“This is where the first plane carrying the virus landed,” he said. “And the reason for the fence.”
“How do you know?”
The rest of the dirt fell, the sign was faded but clearly visible.
The words on the sign were bold.
“Warning. Quarantine Zone. Ground Zero.”
Greg’s impatience worked Meredith’s nerves to the point she just wanted to shake him, yell and blast him to “grow up, the world you knew is gone!” she refrained, and instead she ended up grabbing whatever she could when they left the highway medical camp. What she really needed was more time to decipher the papers, what they were, and dates on them.
She failed.
What she grabbed was useless. Names and numbers with dates that just stopped. It left her to wonder if those who worked the camps quit keeping track all together.
The world had fallen apart but didn’t do so with consistency.
Some areas looked like they were only a year post apocalypse, some looked like years and one area, appeared decades. But Meredith kept that opinion to herself. Grant grew more unhinged the farther they traveled.
They made good time and distance on the first journey and Meredith was grateful for stopping. They set up camp off the road in what looked like an old rest area. It was overgrown, like everything else. It was a break from driving. She needed that. The buggy wasn’t a smooth ride. It drove slow and daunting and offered no protection from the elements.
John was a good traveling companion. He spoke about his family, but Meredith noticed he did so in past tense. Almost as if subconsciously he accepted their fate.
Meredith was perhaps the most prepared mentally and emotionally. The only thing she had to lose was her reputation and job security. No family, no significant others, her circle of friends were limited to acquaintances because she traveled a lot.
The virus ravaged world just didn’t have the modern conveniences.
She could live with that.
Like Malcolm and Amy they had a lot of miles to cover. New York then Connecticut. She didn’t question why she went; after all, she could have stayed back or headed to the meeting place. Meredith was certain she wanted to know what happened to the world.
There were paper maps at Marshal Flight center and Meredith took one of the United States. It wasn’t for traveling, John had that. She used it for notes along with a spiral bound notebook she found.
She started marking the maps with her own, markings she called, “Phases of the Apocalypse’.
When Meredith was nine, the house next to her was tore down. It was nothing but a lot. That same year, in science, Meredith learned about the stages of nature. The ecosystem. She distinctively and always remembered her science teacher saying, “If you see an empty field, watch it. If it is untouched, in ten years there will be trees”
So Meredith noted the changes in the lot next to her house.
Of course, she lived up north, where the climate was different. Devastating winters delayed growth. Had she lived in the south, in the humidity, growth would be different. A real telltale sign for her would be to see Washington DC which was built on swampland. If it was void of humans for ten years, it would be completely green.
All those were factors into why she labeled an area what she did.
Redstone was a Phase One. It was under two years since people had been there. The Medical Camp was also a Phase One. Yet ten miles down the highway it looked like a phase two, vegetation had grown so much it, it could have been five years since a soul had stepped foot there.
Phase three was five to seven years. Phase four took it to ten and Phase five was more than ten years.
Meredith found a quiet spot to spread out her data. John had asked her to keep him informed, and she would. Once the light of day had diminished, she used the lantern to illuminate her reading. It was tough and she had to strain her eyes, but she took notes as she studied.
The medical camp was more than a camp, it was a make shift hospital. From what Meredith read, people traveled hundreds of miles to get there. To be cared for in tents in a barbaric way, tossed into a fire when they died.
She imagined family members just dropping off the ill. Meredith wanted to know the virus, the symptoms, and the time span. How long was a person ill? How ill did they get? Nothing like that was mentioned in the archives of papers she had.
Only, Red, Blue, Yellow.
The color of the flags.
When a person was marked ‘red’, they were without any uncertainty going to die. Yellow was an undetermined fate and blue meant it looked good. So, like the president originally said, the virus wasn’t supposed to kill everyone that got it.
Harrison stated millions died by the day, but at that rate, it would take years for a virus to wipe man into a point of extinction or at least such a minimal population that the world looked empty. And it did.
Where was everyone?
Where were the animals? The birds?
The world was void of life. In Meredith’s opinion it had been empty a lot longer than they could imagine or wanted to know.
Was it guilt that he felt? Malcolm was pretty certain it was sadness as well. He just didn’t know why he felt that way.
He didn’t know Amy all that well, yet he felt the sense of loss and guilt. He wished he knew the woman better. Although technically he had spent a few years with her. The thought of that actually made him smile on such a gloomy day. He likened it slightly to his first marriage, he spent a few years with her as well and never really got to know her before she left either. Perhaps that was why his oldest son, Trey, has such issues with Malcolm leaving for business trips all the time.
Not that Malcolm was gone all that long. It was only for a few days at a time. Sometimes at most a week. And he always made it up to the children when he returned home. But Trey always threw the guilt and anger at him. He hated when Malcolm left and made him pay for it emotionally. A therapist once told him it was Trey’s insecurities with abandonment. He was afraid that Malcolm would go away and would not come back.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened and for Trey, who was only 17 years old, it was a confirmation of his fears. Though almost an adult, he was still a child and it would mar him for the rest of his existence.
“Why don’t you just go away for good this time,” Trey told him.
Why was that the last thing he had to say to this father?
Jennifer, his wife, tried to calm him down.
“Malcolm, don’t worry about it. He’s a teenage boy. He will be fine. Take him somewhere when you get back,” she said
Malcolm let it bother him only a little. Then mentally planned a father son outing for when he got back. He finished packing, kissed and told Trey about the plan, despite not getting any response and left. The others were fine.
He had three sons altogether Sam and Jenner, eight and ten years old, were absolutely fine with him leaving. They would be kicked back with their feet propped up playing their video games, Their goodbye was a nod of acknowledgement, telling him to have a good trip, and they knew that they would get reimbursed in a fatherly way when Malcolm returned. Nearly everyone always told Malcolm that he should be happy he had sons. That boys were much easier to raise than girls. Those same people never had a child like Trey. He was always emotionally needy and moody. Malcolm related that to his mother’s leaving at such an early age. Jennifer, was the only mother he really ever knew.
Malcolm thought a lot about his family as he sat parked off the side of the road deep in the brush on his break for the evening. He thought a lot about Amy. And feelings of guilt resurfaced in him. He didn’t have time to bury her, he had to leave her where she was. He also felt bad because one of the last things she said to him was a request for him to find her family.