10 Minutes From Home: Episode 8 Page 3

  "Diane. I found Jordan, not far from here. But honey. She didn't make it. Jordan died. Our girl is gone."

  Diane's eyes go dead. The words are not registering. She shuts down. Her eyes roll back into her head and she falls forward in her chair and into my arms. I move her over and onto the bed; her eyes are open but they aren’t seeing anything, she is in shock. I lay on the bed with Diane in my arms and watch the room grow dark with the falling night, I stare off into space and wonder where we will go from here. Diane's eyes close and she passes out in my embrace.

  Eventually, I drift into sleep as well, and dream of the life we once had, and of seeing Jordan's face once again, smiling at me and telling me she loved me. In my head I pray that reality is in fact the dream, and that I am alive there, in that world. I can feel Jordan's face, smell her hair; I can see Diane happy, content with our lives. I feel overjoyed that I am there with them, the love I feel for them is overpowering, all encompassing. However, it is a dream, and eventually, I will have to wake from it and face reality. I just hope Diane will be there to face it with me.

  CHAPTER 39: AFTERMATH

  The early morning sun beams through the window and over the food piled against the wall. There is no sound of distant traffic, no birds chirping in the cool morning air. Diane is still in my arms, eyes still closed, her chest barely moves with her deep sleeping breaths. I open my eyes and look around the room, trying to figure out how I got to where I was now. My wife asleep and possibly catatonic, my daughter dead and in the back of a truck not one mile from our home. The world turned upside down from a vaccine that was meant to cure and help people. A nightmare scenario straight out of the movies was happening right now, here. I long for Jordan, to see her again, to hold her right here in my arms. I do have Diane and she is safe and alive. Thank God for that. I have made good on my oath to make it back, to get to her. I am here, finally, in my own home with my wife. I have survived many dizzying and violent days, lost my best friend and my daughter, and lost many people whom I have come to care about very much. Although if I do end up living past this day, it will not be unharmed. The things I have seen will change me for the rest of my natural life.

  Diane eventually wakes from her sleep and looks up at me. The moment our eyes meet, she bursts into tears and she buries her head in the sheets. I run my hand over her head and whisper to her that I am here, that we will be okay. She cries for hours, until she has no tears left; then we just sit together, hold each other and say nothing. We are in an odd sort of situation, not knowing how to proceed from this point. Diane sleeps most of the day out of sheer exhaustion, she wakes spasmodically every now and then from nightmares, checks to see that I am really here. I don't leave her side; I just stay beside her on the bed, hold her, be there.

  Once mid afternoon hits, I throw together some food for us, peanut butter and jam on Wonder bread, some oat cereal, dry. Diane doesn't eat much, what she does eat I think she eats more for me than for herself. Time seems to be standing still this day, after nine days of running and scavenging, to sit in one room all day is almost maddening, yet I would not choose to be anywhere else. Diane and I finally talk some around dinnertime; I finish the tale of my journey home, including the parts about finding Jordan, and about where she is now. We plan to go out the next day and get her, bring her home and bury her here on the farm. Ever since the outbreak, Diane has struggled with the desire to leave and find me, find Jordan, but she thought if the military kept true to their word, she would be shot before she left the front lawn. She could never find us if she ended up dead. I tell her she did the right thing, there is nothing else she could have done. As night envelopes our farm, we shower together, hold each other and try to wash away the memories of the past week. We go to bed realizing what we have in each other, that we are all we have left. We make love and fall asleep in each other's arms, sleep peacefully, and without nightmares. We dream of Jordan, of the time we had with her, and of our futures. Of a world cleansed by a mutant virus, a world that woke up and realized its weaknesses in the wake of such monumental devastation and casualties. A world rebuilt on love, trust and caring for your fellow man. A world with hope. It is the only dream we have left.

  The sound of a voice wakes me the next morning around six. It is steady, continuous and comes from downstairs. It is the TV. I wake up Diane and we listen at the door. We can't make out what is being said, but it is definitely the TV. Diane must have had it on when the power went out, which means we must have power once again. I run to the small bedroom TV atop my dresser and flick it on. The little screen jumps to life with the image of Gord Martineau, a Toronto news anchor. He doesn’t look as good as he usually looked on TV; he wears a jacket and t-shirt, his hair isn’t groomed. He goes on about the Darlington Nuclear Plant being temporarily restarted to get the message out as far as they can. The virus has spread like wildfire, expanding throughout Canada as well as other countries around the globe. Mass rioting and hysteria are taking place globally, and attacks by infected people are growing exponentially. Then a shock that has both Diane and me gasping. The estimated death toll worldwide in only eleven days is over two billion. Almost half of the population of the planet, and no signs of an end in sight. Military squads have been overpowered by the vast numbers of infected running rampant. Most bases throughout Ontario have been overrun and the inhabitants of those bases killed. Scarborough is among the list of bases scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

  Most countries are now under martial law and quarantine, and the military is now shooting first at anyone seen in the streets. They are torching known infected medical labs, hospitals, clinics, you name it; the world is being burnt to the ground because they can not see any other options.

  The news anchor warns all citizens to stay in their homes until some sort of order makes its way into place and the remaining authorities can start tallying up the survivors and taking stock of what is left of our world. In mid-sentence, Gord is cut off by the all too familiar Emergency Broadcast System, which in turn is cut off seconds later by the power going dead once again.

  After some deliberation, we decide to go get Jordan's body before things get even worse. From our vantage point on the second floor, we can't see anyone on our property at all, it seems like now is the best time to go. We gather some tools and a few weapons and I rig up an old hiking backpack to carry Jordan's body in. We load up our guns and head out the front door, across our fields, and back to Regional Road 57. We reach the truck in good time, with no encounters along the way. The back of the truck is still open, and I fear that Jordan might not be there anymore, and wish I had closed it before leaving. I hop inside the back of the truck and see Jordan's body still secured to rails on the wall of the truck. I cut the ropes and lift my daughter's body over my shoulder. I pass Jordan over to Diane and climb out of the truck. Diane and I are both sobbing as we wrap up Jordan's body tightly and set her into the hiking pack, almost as if she is riding piggyback. We start back to the farm immediately, not wanting to spend any more time here than we have to. Jordan is light, she has been dead for some time now, but at least there doesn’t seem to be any odor. We reach the farm and cross the cornfield, coming to our yard, where I take Jordan out and lay her down in the grass. I grab a couple of shovels from the barn and we start to dig our daughter's grave a few feet from the large maple tree that she loved to sit under. Once we have dug deep enough, we carefully lower Jordan's body into the hole and stand over her in silent prayer. I’m not religious by any means, but I'll be damned if I won’t pray for the soul of my daughter to be saved. We throw the earth back over her and let her rest for eternity at her home, where she should be. Both of us just want to lie down and die with her, but we know we have to keep going for her, to remember her, to honor her. As I pat the last shovelful of dirt onto the grave, I notice Diane looking across the field, her attention pulling away from our task.

  "Diane. What is it?"

  Without looking back at me, she tilts her head a little an
d shushes me.

  "Do you hear that Denny? What is that? A car?"

  I listen closely; it does indeed sound like a car, way down the road. With no other sounds to distract, it is crystal clear.

  "It sounds like more than one," I say, "We better get inside."

  We toss the shovels in the grass and head back in the front door, and lock it back up, moving an old oak desk in front of it. We head back upstairs and secure ourselves in our bedroom with the church doors. The vehicles sound closer now and we run to the window to see. There is a convoy of three covered military trucks all kicking up dust down the rural road towards our farm. They slow before our driveway, and then turn in, driving up over the lawn and parking there, their brakes squealing. A variety of personnel get out of the trucks, some in military fatigues with respirators, some in the white hazard suits. About five soldiers take up positions all around the house, armed with machine guns. Two of the white suits are conferring on the lawn, one holds a clipboard and points at the house a lot. After a few moments, one of them motions to the trucks and more white-suited men come out of the backs. These ones are carrying equipment. Large metal drums with hoses and sprayers. They approach the house and start to spray the exterior; two of them branch off and do the same to the barn. Is it a disinfectant? I decide they should know we are here, and against Diane's wishes, I slide up the bedroom window and yell out.

  "Hey! We're alive, we're okay, there’s no one infected here."

  One of the white suits looks up, points at us, then motions to a soldier, who runs to the back of one of the trucks and returns with a megaphone. The white suit switches it on and raises it to his mouth through the respirator.

  "Mr. Collins, we know you are in there, please do not attempt to leave. Your daughter was one of the original carriers, we cannot risk you infecting anyone if you have the virus, please stay indoors."

  Two of the soldiers now have their rifles aimed at my window, so I close it again and back into the room. Diane looks at me, worry showing on her face like a wrinkled mask.

  "What are they doing? What do they want?"

  "I think they're going to quarantine us or disinfect us or something. Let's just wait a minute."

  I walk back to the window and carefully looked out; the men who were spraying are putting the drums back onto the trucks. They come back from the trucks with large silver packs on their backs connected to hoses in their hands. Flamethrowers. Diane starts to panic.

  "Oh my God, they’re going to burn us alive! What do we do?"

  We run frantically around the room for no reason, not knowing what to do or where to go. I run towards the window, but Diane steps in front of me, her hands on my chest.

  "No. No! They'll kill you!" she pleads.

  "What option do we have Diane, sit here and burn?"

  Diane's face softens and she puts her hand on my cheek. I look into her eyes, they are wet and red and tired and sad. She pushes me on the chest with her hands, forcing me back into the middle of the room and I can hear the roar of the flamethrowers coming to life. I start to cry, not knowing how to get out of this. Diane kisses me gently on the lips, lingers there for a few moments before setting something in my hands. I look down to see the Colt Magnum resting in my palms. I grasp the handle and flip open the cylinder. The bottoms of two shells look back at me and I see our way out. We both sit down on the end of the bed, the temperature in the bedroom has already risen quite a bit, making it slightly uncomfortable and a little stifling. I flip the cylinder back into the handgun and look at my wife.

  "I love you so much Diane. I knew I would die before I would let anything stop me from getting back to you. Back home."

  She looks back at me, her face peaceful, accepting.

  "I love you too Denny, I always will. Thank you for coming home, for bringing me our baby. All I really prayed for was for us to all be together again. I love you both so much."

  Tears stream down both of our faces as we hold each other. I kiss Diane again, hard, and she smiles at me as I press the barrel of the gun to her chin. As my finger starts to squeeze the trigger, hollers bellow from outside and the whoosh of the flamethrowers stops. Someone is yelling orders to the soldiers. I bolt out of bed, run to the window and peek out the side of the sill with the gun ready in case I have to return any fire. The men in the hazard suits and the soldiers are all facing away from the house now, and one soldier in a suit is barking orders and points out over my cornfield. I can still hear the fire that is consuming our house, and the temperature is still rising, but they have stopped for the time being. I motion back into the room without looking and Diane joins me at the window. We look out over the farm; a part in the clouds is letting the sun light up the whole cornfield as if it were a football field. On the far side of the field where we ourselves had trekked through with Jordan's body, a long line of running, screaming children come up out of the ravine towards the house, all of them with their arms outstretched and their mouths gaping open. There are a few adults as well, but it is mostly small children, probably first or second graders. The soldiers with guns form a line at the edge of the field and wait on their commander’s orders. We see a few more soldiers come around and join them from either side of the house.

  My head spins around and I look right at Diane. I grab her wrist with one hand and the shotgun with the other.

  "Come with me, we're getting out of here!"

  Diane's eyes are wide with fear and anticipation. I run out of the room pulling my wife by her wrist, but she does not resist, she runs with me, full speed down the hallway and down the stairs. The main floor is burning; we can’t even see out the windows due to the wide curtains of flame covering them. Diane shields her face with the arm that I’m holding and we continue through the living room and into the kitchen. The back of the house is blazing just as much and I run to the basement door, kicking it with my boot once I was close enough. The flaming door caves easily. We duck through the flames lining the doorway and stumble down the basement stairs. We sprint across the cement floor past the boxes of old clothes, baby stuff, stuff we just never unpacked, to the backyard access doors and I slide the workbench that was against the door off to the right. I lift the old wooden latch and enter the web-covered alcove with the angled doors covering it. I take one quick look at Diane, let go of her wrist, and push the doors wide open, quickly pulling my hands back and around the shotgun. The back of the house, including the basement door, was on fire, but there doesn't seem to be any military presence. We ascend from the basement out into the tall green grass and I kick the basement doors closed just as we hear multiple repeating cracks of the C7 rifles as the military opens fire at the front of the house on the attacking children. We don’t look back or stop or even pause to witness the outcome, we just run as fast as we can towards the woods, hoping we won’t hear shots being fired at our backs. The distance between the house and the edge of the woods seems like miles, but we are there in a matter of seconds, and we throw ourselves into it, collapsing into the foliage. Once we hit the dirt, I roll over and sit up in the bushes, looking back at our farm. Diane gets up behind me and lays her hands on my back, hiding behind me and peeking over my shoulder. The pops from the rifles continue for a few more minutes, accompanied by the cracks of the flames as they consume our home. We can see the flames as high as our roof now, the sound of wood cracking as the fire eats it up, the flames lick the windowsills and roll against the eaves troughs. The gunshots eventually stop and a few soldiers appear at either side of the house towards the rear. They get into their positions, turn their flamethrowers back on and continue their work turning our home into ashes.

  Diane and I sit in the woods for a few more minutes, and look at the maple tree with the mound of dirt under it where Jordan is buried. We both silently say our last words to our daughter, our last farewell to our baby girl, our heart. Once we finish and can watch our home burn no more, we turn our backs and head deep into the woods. We will head north; maybe go to Algonquin National P
ark. It is massive and we can probably avoid a lot of everything in there for a while, then maybe head out towards Montreal, see what the situation is like there, if there is refuge, people, anything. If the news report was right, there may be nowhere to go. To be honest, we don’t know what is in store for us now, or how far we will get, we just know that this time, we can find out together and if it means we don’t survive, at least it will be standing next to each other and on our own terms.

  As I walk through the woods, my wife holding my hand, my daughter's memory in my mind, and her spirit in both our hearts, despite everything the future may hold for us, I am happy. Even as our house burns to the ground, as long as I am with Diane, I am home.

  EPILOGUE: CONTAINMENT PROGRESS REPORT

  Field Report

  24 Aug 09

  PERS 451

  3 PL COMD

  SECT 17-b KAWARTHA LAKES CONTAINMENT PROGRESS

  1. MCpl David Paul Kessler reporting confirmation that all indicated properties infected have been uniformly incinerated.

  2. Farm near Pontypool, Ontario, lot 5, sector 17-b, two (2) residents confirmed in dwelling incinerated with property, lot confirmed destroyed, one (1) open grave found beneath maple tree, no body. All area infected destroyed.

  3. Continuing orders throughout sector 17-b through 30 Aug 09, followed by reporting to Kingston, Ontario, base camp.

  D.P. Kessler

  MCpl

  3PL 1 Sect Comd

  1138

  COMMUNICATIN