A Plague Upon the House of Man
The great plague had ended and stillness had descended upon the land.
The Suburban Home
She was alone now. They had all left. Some were silent as able arms carried them out while others walked away on their own always coughing in various degrees. She at times cried and kept forever hoping they would return.
The Town
The 101-year-old widow lay dead in her nursing home bed. She had survived the Spanish Influenza in 1918 but not this. Though she had shown no signs of becoming ill, her caregivers just had stopped coming.
The final baby to be born at the general hospital lay still wrapped in his mother’s arms. Sickened she had made a desperate effort to crawl out of the maternity ward but her efforts ended by a doorway blocked by another form on the other side. She would never know that the form was of her husband trying to reach her.
The Gown
The young athlete who had hoped to make the nation’s Olympic team was dead near one of the open pits. The field upon which he once practiced had been turned into a series of long parallel trenches into which the dead were disposed. When he had carried out his roommate’s body from the dorm, he was drafted at gunpoint to help the remaining work force. When he fell there were none still fit enough to bother with him.
In the computer center a professor had been in communications with a British academic who had told of the chaos that had hit London, which resulted in large sections of the city burning including the British Museum and Buckingham Palace. The large briefcase by the professor’s body contained the volumes he wanted to save from the university’s unguarded rare book collection.
The 4th Estate
The massive newspaper presses had stopped. In the cavernous adjoining warehouse, hundreds of large bundles of colorful advertising inserts lay wrapped never to be delivered as part of the Sunday paper. At an open loading dock door, a much smaller number of loose papers were being scattered by the wind. These were of the last edition of just a single sheet printed on both sides. The headings read such things as “Newest Martial Law Instructions”, “Acting President Recalls More Overseas Troops”, and “India and Pakistan Declare Nuclear Cease Fire.” The lead story was “Scientists Close to Finding Vaccine.”
The Military
In the new County Emergency Management Center the general though dead was still at his post sitting behind his desk. When the bureaucrat in charge bugged out early in the crisis, the retired general who had once served as the town’s mayor was called back into service. As field personnel died or deserted he had used his abilities to recruit and organize sufficient replacements to keep relative order until the end.
The remaining three apparently healthy men at the center had left for the National Guard Divisional Headquarters near the state capitol. An order directed surviving personnel to go there to help keep it operational. With the order came a promise that all there would have top priority in receiving the miracle vaccine whenever it arrived. For the ride the soldiers took along the general’s whiskey, which during his sickness he swore had kept him alive and active for much longer then was expected. They became the Commonwealth’s last drunken driving fatalities.
The Farmers
The Amish family had gathered in the large stone farmhouse situated far back a long dirt lane off a remote country road. Their isolation had protected them for a while but now the large multigenerational family, too, had passed on. At the oaken dinning table a large German language Bible that was older than the house itself lay open. The Grandfather’s still hand rested upon the page containing the 149th Psalm. Outside the animals grazing in the fields seemed oblivious to what had happened.
The Suburban Home - Again
She remembered being kissed by the last to leave - the youngest man of the family. He was wearing a recently issued volunteer fireman uniform and while beginning to be sick answered the call of the company’s siren. Earlier anticipating a further drop in water pressure he had filled the bath tubs. He had also begun unpacking the food his parents had long stored away for bad times.
Day after day she kept watch from the windows but did not see a single person. Eventually the water and food started to run low and she overcame her deep fears and went outside to search.
Out in the Streets
She wandered cautiously block after block. Only a hint of smoke was still in the air as the area had largely been spared the destruction visited upon many other places. Finally she heard a noise and froze in her tracks but when she saw him panic gave way to joy. She recognized him. He was part of the local police force and a few times in the past she had seen and admired him from afar.
The Meek
Never would she dream that she would be one of a number of Eves whose children would eventually give rise to a new civilization that would at last uncover the great mound covered ruins of our cities and be in wonder about who we were. But that would be in a future age and for the present the couple just walked side by side. Now and again they licked each other’s faces - the retriever and the shepherd.
