I moved back as far as I could while still able see inside the elevator when the door opened. My biggest fear was that there would be someone in the car. Dead or not really didn’t matter; either would probably mean my death. But if you had asked me at that point which I preferred, I would have said a dead body. The sight of someone stepping out, coughing and sneezing, might have been enough to give me a heart attack.
Thankfully, the car was empty. I had intended to race over right away, then use Kendal’s elevator key to put it in fire mode, which, if I remembered correctly, would send the car back to the first floor, where it would stay unless another key was used to reactivate it. But when the door opened, I froze.
“Come on,” I told myself after it closed again. “You’ve got to do this.”
I willed myself back to the call button and pushed it again, which wasn’t easy. I don’t think my hand had ever felt that heavy. As soon as the door reopened, I stepped inside, and pivoted around so I was facing the control panel. The key slipped right into the slot, but I turned it the wrong way first and all the lights inside went off. After cursing at myself, I flipped it in the other direction.
Immediately, the lights turned back on and the door started to close. I nearly panicked, thinking I was going to be trapped inside. Without thinking, I threw my arm in between the doors and broke the electronic beam. I can’t even describe the relief I felt when the doors opened again.
I jumped out, but kept a booted foot pressed against the door so it would remain open. With the alarm inside beeping, I stripped off my homemade protection suit and threw it piece by piece into the elevator car, gloves and boots last. The gear would have been nice to hold on to, but I figured I should be able to scrounge up another set if I need it, and I didn’t want to take the chance that any of the Sage Flu virus had transferred to the other stuff I was wearing.
As soon as the door was freed, it closed all the way, and the car descended back to the main lobby.
Now I am truly alone but, hopefully, safe. If that means I’m going to be the last person on Earth, I’m not sure how I feel about that. But I have to believe that if I’m able to survive, others will, too.
Of course, survival is contingent on staying away from the virus. What I don’t know — and there probably won’t be anyone who can tell me — is will I ever be able to leave the building? At some point I’ll have to, but will the virus still be active then?
I’m sure starting to wish I’d majored in biology instead of English. I tried looking for more information on the Web, but the Internet connection here at the dorm stopped working around dinnertime. I still have a Wi-Fi signal; it’s just that the main modem isn’t able to connect to anything. We’ve had problems with that modem before, so I think it probably just needs to be rebooted. The Internet should still be out there. Whether there’s any new information being posted anywhere is a whole other question.
I think the modem is located on the floor below mine. If I can work up the courage, I’ll go try to reboot it. I really need to get it working if I’m going to put together an accurate timeline of what’s been happening. I’ve been writing as much about the pandemic as I can up to this point, but most of my information has only come from what I saw on TV. I need more.
Maybe no one will ever read my history of events, but someone has to write it, right? And it’s not like I have a lot of other things keeping me busy.
To be totally honest, there’s actually a second reason to get the Internet going again. If there are other survivors, I might be able to find them online. Even if they’re halfway around the world, it would be nice to know I’m not completely on my own.
Sleep now, though. In the morning, when it’s lighter (if I can get my courage up), I’ll tackle the modem.
24
Sanjay stepped with care as he approached the back of the building. Dozens of birdcages lined the pathway, two or three chickens in each, some dead, others looking well on the way. It wasn’t the flu that was taking their lives, not directly, anyway. It was the fact they had not been fed in at least a couple of days, their owners gone.
Sanjay was tempted to pour some feed into their cages and give them fresh water, but the building needed to be checked before anything else.
“Maybe I should go in first this time,” Kusum whispered behind him.
He glared at her to let her know he was more than capable of doing it himself. She merely rolled her eyes and smirked.
He couldn’t help but smile a little. He loved her smirk. He loved her eyes, rolling or not. He loved everything about her. Which was a good thing since she was now his wife. The roadside ceremony the day before had been brief. Sanjay had expected Kusum’s father to protest, but with death all around them, maybe it wasn’t so surprising that his new father-in-law actually blessed their union.
The back door was unlocked. When he pulled it open, he braced himself for the now familiar stench of death, but there was none. Either whoever lived there was still breathing, or they had died somewhere else, a promising possibility.
He stepped across the threshold. “Hello?” he said. “Hello, is anyone here?”
As he moved farther inside, Kusum followed.
“Hello?” he said again. He was just turning back to her to say he didn’t think anyone was there, when they heard the sound of movement coming from somewhere deeper in the building.
“I will check,” Kusum whispered, pushing past him.
“No.” He tried to grab her, but she slipped by. If he could have used both hands, maybe he would have stopped her, but his left arm was still wrapped to his chest, keeping the shoulder he’d dislocated four days earlier as immobile as possible. “Kusum. Come back.”
He knew the second he spoke he shouldn’t have wasted his breath. Kusum had changed since the outbreak started. Her good qualities were all still there: her playfulness, her smile, her kind words. But she was no longer the somewhat timid person he’d first met. She saw herself now as his equal, and acted as such. That wasn’t the way things had been in the world they’d grown up in, where it wouldn’t have mattered whether she was actually his equal or not. Stupid times, he knew now. In this new world they had entered, they couldn’t afford to continue old, useless customs. She was his equal, and he was glad for it.
This, of course, didn’t mean she should have gone first.
The building was a maze of rooms and hallways, some piled high with boxes and others with desks and beds. The sign on the road leading to the property had indicated it was a school.
The night after Sanjay had been reunited with Kusum and her family — and, surprisingly, with the group of survivors her family had collected on the way — they had discussed the need to find shelter someplace away from any large population center. There, they could wait out the outbreak and make plans for what they should do next.
Finding the right place, though, was the problem. They drove farther inland, away from Mumbai, in the truck Kusum’s family had arrived in, thinking they might be able to find a farm or small village they could essentially take over. Unfortunately, everywhere they checked was already occupied by those who’d succumbed to the virus.