The boy's mother had been against the serum being put into her bloodstream because she was pregnant. She only gave in after her father impressed upon her the Agency's ultimate plan for the virus. It was to be used for population control, first to be tested somewhere in the United States. If it proved effective, then it would be sold and released in designated countries across the globe through a coordinated effort at the international level.
Her father put the serum into his own body first, right there in her kitchen, to show her it was safe.
"What about my child?" she had asked, still reluctant. "How do I know it's safe for my unborn child?"
"The serum travels through your bloodstream, directly countering the virus, should you be exposed," he said. "It was made to be given once. The antibodies produced in your blood will also be in your child's."
Still uncertain, she gave in. She trusted her father most, even with her life. He injected her with the serum.
"Speak of this to no one," he said as he wiped the needle and replaced it in its carrying case. He did not throw the needle away. "Promise you will never speak of this. If my superiors find out I took this prototype from the lab," he did not finish the sentence.
She promised him.
With the serum in her body, his story had still been hard for her to believe. A government agency, in league with private venture companies, had developed a deadly virus with plans to someday release it upon the U.S. population? For population control? That was too far out. After all, life for her was working at the ER of the West Side Regional Hospital in New Orleans. Paying bills. Working towards a comfortable life.
Yet, her father stressed in his no-nonsense way, the overpopulation of the planet was real. He agreed that releasing a deadly airborne virus to manage it was murder, but he could not stop that now.
Like most of the other scientists working in the labs, he had not known the true purpose of his work until it was completed. Even then, information was hard to uncover because all the scientists were closely monitored by the Agency. Even among fellow scientists, there was to be no cooperation or comparing of notes.
As for the serum, it was not meant for the general population. It was for those in the Agency and other unknown high-ranking officials. In their grand plan, he said, these people would be the ones to manage the survivors in the general population and others who might be spared exposure to the virus.
"When will they release it?" his daughter asked.
"I don't know," he answered. "It could be years from now. More testing has to be done. I wanted you to have this serum in case there is no other chance to give it to you. Even as a prototype, I'm hoping it will work."
"You mean you're not sure about it?"
"No. But, honey, it's the only thing developed to counter the virus."
She fell silent, then looked like she had more questions.
"The less you know, the safer you are," he said cutting her off. "Do not speak of this to anyone."
Twelve years later, this man was dead. The boy's mother grieved, for her father's passing and for the boy who never got to know him.
Chapter 6 -The Warning
Awake again. Dark. Quiet. Lonely.
The blood-red moon is past its apex now, beginning its slow descent to the west. He looks south. Fire rages in the blackness.
Is the whole city burning? Who is still there? Why would they be there?
Grandfather's warning: be ready once the chaos comes.
No one was ready when it came. Except Grandfather.
Grandfather talked with neighbors before the change. Only a few. But he was cautious about who he spoke to, careful not to attract attention. It was a balance.
Grandfather told the boy they must appear normal, boring to those around them. They should talk and visit on the street now and again, but not give too much information.
The boy asked why. His grandfather explained that most people avoid thinking about worst-case scenarios, preferring the comfort of daily routines and distractions. It's easier to watch anarchy in a movie or read about society collapsing in a book. Afterwards, you simply click off the reading light, burrow down in the covers of a warm bed for a good night's sleep, in a house, in the neighborhood of a sane world. When the fantasy becomes real, people are shocked.
A flash comes from the shiny dragons far away in the city. A spark across the orange glow.
The little girl across the street, six years old, pops into the boy's thoughts.
She always rode a little bike, guided by her father. The boy would smile, wave. She would smile and wave back. Grandfather talked to the man on the street, sometimes. They were kind people.
Yet Grandfather kept a distance and cautioned the boy to do the same. At the time, the boy didn't understand. Why not make friends with the nice people across the street? Now, he understands. They're gone and the memory is raw. Painful.
He closes his eyes but finds no relief from the scene in front of their house the night he fled, four nights ago. Death came in an instant.
Chapter 7 - Sickness
Six months after she received the letter about her father’s death, 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 epidemic. 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 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, and 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.
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 immediately knew who it was. His grandfather. His mother's father.
Not dead.
The boy stared.
"You're here," his mother said. "How?"
The man quickly moved to her side. There was a roughness in his 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.
"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. "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 and 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.
~
At one point, the old man came back into the bedroom and drew some of the boy’s blood. Being an ER nurse, the boy's mother had the needed medical supplies. And being this man's daughter, she had the needed medicinal plants preserved in the way he had taught her as a young girl. They called it the Protocol.
The boy watched his mother. Used wet towels to try and cool her fever. Comforted her. Comforted himself with her presence.
The rest of that morning and into the afternoon, the old man worked in the back room. Now and again, he checked on his daughter, updated her on his progress.
Once, after the old man left, the boy saw his mother struggling to breathe. She motioned him to come close. She fought back the building cough.
"Son." She coughed, and more blood appeared from her mouth and nose. The boy dabbed it away. "Are you okay?" she asked. "Staying with me?" Worry knitted her brow, mingling with the sweat.
"Yes," he answered.
"My brave boy," she said and smiled. "Be strong now." Tears appeared at the corners of her eyes. The boy felt afraid, at these words and her tears.
"When I'm gone, go with your grandfather," she said. "Promise me you will go with him. He'll take care of you."
How could he not promise? There was no one else to trust. Nowhere else to go.
"I promise."
"Good." She dropped her head back onto the pillow. As soon as it hit, her head kicked up in another coughing fit. Her black hair, matted with sweat, spilled across the pillow. The boy kept wiping blood. He had tears now.
"Call your grandfather," she managed to cough out.
Reluctantly, the boy left the room. In less than a minute, the old man was at his daughter's side. The boy stood on the other side of the bed. His mother looked hard at the old man, but said nothing.
"Yes," he said. "I found a formula that will work. I used the boy's blood."
Father and daughter stared quietly at each other.
"Thank you for coming," she said. "I've missed you."
"I've also missed you, honey."
"Take care of him."
The old man glanced at the boy, then back at her, managed a thin smile and nodded once.
"He's safe."
"I know," she said. "I trust no one else."
Then, she slowly turned her head and looked at her son. The boy thought she looked peaceful, more so than she had since her sickness started. A quiet in her eyes. A thin trickle of blood from her nose. No coughing. The boy went to dab the trickle of blood, but his mother shook her head slightly and reached out and held his hand. The boy cried. Couldn't help it.
"You'll be safe with your grandfather," she said gently, without struggle. "Always remember, I love you."
He roughly wiped blinding tears from his eyes and looked into hers. He noticed tiny flakes of gold in her dark irises. She smiled, even as the life in her eyes faded. Seconds stretched into minutes. The boy could not look away. Then she was gone.
Nothing moved in the room. A deep quiet settled over the place, unlike anything the boy had ever heard or felt. Late afternoon sun streamed in from the west-facing window. The light fell on his mother's face, illuminating the last of the rosy color in her cheeks. Dust particles drifted in slow motio
n through the air above her body. Graceful.
Grandfather gently closed her eyelids. Then he turned toward the window as if watching something. His face was set, no expression, yet tears streamed down his cheeks.
Chapter 8 - Serum
That evening, they sealed her in the bedroom. The boy called it the Death Room. Then, he followed his grandfather to the lab room, not wanting to be alone. His grandfather spoke to him as they worked, his voice reassuring and warm.
Late that night, Grandfather finished the serum. He injected it into his own arm as the boy watched.
Grandfather explained how he made the serum. The boy did not understand everything he said, but he did understand that now his blood was mingled with his grandfather's. The old man looked at the boy, with an ever-so-slight upturn at the corner of his mouth.
"Our blood now is joined, Grandson. Mine's in you by way of your mother. Yours in me by way of this needle." He held the needle for a moment, then cleaned it and put it in a plastic baggie. "We'll always be together."
The old man looked at the boy, much the way he had looked at the boy's mother before she passed away. Then he put the baggie with the needle in a small case, snapped it shut and put it in an inner pocket of his canvas backpack. Scattered across the tabletop were beakers and small bottles of tinctures and dry leaves of some plant crushed in a pestle.
"Grandson, I'm not sure how my body will react to this serum," he said. "If I get sick, stay with me and use towels soaked in cold water. Like you did with your mother." He put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Will you do that?"
"I will," answered the boy, scared for his grandfather and for himself. "What if you die?"
"If you stay by me and watch over me tonight, I'll be okay. Can I use your bed to lie down?"
"Yes."
An hour later, the old man got terribly sick. His body was on fire, and the boy followed the old man's directions, bathing the face and chest with cold tap water from the bathroom. Then the shaking began—his whole body, for hours.
In the long hours of the night, the boy was sure the old man was dying. His fear, always there beside him, told him so. The boy felt the same helplessness he felt with his mother, before Grandfather appeared.