Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 With A Whimper by Oldmudrat Copyright 2005

   Chapter 4 February, 2016

   "Got to get over that," I said to myself.  "Pull the trigger on the
bastards when I get the chance or it could be me who gets shot."

   I picked up the 12-Gauge double-barrel and searched Clyde's pockets for
ammo.  I was pleased to find a dozen shotgun shells.  With a final look I
turned my back on the unconscious Clyde.  I felt in my bones that one day I
would regret letting the little fuck live.

   I opened the shotgun, pocketed the used shells, and reloaded.

   I looked around to see if the noise had attracted any other folks.

   Then I opened the driver's door to the pickup, slid the shotgun behind
the seat, and climbed inside.

   Susan was still out of it, slumped in the passenger's seat.

   There was a small, 35 bed hospital in town.  More than likely it was
just like the hospital I had left this morning.  Full of dead bodies.  But
there might be some medical supplies that could be used to help Susan stay
alive.  So that was my next stop.

   The pickup started with a satisfying rumble.  I put it in gear and
started the drive to the hospital.

   The absence of more survivors was not really a surprise.  Although I had
hoped that a smaller town would have faired better.  After all, when the
food deliveries stopped the townspeople would have had access to local
grown produce.  This was rural Mississippi after all and almost every third
or fourth family had a backyard garden.  The larger farmers, those still
trying to make a living at farming, would have planted mostly cash crops
such as soybeans, corn, cotton.  All which would be useful now, but would
take much effort to harvest and prepare for the table.  For damn sure, the
cotton would not be going to the multinational corporations that had
contracted to purchase it before it had been planted.  The nearest cotton
gin was an hour's drive away.  An hour's drive for a eighteen-wheeled rig.
A couple of days drive if we had to resort to horse pulled wagons. 
Assuming we could find the horses or the wagons and the cotton gin still
had power.

   As I drove I reviewed what I knew about the post-Flu world.  The last
world from the Center for Disease Control three weeks ago was that
ninety-seven percent of the world's population was dead.  Dead of either
the Flu and its complications or dead from the crazy actions of those in
leadership positions.

   For instance.  When it began to occur to everyone just how serious this
pandemic was all the hatreds among human groups broke loose for one last
orgy.  Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia launched an
attack on Israel with tactical nukes.  Israel responded with strategic
nuclear strikes.  Now the entire Middle East was a radioactive grave yard
and probably would remain 'hot' for a thousand years.  Pakistan,
Afghanistan, India, and China exchanged nukes.  As did China, Russia, Korea
and Japan.  Russia, China, and the United States swapped a score of missile
strikes aimed mainly at the other sides missile fields.  Brazil dropped
nukes at all the passes over the Andes mountains and on the Panama Canal in
an attempt to stop people seeking refuge in Brazil and bringing the virus
with them.  It did Brazil no good, because the Flu was already in-country.
Europe simply fell apart as governments died.  Africa was a blackhole of
information.  The last word from there was that there was no functioning
government any where on the continent and the Flu was burning through the
population already weakened by decades of AIDS, starvation, and war.. 
Isolated islands in the Pacific and India Oceans fell victims to the India
Flu.  An American scientific station in Antarctica managed to isolate
itself before the virus reached that polar region, but without supplies and
transport off the frozen continent, survival time was limited.  Nuclear
powered submarines stayed submerged, but would have to come up eventually
and face the virus.

   The armies of the world fought one last, futile battle to either keep
infected refugees out of their country or to secure a place to run for
themselves.

   There were survivors.  But no one knew where or how many.  The human
species was not extinct.  Not yet, at any rate.  Mankind had both feet in
the grave and was hanging on by his fingernails to keep from falling that
last inch.

   The local hospital was still standing.  I pulled under the covered
canopy of the emergency room and could see a faint light through the open
doors.

   I pulled Clyde's shotgun from behind the seat as I got out of the truck.
Walking up to the door I kept the shotgun down behind my leg.

   "Anybody Here!" I yelled.  "I've got an injured woman!"

   "Stay there.  I'll be right out," came the answer.  I thought I
recognized the voice.

   A woman stepped from the shadows.  I did recognize her.  She was an six
inches shorter than me with shoulder length brown hair.  Normally her green
eyes were bright, but today they had seemed to have lost their glow.  Her
hair hung loose and unkept.  Face drawn and haggard.  She walked very
carefully as if each step was a chore.  In one hand she held a revolver. 
She was pulling a wheeled stretcher with the other.

   "Hello, Kathy," I said as I walked up to her.  I took over pulling the
stretched out to the truck.

   She looked at me for several seconds before she said, "Jim.  Sorry, I am
still a bit out of it.  So, you're alive.  And looking pretty damn good at
that."

   "You are not looking too bad yourself.  All things considered."

   Kathy waved a hand in a dismissive gesture.  "Who do you have." She
pulled the truck door open.  "Susan!"

   "I found her down at her dad's place.  Raped and beaten." I decided not
to mention Clyde just yet.

   "Help me move her," Kathy said.  She tucked the revolver in the waist
band of the green scrubs she was wearing.  Kathy made to grab Susan's
shoulders to pull her onto the stretcher, then stopped.  A hand went to
Susan's neck, then she pulled her eyelids open.

   I had a sinking feeling.

   "She's dead, Jim."

   "She was still alive when I pulled in.  Damn it!"

   "Yeah.  Well.  Come on, help me get her on the stretcher.  There's still
room in the trench out back and gas in the backhoe.  We can bury her. 
There's not much else we can do.  Susan and Mike went out early yesterday
afternoon to see if they could round up some supplies.  We haven't heard
from either one of them.  Did you see any signs of Mike Wallace?"

   I shook my head and we moved Susan's body onto the stretcher.  That
activity seem to tire Kathy considerably.

   "No.  The only person I ran into was Clyde Mason, but he won't be
bothering us for a while."

   "Clyde.  The son of a bitch.  You think he did this?"

   I shrugged my shoulders.  "Don't know.  It was already over by the time
I got there.  Clyde showed up and thought I owned him something.  I
disagreed."

   "I wouldn't put it past him," Kathy said.  She leaned on the stretcher
to catch her breath.

   "How many others are here?" I asked.

   "Here?  Six.  All staff with their families dead," Kathy said.  "There's
about a dozen or so others still alive in town that I know of, but there
staying close to home."

   "O.K.  Look.  You're obviously worn out.  Just point me in the right
direction.  I'll get Susan buried and come back."

   ==+=

   An hour later I had Susan buried in the common grave the hospital had
been using.  After returning to the hospital, Kathy insisted that I take a
hot shower.  The hospital was running off its emergency generators.  They
were keeping the power demand low by turning off everything that was not
immediately needed.  Still, the diesel powered generators would eventually
run out of fuel.

   After the shower I met everyone.  Most I knew from my previous time
living and visiting here.

   Kathy Henson was an obstetrics nurse.  Thirty years old.  She had been
working here ever since getting out of the Army four years ago.  A hometown
girl, her parents had died in an auto crash when she was sixteen.  A year
later she enlisted in the Army and that was where she got her nursing
training.

   Sarah Miles was twenty-four years old, average height and 126 lbs. 
Although now she look like she had lost about twenty pounds.  Blond hair
and blue eyes.  She had worked in the hospital's medical records
department.

   Sam Miles was Sarah's husband.  Thirty years old and two inches taller
than me.  The last time I saw him, which was about a year ago, he had the
beginnings of a pot-belly.  Now that was gone, plus several other pounds.
Sam was an engineer and had worked at Nanodyne Technologies, a company
located at the Yellow Creek Industrial Park outside of town.

   Jennifer Nolan was thirteen years old.  Raven black hair.  Brown eyes.
Unblemished skin.  Her body was just starting to show noticeable breast and
hip changes of puberty.  She was the only one who looked `normal' in
appearance.  Her family had all died from the Flu.  I was to learn later
that she never had the slightest symptom.  Jennifer's mother had been one
of the operating room nurses.

   Tim Wilson was a gangly, thin boy with red hair that refused to be
tamed. There was always a twig or three sticking out at a right angle from
his head.  He too showed the typical weight loss of a Flu survivor.  Like
Jennifer he was the sole survivor of his once large family.  Tim's father
had been the hospital's information tech guru.

   And then there was Raymond Caldwell.  Doctor Raymond Caldwell. 
Eighty-two years old.  He looked haggard, but still managed to look like
Santa Claus.  I mean, everybody knows that Santa really has black skin. 
Right?  Ray was a good friend and the main reason I decided to go to
medical school.  I had spent several summers between classes with him at
his clinic and this hospital.

   We sat in the emergency room's lounge drinking coffee and getting
everyone's story for over two hours.  They told me theirs and I told them
mine.  By now sunset was only an hour or so away.

   After several minutes of silence, Sarah spoke up.  "So.  What do we do
now?"

   Ray pulled the stub of his cigar from his mouth.  "The way I see it our
priorities are still the same.  Food, shelter, protection.  We keep on
living for as long as we can."

   "That won't be long," Jennifer said glumly.  "The food is going to run
out sooner or later.  And then where will we be?"

   "The same place we are now," Ray said.  "On our own."

   "I don't know anything about growing food," Jennifer said.  "Does anyone
here?"

   "My family were sharecroppers.  So I plowed and planted when I was
young," Ray said.  "We can do it again.  There's no other option.  In about
six, seven weeks the weather will be warm enough to start.  Between now and
then we'll have to round up seed, figure out a way to plow the ground --
there are tractors and such around; and surely we can find enough fuel to
get it done.  We've got to get everyone together, not just us; but the
other folks in town as well."

   "What about here?" I asked.  "How much food supplies are left in the
hospital?"

   "That is why Susan and Mike were out looking yesterday," Kate answered.
"There's enough for maybe another week for the seven of us.  Until now no
one really felt strong enough to venture out.  There is bound to be some
canned food around town.  Not much, but some."

   "A week," I repeated Kate's statement.  "That's not much.  Even counting
what can be found in the area...  Doctor Caldwell is right.  It's going to
take some hard work.  But I, for one, am not ready to lay down and quit." I
looked over at Jennifer and Tim.  "And neither should anyone else.  The
future may be different from what we expected a couple of months ago, but
it will be one you, we, make for ourselves.  No one else is coming to our
rescue."

   Jennifer nodded.

   "Doctor Caldwell, have you heard from my great-grandfather?" I asked.

   "No.  And I told you when you add the 'M.D.' to your name to call me
Ray, did I not."

   I smiled.  It was an old, running gag between us.  "Would you settle for
`Doc'?"

   "Shit," Ray said.  "I know where you get your stubborn, sassy streak. 
To answer your question, the last time I saw Daniel Pitt was two months
ago. That was just before things here went to hell and everybody started
dying.  I just have not had the time, or the energy, to go check on him. 
Sorry about that, but..."

   "I understand, Doc.  Really.  You, all of you, had your own problems," I
said.  "Still I want to check on him first thing tomorrow.  And, now that I
think about it, I think we should all go."

   "I'm not sure if he would welcome all of us," Ray said, dragging a last
puff from his cigar before snuffing the very short stub out.  "You know how
he is about people."

   "Yeah.  I know.  I also know that he stocks up supplies six months in
advance," I said.  "And I know that something has happened to him,
otherwise he would have been down here to offer what help he could."

   I could see the others considering my idea and all finally nodded.

   "Yes, you're right, Jim," Ray said.  "He would.  I'll ride up with you
tomorrow."

   End Chapter 4
   To Be Continued....