		The Great Death Series
		Grappling with Survival
		Crumbly Writer All rights reserved © 2012


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10: The Man Who Wouldn’t Quit

“Are you sure you really want to go through with this?” David asked Betty one last time. Beside them, Monique’s face remained impassive as she prepared the plasma transfer that would infect Betty with the Great Death. Something they all realized could very well kill her. “It’s not too late to back out,” he reemphasized.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ve had plenty of time to consider it and it’s something I want. I’d rather live as a social creature, unafraid to interact with other people rather than continuing to live as a hermit terrified of touching anyone.”

“OK, here it goes,” Monique said, pressing the plunger rather than waiting for them to finish debating it.

They’d enjoyed a nice breakfast but it had been awkward, as no one really knew how to respond. They each knew what was about to happen, and they didn’t quite know whether they were encouraging Betty, or saying their final goodbyes. But still, now that they were going forward with it, everyone was in the living room—crowded with equipment—watching what was happening.

“I’ll be here for you,” David said, squeezing her hand. He still felt she had no idea what she was getting herself into. It was hard to describe just how agonizing the process was to someone who hadn’t suffered through it themselves.

“I know, and that’s what I’m counting on,” she replied as she squeezed his hand in return. “But do me a favor; don’t bother with the damn gloves. If I’m going to risk death by doing this, it won’t make any difference, and I don’t want my last memories being separated from my friends by a layer of protective latex.”

David simply smiled and pulled the gloves off, glad to be rid of them himself. Though he knew they were necessary for the others, he still found it distracting having to wear surgical gloves and a face mask in his own house. They’d given up on the face masks, finally convinced their modified version of the viruses weren’t strong enough to be transmitted via the air.

“There, that’s much better,” Betty answered, smiling up at David. As nice as it was seeing her looking so happy it almost broke his heart as she stared up into his eyes, blinking nervously as she reveled in the reassuring calm of his eyes.

As much as she trusted him to protect and watch out for her, David felt conflicted that he was purposefully infecting her with not only one, but a whole series of deadly diseases, any one of which was an almost guaranteed death sentence. They’d gotten lucky in only one instance, and now she trusted that he could carry her across this potential minefield without tripping a single one.

“This will take a little while, and we’ll inject additional doses just after lunch and dinner,” Monique informed her. “We’ll keep it up as long as we can, but that’ll mean we’ll have to restrain you at some point. From what David tells us, patients tend to begin thrashing and shivering violently, which could dislodge the needle. I know that David would rather you have the freedom to move about, but this will allow us to maintain the treatment to see if it lessens either the symptoms or duration of the disease.”

“Do we know how long it’ll be before I get sick?” Betty asked.

“It’s varied over time as the plagues have become more efficient. However, we’ve only encountered people after they’d already developed symptoms. We don’t know how long it’ll take to cover the initial infection process.”

“Mattie got sick pretty quickly after her first transfusion, running a fever and feeling bad almost immediately, and was in serious condition about eight or ten hours later,” David told her. “I’d assume it’s going to be close to that for you.”

“Based on that assumption, we’ll transfer you to the trailer outside just after lunch,” Monique continued. “We want to allow you to spend as much time as you can with everyone here, but it’ll require you to wear a mask while here to prevent air-borne contaminants.”

“Who’ll be in the trailer with me?” Betty asked.

“It will mostly be Alice and I,” David answered. “Monique will be there mostly to observe, although she’ll also handle any medical conditions that arise. But in truth, that shouldn’t involve much.”

“Our hearts will be with you, even if we can’t be there physically,” Greg told her, speaking for both him and Melissa, who stood beside him, watching with a heartfelt tear, nodding eagerly to his words.

“What about Mattie? Will she be there as well?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Mattie responded. “Having gone through this so recently, I’ll definitely be there to help you through it. I think you’ll need all the support you can get.”

“Good, that makes me feel better,” Betty said with a gentle smile, her confidence seemingly in counterpoint to what was approaching. Instead it seemed to reflect a sense of relief, as if by undergoing this ordeal, she’d finally be joining a family again.

________________________

Following a dinner marked by worried concern and heartfelt emotions—during which everyone had kept their distances and Betty wore surgical gloves and a face mask to protect the others—David finally helped her out of her chair and escorted her out to the trailer.

“I want to do it on my own,” she stressed, as she walked gingerly since she was already feverish and trembling. “I don’t want everyone’s last memories of me being of a sick invalid. I’d rather they remember me being a brave soul who undertook this of her own volition.”

David walked patiently behind her, never once trying to steady her, despite her stumbling several times. “You’re doing fine,” he insisted, clearly lying in preparation of what would be several days of repeated lies. He encouraged her to struggle on, telling her she was doing fine, looked better, and was only a little further. Everyone knew he was lying, but no one dared say anything. It was clear he needed to prepare himself to lie convincingly over the next several days.

Reaching the trailer, Betty saw what she’d ignored until then. Her pulse quickened as what she saw illustrated what lay ahead of her. Tom arranged the bed, using supplies taken from the gurneys David rescued from the hospital. The central bed now had restraints, individual ones for strapping down each arm and leg, and two to restrain the entire body, one for each the upper and lower body. However, after pausing briefly, she climbed into the bed and allowed everyone to prepare her and the IV.

Instead of allowing her to dwell on her fear, David repeated what he’d done before. He started telling her stories, each one told quietly in a sing-song cadence that consoled and made her feel protected. He described how he and his ex-wife Linda had met, dated and fallen in love, followed by how he felt when he first beheld his beautiful daughter. He proceeded to tell her how that wonderful marriage fell apart when he gave up his successful career, spending his savings building this ‘monstrosity in the woods’, as she’d called it.

Instead of seeming insulting or demeaning, the childlike singing instead came across as comforting, letting her know she could surrender herself to his care, much as she had as a child. It was strangely symbolic, but seemed to work on a primitive level. She welcomed it, focusing on the reassuring cadence rather than on how sick she really was.

He skipped over the details of struggling to build it on his own over the years, helped only by subcontractors and Alice on her bi-weekly visits. Instead he resumed when the meteor shower which ushered in their new world started. He explained how he took in his friends, and how Linda had shown up in the dead of night, bringing several of Alice’s school friends. He repeated Alice’s explanation for why Linda’s feelings had changed, and how his new girlfriend had gotten them back together to ‘work out their feelings for each other’, and how he’d fallen back in love with her, yet remained cautious, not willing to sacrifice his new love of Ellen for her.

Monique thought he was wasting his time. It was clear Betty had already lost consciousness, and she assumed he was merely consoling himself. He ignored her non-responsiveness, continuing to sing his tale as if speaking to an imaginary child.

He continued, though, explaining how Ellen had arranged for him to sleep with one after another of the other adult women in the house, each one under his protests. He recounted how she argued that they needed it to feel protected and to be a part of the new household, and how she was doing it to ‘keep peace in the house’. But he also detailed how he’d come to love each and every one of them.

Finally he described the struggle they each had trying to keep the Great Death at bay and how each had fallen sick. How Ma, Bob’s wife, had died far away, removed from their support; how Linda, Alice’s mother, had sacrificed herself to protect both Alice and him, begging David to take care of her and everyone else in the house; and how Maggie had become infected and died trying to save Linda’s life. He recounted how Alice’s self-absorbed friend, Caitlyn, had committed suicide in the middle of the night, no longer able to take the deaths and the overwhelming sense of dread, and how he, Alice and Ellen all curled up in that very trailer, each slipping away, one by one, sure that they’d suffered their last.

What Monique didn’t realize however, and what no one besides those who had gone through it themselves could, was that Betty never actually lost consciousness, or at least not completely. Instead it was like a fitful sleep. Her mind would drift off, only to snap awake mere moments later, never quite waking her up or causing her to jump, but just enough to allow a little perception to bleed in.

That was where the magic of David’s approach came in. His childish singing allowed his words to bypass the logic centers of the left hemisphere of the brain—which had largely shut down as the brain reverted to sustenance mode—allowing them to reach the right hemisphere where the emotional centers were. He thus conveyed both the meaning—broken by her flittering consciousness—and the emotional support. As a result, it gave Betty an emotional life-rope to cling to. Whenever her mind would awaken, she’d clutch onto the song, clinging to the words she could distinguish, forcing her to struggle to remain active rather than allowing herself to merely drift in and out of consciousness, awakening only to suffer momentary pain and confusion.

While the words seemed to convey depressing tales of woe, what seemed to reach Betty’s brain, just as it had Alice’s before her, was an uplifting tale of hope and perseverance over adversity; that it’s only by soldiering on that one survives, and it’s the struggle that carries one through, and not simple dumb luck. And it was that, her struggling to remain mentally alert, that allowed her body to marshal its attack, while the song relaxed her enough to allow the body to do its work.

When he finished the tale, detailing how he’d recovered alone, then discovering how Alice, who’d seemed to be dead, had recovered as well, his voice was pretty well worn out, but the hours had passed. Alice and Mattie had been keeping him supplied with water to maintain his voice, using separate glasses for him and Betty—Monique, who remained quietly in the background, had her own water bottle. Alice, having heard this whole spiel before, and not wanting to ever forget it, managed to record it with a series of smart phones set up in relay. After instructing Mattie and Monique how to operate them, she left them alone in order to sleep so she could relieve her father later.

Mattie, who heard the same recitation during her own illness, listened attentively since she’d been feverish for much of it, slipping in and out of consciousness. She wanted to remember each and every detail, since it helped her through her own illness.

It wasn’t just the stories, but the whole process. David climbed into the bed with Betty, cradling her shaking form and comforting her as he sang to her, encouraging her, telling her she would recover and had to pull through for each of them. Each time she’d begin shaking or pass out from the horrendous pain, he’d gently rock her until she recovered, then continue with the tale, encouraging her to continue on the long journey with him.

But after he completed the tale, he reverted to humming, his voice largely worn out, though he managed to save it to encourage her when she needed it throughout the night; getting her to focus through the pain, to resist the urge to surrender, to rally like those before her had tried to do, realizing just how important this was, not just to him, but to everyone who’d gone on before her.

Monique, who’d never heard the tale or witnessed the procedure before, was astonished, even though she didn’t understand the full impact of the act. She saw it simply as a supreme act of love, rather than as a successful treatment option. She’d allowed Debbie to talk her into returning, and staying, because she’d been fascinated by the strange man, but here she got to see a part of him she’d never imagined. She’d been moved when he’d dedicated himself so completely, caring for a dying girl he’d only know for a number of days, but hadn’t realized the depth of his commitment. And that’s exactly what it was. She realized, listening to the story, that this was a part of him, that he felt this strongly about everyone who relied on him. That he’d do the same for anyone in the house now, and how terribly he’d suffered when each person he’d tried to protect had died, despite his best efforts to save them.

The night seemed to simultaneously race and drag by, with everyone focusing on what was happening, even as they struggled through it. Before anyone in the trailer noticed, it was already morning and Debbie and Melissa brought out breakfast, although no one beside Monique was really hungry. Alice returned, forcing her father to eat and offering to take over for him as she sent him off to rest and recuperate from what he’d been through.

It was only then, once she was sure that her father had trudged back up to the house, that Alice followed suit and did much as her father had, telling her own tale of growing up in the love of her mother and father. She did the same, singing in a low comforting voice while rocking the seemingly incoherent Betty how she’d been pulled in conflicting directions when they’d split. How her mother had railed against her father, and Linda’s attempts to yank Alice from his life, and how she’d relished the few times she could travel to his house where she was allowed to do all the things she never could at home.

She then related how she’d been on her way to visit her father when the meteor storm had begun. How they’d rescued Ellen when a stray meteor had damaged her car and she hadn’t realized the danger she was facing, huddling in her broken vehicle. She then made the story her own as she related how she’d effectively orchestrated their romance, arranging for them to be together, ignoring their fumbling efforts to spend time with each other. She then covered how they’d gathered everyone in, though she added details that no one else had suspected, like how her father had nailed drug addicts attempting to rob his friend’s store to the outside wall of his pharmacy with a nail gun, and how he’d do the same for any of those he loved.

She repeated the story of her mother bringing her friends with her to David’s mountain retreat, a place she’d never visited before, because she knew he’d know just what to do, and how he’d always known how to handle difficult situations before. She explained how she’d been pissed when she first learned that Ellen had gotten her parents back together, fearing that her mother would abandon him again when things got better, and he’d then fall apart without Ellen there to hold him together. But she explained how they’d managed to work things out, and reassure her that not only were they OK, but that they were committed to each other, to her, and to the others in the house. She went on to explain how the same thing happened time and again with the others in the house, with Alice and her friends always aware of what was going on even as they tried to hide it.

She described it in a way the listeners—lulled into a non-skeptical mindset by the calming song—could understand what each person felt and what their motivations were. Those listening felt they could understand them even if they couldn’t grasp the entire situation—merely by the way she sang the story.

Her song took on a darker tone as she related each horrible event, each terrifying death after that, but always the song remained one of hope, of enduring and of bearing true. Themes she knew would reach the seemingly unconscious Betty, even if she couldn’t understand the words themselves, and would help her continue to fight the disease instead of merely accepting whatever came. When she related how she’d finally awakened, sure everyone else was dead, only to find her father holding her, she swore she’d never be separated from him ever again, no matter what. By then her own voice was giving out, so she too fell into humming to Betty, who no one was sure was even capable of understanding anymore.

Mattie, who’d been listening attentively, was forced to take her break at that point, having listened for many long hours. She went inside where she could sleep undisturbed, leaving the others out in the trailer on their own. Tom and Debbie then came out to see if they needed assistance, and Monique, begging her own exhaustion, had left them with the tapes that Alice had recorded. They listened until David returned, then feeling it would disturb him to listen to it again, they retreated inside to share it with the others.

This went on for days. Rather than lessen Betty’s suffering, the plasma treatments seemed to intensify it somehow, and they didn’t seem to shorten it at all. But they kept it up, with either Monique or Tom injecting the needle, but leaving everything else up to either David or Alice, though Mattie handled the rest of the tasks for them; supplying them and Betty with water, fetching crackers, blankets, cleaning up the puke and keeping everything running.

It was a herculean effort on all their parts, one that was most evident when Betty finally stopped breathing, lapsing into an accepting peace. David felt her surrender and panicked, shaking the slim girl’s lifeless form until Monique pushed him back and examined her. With a look of grim sadness she stated flatly that Betty had passed away, and that they’d both be better served if he simply accepted that fact. But David refused to concede another life to the Reaper. Shoving Monique aside, he used his limited CPR training for the next five to eight minutes, struggling to save her. But it was of limited use, because she stopped breathing several times, each time her heart also stopped beating.

“You’re wasting your time,” Monique insisted. “Keeping her alive to continue suffering as she has been is simply cruel as it’s clear she’s not going to survive. Just because Mattie did is not guarantee that Betty will.”

Grumbling, David ignored her, still trying to get Betty to continue breathing on her own.

“She’s right, David,” Tom argued, having been pulled to the trailer by the excited cries by those within. Holding his mask over his face, and standing by the door to avoid contamination, it was difficult hearing exactly what he was saying. “The fact that she’s been unconscious for so long, along with her high fevers, strongly imply that she’s already suffered brain damage. Having her heart stopped for so long is only adding to it. There’s no way you can save her now, and even if you could, there’s no way she could have a meaningful life.”

“I’m NOT surrendering,” David angrily shouted, rotating between pumping Betty’s heart and breathing into her mouth, an action that Tom and Monique wouldn’t dare do for her, and why they weren’t doing this instead of him—not that they were inclined to, given their attitudes concerning her. “She trusted me to keep her safe through this, and I’m not letting her slip away simply because it’s convenient.”

“It’s not a matter of convenience,” Monique insisted. “I’ve seen this too many times in hospitals to count. After a while, one simply has to accept that you can’t change nature. You try to save someone when you can, but only if you think there’s a decent chance of success. As Tom says, even if you could succeed, all you’d do is condemn her to more suffering, and you’ll only force yourself into a situation where you’ll have to pull the plug eventually. It’s simply not worth it.”

“Damn, each time I get her heart beating again, and her breathing on her own, it stops again,” David swore, sweat beginning to fly from his forehead as he kept switching positions to try something else.

“Let me try, Dad, we can work longer if we alternate attempts,” Alice offered, but David realized that if he stopped long enough for Alice to step in, that Betty’s slim chances of recovery would be even more limited.

“OK, I think she’s stabilized for now. She’s breathing on her own. You watch her while I lay down beside her, then we can both watch her to make sure she doesn’t code again.”

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t stay and watch this,” Tom responded, shaking his head, turning away so he didn’t have to watch how serious David was about what he was doing. Both he and Monique realized that if Betty didn’t make it, which is certainly looked like she wouldn’t, that David would take it incredibly hard. They needed to talk him down, so that he could distance himself. That was the only way he’d be able to survive what was to follow.

“Hold on, Tom, I’ll come in with you. If anyone cares, I’m calling her. She officially died as of four minutes ago. Her heart may still be beating, but I’m not convinced she’s still here anymore.”

David and Alice ignored them as they walked into the house in frustration, while Mattie scurried about, trying to help them wipe themselves and revive themselves with bottled water.

Alice’s newfound skills weren’t needed, since Betty had indeed returned to her tenuous state just this side of death, no one sure there was still anyone left inside or not.

After several days of caring for the emaciated girl, everyone was worried not just for her but for David, Alice and Mattie as well. The threesome everyone depended on were worn out and much too emotionally involved with a hopeless situation. They’d all given up on Betty, assuming her unresponsiveness was proof of extensive brain damage from the prolonged periods without oxygen while David struggled to get her heart beating again, but they couldn’t talk any of the essential caretakers down, each one sticking up for the other.

________________________

“Can anyone hear us? Is there anyone at all out there?” Alice asked once again in a tight, tense voice, broadcasting over the ham radio in frustration at not being able to find anyone else online. Unlike her father, she alternated different tasks during her downtime, and she’d been checking the radio for responses, but had been unsuccessful so far. That, combined with her frustrations over Betty, left her a bit overly emotional.

She was about to put the radio away, upset that she was spending so much time monitoring the airwaves searching for signs of anyone, when she was shocked when the normally silent radio suddenly answered her.

“Jonathon Taylor here, broadcasting to whomever you are. It’s great to hear you. I was afraid there was no one else left alive!”

“John? It’s great to hear from you too. We’ve been scanning the airwaves for some time, searching for anyone left alive, but so far we’ve only heard from one other person.”

“It sounds like you at least have someone else there, which is more than I can say,” John replied.

“Where are you and what are you circumstances?” Alice asked. Tom poked his head in, hearing the transmission and Alice’s happy exclamations. Seeing her talking to someone, he entered and sat down, eager to listen in as well.

“I’m located in Hilton Head, South Carolina. I had a summer job, working in a grocery store chain called ‘The Fresh Market’. But they only stayed open a little while after the power finally went out, and when people started getting sick, I just hunkered down in my little apartment. I eventually got sick too, and when I recovered, not knowing what day it was or how much time had passed, I came outside and couldn’t find anyone else. By the way,” he asked sheepishly, “this might be a stupid question, but… what day is it?”

“That’s a hard one to answer,” Alice told him honestly. “Frankly, we’ve all decided that the old system of keeping time didn’t make any sense, so we’ve all reset our clocks so we wouldn’t be reminded of when civilization ended. So none of us actually know the exact date anymore.”

“Strangely enough, that makes sense,” Jonathon responded. “Though it doesn’t help me figure out how long I was out for.”

“If you’re like the rest of us, then you were probably out for only a couple of days. It varies depending on which strain of the Great Death you suffered from, but unless you suffered through more than one, it wouldn’t have been that long. But it’s usually a couple days of approaching illness, a few days you’re unaware of what’s happening, then several days of recovery.”

“More than one? ‘Great Death’? Man, apparently I’ve been missing a shitload of information. Last I heard there was just a mysterious illness going around.”

“Well, we’ve been tracking it for a while, trying to identify what’s been happening and broadcasting that information out to the world via ham radio and an FM radio broadcast. We called it the Great Death because it consists of a variety of related plagues, each quite deadly. The problem is, if you survive one, you’re just as likely to get one of the others. That’s why so few people have survived it. You were lucky in that you were exposed to only one.”

“Shit, lucky? It felt like hell warmed over. I’ve never felt worse in my life, and I’ve been sick a time or two over the years.”

“Well, believe me, you haven’t felt anything until you’ve suffered through each and every one of the plagues.”

“No shit? You did? That’s amazing.”

“Look, let’s not get sidetracked,” Tom interjected. “We don’t know whether you’ll get cut off or not, so let’s stick to the facts and we can discuss pleasantries later.”

“Oh, right, go on with your story,” Alice said, trying to get the conversation back on track again.

“Well, when I finally ventured out, I saw dead animal carcasses and dead bodies lying in the streets. Thinking I’d awakened to a crummy science fiction movie, I went searching for anyone else still alive. I went through the local stores, finding no one there other than boarded up shops. I tried the beach, but got shot at by some crazy assed coot. Finally I figured the best bet would be to search a broader area, so I thought of the boats’ radios.

“Grabbing a bike, which we have plenty of here since the beach sands are hard enough to ride, I rode to the Harbortown Marina, a big complex of shops and a marina with some massive boats. Many of them were sunk or heavily damaged, but I found one that had a working radio, and well, here I am.”

“Yeah, it seems the survivors are a little afraid of being re-infected, so you need to be cautious about approaching anyone. We’ve been shot at a number of times already,” Alice explained. “Can you get off of the island? Are the roads any good, and if not, is the boat you’re on sea worthy?”

“The only bridge to the mainland was heavily damaged during the initial meteor storm, so they closed it down. Since then they were running a ferry to take everyone but the locals off of the island. I assumed the ferry’s been shut down, though I didn’t check it out. But I’m assuming the roads aren’t a valid option. As for the boat, I really don’t know anything about them. I’m kind of a landlubber, never having been able to afford one of my own before.”

“Well that’s going to make things a bit tougher,” Alice responded. “It sounds like there are a few people left on the island, but the only one’s you’ve encountered aren’t very hospitable. You can search some more if you want, but I think I’d recommend leaving the island and trying to find an area with more people. If you can find a smaller boat, one seaworthy enough to get you to the mainland, hopefully you can find a working vehicle to get you to a larger city.”

“Yeah, we’re not far from Savannah. It’s about forty to fifty miles away. It’ll be interesting trying to get across to the mainland, but I figure I can dock it virtually anywhere now.”

“Make sure you grab whatever food you can scavenge, as food is at a premium now. Also take the radio you’re using with you, as you may not be able to communicate with us without one. Chances are it won’t work without an antenna, but hopefully you’ll be able to find an existing one you can attach it to. Whatever you find, we’d love to hear what you discover, as we’re trying to find anyone left alive and help them find others willing to help them. You aren’t going to like hearing this, but there’s more to come.

“Not only are the various plagues of the Great Death still here, but we’ve got a massively cold winter closing in on us. While it might be warm there right now, I wouldn’t count on it staying that way this winter, so you should start preparing for an exceptionally cold winter.”

“Yeah, well at least there I’m pretty well covered. Not only is it normally warm in South Carolina, but we have the Gulf Stream which pumps warm water up the coast, keeping us a good five to ten degrees warmer than inland. But yeah, I’ll try to prepare as best I can. But it’s good to hear that you’re doing OK. Where are you, by the way?”

“We’re in West Virginia, about 150 miles from Washington,” Alice informed him. “That’d be a two and a half hour drive under normal circumstances, but it’d likely take about a week under current conditions.”

“Shit, that’s a hell of a long way from here, and if the winter is going to be such a bitch, it doesn’t make much sense heading into the mountains north of here if I can help it. I think I’ll stay here. I’m sure if there’s anyone left, I should be able to find quite a few in Savannah, and if I can’t find anyone there, Charleston isn’t that far away either.”

“That makes sense. Hold on for a minute, I’ve got another bunch of information you should be aware of before you set out,” Alice said, gathering her notes to give him a full rundown on everything they’d learned so far.

Tom, seeing she had the situation well in hand, left her to it. This little distraction would help take her mind off of her father and Betty, which she could really use now. Too bad there wasn’t something he could distract David with, he told himself.

________________________

Early the next day, having spent the night wrestling with exhaustion trying to keep both Betty and her father going, Alice and Mattie were trying to remain awake. David was, as usual, lying with Betty once again. She was breathing easier despite being completely nonresponsive, when the walkie-talkie they always kept handy rang out. Surprised, Alice answered it, allowing her father to continue the task he wouldn’t surrender.

“Hello, who’s this?” she asked, speaking quietly from the corner of the trailer, not wanting to disturb her father even though she knew that newcomers were a big deal.

“Peter?” she responded, clearly surprised. “Are you kidding me? How the hell… never mind, we’ve got to come get you. This is unbelievable. You’ll have to explain all the details later, but we’ll be there as soon as we can.” With that she signed off, putting the unit on standby once again.

“Who was that?” an exhausted Tom asked, since he’d taken the morning duty while Monique slept.

“No one, you’ll see in a while,” she responded, contradicting herself in her own exhaustion. “I need to go meet someone, but I’m afraid to leave.”

“Don’t worry, your father’s not going anywhere, and I don’t think Betty’s ever going to care,” he responded.

“Take that back,” Mattie growled ominously.

“Hey, I’m sorry, but I’m just saying what everyone here knows,” he insisted.

“Don’t you dare try to—”

“Hey, wait, was that…?” Alice asked, hurrying over to shake her father awake, rolling Betty onto her back. “Betty, Betty, are you OK?”

No one else could figure out what she was doing, as Betty seemed just as nonresponsive as ever, but she kept it up, and when David realized what was happening, he hurried to collect water and crackers.

Then surprisingly, at least to the other observers, although both Alice and David seemed to have already known, Betty wearily opened her eyes.

“Waa?” she pleaded weakly.

David held a glass to her lips, only letting her take a small amount, instructing her to only hold it in her mouth. She seemed to listen, and they slowly brought her around.

Tom, completely surprised seeing the previously comatose Betty responding, ran into the house yelling the entire way, and soon everyone from the house was crowding around the trailer entrance as David and Alice got Betty to sit up.

“Are you OK?” Alice asked for about the twelfth time.

“Weak. What daa?” she responded.

“It’s… hell, I have no idea. It’s been, what, five days since you first came here,” she answered.

“Foo?” she pleaded wearily. David soaked the crackers in water before feeding them to her, and she hungrily ate them, although she could only manage a single one at a time.

“What the fuck happened?” Monique demanded.

“I’ve no idea. I was sure they wouldn’t leave her side until she passed while they were asleep, when suddenly—”

Mattie shooed everyone away. “Look, there are too many people here, and she’s still highly contagious. They fought for this, let them have this moment to themselves.” She got them heading for the house, constantly glancing back to glean what she was missing. As they approached the door she assumed they’d continue and rushed back, eager to join the happy threesome.

Noticing their pint-sized warden turning back, the others hesitated; but Tom pushed them forward into the house. “I’ve been through this part before. Help me make a nourishing shake she can drink and let’s prepare a low-key celebration. After all, it appears Saint David has brought another back from the dead.”

The others were more than willing to follow suit, as they were anxious to help and terrified by what he’d accomplished. Not once, not twice, but three separate times. Frankly, they were a bit terrified of him, though they couldn’t understand why.

Continued …

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