growing tickle in his throat and stinging in his eyes might be something more than just a deep despair over the people he cared about.

Once she heard the click of the phone, Susan looked at Adam. “He’s infected, isn’t he?”

“He doesn’t know yet. But yeah, he thinks so.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes. Right after he told me he loves you and you aren’t supposed to worry about him.”

“Fat chance.”

“I know, sweetheart. I knew he couldn’t hide it from you anymore than you could hide it from me that you’ve been worried all week.”

“Adam, I don’t want you to go when your unit gets called up.”

“I know. I don’t want to go either. I don’t like leaving you guys here alone. But I have to go, just like you have to go tomorrow.”

“I know. But I’ll be afraid the whole time you’re gone.”

“Me too, sweetheart. Me too.”

Susan was still standing in Adam’s arms fifteen minutes later when the phone rang again. She knew before he answered it that Tom was wrong. The call to active duty wouldn’t be waiting until Tuesday.

She stood at his side, silently sobbing, as she heard him answer, “Yes, sir. I can be ready within the hour.” Apparently, the virus had made it to Illinois.

Calling Emma was out of the question, especially on a Sunday night, so Susan just resigned herself to an early morning of driving to Ava before heading into the screening center to begin to see if her neighborhood was still safe.

Susan knew Adam had his Guard gear packed and in his truck. It was always back there the day after he got done with duty. The man was always prepared. So, telling his commanding officer that it would take an hour for him to get ready meant he was planning for them to sit together with the kids before he left. They were used to losing him every once in a while to guard duty. He had even spent a month away after an especially bad tornado, but both the kids were smart enough and aware enough to know that he didn’t usually leave on Sunday night.

Once he hung up the phone, Susan asked, “So, how much are we telling them?”

“How about that people are very sick and you have to work here to make sure more people don’t get sick and I have to go to St. Louis to see if I can help the people who are sick there?”

“Are you really going to St. Louis?”

“Close enough. We’re going to be on the I-70 bridge, keeping people from coming into Illinois. Captain said we’ll be behind a concrete barricade, but we’re expected to wear full containment gear anyway. That’s what Tom recommended, so I think I’ll be wearing a mask and gloves for the next couple weeks, pretty much around the clock.”

“I promised the kids dessert when we got off the telephone.”

“Okay, I’ll dish up the ice cream and we can have this discussion over rocky road. You want to wash up?”

“No need to upset the kids.”

Telling the kids they were changing schools and that Daddy was going away for a couple weeks to help sick people in St. Louis actually proved to be easier than Susan thought it would be. Kids were flexible like that.

At dawn on Monday, Susan was up trying to prepare herself for the day that lay ahead and beginning to read through the CDC protocol for her screening center. Once she got through all the bureaucratic nonsense, the procedure was simple. People would be instructed to visit the center on a given day. She and the staff from the local hospital, minus anyone who was actually tending patients, would check them all for signs of the flu, give them the normal flu shot in hopes that it would protect people a little from the coming epidemic and then do a simple anti-bodies test to try to find out if the bird flu was already here.

Susan was to report immediately to the local police and the National Guard and the CDC if any of her tests came back positive. There was no discussion of treatment. Sighing, and trying to find a way to smile for her patients, Susan turned on the morning news.

“Anyone who has visited the cities of Chicago, Springfield, or

Champaign-Urbana within the last 30 days is asked to report to their local

testing facilities tomorrow at 8 a.m. In addition, anyone who has traveled

outside the state of Illinois in the last month is asked to report to the

testing centers today beginning at 9 a.m. Here is a complete list of testing centers for the

southern Illinois region…”

Irritation flashed in the eyes of the perky, blonde newscaster who was giving her newscast through a surgical mask, but somehow she managed to project that patented television reporter smile. She continued with an overview of the on-going “crisis” as though no one had heard it before.

“The much anticipated and feared mutation of the bird flu to a viral form that can be transmitted between humans began approximately three weeks ago in Hong Kong.” Funny, how it sounded like she was smiling about the pandemic now responsible for killing a million people worldwide. That wasn’t in the broadcast. It was in Susan’s morning briefing from the CDC. She wondered how much information was being withheld from her.

The first CDC alert was just hours old. “The walking dead are actually the thinking, talking, and sort of breathing, dead. Respiration is at a decreased rate over the living, but it continued. For the first 24 hours after death, the infected keep acting as though they are alive. Before they died, the victims often had trouble breathing, sometimes appearing as a stuffy nose or chest cold. Once they die, they are no longer struggling to breathe because though the body continued to go through the motions, it is not actually respiring anything,” it said.

“When confronted with the fact that their hearts were not beating, most of the victims assumed an error on the part of the medical staff. Normal food made them nauseated and caused vomiting, but the infected and their families often associated the nausea with the cold they were recovering from. Many suffer from chills as their body temperatures began to drop and some report feeling confused.

“After 24 hours, the brain synapses failed and speech deteriorated rapidly. Blood began to pool in the extremities and body temperatures dropped drastically. Then, the hunger for flesh set in.”

Had she not seen Tom’s video, Susan would have disbelieved most of the report as she read it. The reports indicated after 24 hours, the zombies, though no one would call them that, became readily apparent. “By then, it is usually too late. Most have continued on their daily schedules and infected dozens of people. Initial CDC research indicates that the most infectious period for the virus is in the first 24 hours after death,” the report concluded.

Susan decided that for her family, the best way to fight this thing was to treat it like a common cold. The children were forbidden to touch anything that they hadn’t wiped down first with the pocket anti-bacterial wipes she gave them. They were instructed to wash their hands every hour, more often if someone near them sneezed or coughed. Shelby didn’t seem to understand the importance of it, but Susan was sure that Michael did and he would be watching out for his sister.

“This is why Dad had to go to St. Louis, isn’t it?” he had asked over a breakfast more nutritious and vitamin-packed than even Susan usually made. Surprised that her 7-year-old son appeared to understand, Susan simply told him, “Yes.”

With a much more serious look than she had ever seen on his face, Michael told her, “Don’t worry Mom. I’ll make sure Shelby and I don’t catch anything.”

Struck by how much he suddenly looked and sounded like his father, Susan was somehow relieved as she took the children to Emma’s school and farm for the day.

“Emma, I’m running a little late and I’m sorry to spring this on you so last minute, but do you think the kids could come up here to school for a few days? There’s a nasty bug going around and I don’t want them to pick it up at school. Adam’s out of town and I’ll be swamped at the clinic today,” she said.

Emma agreed happily and Susan jumped back in the van almost before the words were out of her mouth. The line stretched through the hospital clinic and down the block by the time Susan arrived at eight. The police were there to maintain order as every little sniffle created hard feelings. One or two minor scuffles broke out, but in truth, they made Susan’s job easier. When the man who was punched in the nose started gushing blood, she was able to give him a cold rag and a clean bill of health. Zombies didn’t bleed.

Hour after hour, Susan and her nursing staff pressed their latex gloves and cold stethoscopes to the wrists and chests of their friends and neighbors, praying each time to hear the rhythmic thump of a beating heart and to feel a patient’s blood coursing through their veins. By lunch time, they had admitted three patients for walking pneumonia and two for other serious infections, but no one showed any signs of the virus. The blood tests weren’t finished yet, but most had been sent home with a clean bill of health.

Susan sat down to lunch just after noon. “Do you think we’ve really managed to avoid it here?” one of the nurses asked, between bites.

“We should know in just a few more hours,” Susan replied, refusing to commit, but hoping that the afternoon’s testing would prove that they were currently safe.

“We just got a fax from Champaign.” Everyone knew immediately that the announcement coming from the clinic administrator couldn’t be good. “Some little country doctor in Arnold just reported a dozen cases up there. Victim’s families are saying none of them had been to the city in months.”

One of the nurses wanted to know, “How can they be sure?”

“They’re all Amish.”

“Has the virus mutated again?” Someone asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“They don’t know yet. There may have been an outside source that brought it in to the community. The CDC is on the way to establish a quarantine zone in Arnold, but Champaign has been able to confirm at least a dozen dead and possibly as many as 100 more infected.

“Has anyone traveled from there outside of the community?” Susan asked.

“At this point, everyone in the community is accounted for and within the quarantine zone.”

The afternoon seemed to pass slower than the morning had, with more patients detained for additional testing, but in the end, when the line was gone and the testing was complete, no one was infected.

Tension drained from Susan shoulder’s as she drove to pick up the children, confident that at least for now, the killer virus had not invaded her community. The children were in the backyard playing with Emma’s husband, Robert, and the dogs, when Susan pulled into the Stephens’ driveway.

“Hi, Emma, were the kids all right today?”

“They were good as gold. Robert gave me a bit of a scare, but he’s feeling better now. Thought this morning I might have to ask you to take a look at him when you came to get the kids. You’d have thought he was dying the way he was moaning and groaning. Men can be such big babies when they’re sick,” Mary said with a grin.

“You said he’s feeling better now,” Susan asked, dread starting to form in the pit of her stomach.

“Well, he couldn’t eat nothing at supper, but I suspect that just a remnant of that nasty cold he had. Must’ve caught it when he was at that barn-raising last weekend.”

“Barn-raising?”

“Yup. Every man in town went up to Arnold last week to help ‘em put up a new barn.”