By the time the Plague was all done killing us off, there were just little pockets of people left, mostly on their own but in some places they were in two’s or three’s.
The soldiers who were out there with us were all kind, but they weren’t helpful in any way. The best you could get out of them was “I’m sorry, we’ll update you as soon as our command tells us” or “I’m sorry, we’re expecting new supplies to arrive any day now.” Everything they said to us always began with the words “I’m sorry.” Despite my situation, I felt bad for them. They all looked like they were just a few minutes away from panic. They all had this universal deer-in-the-headlights look when you talked to them. All they knew was what they’d been told which, from what I gathered at the time, was to guard the camp, distribute food and medicine, put down looters, rioters, or resistance, and await further orders.
The actual medical staff seemed to be a lot better off in this regard. There were any number of Army combat medics and nurses in constant motion between the cots; they had all been either bused in or flown in while Cedar City was being put together. At least, they were all there by the time Lizzy and I arrived on our school bus. They all moved from place to place with purpose. They looked like they had a mission. In those days when there were still many of us to care for, there was always one more thing to do, one more task to accomplish, one more battle to wage by the bedside. They had it together and spoke with certainty. They were resolved.
Then, as people kept dying at the same rate despite their best efforts and especially when the soldiers and medics themselves began to find themselves on their own sick cots, we all saw that certainty and resolve erode away. Despite everything that was going on, despite the never-ending fear I had in waiting for Lizzy to get sick, watching the medics and the nurses crumble was heartbreaking. We all loved them—loved them for how hard they fought for us. When they finally found themselves down on the cot among the sick, it was the sick who were reaching their hands out between wracking coughs to soothe and comfort them. Those medical people who were still on their feet began to carry the same expressions as the soldiers and the rest of us understood: there wasn’t much left to do but wait to die.
We left long before everyone died off, of course. Lots of the survivors did. Once we figured out that the soldiers were no longer confining us to the quarantine area, folks just started slipping away in little pockets. In my case, we stayed a bit longer because I was still terrified that Lizzy was going to get sick. I didn’t want to take us too far away from where all the medical supplies and people were. I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about my health, though, or what it might mean that both Lizzy and I remained healthy long after everyone else gave out. It’s like I said: she’s the reason I’m still alive. If she hadn’t been with me at that time, I think I would have just laid down on a cot and waited for my brain to turn off… or maybe grab one of the rifles from a dead soldier and turn my brain off.
So, when all the medics started dying off, I was left with a load of medical supplies that I didn’t know how to use and no one to show me. It didn’t make any sense to hang around anymore. The staff stationed with us had dropped off to a minuscule degree; I mean there were maybe one or two people left for every five sick tents. You could literally walk along column after column in the grid and not run into anyone official or in charge. More often than not, you could see people who used to be in charge lying in sick cots. There was no one running the place.
I led Lizzy to one of the supply tents (you had to lead her everywhere by that time; all she did anymore was sit quietly and stare off into the distance or just sleep) and got what seemed like plenty of supplies at the time. I grabbed a bottle of Ibuprofen, a first aid kit, and so on. I saw a bunch of other drugs and what I guess must have been antibiotics (they all had names I didn’t recognize and couldn’t pronounce, all ending in “-l-i-n”). I saw one bottle that said “Broad Spectrum” so I grabbed that. A couple of sleeping bags, a ruck from one of the soldiers that I stuffed with some MREs and a couple of bottled waters, and finally one of the soldier’s rifles. I didn’t even get any extra magazines for the rifle; I just took it with whatever it had loaded in. I didn’t know about survival or self-reliance or even bug-out bags back then. A backpack with some waters and some food seemed like it was enough.
I didn’t have much of a plan at the time outside of getting away from all the dead and dying people. Lizzy and I went back into the city to see what we could find. In the weeks that we had been restricted to the tents, Sandy and the areas around it had changed more than I would have thought possible. The quarantine was set up far away (I think twelve or fifteen miles) on the other side of the mountains from the city, so the most we ever really heard or saw was the occasional pop pop pop of gunfire at night, or perhaps a plume of black smoke rising into the sky from some undetermined place in the distance past Latimer point. It was like a whole different city when we came back to it. There were abandoned barricades everywhere and vehicles in between them, also abandoned. Shop windows all over were broken out with merchandise lying in the street. It was pretty obvious what had taken place, but I still remember how hard it was to accept what I was seeing. Riots were a thing that happened up the 15 in Salt Lake City, and they were always confined to a block or two. I couldn’t think of a single riot ever taking place in Sandy. I didn’t think our people were like that, but then I started to look closer at the businesses that had been hit, and things started to make sense. I saw the occasional TV or appliance on the sidewalk but, for the most part, grocery stores and pharmacies were gutted without exception. Other places like outdoor and sporting goods stores were also ripped wide open.
We walked through the streets for hours. Sometimes, we ran into little knots of people that looked as confused and lost as we must have appeared. We never said anything to each other. It seems crazy, but you have to understand the situation: the only supplies any of us had were what we could carry on our backs. Most of us were armed in some way. If we didn’t talk to each other, if we didn’t join up, it meant one less challenge we had to deal with. Other people meant risk. You risked getting involved with crazy or violent people, or you risked joining up with people who would need more help or more supplies than you were willing to give. You just didn’t know who they were going to be. And this was universally understood by all of us, so when we saw each other across the street, all we did was make momentary eye contact and then look down and move on in another direction.
Eventually, we came to our old apartment. The door hung open with a few strands of orange colored biohazard barricade tape trailing from the jam. I don’t know what I thought we were going to find there. The place was as ripped apart as the rest of the city. All of our things… the things that made the place our home were destroyed. The couches were ripped up. Picture frames pulled off the wall and smashed on the floor. Every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen had been upended. I picked up a chair that had been knocked over and sat Lizzy down in it. “Stay here, Mija,” I told her. She nodded and then turned her head to stare out the front door. I went down the hall to our old bedroom.