THIS IS ACTUALLY A RESEARCH PAPER THAT I HAD TO WRITE FOR MY HUMANITIES CLASS. INSTEAD OF WRITING AN ESSAY WE HAD TO PUT ALL THE INFORMATION INTO A STORY WHICH IS WHY THERE ARE CITATIONS IN IT. MY FRIEND MADE ME PUT THIS UP HERE. IT TAKES PLACE IN NEW MOON AFTER EDWARD LEFT.
A Pandemic to Top the Plague
As usual it was raining in Forks. Today though it wasn't just a little drizzle, it was a huge thunderstorm, lightning flashing almost constantly (Meyer 3). I was running to my truck, which was never a good thing because I'm the clumsiest person on Earth. As I was running lightning flashed not even a foot in front of me! I flew backwards and hit my head against some part of my truck. I opened my eyes and instead of seeing the pouring rain and my ancient Chevy (Meyer 7), I saw rows and rows of hospital beds. Where am I? I saw a nurse walking towards me but she didn't look like any nurse I had ever seen and come to think of it, neither were the beds. It all looked like something out of an old black and white movie.
"What year is it?" I asked more to myself than the approaching nurse.
"1918 sweetie," the nurse replied. She answered me like she thought I was crazy. 1918? Where do I know that year from? I felt the familiar breaking feeling inside my body and it clicked. The year he became a vampire. I would see him as a human, watch him be changed and maybe even meet his mother (Meyer 341). This must be a hospital for people dying of the Spanish Influenza. Maybe he is even in this very hospital.
I looked down the long room and saw a man leaning over one of the many filled beds. Even from behind I knew it could only be one person. Carlisle (Meyer 61). I walked towards him. Before I got to the bed, I positive whose bed it was. He looked very similar to the Edward I knew just much more fragile and the eyes were different, a brilliant green. His face was pallid and his lips were purple (Kohn 1). Carlisle turned and began talking to a young woman wearing a face mask (Cummings 1) that just walked through the door. She was complaining of a head cold with a high fever and aching muscles (Kohn 2). Carlisle led her to one of the few beds that were left open. I looked around at all the dying people. These people are so young, most between 20 and 40, not the elderly like I always thought (Kohn 3).
Edward looked up at me standing at the end of his bed, "Hello. You do not look sick like the rest of us." He could not even get that short sentence out without coughing from the bronchitis (Kohn 1). "You are very beautiful Miss. What is your name? If you do not mind me asking." Always so charming and polite.
"Thank you and my name is Bella." Just then I heard Carlisle's voice right behind me. "Can I help you ma'am?" What was I going to say to him? I needed a good reason for wondering around a hospital filled with people dying from the worst pandemic in American history (Kohn 1).
"Hello Doctor, I am a reporter from Arizona doing an article on the influenza here in Chicago. Could I ask you some questions?" I hoped he wouldn't be able to tell that I was lying like Edward always could.
"Sure Miss, I am off in a half hour and then we could take a walk outside." With that he went back to taking care of his patients immediately.
Edward looked asleep so I wondered the rows looking at all the different people that would die within a few days (1918 Flu Pandemic 1). To my absolute horror I saw a man die "struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth" (Billings 2). Another doctor said that there was nothing else to do for the man. He was brought to the morgue but before the doctor left he told me that people were being buried in masses because the morgues were becoming extremely crowded and there were not enough coffins (Kohn 3). When the doctor went to move the dead man his body, "crackled-an awful crackling noise which sounded like Rice Crispies when you pour milk over them" (Illinois 2). In the short amount of time that I was waiting for Carlisle, three more people walked in. Two were given beds and one that did not look very sick was given a vaccine to try and kill the disease (Kohn 2).
Lying on a small table next to one of the beds was a newspaper. I picked it up and stared at the front page. There was no surprise that it was about the influenza. The Department of Health realized some tips about how to keep healthy during the epidemic (Krzyak 1). "Influenza Don'ts. Don't live in the dark. Don't shut the sunshine out of your home. Don't exclude the fresh air. Don't fail to keep clean. Don't go into crowed places. Don't associate with people who sneeze and cough in your presence. Don't use common towels. Don't fail to practice what you preach. Don't overtax your physical powers. Cut out evening entertainments. Be in bed by ten o'clock. Don't fail to sleep with every window in your bedroom open. Don't fail to call your doctor for yourself or any other member of your family at the first sign of illness. Better be safe than sorry. Don't allow your home to become damp, chilly, or uncomfortable. Don't fail, if possible, to walk to your work in the morning and to your home at night. The open air exercise will be of decided benefit" (Krzyak 1). I figured that if people were smart and followed all of these tips then they could avoid getting sick.
Carlisle and I left the hospital as we talked. Once we got passed the introductions I asked his to tell me about the disease. "'In the midst of perfect health, in a circumscribed community… the first case of influenza would occur, and then within the next few hours or days a large portion- and occasionally every single individual of the community- would be stricken down with the same type of febrile illness, the rate of spread from one to another being remarkable'" (Cummings 1). Wow I never realized that it spread so quickly. "'Barrack rooms which the day before had been full of bustle and life, would now converted wholesale into one great sick room, the number of sick developing so rapidly that hospitals were within a day or two so overfull that fresh admissions were impossible'" (Cummings 1).
Outside there were very few people but the ones I did see carried asafetida, camphor cucumbers, or potatoes because they were thought to ward off the infection (Kohn 2). Carlisle also told me that all the hospitals were becoming so full that emergency hospitals were being created in shut down buildings (Kohn 2) that were not being used because public meetings were stopped and churches, theaters, and saloons were all shut down (Kohn 2). "This terrible disease 'is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate'" (Billings 1). Carlisle said in a very sorrow tone. "On the day it was discovered in Chicago, not just one case was found but 374 cases" (Illinois 1).
"Could you tell me some of the symptoms of the influenza please?" I asked him
"Of course Bella. At first they seem to have a terrible case of pneumonia along with bronchitis. Then they get mastoid abscess which is swelling caused by pus in the cavity behind the ears. Their face becomes very pale and their lips turn purple. Eventually it causes heart problems as well" (Kohn 2). All these symptoms sounded so painful that I could not imagine what it would be like to come down with the disease. "Last week I read in a local paper that every week over 10,000 new cases are found in this city alone" (Illinois 1).
We began to walk back towards the hospital and he told me that some of the things the government were starting to do were a little over board like if you sneezed without covering your nose and mouth with a handkerchief you were fined or even put in jail (Cummings 1). The supplies were running low because of all the demand and congress was beginning to help but they could not do much (Cummings 2). The Red Cross was also collecting supplies along with local organizations like churches to help the sick (Cummings 2). I was not sure where the disease started, and I was informed it was in an army training place named Camp Funston in Kansas (1918 Flu Pandemic 1).
"'Medical science for four and a half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now as it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of it all- infectious disease'" (Billings 1). It must been so hard to have to worry about this disease killing so many people while so many men are across seas fighting in a war. "As I am sure you have heard the government is being blamed for how bad it is getting but we have no scientific way to find the cure (Kohn 3). Now everyone is questioning the medical field because we have not come up with a cure yet (Faue 1). Doctors are beginning to get sick from so much exposure so students are being brought in which is scaring people" (Billings 1). I can see how much this is hurting Carlisle to not be able to do more to help.
We had made it back to the hospital and Carlisle went straight to the bed on Edwards left and I knew it was his mother Elizabeth. She looked like she was not going to live for much longer. Even with my human ears I could hear the crazy pattern of her heartbeat. She was shaking from the chills of her fever and her lips very close to black. Elizabeth was whispering something over and over again in Carlisle's ear and even though I could not hear it, I was almost positive she was asking him to save Edward. She knew Carlisle was more than human and I don't know how she figured it out but I am so glad she did. Carlisle was nodding his head over and over and saying "Are you sure?" Elizabeth nodded her head and Carlisle said okay. With that she closed her eyes and from the stories I had heard I knew she would not wake up.
I'm sure Carlisle knew that she was unconscious and he got up to check on some other patients. I could not bring myself to move from her side. Tears began to roll down my cheeks as I sat on the edge of her bed holding her hand. Edward slowly started to roll over towards his mother and I did not want him to see me crying so I quickly stood up with my back towards him. Carlisle walked back towards Elizabeth's bed. He picked her up and carried her to the morgue I'm sure and only a few minutes later came back for Edward. Once he walked out of the room I ran for the exit. I knew where Carlisle lived because I told him I would send him a copy of the article. I asked a woman walking down the street with a mask on which way to South Giles Ave and she pointed me in the right direction. I ran the fifteen blocks to the house and I was very out of breath.
Once I got there, I knew that I had to be very quiet or Carlisle would hear me. I silently walked over to the window. Carlisle had put Edward down on the kitchen table and he was pacing back and forth across the kitchen. He slowly walked over to Edward whispered in his ear and bit his neck quickly and spit out the blood. Edward screamed in pain and I could not watch anymore. I turned and kicked a bucket. It fell over and made a loud enough noise for him to hear over the screams. I closed my eyes not knowing what would happen if Carlisle found me there. I stood there waiting for a good minute before I opened my eyes. When I opened them I was not in Carlisle's yard but in my driveway against my truck with a throbbing head. What had just happened to me? I slowly got up and walked back into my house not wanting to go wherever I had been planning to go that I could no longer remember. I walked up the stairs to my room and fell asleep dreaming of Edward. The dreams were not painful like usual but happy like the use to be.