Plague: Death was only the beginning! by Donald Franck, Francine Franck

their town three hundred years ago. Having no place to bury the dead, they placed them in the catacombs beneath the city as a last resort. Let the dead care for the dead. And here too, they tried to escape into the countryside as they camped in open fields and between the grapevines. They huddled under plastic tarps and in the backs of cars. And died. The crowded conditions only made the spread of the disease faster and easier. They had forgotten that isolation was the best thing they could do.
    In Rome, the Pope cried out for peace and understanding as the bodies collected in the alleyways and back streets. City officials had abandoned their posts and refused to handle the mountains of dead. So, the prisons were opened, and the guards stood over the dead as the murderers and thieves toiled to load the dead into trucks to carry them to the plague pits outside the city.
    China was strangely quiet as no word was heard from the most populous country in the world. They had stopped broadcasting soon after the first reports had started to come in, and they had closed their borders to all travelers. Little was known until a handful of people escaped in a boat and traveled to Vietnam where the true extent of the disaster was shared. Just as in New York, the Yersinia Pestis plague bacilli had changed into a more virulent form. It quickly spread across the overcrowded cities in a wave that could have blocked out the sun. Entire housing tenements filled to overflowing with the screams of the dying as they tried in vain to escape their dead loved ones laid out about them.
    It seemed the Chinese government had realized the depth of the crisis and had tried to isolate the country from the worst disaster to ever befall the country. But, in doing so, they had actually locked the rat in with the baby, as it were. Two days before, business travelers from New York had stayed at the Hilton-Regency in Hong Kong before moving on to Beijing. And while they had stayed cooling their heels in the airport lounge, a sick traveler from India who sat next to them had infected them. From there, they had spread it into the heart of the business district in Beijing. Before they became too ill to make their next appointments, they had passed it on to dozens more that crowded the markets and shopping centers. The only saving grace was that travel was somewhat restricted inside China, and this helped to slow down the spread into the surrounding countryside. But once it did, the weakened immunity of the people caused by the poor sanitation and drinking water laid waste to thousands. And only the distant hill people, who lived on the open steppes, were able to resist it. For thousands of years, they had lived with the marmot-like creatures who were one of the primary hosts of the plague from ages past. And where the steppes touched Tibet, the plague stopped for now, as if resting before moving on to newer and fresher grounds.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
    “Sadness touches both the heart and the soul. But only the heart can heal itself afterward.”
    -Thoughts from the Author
     
    Chapter 15
    Worldwide Deaths: 1,119,000
    Alex, Susan, and Tommy rolled up to the gates of the complex by late evening. They had been on the road for over nineteen hours and were glad that they had finally made it. Normally a time of joyous welcome by the entire group, they could only pull up to their own front door and park. For the next several days, they would keep to themselves and restrict their dogs to the enclosed front yard. Because they had been coming from “outside,” they had to isolate themselves for a week to ensure that they did not have the plague. Tony’s party was due in the next morning, and they too would be restricted to Tony’s property for the same period. Tom and Sally were going to pick them up, and they would have to ride in the open back of Tom’s trucks until they could get inside Tony’s compound. Tom and Sally would be suited in complete