Salvation City Part 2

He felt a surge of anger, mostly at himself. He should never have called them.

"Anyway," his mother said, mussing his hair with one hand while covering a yawn with the other, "I'd rather die of the flu than some other ways I can think of."

"What's that that supposed to mean?" Cole said, ducking away from her hand. supposed to mean?" Cole said, ducking away from her hand.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess just that I'd rather be killed by Nature than by some suicide bomber."

His father groaned, and his mother swatted his arm and said, "You know what I mean! And at least there'd be time to say good-bye."

"Okay, that's enough morbidity for me," said his father. "I'm going to bed. And that's what I think you should do, too, kiddo. And remember what we said about spending so much time online."

His parents were on a new kick: reforming their electronic habits. Rule number one: no more idle Web browsing. They were weaning themselves off YouTube and watching less TV, avoiding completely the 24/7 news channels. They had given up social networking, were down to dealing with e-mail just three times a day, and though a mobile phone was hard not to think of as a necessity, they were experimenting with leaving theirs off for longer and longer periods of time. They had also started carrying earplugs with them, popping them in for protection against public noise or ubiquitous indoor music. Sometimes they even wore earplugs at home so they could focus better on work or reading. And they had another new rule: no more mult.i.tasking. None of this was easy-there was a lot of backsliding-but they were convinced that their former ways had been damaging their intellects and powers of concentration. Many experts thought they were right. And wouldn't it be wonderful if Cole's generation could learn from their generation's mistakes? At the very least, they wanted him to limit his time online to two or three hours a day.

But Cole stayed up late that night, skimming more articles (including one called "Mother Nature Is the Worst Terrorist"), then lying in bed, listening to some music he'd downloaded before dinner. Though she wasn't worried about the flu, his mother was worried enough about Cole's hearing to nag him constantly about listening so much to his iPod. (His parents had given up their iPods as part of their new discipline but also out of anxiety about hearing loss.) Too bad it was Cole's favorite thing to do. His parents didn't believe him, but he actually studied better when he had music blasting in his ears. If he were allowed to take his tests like that, he was sure he'd get better grades. Anyway, he'd heard about surgeons blasting rock and roll in the OR, so obviously it couldn't hurt hurt your concentration. your concentration.

He'd had the flu so far twice in his life. He remembered the worst headache he'd ever had, and throwing up and throwing up, and being too tired even to sit up in bed. No denying, the sickest he'd ever been-he could get a little nauseated just remembering it-but nothing like what he'd read about tonight.

His father was always warning him not to trust everything he read online. The Net was a mine of misinformation, he said. And in fact Cole was skeptical about some of these flu stories. People screaming from the pain, people bleeding from their noses and ears and even their eyes, people completely losing their minds-it was like one of those horror movies so over the top that instead of being scared the audience ends up laughing.

He remembered what his mother had said about having time to say good-bye. But here were stories about people being way too sick to know what was happening to them and people dying so fast, some even dropping dead in their tracks as if they'd been shot. But his mother was wrong anyway. It would be better to die in a big explosion, or in a plane or car crash, or falling off a mountain like the princ.i.p.al's son last year, than to take forever forever like Cole's grandparents. His mother knew all about how bad cancer was, but obviously she didn't know the flu could be a pretty horrific way to die, too. And Cole wasn't going to tell her. He wasn't going to bring up the flu again with either of his parents. like Cole's grandparents. His mother knew all about how bad cancer was, but obviously she didn't know the flu could be a pretty horrific way to die, too. And Cole wasn't going to tell her. He wasn't going to bring up the flu again with either of his parents.

But maybe his father was right. Maybe what had happened in 1918 could never happen again.

"U.S. Reveals Detailed Flu Disaster Plans."

Cole decided to make this the topic for his research report. Plans for manufacturing and distributing vaccines and other medications. Plans to quarantine the sick and to call up extra doctors and nurses and to replace absent workers with retired workers so that businesses wouldn't have to shut down. Plans to keep public transportation and electricity and telecommunications and other vital services operating and food and water and other necessities from running out. Plans to mobilize troops (for Cole this was the only exciting part) in the event of ma.s.s panic or violence.

One day he would ask Pastor Wyatt why, despite all these plans, everything had gone so wrong.

"Son, that is just the thing. That is what people did not-and still do not-get. There is no way you can count on the government, even if it's a very good government. The government isn't going to save you, it isn't going to save anyone. There's no way you can count on other people in a situation like we had. People afraid of losing their lives-or, Lord knows, even just their toys-they'll panic. Even fine, decent Christian folk-you can never know for sure what they'll do next. So I say, love your neighbor, help your fellow man all you can, but don't ever count on any other human being. Count on G.o.d."

What Cole didn't know was that most of the plans he read about that night would have been sufficient only for an emergency lasting a few weeks.

His report was really just a cut-and-paste job from the Internet, but he knew it would pa.s.s. Ms. Mark never paid much attention to their homework. He didn't bring up the subject with his parents again, but just before he went off to school Monday morning they brought it up. Was he still worried about an epidemic? And though he said no, they heard yes.

"We're not going to die, pumpkin," his mother said. "You really shouldn't be wasting precious kid time worrying about that."

"Precious kid time" was something his mother said a lot. She was always complaining that kids today were being forced to grow up way too fast and were being robbed of more and more precious kid time. But to Cole, who could not wait to be sprung from the trap of adolescence, this was totally wack.

He had his iPod with him and was inserting the ear buds when she said, "You want something to worry about? Let me tell you, Dad and I are already paying for the kind of music we listened to growing up. You want articles? I can show you articles, I can show you studies-" The rest of her words were lost. He was out the door, his iPod turned up max.

BY THE TIME THEY MOVED TO INDIANA, the first wave of the flu had come and gone. None of them had caught it. ("See?" said his mother. "We Vinings are made of st.u.r.dy stuff.") In Chicago there had been dozens of cases of infection but only one real horror story. In a nursing home on the South Side, all but two of the residents had died. But what did you expect? A filthy overcrowded place like that. Old people whose health had been so neglected for so long, they had no resistance to any germs.

Though the first wave had hit much of Illinois and other parts of the Midwest, in southern Indiana, where Little Leap was, there were only a few cases, all mild.

When the second wave hit, everyone hoped it, too, would be mild. A hope that died by the end of the first week.

Later many people would say that if the schools had been closed right away, lives might have been saved. But at the time people argued that you couldn't just close the schools, because so many parents worked. If they had to stay home to take care of their kids, a lot of them would lose income, maybe even their jobs. Not to mention that businesses were already shorthanded because of all the employees out sick. Closing the schools might just make things worse.

But even before schools were officially closed, many parents had started keeping their kids home. Because teachers were getting sick, too, and there weren't enough subs, cla.s.ses had to be combined.

"How stupid can you get?" a teacher who'd been fired for refusing to go in to work told reporters. "Anywhere people are crowded together is bad, but with school kids we're talking about a perfect storm of contagion."

From Addy in Berlin came the news that all social gatherings had been banned except for weddings and funerals, where the number of people could not be higher than twelve. ("I wonder if that's counting the bride and groom," Cole's mother said, and his father joked: "How about the corpse?") In city after city, all over the world, the number of people appearing in surgical masks kept multiplying. Those still capable of frivolity added ill.u.s.trations: luscious lips, stuck-out tongues, piano-keyboard smiles, and-most popular-vampire fangs. In Indianapolis, after hundreds of people fell ill over one weekend, no one was permitted to go out without a mask. But-as happened almost everywhere-there weren't enough masks to go around. Some made do with scarves or other pieces of cloth, or they tried taping gauze or paper to their faces. A lot of people just ignored the rule-and got away with it, the police being out sick in droves.

But a homeless man caught spitting in the street was mobbed and beaten to death.

The day before Cole's school finally closed was spooky. The halls had never been so quiet. The sound of a ball being bounced in the school yard was like the sound of a heavy door slamming. And when the bell rang, everyone nearly jumped out of their skin.

Cole's last day of school turned out to be his father's last day of school, too.

When the first college students started getting sick, some health officials called for nationwide campus quarantines. They warned that letting all those active young people-many of whom were already infected, though they might not know it yet-travel around the country, using all means of public transportation, would spread a disease that seemed to be growing more contagious by the hour. Much safer for them to stay put. A drastic measure, to be sure. But the rate of infection among college students was turning out to be drastically high-higher than any other group except prison inmates. Cancel cla.s.ses and all other school business, these officials urged, but please keep those kids in the dorms.

The outrage with which students reacted to this proposal was matched by the outrage of their parents, who wanted their sons and daughters home now now. So, leaving only those already too sick to get out of bed, the campuses began emptying out.

Not that any dormitory anywhere would remain empty for long. Most would be turned into makes.h.i.+ft clinics as hospitals started running out of beds.

Had his father killed another dog? No, it was just his expression.

Coming home that other time his father had explained how, out of nowhere, a dog had dashed in front of his car. "All I could do was run over the poor thing," he said. He had looked shocked and awed, and for a while after, whenever he caught sight of Sadie, he'd mirror her own sad-eyed long face.

This time, though, it was the flu that had his father looking shocked and awed. The flu, which was now officially the only thing anyone could think about, the only topic of conversation. In less than a week, it had knocked half the student body flat. The lives of kids in perfect health just days ago now hung in the balance. Two freshmen and one soph.o.m.ore had died.

The dude flu, people called it, as more and more young adults were taken down.

"Not to scare anyone," his father said, "but I'm not feeling so hot myself." Cole noticed that his father's skin looked dirty, smudged in places, as if he'd rubbed himself down with a sheet of newspaper. "I don't have a fever but I feel like I've been hit over the head or something."

"Oh my G.o.d." Cole's mother looked as if she'd been hit over the head pretty hard herself. "Don't touch Cole. Go upstairs. I'll call the doctor. Go straight to bed."

Without a word-like a sleepwalker, or someone obeying a hypnotist-his father turned and left the room.

"Don't go near your father. Don't touch him."

Why were his parents behaving like bots? His mother held her arms stiffly at her sides. She held her eyes so wide open Cole thought it must hurt. He thought of the pod people in the famous old movie whose name he couldn't remember. The way his father had climbed the stairs. They were changing-everything was changing.

Later, people would always say how everything had happened so fast-overnight, they said. But Cole would remember the feeling of dragging a ball and chain, of days unfolding in excruciating slow motion.

"I'll go call the doctor. Keep away from your father. Stay down here. Keep away from our room."

"Okay, Mom, I heard you the first time."

Cole turned on the TV. Not that he expected to find anything besides news about the flu. As he touched the remote power b.u.t.ton, he remembered that the movie was called Invasion of the Body s.n.a.t.c.hers Invasion of the Body s.n.a.t.c.hers and how one of his teachers had said it proved you didn't need to show a lot of violence to make a great scary movie. But Cole thought only a Neanderthal would find a clunky old black-and-white movie like that seriously scary. and how one of his teachers had said it proved you didn't need to show a lot of violence to make a great scary movie. But Cole thought only a Neanderthal would find a clunky old black-and-white movie like that seriously scary.

He wondered how long school would be closed. Not that he missed it. In fact, it had disgusted him that his parents had made him keep going. It had not escaped his notice that it was mostly the cooler kids whose parents had let them stay home, even if they weren't sick. Kaleigh, for example, had been one of the first to stop coming to school. Had this not been the case, of course, Cole would not have wanted to stay home himself.

Now he just wished there were some way to delete the last time they'd seen each other.

She had caught him staring (usually he was more careful). "Why don't you just take a picture?" Loud Loud, on purpose, so that half the cafeteria would hear. And stupidly he had shot back: "Why would I want a picture of you?" Not fooling anyone, of course. And then Kaleigh whispered something to the other kids at her table, something that made them all go "Ooooo." "Ooooo."

Every day since then he had relived it, trying, at least in fantasy, to fix it. But he could never think of what to say. As usual, he couldn't imagine what the cool response would have been. He just knew it existed: the response that instead of making her sneer would have made Kaleigh like him.

And now he wished he had had had the nerve to sneak-take her picture, even though kids caught doing that got their cells confiscated. He couldn't remember what clothes she'd been wearing that last time, but he remembered her hands. Only a short time ago he would have found green nail polish ugly. He would have found the stud Kaleigh wore in her nose vomitous. There were days when for some reason she had dark circles under her eyes. He knew they were supposed to be ugly (his mother hated it whenever she had them), but now they, too, were somehow attractive-one of those things, like the silver nose stud and the metallic green nails, that he liked looking at when Kaleigh was there and thinking about when she wasn't. had the nerve to sneak-take her picture, even though kids caught doing that got their cells confiscated. He couldn't remember what clothes she'd been wearing that last time, but he remembered her hands. Only a short time ago he would have found green nail polish ugly. He would have found the stud Kaleigh wore in her nose vomitous. There were days when for some reason she had dark circles under her eyes. He knew they were supposed to be ugly (his mother hated it whenever she had them), but now they, too, were somehow attractive-one of those things, like the silver nose stud and the metallic green nails, that he liked looking at when Kaleigh was there and thinking about when she wasn't.

Whenever he saw or thought about those circles under her eyes, he wanted to kiss her there-even after he heard Pete Druzzi say, "When a chick's got circles under her eyes it means she's wearing the red mouse."

But by now his secret hope had been crushed. He'd held on to it for as long as he could, the hope that here, in this new town, among all new kids, things would be different from the way they'd been in Chicago. Where the apocalyptic girls had looked right through him.

"Oh, those d.a.m.n girls," his mother fumed. "Every school has them. Cold, mean, narcissistic, and usually dumb. They should never be allowed to get away with their destructive behavior. But trust me, Cole, they're not worth suffering over."

His mother was so wrong. Kaleigh wasn't dumb. She was one of the best students in the cla.s.s, and already focused on getting into a good college. She was going to be an obstetrician. She already knew that. And she wasn't mean. Cliquish, yes, but not mean. She just didn't like boys staring at her. He could understand that. And everyone knew she was kind. They knew it because of Mr. Henderson, the Spanish teacher. Middle-aged, married "Hairpiece" Henderson. He was in love with her and unable to hide it. His heart was breaking for her and he couldn't hide it. Scream! Everyone knew, and everyone wanted to make something of it. But just try. Just try making fun of Mr. Henderson in front of Kaleigh.

"Oh my G.o.d, Cole. How awful!"

He had slid down on the couch with his head back and had been staring at the ceiling instead of at the screen. He had never turned up the volume.

There they were again: the men in the hazmat suits. Not chickens or pigs this time but people. Corpses. Laid out in rows. Being swung onto a gigantic pyre.

"I can't watch this," his mother said, gasping as if someone had just knocked the wind out of her. Cole shrugged and turned the TV off.

He didn't want her to sit down on the sofa next to him, but she did. He didn't want her to put her arm around him, but she did. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to go up to his room. He didn't want to talk, but he knew she would. Why did she always do the wrong thing?

Now that his father was sick she was all upset. His father, whom she was secretly planning to dump. ("The truth is, Addy, I feel like I've done my duty. I don't owe this man the rest of my life.") She hadn't been able to reach the doctor. He was just a name to her: Dr. Corb.u.t.t. The only primary-care doctor in the area still taking new patients enrolled in the college's insurance plan. She had reached a recording saying people who thought they had the flu should not come into the office or go to the hospital. They should stay home instead and call a certain number. But when she tried calling that number it was busy.

"Of course, we don't know for sure if it even is the flu," she said. "Anyway, I'll try again later. Let's talk about dinner. I'm afraid it's slim pickin's."

Very long ago, it seemed, he'd been sent home from school with a pamphlet about Emergency Home Preparedness. Every home should always have on hand at least a three-week supply of food, water, and medication for each member of the family.

"But there's frozen pizza. You like that. I could heat up some vegetable soup, and we could have that with the pizza. Would you like that, sweetie?"

Something was being shredded inside him.

He wasn't afraid of the flu anymore. He wasn't afraid of everyone dying. He believed his parents when they said they weren't going to die. They They were made of st.u.r.dy stuff. None of them would die. They would all go on living, day after day, in the same dumb, totally f.u.c.ked-up way. were made of st.u.r.dy stuff. None of them would die. They would all go on living, day after day, in the same dumb, totally f.u.c.ked-up way.

"Cole! What is it, Cole?"

Why did it always sound more loving when she said his name than when she called him sweetie or pumpkin?

"Are you scared, Cole? No? Then what is it? Are you homesick? Do you miss your old school? Are you afraid you won't make any friends here? Come on, Cole. Words Words, remember?"

He remembered. She used to say it all the time when he was small. "Words, Cole, words. I'm not a mind reader. But if you give me the words, I'll bet I can make the bad go away."

And it was true! It had worked-then.

Rather than cry, he swore he would gouge his own eyes out.

Imagine you swallowed an empty balloon and then somehow it started inflating.

He didn't want to bury his face in her neck and ball his fists and sob and sob till he got the hiccups like some f.u.c.king five-year-old. But once he had done that, he felt better.

He still didn't want to talk. But he sat in the kitchen and kept his mother company while she heated the soup and the pizza. And then they ate together in peace.

THE NEXT MORNING his father was able to sit up in bed for an hour or so and work on his laptop. He was able to eat breakfast but refused lunch, saying he didn't think he could keep it down. By afternoon all he could do was sleep.

His mother kept calling both the doctor's office and the special number she'd been given but without getting through to either.

Cole was forbidden to enter the sickroom. From time to time, if he saw the door open, he'd stop and linger awkwardly in the doorway.

"You okay, Dad?"

"I'll survive, kiddo. Don't forget to wash your hands."

His mother, on the other hand, spent much of the day in the room, and at night she slept there, not in the bed but on a yoga mat on the floor. She used a cotton scarf for a mask-a blue bandanna that she wore to keep her hair back when she did yoga-and washed her hands so often they were becoming raw. She worried about his father's fever but couldn't say how high it was, the thermometer being one of several items that had managed somehow to get lost in the move from Chicago. And there were no more thermometers to be found at the drugstore.

And once they'd used up the aspirin they had on hand, that was it. Like surgical masks and thermometers, cold and flu medication had run out everywhere. Rubbing alcohol, mouthwash, bleach-anything containing germ killer was also sold out. Except, of course, online. The Web was full of ads not only for ordinary meds like aspirin but for a million products promising to prevent or cure flu.

A mine of misinformation.

Bloggers around the world swore by the power of this or that herb: holy basil, astragalus, elderberry.

If you drank a certain tea, if you ate a certain root, if you practiced meditation every day, if you took mega doses of Vitamin D, you would not get sick.

Rub yourself down with onion or garlic. Take garlic pills, chew garlic, carry garlic cloves in your pockets. Try acupuncture.

A positive psychological outlook was essential, and the more good deeds a person performed, the less likely he or she was to get infected.

Because the second wave was so much more severe than the first, a lot of people refused to believe it could be the same disease. It had to be terrorism. They didn't care what medical experts kept telling them, about how it was the nature of influenza to occur in waves and that there was nothing about this pandemic, terrible though it was, that wasn't happening more or less as had long been predicted.

No, not bioterrorism, others said, but a virus that had escaped from a laboratory. These were the same people who believed that both Lyme disease and West Nile virus were caused by germs that had escaped many years ago from a government lab off the coast of Long Island. They scoffed at the a.s.sertion that it was impossible to say for sure where the flu had begun because cases had appeared in several different countries at exactly the same time. Cover-up! Everyone knew the government was involved in the development of bioweapons. And although the Americans were not the only ones who were working on such weapons, the belief that they were somehow to blame-that the monster germ had most likely been created in an American lab, for American military purposes-would outlive the pandemic itself.

In any case, according to a poll, eighty-two percent of Americans believed the government knew more about the flu than it was saying. And the number of people who declared themselves dead set against any vaccine the government came up with was steadily growing.

Just before she fell sick, the president addressed the nation.

"We have reached the point where our hospitals, clinics, and other health centers are overwhelmed. Communities everywhere are struggling with a shortage of health care workers, not only because of the many who are out sick but because of those who are quitting their jobs or refusing to show up for work. While the fear these workers must feel is understandable, our survival depends on them, and so we command all those whose duty it is to care for the sick not to s.h.i.+rk that duty. Your country needs you. At the end of the day, when this peril is behind, you will be remembered as America's heroes. Your courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten. And those who abandon their posts today should bear in mind that neither will this be forgotten. A day of reckoning will come.

"At this time we also call on all able-bodied retired doctors, nurses, and others trained in health care to volunteer their services. Some have already done so, and we praise and thank these fine people. But the need for skilled hands grows more urgent every day, and their number remains far too few.