One Second After

“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.