One Second After

CHAPTER SIX

“John, you look like crap warmed over.”

He nodded, walking into the conference room for what had now become their daily meeting.

“Thanks, Tom. I needed that.”

In spite of Makala’s attention, John’s hand was still infected and he was running a fever of just over a hundred and a half.

He settled into what was now his chair at the middle of the table. Interesting how quickly habits form regarding a meeting: sit in a chair once and the following day that’s where you sit again, symbolism of who sits at the foot and head of the table the same. Kate still held that symbolic position at the head, but it was actually Charlie now, sitting to her right, who ran the morning briefing, Tom at the foot of the table. Doc Kellor had become part of the team as well, sitting across from John. Two more were present, he didn’t recognize either, one dressed in a police uniform, a Swannanoa Police Department patch stitched on his sleeve, the second man in jeans and T-shirt, both in their midforties.

John picked up the cup of coffee that was waiting for him with his left hand.

“Let me look at that,” Kellor said, getting out of his chair and coming around the table.

He eased back the surgical gauze that Makala had redressed the wound with the evening before.

“Good stitching job, couldn’t have done better myself.”

John said nothing. The dozen stitches Makala had sewed had been done without any painkiller other than a swig of a scotch, and he had sweated that out silently, though he had cursed a bit when she had dosed the wound with alcohol.

Kellor leaned over and sniffed the bandage and shook his head. “How did it get infected like this?”

“I think when I was carrying my father-in-law, at the nursing home.”

“Treatment?”

“Makala Turner, the nurse who volunteered to help run the nursing home, she put me on Cipro. Got some from the nursing home.”

“Most likely fecal contact,” Kellor said, nodding and looking at the wound. “But you can also get some pretty tough strains of bacteria and viruses growing even in the cleanest hospital or home, strep or staph.

“Let’s talk about this later,” Kellor said, and went back to his seat.

Kate cleared her throat.

“Ok, let’s get started. We got a new problem. Dr. Kellor, would you lead off?”

The old “town doc” nodded.

“We’ve got an outbreak of salmonella at the refugee center in the elementary school. It was bound to happen. I’ve got at least a hundred sick over there this morning. A mess, a damn mess.”

“How did it get started?” Kate asked.

Kellor looked at her with surprise.

“Hell, Kate. People are used to running water, hundreds of gallons a day. Food with dates stamped on it; one day over the limit and we used to throw it out. There’s six hundred people camped there. At least we still have enough water pressure for the toilets to flush, but no hot water and, to be blunt, no toilet paper or paper towels as well. It’s getting nasty.

“Come on, people. Think about it. Most of us haven’t bathed in ten days, toilet paper’s getting scarce, soup line meals twice a day at the refugee center, food now of real questionable safety, I’ll bet that damn near every person in there will be crapping their guts out and puking by the end of the day.”

He sighed.

“Seven dead this morning. I checked before coming over here. Two of them infants, the rest elderly. Dehydrated out and couldn’t get electrolytes into them fast enough. I’ll need more volunteers to go down there to help out, because it will be full-blown by the end of the day.”

No one spoke. The thought of a school building full of people in that condition… it left the rest in the room silent.

“Remember Katrina and that god-awful Superdome?” Charlie sighed. “Is that what we got?”

“Worse,” Kellor replied. “Screwed up as their administration was, ultimately help was on the way, even though a lot of people started to panic with insane reports of murder and rape. We don’t have that here at all, but on the other side, the cavalry is not going to come rushing in with helicopters loaded with supplies. We are on our own.

“We need to get some clean vats for sterile water; we can mix up an electrolyte batch like what is used in emergency relief in third-world countries.

“We are a frigging third-world country now,” the police officer from Swannanoa said softly.

“It’s simple enough. Just pure water, we still have that, don’t we, Charlie?”

“What is coming out, gravity fed, from the reservoir is still clean, at least as of the last time our water department people tested it yesterday.”

“I worry about that. All you need are some folks camping around the reservoir, one of them has a bug and relieves himself by the lake, and all of us are sick.”

Charlie looked over at Tom.

“We better get a few men up there patrolling the lake. No campers.”

The fishing in the lake was one of the more poorly guarded secrets of the community across the years. The reservoir, shared with Asheville, was supposedly strictly off-limits to everyone, even before all this had started. But many were the kids who would sneak in there with a rod and pull out a trophy brown trout of ten pounds or more. Until an activist type in Asheville had blown the whistle on it half a dozen years back, there was even a private fishing cabin in the woods just above the lake, a secret retreat for the higher-ups in Asheville and Black Mountain. A good-ole-boys club for a weekend of drinking and catching damn big trout on what they saw as their private lake.

Chances now were that people were already looking to that lake as a source of food, and it would have to be stopped.

“We need to mix up a batch of several hundred gallons of clean water, mixture of salt and sugar; it’ll keep the electrolyte balance. Then start pouring it down the throats of those poor people. In nine out of ten cases they’ll just be damn sick for a few days and then pull through.”

“And the tenth case?” Charlie asked.

Kellor sighed.

“Without IVs, the elderly, children under a year, people already weak from other diseases.” He paused and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “I’ll estimate thirty dead, maybe fifty by tomorrow night.”

Charlie folded and unfolded his hands.

“Who will organize the volunteers?” Charlie asked.

John sighed.

“I’ll go up to the campus. See if we can roust out some kids.”

“Promise them a damn good meal at the end of it,” Charlie said. “One of my men got a deer last night. I got it hidden. Venison steak dinner in exchange for a day’s work.”

“I doubt if they’ll be hungry after what we’re throwing them into, but I’ll see,” John said.

Kellor nodded.

“Have them report to me by noon, right here. I’ll have to brief them on their own safety before they go over there.” John nodded.

“Ok, that brings me to something we might not want to talk about,” Charlie said, “but I think we should. Burying the dead.”

“We bury them as we always have, don’t we?” Kate asked.

“There’s no cemetery within town limits. The nearest one is over two miles away. I’m starting to think long term here, people. Not just this case with the salmonella but across the next several months.”

No one replied.

“I’m thinking the town golf course across the street from the park.”

“What?” Tom replied. “That’s crazy. You’re talking about the golf course?”

“Exactly. It’s within an easy walk of the center of town. There was a lot of grading done when it was built, all of it soil, easy to dig. The approach up to the sixth green, that’s all graded soil half a dozen feet deep or more. Remember, there’s no more backhoes to dig graves, it’s back to shovels, and I want graves dug deep and quick.”

“Damn it, Charlie, that’s the town golf course,” Tom interjected.

“As if anyone is going out today to do eighteen holes?” Charlie replied sharply. “Hell, even you only play with an electric cart. I think we need a cemetery and close by, not out on the other side of Allen Mountain.

“Doc, do you agree?”

“Keep it at least a couple of hundred feet back from the creek that feeds into the park. On the slope draining away from the creek. Yes, I agree.”

“Then that’s where we take the dead now.”

John remained silent. It was interesting how different things, different changes, shocked in different ways. Tom was a golf addict. Regardless of what was now happening, to turn his favorite piece of real estate into a cemetery… it was too much for him to absorb at this moment.

“We should get some of the ministers in to consecrate the ground,” Kate said. “Folks will want that.”

Charlie noted it down on his pad. “I’ll talk to Reverend Black; he’s sort of heading up the ministers here now.

“Any other health issues?” Charlie continued.

“Four more deaths up at the nursing home last night. They’re dying off quick up there.”

John thought of Makala. She had pretty well taken over the running of the place and he had not seen her in two days now.

“Three suicides as well. The McDougals and one of the outsiders.”

“Greg and Fran?” Kate asked in shock.

“A neighbor heard the gunshots. Greg had shot Fran, then himself. They left a note. She had cancer, you know. She knew what she was facing without her twice-weekly treatments up in Asheville, so she asked Greg to end it for her. Then he did himself as well. Note said for us to use her remaining painkillers for someone who still has a chance of living.”

“They sang in the church choir with me,” Kate said softly, and for a moment her features reddened as she struggled to hold back her tears.

No one spoke.

“I’ll post the notice about the golf course becoming the cemetery as of today and for the duration of the emergency,” Charlie said, finally breaking the silence.

Several large whiteboards had been dragged over from the elementary school and tacked to the outside wall of the police station. This was now the official emergency notice board.

“We’ve got dozens of others who I suspect will not last much longer,” Kellor continued. “Those with pancreatic enzyme disorder, the day they run out of pills they start dying. A lot of our severe coronary problems are gone now. Garth Watson dropped dead last night just hauling a bucket of water back up to his house.”

“Damn, he was only forty-three,” Kate said.

“And fifty pounds overweight with cholesterol of two-eighty,” Kellor said. “I warned him. Well, so much for too much fast food.

“We got over a hundred people in town, though, on chemo- or radiation therapy for cancer. Their prognosis… Well, we saw what happened with Fran. God forgive her, but a lot might decide to take that way out, especially those on serious pain management. We’ve forgotten what a nightmare the final months of cancer can be like without readily available morphine.”

He paused and looked around the room.

“I think we have to discuss that right now,” he said. “We have a limited supply of pain meds. Do we impound it and use it only for emergency situations, or do we continue to let those who are terminal anyhow use up what’s left?”

“My God, Doc,” Tom interjected. “What in hell are you saying? One of those people you are talking about is my aunt.”

“I know,” Kellor said softly. “God help me I know. But your aunt Helen is going to die soon; we know that. But suppose I get a kid in here that needs major surgery. Shock and trauma kill, and managing the pain might mean the difference between his living and dying. We got to think of that.”

“You’re talking triaging the dying off, aren’t you, Doc?” John said quietly.

Kellor looked at him and then slowly nodded his head. “I’m not ready for that decision,” Charlie sighed. “Most of the folks in question still have some meds in their homes. We’ll cross that one later.”

“But we’ll have to cross it,” Kellor replied, head half-lowered. No one spoke for a moment.

“Accidents, you would not believe how many we got,” Tom finally said, breaking the silence. “Cars are no longer killers, but chain saws still working, axes, shovels. Joe Peterson damn near cut his own leg off with a chain saw last night trying to cut firewood. We had three accidental gunshot wounds yesterday, one of them fatal, by idiots now walking around armed.”

“It’s food, though, that I think we got to start getting serious about,” Kellor said.

“So what in hell do you suggest that we do different?” Charlie replied sharply, and John could sense the tension, as if this had been argued about before the meeting.

“By your estimate,” Kellor replied, “we have enough food on hand to feed everyone for another seven to ten days. That means using meat any health inspector two weeks ago would have condemned.

“Charlie, after that… then what?”

Charlie sighed and wearily shook his head.

In spite of the fever and chills, John found himself focusing intently on this man, who after ten days of crisis, ten days most likely with not more than three or four hours’ sleep a night, was approaching collapse.

“Half rations,” John said quietly.

Charlie looked at him and then nodded.

“I don’t know if that will work with some things,” Kellor replied. “Meat that is beginning to spoil, for example, dairy products.”

“Then pass that out now, use it up, if need be have a gorge feast tonight with the remaining meat that might be going bad. Just make sure it is cooked until it’s damn near like leather. Then anything preserved goes to half rations.”

“What about those holed up in their houses with food?” Kellor asked. “Charlie. There’s at least half a dozen houses with electricity, old generators that were unplugged and survived. Enough juice to run a freezer. The Franklin clan, for example, up on the North Fork. I bet they’re sitting on a quarter ton of meat in their basement freezer.”

“And you want that I should go get it?”

Kellor nodded.

Charlie looked at Tom.

“I doubt that will work with the Franklins,” Tom said, shaking his head. “At least with them and all my men being alive once we got the meat. Up in these hills we have more than a few of the old survivalist types, the kind that were real disappointed that the world didn’t go to hell with Y2K. They’re just waiting for us to come up and try.”

“Let it go for now,” John said. “If we start turning into Stalinist commissars hunting out every stalk of grain and ounce of meat for the collective, you know the fragile balance we have right now will break down and it will be every man for himself.

“And like any collectivization, whether true or not the rumors will explode that we took the food, but now some animals are more equal than others.”

“What?” Tom asked.

“You slept through Mr. Quincy’s ninth-grade English class, Tom,” Kate said. “Orwell, Animal Farm, read it some time.”

“Besides,” John continued, “even if we looted the Franklins clean, that would be enough food to maybe give six hundred people one meal. It isn’t worth the blowback, and in my opinion is a dangerous political and legal precedent. We don’t want to be turning on each other at a time like this. Hell, if anything we want people like that Franklin clan working alongside of us. If they’re survivalists like you say and we don’t threaten them, maybe they got skills they’ll teach to us.”

Tom breathed a sigh of relief.

“I think it’s fair that food we salvaged from the stores now belongs to the community. But what people have in their homes, whether it’s one day left or six months’ worth, that’s theirs.”

John looked around the table and there were nods of agreement.

He only wished that Charlie had acted faster, or for that matter that he had thought about it and pushed him to seize control of all food in the town on Day One. If they had done so and it was rationed out correctly, it might have been enough to stretch at half rations for two months or more. But that was too late now.

“What about farms, though?” Kate said.

“I can tell you right now, Kate,” Tom said, “and you grew up here, too, and should realize it, the old farms are nearly all gone. When something like this hits, everyone seems to think people living in rural areas are up to their ears in food ready to be given away. But even the farmers now are dependent on the supermarkets at least until harvesttime. Up in the North Fork we have half a dozen small farms, one with about sixty head of cattle on it. Maybe a couple of hundred pigs. The usual mix of chickens, turkeys, some geese.”

“Still,” Kate said. “Stretched, that could be another month or so of food.”

“I think we have to take that,” Charlie said. “It’s different from what’s in people’s basements.”

John sighed and realized he had to agree even though it wasn’t much different from his commissar imagery of a few moments ago.

Sixty cattle, two or three a day turned into soup, stew, could stretch things. But far more pragmatic, how to keep control, to prevent someone else from rustling them, from raiding the farm one night, killing the owners, and then just slaughtering what they could drag away quickly, leaving the rest to rot?

Again a film image, from Dances with Wolves, the Indians finding the hundreds of buffalo slaughtered by white hunters who just took their hides and tongues, leaving the rest to rot. It could be the same here, and yet again it caught him how movies had so defined so much of the country’s image of self and now the screens were blank. A movie about us fifty years from now, if there are movies, what will it show?

“Charlie, we have to make a deal with the few farmers in this valley. We just can’t go marching up there, take their cattle, and ride off. A deal. We protect their food, they get more than a fair cut because they are sharing with the rest of the community. In exchange we protect them, their herd and crops. And Charlie, we have to keep some stock alive.”

“What do you mean?”

“For next year. A couple of males, enough females. We might be looking at next year and we’re still in the same boat. We got to keep breeding stock alive even if it means we go hungry now. In the old days, eating your breeding stock was the final act of desperation.”

“John,” Kate said. “I don’t need to hear this now. Are you saying this will still be going on a year from now?”

“Maybe. And if we don’t plan now, there won’t be a next year for any of us.”

“Ok, John,” Charlie said. “We’ll go up the North Fork later today and start talking.”

“And suppose someone up there, shotgun in hand, tells us to go to hell and get off his land?” Kate asked. “You said I grew up here. I did and I know some of these folks. They’re good people, but they don’t hold much truck with someone telling them what to do.”

“Then maybe you should be the one to go talk with them,” John said quietly.

“Me?”

“Exactly. Everyone in town knows you, Kate, even more than they know Charlie or Tom here. You going first would be nonthreatening.”

“Because I’m mayor or because I’m a woman?” she asked sharply.

“Frankly, Kate, it’s both. Tom shows up, gun on his hip, it’s commissar time. You show up, sit down with the family, have a chat, I think you can help folks with these small farms to see reason. They have to strike a deal because if they stay on their own, sooner or later someone will go for them and take what they have. We promise to post twenty-four-hour guards on their places, we offer protection, they trade some food back to the commu-nity.

“Sounds a bit like where you come from originally up in New Jersey,” Charlie said with a trace of a smile. “Protection racket.”

John tried to smile in spite of his light-headedness.

“Like it or not, that’s the way it is now. I’m dead set against people’s homes being cleaned out, but I think we can agree that farms have to be protected but something given back in return to help the entire coramu-nity.

She nodded in agreement. “Ok, I’ll go.” Charlie looked down at his notepad. “Transportation. Anything new?”

“We got three more cars running,” Tom said. “Actually I should say that Jim Bartlett down in that Volkswagen junkyard of his did. Beetles, another van.”

“He’s become a regular friend of yours,” Kate said, and there was, at least for a moment, a touch of a smile.

“Yeah, damn old hippie. Though I’m not buying his line that we should be using pot for medicine.”

“I might agree with him now,” Kellor said.

“It’s breaking the law,” Tom replied sharply.

“The cars, Tom,” Kate interjected. “Let’s stick with that.”

“All right, other garages say they can get ten or fifteen more old junkers up and going, including an old tractor trailer down at Younger’s.”

“We’ll have forty or fifty within the week,” the policeman from Swan-nanoa said quietly.

No one spoke, looking at him.

“You folks up here in Black Mountain always kind of looked down on us in Swannanoa. Maybe because we was poorer, but that poorness makes us worth more now.”

John smiled at that and knew it was true. He could remember Tyler calling Swannanoa a “poor white trash” town with its trailer parks, auto junkyards, a town that had essentially gone to hell ever since the big woolen and blanket mill closed down years ago. What had once been a thriving small downtown area in Swannanoa was all but abandoned, especially after the big mill burned several years ago. Route 70, which went straight through Swannanoa, was lined with aging strip malls, thrift shops, and repair shops. It was finally starting to turn around, at least until last week, as more and more “outsiders” came in looking for land with the spectacular views the region offered. The area north of the town was developing, with high-priced homes, but that was now a tragic loss; half a dozen old farms had been chopped up into “McMansion estates” over the last few years.

In the old trailer parks there were a lot of cars that a week before anyone in a Beemer or new SUV would have given a wide berth to on the interstate. Some of those rolling heaps were now worth a hundred Beemers.

“Folks, this is Carl Erwin,” Tom interjected. “Chief of police for Swannanoa. I invited him here today to talk about a proposal we have.”

Everyone nodded politely. Carl definitely had their attention with Tom’s last statement.

“And the proposal is?” Kate asked.

“An alliance.”

John smiled. Again the historian in him, picturing kings of the ancient world, riding to a meeting in chariots to discuss water rights, the exchange of daughters, to band their armies together.

“Carl and I have been talking about this for days,” Tom interjected. “It’s ok with me.”

“What’s ok?” Kate asked.

“That we band our towns together for the duration of this crisis.”

“For what purpose?”

“Defense,” Carl said. “We hold the door to the west; you have the one to the east. We cooperate, we survive; we don’t, we are all in the deep dip.” Charlie stood up and pointed to the county map pinned to the wall.

“We have the bottleneck for I-40 and Route 70 in our town on the east side; that’s up just past Exit 66. Just west of Exit 59 there’s another bottleneck where the Swannanoa Mountain range has a spur that comes down. The two highways, the railroad, and the creek are practically side by side over there in Swannanoa. A defendable position only a couple of hundred yards wide. We have the front door; they have the back door.”

“Maybe it’s the other way around,” Carl said, a bit of an edge to his voice. “Remember, we’re closer to Asheville and they’re still trying to force us to take five thousand for my town and five thousand for yours. I’m holding them back and it’s getting ugly real quick. We’ve had half a dozen deaths at the barrier the last two days.”

“From what?” Kellor asked.

“Gunshot, that’s what,” Carl replied sharply. “There’s people that walked down here told they’d find food, we’re telling them there ain’t none, it’s getting bad. I understand it’s chaos on Old 70 and the interstate back towards Asheville.”

“Why in hell didn’t those idiots in the county office just tell people to stay in place?” Charlie snapped bitterly. “They just started this move even when we told them not to.”

“Because they want to survive,” John said, “and the numbers are not adding up.”

“It’ll be a die-off,” Kellor interjected. “A bad one, and Asheville wants it to rest on us, not them. Can’t blame them really.”

“I sure as hell do,” Charlie said coldly.

“Well, if you want to keep them out of your backyard,” Carl said, “then we better get cooperating real quick.”

“A smart move,” John said.

“That sixty head of cattle you folks was talking about. If Asheville comes in here, they’ll be gone in a day, and then what?” He paused and smiled.

“Besides, we’ve counted over a hundred and twenty cattle in our town and three hundred pigs.”

In spite of the horrifying severity of the crisis, John smiled. It truly was like ancient kings negotiating.

Carl looked around the room and all were silent. He had played his trump card and just won with it.

“There’s one other back door,” Carl finally continued, “that’s up by the

Haw Creek Road, but we can seal that off as well. Our numbers, you have about a thousand more people here than we do, not counting all those that already wandered in.”

“Will you share the cattle?” Charlie asked.

Carl hesitated, looked over at his companion.

“You have three pharmacies in your town; we only had one. You open up your medical supplies to us, we’ll consider a transfer of some cattle and pigs.”

“Consider?” Kate asked, and suddenly there was a shrewd look in her eye.

Carl looked at Charlie.

“Ok. We’ll share them out, as needed,” Charlie said. “But it’s full sharing on both sides, medicine, food, weapons, vehicles, manpower.” Charlie looked around the room and John caught his eye. “Governance,” John said.

“Go on.”

“I’m sorry, folks, but I feel like I’m in an old movie, set in medieval or ancient times,” John said. “We’re like two kingdoms here negotiating.”

“Well, I guess that’s the way it’s getting,” Doc Kellor said. “But Swan-nanoa does have an outreach clinic from Memorial Mission. We could use that as a medical center. They had some equipment there for minor surgeries, emergencies, and such. Also three or four doctors in your town, that would give us a total of nine doctors for the community.”

Carl nodded.

“We protected the clinic from Day One. Had the same problem you did with some druggies….” He paused. “We shot them when they were trying to escape.”

John did not ask for any details on that.

“Governance. We can’t be divided off if we agree to work together on this. Everyone is in the same boat. So, what will it be?” Charlie looked at Carl.

“I’ve known you for years, Charlie Fuller. As long as you are not tied into Asheville, I’ll be willing to take orders from you. Damn, I’ll be glad not to have to make some of these decisions.”

Charlie nodded.

“Then Carl sits on this council,” John said.

“Who are you?” Carl asked, looking straight at John.

“He’s a history professor at the college. Ex-military, a colonel with combat experience.”

John looked at Charlie. “Combat experience,” that was stretching it. “He advises us on legal stuff, moral issues, a smart man to have around.”

“So why is he here in this meeting?” Carl asked calmly.

John bristled slightly. How he had evolved into being here, well, it had simply started with his barging in, but now, after but a week, he felt the need to be here, and a purpose.

“He is the one who executed the drug thieves,” Tom said. “Let’s just say he’s our compass. Professor type but ok.”

Carl continued to hold eye contact with John and he wondered if there was going to be trouble.

“My friend Mike Vance here, then I want him on this council, too. We didn’t have a mayor like you, but he was town manager.”

John could see that Vance was someone who did what Carl wanted.

“We’re not a democracy here,” John said, “though I regret to say that. We are under martial law and Charlie Fuller is in charge. We just advise. If we are to work together, it has to be Charlie’s word that is the final say.

“Nice friend you have, Charlie,” Mike said quietly.

“Mike, Carl,” and now it was Tom speaking. “We’ve got to work together, and I agree with John. Either Charlie runs it for all of us or the deal is off.”

The room was filled with silence and Carl finally nodded.

Charlie came around the table and Carl stood up, shaking his hand.

John said nothing. The formal ritual had been played out. The kings had shaken hands and the treaty been made. It was the smart move, though he wondered if all would feel the same a month, six months, from now.

Charlie went back to his chair and sat down.

“With the extra vehicles, I know the answer already, but gas supply?”

“We just drain it out of all the stalled cars on the highway for starters,” Tom said.

“I know that, but should we start rounding that up now?”

“Wouldn’t do that,” Mike interjected. “Gas goes bad over time. You can’t get it out of the gas stations until we rig up some sort of pumps. Inside a car, though, the tank is sealed, it will stay good in there longer than if we pull it out.

“I know; I own a wrecking shop.”

Like him or not, John realized, this man’s knowledge, at this moment, might be more valuable than his own.

“All right then,” Charlie said. “Back to Asheville. Carl, you and I both got the same demand from their new director of public safety, Roger Burns.”

“Asshole,” Carl said quietly, and Tom nodded in agreement. “That we’re to take ten thousand refugees in.”

“He can kiss our asses,” Carl snapped back. “Ten thousand of those yuppies and hippies? You’ve got to be kidding.”

John noted the change the alliance had already created. Now it was “we,” against “them.” He hoped that would last.

The debate flared for several minutes, Kate leaning towards accepting it, that these were neighbors as well, that some semblance of order had to be reestablished on a county level, Carl and Tom flatly refusing.

John wondered what was going on at this moment down in Winston-Salem, Charlotte, or far bigger cities, Washington, Chicago, New York. Most likely, by now millions were pouring out, at best organized in some way but far more likely in just a chaotic exodus, like a horde of locusts eating their way across the suburban landscapes. At least here geography played to their advantage, the choke points in the roads.

He had already seized on the idea last night. Brilliant in its simplicity but frightful for all that it implied but ten days into this crisis.

He waited for a pause in the debate.

“I have a simple answer,” John said, “that will defuse the crisis without a confrontation.”

“I’m all ears, Professor,” Carl said sarcastically. “Water.”

“Water?” Carl asked, but John could already see the flicker of a grin on Carl’s face.

“Their reservoir is in our territory. The deal is simple. Lay off the pressure, send their refugees somewhere else, or we turn the water off.”

Carl looked at him wide-eyed for several seconds, then threw his head back and laughed.

“I’ll be damned.”

“I think we are damned if we turn off the water to Asheville,” Doc Kellor interjected, and Kate nodded in agreement.

“So do I,” John said quietly. “I don’t know if I could actually bring myself to do it. There’s a hundred thousand innocent people there, but this Burns character is playing power politics on us. But we hold the trump card. Send a message back. They still have their water but send the refugees somewhere else, that simple, no problem for them. If not, we blow the main pipe and the hell with them.”

“Maybe that might provoke them to try and seize it by force,” Kate replied.

John shook his head.

“No way. Remember the hurricane in 2004. The main pipe out of the reservoir ruptured and it was one hell of a mess. Special parts had to be flown in from outside the state to repair it. Well, after that they know how vulnerable the water supply is. We make it clear that if they make a move we blow it and they’ll never get it back online.”

“If we got that advantage, let’s press it,” Carl said. “I’ve heard they got dozens of railroad cars loaded with food and are hoarding it for themselves. We could demand some of that as well.”

“Not a bad idea,” Tom said quietly. “You might be on to something there.”

“I’m not reduced to that yet,” Kate snapped back. “Trading water for food. Not yet.”

“Nor I; just keep it to the refugee problem. I think if we demand a cut of their supplies… they’ll fight, and remember, they do have the numbers we don’t have,” John quickly interjected, “and we’ll all wind up losers.

“But regarding the refugees, let’s just say, we’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

Charlie smiled.

“That’s right; you’re from New Jersey originally.” John smiled.

“They back off on the refugee issue and that water just keeps flowing.” Charlie looked around the table and all nodded.

“Tom, send a courier back today. Use one of those mopeds we got running. I don’t want to risk a car the way we did the other day.”

“A pleasure, Charlie. Wish I could see Burns’s face when he gets the note.”

“Just remember this, though,” Charlie replied. “Our sewage runs to the treatment plant in Asheville. The filtration is most likely not running, chances are they’re dumping it straight into the French Broad, but still, if they close the pipe, it backs up clear to our town here. They could shut that down in retaliation.”

“Then we threaten to dump our raw sewage right into Swannanoa Creek, which runs downhill to Asheville,” Tom replied.

“Jesus Christ,” Kellor sighed. “Are we getting reduced to this?”

No one could reply.

“All right,” Charlie said, “the big issue. Our roadblock on I-40 at the top of the gap.” He looked to Tom.

“It’s getting bad there. Like we agreed to yesterday. I had someone take a note down to Old Fort at the bottom of the mountain asking them to post a sign that the road above was closed. Old Fort refused. They’ve got seven, maybe ten thousand refugees camped there, all of them trying to get up into these mountains. They want us to let the people pass; in fact, they’re encouraging them to hike up the interstate and, if need be, force their way through. The pressure is building. There’s refugees strung out all along the highway.

“Last night one of my men shot and killed two of them.”

“What?” Kate snapped. “I didn’t hear of this.”

“Figured I’d bring it up this morning,” Tom said.

“What happened?”

“A crowd of about fifty just would not turn back. The men guarding the gap said they recognized several as folks who had been turned back earlier. They planned what they did and tried to rush us. Someone on their side started to shoot and my men fired back. Two dead on their side, about a dozen wounded.”

Kate shook her head.

“It’s going to get worse,” Tom said. “Remember what Mr. Barber said when he flew up here last week, the interstate clogged with refugees pouring out of Charlotte and Winston-Salem. Well, Charlotte is a hundred and ten miles from here, Winston-Salem about a hundred and forty. Give a family burdened down with stuff about ten to fifteen miles a day. That means the real wave is going to start hitting us today; I’m surprised it hasn’t been sooner. We might find twenty, thirty, maybe fifty thousand pushing up that road.”

“Why I wanted this alliance,” Carl said. “You’re our back door. You let them in, we will be swamped. We’ll be caught between Asheville on the one side and those folks on the other. They’ll eat us clean in a day.”

“Disease as well,” Kellor interjected.

“I thought you said we have that already?” Carl asked.

Kellor sighed and shook his head.

“Salmonella, that’s lurking in any community. I’m talking about the exotics now. Large urban population. You’ll have carriers of hepatitis in every variant. What scares the hell out of me is a recent immigrant from overseas or someone stranded at the airport in Charlotte, which is a major hub. He might look well and feel well, but inside he might be carrying typhoid, cholera, you name it.

“We got one of those in a crowd, given sanitation for those people walking here? Just simple hand contact or fecal to water supply or food distribution supply contact and that bacteria will jump. We give someone a plate of food, they haven’t washed their hands, we don’t clean that plate with boiling water, and within a week thousands will be sick and dying.

“You ever seen cholera?” Kellor asked.

No one spoke.

“I did thirty years back. A mission trip to Africa. It makes salmonella look tame. People in those regions, most of them were exposed to it at some point in their lives and survived. We’re wide open to it. We are six, seven generations removed from it and we have no natural immunity. America is like an exotic hothouse plant. It can only live now in the artificial environment of vaccinations, sterilization, and antibiotics we started creating a hundred or more years ago.

“We’re about to get reintroduced to life as it is now in Africa or most of the third world. Not counting the global flu outbreak of 1918, the last really big epidemic, one that killed off a fair percentage of a population in a matter of weeks, well, I think it was the Chicago typhoid epidemic back in the 1880s that killed tens of thousands. Water supply got polluted with typhoid and they died like flies. It made the famous fire pale in comparison when it came to body count.”

“Inoculations?” Charlie asked.

“Where?” Kellor said with a cynical laugh. “For typhoid or cholera? Those are inoculations administered by the county-level health departmerit for travelers overseas, and even then they have to be special ordered. I bet there’s not one person in a thousand in this valley protected against cholera, unless they’ve traveled to Africa or southern Asia, and damn few against typhoid.

“Thank God our elevation is high enough, our climate cool enough, that I’m not worrying about mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, West Nile, and others. And don’t even get me started on how we better start looking out for parasitic worms, lice…”

His voice trailed off.

“We’ll see infections running rampant that won’t kill but will weaken, leaving the victim open for the next round. Kate, most guys don’t even think of it, but do you have a good supply of what we euphemistically call feminine hygiene products?”

She blushed slightly.

“For this month.”

“Right there, gentlemen, though I bet a lot of women are thinking about it now or finding out real quick. They’re back to Great-grandma’s days, and that combined with no bathing, poor diet, we’ll see a soaring infection rate, and that’s just one of a dozen situations we never thought about before last week.

“Johnnie steps on a rusty nail, get a tetanus shot. We might have a hundred of those left in the whole community. We might be staring at lockjaw come fall. Shall I go on?”

No one spoke.

John looked into his old friend’s eyes and could see that this doctor, more than perhaps anyone else in the room, was haunted by just how medieval this nightmare might get.

As a historian John knew the horror. For every person who died in the westward migration prior to the Civil War from Native Americans attacking, the stuff of American legends, thousands, maybe tens of thousands died from water holes polluted by cholera and typhoid… but that doesn’t make for a good movie.

“One thing we’ve neglected I want taken care of right now,” Kellor said. “And I could kick myself for not thinking of it sooner. Get the veterinarians organized.”

“Vets?” Carl asked.

“Hell, yes. They have anesthesia and antibiotics and, frankly, in a pinch can do emergency surgery as well. Inside a dog isn’t all that different from a human. Same with dentists, podiatrists as well. Get the meds they still have, move them to the clinic we’ve agreed to set up in Swannanoa, and guard it twenty-four hours a day.”

Charlie noted it down.

“Back to the refugees, what do we do?” Charlie asked. “Seal it off,” Carl said.

“We continue to seal it off,” Tom replied, “and I tell you, there’ll be fifty thousand piled up on that road by the end of the week and sooner or later they’ll storm us, casualties be damned.”

“A safety valve then,” Kate interjected.

“How’s that?” Charlie asked.

“We got a pressure cooker ready to blow on the interstate at the gap. Either we have it blow in our faces or we create a safety valve.”

“Like I said, how?” Charlie said, a touch of exasperation in his voice. “Let people through.”

“God damn,” Carl snapped. “I thought this alliance was so we can guard each other’s backs and now you’re talking about letting them in? If so, we pull out of the deal.”

“You are already in the deal,” Charlie said coldly, “and once in, you can’t leave.”

“Jesus, you’re starting to sound like a damn Yankee and I’m a Rebel. If we want to secede out of this union, we’ll do so.”

“Kate has it right,” John said.

“Oh, great, the professor speaks,” Carl replied, voice filled with sarcasm.

“Damn you, listen to some reasoning!” John shouted.

The outburst made him feel light-headed, his hand throbbing.

It caught Carl off guard, though.

“She’s right. We let people through a hundred at a time with the understanding that they don’t stop until past the barrier on the far side of Exit 59. Then they can keep on going.

“They check their weapons in with us, just like when cowboys rode into town and the sheriff met them. We give the weapons back once they’re on the far side of our territory. No food give outs, but for decency sake at least set up a watering spot, say by Exit 64. There should be enough water pressure to run a temporary pipe up there. A privy as well, with lots of lime thrown in and safe drainage.” Charlie nodded.

“We hold them back, like Tom said, and the pressure will build until they just overrun us.”

“What about the threat of disease that Doc Kellor was talking about?” Tom asked.

“I think when comparing one threat to another what Kate and John are saying is ‘the lesser of two evils.’

“If someone is visibly sick, we don’t let them through. Quarantine like the old days. Everyone else, they can walk on through but no stopping; armed guards keep their distance while escorting them.”

“We have hazmat suits,” Charlie announced.

“What?”

“Twenty of them stockpiled in the storage area of this building. They were issued out by Homeland Security a couple of years back. Never thought we’d be using them like this, but would that serve?”

“Damn good,” Kellor replied. “Anyone interacting at the barricades with those on the other side wears a hazmat.”

“Good psychological impact as well,” John interjected. “Conveys authority, and frankly, though I hate to say it, those on the other side will feel inferior and thus more compliant about being marched through without stopping.”

He was inwardly angry for even mentioning that. Uniforms, and the white hazmat suits were like uniforms, had always been one of the means throughout history to control crowds, including those being herded to death camps.

“Water only like I said, sharp watch that no one relieves themselves other than at the designated privy. Armed guards in hazmats escorting them. They’re allowed through and that’s it.”

“What about Asheville?” Kate said. “They might block the road as well.”

“There’s no defensive barricade there yet,” Carl said. “They are assuming the flow is all towards us. We might get away with it for a few days before they organize. If they do, we try some logic on them to just let these people keep moving, or as the professor there said, we mention the water supply and make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

John looked around the room and there was no dissent.

“Good plan,” Charlie finally said. “That’s what we’ll do.”

“One change on it, though: some should be allowed in to stay,” Kate replied.

“How’s that?” Kellor asked.

“There’s hundreds of people from right here who got stuck on the day everything went down. Driving back home, driving to meetings, flying in or out of Charlotte. They have every right to be here and we must let them in.

“Nearly everyone from Asheville who got stuck there is back, but we have people, several hundred, still missing. When they show up we got to let them in, along with those who own property here and are trying to get to it as a safe haven. They’ve lived with us for years; we owe them that chance if they make it here.”

“What about the disease, though?” Charlie asked.

“Well, like the doc said, quarantine,” John replied. “It’s the way things were done a hundred years ago with ships coming into New York. A doctor inspected the passengers. If he was suspicious, they were put in an isolation ward.”

Again a film image came to John.

“Remember Godfather Two? When the Don came to America as a little boy and was put in isolation because they thought he might be sick. We did it all the time then and it worked.”

“Yeah, and look what we got with that guy, the Mafia,” Carl replied.

John realized he had pulled the wrong analogy but pressed on.

“The practices of a hundred years ago did work and we have to step back to them. If a ship came from a port where they knew there was some outbreak of a contagious disease, the ship itself was anchored in the outer harbor until it was deemed safe to pass.

“We can do the same,” John said, looking hopefully at Kellor.

Kellor hesitated, then nodded in agreement.

“Doc, what about the nursing home?” John asked, and Kellor shook his head.

“That place is crawling with every infection known to man. I’d suggest one of the larger buildings at the Baptist church conference center right up near the gap. It’s right off the road.”

He looked around and everyone finally nodded.

“Look, I know I won’t be popular with some of you, bringing this up,” Carl said. “But the outsiders, those that wandered in here the first few days before we sealed off. That boosted our numbers by maybe two thousand or more. Do we let them stay?”

No one spoke in reply, but Kate was shaking her head.

“We’ve settled that here,” Charlie said, and John looked over at him, his thoughts instantly going to Makala.

“Why?” Carl asked. “I think we should of talked about this before our deal was made.”

“What are you suggesting, Carl?” Charlie snapped. “They’ve been here eight to ten days now. Many have integrated in, found a friend or a job to do. What are we going to do, march around town and round them up at gunpoint? It would be one helluva sight and, frankly, tear us apart.”

“We were once all Americans,” Kate said quietly.

“Precisely,” John now interjected. “Those that are here stay. We’ve already made that agreement.”

He looked around to the others. In spite of his speech in the park, he wondered now if views were changing because a food shortage was now clearly evident.

“No different than keeping out those on the other side,” Carl replied. “Maybe not, God save us,” John replied. “I don’t have an answer for that. But those that are in stay.” He looked to Charlie for support.

“We change that view now and I am off this council. It contradicts what I said at the park and neither you nor anyone else objected then.”

“What about what we did get off the road?” Kate said. “We’re forgetting about that. We got six trucks loaded with foodstuffs, enough rations to feed all of them for a couple of weeks. Consider that as their payment.”

John nodded to her, an adroit move on her part.

“They stay,” Charlie finally said, and Carl nodded his head.

“One other thing,” John interjected. “Those passing through. Anyone special, we should allow them to stay if they wish.”

“Like who?” Kellor asked.

“Anyone that can help us survive now, or rebuild.”

“Such as?”

“Military men, police officers for example.”

He knew he’d get immediate nods from Tom and Carl on that. The “fraternal order” definitely looked out for its own, and John realized he was doing the same when it came to the military.

“But others. Farmers, they have skills we need, can help with the cattle, hogs, and what crops are planted. All that fancy machinery is dead and a lot of farming is reverted to backbreaking labor. I think we should grab any electrician we can find, power company guys, people like that, doctors, nurses as well. If they want to stay, we interview them; if they check out OK, they can join us.”

There was a moment of silence again.

“Agreed,” Charlie replied.

“That means their families as well,” Kate said. “I wouldn’t give two cents for a man or woman who would grab the chance to stay and walk away from their family.”

“No argument there,” Charlie finally replied.

“John, could you draw up a list of recommended skills you think we should have?” John nodded.

“Frankly, I’d kill for someone who could build a steam engine.” There was a round of chuckles at that.

“No, people, I’m dead serious. A steam engine would be worth its weight in gold. Do any of you know how to make one, let alone repair an old one rotting behind a barn and then keep it running?”

Everyone was silent.

The thought started him rolling.

“Get a steam engine and you have power where you want it. To pump, dig, cut, hell, even mount it on the rail tracks and move things.

“I’d like to find some old guy who repaired phone lines forty years ago and could retrofit us. Prowl through the antique stores on Cherry Street and you’ll find old crank phones that still might work if we could find someone who understood how to hook them up. It’d link the two ends of our community.”

Several were now nodding.

“The guys I know in my Civil War Roundtable, Revolutionary War reenactors, many of them know skills that are lost to the rest of us. I want people like that. I’d trade a hundred computer-tech heads right now for one guy who understood steam engines. I’d trade a hundred lawyers for someone who could show us how to make gunpowder from what we can find here in this valley, or which roots we can dig right now and safely eat.

“An old chemist who could make ether or chloroform. Doc, we’re going to need a lot of that in the months to come and I’m willing to bet we’re short already.

“An old dentist who could get an old-fashioned foot-powered drill running. You folks think about that yet, next time you get a toothache? Care to have the tooth yanked instead and no painkiller while we’re at it? Remember the old movies, the ones about a gang of kids and one of them usually had a bandage wrapped around his head to keep his jaw shut because he had an abscessed tooth. If we saw that two weeks ago the parents would have been arrested for child abuse. But I tell you, we’ll be seeing that again, and real soon.”

He suddenly realized he was rambling, the room silent, suddenly far too hot.

“Sorry… .”

No one spoke and he wasn’t sure if it was because they were embarrassed by his rambling monologue or because he had indeed hit home with what they faced.

“I think we have it all for now,” Charlie said. “Let’s get to work. Meeting same time tomorrow.”

The group stood up and John felt a stab of pain. Kellor was bent over the table, holding John’s right hand down and taking off the bandage. The group looked over at them and he could see concern in Kate’s eyes.

“John, I think you better go home. You’re running a fever. I’ll see if I can dig something up for it and come by later,” Kellor said.

“I told you. That nurse, the tall good-looking one, Makala’s her name. She’s giving me Cipro.”

“Well, it should have kicked in by now. I don’t like this,” and Kellor sniffed the bandage again, his nose wrinkling.

John looked down at his hand. It was swollen, red streaked, the exposed wound red, the edge of the flesh where it had been stitched puckered.

He was suddenly worried. God damn. An infected hand, now? He had images of Civil War era surgery.

“What the hell is it, Doc?” Kate asked, coming closer.

“Maybe staph, but I don’t have the lab to test for it.

“Crops up in hospitals, nursing homes. Resistant stuff. Go home, go to bed, I’ll be by later today or this evening.”

“I said I was going up to the college to get some volunteers for the elementary school.”

“Last thing I want is you walking around at the college or in the elementary school with that hand. If you got a staph infection, you’re a spreader now. So just go home.”

John nodded and stood up, feeling weak.

He headed to the door, Kellor walking alongside him. Starting the car up, John headed for home… and as he pulled into the driveway… he knew.

Jen was outside, sitting on the stone wall of the walkway leading to the door. Elizabeth was on one side of her, Jennifer on the other. As he got out of the car the dogs came up, but a sharp command warned them to back off.

“It’s Tyler, isn’t it,” John said.

Jen forced a smile and nodded.

Jennifer started to sob and he put his good arm around her, his little girl burying her head in his chest.

“Pop-pop,” was all she could get out.

Jen put a hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder.

“Pop-pop is in heaven now, dear. But it’s OK to cry.”

Elizabeth leaned against John’s shoulder, forcing back a sob, but then looked up at him.

“Dad, you’re burning up.”

“I’m ok,” he said.

He looked at Jen.

“Let’s go in,” she said.

He followed her into the house, which was all so silent, and into what had been Jennifer’s room.

Tyler’s features were already going to a grayish yellow.

John remembered the first time they had met, Tyler coldly looking at this Yankee, worse yet from New Jersey, who obviously had but one intent only, and that was to seduce his only daughter and take her away.

John smiled. Oh, I understand that now, Pop, he thought.

And then so many other memories, of the gradual thaw. The first time they’d gone out shooting together while the “girls” went to the mall to go shopping, Tyler fascinated by the old Colt Dragoon pistol John had brought along, roaring with laughter over the encounter with the local rednecks that had happened but weeks before. That had been an icebreaker, father and potential son-in-law shooting, talking guns, then sitting on the patio and having a cold beer.

And then the grudging acceptance that had turned to friendship and at last had turned to the love a father would have for a son, a son who then gave him two beautiful granddaughters, granddaughters who allowed him once again to relive the joy of raising a child.

He was gone now. War or not, he would have died, but he had indeed died far sooner as a result of the war. In the cold figures of triage, he was an old man, someone whom villages, town, and cities all across America, this day, but ten days after an attack, were being forced to “write off.”

For an old man in the advanced stages of cancer, there would be no medicine. That had to be rationed now to someone who “stood a chance” or who, in a colder sense, could be of use. If the old man were not dying at home his would be a body whose departure would free a bed in a hospital flooded with the sick and injured. In a starving community his would be one less mouth to feed, even though his last meals were from a can poured into a feeding tube… but even that can of Ensure was now a meal, perhaps for an entire day, for someone else.

Tyler was dead, and there was a war, though it did not in any sense seem like a war that any had even conceptualized this way… and he was dead as surely as millions of others were now dead or dying after but ten days… as dead as someone lying in the surf of Omaha Beach, the death camp of Auschwitz, as dead as any casualty of war.

Frightened for a moment, John looked back at Jennifer, who stood in the doorway, clutching her grandmother’s side. The last of the ice had given out two days ago, the bottles of insulin now immersed in the tank of the basement toilet to keep them cool. And there was a flood of panic in John. He knew, almost to the day, how much insulin was left.

He caught Jen’s gaze; the way he was staring at her granddaughter, she pulled Jennifer in tighter to her side.

He turned back to look at Tyler.

“I think we should pray,” John said.

He went down on his knees and made the sign of the cross. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

It was close to sunset. To the north the hills, so affectionately known to all locals as “the Seven Sisters,” were bathed in the slating golden light of evening. Beyond them was the massive bulk of Mount Mitchell, its slopes green as spring moved steadily upwards towards the summit. “I think that’s deep enough, Ben,” John said.

Ben looked up from the grave he had been digging for the last three hours, helped by John’s students Phil and Jeremiah.

Charlie had been right. The golf course was the ideal spot for the new cemetery, the earth easy to dig. Over twenty other graves had been dug this day or were being dug now. The seven who had died in the elementary school during the night, five others who had died during the day… and three suicides, though one minister had tried to protest that decision that they be buried in what was now consecrated ground. That protest was greeted with icy rejection from Charlie, who was now a former member of that congregation. There had also been two more heart attacks, four more elderly from the nursing home and perhaps most tragic of all, the Morrison family burying their seven-year-old boy, who had had an asthma attack.

John tried to block out the screams of the mother as the dirt was shoveled into her boy’s grave.

Reverend Black drew away from the Morrison’s and came over.

“Ready, John?”

John nodded.

Richard Black looked exhausted, eyes bloodshot. The Morrison boy had been part of his congregation, a playmate of his son’s.

John looked over at Jeremiah and Phil and nodded.

The two boys went to the car, opened the backseat, and struggled to pull Tyler’s body out, wrapped in a quilt. He was already stiff with rigor mortis. They carried him over and stopped by the side of the grave, looking down, and John realized no one had thought about how to put the body into the grave.

Always bodies had been in coffins, concealed mechanical winches lowering them in a dignified manner. Jennifer broke away from her grandmother’s side, hysterical, and ran away. John looked at Elizabeth and she turned to chase after her sister.

“I’ll help,” Rich said. He eased himself down into the grave, Ben joining him. They took the body from Phil and Jeremiah and maneuvered it down, then pulled themselves out.

John found himself suddenly wondering why the old tradition of a grave supposedly having to be six foot deep existed. Fortunately, this one was maybe three and a half, four feet down and easier for the reverend to get out of.

Tyler rested in the bottom, face covered but bare feet exposed, and it struck John as obscene for him to be exposed thus, but there was nothing to be done for it now.

John looked at Jen, who stood at the head of the grave, almost serenely detached.

“I don’t know the Catholic rite,” Rich said. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think God or Tyler minds,” Jen said. “You’ve been a friend and neighbor for years. I think he’d want you to do this for him, for us.”

Rich opened his prayer book and started the traditional Presbyterian service for the dead.

Finished at last, he went to Jen, hugged her and kissed her on the forehead, then did something John had seen only once before, at a Jewish funeral years before. Rich picked up the shovel from the pile of earth, scooped up some dirt, and then let it fall into the grave.

The time John had seen that, it had shocked him, the funeral of the wife of a beloved grad school professor. The rabbi had thrown a shovelful in, then the husband, then family and friends, had done so also, filling the grave in while John’s beloved professor stood silent, watching the coffin disappear and the earth finally being mounded over. It was such a sharp, hard lesson about mortality, the returning of dust to dust, when compared to the “American way,” of concealing death in euphemisms, with green Astroturf to hide the raw earth, and the backhoe carefully hidden until the last of the mourners had left.

That set Jen off and at last she collapsed into tears.

Rich looked at John and handed him the shovel. Though it was agony, both physical and emotional, he knew he had to do it. He filled the shovel, turned, hesitated, then let the dirt fall, covering Tyler’s face.

Light-headed, John stepped back.

“We’ll take care of it, sir.”

It was Jeremiah.

John nodded and handed the shovel over.

He walked away, heading towards the park. Jennifer and her sister were in the playground, Jennifer sitting on a swing, her big sister sitting on the ground by her side.

Jennifer looked up at his approach. Elizabeth stood up, tears streaming down her face, and came up to his side. Is it over?”

“Yes.”

“I thought I should stay with her, Dad.”

“You did the right thing.”

“You’ve got to talk with her,” and Elizabeth’s voice broke. “She’s thinking about…” Her voice trailed off. “Go take care of your grandmother.”

“Sure, Dad.”

He went up to the swing and looked down at Jennifer. “You ok, sweetie?”

She didn’t speak, head lowered. She had brought Rabs along and was clutching him tight.

John fumbled, fighting the fever, not sure what to say, afraid of what might be said.

“Remember when I used to push you on this swing?” he said, filled now with nostalgia for that time when Mary was still alive and they’d bring the girls down here to play, to feed the ducks, and, while Mary still had the strength, to walk around the lake.

He got behind Jennifer, reached down with one hand to pull the swing back.

“How about we do it again? I’ll push to get you started.” And with that she was off the swing, crushing herself against his side, sobbing.

“Daddy, when will I be buried here?” He knelt down and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Daddy, don’t bury me here. I’d be afraid during the night. I always want to stay close to you. Please don’t bury me here.” He dissolved into tears, hugging her tight.

“I promise, sweetheart. You have years and years ahead. Daddy will always protect you.”

She drew back slightly and looked at him with solemn eyes, eyes filled with the wisdom of a child. “I don’t think so, Daddy.” That was all she said.

Later he would remember that they remained like that for what seemed an eternity and then gentle hands separated them, Jen’s hands. And strong hands. Ben, John’s two students, helped him back to the car and then the fever drowned out all else.