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It was quiet. Too quiet. The four rows of tents lined the road and they made a flapping sound when the wind rustled by them. As they drew closer to the camp, finally, Grant saw black dust, it danced close to the ground, moving with the breeze.

Meredith stopped walking about fifty feet from the camp, just before the line of roadblock horses. Her hands were to her side as she peered to her right over her shoulder, then she pivoted, moved at a snail’s pace about ten feet and stared out.

“What’s going on?” Grant asked. “What do you see?”

Meredith didn’t answer, neither did John when he joined her. So Grant picked up the pace and closed the distance between them. “What is it?” He then looked.

It wasn’t in his line of sight. In fact, one had to be upon it to fully grasp the huge pit. A hundred feet long, and the depth was undeterminable. The black dust came from there. It hovered over top, almost as if the air served as a suction, bringing it up just a little, moving it around and letting it drop.

Every few seconds, the thick black dust would clear enough to expose the massive amount of bodies in the pit. All burned, most of them to ash… explaining the black dust that moved about.

“Do we need to do this?” Grant asked. “Can’t we just go? It’s a dead camp.”

“It’s an organized dead camp,” Meredith quipped. “Someone took names, notes, kept records, even if early on. Even if for distribution of medicine.”

“Where do we begin?” John asked. “I mean, there have to be a hundred tents on this road.”

Meredith pointed back toward the camp. “The first tent. It’s the only one without a flag.”

Grant thought, ‘Without a flag? What did she mean?” and when he squeezed by the first road block horse, he saw.

Plastic, thin triangles were attached to the outside of each tent. Just one on each tent. The type of triangle flags Grant would see at a carnival, and just like at a street fair or carnival, the flags were different colors.

Red. Yellow. Blue.

Each tent was marked in one of those colors.

Meredith walked in the first tent, was there a moment and she stepped back out. “This is definitely the main tent. No cots or beds here. Just tables and boxes. Let see what we can find. Grant? Why don’t you look around and see what you can surmise.”

“Me? Why me?” Before Grant got a response, John had slipped into the main tent with Meredith. He supposed that was their way of making him do something. He wasn’t really contributing. Other than when he helped organize supplies, he had nothing to add.

He knew nothing about viruses or post apocalyptic worlds.

The first tent to his right had a blue flag. He inched his way to it and as he reached for the flap, his foot caught something. He felt it under the sole of his shoe. He looked down to see a small stuffed toy.

Grant cringed. He closed his eyes tight as a sickening feeling hit his gut and his chest tightened. A stuffed toy meant a child.

It was a dead camp.

Suddenly he thought of his nieces and nephews, all of them young, all of them children. He bent down and lifted the toy. It was a bear, not much bigger than the palm of his hand and pink.

Trembling he reached for the flap of the tent and pushed it aside.

He was holding his breath and immediately exhaled when he looked inside. Cots were lined up orderly, some contained disturbed bedding, but all of the cots were empty. There was sense of relief when he saw that and confident, the entire camp was empty, he moved to the next tent.

Blue flag. Empty.

He crossed the row to the other side, and just as certain he’d see the same, he walked in.

Grant was wrong. Cots lined up like the other tents, IV poles were the bedside ornament, but the cots were not empty. Every single cot held a body.

It wasn’t like the movies. The skeletal remains weren’t just bones lost in clothing and covered by a blanket. Two steps in, he caught his first real look. The body of the person lay on their side, the blanket pulled up to the shoulder and the arm dangled outward. IV tubing hung by it. The head didn’t rest on a pillow. It was surrounded by a black stain, that formed a halo around it. In fact the same blackened stain was under the body, some on the edge of the blankets and on the floor under the arm. Was it blood? Grant didn’t know, he had seen enough, backed up and turned to hurriedly leave. As he did, he bumped into a cot and not only did he feel the physical pain, he felt it emotionally as well when he saw the small body. It was a girl, of that he was certain, she wore a pink night gown and a ribbon was by her head.

Grant’s heart broke.

An innocent victim of the entire establishment control mechanism.

It angered him. He wanted to scream, cry, released emotions. He felt horrible for the child. He grabbed the blanket to cover her completely.  It was the least he could do. Was she alone? Did she die without anyone by her? When he looked down to lift the blanket, he received his answer.

Drooping from her wrist was a red band.

Red.

On it was the number 6522.