There were several sections of the road that ran up hill for short distances where we had to use granny gear, but for the most part we coasted down the road, zigzagging to avoid the hundreds of potholes caused by small-to-medium-sized meteorite strikes. Six and a half hours later we entered Denver. The smell of decomposing bodies was still in the air.
As we approached the new administration building, people started running down the street to our right carrying sticks, clubs and aluminum baseball bats.
“What’s going on?” John asked.
“We have a breach,” the man yelled. “We need everybody, now!”
We followed the crowd down the street for a quarter of a mile. There we encountered a large crowd of people swinging their clubs in the air and striking at the ground. As we moved closer to see what was going on, Tia screamed, turned and ran. Rats were running between the people who were trying desperately to club them to death. As much as I wanted to run after Tia and make sure she was all right, the danger the rats posed was even greater. Half a dozen men limped out of the crowd with numerous rat bites on their legs and blood running down from under their pants and over their shoes. John, Ed and I grabbed the clubs from the men limping out of the crowd and joined in the battle. The number of dead rats escalated as the crowd began to focus on an area of a crude wall that had been constructed, blocking the street across the intersection from us. Through a one-foot-diameter hole in the wall, more rats poured like water from a hydrant on a hot afternoon.
I cringed when I saw two men jamming rocks into the hole in the wall, trying to stem the flow of rats while being bit on the hands, arms and face. Gradually the hole was blocked and the flow of rats stopped. The clubbing continued until there were no more rats alive.
“What happened?” John asked.
One of the men recognized John and came over to explain. “After the meteor storm there were so many dead bodies that we couldn’t deal with them. The housing projects in the inner city were the hardest hit. You couldn’t go in there, the stench was so bad. We brought the dead we couldn’t bury or burn and dumped them in the inner city. Then the rats came and started feeding on the dead bodies. The rats multiplied so fast we built this wall to contain them, but sometimes they break through.”
“They’re that dangerous?” John asked.
“Yep,” the man replied. “They’ve grown up feasting on human blood and rotting corpses. They don’t fear people; they see us as food. That and the diseases they now carry make things even worse.”
“What about the people who have been bitten by the rats?” John asked.
The man looked down at the ground briefly and then looked back up at John. “We ran out of antibiotics three months ago, so it’s a really bad situation. More than half of the people bitten here today will die within the next two weeks.”
“Where are they taking the people who were bitten?” John asked.
“We have a makeshift hospital set up a half mile back. That’s where they’ll be.”
John turned to me and Ed. “Come on, we have to help,” he said.
The smell of rotting flesh was even stronger in the hospital building with the added smell of uncontrolled infections. People were crying and yelling in pain as we walked through the halls and looked into the rooms. John was clearly incensed at the level of suffering people were experiencing.
“Who’s in charge here?” John yelled. Everyone ignored him. John grabbed a woman who was caring for victims of the rat bites and turned her around so she was facing him. “Who is in charge?” he demanded.
She pointed down the hall to a small thin man in dirty blue scrubs. He was moderately dark skinned with black hair and spoke with a Middle-eastern accent.
“Who are you?” John demanded. The man turned to face John and looked him over quickly.
“People call me Doctor Ali,” he said. “But I’m not really a doctor. I was an EMT before the meteor storm. Right now there isn’t anyone else. What do you need?”
John looked around, taking a moment to calm himself now that he understood more about the situation. “That’s what I was going to ask you,” John said. “What do you need to help these people?”
“What have you got for infections and pain?” Dr. Ali asked. “We’ve used up everything we got from the old hospital and the drug stores. There’s nothing left.”
“Okay,” John said, “let me see what I can come up with. So what happened to all of the doctors?”
Dr. Ali lowered his head. “They all left just before the meteor storm. Rumor is that they and their families went to some underground shelter. That’s all I know.”
“Okay,” John said, “I’ll get back to you.”
Dr. Ali turned back to his patient without comment. He’d heard it all before.
We returned to the administration building where we found Tia, still shaken from her encounter with the rats.
“Oh my God,” she said. “That was so horrible.” She shuddered and held her arms close around her chest. I put my arm around her and she leaned into me.
“John,” a man shouted from across the room. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“This is Steve Shilling, the new administrative assistant for the city of Denver,” John said as he introduced the rest of us.
“Your office isn’t done yet, but you can see what it will look like if you follow me,” Steve said.
We followed him up a wide set of stairs to the second floor and down a hall filled with carpenters building walls and doorways. At the end of the hall we entered a large room with openings for windows that hadn’t yet arrived.
“It’ll look better in a couple of weeks,” Steve said, “but this is where your office will be.”
John looked around. “This will be fine,” he said. “Right now I need some people to go on a scavenger hunt for me.”
Steve smiled. “We have a complete department that does nothing but scavenge for things. What do you need?”
“Gather all of the baking soda you can find and all of the wood ashes in the area.”
“Okay,” Steve said, “what do you want done with them?”
“Set up some wood frames with straw or dried grass in the bottom covered with about an inch of sand. Drill holes in the bottom and fill the frames with wood ashes. Pour water over the ashes and collect the liquid that comes out the bottom. Filter it through cloth and put it in jars. Don’t get it on your skin. Let me know when it’s done.”
“Okay,” Steve said, “we’re on it.”
The next day Steve arrived with twenty large jars of whitish liquid and several satchels full of cans of baking soda. “Where do you want all of this stuff?” Steve asked.
“The hospital,” John said. “Follow me.”
We walked to the hospital carrying the supplies.
“Where’s Dr. Ali?” John asked as we entered.
A nurse pointed down the hall to our left.
Dr. Ali turned as John approached. “You’re back.”
“The jars contain sodium hydroxide which you can use to disinfect equipment and other surfaces,” John said. “You can dilute it way down and use it as a disinfectant wash for people’s skin.”
Dr. Ali picked up a can of baking soda and looked at it. “And this?” he asked.
“Have you got some clean water?” John asked.
Dr. Ali pointed to a large plastic water bottle with paper drinking cups next to it. John took one of the paper cups, dumped some baking soda into it and mixed in some water making a paste.
“People with rat bites?” John asked.
Dr. Ali led us into a room off the hall. The room was crowded with people suffering from rat bites from the previous day. Most of the bites were already infected. John looked around at all of the frightened faces. Two men in the corner had rat bites on their faces. John walked over to them and filled the bites on their faces with the baking soda paste. He had them take their shirts off and filled the rat bites on their arms and hands with the paste. Within ten minutes the men reported that the pain from the bites was going away.