Meredith volunteered for the worst of the details. He told himself it was his duty. As his penance for sitting safely in Kinshasa while his classmates were dying downcountry.
Even though the smoke from the chemical-laden fires haunted his nostrils, burrowing into his lungs, his temperature never climbed, his bowels never exploded, and his skin never blotched with the special badges of the African campaign. It occurred to him that, perhaps, he was being saved for a special destiny, even though he tried to suppress the notion as unlucky.
On the island the living talked primarily of one thing— of going home, to a safe, healthy land. But Runciman's disease got off the plane ahead of them, and by the time Meredith stepped off the military transport at Dover, the plague had spread across the United States, just as it was sweeping impartially around the world. The schools and universities closed early on. Then the theaters and restaurants closed. Then the shops that sold nonessentials were shut. But the plague would not be appeased. The disease snaked out from the transportation hubs, uncoiling down the exit ramps of the interstates, tracing secondary routes to their intersections with county roads, then following unmarked lanes to the farms and ranches and mining patches. In the Midwest isolated towns crumpled and died on dusty sidewalks, along rural routes where the fields went wild. But the greatest impact by far was on the cities.
Public services were swiftly and severely stricken. No prophylactic measures tolerable in a free society seemed to work. Medical masks and gloves were of no greater utility than the beaks and pomanders of medieval plague doctors. The disease gobbled sanitation workers, policemen, transportation workers, repairmen . . . health workers. City residents began to wander the rural areas in their cars, looking for an untouched hamlet where a room might be had, spreading the plague until they ran out of gas, or until they died in a fever by the side of the road. Or until a property owner shot them as they approached. Towns and villages tried to close the roads that led to their limits. But it was no longer possible to live cut off from the rest of the world, when even your bread came from far away. And RD arrived in any case, even when the delivery trucks failed to show up.
The plague brought out the worst in men. From hucksters pitching expensive miracle cures, to television prophets who damned their contemporaries in terms of the Book of Revelations before demanding money to intercede with God on the viewers' behalf, from street criminals who thought nothing of breaking into the homes of the sick to steal and to murder the already dying, to doctors who refused to treat RD victims, men learned the measure of each other and of themselves. In the backcountry posses took to sealing off the houses of victims with an armed ring of men, then burning the structure to the ground along with all of its inhabitants, living or dead. In better-organized areas, schools and National Guard armories were converted into hospitals—but there was little that could be done beyond the intravenous replacement of lost fluids and simply waiting for the victims to live or die on their own. Then the sterile solutions began to run out, as the demand skyrocketed and the production facilities closed and the distribution network collapsed. Black-market fluid packs killed as many as they saved. Ambulance attendants were gunned down and their vehicles torched as rumors spread that they were a major source of contagion. Among those who recovered, some found that their families or lovers, landlords or neighbors, would not accept them back into the fold, and hobo camps of scarred survivors developed into semipermanent settlements beside the interstate and rail lines, while renegade colonies sprang up in the national parks, where the residents were somewhat less likely to be massacred in a midnight vigilante raid.
Yet, the will to
Even though the smoke from the chemical-laden fires haunted his nostrils, burrowing into his lungs, his temperature never climbed, his bowels never exploded, and his skin never blotched with the special badges of the African campaign. It occurred to him that, perhaps, he was being saved for a special destiny, even though he tried to suppress the notion as unlucky.
On the island the living talked primarily of one thing— of going home, to a safe, healthy land. But Runciman's disease got off the plane ahead of them, and by the time Meredith stepped off the military transport at Dover, the plague had spread across the United States, just as it was sweeping impartially around the world. The schools and universities closed early on. Then the theaters and restaurants closed. Then the shops that sold nonessentials were shut. But the plague would not be appeased. The disease snaked out from the transportation hubs, uncoiling down the exit ramps of the interstates, tracing secondary routes to their intersections with county roads, then following unmarked lanes to the farms and ranches and mining patches. In the Midwest isolated towns crumpled and died on dusty sidewalks, along rural routes where the fields went wild. But the greatest impact by far was on the cities.
Public services were swiftly and severely stricken. No prophylactic measures tolerable in a free society seemed to work. Medical masks and gloves were of no greater utility than the beaks and pomanders of medieval plague doctors. The disease gobbled sanitation workers, policemen, transportation workers, repairmen . . . health workers. City residents began to wander the rural areas in their cars, looking for an untouched hamlet where a room might be had, spreading the plague until they ran out of gas, or until they died in a fever by the side of the road. Or until a property owner shot them as they approached. Towns and villages tried to close the roads that led to their limits. But it was no longer possible to live cut off from the rest of the world, when even your bread came from far away. And RD arrived in any case, even when the delivery trucks failed to show up.
The plague brought out the worst in men. From hucksters pitching expensive miracle cures, to television prophets who damned their contemporaries in terms of the Book of Revelations before demanding money to intercede with God on the viewers' behalf, from street criminals who thought nothing of breaking into the homes of the sick to steal and to murder the already dying, to doctors who refused to treat RD victims, men learned the measure of each other and of themselves. In the backcountry posses took to sealing off the houses of victims with an armed ring of men, then burning the structure to the ground along with all of its inhabitants, living or dead. In better-organized areas, schools and National Guard armories were converted into hospitals—but there was little that could be done beyond the intravenous replacement of lost fluids and simply waiting for the victims to live or die on their own. Then the sterile solutions began to run out, as the demand skyrocketed and the production facilities closed and the distribution network collapsed. Black-market fluid packs killed as many as they saved. Ambulance attendants were gunned down and their vehicles torched as rumors spread that they were a major source of contagion. Among those who recovered, some found that their families or lovers, landlords or neighbors, would not accept them back into the fold, and hobo camps of scarred survivors developed into semipermanent settlements beside the interstate and rail lines, while renegade colonies sprang up in the national parks, where the residents were somewhat less likely to be massacred in a midnight vigilante raid.
Yet, the will to
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