Plague: Death was only the beginning! Read Online Free PDF Page B

countless times each day. “Just be sure to be back by tomorrow night or the captain will be on all of our asses. Also, no traveling farther than thirty miles until further notice. They don’t want anyone messing up the quarantine zone.”
    “No problem, Bob! We booked a hotel downtown, and we’re planning on a steak for supper.”
    “Well, enjoy it! Those damn MREs suck the big one! Later!” the guard said and motioned them through the gate with a wave of his hand. He never saw them again.
    By the next morning, they were almost 400 miles away. Sam drove the whole way as his partner had slept in the back seat all night. Finally stopping at a truck stop, he parked the car next to the restaurant and turned around to wake his friend. Gordy’s eyes were wide open and blood red. He hadn’t felt the bite at his ankle the day before as they picked up a body covered in a sheet that lay in the alleyway behind a large hotel. Less than sixteen hours later, he had died of Septicemic plague an hour before Sam pulled into the parking lot.
    Sam screamed as he realized the truth of his situation, and he got out of the car and ran into the surrounding neighborhood. Gordy’s body would sit for almost a day before the smell of decay started to warn others that something was amiss. The police were finally called, and they opened the door to a wave of decay- and plague-filled air.
    Officer Grimes reached inside and pulled out Gordy’s wallet and quickly discovered that he was from New York City.
    “Back! Everyone get back! They might have the plague!” he shouted to the small group that had gathered to see the sights. Unknowingly, they were all exposed as the warm air of the car had acted like an incubator and the disease spread rapidly.
    Sam had found a hotel nearby and stayed in his room until fate caught up with him. The hotel maid service found him at about the same time that the police officer had opened the car door. In both cases, the exposed air helped spread the disease into the crowd that formed around each location. As the travelers and truckers were already racing toward distant locations when death interrupted this journey, the carriers spread it across the country in a matter of days.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
    “Beware of strangers bearing gifts as you may not want them!”
    -Thoughts from the Author
     
    Chapter 9
    Worldwide Deaths: 1432
     
    Jim and Kim Rains of Barstow, California had just finished their daily radio contact with Tom in Missouri when they received news of an outbreak of plague in both Oakland and Los Angeles, CA. The news report stated one case was a truck driver who collapsed at a restaurant and died, and the other was a young couple with a small boy who had just gotten home from a family trip to Chicago. A neighbor had reported that they had heard screaming coming from the small house and had run inside to find the husband and son both lying dead on the couch. The wife reported that they had stopped at a Motel 6 a few days before where a dead body had been found, but that they had been nowhere near the room. She was unaware that the same maid had cleaned their room after receiving a shot to ward off the plague. The illegal worker from Honduras had not changed her blue rubber gloves after stripping the dead man’s bed, as no one told her to do so. As a result, the dried plague droplets quickly spread throughout the motel and beyond.
    The kindly neighbor had pulled the screaming woman out of her house and next door while she called 911 to report a death. The woman had not been following the news reports out of New York as she found it too depressing. Covering the woman’s shoulders with a quilt to control her shivering, she put her arms around the woman and waited for the police and ambulance crew to arrive.
    Jim and Kim decided that they had waited long enough and began their own packing. They had debated long and hard about whether to stay in the local area around