Scott was dressed and in his car in less than fifteen minutes. He was racking his brain for the meaning of the action code ‘Tango Whiskey’. He didn’t even know why they resorted to the codes. Most of the “events” were crap, Hotel Bravo for instance meant there was an incident involving a plane. The last one had been a rare animal smuggler who’s rare and poisonous cargo had escaped mid-flight and quarantined the aircraft until the passengers had been cleared and the plane fumigated. Not a crisis of titanic proportions and not worth a call at home for advice on a national response, but they had still called. Whatever it was, Tango Whiskey wasn’t ringing a bell though, he’d have to wait till he got to the office.
Luckily for Scott the GW parkway out of Alexandria was empty this early in the morning and he was across Memorial Bridge and in the secure parking lot at DHS in less that twenty minutes. His proximity to the office always meant he was one of the first there on a call in. That also meant that generally he had to make the coffee… 5am dictated strong.
Stepping out of the elevator he was surprised to see two Army corporals at the door in ACU’s with sidearm’s who sternly asked for ID. After a through once over he was allowed inside and made his way over to the watch officer.
The watch officer introduced herself as Susan and congratulated him on being the senior person on the floor. She handed him a red stripped folder marked ‘Eyes Only’ and told him that unless he was relieved he was to be down stairs at 6:45 to take a town car to the White House to brief the President.
Scott’s eyes widened a bit on that one. While he had just finished his training and made the call in list as a principle he had never heard of anyone in the office briefing the President. They had worked train derailments that involved evacuating small towns due to poisonous gas clouds drifting towards the towns, plane crashes, mall shootings and wide spread power outages and never had they briefed the President directly.
The President had created the Office of Disaster Preparedness to keep the infighting between all of the agencies within DHS at bay. A couple of incidents had been botched due to infighting over the TV time or who got credit. There had also been a lot of friction when the FBI shut out the ATF on an investigation and the two agencies ended up arresting officers from the respective organizations which was bad press for everyone. Scott’s office was the set lead; they did the press conference and doled out the responsibility. They had the final authority to lead the response and so far it was working out well. The rest of the agencies had been made to understand that the Office of Disaster Preparedness was there to do things quickly, cheaply and keep the gov’t out of the news.
Scott took the red folder and walked down the hall to the large glass walled conference room affectionately referred to as the fishbowl. The room was well equipped with all the computers and phones they would need to work a crisis and is where the action would be today. Scott walked in started two pots of coffee and started to read the brief in the folder. Susan had been wrong… this was beyond scary.
In the Gansu providence of China in a small and rural village a pig farmer had coughed.
Within a week the whole village was sick, some had a cough, some were vomiting, and some had strange red sores over their entire bodies.
Within two weeks everyone was dead.
“Luckily” in a neighboring village was a team from the WHO. Alerted to the crisis by a traveler the WHO sent a small group to the village to investigate. They took some samples and sent them back to the WHO/CDC. A week later one of the WHO team coughed…
Three weeks ago a sampled had arrived at the CDC in Atlanta from a WHO team in China who had come across an entire village that was sick or dead.
Scott’s file showed that two weeks ago the sample had been bumped up to a higher priority because the team who collected it had taken ill. The researchers identified it as a variation of the Swine flu, keyed a respone that advised the team and put the sample in the computer as a reference sample and moved on to a more interesting case.
One week ago China had clamped down on internet traffic and announced a massive earthquake that had crippled their infrastructure. Satellite imagery had noted massive mobilization of the Chinese army to specific cities and essential eliminated domestic travel. No one had detected any earthquake…
In the past week London, Tokyo, Paris, Madrid and Dubai had had a marked increase in influenza like illnesses.
CIA and other independent reports out of China and Hong Kong were less than encouraging… according to reporting China was nearing a state of martial law and internally was actively trying to squelch rumors of a wide spread illness sweeping through the country. The CIA and embassy were also reporting a near total absentee rate because of the flu. Nobody was worried because it wasn't the bird flu so it couldn't be that bad they said.
The next report in the folder made the first one seem downright cheery. The CDC was comparing notes with the counterparts in the EU, Russia and what limited information they could get out of China. The numbers were staggering…
Based on WHO/CDC data the new variant of the swine flu had mutated out of China with a marked quickness. After infection, method unknown, the patient had 7-10 days before the onset of symptoms. Of those 7-10 days the patient was infectious to other for 3-5 of them. Once symptoms appeared they fell into one of three groups. The first group had respiratory distress. The second severe gastrointestinal distress and the third broke out into a full body rash. In all cases autopsies revealed that the same quarter sized sores appeared in the affected areas. In the respiratory cases the patients drowned on a bloody puss mixture. The gastrointestinal cases digested themselves and then bled out through the open wounds. The patients who got the sores outside of their bodies seemed to be especially susceptible to secondary infection which resulted in blood poisoning. In all cases the patients symptoms seemed to resolve themselves in 10-14days. The standard anti-virals such as Tamflu and Relenza were ineffectual. Under symptomatic care 75-80% of the patents died within 7-10days.
Within the past 24hrs cases of what the CDC had dubbed “The Red Death” had been confirmed in Atlanta, Chicago, LA, Dallas, New York and DC.
Looking around and seeing no one Scott pulled out his cell phone and typed a quick text message which he sent to his father and Ben. It said simply ‘Red Balloon’. The he walked out to Susan and asked for her cell phone. He turned it off, threw it in an empty trash can with his and walked out to the guards. He left explicit instructions that everyone turned off their phones and left them in the trash can. No exceptions.
Scott walked back into the fishbowl and put the report on the table and stared at it. Not knowing where to even start if this was really as bad as he thought it was he took a deep breath and said a prayer.
Scott stood up and stuck his head out the door. “Susan”, Scott called “call the NIH and have them send down someone who has a clearance and a background in the flu. I need them here yesterday…” Then he walked down to the supply closest and started pulling maps. He walked back into the fishbowl and grabbed the rolling cork boards. He put up maps of the world and the US. He put pins in the cities that had confirmed cases and then started writing on the white boards.
‘Shut down airports’
‘Close interstates’
‘Mobilize National Guard to close state boarders’
‘Emergency Broadcast System – Flu Control’
‘Secure dangerous infrastructure’
‘Martial Law’
‘Program to Bury Bodies’
Scott was staring at the board holding the marker when the next two members of the team walked in. They looked at the board and cleared their throats and started reading their folders. After reading the first couple of pages one of them walked to the board and wrote ‘TEOTWAWKI’ across the top.
The rest of the team trickled in and by six am the room was abuzz with activity. The gentleman from the NIH had arrived and promptly started to incite panic. At 6:05 Undersecretary Hill walked into the room and looked at the board. He promptly asked, “Who was the first here?”
Scott raised his hand.
“60seconds. Brief me.”
“Well sir”, Scott started, “it’s bad. According to our best data about a six weeks ago somewhere in rural China the swine flu jumped from pigs to humans. A WHO team happened to be in the area and took a sample and sent it to the WHO and CDC in Atlanta. They put it in the queue and didn’t look at it until the team who took the sample came down ill.”
Scott cleared his throat, “Since then the illness has managed to jump to six continents. China has completely shut down any real information coming out of the country. Everything we're getting looks like crap... The embassy and satellite reporting shows that they have mobilized the army to stop all travel. But once a unit gets in place they seem to stop normal deployment activity. They’ve stepped up their internet filtering in and out bound and are blaming it on the earthquake that we all know didn’t happen... We don’t have accurate information about the spread of the illness in China. None of our normal methods for tracking, medical reporting, news, internet searchers are yielding anything we think is close to reliable. We come across limited blog/email traffic that implies its bad but by the time we’ve done even the most basic validation of the source it dries up and disappears.”
Scott continued, “That said sir, from what we got before China fell off the grid and from our global partners, CDC is estimating that 75% of the population will contract the illness and of those we can expect 75-80% mortality from the illness. From exposure to death is two to three weeks.”
“God damn…” replied Undersecretary Hill.
“It gets worse sir…” Scott mumbled.
“Worse?” said Undersecretary Hill
“Yes sir, ” replied Scott, “If these numbers are right we can assume the population of the US will drop to roughly 8million within the next six weeks from what the CDC has dubbed ‘The Red Death’ due to the fact that it’s so bloody. After that the population will drop farther because there will be no method to get rid of all those bodies or transport food, no one to maintain the water and sewer systems, no one with the knowledge of how to survive without what we consider the most basic parts of society. With society so compressed into cities and having lost skills that were common place even fifty years ago the lack of electricity and running water will reduce us to a pathetic and sickly nomadic hunter gatherer society by winter.”
“Sir,” Scott said, “If this is true, this really is TEOTWAWKI and it’s already over.”
“God damn…” replied Undersecretary Hill.
“Sir your brief the President in less than an hour,” Scott said. “He has to implement plan Alpha Omega.”
“The beginning of the end…” sighed Undersecretary Hill.
“Does everyone here concur with Scott’s brief?” asked Undersecretary Hill.
There was a sea of nods from around the room.
“Any chance we’re wrong here? This honestly isn’t how I expected to start the day and if I have to brief this to the President I don’t want to be wrong” said Undersecretary Hill.
“No chance sir” the man from NIH said, “If anything your man is being optimistic. The CDC numbers are based on symptomatic care of every case. That’s not going to be available. If this breaks to the press today, and I can’t imagine it won’t, that won’t be available tomorrow. Tomorrow will be mass chaos. Doctors will be in hiding or overwhelmed. Riots in the cities for food and medicine, hoarding, martial law. With all due respect sir, I’m going to leave now to get my family and try to get out of the city. The only hope is to get away from infected people until this thing has killed all it’s hosts and becomes extinct. Then, with a large share of luck we restart society as we know it.”
Undersecretary Hill sighed, “We can’t let you leave… if this gets out society will collapse”
Large eyes and hushed whispers filled the room.
Susan stuck her head in at that moment, “Undersecretary Hill your car is waiting.”
Undersecretary Hill pointed at Scott, “Lets go brief the President”
The White House didn’t seem to be concerned about the pending disaster and Scott and Undersecretary Hill were waiting outside the Oval Office in less than ten minutes.
Undersecretary Hill started, “Scott, have you ever met the President?”
“No sir” answered Scott
“Nice guy, ” Undersecretary Hill said. “Not that I expect this conversation to go well. If you don’t mind I’ll start borrowing heavily from your spiel this morning and let you handle any details I missed”
“Yes sir” answered Scott.
The door opened and they were led inside.
“Morning Brian” the President grinned, “What’s got you here in here before I eat breakfast today?”
“Well sir, I’m here to talk to you about the flu”, Undersecretary Hill said.
Looking up with a smirk, “Brian, it’s almost summer time, not flu season; shouldn’t we talk about sun block and BBQ’s?.” The President quiped
“I wish…, ” Undersecretary Hill said. “unfortunately sir, the flu is probably gonna two of the three of us in this room right now before the 4th of July.”
With that statement the President looked up from the papers he had been shuffling on his desktop.
The undersecretary related the story that had been assembled in the briefing room earlier that day.
“Why am I just hearing about this now?” asked the President. “Where has my intelligence reporting been?”
“Out sick sir” said Undersecretary Hill.
The President, looking pale, taped the phone on his desk and told the voice on the other end to assemble the sit room, the cabinet and to tie in the DHS Sit room as quickly as possible.
The conversation continued and got rather heated as a blame game ensued. Finally Scott spoke “Excuse me”
Both the President and Undersecretary Hill looked up.
“Sir, this is useless, why we didn’t know sooner and who’s fault it is doesn’t do anything for us. As I see it sir we have two choices now.” Scott said “Tell the truth or lie. And frankly sir, I say we lie. Shamelessly.”
Assuming the silence was a cue for him to continue Scott spoke again.
“Sir, if you go on TV and flatly state the facts the whole world will be in chaos well before you’ve said ‘God Bless America’. What you’ve got to do is ignore it for as long as you can and then say it’s just a bad case of the flu and nothing to worry about.”
“While you say that we’ve got to work to turn off civilization as quickly and as quietly as possible.” Pausing Scott noticed he wasn’t being stopped.
“We’ve got to safe the nuclear power plants, secure the nuclear weapons and figure out how to make sure all the chemical and hazardous commercial sites are stable. And not just with us, we have to do it world wide. With all due respect sir, if this is what we think it is we can’t save civilization so we should try and save the world so those who do survive have as much of a chance as we can give them.”
“And we have to keep this quiet for as long as possible. When this breaks it’s over. People are gonna quit going to work, they’ll be riots for food, water, shelter, medicine...”
“Our stock responses won’t work here. With a hurricane you send National Guard troops from far enough away they aren’t impacted because the troops that live where the storm hit are too involved to leave their families and be functional. With this there’s no one who isn’t involved. When your wife or kid or mom or all three get sick you aren’t gonna put on your helmet and go help down at the local clinic with crowd control.”
“For this to work we’ve got to keep the normal people in front of the cameras and keep all of the preparations quiet until the last minute.”
A sharp knock a the door and then it opened quickly. “Sir,” the secretary started “the sit room in five minutes. DHS Sit Room isn’t picking up the phone.”
Scott looked at the President and at Undersecretary Hill with a worried glace and added “If we can.”
The Situation Room was crowded with people all wondering what the crisis was since it was usually one of them presenting and they were all clueless. After the report that the DHS Sit room was deserted there had been a quick discussion in the room about what to tell the people down stairs. Finally the President decided that at least the people in that room were required to make a decision. Walking down Scott had pulled out his cell phone and was trying to reach everyone who was in the DHS room that morning. Some answered and some didn’t all were headed somewhere out of DC. Scott’s message to all of them was the same, I can’t and won’t try to stop you. Just don’t let the cat out of the bag. They all agreed that it was in their own best interest if they didn’t tell anyone and Scott hope they kept to their word. He wished each one well.
By the time he had finished with the calls Undersecretary Hill was almost done with his brief to the sit room. Everyone sat in rapt attention and shock as Undersecretary Hill scrolled through the cameras in the DHS sit room at the maps and boards which were all situated so they could be broadcast by fixed camera. The Situation Room was filled with several Cabinet members who crammed into chairs around the corner all looked worried. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development asked as they all stared at the white board with the list Scott had written earlier, “What does TEOTWAWKI mean?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
From the back of the room Scott’s voice said, “The end of the world as we know it.”
Undersecretary Hill added, “I should add the reason that the DHS Sit room is empty is shortly after Scott and I left my entire team went AWOL.”
The room was immediately filled with conversation. The DoD members were talking about biological warfare options and how to respond if this wasn’t a random mutation and was a deliberate attack. The Secretary of Agriculture was telling anyone who would listen that our food supply was safe. Secretary of Health was trying to call the CDC in Atlanta. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development was trying to discretely throw up in a potted plant.
Sensing that the room was about to be irrevocable lost Scott was getting frustrated. While this was important stuff it wasn’t going to solve the problem. If this was true, and Scott believed that it was, then they had at best a week to act before things really got out of hand. Scott was thinking about his wife and kid with their grandparents in Alabama. He was thinking about his folks in Atlanta. He was thinking about Ben and the party going on in Charleston. Ben was thinking about death.
The room was approaching a dull roar. Undersecretary Hill was cornered between the CIA and a four star getting reamed for something. The President was trying to keep the Secretary of the Air Force and the Commandant of the Marine Corps from starting a fist fight. The HUD secretary was still huddled next to the plant in the corner. Scott wanted to run for the door. Looking around he finally came to a decision.
Picking up the metal trash can next to the door he grabbed the PolyComm mike from the table and beat it like a drum. The speakers in the wall screeched with feedback and half the room grabbed their ears. Everyone stopped talked and looked up. “SHUTUP!!!”, Scott shouted. “I haven’t heard one conversation that matters since Undersecretary Hill finished talking. Pull your heads out of your asses and think for a second.”
Scott paused and walked towards a white board. Having the full attention of the room he picked up a marker and started writing. “Assuming that all this is true, and all the data supports that it is,” Scott started, “we’ve got MAYBE a week before the world goes to hell. Three fourths of this room, at BEST, won’t see the 4th of July and only God himself knows if any of us will see Christmas. Each and every one of you is here because President Williams thought you fit to serve the in the office which you hold. Congress agreed and here you sit, it’s time to earn that trust.”
“Each one of you needs to spend the next week working towards a common goal. That goal, ” Scoot pause, “is to systematically turn off of society and civilization as we know it. Looking directly at the DoD corner of the room. General he said to no one in specific. If you had 5 days to secure every nuclear weapon in the country such that it was “safe” for the next 100 years what would you do with it. Forget people trying to steal it, I want to know how you will keep it dry and from blowing up in a forest fire or washing out to sea. If you air craft carriers aren’t gonna be touched by a human for 100 years what makes them safe?”
Turning to the HUD secretary Scott snapped, “In one week your healthcare infrastructure is gone, your power, water, sewer, food and refuse service is a fond memory. What can we do today that makes that as minimally painful as possible?”
Focusing in on the Secretary of Agriculture, “In one week no one is going to be around to plant, harvest or transport crops, ” Scott stated “Next spring when your grandkids are desperate to plant spring crops what can you do in the next week to make them successful?”
“Each of you has a week… hopefully a week…”, Scott sighed, “DHS bailed and the ones I’ve talked to all agree that it is in their best interest not to say anything. China has basically become totally isolated but the media doesn’t seem to care and are chalking it up to bad luck and government censorship again. The business men are thinking they are raking in profits in the market playing against the computer traders. Fat dumb and happy so far... The real question is how do we keep up the charade for as long as possible”
“National exercise” responded Undersecretary Hill. “The President calls a press conference for 8am so we make the morning news,” checking his watch, “and announces that this week DHS, with coordination with DoD etc etc is doing a national exercise on emergency preparedness. He can say we’ve been working on this exercise in secret for months and in an effort to practice effectively we’re announcing it this morning starting noon today. We’ll have to call in some people from Congress and brief them on what’s really going on. We can say we’ve got congressional funding for some respectable amount based on population to cover the cost for each district and the military.”
“But what crisis?” queried Scott?
“Well it can’t be the flu or medical…” Undersecretary Hill started “lets do a natural disaster. Lets say the exercise is at the discretion of each district along National Guard boundaries of response. In specific lets say the exercise focus’s on extended loss of oil delivery...”
There was discussion that immediately ensued and shortly it was widely agreed that this was acceptable. The President grabbed the Press Secretary and some of the senior staff and briefed them on the “secret” plan not revealing the true nature of the plan.
Scott was drawing up some DHS documents to support the exercise when he looked up and noticed the Gen. Nelson was sitting alone in his chair staring at the report in a way that told Scott that he wasn’t really reading it. Scott walked over and said, “General, if you’ve got a minute I could use a favor.” The General looked up quizzically. “You see General, ” Scott continued “I’m here because I didn’t get the chance to leave and now I’m in the middle of this… but I’ve got a family too and frankly come Wednesday after this is all well underway and before things have a chance to break I’m planning to disappearing…” The General was nodding slowly and Scott could tell that this was weighing on him as well and that Scott’s plan seemed reasonable. “If you could sir, do you think it would be possible for you to have someone put together some supplies for me? Things I’m not sure I could get on the open market quickly without drawing some attention to myself? In fact I think a few kits for the cabinet members and a such could be mighty useful in a couple of days.” The General nodded. “I’ll have a few trusted members of my staff put together some supplies in a suburban or something that won’t draw too much attention for those of us who plan on putting some ground between us and the cities before the weekend. ”
Ben wondered down stairs on Monday morning with the great thoughts on how to spend the day. The to-do list was steadily growing shorter and as it was Monday Ben thought that it would be a good day to mark another item off the list. The real question was what to do. Looking outside the day looked like it was going to shape up to be a typical June day. He figured that today was as good a day as any to work on the dock. Looking at it earlier in the summer he’d decided that the pilings were firm but the decking and railings needed to be replaced. The fish sink was still good but the piping had cracked and broken years ago. He’d measured, figured and made a list the next thing to do was to head into town. After breakfast he walked out to the truck and after checking to make sure there were no chickens hiding in the bed cranked it up and headed into town. The drive always took a little more than half an hour which Ben enjoyed with the windows down and the radio blasting. He pulled into town and parked around back of the lumber yard. Walking inside he found someone with a name tag and handed them his number list and told him what he was driving. He picked up a package of drill bits and a box of corrosion resistant screws. Some PVC piping, some glue, a few washers and he walked up to the cashier. He put everything on his credit card and walked back to the truck. The guys were working on tying down the load. He put the rest of the supplies in the back and told the guys he was gonna walk down to the café and he’d be back after while.
He grabbed his cell phone and turned it on, shoved it into a pocket and walked down main street. Not having cell service at the house had it’s benefits but being off that part of the grid was a bit isolating. Ben had only given the number for the house to a few folks and typically only when they were going to visit. He was mainly trying to hide from folks at work but the side effect was that several friends were also cut off. When he heard from those he was giving them other means of getting a hold of him, but it was a slow process. He therefore wasn’t surprised when his phone beeped that he had a message. He kept walking down to the café. He was glad to see that while the town had a Starbucks that it hadn’t run The Daily Grind out of business.
He wondered in and pulled up a seat where he could see the TV and picked up the morning paper. Nothing terribly exciting. He ordered an iced mocha and pulled out his cell phone, a scrap of paper and a pen. He cleared all the message notifications and dialed the voice mail. A few interesting calls from friends in DC checking in on him, a dental appointment he had forgotten about, and missed, and a telemarketer in Spanish. The text messages proved far more interesting. The first one was from Karen promising lurid things when she came down for the weekend after finals, always exciting. A few more from friends and then he saw the last message… the pen he had used to take notes fell from his hand. The message was from Scott and read simply ‘Red Balloon’ time stamped just before 6am this morning.
The first place his mind stopped for long enough for him to focus was on a camping trip that had happened in college. Ben and Scott had been hiking along the AT over spring break of their senior year of college and had gotten caught in a freak snowstorm. They had the luck to find a trailside cabin and had hold up for several days while the storm blew itself out. Spending several days locked up in a cabin without any electricity or reading materials was not their preferred way to spend spring break but they did spend the days talking and playing cards and without a doubt had learned more about each other in those days and become hard and fast friends.
In those conversations they had drifted from opening up their gourmet southern restaurant to the girls they were dating to what they would do if they had all the money they could ever spend. They also talked about what they would do if the world ever fell apart. They were both headed for careers in the gov’t and intelligence and while they enjoyed a good end of the world as we know it story this topic lasted for the better part of an afternoon. They talked about how it would happen, what they would do, how they would meet up. They had promised each other that if either of them got advanced word of something that would or could bring about the fall of civilization and society. The signal would be a message that contained the phrase “red balloon” that was out of context or alone. This was a nod to the old method of forts and ships telling approaching travelers that they had an unknown sickness and to stay away. It was assumed that the message would have other information or follow up communications would follow so the other person would know how to respond but just knowing it was coming would be helpful.
Ben looked at his coffee and thought, “Bad joke Scott… bad joke.”
Ben sat in the café desperately racking his brain for any other meaning that Scott could have had for the message. It wasn’t in the context of anything else… he could come up with no other meaning for the message. Working hard to stay calm Ben finished his drink and waited for the news. Nothing. Nothing of interest anyway, a train derailment, some ship had cut a cable and the internet was slow around the world, some woman had quintuplets in Michigan and a minor hurricane churning in the Atlantic.
Years ago when this had been discussed the plan was simple, if you got the message you find a place, gather supplies and communicate a way to meet up there to ride out whatever. Of course they had both lived in the same place at the time, were un-married with no kids and after surviving freshman year at school felt that anything was survivable. Scott had met up over the past couple of years and if conversation made it around to this topic different disasters required different approaches and while they tossed around ideas most all of them were the short emergencies. Hurricane, ice storm, power outage, gas shortages were the ones they could handle with their backpacking gear and a little foresight to make sure some of the more short shelf life items were in stock and in date.
Ben found himself walking down the street lost in his thoughts when he finally just pulled out the phone and called Scott. He answered sounding flustered, “Scott here” This was odd because Scott would have known it was Ben calling. “Bad joke dude” Ben said. “Absolutely sir, the President will make an announcement shorts and I’ll personally get you some more details later today. I expect the whole thing won’t take more than 7-10days.” “Fuck” Ben said. “Yes sir, as I’m sure you can imagine we’re a bit busy here today. Is there anything else I can help you with?” came Scott’s reply. “Should I stick around town on my cell until you have a chance to talk more or bug out and go dark?” Ben asked. “Hang tight sir, we’ll be in touch later today” and the line went dead. Scott had obviously been in the middle of something and not able to talk freely but the information conveyed was still a lot. Ben had already calmed down, 7-10 days was pretty easy. He and Scott had been on a lot of camping trips that lasted two full weeks. Whatever this was two weeks when Ben had the house to stay in wasn’t that bad. Ben remembered the hurricane on the news and decided that Ben must have seen charts that put it making landfall somewhere near him. It was still pretty far out but he’d have to remember the name of the storm next time he saw the news.
Walking back out onto Main Street the sun was starting to get warm. The beach stores on main street were starting to open and stock up for the waves of tourists that would be showing up in the next couple of week. A few early birds were poking around the shops after driving in from the elite beach communities that had sprung up on the coast. Beaufort was the closest town that had a nice movie theatre and a real grocery store around and that made them a destination location once the beach crowds figured out that they really didn’t want to spend their whole vacation cooped up in a house with that much family for a solid week.
Ben walked back to the lumber yard and checked to make sure everything really was tied down well and then drove the truck over to the grocery store. He parked at the edge of the lot so not to endanger the other customers with the boards sticking out the back of the truck and walked across the street to the army surplus store. He needed a good pair of work boots, some work pants and some hip waders for putting up the dock. Satisfied with his purchases he wondered some other shops on the strip checking to see what was in town these days and waiting for Scott to call him back.
Finally just after Ben had ordered a fish taco from a little hole in the wall establishment next to the docks he phone rang. The lack of any caller ID information made him certain it was Scott. Picking up he answered, “Ben here.”
“Yeah yeah” came Scott’s terse reply “This has got to be quick. You got something to take notes with?” Ben started feeling his pockets for his pen and the lists of stuff he needed in town he said, “Yeah, give me a sec to get it out. What for?” “You need to take some notes, I’m not sure if I’ll get to talk to you again for a while. You ready?” Scott said.
“Yeah go” Ben said.
“Ok, this is all classified. Highly highly classified. Sometime last month in China some farmers got sick. Through a long and very boring chain of events that nobody gives a damn about anymore that bug has made it to the US… and everywhere else” Scott started.
“It’s nasty. Fatality rate is 80% We can’t really figure out the transmission rate yet but it’s probably about that. Moves like the common cold, sneezes, unwashed hands etc. Seems to live on surfaces a bit longer than the common cold. We don’t have any way of stopping it. All the normal drugs don’t work worth a damn.”
“Fuck” Ben whispered.
Scott continued “We’ve seen cases in all the major cities now so it looks like it came in through the airports. Nobody really shows symptoms for the first week and then it looks like a common cold. Seems to be contagious from about 48hrs after you catch it. If you make it two weeks you’ll live.” There was a pause, “You still there?” asked Scott.
“Yeah” whispered Ben.
“Good, listen. About 20minuts ago we rolled out a huge emergency preparedness exercise. It’s all bullshit. It’s a cover for getting people ready and prepared for this nightmare. We’re trying to put off telling folks as long as we can because when it breaks it’ll just cause a panic. We’ve already got folks here who know disappearing left and right. As soon as the news become uncontainable we’re gonna issues orders to shut down the nuclear reactors and secure everything that we can for the long haul. We’re gonna bury what nuclear weapons we can’t get to the secure long term storage sites. That move is already in progress. Navy ships are coming home as quickly as they can, the countries with a big enough military to know or care have all been told whats happening and are doing similar things. We’ve killed several undersea cables to limit the flow of news but it’s really only a matter of time before this gets out.”
“Fuck” whispered Ben.
“Yeah, so this is for you. You’ve got to hunker down and soon. Because this thing is contagious for so long before you show symptoms it’s gonna be impossible to know when it makes it to the beach. Its almost vacation season so you guys are in a lull right now. I’d say you’ve got a day or two if your lucky and then you need to be in lock down at the farm. Go buy whatever you think you’ll need to survive for next couple of decades. Food, seed, guns, ammo, clothes. Buy heavy duty stuff that will last and wear. Get a couple of pairs of good shoes. New pots that will hold up to cooking over a fire. Saws to cut wood and extras to trade” Ben was taking notes furiously.
“What are you doing” Ben asked. “Who are you telling? Why are you still in DC?”
Scott replied, ”Kelly and the kids are at her parents place just north of Huntsville. I’m gonna stay here a few more days to make sure stuff gets put together and then I’m out of here. I’ve told her to stay put but not why. She couldn’t handle it.”
“Her dad’s got enough stuff put away at the house and hunting cabin on the backside of their farm I think we’ll be set up pretty good there for the long haul.” Scott said, “Otherwise it’s just you. This is big enough that most folks couldn’t handle it.”
Ben’s mind was reeling. He was still trying to put together everything. “What’s next?”
“Next? Only God knows what’s next” said Scott. “It’s gonna be crazy and when the news breaks the world is gonna go to hell. It’ll be a month of people being sick and dying, the survivors dealing with disease, famine, pestilence, all the worst parts of the bible. The religious groups are gonna go nuts, the survivalists are gonna go nuts, the conspiracy theorists are gonna go nuts and everyone else is gonna be stuck in the middle. The only good news is that you won’t have to put up with them for long because within a month most of them will have died from the flu. Those that didn’t die from the flu most of them will be dead in two months because of the lack of food and water. By fall it’ll be nomadic road gangs killing and stealing what’s left from each other. By spring the cars will all be useless because the gas will have gone bad and we’ll truly be back to the technology of the late 1800’s at best and generally much worse than that. If only people today understood half of what a ten year old understood in 1890….”
There was silence. The enormity of the news was paralyzing.
Scott broke the silence. “When you’re out see if you can find a good ham radio and the stuff to put up a real antenna. Find one that’ll do 10m, 60m and has a software or hardware mod to let you listen and transmit everywhere. Get a generator and some solor panels and batteries. Put them up on the water tank at the farm. After I get to Kelly’s dad’s place I’ll use his gear to try and contact you. Everyday that is a multiple of 7 I’ll be listening an hour after sunset for about 30mins. If you don’t hear from me in a year it was nice knowing you.”
“Same to you. I’m gonna call Karen and tell her to come down. My family too probably… maybe Karen’s folks…” Ben trailed off.
“I can’t stop you from doing that, ” started Scott with warning in his voice “but you need to think really hard about who you tell and what you tell them. Now this isn’t easy shit to hear. With old folks it’s almost always fatal. Same with under 5 or so. There won’t be civilization or medicine for this winter so a lot of people who do survive won’t make it through the winter because scared lungs, compromised gastro tracks with fires to stay warm and scant food won’t mix. High blood pressure, diabetes, anything that we see as long term treatable will be fine ‘till the meds run out... It’s gonna be a long, dark, cold, hungry, sick winter filled with more death than anyone can imagine and from things that you’d just jog down to the Minute Clinic at CVS to get treated today. Triage your list heavily and if they’ve been in a airport in the past week just send a get well soon card.”
“Frankly, “ Scott said sighing heavily, ” I’d tell Karen to come down to the beach and make up some BS story so she brings clothes, pictures anything she’ll need/want to start a new life at the beach. Tell her to bring some healthy friends because it’ll be a hell of a lot easier with four or six people than one or two. If you can get a doctor or nurse, someone who knows about plants… “Scotts voice trailed off. ”No offense but I don’t think she can take this news over the phone. Hell I’m not sure you really grok this right now…. I’m not sure I really grok this right now.”
“Will I hear from you again” Ben asked quietly.
“I’ll try and call you later with any thing new and to see how you’re prepared.” Scott replied, ”The wild card is when this breaks. If this thing breaks before I get a chance to call again everything we’ve got shows that it gonna take about two days for society to completely implode. Some won’t believe it, some are gonna cry conspiracy and then everyone is gonna sneeze. Just to be safe once you see this on the news you’d better just shoot anybody you see coming down the road for the farm for the next couple of months.”
“Well it’s been good knowing you man. I won’t forget you” Ben said.
“Same here, don’t forget our schedule for the radio. I’m sure we’ll chat again. BBQ at the beach next 4th of July ok!” Scott said “Crap good run, keep your head down and shoot first ok” and the line went dead.
Ben sat at the table and tried not to think of anything for a few minutes. He really didn’t want to rush anything but knew things couldn’t wait too long.
“Hello” Karen answered the phone.
“Hey baby, how you doing?” Ben asked trying to sound calm, cool and collected.
“Ok, she answered. Just waiting just finish up finals and then can’t wait to see you for the weekend!”
“When will you be done?” Ben asked.
“The last one should be posted to the website at noon today and I’ve got till midnight to email it in to the professor. ” Karen answered.
“Yeah, but if I’m right you started the basics already…” Ben trailed off.
“Well, ” Karen answered, “I’m betting I’m pretty well started based off of his review hints. I’m betting I’ll be done by 3 or 4 this afternoon.”
“Great!!!” Ben replied, “when you get done why don’t you just throw all your stuff in a bag and come down tonight.”
“Why? What does today vs tomorrow matter?” Karen asked.
“You know me, I just can’t wait to see you. As a matter of fact I was hoping you’d make it for longer than the weekend… think you could stay a couple of weeks? It’s lonely down here and I could use an extra set of hands with some stuff. As a matter of fact if Tom and Chrissy wanted to come down for the weekend after they finished their finals for a work party I think rebuilding the dock is really gonna take some work”, Ben said.
“Well…” Karen started thinking “I don’t have to be anywhere for a couple of weeks. I was just gonna hang out till the second summer session started anyway… and the beach does sound nice…”
Ben knew she had already made up her mind to come down. “Just dump your dresser in a bag and I’ll have steak and a glass of wine ready for your arrival to celebrate the end of term.”
Ben started making a list of things to buy before he left town.
Ben really didn’t know where to get started. He been focused on putting the old house back in livable shape and that had gone pretty well. But putting the house in shape to be the sole point of survival for a long strech was something else. The first thing he really wanted was food. To get anything worthwhile and not seem crazy to folks he’d need to do things in bulk. He really didn’t even know where to get started. Walking down Main Street he passed by Geoff’s Gun Store and decided that at least this was someplace he could get started. Walking in the counter was deserted and he started to look around. This part of the state was well known for it’s waterfowl and mid-sized game such as deer and wild boar. Ben decided it was a good day to get ready for the fall hunting season. Geoff’s son, Dale, came out from the back room and was very helpful to Ben in helping him pick out a couple of guns. Ben told him that he was moving back in from the city to his granddads place and needed a couple of things and thought he might as well go ahead and see if Dale would cut him a deal if he bought several items at once. He told them that he was looking to do some duck hunting in the fall so he wanted a nice shot gun. He also wanted to do some deer and hog hunting over the winter and had a nephew that he wanted to take squirrel hunting. Dale was more than eager to make a sale and told Ben he’d cut him a nice deal. Plowing through the inventory he helped Ben pick out a nice 12gauge for the duck hunt that Dale explained could double as a deer rifle when loaded with slugs. He also picked out a nice .22 with a small scope for squirrel hunting as the perfect gun to get the little guy excited about hunting. Fun to shoot and cheap he stressed. Ben was looking over the guns and agreed they were fine pieces and that he’d like to take both of them home with a good supply of ammo and targets for practice and all the cleaning kits etc. As Dale scurried around the shop pulling together the purchase Ben decided he needed something else as well. Dale came back putting a few more things on the pile that was growing on the counter and Ben presented him with a new issue. Ben said that he’d also been loosing chickens to a fox out on the island and might was well get something here to take care of that problem as well. Dale recommended a .308 with a bipod and scope. He said that he’d just sit up in the second story window of the house and that when the fox came around headed for the hen house just pick him off. It would also be a fine deer rifle Dale claimed. After some discussion and dealing Ben ended up with a .308 Winchester, a Harris bipod, a sling and very nice Benilli scope. Dale only had one box of .308 left in the store but promised he’d have more in tomorrow if Dale wanted. After paying for these purchases Ben told Dale he bring the truck around on his way home to pick up the new purchases. Dale told him he’d have the scope bench mounted on the rifle within the hour and would be waiting for him.
While he’d been shopping Ben remembered that he’d had a friend in college who was a Mormon and that they were supposed to stockpile a year’s worth of food for them and their families. Ben headed over to the Kinko’s in town and paying for 10min of internet access did a quick search and in about five minutes had a good list of what one should store to feed six people for a year. Printing the list Ben also found a bulk goods store in Wilmington up the road a ways and spent the last few minutes searching the internet for anything that would give him a clue what Scott knew.
Ben drove back to the house with his new purchases with all due haste. The guns went inside under the bed in a hurry and the lumber was thrown in pile next to the dock. After a quick survey of the pantry Ben was back in the truck and on the way to Wilmington. There he picked up enough bulk food for a year for 8 people two pistols, two compound bows and all the ammo and arrows he could by without getting people really suspicious. He also called Karen’s mother and confirmed her sizes and bought enough clothes for both of them for years in three different sizes.
Scott walked out of the meeting and knew it was for all intensive purposes, over. It was early on Thursday morning Scott was sure that the White House was going to have to break the story before the day was over. The reports were starting to increase steadily that this was more than a flu outbreak. The "national exercise" they had on-going was starting to fall apart as the people participating were falling ill.
The preparations to secure the hazardous infrastructure were just ordered to the next stage and as such they were about to become very intrusive on the average citizen. Their best efforts to coordinate with world governments were starting to falter as their own governments dissolved. News out of China was non-existent and the satellites were picking up lots of fires and not many electric lights or signs of civilization.
In all respects Scott was impressed this charade has lasted as long as it had. The psychologist had said that it would make it till the weekend because in the end people loved a good conspiracy but really wanted to believe that something this horrible wasn't happening. Of course he had disappeared at lunch on Wednesday. Nobody could find the CDC guys either.
Tuesday when Scott got to work he found a set of car keys in his desk and map of the parking deck. There was also a note to look in the file cabinet. There he had found a Baretta 9mm in a concealable holster with four clips and a box of ammo. Ben had gone home on Tuesday he'd taken the car he found in the parking deck. It was a DoD car and besides the gov't plates and police lights there were a couple of goodies in the back seat. A couple of cases of MRE's, two M-16’s, a 308 with scope he had obviously raided the supply room. There was also a crate of ammo. It all hid nicely under an OD blanket that was propped up behind the third row seat of the Tahoe. Scott backed the Tahoe into the garage of his house and had promptly taken out the back seat and thrown it aside. All of his camping gear got piled in the back, he made a quick list of things he needed and after locking up headed over to Bailey's Crossroads to the REI. He picked up some klean kanteen water bottles and slings, a daypack, a new tent and some tarps, long johns, alot of fuel and a new stove and replacement parts. Next stop was down to Dick's Sportings goods off of Rt 50 where he got a good bow and some arrows, fishing gear and clothes. He also got some new hiking boots and some wool socks. On the way home Scott stoped by three CVS stores and bought alot of batteries, candy bars, first aid kits, and maps of the east coast. He also made careful notes about the pharmacy setups. He was amazed at how normal everything was.
Between REI and CVS he got a text message from Ben. Karen and Chrissy had arrived and they were gonna drive into Wilminton to stock up on other supplies they had thought they needed. Ben also asked when Scott was getting the hell out of DC. Scott sent back a quick message from the stop light. ‘Soon’.
The load in the car started to swell and after much packing and re-packing on Wednesday night Scott went to sleep.
Friday morning Scott walked out of the meeting and over to the general. He shook his hand, clapped him on the shoulder and said goodbye. The General nodded and walked with him down to the parking deck. The General as it turned out was also leaving. "There is nothing else to do here except watch it tear itself apart now" he said as they entered the parking deck. "I can do that from the road as I head to Kentucky. Where are you going?" Scott replied, "South. First to a buddies house and then to my inlaws outside of Birmingham."
The General looked at Scott and started, "Scott, some advice for you ... it's gonna get nasty and fast. Stay off the interstates, keep your gas tank full, and shoot first." Scott smiled, "Yes sir. When you get to Kentucky look me up. I'll be at <10m meet-up freq> an hour after sunset on every day divisible by 7." The two men shook hands and got in their cars. Scott put on his pistol holster, moved the Ar up to the floor between the seats and started the car. As soon as he got out of the deck he sent a text message to Ben, 'Heading South Est EOTWAWKI today'