Chapter 2: Picking up a New Charge

"This is Radio Scott once again. This is our... ," Alice halted, unsure just how long they'd been broadcasting for, "well, frankly we've given up trying to keep track of time. Since the Great Death was so significant to all our lives, it's made every other historic event pale into insignificance. While history remains good for teaching, dating everything in the current world according to when everything else occurred now makes little sense. Although we still have clocks, we've zeroed them out starting from the day we recovered, since that's how we now view the world.

Anyway, we're unsure whether anyone is listening to us at the moment, although we're going with the assumption that someone is. At the moment, we've seen no sign of anyone else even being alive. What we have done is to check on the plants and animals around us, to see just how far the Great Death has extended. It seems to have affected most life on the planet, but has affected plants much less than the animal kingdom.

What we've observed is that there seems to be a weird inverse relationship between numbers and exposure. The more of any species there is, the higher the death rate. Thus while mice, rats, roaches, ants and yes, humans have been essentially wiped out, we found a whole family of llamas who were unaffected, simply because the plagues didn't have the opportunity to gain a foothold with them.

Likewise, in the plant world, it seems the more common plants have been wiped out. These include the ubiquitous pine trees, potatoes and corn; each of which appears to be a thing of the past. If you have any of these that is unaffected, don't be afraid to eat anything what was packaged previously, but realize you'll likely never see it again. Likewise, if you have some planted near you, don't burn them or plow them under, as that will only spread their diseases to whatever else you plant. Instead you'll have to pull them up individually and bury them in a pit where any new plant growth won't reach. For the pines I suggest you simply leave them, as we don't have any suggestions concerning how to handle them. Just don't burn them in your fireplace!

What we've determined is that these diseases need an entry point into any given species, and that the more numerous the species is, the more likely it is for it to gain that foothold. However, that same limitation of numbers also works to help save us. When there are that many viable entities, there's also a greater chance that they'll find a way of combating the disease. Thus it's entirely possible there might be some thriving corn and potato plants, but if you find them, don't eat them, because they are needed to ... propagate ... their surviving genes.

A case in point is pigs. Although they seem to have been hit hard, we have at least one surviving animal. However, we suspect this is very different in the North Carolina region, home of many pig farms. What's more, we suspect that the traditional farming mentality has worked against itself. If the tendency of farmers is to isolate and slaughter any individual that might affect the rest of the herd, then they guarantee that none of those animals will survive, because there won't be any individuals who will be able to survive the affliction. Since pigs aren't as numerous around here, they had a better chance to survive. But the key is that everyone has to marshal their resources. Though you might be hungry, don't eat the remaining livestock. We need the few survivors more than we need a free meal. Let's hope that they'll be able to recover and regenerate quickly, so they once again serve as a food source in the future, but please; don't threaten both them and us by slaughtering them indiscriminately.

So far we've managed to save a sprinkling of the existing animals, and we've done better with the edible plants, but we've got to do better. The best bet for now, is to survive off of the existing excesses of yesterday. Live off of the store products you've saved, or that you can find in your neighbors cupboards. Again, we emphasize that everyone should stay away from grocery stores, since the produce there was exposed to too many different people, giving the diseases a chance to adapt and spread, but there should be enough left in individual cabinets to allow us to prepare for the future. While picking through the kitchens of the deceased may seem risky, it's probably less so than venturing into the grocery stores.

Again, the first order of importance is to plan for the future. You'll need warmth, fuel is handy if you have access to it, but it'll only last for so long. You need to plan to survive without it. You also need to focus on supplies. Stock up on as much safe food as you can find, and by that I mean sealed containers of food that haven't been exposed to anything. Beyond that, you need to establish gardens, because this surplus of packaged products is going to be temporary, and we need to plan to survive long after they're gone.

The coming winter is going to be quite hard. Expect a much colder than normal winter with significant snowfall. You'll need to find a place that allows you to be self-sufficient, with water, food and other resources nearby, because once winter sets in you may not be able to move about easily. We'll continue to offer advice and news as we discover it, but for now, stay safe and protect yourselves."

Setting off early, David and Alice first stopped at the police station again. They took two vehicles this time, David taking his SUV bearing the hole in the windshield from when Maggie had shot someone trying to highjack them at a roadblock, while Alice drove the 'dead truck' they'd picked up there the previous day.

As expected, there was no one there and no sign that anyone had been by. Telling Alice to get busy cleaning up what they'd missed the day before, David set about breaking in. Despite being a police station, it was surprisingly easy to get in. Being a small community they only had a couple of cells, which mainly served occasionally as a drunk tank. They never had any serious crime, and if they did they'd transport them to more secure facilities elsewhere. They'd never had a need for reinforcements or bars on the windows. It was well built, as the recent gun battle that had occurred there showed, the bricks outside showing the multiple nicks resulting from rifle fire on it, but now there was no one to defend it.

It didn't take David long to find what he wanted. As a deputized officer, the police chief had already given David all their guns, body armor and other weapons, since he had more people and could protect them better, but David was interested in other things. Breaking into the filing cabinet, he found the personnel records and looked up the addresses of the last officers he'd known to still be alive. With that accomplished, he locked everything up again and headed out to rejoin Alice.

First they visited the home of Ben Adams, David's friend and the local sheriff. Even though the sheriff's position was a county one, he lived in the immediate vicinity. As they expected, there was no sign of life from outside.

"You stay here and clean up outside, I'll be back in a minute," he instructed his daughter.

"The hell I will," she told him. "I'm going wherever you do. There's no telling what you may find, and I've already seen enough death so I won't be shocked by whatever we find."

David just shrugged, leading the way as he approached the house. Finding the front door locked, rather than trying to break in they checked the back door and windows, finding most of the windows open given the summer heat without any air conditioning. Climbing in, David helped Alice in, and then they both explored the house.

They found Ben in the master bedroom. As expected, he was dead. His wife had passed away earlier, so there wasn't anyone else in the house. After they carried the body outside, David suggested Alice grab anything they could use from the kitchen while he searched for his handgun. He found it in the bedside table, as well as a spare hunting rifle in the bedroom closet. There were also a few boxes of ammo. It didn't amount to much, but he'd prefer not leaving them for someone else to find. For some reason, David didn't like the idea of anyone picking up a policeman's firearm, even though he'd suggested everyone arm themselves over the radio.

They checked Frank Simmons' place next, the last officer remaining on duty before David and Alice had gotten sick. They discovered the same thing, finding him dead on his couch. His dog curled up under him, looking like it had suffered as much as he had. They did what they had before, removing the bodies, taking anything they could use, and closing the house up but leaving it unlocked.

Walking out the front door, David saw something that attracted his attention, and walked across the street. There, tied to a corner of the front porch, were the remains of a family dog, dead of a shotgun blast from close range. It was a bit grisly, and would have been more so if there were any flies nearby. It seemed clear the owner of the house decided to take his frustration and anger out on the family pet, probably after he discovered it had infected him only after petting it extensively. Or maybe after it had infected his wife or children. In either case, it seemed a stupid thing to do, because not only had he only infected himself from the blowback of the animal's blood, but he'd also infected the whole sidewalk in front of the house. Anyone who wanted to access the house would need to carefully clean the entire area with bleach, including the grass and dirt where the animal now rested. It left both David and Alice feeling uneasy about how disruptive things had gotten by the end.

Finally they checked on Nancy Evens, the receptionist who remained on the force, helping Sheriff Adams when the police station had been assaulted by some gun toting locals looking to steal the police weapons. That short firefight had killed Alice's mother, David's ex, so David had been watching her to see how she reacted, but she hadn't shown any outward signs of distress.

They found no signs of Nancy, or of any household pets, despite finding a cat box. They also didn't find the handgun and rifle they knew Ben had left her with, afraid the police station would be attacked again. Once more, they left the house open as they left.

"It doesn't look like anyone in town is left," Alice observed, stating the obvious.

"No, but I had to check."

"Why did you leave the houses open?" she asked.

"If anyone comes along and needs something, it'd be easier for everyone involved if they didn't have to break in or damage anything. All these empty houses will decay if left unoccupied, and any house that we don't remove bodies from will soon become uninhabitable from the smell. Leaving a few houses habitable means we'll have some places nearby that other people can use."

"Doesn't that mean we should empty the houses near us? Just in case we find anyone who wants to join us?"

"Yeah, I was planning on that, but I wanted to check on everyone else first. We'll do that tomorrow morning. I'll also see if I can arrange to switch the circuits so I can power those houses, just in case we need to in the future."

She didn't respond, merely nodding in understanding as they headed out to the two vehicles again.

Though they'd expected it, their inability to find any other survivors was disconcerting. Before they'd surmised as much, but then it had only been a general assumption. Now they knew they were alone, and that minor difference seemed fairly major now. Even though they lived in a small town; that meant the Great Death had wiped out an incredible number of people and the implications left Alice's head reeling.

Continuing on, they didn't pick up a lot of bodies, but they stopped for any large animals they found in the middle of the road, as well as tossing the human bodies they'd found investigating their friends' houses. Small animal carcasses wouldn't impede their traffic, while large ones would. And human remains, well, they were simply too disturbing to leave exposed if they had any choice.

Having nowhere else to check locally, they set out, seeing what they could find nearby. Stopping to move a deer carcass off the road, David was backing the dead truck so it would be easier to lift the deer while Alice busied herself picking up the various small carcasses. David got out and was approaching the animal when Alice called out.

"Hey, you!"

Jerking around, David saw Alice taking off at a run.

"Alice!" he called, before taking off after her, not knowing what she was doing. He followed her around the corner, a short distance away, only to find her glancing around looking for something.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, upset and nervous about any number of things that might go wrong. Having seen so many of his close friends die recently, he was now extra cautious of his daughter, even if it wasn't justified in this case.

"I was sure I saw someone," she explained, spinning around in a slow circle, taking in all the avenues of escape, "but I can't find him now."

"I'm sure you're mistaken. It's probably just like yesterday. You're so busy looking for survivors that you're interpreting any gust of wind or change in the lighting as being someone. Why would someone try to avoid the only other surviving people they'd encountered?" David asked.

"I don't know, maybe because they're afraid of armed survivalists?" Alice asked him snidely.

"Yeah, there is that," he conceded. "Anyway, they're gone now, if there was anyone, and unless you want to search each house looking for them, I suggest we get back to business."

"Yeah, I was probably mistaken," she agreed, even though she didn't sound sincere about it as they returned to the truck where she helped him lift the deer onto the truck.

"You know, you must be right about the insects," David observed. "Normally if you tried to touch a deer this time of year, you'd be covered in ticks. Now, I don't see a single one."

"Well, if there's one animal I don't miss, it's the tick. I can't see them adding anything to the overall animal kingdom."

"Still, it's a major change to the ecosystem, and I don't trust major changes. They always involve unexpected complications. Hopefully the cooling from the asteroids will solve the massive storms the global warming was causing, but it'll probably produce just as much trouble anyway."

"Dad, in case you haven't noticed, the whole ecosystem has just been turned on its head. There's no one else left, and most of the animals are dead."

"Yeah, you've got a point," he conceded. "Anyway, we can continue now that this is out of the road. I guess we can avoid the rest of the animals, unless of course you want to make life easier for your mysterious strangers."

"No, thanks, I'm sure they're fine on their own," she laughed as they both got into their separate vehicles. "After all, I wouldn't want to take away the only thing remaining they have to do."

"Why did we stop here?" Alice asked as they exited their cars in front of a house she didn't recognize.

"This is the house where I shot that dog and had that confrontation with the two boys," David explained. "The father seemed like he knew how to prepare, so I'd like to check on them. They said they'd listen to our broadcasts, so hopefully they won't be too freaked out to meet us."

"Yeah, that's if they're still alive," Alice complained. She remembered his story about the incident. He'd come upon a dog gnawing on the exposed flesh of a dead man left on the street for the city to dispose of, something the town hadn't been able to do. David had put the dog down, figuring that once a dog learned to associate humans with food it would always be dangerous. That had provoked a natural response, as the animal's owners had come running out of the house with their guns drawn. But instead of resisting, or fleeing in panic, David had remained where he sat, telling the boys why he'd done what he had, and also telling them how to prepare for the future. He'd eventually won them over, and hoped that acceptance had extended to their father, whom he'd never met.

"That's always the understanding," her father replied as they approached the house.

Of course no one answered, not even to demand who they were. Surprisingly, David found the front door open, which surprised him considering how wary the family had been before. Entering cautiously, they looked around, finding the father upstairs in bed and one son crumpled up in an easy chair downstairs, both dead, and both having obviously died from the Great Death.

"Let's take care of them; they deserve to be buried, even if it's not a proper ceremony. After that we'll see if they have anything we can use. I'm guessing since they were preparing for the long haul, that they probably collected some things worth keeping."

Alice agreed, so they returned to the truck to collect some heavy duty plastic sheets. They were almost to the truck, preparing their gloves, when they were surprised.

"Hold it right there. Don't move a muscle, I know how to shoot."

Moving very slowly, David turned to see a young girl with blonde hair, clear skin marred only by the remnants of the plague's pox marks, and probably no older than ten or twelve. She was wearing a cap sitting askew on her head, but looked healthy otherwise, though she had a bit of a deadened look to her eyes.

"I'm sure you do. What is it you wanted?" David asked patiently.

"I want you to leave my family's property alone. It doesn't belong to you, and it's not for you to steal whatever you want."

"You look like you've been through a lot." David slowly approached the girl pointing a rifle at him while waving Alice back. "I can see it's taken a real toll on you."

"I've shot things before, I'm not afraid to shoot you," she insisted.

"I don't doubt it. I can see the resolve in your eyes. I'm sure your father was very proud of you."

"Not really, he took the boys out all the time, but he hardly had time for me," she said, hardly able to keep the sad expression from her face.

Her response surprised Alice, since she was revealing her innermost secrets to someone she was preparing to shoot, but she figured it reflected what it was like finding yourself all alone, with no one else to talk to or confide in.

"Well, I'm sure he's sorry he never managed to," David continued, still moving slowly towards her. "Sometimes parents have a hard time relating to their kids. If he had, I'm sure he'd tell you that you're holding that rifle improperly. If you were to fire it now, you'd likely injure yourself, missing your target as you threw yourself off balance."

"Really?" she asked, looking at him skeptically.

"I'll tell you what, I've got a pistol I think would be better for you. It's small and harder to aim, but you can hide it better, and while it also has a kick I'm sure we can show you how to fire it."

Alice had no idea what her father was trying to do, tempting a nervous young kid to shoot him, but she trusted his judgment. Still, she watched the two of them as she angled around to the side, so that she'd be out of firing range in case things got out of hand.

"I'm not lowering the gun," the girl warned him.

"Hey, I'm willing to trade you a loaded pistol for your rifle, it's an even trade. I'm not planning on keeping the rifle, I just don't want to see you get injured using it improperly," David responded, not directly addressing her threat.

"You'd give me the gun and show me how to use it?"

"Well, I'll only do it if you tell me your name. After all, I don't give dangerous weapons to complete strangers. I'm David and this is Alice. Who are you?"

The girl stared at him, trying to figure what he was up to, but she shrugged. "It's Mattie."

"Well, Mattie, if you don't object, I'm going to reach for it now. Just so you know; I've got two in my waistband. I'm going to give you the smaller one."

"OK, just no sudden moves," she cautioned, her eyes studying his every movement, though she'd occasionally glance at Alice watching for any unexpected movements from either one. She was certainly expecting the worst.

He slowly pulled the pistol out of his pants and held it out to her, using only two fingers and holding it barrel down by a loose grip on the handle. She glanced at it, then lowered her rifle slightly. When she did, David stepped closer to her. "The safety is on. Like most guns, it's got a kick to it, so you'd best use two hands holding it." He took another step and handed her the gun.

She looked hesitantly at it, then at her own rifle, finally making her decision. She lowered her rifle and reached for the pistol.

"Mind if I hold your rifle for you?" David asked. She looked at him in indecision for a moment, then shook her head as she took the gun from him and examined it.

"You think I can shoot someone with this?"

"I think you could use some practice, otherwise you're likely to miss more often than you hit anything, but I'd be willing to teach you. I taught Alice here."

"Who are you?" she asked, glancing up at him while she sighted along the barrel pointing it away from him.

"I'm David Scott and this is my daughter, Alice. Who are you? I was here a couple weeks ago and met your brothers."

"I remember that," she told him. "They told Dad about what you were doing, and why you shot our dog. We listened to your broadcasts, until they went off the air, that is. Only one of the two boys was my brother."

"We just saw your father and brother. I'm sorry you had to see them like that."