Plague: Death was only the beginning! by Donald Franck, Francine Franck Page B
Authors: Donald Franck, Francine Franck
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open air and into the lungs of the police. Now, a front-end loader did the work, and the operator was in full containment gear.
The turnoff to Effingham, Illinois was just ahead, and they double-checked their maps to ensure that they were going the right way. If they missed their exit now, it could be hours before they would reach another one. Traffic was that heavy. Even so, the exit ramp was packed and movement was slow. So, they could only calm their breathing and wait their turn to exit.
Jim, Kim, and Joanne were now in Missouri and fighting the traffic congestion around Springfield. The secondary roads were also packed, and they too could only wait their turn as the vehicles ahead of them rolled slowly forward. The only saving grace for them was that the governor’s office had extended the deadline to 12:00 midnight for selected areas after viewing the level of traffic that was still on the road. St. Louis was completely gridlocked and not moving at all, so transports were loading people up into Army trucks for movement to the depot. Many people didn’t want to leave their vehicles, and small battles broke out as Army soldiers equipped with Colt M4s fought civilians equipped with sticks and stones. By this time, civil rights were superseded by the adage “might makes right.”
Finally, Jim could turn off Interstate 70 and onto US-45 headed south through Effingham. The level of traffic was still heavy, and the local civilian police and volunteers had blocked off all the side streets and refused to let anyone stop for any reason. Those low on gas were directed to a single lane where a single gallon of gas was added to their tanks to get them outside of town. Requests for food and water were refused, and anyone trying to get out of their vehicles was threatened by gunpoint and soon moved on. The city had already seen the results of kindness as their local clinics and hospitals overflowed with the sick and the dead.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Jim and Kathy’s two children, David and Maryann, had sat quietly in the back of their car and played games on their laptops and tablets. Jim’s wife Kathy had been monitoring the HF radio using a headset and recording her finds into a logbook on her own laptop mounted on a stand made just for this purpose. This way they were always up to date on all of the government’s actions to control the population that was running for the hills as soon as they were allowed to do so. No one was trying to stay on the job now, and services had failed across vast areas of the country. Some had left their power plants and water pumps on automatic to give them a little longer to survival. But, for the most part, they just ran. The National Guard and U.S. Military were also seeing large numbers of personnel deserting their posts in an effort to save their families and loved ones. The level of the disaster had passed anything seen since the last world war. And they were helpful to meet the needs of the people. The President and Cabinet had moved into Mt. Weather to ride out the storm. But, even they were helpless as the plague rolled in behind them. A staff member had been added at the last second, and they had missed the mandatory health checks that had taken place after names had been collected. Because space was strictly limited, a healthy, younger staff member had to be dropped as this older member, a friend of the Chief of Staff, had been added. Nepotism met a serious payback later on because of this, as the bunker became a tomb.
“Time heals, it is said. But, it seems to take forever!”
-Thoughts from the Author
Chapter 17
Worldwide Deaths: 2,335,000
Mankind seemed to take a deep breath as it viewed the vast scale of the disaster in front of it. We had not seen deaths on this level since the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed over twenty million worldwide. With resources shrinking and power and water slowing to nothingness, they tried to gauge which direction
The turnoff to Effingham, Illinois was just ahead, and they double-checked their maps to ensure that they were going the right way. If they missed their exit now, it could be hours before they would reach another one. Traffic was that heavy. Even so, the exit ramp was packed and movement was slow. So, they could only calm their breathing and wait their turn to exit.
Jim, Kim, and Joanne were now in Missouri and fighting the traffic congestion around Springfield. The secondary roads were also packed, and they too could only wait their turn as the vehicles ahead of them rolled slowly forward. The only saving grace for them was that the governor’s office had extended the deadline to 12:00 midnight for selected areas after viewing the level of traffic that was still on the road. St. Louis was completely gridlocked and not moving at all, so transports were loading people up into Army trucks for movement to the depot. Many people didn’t want to leave their vehicles, and small battles broke out as Army soldiers equipped with Colt M4s fought civilians equipped with sticks and stones. By this time, civil rights were superseded by the adage “might makes right.”
Finally, Jim could turn off Interstate 70 and onto US-45 headed south through Effingham. The level of traffic was still heavy, and the local civilian police and volunteers had blocked off all the side streets and refused to let anyone stop for any reason. Those low on gas were directed to a single lane where a single gallon of gas was added to their tanks to get them outside of town. Requests for food and water were refused, and anyone trying to get out of their vehicles was threatened by gunpoint and soon moved on. The city had already seen the results of kindness as their local clinics and hospitals overflowed with the sick and the dead.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Jim and Kathy’s two children, David and Maryann, had sat quietly in the back of their car and played games on their laptops and tablets. Jim’s wife Kathy had been monitoring the HF radio using a headset and recording her finds into a logbook on her own laptop mounted on a stand made just for this purpose. This way they were always up to date on all of the government’s actions to control the population that was running for the hills as soon as they were allowed to do so. No one was trying to stay on the job now, and services had failed across vast areas of the country. Some had left their power plants and water pumps on automatic to give them a little longer to survival. But, for the most part, they just ran. The National Guard and U.S. Military were also seeing large numbers of personnel deserting their posts in an effort to save their families and loved ones. The level of the disaster had passed anything seen since the last world war. And they were helpful to meet the needs of the people. The President and Cabinet had moved into Mt. Weather to ride out the storm. But, even they were helpless as the plague rolled in behind them. A staff member had been added at the last second, and they had missed the mandatory health checks that had taken place after names had been collected. Because space was strictly limited, a healthy, younger staff member had to be dropped as this older member, a friend of the Chief of Staff, had been added. Nepotism met a serious payback later on because of this, as the bunker became a tomb.
“Time heals, it is said. But, it seems to take forever!”
-Thoughts from the Author
Chapter 17
Worldwide Deaths: 2,335,000
Mankind seemed to take a deep breath as it viewed the vast scale of the disaster in front of it. We had not seen deaths on this level since the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed over twenty million worldwide. With resources shrinking and power and water slowing to nothingness, they tried to gauge which direction
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