Chapter Two
"More cases of the strange virus are being reported at an alarming rate all across Europe and Asia. Scientists at the Center For Disease Control in France have been working diligently but have yet to come up with any answers, according to a spokesperson for the French CDC."
As Erin adds a generous amount of milk and sugar to her steaming cup of coffee, she listens with growing concern as the morning news anchorman informs the American public of the rapidly spreading epidemic that began in Germany just a few days ago.
"Government officials are still denying the rumor of a possible leak of a weaponized virus. They are also denying all suggestions of a cover up, despite the fact that we now know that over thirty cases were reported to the CDC before the public was ever informed."
This is crazy! She takes a sip of the hot brew, hoping like hell that these reporters are exaggerating about the ferocity of the epidemic. She is just glad that it is not happening in the states. Although by the end of her shift yesterday, more than one colleague had said that they were going to stock up on bottled water on their way home from work, believing it was only a matter of time. Could they be right?
She mentally adds a few essential items to her grocery list, grateful that she has the day off.
"In an effort to contain the virus, the U.S. has banned all international flights to and from Europe, Africa and Asia."
Leaving her coffee on the kitchen counter, she gathers several days' worth of newspapers that had accumulated on the dining room table and carries them down to the garage. Nearing the large stack of old papers waiting to go out to the curb for recycling, Erin's eye catches on the top copy of The Atlanta Telegraph with the headline 'Officer Shot'above a picture of the cop who had smiled at her that day in the E.R. Lifting that copy from the stack, she replaces it with the papers in her hand and carries the April twenty-ninth issue into the sunlight coming through the small windows of the wide bay door.
She remembers when he was brought in ten days ago and knows that although the surgery to remove the bullet was successful, he has yet to wake from a coma. Rick Grimes. She absently traces a fingertip over the photograph. Poor guy, will you ever wake up?
Her finger glides gently across his short dark hair, down the sharp lines cutting into a strong jaw, over the small cleft dimpling his squared chin, down the fine English nose that sits above nicely shaped lips that had curved their smile in her direction, and along the dark brows shadowing intelligent eyes that had once shone brightly upon her.
But now their flat monochromatic gaze stares up from the paper and she wonders if he'll ever open his eyes to the world again. A sadness that rivals the loss of a dear friend suddenly fills her heart at the thought of him never waking up.
As if willing him to wake, she focuses intently on his eyes and can't help but wonder what color they are, the black and white print not disclosing any particular hue. At the hospital she remembers them being fairly light but from the distance it was hard to tell. If she'd had to guess, she would say they were blue. Softly tracing the pad of her finger over the one-dimensional image now, for reasons she cannot fathom, she is certain they are blue; bright blue eyes that shine proud in his King County uniform.
Lost in the memory of a friendly smile on a crazy Easter morning, she doesn't hear the first ring of her cell phone as it echoes off the kitchen walls. Or the second ring. When the third ring penetrates her thoughts she bolts toward the sound, dropping the newspaper on top of its mates on her way out the door.
Knowing it will be Tim calling from Nashville, Erin races back to the kitchen and grabs her phone a moment before her voicemail is about to take over. "Hey," she says breathlessly while searching for the remote to turn the volume down on the television in the den.
"Hey, babe. How's it going down there?" Tim's voice is comforting after listening to the frightening reports from the morning news.
"Okay so far. No reports of feverish people attacking each other anyway. Can you believe what's going on out there? This is really bad, Tim."
"I know. I went to Walmart last night and all the survivalists were stocking up for the apocalypse. It was insane. I don't think it'll get this far though."
"God, I hope not. How's your Uncle Henry doing? Can you come home today?"
"They're discharging him this afternoon and the home health aide will start tomorrow morning. I'll leave as soon as she gets settled. How's Nikki? Does he miss me at all?"
She can hear the smile in his voice when Tim mentions his four year old Siberian Husky. "Oh, he misses you terribly," she replies dramatically, teasing her boyfriend even though she's pretty certain that the big dog really does miss him terribly. "I'm heading over there in a little bit. I'll give him a big hug from you before we go on our run."
"Thanks," he chuckles from a kitchen in Tennessee nearly four hours away. "I'll call you tomorrow before I leave. I love you."
"Me too," she replies with her usual response before disconnecting their call.
After taking a short run with Nikki, the rest of her day is spent doing mundane chores; tidying her already spotless townhouse and contemplating her relationship with Tim while restlessly listening to the attractive newscasters describe the terrifying events that are happening on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. God, what is going on?!
By the time the evening news begins, the deadly virus has reached the most powerful country in the world.
Erin stares at the television as her favorite macaroni and cheese grows cold on the plate in front of her. She listens intently, horrified, as the president of the United States addresses his citizens from the Oval Office, informing them that two reported cases of the virus have been confirmed in Boston. He urges everyone not to panic while the National Guard is called in to New England. Erin pushes her plate away as the few mouthfuls she had swallowed begin to churn inside her stomach.
"As of now, all airports and train stations across the country will be closed until further notice," the president continues as Erin grabs her cell phone to call her parents in New York. It takes fifteen minutes to get through to them, the phone service being temperamental with everyone reaching out to their loved ones as the world continues to tilt off its axis.
After hearing her parent's plans of driving to Pennsylvania to ride this out in the quiet countryside with her aunt and uncle, Erin tries to reach her sister in Denver. Two hours later with no connection made through phone or text, she sends up a silent prayer that her family remains safe.
Turning off the 11:00 news and its report of forty-seven cases now confirmed on the East coast, Erin picks up her iPad to get blissfully lost in a favorite romance from Nora Roberts. She had planned to start reading Stephen King's latest terror but decided it was definitely not the book to help her escape from the true horrors going on in the world today.
Six hours later, she rolls over beneath her cool sheets, slowly surfacing from a dream where she is jogging along the river next to a guy with dark brown hair. She can't see his face and doesn't know who he is, but she feels completely at ease with him nonetheless. Keeping pace just behind her partner – yes, he is definitely her partner – she adjusts the earbud in her right ear, bringing the anthemic chords of Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run into better clarity, before it ridiculously dissolves, as dreams do, into the tinny jingle of a cellular phone.
Erin opens her eyes, blinks twice and closes them again, trying to grasp onto the images that are slipping away with every pulse of the colon on her digital alarm clock. She thinks of the Chattahoochee River for the briefest of moments, and then it is gone.
As the dream escapes into the ether, a face suddenly comes to mind; a handsome face with beautiful eyes and a comforting smile, standing proud and proficient in his police uniform. "Rick?" she asks softly as if he were just behind the shadowed blades of her ceiling fan, her voice hoarse from sleep and the single word loud in the stillness of her bedroom.
The shrill chirp of her phone startles her from her reverie and she quickly grabs it from the nightstand. Immediately alert, she taps the Answer button without looking at the caller as she reads 5:22 in obnoxious bold red on the clock. "Hello."
"Erin? It's Liz."
Her friend's voice sounds strange to her ears, from more than just the aftereffects of a dream gone astray. "What's the matter?"
"Stay home today. Or better yet, go down to your cousin's in LaGrange. Do not come in to work today," Liz says hurriedly in little more than a harsh whisper.
The hushed tones only add to the urgency of her words as Erin considers her friend's warning. "Why, what's going on Liz?" Background sounds of distressed voices drown out the low hum of Liz's distraught breathing. "Oh, God, it's here, isn't it? That fucking virus!"
"I'm not sure exactly but it's been crazy here all night. We were supposed to be airlifting the critical care patients to a hospital in Savannah but then the military showed up an hour ago. They stopped our transfers and aren't saying much to any of the staff here but I have a bad feeling about these guys. They won't even make eye contact with us. Shit, hang on…"
Erin hears a cacophony of distorted noise in the background followed by a lot of shouting and screaming from both men and women alike. "Liz?" She holds her breath when she hears the sound of firecrackers just before the line goes dead. "Liz!" Oh, God.
After several failed attempts at getting her friend back on the line, she heeds her advice and decides to pack a bag and take a ride down to LaGrange. Not wanting to wake her cousins, she sends a quick text with trembling fingers letting them know to expect her in a few hours. It takes several tries but the text finally goes through.
Terrified for all her friends and little patients at Northside Hospital, she tries not to think of them as she types a short text to Tim. Cursing the frustratingly inefficient autocorrect in an effort to have him meet her and Nikki at her cousin's house, the image of officer Rick Grimes being wheeled into the hospital on a squeaking gurney sparks at the back of her mind. She absently wipes an itch at the corner of her eye and is surprised to feel the remnant of a salty teardrop glistening on her fingertip. She stares at it for a moment as if it is speaking to her, trying to tell her something. With a heavy heart, Erin rubs the moisture against her thumb and finishes typing her message to Tim.
Grabbing the biggest duffel bag she owns, she sets it on her crumpled sheets and stuffs it with enough clothes to last a week, stretching the fabric along the zipper when she struggles to close it up. She retrieves the large blue backpack that she frequently uses on hikes with Tim and gathers her toothbrush and other personal items.
Although she's confident that her Aunt Jane won't mind her last minute intrusion, Erin also packs two bags of groceries to be less of a burden on her and her two daughters. A smile softens the lines etched across her forehead as she tosses a box of Slim Jims into the second bag, knowing her youngest cousin will be more than happy to share them with her. For a moment, she allows herself a deep breath. Relaxing her shoulders, she looks forward to seeing the girls again. Both busy with classes at a local college, they haven't gotten together since Christmas. She would have gone down for Easter as she's done since moving to Georgia seven years ago, but her work schedule prevented that celebration this year. No, this year she was stuck in the ER with a drunken bunny.
Thinking of work she grabs her cell and tries to get Liz again. "Pick up, pick up, pick up," she whispers desperately, waiting to hear a ring that never comes. Instead, she hears that dreaded automaton telling her that her call cannot be completed as dialed and to please try her call again later. Sending up another prayer for her friend, she tries to reach several other people from work. After the fourth attempt with the same results, she curses the cellular system and returns to her task, refusing to acknowledge the reason for the unresponsive phones.
With two bags completely full of groceries sitting on the kitchen table, she grabs a six pack of Propel waters from the fridge along with a large souvenir cup from Universal Studios filled with ice water, knowing her jittery nerves would not do well with coffee this morning.
Throwing her phone and its charger into her purse, she opens a small drawer beneath the counter and pulls out a pad of note paper and a pen. She scribbles a quick note to Tim, in case he never got her text, and leaves it on the table beneath a tall salt shaker. Then she grabs her keys and hits the road.
After worming her way through unusually heavy traffic for such an early hour, Erin steps out of her car twenty-five minutes later and notices a young boy of about ten or twelve standing in the driveway of a small ranch house two doors down from Tim's place. Staring pointedly down the street, he is obviously waiting for someone as he restlessly shifts on the balls of his feet. She closes the door of her Toyota and watches as a burly dark-haired man comes out of the house and walks toward the boy.
As she punches in the four digit security code to open Tim's garage door, she glances over to see the man kneeling in front of the boy, hands on his shoulders comfortingly, then pulling him into his arms as the boy shakes his head vigorously. Though she can only hear distorted murmurs from this distance, one word she hears clearly is 'No', repeated again and again in anguish from the heartbroken child.
Tearing her eyes away from the sorrowful scene of the neighbor's distress, she enters her boyfriend's garage to the sound of deep barks resonating from within the home. She opens the inner door to be greeted by eighty-five pounds of pure happiness encased inside a heavy coat of black and white fur. "Hey boy, want to go for a ride?" She runs her fingers through his thick scruff and feels her taut nerves loosen slightly.
After a few moments of much needed relaxation therapy with Nikki, she retrieves his leash, food, treats, bowls and bed. Thank God Aunt Jane is a dog lover.
Backing out of the driveway she looks up at the dawning clear blue sky, wondering how everything can feel so topsy-turvy on such a beautiful day.
After a few short turns through the neighborhood, she gets to the main road following a tan Cherokee jeep, trying to convince herself that all of the unusual activity in this sleepy little town is no more than the public overreacting to sensationalistic news. The rising hairs on the back of her neck and the thick knot in the pit of her stomach tell her differently though as she follows the jeep up the ramp onto Route 285 heading south.