Eleven Twenty-Three (32 page)

Apparently, we have become the first victims
of a major smallpox outbreak since 1972 in Yugoslavia. Even more
interesting, that crisis’s final death toll of 35 has already been
eclipsed by the casualties of the End.

Distant telephoto shots on the TV screen
reveal lines of military vehicles and gas-masked soldiers, along
with elongated CDC tents and doctors filing along in white smocks
and gas masks. At one point, while the off-screen anchor mutters,
“Horrible—just horrible,” to illustrate how profoundly impacted and
petrified he is to see this despite the ratings it will garner, the
camera captures four covered bodies being carried out by men in
camouflage Level 4 MOPP gear. Then it cuts to a shot of helicopters
circling overhead, soldiers scurrying about on the ground level
outside of town, Japanese doctors conferring in front of medical
tents, still more soldiers and more Asian doctors not doing much of
anything, and then finally a collage of photographs showing the
audience at home what kind of gas masks and charcoal-lined
protective gear are being used, and where these products can be
purchased online once the virus sweeps the country.

There is “an inherent likelihood” that what
the nation is seeing in this small burg is the work of terrorists,
since smallpox was deemed globally eradicated by the World Health
Organization on December 9, 1979. A press conference featuring
speakers from the CDC, WHO, and the White House will be held at two
p.m. today. Meanwhile, martial law has been declared for the
surrounding communities of Crescent Beach, Summer Haven,
Marineland, Palm Coast, and Flagler Beach. The president has raised
the national threat level to a pissed off Red and everyone is
basically pointing fingers, making accusations, trying to figure
out how these poor people got so sick.

The broadcast returns to the studio, where
the disturbed reporter on CNN reminds viewers that the deadlier of
the two strains of smallpox,
Variola major
, has been
detected in hundreds of citizens in the small town of Lilly’s End.
The National Guard, along with Marines and the Centers for Disease
Control, are already on the scene and have effectively quarantined
the town. Medical staff members are being sent into the hot zone to
provide vaccinations and treat the victims of the virus, which is
said to have infected at least four hundred citizens of the
township. Everyone, including the reporter, is hoping for the best
for these poor folks down in Florida this afternoon.

Sidebar: the last recorded case of smallpox
on the planet Earth, until today, was in Birmingham, England,
twenty-nine years ago. Because of faulty security measures at a
local research facility, a young medical photographer named Janet
Parker died of the virus on September 11, 1978. The scientist
responsible for her research unit, Dr. Henry Bedson, was so
overwhelmed with guilt over her death that he committed suicide
days later. After this final occurrence, all remaining samples of
the two common strains of smallpox were moved to facilities in
Atlanta, Georgia and Koltsovo, Russia. Any further outbreaks of
smallpox thereafter would have to be the work of diabolical viral
engineering, a new strain of the disease as-yet unseen in nature,
or both.

Cut to: the mother of one Lilly’s End
resident, a twenty-eight year-old welder named Tomas Walker, as she
talks to cameras about her son, about how much he is loved and how
she and the rest of his family are praying for his safety, and how
much she hates the terrorists responsible for this disaster. She
asks for justice, for vengeance, for retaliation in honor of those
bodies lining the streets of Lilly’s End. Regardless of whether her
boy is actually dead or not, something must be done or his spirit
will not rest.

The People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a splinter
cell of Aum Shinrikyo, an undisclosed paramilitary group from
Algeria, and a doomsday cult based in Abilene, Texas have already
claimed responsibility for the smallpox. An extensive federal
investigation is underway to determine which terrorists are telling
the truth.

Your obituary is a lie
, the six of us
are told by the flash of white letters on the TV screen. I change
the channel to VH1 and we huddle around staring teary-eyed and
clueless at
Flavor of Love
.

Everyone—Mark, Mitsuko, Chloe, Julie, even
Tara—have lost the pallor in their lips and cheeks and arms and
necks. They no longer look like they’re even alive. They look gray,
like apparitions of their own residual memories. I say nothing,
sure that none of them are aware of it. I inspect my own skin. It’s
pale and grim and dehydrated, but not like theirs.

Not like theirs.

After a long time passes Mark, who clutches
his mouth with a moist napkin and gingerly applies ice to the
chewed-off skin, speaks up: “So thith ith a smallpock outhbreak
we’re going thoo here?”

“Are you stupid?” Mitsuko says. “Have you
seen
smallpox, baby? Have you seen the boils all over
people’s skin when they have smallpox? Believe me when I say that
this is most certainly
not
smallpox.”

“Yeah, but they thaid it might be a new
thain—”

“It’s
not
smallpox,” she intones.
“Obviously they needed a cover story for what’s really going on.
They couldn’t hide it forever.”

“And smallpox works great,” I say, feeling
Hajime’s rhetoric about to tumble out of my mouth as he sleeps
soundly in the other room. “Every one of us dies in here;
they
call it an untreatable strain developed by some evil
brown-skinned fundamentalist group; everyone gets really pissed off
and brushes off the American flag in their garage; next thing you
know,
bang
: the nation’s oil prices go down ten cents for a
month or so and we have a new alliance in the Middle East.”

“Maybe they’re just calling it smallpox to
protect the public from the truth about how bad a crisis it
actually is,” Chloe says. “Maybe they’re lying to the networks so
they can get to the bottom of what’s really happening so they can
fix
it.”

“If things are so bad that they have to
resort to a
smallpox
outbreak as an excuse, then we’re
really in a heap of trouble,” Julie comments.

“And if you really believe that nonsense
about protecting the larger public, go down to the barricade lines
and see what I saw last night,” I say. “Denial is so 2001, Chloe.
Just accept the situation for what it is. You’ll feel better.”

“Actually, she’ll probably feel worse,” Tara
interjects, shaking her head at everything. “And maybe she’s right.
Maybe you and Hajime and others like you are a little
too
willing to accept that a corrupt government would do something like
this to its people, and then you miss the point entirely. You guys
should consider the notion that perhaps they’re just keeping the
larger population safe from a communicable disease that the world
has never seen before. I’d say it’s better for this to happen
somewhere like Lilly’s End than in Atlanta or New York or
something. You’re just thinking a little too much about yourselves,
and not enough about the big picture.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Mitsuko says, rolling her
eyes. “
Certainly
it was just a terrorist group working out
of a cave in a desert that created a state-of-the-art virus that
makes random people go nuts—and apparently this virus is quite
adept at following the strictest of timetables, as well. And then,
once they develop this groundbreaking new weapon—”

“—Easily capable of leveling whole
civilizations if wielded properly,” I throw in uselessly.

“And when they develop it,” Mitsuko
continues, ignoring my sidebar, “instead of releasing it in a city
or somewhere that might garner some actual
attention
to
their cause, they release it…here…in Lilly’s End…
Florida
…and
gain absolutely nothing. Oh yeah, that’s reasonable.”

“Do I detect sarcasm?” Tara asks, pretty
sarcastic herself.

“You’d score pretty high on the dumb-ass
meter if you didn’t, Tara.”

“Ith not paranoia if they really are afthuh
you,” Mark pants, breathing heavily, motioning for another pill. I
erupt into laughing that I try to suppress, but end up giggling
instead.

Mitsuko glances at her injured husband
looking perfectly miserable with his head in her lap and his gums
exposed by a half-inch-wide crater in his mouth. Tara and Chloe are
standing by with their teeth clenched, waiting for the argument to
ensue. I find myself inching toward Mitsuko at first but then the
front door.

“All right, stop right there,” Julie blurts
out, positioning herself between the two factions. “Before you
girls get into a useless debate over the identity of the
eminence grise
, please keep in mind that we have
plenty
to do before tonight and fighting amongst ourselves
isn’t on the list.”

“Actually, it might be,” Hajime quips,
limping into the kitchen. He gingerly touches his aching teeth,
having no idea that they were clenched against my skull earlier.
“And no, I don’t remember anything. Nor do I want to. Proceed.”

“First of all, we need to bury Jasmine,”
Julie explains, her stare still directed at Hajime. “Then we need
to
eat
, for Christ’s sake. We’ve got to get the mess cleaned
up in the living room and gather supplies and keep an eye on the
news and look for other people in town like us—”

“Whoa, whoa, waith a minth,” Mark says, his
speech slurred by the painkillers he’s taken and the missing
portion of his lip. “
What
other people in thown like
uth?”

“Other survivors. Other people who we can
join up with.”

“Are you
nuth
, Thulie? I’m not
thoining up with anyone elth out there. Ath far ath
I’m
contherned, anyone and everyone outthide thith houth ith already
dead and I can’t do a thing to hell them.
Futh
them, in
fath.”

“Bitter much?” Julie asks.

“You have
your
god-damn lip bithen off
and thee how
you
regar humanity afthuhward, Thulie.”

“What about escaping?” I say to the group
cautiously. “Does anyone have any ideas on how we might
escape?”

No one responds.

“I think if we go at the right time and can
make it through the mangrove swamp or get to the roads out of town,
we’ll be all right.”

“Oh boy,” Mitsuko sighs.

“What? You have a better plan, Mitsuko?”

“I do, actually. Um, how about this?
We…
don’t
escape. You’ve been through town. You’ve seen what
happens at eleven twenty-three. You see what’s on the news. Let’s
get real. We aren’t escaping from here, Layne. Further, I don’t
even want to try. Like my brother told you this morning, I’d rather
collect what little time I have left and use it to get blazed and
maybe watch some TV than embark on some crazy gooney adventure that
ends with me dead in the mud somewhere.”

“You were
listening
to us?” I ask,
already replaying the five a.m. conversation in my mind. I look to
Hajime for support, but he offers nothing but a yawn and a
shrug.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she explains. “It seemed
like the thing to do at the time.”

“Where’s Jasmine?” Hajime asks, but no one
answers.

Trying to remember what things were said and
how much I embarrassed myself on the front porch this morning, I
look around to the other survivors, hoping for a nod, a
contemplative eyebrow arch, anything in regard to getting away from
here. All I receive are shaken heads and hopeless downcast eyes,
and that’s when something boils over and I grab my car keys from
the counter and walk right out the door, not looking back.

01:39:01 PM

There are approaching clouds in the distance.
Rain making its way over from the sea. It takes me a long time to
figure out how the casket-lowering device works. Finally I’m able
to manage the levers, and my father’s polished black coffin slowly
descends into the ground. I spend a long time standing there in the
graveyard, looking down into the hole where the body will rest.
Once or twice, I hear the far-off cackle of gunshots.

The air here is rancid with decay. The bodies
of my dead family rot in the afternoon sun. Maggots ooze in and out
of Luke’s eye socket. Armies of bugs and larvae have made a home, a
new life, out of the carcasses of my slaughtered kin. Mangy cats
nibble on some random child’s entrails at the edge of the cemetery.
A vulture pecks at Cindy’s back, which is brown and oily and
stiff.

Everything here is wrong and bitter and
macabre, but at least it’s quiet. At least here, I’m not bursting
open at the seams. I’m not disintegrating into thin air less than
ten minutes from the home and school and tawdry shops I found
myself forced to develop and grow up in all that time before the
eleven twenty-three.

After the casket is in the ground, I try to
move the lowering device out of the way but can’t figure out how to
take it apart and it’s too heavy to push aside and in the end I
guess I just don’t give a shit. Instead I grab the shovel I picked
up from among the dozens of other random tools dotting the street
in front of Jake’s Hardware Supply. I pull off the blue tarp
covering the mound of dirt reserved for the burial of my father.
It’s hard trying to use the shovel with the briefcase, though, and
soon I’m just letting it drag behind me on the ground and not long
after that I throw a final heap of soil into the half-filled hole
and decide this is as good a burial as my father could ever have
hoped for, under the circumstances.

I stand by his grave for a while. Memories of
him, of my mother, do not appear as I thought they might. Instead I
just keep picturing a grainy cartoon image of the United States,
and then the zoom-in toward that dangling appendage known as
Florida—except now one of its coastlines has had the tiniest nibble
taken out of it, leaving only more of that same Atlantic blue to
fill in the space Lilly’s End once occupied.