Page 6 of A Wilderness Within

Lincoln brushed his teeth and drank a glass of scotch from a bottle he’d found in the basement. Then he lay down in the bed beside the woman and closed his eyes.

God, he needed to sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, all he saw was Adam’s face before he pulled the trigger, and then the ruins, the bodies, the empty world left behind.

He didn’t want to think about the two graves he had dug in the frozen backyard that contained the two bodies he’d found in the car in the garage. The house’s owners had killed themselves rather than face the agony of dying from the inside out. He had cleared out the garage, carefully moved the people to the backyard, and buried them. Two simple wooden crosses marked their graves. He’d never been a religious man, but he’d looked up into the cold, wintry gray skies, listened to the sound of wind whistling down empty roads nearby, and whispered a prayer.

The home they’d left behind was a good one. Two main stories and a basement that opened up to a backyard that sloped down to a creek. It wasn’t a bad place to settle temporarily. He would have to move out eventually, but for now, he could make trips deeper into the city and still find decent supplies. He’d found his beauty, after all. She had been worth the risk. He didn’t have a clue what to do with her once she was healed, but he didn’t want to let her out of sight. It wasn’t safe out there.

Lincoln slept fitfully for a couple of hours, then headed downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a few bottles of water. When he returned, he set them by the side of the bed closest to her. The meds he’d given her would dehydrate her. Then he lay back down. Waiting. Waiting for her to wake up, waiting to fall asleep…waiting for this nightmare to end.

Nightmares had to end eventually…didn’t they?

November 2019

Caroline was trapped.

She stood in line at the Chicago O’Hare airport, trying to find out why her flight home to Joplin, Missouri, was canceled. All around her people were shuffling in lines or were camped out in the uncomfortable rows of connected airport waiting area seats. The man behind her coughed, and she winced. If she got a cold now, she would be super pissed. She’d spent the last week practically bathing in hand sanitizer at work to keep from picking up the illnesses her boss usually brought. Her advertising firm sometimes felt like a petri dish of bacteria and viruses.

Her boss, Jill, had three kids ages three, five and nine, which meant at least two or three times a year Jill became what was jokingly called by her coworkers a carrier for the “super cold” that her kids picked up at school. Caroline tended to catch them most because she worked in a small cubicle just outside Jill’s corner office. Close proximity to the boss did her in every time.

“Passengers of flight 1502 to New York, we’re sorry to inform you that the flight has been canceled. All flights to and from LaGuardia are grounded until further notice. Please see your gate attendant to schedule a new flight.” The employee who made the announcement sounded mildly stressed. Carolyn didn’t blame her. Dozens of flights had been delayed or canceled in the last three hours, and people were getting restless.

The woman in front of Caroline turned to face her.

“LaGuardia’s closed? You suppose they had a terrorist issue?” The woman slung her Prada purse over her shoulder and peeked around at the other passengers nearby.

“Could be.” Caroline set her heavy backpack down, placing her feet on either side of it while she stretched her neck. This line wasn’t moving at all, and she’d pinch a nerve in her neck if she had her backpack on for another ten minutes.

“I’ll google it.” The woman began to type on her phone. Caroline was sure the news wouldn’t report anything about a terrorist threat until it was dealt with and everyone was safe.

The woman cleared her throat, tucked a strand of hair that was threaded with silver behind her ears, and the color drained from her face. “Oh…”

Caroline leaned forward, worry starting to form knots in her gut. “What is it?”

“Um…” The woman scrolled down on her phone, her lips moving slightly as she silently read the article. She slowly raised her head, her gaze sweeping the somewhat cantankerous crowd of people around them.

Caroline reached out and touched the woman’s arm, trying to get her attention. “Is it bad?” The touch seemed to electrify the woman. She pulled away from Caroline, grabbed her bag and purse, and abruptly left the line at the gate. She practically sprinted down the terminal and vanished.

“So much for airport camaraderie,” Caroline muttered, but her chest was tight with worry. The woman was clearly spooked by something.

Caroline inched forward in the line, nudging her backpack forward with her boot before she retrieved her own cell phone so she could look up LaGuardia on the internet. The headline that jumped out on the first page of results startled her:

Man on Paris Flight Collapses at LaGuardia Airport. Signs of Infectious Virus Reported.

She read further on, seeing that the terminal was closed and a medical team had been brought in to examine the man. The passengers at the terminal were currently quarantined. Caroline scrolled past some annoying pop-up ads about kitchen utensils. The rest of the article discussed how the airport was going to close down the other terminals, and all flights would soon be grounded. There were no comments as to what the virus was.

Maybe it was Ebola? The 2014 scare had been a little frightening. A girl who worked with Caroline had been on a cruise with a nurse who had treated an Ebola victim in Dallas. The nurse had then gone on her vacation. Once it was revealed she was on a cruise ship, the CDC had contacted the ship and requested the nurse quarantine herself inside her room. The entire ship panicked, but the cruise company offered free drinks and when that didn’t work, a full refund to all passengers. The Ebola scare ultimately calmed down and seemed to be neutralized, at least in the United States.

Caroline wondered if the man in New York who had fallen ill had come from Sierra Leone, Ghana, or South Africa. It shouldn’t be cause for concern, though. They’d stopped him from getting on another flight, so he shouldn’t have infected anyone, right? Unless…

Caroline didn’t want to think about “unless,” but her brain couldn’t stop itself.

What if it was already too late? What if he had met and touched a bunch of other passengers on his flight, and then they had boarded planes an hour or so before this man collapsed? Those other people could be going anywhere.

The terminal suddenly seemed very stifling. The man behind her coughed again, and Caroline fought to banish a wave of panic.

“Next!” the gate attendant called, Caroline rushed forward, desperate to get away from the man behind her.

“Name?” the woman asked.

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