The Scarlet Plague 1

Author's Note: Inspired by and loosely based upon the 1911/1912 (public domain) novel by Jack London. A novel well worth reading if you haven't.

When people first started talking about the new disease most everyone assumed it was just a new strain of measles. It didn't seem so bad at first, really. Everyone who was infected would just get a red rash typical of measles but without the other serious symptoms that made measles a killer.

After the rash cleared up most people went on with life as before. I remember watching the television news in Sacramento and the reporters all laughing about the 'red spots' and how it was nothing to worry about. It spread around the world like wildfire partly because of the prevalence of air travel and partly because the various health care authorities dismissed any concerns about the disease.

In three months it had spread to every corner of the globe. Even North Korea and the various bases on Antarctica reported active infections.

Still, it didn't seem a big deal. Plus there was a minority of people like myself who never caught it at all. I recall a doctor on a national news program saying that he had noticed that more young people were immune than adults much over twenty-five. He was clearly worried but the reporters dismissed his concerns.

I was at work one day when the Dean of Social Sciences dropped by my office to talk about my plans for the upcoming fall semester. We were discussing things as usual when she suddenly went quiet.

"Ann, are you okay?" I asked her.

She looked at me and the fear in her eyes was evident. "Ed, I don't feel good."

Those were her last words. I had called for help but before anyone could reach my office her face went red. And not just any red, but a bright and almost orangish red.

Scarlet would be the right description. Like a cardinal.

And then with a gasp Ann died. Just that quick.

The ambulance crew took her away and they told me it looked like a heart attack. My gut told me it was something else. I canceled my office hours for the day and went home.

There was nothing on the news but when I got on the net there were a few reports of people suddenly dying. Those initial reports were mocked and ridiculed as echoes of the people who saw a trend in "died suddenly" after the vaccination craze of the previous decade.

I was never particularly close to Ann but seeing her die right in front of me bothered me all the same. My mature response was to immerse myself in brandy and to binge watch the new 'Dirty Harry' movies.

Clint Eastwood had passed away years before but he was alive again in the AI-created movies and he was quite popular. The movies were filled with action as 'Harry' took on criminal hackers, Chinese spies, Russian war criminals, and the like.

I passed out halfway through "Dirty Harry Lives: Out For Vengeance".

Falling asleep on my couch was a bad idea and I woke up sore and hung over. It took me some time to get myself put back together. Breakfast and water did most of the work, along with a few old fashioned aspirin.

When I turned on the local news I got to see the anchor die live on the air. Just like Ann did. He froze as his face turned bright red and then he died. The TV station cut away to a commercial at this point.

The ridicule and mockery on the net had been replaced with genuine concern. Around the world people were dying and it turns out that people had started dying a few weeks before. The government and the media had kept it quiet. Even the major web channels had kept it quiet.

Once the veil of censorship was lifted it wasn't even a day before people connected the dots on the disease. The time between the red rash showing up and the time when the fatal scarlet facial symptom appeared was about sixty to ninety days.

A lot of people were realizing that their days were numbered and what was worse is that they knew the number.

That night I heard the first shots in the neighborhood. I didn't go outside to investigate but took it for granted that some of it was violence and some of it was suicide.

The next morning the government declared martial law effective at dusk and ordered everyone to stay at home. Anyone going outside at night would be shot without warning.

Naturally some people didn't care and a lot of police and soldiers who tried to shoot the scofflaws ended up dead when the scofflaws shot back. These people had nothing to lose and they knew it. The tapestry of law and order was unraveling in the face of imminent mortality.

Myself, I stayed home. I had a modest home in a nice enough neighborhood and unlike my fellow college professors I was adequately prepared to defend myself. And the best place for me to defend myself was at home.

At dawn I headed out to get fuel in my car and to fill up my extra cans for my generator. I stopped by the neighborhood grocery store which was still open. I collected a cart full of canned goods and dried pasta and went to pay Mr. Walker who I found dead in his chair. I left the right amount of money at the register and then went home.

Surprisingly no one had looted the store.

It was two days before the local news stopped broadcasting.

A week later the television stations were all off the air.

The net lasted longer and I watched video from around the world that documented the end.

At the end of the month the electricity went out and my generator kicked on. At this point I had plenty of fuel for it. I'd scavenged it from the abandoned cars on the side of Interstate Five (I-5 if you're a local). I'd also cleaned out what was left at Mr. Walker's store before burying him outside his store. I figured I owed it to him.

I was just shoveling the last bit of dirt when I heard a small voice.

"He was my grandfather."

I turned and saw a young boy. Dark haired and with Mr. Walker's beaky nose. The family resemblance was obvious.

"Hi, I'm Ed." I said to him.

"I'm Marty."

"What are you doing out here alone, Marty?" I asked.

He shrugged, "I was coming to get something to eat for me and my sister."

He looked at the pile of goods in the back of my car.

"Oh." Realization dawned on me that the food I'd gathered was also needed by someone else. Someone who had more of a claim to it than I did.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone else was left. Why don't you hop in and we can take these things to your place. I mean since they're already packed up may as well, right?"

"I guess." said Marty.

He was quiet as he directed me to his home. It was one of the nicer places along one of those artificial lakes. I noticed the lake was down a few feet now that no one was keeping it filled.

Marty and I unloaded the groceries at his door and he asked me where I lived before I left. I wrote down the address with directions and handed it to him before I left.

Looking back in the rear view mirror as I drove away I saw Marty's older sister come outside to help him bring everything into the house.

It was the first day of September when I smelled it. In a way I was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner.

In any case I smelled smoke. The acrid kind of smoke that announced a structure fire. The smell of burning plastic dominated the air.

Going outside I saw the plume of smoke from about a mile away. Clearly it wasn't just one structure on fire, it was several of them. And the wind direction made clear that the fire was coming my way.

I went into the house and packed up my things. At this point I had a small cargo trailer I'd taken from the local Home Depot since they didn't need it anymore and I did. My worldly possessions were soon loaded up along with the few printed pictures I had of my deceased wife.

Valerie had died long before the Scarlet Plague had reared its ugly head. She had been my high school sweetheart and we'd had a great life together before the cancer took her from me.

Her pictures and a suitcase of her clothes went into the trailer. I needed to bring something of hers with me. I couldn't just leave her things behind because it would have been like leaving her behind.

I was ready to go when I thought about Marty. Marty and his sister were in the path of the flames which were now raging.

I drove to their house and knocked on the door. I knocked a few times before Marty opened it.

"Hi." he said.

"Marty, the neighborhood's on fire and you and your sister need to get out of here. Right now. Do you kids have a car or any way to get out?"

At this point the door swept open and I got my first look at Marty's sister. Tall, trim, dark hair, blue eyes. Twenty-something. And terrified.

"There's a fire?" she asked.

"Yeah, step out here and you can see it. It's about a quarter mile from here and you've got maybe twenty minutes before your place burns down. You kids got to go!"

"Our car's electric and it's dead." she said. There was a hint of an ask in her voice.

"Fine, grab whatever you can. I've got room for you two and we've got to move!"

The flames were a block away when I drove off with the two siblings in tow.

Just as we were turning from the neighborhood onto a main street a young man with two equally young women in tow ran out in front of us. Not seeing any guns or shifty looks on their faces I stopped.

"Please take us with you! We've been trying to outrun the fire and it's catching up to us!" pleaded one of the young women.

"Hop in." I said and took off for the interstate.

The fire was getting worse and visibility was low as I drove along. I resisted the urge to drive faster and instead kept it to around forty miles an a hour. That was a safe enough speed to avoid any obstacles on the road and there were a few.

It was obvious some people had died while they were trying to flee the city back when the plague was hitting. I shook my head at the futility of trying to escape a fate that was already sealed but people aren't always rational when facing death. Wrecked cars were here and there on either side of the freeway. Some had burned while others still had their drivers slumped over at the wheel. They all appeared to have died of the plague.

Thankfully the center lanes were mostly clear save for the electric cars that had stalled out.

I thought about which way to go and for whatever reason the mountains called to me.

It seemed the rational thing to do. The valley was going to flood as soon as the rains arrived and I'd known it wasn't possible to stay there long term. Untended dams and untended flood control systems were certain to fail. My house, even had it not burned, was destined to be destroyed by inevitable flood waters.

Going west there were just more cities. As comforting as a city can be the fire we'd just escaped would have been even worse in a metropolitan area. The image of San Francisco burning crossed my mind as we drove past Auburn, California heading east.

Sam asked me where we were going.

"Lake Tahoe. It's a reliable supply of fresh water, plenty of firewood, and easy access to Carson City and Reno for supplies. Where I have in mind should suit us all just fine if no one's there."

As we drove I got to know my passengers. Marty and his sister Maddy. Sam and his girlfriend Georgia and her college friend Abby.

I got to hear their stories. Tragic tales of friends and family dying. Sam, Georgia, and Abby told me their harrowing story of driving home from school in Los Angeles and being shot at along the way by law enforcement, soldiers, and outright criminals. They'd made it to Stockton when their electric car died and then came the rest of the way on bicycles they found in a store.

Interstate Eighty turned out to be a good choice. The road was mostly clear save for a massive pile-up just east of Colfax. The mass of metal would have been impassable save for the fact that it had happened beneath an underpass. I took the exit and stopped at the stop sign. Years of habit demanded that I look both ways before proceeding and I did. I got back onto the freeway and carried on.

We made Truckee and got off the Interstate. The town was abandoned and aside from Truckee police department cars deployed at either end of the town there were no cars on the streets. Apparently they'd done a great job of enforcing martial law.

I stopped right in the middle of the road in the downtown and invited everyone to take a break. Marty went right to a candy shop and opened the door. His sister followed. Sam and Georgia walked off in a different direction. Abby just stayed with me.

"English professor. huh?" she asked.

"Well, at least I used to be." I replied.

She snorted a little laugh, "I'm going to skip my finals this semester if you don't mind."

I laughed, "Me, too. Sweetie, me too."

After maybe ten minutes everyone came back to the car as if on cue. Marty had collected a treasure in candy and Maddy had even more. Sam and Georgia came back with cases of Spam from a cafe. It all went in the trailer and then off we went.

It wasn't even an hour when we arrived at our destination. Just as I had hoped the "For Sale" sign was still posted outside the estate just south of Tahoe City.

Before the world had ended I'd seen a video online advertising the lakeside estate, its numerous amenities, and its fireproof construction.

The gate was opened after Sam figured out the manual release. I drove inside and and then Sam secured the gate behind me.

The estate had a main house and three guest houses. The garage had several vehicles in it along with snowmobiles. And the boat house had two boats.

Sam and I found the generator shack and I was pleased to find the massive fuel tank filled to the brim with clean burning diesel. The place was overkill with solar power, a massive bank of batteries, the diesel generator, and several other generators as well. As advertised, it was the place where you could sit out an apocalypse in comfort.

Only thing is I wasn't going to fork over the requisite eighty million dollars for the place. Not that the previous owners were alive to care anyway.

I took up in one of the guest houses, Sam and Georgia in the main house, Abby took one of the places, and then Marty and Maddy in the last one.

That night we gathered in the main house and enjoyed a nice dinner together before retiring.

The next day Sam, Marty, and myself explored the neighborhood and found no signs of life. The homes were all intact and we found some decent supplies. One place had a walk-in freezer that was still running on solar and batteries and it had a king's ransom in beef and other meats in it.

I hadn't seen a piece of steak in ages thanks to the ban on beef cattle some years before. Global warming had been the 'cause du jour' and cattle had to be banned because they farted. People thought this sacrifice on their part would save the world.

And they died anyway.

That night I enjoyed a thick, prime rib steak for the first time in forever. It was amazing!

None of the kids had ever tasted beef and at first they all stuck their noses up at the notion of eating a food they had been indoctrinated into hating. The scent of the grilled meat soon changed their minds and their previous notions were cast aside.

It pained me to suggest it, but we needed to cut down the tall, ancient trees around the estate.

My reasons were sound. Even though the entire estate was fireproof it wasn't sturdy enough to survive the impact of one hundred and fifty foot tall trees.

Over the next few days we felled every tree that was a threat to any part of the estate. I knew how to do this from growing up in Oregon and Sam was a quick learner. After that followed another week of cutting up the trees for firewood, a chore that was made easier with the chainsaws and log splitters we found at one of the nearby homes.

When the work was done the estate was now safe from falling trees, we had enough firewood for a couple years, and the threat of a forest fire damaging the estate was also ruled out. The place may have been fireproof but why push our luck, right?

At night we had been practicing discipline with the lights. The likelihood of a threat was small but it made sense to not announce ourselves too loudly.

One particularly clear night I hiked up the nearby hill and from there looked out over the lake. Off in the direction of Crystal Bay on the old state line I could see a light. I lifted my binoculars and made it out to be a fire on the shoreline.

I shared this information with the group and then Sam and myself planned to drive over that way to see what we could find.

The next day we took Sam's truck and drove over to where I saw the fire. It was a recently occupied home by the looks of it but no one was around. Sam and I knocked and announced ourselves before going inside.

I have to admit being captivated by a wonderful book collection.

Sam suddenly whispered, "Ed, come look. Stay quiet."

My tension level went up a lot and I came out to the kitchen where Sam was. He pointed to the floor. There was blood. A lot of blood. Whoever did the bleeding didn't survive the blood loss. No way.

A trail of blood went out the kitchen door. I followed Sam as we cautiously followed the trail to the beach. The stench of burnt human flesh was soon apparent.

"We should get the fuck out of here." said Sam.

I was about to agree when we were interrupted.

"Who are you?" said the skinny kid aiming a shotgun at us.

We both put up our hands, "I saw the fire last night and wanted to say hi. Don't see many people lately, right?"

"Are you armed?" he asked.

"No, not at all. Why would we be armed?"

"I guess." he said as he lowered the shotgun. "I'm Aaron."

"Sam and Ed." I said as I gestured at Sam and myself.

"What happened with the blood and the body, if you don't mind me asking?"

The shotgun nudged up for a moment. "He tried to kill me."

"Ah." I said.

The conversation that followed was both cursory and brief and then Sam and I excused ourselves while Aaron cautiously watched us depart. On the way out of the house we saw some pictures hanging in the foyer.

When we were safely out of range I said to Sam, "That family had a daughter. If the father was immune then the daughter probably was too."

Sam took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced at me. "That's my take on it, too. I have an idea."

Sam explained his idea to me before using a small radio to let Georgia know we'd be back late.

We drove to Kings Beach, about a mile or so away, and parked the truck in front of an abandoned home where it was unlikely to be noticed. Sam threw some pine needles onto it to make it look like it had been there a while.

And then he reached into the tool box behind the cab and pulled out two nasty looking but small rifles with short barrels. Both of them had suppressors attached to them. It crossed my mind that they were probably illegal and then I squashed that thought for obvious reasons.

Sam told me he'd found a small arsenal of these weapons in a house nearby to our place and he'd kept it to himself so as not to upset anyone. The ladies, you see, were not much into guns. Truth be told, neither was I. Not until now at least.

He showed me how to use it and then we walked back to where we'd seen Aaron. But by a completely different route. We stayed quiet the whole walk partly not to give ourselves away but mostly because of the gravity of what we might have to do.

As we were walking along it occurred to me how quiet the world had become. Our footsteps were the loudest thing going on. The small chirps of small birds seemed to be loud. Insects could be heard in the overgrown grass. The typical sounds of civilization were utterly and completely absent. No aircraft flying overhead, no cars on the nearby highway, no sounds of life from homes and businesses, no boats loudly roaring around on the lake. The sounds of crows feasting on something a mile away was now the loudest thing we could hear.