This is a fictional story. All names, places, and viruses are used fictitiously. Resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, past or present, are intentional.
If you haven’t read from the beginning, please start at Chapter 1 here.
***
Due Date: 70 days away
This was how they defeated superheroes. Separate the people they love. Simultaneously attack those people. Force the superhero to make an impossible decision. Watch the superhero crumble.
And I was no superhero.
I never had a shot.
Getting out was easy. They moved a makeshift gate. I drove right through.
In my rear view mirror, I counted, for the second time, how many I could see. The darkness made me doubt myself.
They each wore masks too, not just over their mouth and nose, but the full-on, scary, Halloween costume masks, the cowboy bandannas with sunglasses, the ski masks. They weren’t just protecting themselves from the virus. They were protecting themselves from being identified.
I knew getting back would be the hard part.
At the house, I got what I needed from the refrigerator, but I also picked up some items from the garage. I wasn’t planning to go to war, but I was preparing for it.
I Slydialed Jerry, so I could leave him a message without it actually ringing first on his phone.
“Hey, Jerry, it’s Ben. Had to come back to the house for some stuff. I’m headed back downtown now. Not sure how I’m getting in yet but wanted to give you a call. Liz is still in the hospital. The baby is safe, but Liz isn’t doing well. The boys are at the castle.”
I paused.
“You’re the only one who knows that last part, Jerry. Take care, man.”
Repeat for my mom. Slydialed. Similar message. Different ending. “Liz isn’t doing well, but the baby is safe, and the boys are safe. I love you.”
I didn’t want to wake anyone up. I didn’t want to alarm anyone. But I wanted to leave a record. I wanted to leave a trace, in case Liz and I didn’t make it.
But I needed to talk with Kenneth.
It rang four times before he answered.
“Ben?”
“Kenneth. Thank God. I had to go back to the house. I saw Dr. Madison at the hospital. She said your medicine might help you get better if you get sick, like with the virus. I guess they’ve done a bunch of research.”
“You went home to get it?”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us spoke immediately. The roads were empty, and I was flying. But I knew he was thinking, contemplating, catching up with me.
“Can it help Mama?” he asked.
I hesitated. Second guessed this. For a second.
“Yeah. I think it will. I hope so anyway.”
I wasn’t manipulating him. I wanted him to understand. Even if I was making the decision for him.
“We have to give it to her,” he said.
“Kenneth, I want to do that. That’s why I got it, right now, in the middle of all this stupidness. But if we give it to her, you won’t have any.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You know what I mean? You won’t have any for your arthritis. But you also won’t have any, if you get sick.”
“We have to give it to her.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’ll do my best. I don’t have all the practice she has with the shots.”
I chuckled.
“Oh, what about Shepherd?” he asked. “Could it help him if he gets sick?”
“I don’t know. I think he might be too young, to take it. Dr. Madison said you’d need to take four times the normal dose, for it to work on you. You know how rough the medicine can be long term.”
“We only have three left, right?“
“Yes, that’s all I got. That’s all we had.“
“Mama needs all that,” he said.
“I agree. We’ll just have to keep Shepherd healthy. You and Shepherd both.”
We didn’t speak for a while.
He broke the pause.
“How are you getting back downtown?”
“I don’t know. I brought some stuff from the garage.”
“I can help,” he said.
After I got off the phone with him, I called Liz, instinctively hitting speed dial instead of Slydial. She couldn’t answer. Even if she could, she couldn’t speak. Even if she could, she wasn’t conscious.
But then she answered. Or someone at least slid the answer direction on her phone.
“Liz? Liz, are you there? Can you hear me?”
And then I thought a little smarter.
“Can you tap twice if you hear me?”
Tick, tick.
“So, twice is yes. Once is no,” I said. “I love you.”
Tick, tick.
It shouldn’t have been that funny, but I laughed one of those nervous laughs anyway. “I guess I didn’t set that up well. Listen, I’m… wait, are you alone?”
Tick, tick.
“Okay. I’m headed back to you.” I told her what I told Kenneth about Dr. Madison and the medicine. “And Liz, her husband is running the show out there. They blew the bridges. It’s crazy. I don’t know all the details, but it’s like they’re trying to keep people from getting to the hospital. Because of their research or something. Anyway, I got to go. I’m about here. Do you love me?”
Tick, tick.
“Love you too.”
This was it.
I rolled up at the same barricade I’d exited.
Two of the masked men approached my window. I cracked it enough to speak to them.
“Hey, guys, I just left here about an hour ago. I need to get back in.”
The one man looked over at the other, probably wondering why I didn’t understand the situation already.
“We can’t let you do that,” he said.
“I need to. My wife’s at the hospital. She just had our baby. I had to run home to get some, some insulin for her.”
He eyed the back seat. I rolled down the back window for them. I had a car seat directly behind me.
“Please. I just need to get back to my wife and baby.”
“You’re going to need to turn around.”
“But—”
“Turn around!”
The smaller guy picked up his rifle in both hands. He wasn’t pointing it at me, but holding it at all was enough for me. I hit the send button my phone.
“Okay, okay.” I raised my hands for them to see through the glass. “Can I at least… can I show you this?”
I rolled my window down all the way and reached into the compartment in the door.
As I did that, he moved closer to me.
In one motion, I yanked the door handle unlatched with my left hand and pushed with my right hand as hard as I could. The door popped opened, smashing him in the chin, his gun crashing into his rib cage.
He dropped his weapon and fell to the street backward.
I drew out the BB gun I’d snagged from the garage and pointed it at him.
“Open the gate,” I said to the bigger one who was still standing.
Behind them, we heard an explosion. A vehicle on the other side of the barricade ignited into flames. We heard the glass from its windows shatter on the asphalt.
We all tried to see what was happening, but I took advantage of the surprise.
“Open the gate!” I brought the gun up to my eye to zero in on the man on the ground.
Blood was running down his neck. He lifted the mask off his face. He looked like a teenager. A teenager with a broken face.
He spat on the ground.
The bigger one moved toward the gate.
On the other side of the wall, I saw others rushing toward the fire. I couldn’t tell how many. Enough to cause a scene. Enough to distract from what I was doing.
As soon as he released the makeshift latch they had on the gate, I punched it. Our SUV never had much juice, but the tires squealed when I jammed the peddle to the floor.
I hit full force and knocked the gate back four or five feet. It stopped against another set of barricades, some sandbags or something. I tried to wedge through the gap. The gap wasn’t big enough. I put the car in reverse to create space. Thankfully, I didn’t get stuck. I punched it again.
This time, I had enough power from the runway to knock through.
My screeching tires and revving engine plus the first collusion with the gate plus the push that busted through the gate, caught attention. The group that had gone to check the car fire spun around to see me breaking through their roadblock. Two of them shot at me as I sped past.
I should have never told them Liz was at the hospital.
Once I got a couple blocks out of sight, I decided to abandon the car. Other than the two guys I spoke with, none of them had seen me. Even with them, I’d been wearing a mask. I stopped off the side of a four-way intersection. I could find it again, and it would leave anyone who spotted the car plenty of options for where I might have gone from there. Assuming they weren’t already meeting me at the hospital.
I grabbed the medicine from the passenger floorboard and my phone from the side door.
“Did it work?”
Kenneth had texted me.
“Yes. TY. You safe?”
I left the BB gun and ran for the hospital.
I never heard anyone behind me.
No one met me either.
The guard must have recognized me as I entered. He or she or whoever was behind that gear didn’t even bother to nod.
I hurried to the elevators, trying to not look too hurried.
No one cared.
Down the hall. Down the other hall. Past some desks. Last hall.
Liz’s room.
My phone must have buzzed somewhere between there and the car.
“Yes,” he texted.
I opened the door as softly as I could. The room was dim.
For a moment, I worried they’d moved her to a different room. But no. There she was.
Liz.
Alone.
Just like they said she’d be, on TV.
“I’m here,” I said.
She opened her eyes.
They seemed further away than I remembered.
“I’m here now.”
I took off the grimy mask I’d been wearing, threw it out, and replaced it with the one I’d stashed in my pocket. I removed my gloves. I washed my hands. I put on fresh gloves from the dispenser on the wall.
I rolled over a stool to sit down next to her, on her right side.
I pulled back the sheets covering her legs, exposing the one closest to me. Her gown had bunched up. I carefully drew it up to just below her hip.
One at a time, three times. The second one was fire under her skin. Her entire body stiffened in silence.
I’d never done it before.
Never given Kenneth any of his shots. Not one.
Only watched a couple hundred times.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I was breathing through my mouth, sucking hard on my mask. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Her eyes blinked fast.
“Elizabeth. I’m so sorry. This is going to help you.”
According to Dr. Madison, it was supposed to reduce the inflammation. Reduce the build up in the lungs. Reduce the effects of the virus.
But I felt like I was lying.
I injected the last one.
I never had a shot at reducing the pain. I’d forgotten the ice.
