“Love and Family During the Great Death”
Chapter 23: And Then There Were…
David couldn’t believe how calm and detached he was acting, even as his world was disintegrating around him. While they’d suffered multiple deaths recently, each had occurred in a very systematic way. First the guys had gotten sick; but they’d been exposed before they ever reached them. Then Bobby had fallen ill, but he’d been exposed because he hadn’t been aware of what he was doing. When the girls got sick, it wasn’t as big of a deal since they didn’t actually know whether the other two girls were exposed or not. Even as the deaths began to mount, there was still the idea that they could control the situation, simply shifting people from the main house to one of the two isolation/quarantine areas.
However, now everything was happening at once, with no reassuring structure or explanations for it. He couldn’t tell himself that there were specific reasons why one person fell ill while the rest remained OK, just as there wasn’t the assurance that he could keep everyone else safe simply by insisting on basic risk containment. Now it looked like everyone was exposed, those that were sick were dying much faster, and the rules of logic no longer applied to any of it.
At least during the infamous Black Plague in the 14th Century, which wiped out a full third of Europe, there were specific things which could keep people safe; like avoiding rats, which naturally favored the rich over the poor. While no one really knew these details at the time, at least there was a logic to it that could be applied. You avoided the dead and locations with high death rates, and you had a much better chance of surviving. But now it looked like there was no avoiding the reach of the Great Death.
But these thoughts occurred to David as he was struggling to take care of others. From getting Amy to somewhere they could take care of her, to checking on everyone, to finally taking care of the newly dead, he had to remain composed to ensure everyone was OK and that things got done the way they needed to. What’s more, he knew everyone looked up to him and expected him to remain in control. If he broke down or hesitated in indecision, the whole house of cards would collapse. He needed to be in control, even if he no longer felt they could control things anymore.
And it had worked. Since he’d restrained himself, focusing exclusively on what needed to be done, the others had followed suit. The girls were focused on helping Amy, Billy had shifted everyone’s things from one structure to another, and now he and Billy were moving Maggie and Sara’s bodies to their burial site.
Alas, he’d failed Sara on multiple counts. He’d let her mother go into the great unknown without an escort, ignored her failure to return, and then after he’d decided on a futile attempt to find her, he’d abandoned it. Now he’d been unable to protect her daughter, and once again hadn’t been there when she’d most needed him during her last moments.
And Maggie, even though she was officially someone else’s wife, had become as close to him as either Ellen or Linda. She was permanently tied to him, with a tie that even her death couldn’t break. She’d been there for him, always willing to help, and she’d waited patiently for him to notice that she was available, never once trying to force the issue like Flora had. She was the other rock amid the swirling vortex of chaos they’d been living through, the one the others could depend on to know what to do and how to fix things. But, when all was said and done, David wasn’t there for her final moments just as he hadn’t been there for Sara, Emily or even Bobby. No, his long list of personal failures to either protect or be there for those that depended on him was long and growing.
When they’d finally managed to cart the two corpses to the… there was no graceful way to say it, to their burial pit, they simply left them there, merely covering the pit with a sheet to keep any animals away. But taking the time to look around as he headed back, David noted that he no longer heard the call of birds on the wing, and he observed dead carcasses lying around the edges of the property. The Great Death was sweeping up everything in its path, sparing nothing and no one.
They’d left the bodies simply because they didn’t have time to deal with a ceremony yet, and David hadn’t wanted to ‘bury them’—essentially just dumping earth on them—until they’d done that. Right then everyone was busy with other details, and they couldn’t take the short amount of time to reflect on what the recently departed had meant to their lives. Things had indeed gotten chaotic, and it didn’t look like they were going to get any easier in the near term, either.
When they returned, Ellen and Flora had breakfast ready, which they served lain out on the grass, with everyone separated by their current health status: David, Ellen, Flora to one side, Alice and Caitlyn sitting near Julie, who was sitting near Billy.
“You know, now that we’ve all been exposed, we really need to discuss things again,” Ellen suggested.
“Geez! Do we really have to?” Alice asked, groaning at the prospect. “Isn’t it bad enough that my friends have been dying and that Amy is now seriously ill, do we really have to discuss how each of us feels about it?”
“I just thought we needed to figure out where we stand, and whether it makes any sense to segregate everyone,” Ellen replied, shaken by Alice’s outburst. “If everyone has already been exposed, does it really make sense to penalize the sick?”
“Although it may seem cold, it’s still important to keep everyone separated,” David explained, taking her concerns seriously. “As Billy’s case demonstrates, just because you’ve been exposed to one illness doesn’t mean you’re safe from the others.”
“I agree, I was afraid to rejoin you guys for just that reason,” Billy said. “Although I hoped I was safe, I was afraid I was still contagious, and since it looks like most of those who have died have done so from different conditions, it doesn’t make any sense to ease the restrictions that have kept you safe for so long.”
“I agree,” Flora agreed. “We’re not talking social niceties here, we’re discussing whether we’ll each survive or not. So far, even with all the restrictions we’ve put into place, it hasn’t saved many of us. Now is no time to abandon the only thing remaining between us and certain death.”
“OK, I’ll concede, it was a dumb idea,” Ellen admitted.
“I think a better discussion is what the hell happened to Amy?” Flora asked, trying to refocus everyone’s attention.
“I’m pretty sure it was the wounds she received yesterday,” David suggested, after everyone paused to consider the question. “She hasn’t shown any of the obvious symptoms of the various diseases, and she clearly doesn’t have a simple infection since the antibiotics haven’t had any effect, so I’m guessing the viruses were introduced to her body directly through her multiple wounds. Her body hasn’t had a chance to fight it, producing the symptoms we’re all so familiar with. Instead it’s attacking her internal systems directly.”
“But how would she have been exposed?” Julie asked. “You’ve all been careful about what you do, who you talk to and what you touch.”
David simply stared at her, surprised she could ask such a thing. “When she was shot, she ended up flat on her back, exposing her to the elements. The ground she was lying on—exposed to hundreds of passing feet, dead skin, and people’s spit—had multiple entry points, completely bypassing the normal defense mechanisms in the skin, the respiratory system, the stomach and intestines. There’s any number of possible contagions she could have been exposed to. For all we know, she could actually have been exposed to ALL of them.”
The discussion might have continued on from there, but Amy began coughing, so Alice and Caitlyn quickly ran to check on her. Following more slowly, David and Ellen approached to see her suffering from violent convulsions.
“I don’t think she’s going to last long at this rate,” Flora suggested.
“No, her body is reacting violently to what it’s been exposed to. Frankly, I’m not sure if this is the result of the diseases we know, a new variation, or if it’s a version of the earlier anaphylaxis response.”
“It’s similar to anaphylaxis,” Ellen said, “but that’s not it. The symptoms aren’t the same. I’ve seen anaphylaxis before, and this isn’t it.”
“Well, help us hold her down or she’ll injure herself,” Alice pleaded. “As it is, she’s shaking so violently she’s going to wear herself out even faster.”
“Ow!” Flora cried, “She scratched me.”
“I’m not surprised, she’s thrashing quite a bit,” David commented.
“Well get off your ass and help us hold her down,” Flora insisted.
They worked together trying to restrain her, going as far as tying her down with blankets, much like you’d swaddle a baby. They were in the process of wrapping her up when she started spitting up blood, actually coughing it up on Flora, covering much of her side. It took a while, but they finally got her restrained, at which point Flora went in to wash up and change.
The restraints helped, but it was clear she wasn’t going to last long at this rate. What’s more, their normal approach of keeping people hydrated so they could maintain their strength wasn’t working as Amy was unable to even sip a small amount of liquid.
Amy looked up, pleadingly at David, as if she was asking him to somehow help her, but he couldn’t think of any way of easing her suffering. He wasn’t about to do it by helping her die, as he had no way of knowing who may ultimately survive these illnesses, the new Great Death, and trying to ‘put her down’ could very well threaten everyone if he chose to ease the wrong person’s pain. Besides, he didn’t know if he’d be able to do such a thing anyway. So instead they all sat there, alternately holding her, calmly talking to her, assuring her that everything was going to be OK, even though no one actually believed it. Flora returned, and people kept moving in and out, bringing drinks and additional supplies, but these efforts were having little effect.
Amy eventually died about an hour later. She stopped shaking quite so violently, but her eyes grew glassy and her body continued to shake with gentler but more consistent tremors. Finally she simply stopped responding, and Alice noted she stopped breathing a while afterwards. No one could bring themselves to try to revive her. She’d found her relief, a peace that was now staring each of them in the face, breathing down their necks as they considered what lay ahead of them.
“Anyway, Dad, I’m glad you said those things about Sara,” Alice said, recounting his final eulogy as she dried the next dish, “but what you said about Amy was just….”
“Was that the front door?” David asked, turning away from his discussion with his daughter, glancing back toward the front of the house.
“Maybe, after all, Caitlyn just took Julie some food,” Ellen reminded him.
Billy, now that he’d gotten sick again, had taken a turn for the worse, and Julie had agreed to sit with him while the others ate. After they’d finished, Caitlyn had offered to take Julie’s portion out to her.
“Yeah, but she just left. I can’t imagine her coming back that soon. Especially since she took water for them both, and had the trash to dispose of.”
“I guess you can ask her in another second.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still waiting. It isn’t that far from the front door to the kitchen,” David replied.
They were washing up, finishing off the dishes and putting them away, so they weren’t in line to see the front room, and couldn’t tell who was coming and going.
“Yeah, that is funny. Alice, maybe you’d better go take a….”
“There it is again,” David pointed out.
“Maybe it’s Flora?” Ellen suggested.
“Flora, is that you?” David called out. After dinner, she’d decided to see if she could rouse anyone on the short wave radios.
“Caitlyn probably just forgot something,” Alice suggested, handing her father another plate to put away.
“Hey, it’s not like she’s going to the theater,” David argued. “She doesn’t need to remember her tickers, her makeup, her jewelry and her cell phone. She was just heading outside.”
“Relax, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Ellen said, sliding the cutting board back under the sink.
David figured they were probably right. He’d given up trying to figure out how women’s minds worked a long time ago. As far as he was concerned, it was a simple trip. Take stuff out, check on everyone’s condition, try to get them to drink something, pick up the contaminated refuse, toss it in the pit to be burned later, and boom, you were done. But he figured she had her own reasons, so he wouldn’t worry about it. Who knows what kids are thinking anyway?
“Yeah, what’s up?” Flora asked, entering the kitchen from the other direction.
“We heard someone coming in the front door. We figured it was Caitlyn, since she just took some food out for Sara, but it’s too soon for her to have come back,” David explained.
“Nope, I’ve been in the radio room. There’s no one online, by the way. Just a lot of dead air space.
They continued to talk as they finished up, wondering what the lack of radio contact implied, and as David was wiping his hands, Ellen handed him two empty cocktail glasses.
“For me, I could really use it after today.”
“Sure thing, sweetie. I could use one myself.”
“Here’s another one for me,” Flora added, looking like she’d had a tough day as well.
“Hey, how about me?” Alice asked. “After all I’ve been through I think I deserve one as well.”
“Do you really think you’d—” David said before the unmistakable sound of a gunshot rang out from outside. Because the sound was so dim, they froze and listened if there was anything else, but when weren’t any more shots, David jumped into action.
“Alice, I’m going to check outside. It was probably nothing, but grab your gun in case it wasn’t. Ellen, watch the door for me.”
Moving in different directions, when David and Ellen reached the front door, they found it partially open. Stepping outside, David glanced back and forth, unable to see anything out of the ordinary, and unable to determine just where the shot had come from.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Since the door was opened it must have been Caitlyn. Let’s check the trailer and see if she’s there,” David suggested.
He set off, and Ellen waited by the door until she saw Alice looking out the garage door, then set out after him.
Reaching the trailer, he walked straight in. Strangely, there was no light on, with only a dim glow to see his way around. David could hear Billy moaning, and he thought it odd that Caitlyn and Julie would just ignore him while he was in such pain. He had to fumble around a bit, but he found the light and switched it on. When he did, Ellen gasped. Glancing back at her, she simply pointed behind him, so he turned and saw what looked like Julie curled up on the other bed.
“Julie? What’s going on?” he asked, receiving no reply. Feeling anxious, he slowly approached her, touching her shoulder. When she didn’t respond, he dug out a spare set of gloves and checked her.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ellen asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t hear any breathing. Damn, she doesn’t seem to have a pulse either.”
“Did she have the Death and we just didn’t know it?”
“No, I don’t think so. She didn’t have any symptoms.”
“Neither did Adrian or Amy,” Ellen reminded him.
“True, but she doesn’t look like she had a fever. There’s a little sweat on her brow, but not enough, and her shirt is dry. If she was feverish, both would be damp.”
“What’s happening?” Alice asked, entering the trailer wondering what was keeping them. “Flora’s guarding the house, I figured if there’s trouble you’d need some support out here,” she explained when Ellen glanced questioningly at her. None of them liked the ideas of strange gunshots after the troubles they’d experienced the past several days.
“It’s Julie,” David explained. “She died, and we have no idea why.”
“Well where’s Caitlyn? I thought she came out here to check on them?”
“I don’t kn—”
“She… she… she got tired,” Billy struggled to answer, even though he was having a hard time focusing through the pain he was suffering. David figured it must have been important to him to make the effort he was to tell them what had happened. “She… she turned off… li… light, and lay… down.”
“If she was tired, why didn’t she just come inside and get one of us to relieve her?” Alice asked.
“I don’t think she was tired. I don’t know what killed her, but it was either a new disease, or something else got her. Maybe she was sicker than she thought, or maybe something else happened, like possibly a heart attack. Women don’t always get the telltale signs that men do; often thinking they’re just tired.”
“Right, a girl that young has a heart attack?” Alice scoffed.
“Hey, I don’t know, OK,” David responded. “All I know is that she’s dead, and we don’t know why. What’s more, Caitlyn is… hold on,” he said, looking around. “Let me check something, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
He managed to find one of the flashlights they kept there when the boys were healthier, and turning it on, led the others outside and into the darkness.
They thought he was heading to the other outbuilding to check for Caitlyn, but instead he walked past it. Not wanting to miss anything, Alice checked it briefly. After all, that was where Julie had stayed, and Caitlyn might have wanted to get something to cover her with. But seeing no trace of her, she hurried after her father after rejoining Ellen.
David continued, hardly slowing for the others to catch up. He walked around the side of the house and kept going. Soon, they all saw the clear sign of the dirt mound the marked the location of their ‘memorial’ gravesite. Since David was ahead of them, he began flashing the light around as if searching for something. When Ellen and Alice caught up, he’d stopped to focus on something.
Looking over his shoulder, they both saw Caitlyn’s body; still wearing the outfit she’d worn to dinner, laid out on her back inside the pit, just beside where they’d buried the others earlier in the day. Except, the front of her outfit was covered with blood, and her head was thrown back at an awkward angle.
“Fuck!” David swore.
“I don’t understand, what’s going on?” Ellen asked, unable to wrap her mind around what she was seeing.
“Caitlyn killed herself,” Alice explained. “The stupid cunt took the coward’s way out. She must have found Julie’s body, figured out she was gone, and figured she’d had enough.”
Despite her concern for her friend, Alice viewed this as a personal betrayal, doing this without even a word of warning to the others that she was having troubles coping. Not even giving them a chance to talk her out of it.
“Right, we must have heard her when she reentered the house to get one of the guns we stored in the basement,” David continued. “Then she came out here, where she knew she’d present the least mess for us to clean up, and she shot herself, swallowing her pistol.”
“Why on earth would she do such a thing?” Ellen asked, clearly shocked by the prospect.
“I’m betting she discovered she was infected, and did like Mom did,” Alice offered.
“You don’t know that’s what your mom was thinking,” Ellen cautioned her.
“Yeah, right. Why else would she do this?” Alice responded, not differentiating who she was referring to.
“I wouldn’t be so harsh on her. Not everyone can tough it out,” David replied. “We each have our own breaking points. She probably saw that Julie was gone, figured it was only a matter of time, and decided she’d had enough of watching everyone else suffering and dying, especially considering what everyone else went through near the end.”
“Still, I think it’s a chicken shit way of responding,” Alice insisted. “It’s like Dad says, we don’t know who will survive and who won’t. For all we know, she might have had the genetic makeup to survive this, and she might have just cheated another million people of their own chance to survive it as well.”
“You can’t blame people when they finally lose hope,” David said, as he turned and started moving them away.
“Wait, aren’t you going to check on her?” Ellen argued, pulling up short, despite David’s attempt to usher them away.
“No, she’s clearly dead. The whole back of her head is gone,” David assured them, sounding strangely dispirited.
“But then aren’t you going to check to see if she was really infected?” she argued.
At that David stopped and considered her. “And just what would that do? Would it make what she did any more understandable if she was, or any more despicable if she wasn’t? She decided she couldn’t hack it anymore. Her reasons for choosing that path are her own, and it doesn’t help us to continue trying to guess what she was thinking. Either way, you’re likely to be disappointed with what you find, and it’s clear she chose this method of ending it because she didn’t want us to be exposed to what she did to herself. If she wanted us to know why she did it, I suggest you look either in her room or in the cabin for a note. But I’m guessing she did this in a rush, and didn’t take the time to plan it out to any great degree. However, I’m sure she’d been thinking about it for some time, as she knew exactly what to do when the time came.”
So Ellen and Alice let themselves be steered back to the house. Flora met them when they entered, but rather than explaining, David led them to the den and fixed them all that drink Ellen had asked for, making it a double and keeping the bottle handy for refills. As they drank, David explained what happened to Flora, who though saddened, didn’t look that shocked. She’d expected something like that given the circumstances. None of them bothered looking for a suicide note right then, figuring they’d have plenty of time to discover it later, right then they were just dealing with the shock of it, as well as the realization that there were now only four of them left. However, that idea reminded them that Billy was still struggling.
Excusing himself, David finished his own drink and headed out to watch over him while the others dealt with their grief in their own way. But first Alice, and then Ellen and Flora decided they didn’t want to be alone right then, and they liked David’s preferred method of handling things. David had always felt that work, good honest hard work, was a great mind clearer. When you worked, you focused your mind on only one thing, and you concentrated solely on that one task. When you dug a ditch, you didn’t consider how the stock market was doing. When you were building a house, you didn’t wonder if you had any e-mails. You simply concentrated at hammering one nail after another, one shovel full after the next, allowing your mind to zone out in a Zen like state, emptying itself of any outside distractions.
That had been how he’d guided the girls these past weeks. He’d kept them too busy, too focused on each new project he’d assigned them, teaching them to focus on each task, and doing the best job they could. But he showed them you did that, not by fretting about what you were doing, but by concentrating solely on the task at hand.
And that was the balm they each needed. They knew it was a fool’s mission, that no matter what they did that Billy was going to suffer, and would likely die whether they were there or not. What’s more, they also knew that the odds were very strong that they’d follow him in another few days, but right then they wanted to concentrate on helping him, and if they couldn’t actually help him, then they’d work on sanitizing the place, scrubbing the walls and floors so there wasn’t a trace of human tissue left to contaminate anyone. Not because it was necessary, but because they were afraid if they didn’t have that single task in front of them, they’d start thinking about what had driven Caitlyn to where she ended up, and they knew they couldn’t bear that.
They might be able to make sense of it if they had enough time, enough perspective, enough distance from the event itself, but for now they simply wanted that Zen like single minded focus. It was the only balm that would slake the despair they all felt.
Billy died some five hours later, and it wasn’t a pretty sight, even though the group stayed with him until the end. Once it was over, though, they decided to retire, leaving the body where it was, waiting until the next day to take care of it.
Dumping their infected clothes, they headed upstairs, stripping down to their underwear and climbing into bed. They were exhausted and the day had been rough, so there was no question as to where Alice would sleep. But as tired as they were, sleep proved elusive, at least for some of them.
“So, what do you think drove Caitlyn over the edge?” Ellen asked.
Alice groaned. “Please, do we really have to discuss that now? Why don’t you just let it rest in peace?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure you really want to delve into that topic,” David warned her. “It’s a mental quagmire. The benefit to working like we have is that not only does it drive all the extraneous thoughts out of your head, but it leaves you so exhausted that you’re too tired to start worrying again.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be working at the moment,” Ellen complained. “Frankly, I can’t keep from thinking about it, and it’s keeping me from slipping into the sweet oblivion of sleep.”
When the only responses were a couple of groans, she continued. “So what do you think pushed her to that extreme?” she asked again. “Do you think finding Julie made her think there was no way she’d survive? That she couldn’t face any more deaths? That she couldn’t face seeing the rest of us die, or just that she couldn’t stand undergoing the agonizing death everyone else has suffered from?”
Mumbling, David rolled over so he could face her. He had to fight his own inclination to sleep. He had no troubles emptying his mind of complications, but he knew this was important to her, and what’s more, she was usually correct when someone needed some emotional support. So if she was insisting on this, then they probably really needed to thrash this nonsense out.
“I suspect it was all of the above. I’m thinking she’d been dreading this for a while, and each of those elements weighed on her, and that when she saw Julie dead, especially so unexpectedly, it was just too much for her. While any one of those reasons might be manageable, all of them piled on top of each other could easily prove to be too much.”
“I suspect the problem was that she wouldn’t allow herself to sleep, choosing to stay up late at night imagining the worst rather than simply letting it go at the end of the day,” Alice complained pointedly.
“No, I think Ellen has a point,” Flora said. “This is a pretty central issue, and I’m not sure ignoring it is the best option at the moment.”
“I’m just worried,” Ellen continued. “While it was obviously too much for Caitlyn, each of us has been exposed to the exact same stresses that got to her. You’ve got to admit, things certainly look bleak right now. We’re the only ones left. All of our friends, our acquaintances, everyone else has died, one by one. When does it get to be too much? I’m not unable to sleep because I’m worried about myself. I’m worried when one of you is going to break. When something happens which breaks through that barrier you’ve been trying so hard to maintain, what happens then? Do you think your father will be able to go on if you’re not there anymore, Alice? Do you think his death wouldn’t affect you? That his efforts to distract us by giving us specific tasks won’t fall apart if he isn’t here to keep pushing it?”
That got their attention. While they felt comfortable with their own ability to filter out the outside world, she had a point, and such a thing could very well drive right through their defenses. They also asked themselves how they’d deal with the others’ giving up. Would that be their own breaking point? Would the idea of a world withou…. No, that was too much to consider, and they didn’t want to go down that particular rat hole.
“All right,” Alice conceded, “maybe you’ve got a point. Frankly, Caitlyn was always a bit of an odd duck in our group. She was always the popular one, the flighty ‘I’m too good for the rest of you’ one. I was surprised when she fell so completely under Dad’s spell, because I’d thought she’d fight against it, resisting his attempts to get them all to pitch in. Thus I’m not really so surprised that she fell apart. I don’t think she was quite as won over as it seemed. I think it’s very hard to change one’s basic personality, and deep down, she was essentially just a spoiled little princess. She resisted it for a long time, but when push came to shove, she just couldn’t take it anymore because she was so used to everything being easy for her.”
“While that may be a part of it, I’m not sure you’re being fair to her,” David cautioned. “I saw the same things in her when she first arrived, but she worked to change that. Though it took a while to get her going, once she committed to helping out, she was really convinced and motivated. It really shows just what someone can do when they set their minds to it. I don’t think you can take away what she managed to accomplish. About all we can say is that she just reached a point, for whatever reasons, that she simply couldn’t continue.
“Frankly, I don’t think it pays to second guess what someone was thinking after they’ve gone on. She essentially lost her mind, so trying to apply logic while guessing what she may or may not have been thinking is pointless. Clearly she wasn’t thinking clearly, and that’s why she did what she did.”
“You know, I think that it was the unexpectedness of Julie’s death that got to her,” Flora suggested. “With everyone else, she had time to prepare, to adjust and to rationalize their eventual deaths. When Julie died, out of the blue, she was caught unprepared. She was suddenly faced with the fact that there really wasn’t any logic to what was happening, and that there really wasn’t any reason why some people were dying while the others lived. That it was all just random, and that, yes, it was essentially inevitable as well.”
“You see, that’s what happens when you start these kinds of discussions,” David commented, “you make everyone morose, and they come up with more reasons to be depressed. It’s hardly an empowering exercise.”
“But you see, it’s having some way of dealing with these things that gives us what we need to continue,” Ellen countered. “By figuring out how to frame the question, we have a way to deal with the problem. It gives us a sense of meaning that will allow us to get past what tripped others up. By understanding why Caitlyn was unable to continue, we can prepare ourselves. And more than anything else, by assuring ourselves that we aren’t likely to follow that same path, we make it less likely that we’d ever start down that path.”
“Maybe, but I just don’t see it. I only have one motivation, and that’s to keep going. Every time someone dies, I focus on those that remain. I don’t get depressed, because I know what will happen to everyone else if I do. Frankly, I can’t afford to get morose.”
“But what happens when there is no one else?” Ellen asked.
David grumbled, not willing to play that particular game, but it emphasized her point. David had a singular motivation. But if he reached the limits of that motivation, if either Ellen or Alice died, or if both of them did, then he’d no longer have any reason to continue. He thought he was safe from falling into Caitlyn’s position because he was always motivated by other people, but that position had its own weakness. Ellen also realized it might not even be that extreme. If they all fell unconscious, unable to rally at his prodding, then would he be able to motivate himself anymore? He’d been driving himself to keep everyone else busy, but if they stopped responding, simply refusing to play anymore, would that in itself be more than he could take. If she and Alice started reacting like Bobby had, not participating and only drifting through life, would that be enough to tip him over the edge?
But these were essentially questions with no answers. They were all open ended questions that required one to continually deposit another supposition like a never ending video game. The game kept you focused as long as you had more tokens, more suppositions, but once you ran out of ideas, ways to fend off the darkness, as it were, the game came to a rapid end.
The discussion continued, but that realization on the part of the others took away the urgency it had. They now knew what David’s weak point was. It was them. And they realized that they’d have to continue as long as they could, because if they didn’t, David likely wouldn’t be able to continue, and if he fell, then each of them would as well. Thus they were faced with the classic Domino situation so popular during the Cold War, that if one element fell, so would everything else. But in that idea, they’d each found their motivation, and they had their own answers. They had to continue to keep David going, and as long as David continued, everyone else could. But they each knew that that reasoning had its limits. With only four of them left, all it would take would be one of them dying, and all bets would be off.
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