The Shanxi Virus: An epidemic survival story Read online

  "I'm not convinced that we should stay here," Rich said. "I heard on the radio that the military set up a camp for civilians at Fort Leonard Wood. They have food, shelter, and a hospital. Why shouldn't we go there?"

  "What do they have there that we don't have here?" Robin asked. "Aside from a hospital? Are you injured? If you don't need a hospital right this minute, then I wouldn't worry about it. Besides, we have Jen here. She's a third-year medical student. I'm sure she can take care of anything that comes up. Rich, I heard that broadcast too, but I'm not so sure that I want to be crowded together in a tent city with a bunch of strangers. It doesn't make much sense to gather everyone into one spot. We saw how that ended up working in the big cities."

  "I'd like to add to that," Mike said. "Remember that martial law has been declared. Not everybody here is going to like living under military rule."

  "I still say it's better than staying here," Rich said.

  "If you want to leave, go ahead. But don't plan on coming back," Robin said.

  Rich looked at Eva questioningly.

  Eva laughed and looked across the street at Lance, her tongue in between her teeth. "I don't care what you do Rich. I have everything I need right here."

  Rich's nostrils flared and his lip curled into a sneer. "Fine. I'm not going anywhere either," Rich said. "But just what in the hell are we supposed to do now?"

  "First I want to make sure everybody knows each other. Some of you might not be familiar with one another, and if we're going to survive this thing, we'll need to work together." Robin pointed over at the frail looking old man sitting next to Mike. "The man over there with Mike is Aaron Bauer. I'll be blunt here. If he looks sick, it's because he is, but not with Shanxi. Aaron has terminal lung cancer. He helped Mike get out of the city. He'll be staying at Mike's cabin."

  Robin went around the circle, introducing all of the members of their group, a few of which Jen hadn't met before. Ted's mother, Sherri McCormick was there. Much shorter than her son, she had the same shaggy hair as her son and she smiled at everyone when Robin introduced her. Robin's husband Bert had a large beer belly and a short cropped gray beard. An electrical engineer at a power plant, he had used all of his vacation time so that he could be home with his family since the beginning of the outbreak. Jen had seen Robin's daughter playing in the Greene's front yard, but hadn't known what her name was. Kelly had bright green eyes that sparkled with the same intelligence and intensity as her mother's. Lance was introduced, and Rich muttered a foul accusation, earning him a glare from Robin.

  The introductions complete, Robin addressed the group again.

  "I've been speaking with Mike, and we talked about what we will need to do if we want to keep everybody here alive and healthy. We both agreed on a few priorities. First, we need to completely isolate ourselves from the outside world. Ted has just finished taking a big step towards that goal in felling more trees at the entrance to the neighborhood. There is more we can do, but we'll get to that later.

  "The next thing we need to do is to set up a decontamination area. We're going to put all of the supplies needed to decontaminate a person in the event they are exposed to the disease. Bleach water, soap, scrub brushes, a shower, wash basins, and a burn barrel for clothing."

  "You mean you aren't just going to have Mike shoot them?" Rich asked sarcastically.

  "Not unless it's you Rich. Now let's move on. Get past--"

  "Hold on a minute. I don't remember anyone electing you the leader of this group. Who put you in charge?" Rich asked in a snide tone.

  "You didn't ask. Nobody else stepped up, so I put myself in charge," Robin said.

  "That's not going to work for me. Why should we listen to you? What do--"

  "You know what? You're right Rich. We live in America. This is a democracy. We should take a vote. Anybody else want to run this group?" Mike said.

  Rich stood up and slicked his hair back. "I'm the only one here with leadership experience. I've been an executive sales manager at a large corporation for the last ten years. My team--"

  "OK. That makes Rich and Robin up for election," Mike barked loudly. "Anybody else?"

  The group was silent, and no one else volunteered.

  Mike raised his right arm high in the air. "My vote is for Robin. Who else is voting for Robin?"

  Arms raised in the air. With the exception of Rich, it was unanimous.

  "Fine. You all want her to lead? Whatever," Rich said. "You see where that's gotten us already. Just wait until she gets somebody killed."

  "Now that we've got that settled, the next thing we need to do is figure out what kind of supplies we have, and how much we have of them. I want each of you to go through your houses and write down what you've got in your homes. Food. Drinks. Toiletries. Write down any medication you have; aspirin, acetaminophen, painkillers, anything you've got. We're also looking for protective equipment. If you have any latex gloves, rubber kitchen gloves, rubber rain boots, protective goggles, that kind of thing.

  "One other thing I want you to do while you're getting the inventory, and this is going to sound weird, but I want you to fill your bathtub up with water and leave it there. The power has stayed on so far, but with people not showing up to work, we don't know if it will remain that way. We don't want to run out of drinking water," Robin said.

  "You want me to drink water out of my bath tub?" Eva asked. "You've got to be kidding me, right?"

  "If you get thirsty enough, I guarantee you'd drink water out of a toilet," Mike said.

  Eva rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  "After we've got a good inventory of everything, we can start more work on isolating the neighborhood and prepare a bugout vehicle. I'll let Mike talk about those projects," Robin said.

  "A what? A bug out vehicle?" Lance asked. "What the hell is that?"

  "A bugout vehicle. Does anybody have a four wheel drive truck?"

  Robin's husband, Bert spoke up. "We've got one. It's an older Jeep Grand Cherokee, but it still runs well. I've got a trailer for it too. I use it to haul yard waste."

  "Excellent. We'll put it to good use."

  Lance shook his head. "Well where would we go? And how can we get out of here? You cut down all of those trees and closed off the only way out of the neighborhood."

  "That's not the only way out of here. There is another. A small trial head behind my cabin leads into the Mark Twain National Forest. It's not built for vehicles, but it's wide enough that we can get a vehicle through. It needs to be a four wheel drive to get through some sections of the trail."

  "Why don't we just leave now?"

  "Robin already covered all of that. Where would we go? Do you know of somewhere safer to be? We need shelter, food, water, and isolation from other people. Right now, this neighborhood is the best place for us," Mike said.

  "Then why go to all the trouble of your bugout car or whatever?" Lance asked.

  "Because things change. Shit happens. If we need to get out of here quickly, we'll want to bring as many supplies as we can take with us, already packed up and ready to go.

  "We can do more to isolate the neighborhood from the outside world. I'm going take that tractor in the construction lot and bulldoze the entrance to the neighborhood. The entrance sign, landscaping, and the entire section of the road visible from the highway. We're going to make it look like there's no neighborhood here."

  "What about the display home near the entrance?" Bert asked.

  "Good question Bert. I'm going to torch it. We'll leave it standing, that way anybody driving along the highway will see that the house is burnt down and assume the place was infected and burned down and then keep on driving. Since the main road into the development will be gone, there will be no reason for anyone to come back this way."

  "All right people. We've all got our jobs to do. Let's get to work. The stakes are high. Your lives are on the line, so let's move with a purpose," Robin said.

  Jen stood up, about to go start inventorying her
parent's home, but Mike called after her.

  "Hey! Jen, right? Can I talk to you for a minute?"

  "Sure, I guess." She wasn't sure what he wanted to talk to her about, and really just wanted to go home. She'd been struggling to control the urge to go home and thoroughly scrub herself in the shower after the encounter with the infected woman. The sight of the woman burning had left her emotionally drained and ready for bed.

  "Listen, I don't claim to be a sensitive guy or anything, but I've got something I need to say to you, and I hope I don't come across as too blunt. I don't want to offend you, but I've got your best interest at heart, so hear me out."

  Jen's cheeks flushed. He wasn't about to come onto her, was he? In the middle of an epidemic? She couldn't see how anyone could possibly think about that kind of thing in a situation like this. Except for Eva and Lance, apparently. Besides, he was closer to her father's age than he was to hers. Still, she would have to let him down easy. "OK? What is it?"

  "It's about your hands. I noticed them right away when we met back there, before that woman crashed into the tree. And after she came towards us, I saw what you did with the bottle of hand sanitizer. I had a friend a long time ago who had the same issue. I know it isn't something you do on purpose, but I wanted to see if there is anything we can do to help you control your hand washing compulsion. I normally wouldn't even mention it, but you're putting yourself at risk unnecessarily. Look at those deep cracks in your hands. If you touch something that was contaminated by the virus, you're going to get sick. You've scrubbed away too many layers of skin."

  Jen's neck flushed with heat. No one outside of her family had ever confronted her about her disorder before. She was mortified. "I'm aware of it. There's nothing I can do about it. I called in a refill and I was on my way there earlier today but somebody cut down a few trees, so I couldn't get out of the neighborhood."

  Jen turned her back on him and walked to her parent’s house as quickly as she could, ignoring the apology Mike said to her back as she left. He sounded sincere, but she couldn't face him right now. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she wanted to run away somewhere. She just wanted this all to be over with.

  Friday, June 12th

  Chapter 15

  Mike climbed up the side of the large yellow tractor in the construction lot, pulling himself into the driver's seat. If he could figure out how to get the tractor running, he could make short work of the disguising the entrance to the neighborhood, and then torch the display home, discouraging potential intruders.

  The tractor's paint was chipped, fading, and rust showed through in several places, but the make and model stenciled in black were still visible; a Caterpillar 955. He didn't know anything about heavy machinery, but he guessed from the condition of the tractor that it was thirty or forty years old.

  The machine was operated by a system of black knobbed levers and controls, and three foot pedals on the floor. Aside from the gear shifter, which was labeled, he was at a complete loss as to what all of the controls did. The one thing he did have was the key, which had been easy enough to find, hanging on a pegboard inside of the construction site's office trailer.

  A little nervous at operating such a large piece of equipment without any idea of what he was doing, he looked over the controls, determined to figure it out. Mike pulled the tractor's seatbelt across his lap, but then decided against wearing it. The tractor had no canopy over the driver's cockpit. If he pulled the wrong lever and rolled the tractor over down the hill, he'd be done for. He decided he would be better off hoping he was flung free of the tractor if that happened. Palms sweating, he looked over the controls. If he was going to camouflage the entrance to the neighborhood, he had to figure this out.

  The keyhole was oddly shaped, and he matched up the only key on the ring that would fit in the hole, a short two-pronged key. He turned the key to the right, but nothing happened. Mike played with buttons on the dashboard until he figured out that he needed to hold one of the switches on the left-hand side to the left for a minute to charge or prime something, he had no idea what, and then turn the switch to the right to start the engine. The engine sputtered and coughed, and gray smoke billowed out of the smokestack, and then the engine roared to life. Shaking his head at the confusing control system, Mike wiped the sweat off his right hand, wishing he could do the same for his other hand. The sweat made his hand itch like crazy under the cast.

  He couldn't grasp the knobs of the left hand controls, but he used the side of the cast to push the levers on the left, manhandling the lever without causing his wrist too much pain. Thankfully the levers that controlled the movement of the bucket at the front of the tractor were on the right. They took more finesse to operate than the sliding gear shifter and throttle. He experimented for several minutes until he felt he had the basics of operating the bucket down, then picked the bucket off of the ground and put the tractor in gear.

  The tractor lurched forward, it's rusty metal track pads squeaked and squealed in protest as it began to move forward. Mike played with the pedals on the floor and figured out that the pedals were used for steering and braking. Over his initial nervousness, Mike put the tractor in high gear and set out for the front of the neighborhood.

  The tractor moved slowly even in high gear, and Mike drove it down the main road until he came to the trees Ted had felled earlier in the day. The tractor had no problem as he went off to the side of the road, cutting across the empty lots.

  Once at the entrance, Mike lowered the bucket and knocked down the neighborhood sign and tore up all of the landscaping, then pushed the remains into the woods where they wouldn't be seen. He turned the tractor around and dropped the bucket's teeth underneath the concrete road to the development. The tractor's metal bucket teeth scraped against the concrete as he tried to lift the concrete road up, like nails on a chalkboard. The tractor's engine blew thick gray smoke out of the smokestack. Mike pushed the tractor to the limit, but it quickly became apparent that his plan wasn't going to work. The concrete road was tougher than he thought.

  He parked the tractor and got down. The concrete had hairline cracks extended a couple of feet into the road bed in a few places, but aside from the scratch marks that marred the edge of the curb, the damage was minimal. The tractor wasn't going to cut it.

  Discouraged by the lack of progress with the development entrance, he powered down the tractor and brought the small gas can along. The front door of the house was locked, and Mike went around the backside of the house and found a sliding glass patio door. He found a good-sized rock in the yard, and hurled it through the patio door as hard as he could. The glass shattered, and Mike kicked the pieces clinging to the frame with his boot, then unlocked and opened the door from the inside.

  "Hello?" he yelled into the house.

  He did a quick sweep of the house, making sure there were no squatters in the building. The place was deserted. It looked like it hadn't been visited in quite some time. No new homes had been built in the last three years, so it was hardly surprising. Satisfied he wasn't about to roast some poor soul by accident, he went through the rooms and splashed gasoline over the floors and against the walls. When the canister was nearly empty, he left a trail of gas behind him as he backtracked to the patio door.

  He balled up the napkins and set the was on fire, then tossed it inside the building. When it hit the carpet, a line of fire quickly ran through the living room and then split up in several different directions as it followed the trails of gas leading into the other rooms. Within seconds the entire house was ablaze.

  Mike walked back to the tractor, trying to figure out how he was going to get rid of the concrete road. He'd need a jackhammer or dynamite to break the road up into smaller pieces that the tractor could handle, and he didn't have either of those.

  He realized the answer was staring him right in the face. He had a tractor with a huge bucket on it. He could just bury the road, hiding it under the dirt. Inspired by the thought, he took the idea one
step further and decided he could make use of the large pile of gravel at the construction lot. After he buried the main road, he could make a gravel driveway leading from the highway to the display home. The display home would then look like it was the only home in the area.

  Mike fired up the tractor and set to work, using dirt from a hillside that faced away from the road, and began to haul bucket load after bucket load to the neighborhood entrance. Covering the road was far easier than trying to pry the concrete road up, and the work went quickly.

  After two hours of work, he had covered up fifty yards of the development's main road, right up to the edge of the highway. Mike had dumped extra soil on either side of the road and smoothed it out to blend in with the existing hillside. To complete the disguise, he dumped a brush pile and fallen logs from the woods over the old entrance.

  With the road now concealed, Mike moved the tractor into a grove of trees, out of sight from the main road, and shut it down. He was ready for a break. Working all morning in the heat, he was thirsty and ready for a break. A shady spot under the trees provided some much welcome shade.

  Mike leaned back against a tree and closed his eyes. He had nearly drifted off when the road noise from vehicles on the highway brought him back to full awareness. Mike leapt to his feet.

  As the vehicles rounded the sharp bend in the road and came into view, Mike's stomach rose up into his throat. A convoy of three military Humvees pulled over right next to the brush blockade he'd piled a short while ago. Soldiers wearing camouflaged CBRN suits emerged from the vehicles. The suits were designed to protect against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats, as their name implied. Mike had one of them in his cellar, but didn't want to let the others know. They might start to suspect he had more things they needed. He was only willing to go so far to help them. That didn't include turning over his the contents of his cellar.