One Second After

“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.”