Sickness
Six months after she received the letter from the Agency, the boy's mother lay in bed sick. A sickness had spread in the city, virtually overnight. The hospital where she worked became a hub for infection.
The Centers for Disease Control had sent out bulletins claiming they were using all resources to contain the pandemic. They classified the virus as a variant of an older one, Ebola, eradicated fifteen years before. None of the media outlets appeared to know how this mutated form came into the country. Experts on talk shows and news channels seemed genuinely baffled at its sudden appearance and deadly effect. They speculated and offered their best theories. But it was all guesswork, and time was running out for thousands of people, soon to be hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. Once contracted, the virus killed in three days.
The boy's mother, lying sick in her bed, remembered her father's visit twelve years before. She now believed his incredible story. From her bed, she watched the news, hoping his predictions weren't unfolding. Eventually, though, she faced the terrifying truth. The agency her father worked for must have released the virus, although mainstream news did not report this. The nightmare of population control by pandemic was playing out, and not just in New Orleans. More and more cases and deaths had been reported in other cities: Birmingham, Atlanta, all of Florida. Now the sickness was traveling up the eastern seaboard. Fast.
She was not surprised that the mainstream media, and even the CDC, had no real idea of this virus' origin. Her father had said the Agency would spread it through the air, secretly. Yet, the serum her father gave her so long ago had failed. She was already forty-eight hours into the infection, struggling to understand why.
Now, the boy, stood by her side. He bathed her face and neck with cold towels to help with the fever, as she had instructed him to do, but could do nothing else. He felt worried and helpless.
As he prepared to place another cold towel on her forehead, her eyes widened. Then she struggled to rise up on her elbows, staring at the doorway. The boy turned.
An old man stood there. The boy knew immediately who it was. His grandfather. His mother's father.
Not dead.
The boy stared. His grandfather: alive?
"You're here," his mother said. "How?"
He quickly moved to her side. There was a roughness in the man's features, unlike the photos the boy remembered. His clothes were anything but neat and trim. They were rags, dirty. His white, shoulder-length hair added to the roughness. He looked like the homeless people the boy had seen around New Orleans, carrying everything they owned in rickety shopping carts and dusty knapsacks along broken sidewalks to unknown destinations. These people were always mysterious to the boy. Was his grandfather homeless, too?
"Yes, I am here," the old man responded. "There's much to explain." He felt her forehead and lightly gripped her wrist. "You're sick," he said. "This was not supposed to happen."
His mother had said the same thing to the boy when she first showed symptoms.
"I thought I was safe, Father. I thought you made me safe."
Her voice became strident, then angry.
"You gave me the serum. Remember? You said it would last. Look at me. I'm sick. And you're alive! How?"
She started coughing from the exertion. Blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. The old man wiped it away with one of the small towels on the bed cover. She let him.
"I'm sorry, daughter," he said. "It was supposed to work. Even as a prototype. At the lab, we thought it was right."
"You lied about being killed in a fire? Why? Where have you been?"
The boy heard the hurt in his mother's voice. Her coal black eyes stared at her father for answers. The boy felt invisible, left out of some secret.
"It was for your safety," he said. "And for the boy's."
A picture of the black suburban in front of the house flashed in the boy's memory. Were the vehicle and his grandfather's faked death connected?
His grandfather looked at him, interrupting the boy's thoughts.
"Hello, Grandson."
"Hi," the boy said quietly.
The old man smiled.
"We finally meet," he said. Then he looked at his daughter.
"He has your dark eyes. And he looks strong. Solid. But where did this boy get that wavy brown hair?" The old man gave a wry smile now.
"From his father," she answered.
The old man nodded his head.
"Good to honor the father as well as the mother."
They sat silent. So much understanding seemed to pass between them that the boy could not understand. Then, forehead beaded with sweat, she looked at the boy, then back at her father.
"I'm dying."
"I know."
The boy was jolted by her words. Dying? He did not understand. His grandfather, who he believed was dead, was not. His mother was talking of dying. He felt nauseous. Nothing made sense.
"What about the boy?" she asked. "You have to take care of him, Father. Get him out of here. Away from this madness!"
Silence.
"He will go with me. You both were to go with me. I should have been here sooner." The boy saw tears in the old man's eyes.
"Like you used to say to me, Father: there are no accidents."
She looked at her son.
"Why isn't my boy sick? He should be, but he has no symptoms."
The old man studied the boy. "I'm not sure. Maybe the inoculation skipped a generation."
They both looked at him now. The boy's face flushed, but he tried to look strong, to live up to his grandfather's words.
"How?" his mother asked.
"Well, the serum has to be in his blood, which also means it works. But for some reason the antibodies aren't in you." The old man's eyebrows furrowed.
"Antibodies from the serum were in your blood, yes. But for some reason, they traveled through you and into his body. Why they would stay in him and not also be in you, I don't know."
He paused.
"Being pregnant somehow triggered the antibodies' development inside the fetus and inoculated him. It might have something to do with his blood type, or being a fetus, or just random. But it is working in him."
"Father!" his daughter interrupted, coughed yet forced out her words. "You're exposed."
She fought the cough and slowly calmed her heaving chest and labored breathing.
"By being here, with me!"
She grabbed his wrist.
"Use the boy's blood. Make another serum!"
Blood appeared at the corner of her mouth and ran out of a nostril. She stared at her father.
"If you don't make another antidote, you'll die."
The old man placed the palm of his hand on the top of her head. Her breathing slowed and calmed at his touch. But her eyes stayed fixed on his. The boy was frightened by her blood.
"Do you have lab equipment?" he asked.
"In the back room. End of the hall."
His mother continued to struggle with her breathing, but her eyes were alive. Excited now.
"The Protocol? The plants? Do you have them?"
"Yes," she answered. It was getting harder for her to speak. "I always keep them: Knotweed, Cordyceps, Skullcap, Teasel. Cordyceps in powder. The rest in tinctures." She looked at the boy. "I have the equipment you'll need to test his blood."
"Good girl," he said.
She managed a smile. He did not.
"Son?" Grandfather turned to him. "Will you care for your mother while I work?"
"Yes sir," the boy answered, finally feeling useful, though he was afraid. The old man kissed his daughter on the forehead and left the room.