one.
In retrospect, I should have seen this coming.
For the past few weeks, people in the village have been getting really, really sick. At first, we thought nothing of it; our designated village is riddled with illness (see: AIDs, cancer, etc.). The symptoms, coughing fits, rashes, high fever, seizures and insomnia, were rather obsene, but after a few days and no clear diagnosis from Gotswana, we began to worry. Gotswana is a good doctor, a really good one. If he can get a bible out of my ass, he can diagnose someone. But all of the tests from multiple patients came back with no clear results. That as the first tip off that something was wrong. Gotswana was out of his mind trying to figure out what was happening.
The second hint came around a week after Gotswana's little meltdown over the diagnosis fiasco- the death toll rose significantly. We had fifteen people die in one week. One week. Elder Mckinley was devastated over this. We didn't know what to do with all the bodies (we usually have maybe one casualty a week), so we piled them up by the river while Mckinley wrote up somewhat of an S.O.S to the Mission President. That's when it all started.
About a day after we collected the bodies and piled them by the river, they- and this is going to sound completely insane- came back. The came lumbering through the village, flesh rotting straight from the bone. One very old man who had, for lack of better word, re-animated, grabbed a young woman by the arm and bit right into her shoulder. That was more than enough to see. I rushed back to the mission center. Some of the elders and villagers were there, and once we had called roll to make sure that all of the elders were present, we locked the doors and windows. Elder Mckinley called a meeting in the living room.
"What the heck is going on out there?" Elder Thomas asked, tears brimming in his eyes. He had never dealt with death very well.
"I… I don't know!" Mckinley shouted. He was visibly frazzled. I had the sudden urge to stand up and hold him, comfort him, but I knew better. That kind of behaviour was strictly for post-Hell dreams.
"What… What should we do?" Nabulungi asked in her innocent, broken English.
"I just…. I don't know, alright?" Mckinley sighed, relaxing his shoulders.
"Elder Mckinley?" Elder Neely's hand shot up, as if he were a child in a classroom, "May I suggest something?"
"Yes, of course Elder," Mckinley gestured for Neely to continue.
"Well, if I remember correctly, we have three vans for going to Kampala and back. Perhaps we should take those and seek out a safe zone?"
Mckinley's head snapped up. "Elder Neely, you know we can't abandon our post."
"Uh, Elder Mckinley?" Elder Church asked from the window, "I don't think we have a post let to leave."
Everyone crowded around the window. The villagers outside were walking around emotionless and directionless. Multiple bodies adorned the dusty ground.
"Zombies." Elder Cunningham whispered.
"Oh Elder, don't be ridiculous," Elder Michaels scoffed. As if on cue to prove him wrong, one of the sick villagers outside threw themselves against the window, snarling and smearing blood everywhere. I felt something on my shoulder, and I turned my head to see that Elder Mckinley had buried his head into my shoulder.
"On second thought…." Elder Michaels muttered as we collectively backed away from the window.
There was a long pause before anyone spoke again. It was Mckinley. "Elder Neely, perhaps you're right. We may need to… Well, leave."
After much deliberation, Mckinley demanded that we would pack the vans tomorrow at the crack of dawn and try for Kampala. The general consensus was that there was probably a safe spot there. It was a two day drive, but it was worth it to possibly keep ourselves safe.
We decided to take two vans. They're all eight seaters, so it's going to be tight, but we can't afford to waste fuel. Thomas, Church, Gotswana, Mafala, Nabulungi,Cunningham, Mckinley and myself will be in one van and Kalimba, Kimbay, Middala, Schrader, Neely, Zelder, Davis and Michaels will be in the other.
None of us could sleep, so we spent the night packing the kitchen into boxes so that we could make our escape quicker tomorrow morning. At one point, Mckinley excused himself to the sitting room. Concerned, I joined him.
"Hey, are you okay?" I asked, entering the room and locking the door behind me.
"Elder Price, please go," He sniffed, turning away from me. He was obviously crying.
I took a deep breath. "Kevin, please. Call me Kevin."
Mckinley whipped around to face me. His blue eyes seemed to glow with tears. "Connor." He breathed. My breath, for whatever reason, hitched.
Ever since I had arrived in Uganda, strange things had been happening to my brain. I had gone in perfectly fine, and then I met Mckin- Connor. He assumed that I was having gay thoughts based on his childhood thoughts and told me to just Turn it Off, and somehow that turned it on.
Whoa. Okay. Poor choice of words.
I had never had a gay thought in my life, but since I met this redhead I found it hard to have straight thoughts. And now that I knew his first name, everything just fit together so perfectly; it was a perfect name for a perfect boy. Luckily, now that we were excommunicated from the Church of Latter-Day Saints, I had grown to accept it. Connor, however, had not. After what Thomas, the only one Connor really trusted with his life story, made out to be a lot of self-hatred and bad thoughts, Connor had a lot of trouble accepting himself. From what I understood, he really hated himself. There was not a single thing that he even remotely liked about himself. He felt ugly. Sinful. Unloveable.
Oh, if only he knew.
"Connor," I began, "Please, don't be upset. You'll be okay."
"I'm not worried about me!" He exclaimed. "I'm angry at myself. I swore to protect those villagers, and… and the Elders. Oh, Heavenly Father, forgive me." And then he collapsed on himself, a sobbing, shaking mess. I took it upon myself to softly rub his back while he collected himself.
Once he decided he was calm, we went back to the kitchen. The pink fringes of dawn were frayed over the horizon, and Connor decided it was time. We hurriedly gathered all of our things into the vans and got onto the road without an encounter with one of the ill.