The Infection

Ethan found his wife and daughter upstairs on the rocking chair in Mary’s room. Carol was reading her a story from a hardcover compendium of Curious George stories.

“Are you happy, Daddy?” Mary said.

“I’m very happy,” Ethan said, close to tears.

They gave her a glass of water and tucked her in with her dollies, then turned out the light and left her to sleep.

Carol went downstairs for coffee and Ethan trudged after her.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” he said.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said.

The next thing he knew he was bawling with his head bowed and his shoulders shaking and Carol was holding him, telling him everything was going to be okay.

“I didn’t like the look on Mary’s face,” he said.

That heartbreaking look of confusion, fear, guilt that her parents were fighting.

He had surprised himself by crying. He had not cried in at least ten years, when his mother died. But that look haunted him. That look of broken trust and loss.

“Kids blame themselves for everything,” he added. “I don’t want to fight in front of her. I don’t want to ever fight in front of her again. We’re supposed to be protecting her.”

Carol understood. They promised each other it would never happen again. They made up and went to bed feeling better about their marriage. As Ethan lay in the dark that night, trying to sleep, he vowed to preserve Mary’s pure innocence and joy as long as he could. She would slowly learn over time that the world was a hard and terrible place. But he would fight that world as long and as hard as he could to protect his little girl from its dark truths.

♦

In the third-floor lounge, the other survivors sit around a small table and share a breakfast of peanut butter on crackers and wash it down with instant coffee sweetened with honey and lightened with powdered milk. An espresso machine gathers dust in the corner next to a small refrigerator nobody is interested in opening. Corporate art decorates the walls. The stale air smells like dust. The LED lantern casts long shadows behind a fake potted plant.

“I think we can all agree we need to continue searching the building,” Anne says. “I’d like to lead a team to look for supplies. Food, water, drugs and anything else we can use.”

“If it’s all right with you, I need to sit that one out,” Sarge says.

“Got to work on the Brad?”

“No, I’d like to take my boys and find the emergency generator. We might get some lights going again. Charge our electronics. Maybe even get some news of the outside world.”

“Wow,” Wendy says, smiling. “That would be nice.”

“Hooah,” says Sarge.

“Don’t tell me you have to go into the basement,” Anne says.

Sarge shakes his head. “There ain’t no generator in the basement. If a water main broke or there was some type of disaster where fire hoses or sprinklers would have to be used, it could get flooded out too easy. Hurricane Katrina taught everybody that. No, this hospital has a mechanical penthouse. High and dry on the top floor. That is where it will be. Me and the boys will take care of it.”

The survivors eat quietly. Sarge pours himself more coffee, smiles and adds, “So don’t you worry about me. The only people going into the darkest, most dangerous parts of the hospital today will be you.”

“Don’t leave without me,” Todd says, shuffling into the room. “But first give me some of that coffee and my pants back.”

“How’s the arm?” Wendy says.

“Sore as hell, but I’ll live.”

Anne pats the empty chair between her and Wendy. “Have a seat, Kid.”

Todd sits, grinning in his blanket and glasses and battered SWAT cap, and extends his hand to Anne for a shake. “Todd Paulsen. Nice to meet you.”

♦

Paul aims his shotgun into the darkness, illuminated by the sharp beam cast by a flashlight wrapped around the barrel with electrical tape. The Remington 870 tactical pump shotgun features a short pistol-grip stock and a recoil pad. It packs seven twelve-gauge rounds. He likes the gun because it is dependable and it will stop anything.

They pass the radiology department. Down the corridor, on the right, they find the chapel. Paul blinks at it in surprise. He had completely forgotten that the hospital would have a chapel. The survivors look at him, questioning, and he nods, yes, he would like to see it.

The small room looks like a miniature church, complete with red carpeting, dark wood pews and a stained glass wall that was probably backlit when the power worked. Hymn books are scattered on the floor. Dead flowers are crumbling in their vases and most of the candles are melted. Ethan takes the candles that are still usable and puts them in his bag. The others stand by the doorway, watching Paul, who picks up the hymn books and stacks them carefully on the lectern.