Last Woman Read online

  I don’t know why, but I felt really bad. Whatever took their lives did so while they diligently held their posts. Holding their jobs, serving their country until the very last second.

  Taking a second, I walked to each of them and lifted the covers over their heads. It was something respectful I could do for them. At least they weren’t part of a huge mound of bodies. Dumped there and forgotten. They weren’t, to me, a number, a nameless person. In fact, they both still had on their military jackets, names clear on the chest.

  Stevens. Wilkes.

  As I turned, I saw the desk more clearly, a radio on top and a clipboard with a two inch thick stack of papers.

  Answers.

  Or so I thought.

  A man’s wristwatch sat on top of that clipboard just above the writing on the plain white paper.

  “Unable to continue. Please give this to my mom. Wilkes. May 3.”

  May 3rd?

  I lifted the sheet to see what was written next. It was figures and charts, things I couldn’t make heads or tails out of, except one thing.

  Filled to capacity – May 1. Awaiting Cleansing orders.

  Apparently, Wilkes and Stevens awaited those orders that never came.

  I lifted the wristwatch, an older watch, wind up. It showed evidence of wear and tear, discoloration from the years. As my fingers grazed it, I felt the engraving on the back. It was a ‘Happy Anniversary’ engraving with a date from over twenty years earlier. An old watch, maybe it belonged to Wilkes' father. Turning the watch my eyes went directly to the date. May 5th. At the most they had been dead for two days.

  No sounds emerged from the radio. I lifted it from the base, played with the top knobs until I heard a hiss of static.

  I depressed the side button, "Hello?”

  Static.

  “Anyone there?”

  Hiss.

  How many times did I turn the channel button? Calling out. No response.

  Oh, my God. What was happening?

  It was May 5th.

  Wait. I pressed my memory. The accident was on February 1st. A date painfully embedded in my soul. The trial … April 2nd. What day did Christine and Amber take me out? I had been recluse for weeks, drinking myself to oblivion. Consuming so much alcohol on a daily basis, I didn’t think I knew what sober was anymore.

  Tax day.

  April 15th.

  My God, I lost three weeks. Not only did I wonder how I lost three weeks, I wondered how that many people died that quickly.

  It had to be war, like I thought previously. And unfortunately, I was in a section of the city that was evacuated.

  Only the dead remained.

  I walked from the tent, grabbing my half-finished bottle of water and sipped it as I walked.

  Thinking I just needed to step out more, look further than the confines of the stadium grounds, maybe I would see something.

  A sign perhaps. Surely if they evacuated there would be signs.

  The stadium was close to the river and I could feel the breeze coming from it along with a stench.

  Walk toward the river, look for the bridges. Quarantines, movement, something would be on one of the bridges.

  Find a direction.

  Those were my thoughts.

  I didn’t make it far. Only far enough to see the river, and I knew, whatever happened was bigger than a section of the city. Bigger than just a stadium filled with bodies.

  It was evident by thousands of bodies, an endless flow that carried downstream with the current of the river.

  5. Watching and Learning

  I sat on the steps of the amphitheater, sipping my water and eating creamed chicken from an MRE as I watched the bodies float down the river.

  It was surreal, as if a dream that really wasn’t happening.

  The bodies didn’t stop. Once in a while they thinned out, a single body here and there, as opposed to groups, but they kept coming. Where from?

  Leaving the city and getting out of the death was foremost on my mind. Somehow, I was left there in a place that was completely dead. Not a sound. No birds, no dogs, nothing.

  I knew that it had been at least days since I had some sort of nourishment pumped in me via IV and if I were to get out; I needed to get some strength. That began with rehydrating,

  My headache started to subside. I attributed that to the water.

  Before taking my seat on those steps, I returned to the tent. There were answers there; I just had to decipher them.

  I remembered the duffle bag, and I went to retrieve that along with the clipboard, radio and watch.

  Opening that duffle bag was like discovering a gold mine. There were pants in there, a tee shirt, socks, and shaving kit. Wilkes had the smaller of the boots and I took them.

  Before getting into the clothes, I took his bar of soap and stepped into the fountain. The water was cold and sort of clean. It took my breath away, but I got used to it and eventually submerged myself. I know the water was old, but compared to what collected on my body, it didn’t matter.

  I honestly felt like the skin of my body absorbed that fountain water, it refreshed me much like a shower used to do after a hangover.

  I dressed in the clothes that were too big for me, but it was better than being naked. It was on my initial examination of the truck that I spotted the MRE’s, and blankets. There weren’t many MRE’s, and I would learn from a simple glance at the clipboard that earlier on, people came there for food. It was a distribution and drop off center.

  I took a blanket, the remaining MREs I’d save for when I left the city. But for the moment, I needed to get enough strength to leave that particular area.

  Blanket draped over me, eating my food, I watched the bodies. Everything that transpired, everything that brought me to that particular moment on the steps of the amphitheater was a mystery I needed to unravel.

  The clipboard was a start. The last page was the earliest date.

  Signed by Stevens, an arrival report dated April 20th.

  Once I had my strength, I truly believed my memory of the missing days would come to me. At least bits and pieces.

  I stayed on the steps until the sun started to set, it was just before seven. I made sure I wound the watch; I didn’t want that to die.

  It was going to be dark and there didn’t seem to be power anywhere, to me, it would be too dark to travel.

  Though feeling a bit more hydrated and no longer hungry, I still felt weak.

  I made my way back to the abandoned military supply truck, climbed in the front, shut and locked the doors.

  I’d rest there for the evening and read from that clipboard until I was finished or fell asleep, learning all that I could. After all, what else was there to do?

  Then in the morning, I’d gather only what I needed and could carry and I’d find my way out. I may have been alone in that part of the city, but there was no way, no how, that I was completely alone.

  I was alive; others had to be as well. No matter how many bodies piled up in the stadium or floated down the river, it wasn’t conceivable that I was the only one who remained. I was convinced of that. Convinced there was help and others out there, I just needed to get out of the section of the city and across the river to find them.

  6. Slight Remembrance

  I’d be lying if I said my own thoughts didn’t scare me. I created something that wasn’t there, noises that didn’t exist, and shadows that were impossible.

  Locked in the cab of that truck, I lost count of how many times I turned the interior light on and off. Society put the crazy thoughts in my head. Movies to be exact. Not that I was a fan, but I had seen the movies, laughed them off and dismissed them. But truth be known, a part of me did fear seeing a staggering recently risen person out for my blood. Or even a crazed virus infected person racing madly toward me with no regards to their own pain.

  Although if the dead were to rise, I would have been corned beef hash having woken up amongst thousands of bodies.

  I
tried to get some sleep, but that wasn’t happening. I wasn’t feeling well at all. My legs were weak, my stomach cramped and I swam in nausea. It had to be from eating. My system wasn’t processing it. I hadn’t a clue when they dumped me in the pile.

  I was still trying to figure out how that happened. Apparently, by the mark on my hand and also the bend of my arm, I was receiving medical attention.

  What turned? What made them think I was dead? Maybe they didn’t know, didn’t check or even cared. I was one less person to care for and deal with. Get rid of me, toss me, I wasn’t going to survive. No one would know anyhow.

  Sitting there in the truck, juggling between trying to sleep, jumping in fear, and reading the notes of the soldiers, I started to recall that night. That last night with Christine and Amber.

  I wasn’t on a downer that night, I was in my new state, comfortably numb, lacking emotions and not really caring if I lived or died. How ironic, considering I was struggling to survive since I rolled from the heap of bodies. Wanting to live. How long I’d be that way, remained to be seen.

  That night though, I was already drinking when they arrived. I wasn’t drunk, not by a long shot. My steady diet of bourbon made me feel invincible to the stuff and almost as if I built up an intolerance to getting good and drunk.

  Christine made me laugh. She always did. Perhaps that was why I avoided talking to her over the phone or seeing her since the accident. Amber was solid and motherly, she fed into my depression. Not Christine, she didn’t even need to try and she’d make me laugh. She was that person that lit up a room, just by walking in. Her sarcastic humor, witty one liners. She didn’t need to try, she was a natural and I just didn’t want any part of smiling.

  We hit the hibachi place, I barely ate, but did about four shots of Saki and then we went to our favorite hangout. A lot of younger people, and we enjoyed their energy and antics.

  But on that night, the typical Saturday night ‘having a blast’ crowd was thin.

  There were tables, lots of tables.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. “It’s dead in here tonight.”

  “News is saying stay inside.” Amber said.

  “Oh my God, please. It’s the flu.” Christine snipped. “The flu. This happens like every five years, they act like this is the big one. Remember SARS?”

  “MERS, too,” Amber added.

  “And don’t forget the great return of The Swine Flu.” Christine poured me a drink from the pitcher.

  “I got my shot.” Amber stated. “But that was in November.”

  Christine laughed about that for some reason. A forty year old woman shooting alcohol from her nostrils in a snort of a laugh. “It’s not even cold and flu season.”

  The flu.

  I know I didn’t have it, not that night. What happened to me had to simply be alcohol poisoning. I overdid it. The room started to spin, my hands went numb and despite what I thought I was saying, what came from my mouth was only a jumbled mess.

  But it wasn’t the flu. Not then anyhow.

  Other bits and pieces of memory came back to me. Coming to here and there, never for long.

  “She’s showing signs of the flu.”

  “How can she have the flu, she’s been in the hospital.” Then whoever said that … coughed.

  “And you need to ask?”

  Cough.

  But what difference did it make if I had the flu?

  Was that even possible? That something so strong could bring a city to its knees? The last I heard we hadn’t even had a case of the new flu in America.

  The rational person in me couldn’t fathom that some flu caused thousands of bodies to float down a river. It was the same rational side that insisted the dead weren’t rising and I was out of my mind for thinking about it.

  No, it was something else. I had all those reports and notes from Wilkes, I just had to read through them and make heads or tails out of them.

  I wouldn’t believe it until I had to. What occurred in my city, in my mind, was a single event. It had to be, because the prospect of anything greater than that was too frightening for me to think about facing.

  7. Company of Strangers

  It was the longest night of my life. Perhaps because I went into the truck before the sun had set. Afraid to leave and venturing out only to use the portajohn.

  I didn’t hear any crickets or cicadas, only the buzz of flies. They didn’t sleep. And as the night grew darker, the moon hidden by the clouds, the flies swarmed to the light of that truck, covering the windshield.

  I’d smack my hand against it, they’d buzz away but would return shortly after.

  It became tiresome trying to read those reports when the first one was at the bottom of the stack. I spent time shuffling the papers, putting them in chronological order from top to bottom. The only thing that remained in the same spot was the note that Wilkes wrote about getting his watch to his mother.

  I left that on top. To me that was heartbreaking, knowing that the young man, even in his illness, at the end of his life, was thinking about his mother.

  How would his mother feel knowing her child was sick and there was nothing she could do? As a mother myself, I took some sort of comfort in the fact that my own son and daughter, my own husband didn’t have to face the horrors of whatever wiped out our city.

  His name was Jason Wilkes, and he and countless others kept me company in the truck all night.

  Jason, whether he was in charge or not, signed each and every report.

  SSG Jason A. Wilkes. Whatever the ‘SSG’ meant, I didn’t know and it didn’t matter. To me he was Jason Wilkes.

  His wallet was in his duffle bag. He was thirty-one years old, brown hair, blue eyes, lived in North Carolina, his license was expiring in a month and it looked by the picture as if he had a daughter.

  One government issued credit card and a wallet with three dollar bills and jammed packed with useless receipts.

  Well, not useless. They told me about him. Where he ate, what he bought, where he was. I looked at each one of them, trying to understand the man who thought about his mother when he was at death’s door. The man who took time every day, several times a day to fill out reports and make notations. The young man who had such a hard job.

  He not only noted rations, but he and the other soldier, Stevens, were the men of the dead.

  There was more at that desk than just reports. Off to the side of the desk, stacked up were boxes of tags. Blank tags, like the one on my wrist.

  Jason probably filled it out.

  More than that, next to the desk were boxes of Wallets and billfolds, identifications cards secured with rubber bands. All items retrieved from the deceased as they were banished from their names and given a number.

  Because none of the credit cards or cash were touched in the wallets, I assumed Jason Wilkes was ambitious. Perhaps he was intending to use the identification cards and licenses to write down and record all the names of the dead. Or maybe even family notifications. Whatever the reasons, boxes were there, and I grabbed one to rummage through.

  I leafed through each wallet, each license, taking my time, and looking at them. It wasn’t just something to do, it was my homage. It was what needed to be done.

  I’d lift a license, look at the picture. “Theresa Lange. I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

  Next.

  “William Jameson. I’m sorry for what you went through.”

  Every license in that box.

  Every piece of identification represented a body that was part of a huge mound inside that stadium. But unlike me, they didn’t sit up and say, “I’m alive.”

  Their light of existence was over, snuffed out and reduced to the desecration of a mass grave of countless dead.

  Was that who they were? Did they deserve that?

  No.

  For their families, for them, and their suffering, even if it was only me doing it, for one moment they weren’t a casualty. They were more than a body in a
pile, more than a number, they were a person with a face, a life, and they were being acknowledged and remembered.

  8. The Focus

  I jolted awake from some sort of dream that immediately escaped me. Peering down to the Wilkes’ Watch it was only nine a.m. My mouth was dry and my head hurt, those were the least of my physical worries.

  I felt bad. Weak.

  My legs were rubbery and my stomach kept flopping. In my condition, I didn’t see myself walking from the city or making any great distance. Not until I got my strength back.

  Returning to the military camp was always an option, but going on the assumption that I wasn’t, I took the supplies I needed, the clipboard, and other things, and placed them in Wilkes’ duffle bag.

  It was heavy and I suppose I could have left behind some water bottles, but I didn’t know what happened to the city. Did people wipe out stores in a panic binge for survival supplies? I knew what the city was like before a snow storm, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

  I also took something else. The keys to the supply truck. While I couldn’t see myself driving it, I needed it to be an option.

  There was a bright side to the morning. Only a few bodies floated down the river. Was it the last of the bodies or were they done dumping them?

  The dark side and discouraging signs were the bridges I could see. One was completely barricaded, the other destroyed.

  To get out the city, eventually I had to cross a bridge.

  The closure of the bridges had to be on April 26th. Wilkes wrote they arrived on the 20th, and noted that they dealt with panic on the 26th when lockdown went into effect.

  Lockdown. Quarantine.

  I learned a lot about the first few days.

  Beatrice Wilson was the first body to arrive at the Stadium grave. At least I assumed that. Wilkes had etched her name with the hash tag symbol and number ‘one’ on the report that stated the arrival of the first bodies.