A Pandemic Survivors Omnibus E-Book

Various

• Herausgeber: Midwest Journal Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Pandemics have a way of showing up over and over.
All throughout our history. And there is no good time for them to appear.
And so writers have imagined all the different outcomes and what-if's to explore all the things that could happen, that might happen.
In these works, we see our options, the many possible decisions we can make. No matter if it's in distant history, in a foreign land, across town, or down the street.
These pandemics and plagues are occurring with more frequency, probably due to our population areas being thick and numerous with so many people. One advantage this has is in the higher quality of medical care. And the many universities and medical centers who are constantly at work on how to improve that health quality.
Our concerns with our health are also reflected in our own fiction works.
As bad as the news is about pandemics and plagues, our fiction works have already explored these outcomes and more. But at least they are there for our entertainment only. No one ever takes them seriously.
So that's the point of this small omnibus. A selection of stories to help you through your own healthy days and those where you may need to isolate yourself or even self-quarantine. Days where you have to use social distancing until you know your illness can't be spread to your friends and family and associates.
Entertainment is useful in times like these. Distractions from the noise, fears, and panic attacks some encounter. And maybe a way to prepare yourself for the worse - while hoping those days never come.
You'll find some classics here, and stories by classic authors you may not have read, as well as authors and stories completely new to you, even if old in time.
And even if you are picking this up when the skies are blue and all the world is running fine, and everyone you know is completely healthy - then take some time to enjoy a break in your routine, to explore different worlds and live through their eyes and feelings.
These stories were written about the survivors. Some are gruesome, some just unsettling. While its said that fiction is used to educate as well as entertain - here's hoping your choices in "real life" are less deadly than the one's you read about here...
This omnibus contains:
- The Case of the Forever Cure by C. C. Brower & J. R. Kruze
- The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe
- The Scarlet Plague by Jack London
- Pandemic by J. F. Bone
- The Gray Plague by L. A. Eshbach
- The Great Gray Plague by Raymond F. Jones
- An All-American Plague by Teddy Keller
- The Dust of Death by Fred Merrick White
- Space Plague Physician by Lester Del Ray
 Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.

Leseprobe

A Pandemic Survivor's Reader

Speculative fiction for non-serious reading in or out of quarantine.

by C. C. Brower, J. R. Kruze, & Various Authors

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

A PANDEMIC SURVIVOR'S OMNIBUS

First edition. March 20, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 C. C. Brower et al..

Written by C. C. Brower et al..

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Introduction

The Case of the Forever Cure

The Masque of the Red Death

The Scarlet Plague

Pandemic

The Gray Plague

The Great Gray Plague

An All-American Plague

The Dust of Death

Space Plague Physician

Also in this Pandemic Survivor's series:

Appendix: How to Grow Richer and Healthier Regardless of any Pandemic

Did You Find the Strange Secret in This Story?

Related Books You May Like

Did You Like This Book?

Further Reading: An SF/Fantasy Reader: Short Stories From New Voices

Also By C. C. Brower

Also By J. R. Kruze

Also By Various

About the Publisher

To all our many devoted and loyal fans: 

We write and publish these stories only for you.

(Be sure to get your bonuses at the end of the story...)

Introduction

PANDEMICS HAVE A WAY of showing up over and over.

All throughout our history. And there is no good time for them to appear.

And so writers have imagined all the different outcomes and what-if's to explore all the things that could happen, that might happen.

In these works, we see our options, the many possible decisions we can make. No matter if it's in distant history, in a foreign land, across town, or down the street.

These pandemics and plagues are occuring with more frequency, probably due to our population areas being thick and numerous with so many people. One advantage this has is in the higher quality of medical care. And the many universities and medical centers who are constantly at work on how to improve that health quality.

Our concerns with our health are also reflected in our own fiction works.

As bad as the news is about pandemics and plagues, our fiction works have already explored these outcomes and more. But at least they are there for our entertainment only. No one ever takes them seriously.

So that's the point of this small omnibus. A selection of stories to help you through your own healthy days and those where you may need to isolate yourself or even self-quarantine. Days where you have to use social distancing until you know your illness can't be spread to your friends and family and associates.

Entertainment is useful in times like these. Distractions from the noise, fears, and panic attacks some encounter. And maybe a way to prepare yourself for the worse - while hoping those days never come.

You'll find some classics here, and stories by classic authors you may not have read, as well as authors and stories completely new to you, even if old in time.

And even if you are picking this up when the skies are blue and all the world is running fine, and everyone you know is completely healthy - then take some time to enjoy a break in your routine, to explore different worlds and live through their eyes and feelings.

These stories were written about the survivors. Some are gruesome, some just unsettling. While its said that fiction is used to educate as well as entertain - here's hoping your choices in "real life" are less deadly than the one's you read about here...

I wish you good luck with your reading adventures.

Robert C. Worstell, Editor

14 Mar 2020

The Case of the Forever Cure

BY C. C. BROWER AND J. R. Kruze

- - - -

WHY I WAS BROUGHT IN to solve a mystery of people getting and staying healthy was a bit curious on its own.

They were all terminally ill. And in quarantine. Yet one nurse and her student "angels of death" had been able to reverse this deadly disease that modern "medicine” had created through their own negligence.

Most of the big city hospitals had these outbreaks, and had sent their worst cases out to live their lives in suburban hospices - often unknown to those locals. And if their quarantine security failed, an incurable plague could spread and decimate the human population by at least half - to start with.

Whoever had hired me wanted to know what those healed people were going to do - for anyone could see a huge litigation potential from being cured in those circumstances. But not if they died. For dead people can't talk - or sue.

In order to stay anonymous, my financiers had to stay off my radar and out of my hair.

Or the head nurse would help me find out how they created this mess that she was solving without their help...

I

IT'S HARD DETECTIVE work when you could only interview through thick glass while wearing a hazmat suit.

It's worse when you're trying to find out why someone is healing the terminally ill and being very successful at it.

Because since this one nurse took over, people had quit dying.

But the hospital wouldn't let them out of quarantine. Until my investigation was complete.

No pressure.

The problem was how I was getting paid. All in cash, Random serial numbers, unmarked and used bills. Occasionally someone included a note, printed out by a laser printer on common paper stock. No fingerprints on anything. Completely anonymous.

And all I wanted was they stay off my back if they wanted to keep it that way.

Because this coin had two faces. Let me do my job finding what you asked me to, or I'd find out the flip side as well.

That was the message I sent the last time I got a note from them with advice on it. And no more notes since.

I told them three weeks. Period. I'd solve it or give them their money back. Minus expenses.

No notes since. And I had under a week left, with no leads. Yes, I was getting a bit nervous.

But I didn't have to deal with perfectly healthy people who weren't even allowed to talk to their family. Or me.

It all depended on this one head nurse named Cathy.

II

IT WASN'T ANY REAL surprise to me that these patients started getting better.

But my methods were unorthodox, and had been kept a secret for nearly half a century at this point. I was called in as a last resort by some very insistent, and very connected family of one of the patients.

And now he's fine, but neither I or him or anyone else can talk to anyone outside.

Well, I've got this detective fellow named Johnson who somehow wangled a way into my over-booked schedule. 30 minutes a day. Uninterrupted. And that's a miracle all on its own.

Typically, we are understaffed. And all volunteer. None of us were expected to ever return from the quarantine. But all their doctors and nurses had gotten ill as well, so they'd asked - no, begged for people to basically suicide in order to help these people live out their last days with some sort of dignity.

They got half the number they wanted, which was twice what they actually expected.

But they were city folks. Pretty cold and pessimistic. Hard to get a smile out of them.

And that was our secret weapon - infectious smiles. Works every time. Because you have to heal from the inside out, not just pile on more drugs and pills.

The main trouble was with the quarantine security equipment. The technicians to fix it were also sick. If that equipment failed before we got this outbreak under control, it would roll through all the population of this suburb and those beyond it like no plague before it. And the infected  would spread it further, all within a few hours of contacting it. All innocent carriers.

What was worst, it left babies alone. The ones that needed help the most. That was why we were here, originally. To solve why the babies weren't getting sick - and feed them and change them and cuddle them meanwhile.

But when the last of the nurses collapsed, we had to break into the worst areas and sacrifice ourselves. Because the walls were all glass, and we could see the entire ward from the maternity section. Damned if we were just going to stand there and watch them all die...

III

IN BETWEEN OUR TALKS, I had access to all their electronic reports, and all the medical files on the patients. Mainly because I was authorized by the CDC to snoop anywhere I needed to. This meant their families and their family's lawyers were all purposely kept out of the loop. Privacy be damned if you knew you had a plague that could cripple civilization starting with everyone around you.

Of course, they made me sign huge stacks of non-disclosure agreements and bonds that would keep me in hock for the rest of my life, if not in prison.

The money was good, so I took it. All untraceable cash, but I told you that already. And I already made plans to disappear after this, since more than likely they'd make me disappear permanent-like, otherwise.

All those electronic reports didn't give me much besides headaches. I was going over them for the fourth time. It wasn't adding up.

Sure, you had the babies that didn't get sick. But only when these student nurses and their barely graduated head nurse broke quarantine to take over was when the patients started getting better.

All I knew is that whatever they were doing wasn't in these reports.

They were keeping something from me. But so were the people who hired me.

My daily half-hour was coming up. Just enough time to get into that damned hazmat suit again and go through decontamination just to get into the interview cubicle.

Maybe this time, I'd get something I could use. Like my gramma used to say, "Hope springs eternal."

Whatever.

IV

"HEY CATHY, HOW'S IT going?"

"Fine, Detective Johnson, how's the real world?"

"Call me Reg, OK?"

"OK, Reg-OK - how's the real world" She smiled at her own joke. Something that lightened her tired face.

I had to smile at that, which just made hers wider. "At least you've got some time for humor, even if sleep is tight."

"Sleep is always tight for nurses, but we make do."

"Well, over to questions, then. I've been over and over your reports and I just don't get it. How come you and your students don't get sick from what your patients have?"

"We've been over this ground before, Reg. It's our proprietary training and our faith in that training."

"But you don't seem to be doing anything different, other than you ignore safety protocols and do what seems to be normal nursing actions."

"And we didn't have time or the necessary suits available when we had to break quarantine to save the life of that nurse. After that, it's of little consequence. We are still alive and that again goes back to our faith."

That line of questioning was getting me nowhere, as usual. Science didn't account for faith more than a placebo effect. "Your student nurses and you all come from very small towns, and it looks like you were all adopted."

Her eyebrow raised. "That's of no concern to you. Our methods could be taught to anyone. It might be that our students have more personal moral values than those found in larger metropolitan areas. Or maybe it goes to the love of our families, which again goes back to that 'faith' point you find so disturbing."

I hadn't realized my face gave away so much. "I don't mean to question your faith..."

"Don't you? Are you quite certain? You've almost done nothing but. And if it weren't for those children, we wouldn't be here and we shouldn't be having these questions. And if whoever is paying you had an ounce of courage, they'd come right out and see this scene for themselves." Her frown deepened as she leaned toward the glass.

"I'm sorry to offend you and I don't..."

"Don't give me that 'sorry to offend' crap! Just like those insane 'Tolerance Edicts.' All they've done has been to harass a lot of innocent people who just want to live the life they were given. A small minority few don't have more rights than anyone else..."

"Cathy, Cathy, please. I'm sorry, OK? Sorry. You look much prettier when you aren't upset, and I'm sure your job goes easier as well. How 'Cagga and the Secessionists treat people should be none of our concern. How your nurses are actually curing your patients is all I want to find out."

She calmed at this, a little bit. "I'm sorry, too, Reg. I'd prefer to be smiling more. These long hours have us all a bit on edge."

"Is that singing something you do as part of your training?"

"Oh, well that singing is between us nurses. It's not part of nurse training, but are just some hymns from my local church that seem to help everyone keep their spirits up."

"I see from the video's that some of the patients are singing along now. Most of them were unconscious when you went in there."

She had to smile at this. "Yes, we're finding that they have some healthy lungs in there. Probably good exercise for their Cardiod-pulmonary. Mr. Smith has an amazing baritone, and Clara - she insists we call her that - has a contralto good enough to sing a church solo." She looked away. "I don't know if you can hear it from there, but they just hit that chorus on 'Little Brown Church in the Wild-wood'." Cathy was nodding her head. "Singing helps everyone."

At that point, the buzzer went off. I had minutes to get into decontamination before the interview area would be showered from overhead nozzles. It happened once before. Made talking impossible.

Cathy stood with graceful ease. "See you tomorrow." She smiled and gave me a half-wave.

From that angle, I could see my own reflection and how impersonal and bureaucratic I looked.

I rose to leave, and she was already gone, her own door closing automatically behind her.

V

"HEY CATHY, DID HE ASK anything different today?" A blond student asked.

"No, Sue, just more of the same."

"Mr. Smith wants to get out of bed today, insisting I let him or bring you to him so he can talk you into it."

I just smiled at her. "I'm sure he'd love to 'talk' with me. With his hands where they shouldn't go. Ever notice that I hold both of his hands when I'm near him?"

"More like I noticed that I need to start doing that myself. He's very personal with his touches. Must be feeling a lot better."

I shook my head, still smiling. "Give him a broom and have him start using his hands to clean up the store room. Just make sure those meds are locked up first. If he's still frisky after that, he can pull some hot water and start mopping. Just not around the other patients where we have to walk. Use some ammonia in it, and he'll be doing us all a favor with the smells in this place."

Sue nodded and moved off.

I picked up the charts and found we had seemed to turn the corner for all of them. I remembered how my teacher, Rochelle, cautioned against optimism that we would be able to save all our patients all the time.  "Only faith works miracles..." was her phrase for it. The rest of it was "...and trust in God to fix what humans screw up." A bit sardonic for her, but it got the point across for us, especially now.

That reminded me to check the babies again. That's what really kept us going around here. Some of them would be trying to walk if they were kept here much longer. Already most were into higher-walled beds they couldn't climb over - yet.

Another reason to smile and hope.

Rochelle would be proud of us all - if we were ever allowed to call her...

VI

THAT NIGHT, ALARMS went off.

I jumped from my cot in the administration room and reached for a non-existent gun in a missing holster. Habit.

Lights were strobing and it took me minutes to figure out where the stupid off-switch was. I turned the lights to "On-Full" and saw the problem.

Our only remaining maintenance tech was out cold on the floor. I felt his head - fever. And foam coming out of his mouth.

Contagion.

So I did what I needed to do. I pulled him up in a fireman's carry and went right through all the double doors I needed to so we were both in with Cathy, the nurses, and the other quarantined patients.

Cathy looked up and rushed toward me. Sue was already motioning me to an empty bed near the doors I'd just barged in through.

They both went to work taking his vitals and hooking up the monitors. I found a chair that was out of their way and dropped into it.

About then, the situation sank in. I was one of the walking dead, now. Maybe minutes before I got infected myself and into the same state as Carlos, our last tech in this death trap.

Cathy turned around and saw me, then gave me a sad smile. "No, it's not that bad. Come with me." She bent down and grabbed my hand, pulling me upright to follow her. I'd have sworn I was being pulled by a half-back from the line of scrimmage. So much power in such a small package.

She took me into the same room with the babies and over to where one was crying. Picking up the curly-headed tyke, she pushed him into my arms, putting a towel over one of my shoulders. "Walk him up and down the floor until he goes back to sleep. Then take another one that your alarms woke up and repeat the process. Your job is to get all these kids back to sleep. No, they are perfectly safe in your hands, and as long as you keep holding one, they'll keep you from being infected any more than you already are."

She winked at me. "So? Get walking. That's your prescription." Then spun on her heel to see how the new patient was doing.

I walked and walked the rest of that night. I got them all to quit crying after awhile, but it didn't mean they didn't want to be walked. One or more of them would be standing up in their crib looking at me with hopeful, round eyes. I'd always smile and start again.

I guess that was the point. Smiling was something to do with their method. And I had to have faith in their method. Or I'd be dead in days.

. . . .

One of the other student nurses came in after a few hours and took over. Reg put down the last one he was carrying, who was too content to just lay down and sleep.

The nurse nodded at him to go outside. I met him as he came through the double doors.

"Time for your own check up. It looks like the 'baby-cure' did it's job.”  I looked at the towel on his shoulder and saw the drool that had leaked through to his shirt. “Congratulations, you are officially inoculated."

He picked it up and folded the wet spot inside, then felt his shoulder. "That would be about right. Hey, how does that work? I should have come down like Carlos there hours ago."

"It wasn't their drool that inoculated you, it was touching them. We rotate all the nurses and myself through this duty once a day, and the rule is to not wear gloves, but only use bare hands. Kissing the occasional darling head is also permitted." I had to smile at this, they were all just too cute.

I took his hand and led him into one of the two chairs next to our maintenance tech's bed.

"How's Carlos doing? Will he make it?" Reg asked, concerned.

"He'll be OK, it will take a couple of days before he'll do much but sleep it off."

"What did you give him?"

"Just a simple saline solution. When he's up to swallowing, we'll get him onto something he'll like."

"Such as?"

"A home remedy of apple-cider vinegar and honey, plenty diluted. That will keep his electrolytes balanced until he gets over the hump of it. Good thing you got him here fast. Most of these patients were days or weeks with the wrong treatment, and is why they are taking so long to recover."

"Treatment? You haven't given him any pills or injections..."

"Because he won't need any. We treat him by what you might call 'laying on of hands.' That works best and is the core of the therapy."

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not." She frowned a bit. "About this time, your professional skepticism comes in and we quit having a conversation, then I tell you to lay down and get some rest."

"Sorry, I did read about what you've been doing to all these patients. It's just as you said. The only thing you've had to do is to slowly get them off the meds they were on. That's in all the reports. But I can see that none of your student nurses are wearing gloves at all. And not even face masks."

"The worse thing you could catch in here would be the common cold. Way too sterile for me. I'd bring some plants in here, maybe some non-allergic flowers if I could. A therapy dog would be a great addition. But my 'druthers' don't count for much. Maybe since our quarantine is gone, it might."

I frowned at this. "No, it's going to get worse. I've read up on the procedures. The next thing that is supposed to happen is to gas us all and seal us in. Eventually pour cement over the entire building."

VII

IT WAS CATHY WHO HAD to sit down at that point. She shook her head. "I was afraid of that. Something my great-grandfather had to survive."

I found another seat and dragged it over. "Your great-grandfather was encased in cement?"

Cathy looked up at me, and took my hand. "Sorry, I spoke out of turn. But I guess it's a good as time as any to tell you. Ever heard of the Lazurai Project?"

I shook my head no.

"How about that terrorist bombing of a Cook County civilian hospital about 50 years ago?"

"Dirty bomb with chem warfare agents. Killed everyone. Huge tragedy."

"Everyone except the babies. But they were changed by the chemicals and radiation. They became toxic to everyone they touched. And as they grew older, the chance of contagion grew, so that even being in a hazmat suit wouldn't protect you. Those kids were raised in isolation from any adults and only had each other. Somehow, the government got them shipped to a remote desert location and put them into a dome. Some damned fool in Washington finally gave the order to kill them all as a solution. But none of their chemicals worked, not even their most deadly pathogens. So they finally just cemented the dome over."

My mouth dropped open. Shocked was a slight description of what I was feeling.

"They'd been experimenting with them for years by then, and their families had already been told that they were dead. But puberty forced the government's hand, as they now were extremely hazardous to the rest of humankind. People were getting sick and dying just being downwind. And so, the concrete. Problem was, the Lazurai kids could dissolve and absorb almost anything just with their hands. Even bullets and explosions didn't stop them."

"So, what happened to them?"

"They all escaped. And learned to deal with trackers that found them. Towns and cities evacuated when they found out a Lazurai was headed their way. Most of them suicided eventually, as they could no longer approach any other human. Occasionally, they found babies alive after their families had died, and raised those babies on their own, in secret. One of those babies was my grandfather. He then grew to become a teen ager and started roaming on his own, but was able to control his infectious 'abilities' and get near people - until they eventually found out. Getting attacked by others only made the Lazurai infect as self-defense. And then the government would get involved and they 'd have to disappear again." A tear formed at the corner of Cathy's eye.

I truly felt sorry for those kids. And put my hand on Cathy's where it lay on her chair arm.

She turned her hand over and held onto mine, looking me in the eyes with her own blue ones. "The story does have a happy ending. Those kids adopted other babies, and those babies also grew up and adopted. In each generation, the control over their abilities was improved. What you're touching now is the hand of a fourth-generation Lazurai. As are all of these student-nurses, also."

VIII

HE DIDN'T FLINCH AT that. Probably because we'd been talking for nearly three weeks by then, even though he had to wear that stupid, useless hazmat suit.

"So that all means that you and your students could dissolve concrete if you had to?"

I had to smile at this. "Well, yes. Of course, that would start an old hunt up all over again. And we'd all survive being gassed, even those kids in there. But a lot of these adults wouldn't. It takes a long time to help an adult to change. Too many habits they've built in."

Reg's mind was racing. He was one of those "adults" now. He was looking off into space and I could see his eyes move as he considered various options. "How soon before Carlos is awake? Can you speed it up - I need to talk to him."

"Now that you know, we can probably give him some advanced treatments and have him able to talk in maybe 15 minutes or so." I rose and patted his shoulder so he stayed there. Nodding to Sue and another nearby nurse I motioned them over to the maintenance tech's bed.

We put our hands on his exposed arms, closed our eyes and concentrated.

It didn't take that quarter of an hour. He woke and saw us, then smiled.

Reg had stood to watch us and came closer. He started talking to Carlos in a quiet voice, explaining what had happened and asking him questions about protocols and other details.

We nurses all had our own duties to take care of, which now meant accelerating our treatments on everyone. Just in case.

IX

THE LAST ARMY TRUCK pulled out at dawn from the quarantine zone. The concrete pumpers and forms were already in place. A colonel signaled them to start. It took about two days to completely cover the building. The last dosage of gas had been given just hours before the concrete pumpers quit. By the time they cleaned out their equipment, it had been 48 hours.

A second chain link fence now surrounded the original and the buildings nearby were evacuated. Dozers and earth moving equipment were already in place to level all the nearby buildings for a block in all directions. Supplies for a third chain link fence to surround that perimeter were stacked on site, waiting for the demolition to complete. Typical government efficiency. 

Cathy, Sue, Carlos and I were all on that last truck. Dressed in hazmat suits and accompanying the body bags, both small and large.

We were driven out to a large transport plane where another crew of haz-mat-suited government types carefully transferred the body bags and us into its open hatch. Two other cargo planes of the same type were nearby on that runway. 

All the planes took off together. Not long after, a fourth identical plane rose up as ours started descending. It wasn't too long before we lost sight of the three planes in the clouds that formed overhead.

Soon our plane touched down with bumps on a little-used airfield long enough to allow a landing for the big plane.

By then we had every one woken out of their trances and sitting on benches at each side of the plane's hold. They had dressed before they  left the medical compound, in the street clothes they came in or others from what was available. The babies were shared between the adults, and formula bottles appeared from supplies (warmed by the hands of one of the Lazurai student-nurses to body temperature.)

The ramp was lowered and we were met by a small group of people who ushered us into waiting buses.

We drove to an upscale hotel on the suburbs of 'Cagga, well outside their city borders. The top two full floors had been rented in advance, sealed off from any access. The reason was to "debrief" the patients and tell them their options.

Most of them were going to have very long, healthy lives after this. They could return to their families if they wanted. Otherwise, officials would dutifully break the news of their death as delicately as possible.

Those who wanted to continue their treatment and training were allowed to select one of several small villages in various states for relocation.

The babies were returned to their parents with private schooling awarded up to and including college, all expenses paid. Orphans were accepted by the villages willingly.

Carlos returned to his own family, with the idea and promise of relocating them to one of the villages.

All were briefed that no one would believe their story about the existence of Lazurai. A more suitable explanation was that some very experimental techniques were employed that fortunately had a "miracle cure" result. But were too technical for laymen to understand or try to duplicate. A number was given them to a government phone which would only accept messages.

. . . .

Cathy and I sat in an empty restaurant in the top of that hotel, enjoying a quiet dinner.

"I'd ask how this was all arranged, but I'm sure that I don't need to know."

"Well, I'll tell you something as unbelievable as it is true. First, the government is very happy to cooperate with us. We are their worst enemy and best ally. Second, there is a guy named 'Peter' who knows something called 'advanced mathematics of retrospective analysis' which in short says that you can predict behavior and events if you understand history well enough. And he saw this particular problem coming. That infectious outbreak common to secessionist cities." She speared a small piece of steak and chewed thoughtfully before continuing.

"It was his idea and financing to set up these nursing colleges in the Lazurai villages years before, then provide 'volunteer' teams into various hospital staffs at the appropriate time to stem off the worst contagion. A few of the larger cities in the Midwest already have been solved, although the best we can do for the coastal megalopolises is to convert it into a widespread 'Legionnaire Disease' outbreak. The result is that while it will still be a plague, the entire human race won't be wiped out."

I nearly dropped my fork at her casual explanation of a global epidemic. "You mean there is nothing we can do?"

Cathy shook her head and looked down at her plate.

I reached over and touched her hand with mine. The same hand that had saved countless lives, including mine.

She looked up again, bleary eyed, but smiling. "At least I got you out of this deal. I hear you decided to come to my village so we can continue our conversations."

I had to smile in return. "The deal was no hazmat suits and way more than 30 minutes per day."

She was grinning at that point. "You know, they have a wonderful view of the Illinois plains from here. Would  you like to pick up your questions where we left off?"

We rose and walked to the balcony, through their glass doors, and held each other around our waists as we talked. For a very long time.

Coda

IN A DISTANT ABANDONED government facility, an elevator creaked to a sub-sub-level and flickering fluorescent lights turned on bank by bank. They exposed a huge empty room with concrete walls. Around the walls at varying intervals were discolored patches in the shapes of humans, as if someone had outlined around them and colored inside.

The elevator opened and a man wearing a three-piece wool-blend suit emerged, along with a woman in skin-tight black leather. They carried nothing in their hands. No weapons of any kind.

Because they knew what they were up against, the challenge ahead of them.

Walking into the center of the room, the man cleared his throat.

"It's time. You can come out now."

One by one, at varying timings, a shape emerged from the walls in front of each human outline.

They each were forms of one of the four elements - dust, fire, air, or water.  All were in motion, but none were moving beyond their spot.

The man and woman in the center of the room were silent, thinking, communicating with all present on a level far beyond what any typical human can sense or understand. After a long time, the couple took each other's hand and bowed their heads.

At that, the elemental forms each shimmered, and disappeared.

When the last form had left, the couple turned back to the elevator and entered it, still holding hands as the doors closed. Distant rumblings took their elevator car back up to the surface.

Meanwhile the lights began turning out, one bank at a time. At last the room was dark as it had been for decades before.

The next phase in our planet's evolution had begun.

Book Universes Notes

The universes of these stories can mix and merge. They've become large and complicated through their various series and crossovers. So we've begun the process of adding Book Universes Notes to each of them. This allows you to get the earlier materials that explain the character's backgrounds and abilities.

Also, as short stories, some intrinsic plot/character points can flash by in a single paragraph or sentence. These have been highlighted here.

Please enjoy.

THIS IS ANOTHER ADVENTURE with a strong romance structure.

And is where you learn just how the Lazurai heal, more or less. (See “The Lazurai” and “The Lazurai Returns”) In that first book is a clue about a “Sentient Life Act”, which might help explain this.

The couple meets when this detective (Reg) has to break quarantine to save their technician's life. Then the head nurse (Cathy) saves his life by having him walk the babies all night, one after the other.

This is a different take on the Lazurai phenomenon, where the babies themselves can heal. A subtle point (not made obvious) is that the babies have all been cared for by these Lazurai nurses, and so the babies virulence has been changed into healing.

But our characters are now on the clock, as the policy for any quarantine break is to pump in fatal gas, then cement over the structure.  (Will they never learn?)

Some sort of inside resistance organization becomes apparent when their cargo plane with the "bodies" is replaced by another. A later discussion gives an explanation is that the government is actually cooperating with them, as the Lazurai are both "their worst enemy and best ally."

In a late discussion in the story, Cathy reveals they are all fourth-generation Lazurai, she also explains that they avoid detection by looking and acting like everyone else.

A later anthology explains the various generations of Lazurai – The Healers Chronicles

The Masque of the Red Death

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death”.

It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example in blue—and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colours and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in “Hernani”. There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and about taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulged in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumour of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade licence of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

“Who dares,”—he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him—“who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him—that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!”

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the purple to the green—through the green to the orange—through this again to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

The Scarlet Plague

BY JACK LONDON

- - - -

I

THE WAY LED ALONG UPON what had once been the embankment of a railroad. But no train had run upon it for many years. The forest on either side swelled up the slopes of the embankment and crested across it in a green wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrow as a man’s body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway. Occasionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing through the forest-mould, advertised that the rail and the ties still remained. In one place, a ten-inch tree, bursting through at a connection, had lifted the end of a rail clearly into view. The tie had evidently followed the rail, held to it by the spike long enough for its bed to be filled with gravel and rotten leaves, so that now the crumbling, rotten timber thrust itself up at a curious slant. Old as the road was, it was manifest that it had been of the mono-rail type.

An old man and a boy travelled along this runway. They moved slowly, for the old man was very old, a touch of palsy made his movements tremulous, and he leaned heavily upon his staff. A rude skull-cap of goat-skin protected his head from the sun. From beneath this fell a scant fringe of stained and dirty-white hair. A visor, ingeniously made from a large leaf, shielded his eyes, and from under this he peered at the way of his feet on the trail. His beard, which should have been snow-white but which showed the same weather-wear and camp-stain as his hair, fell nearly to his waist in a great tangled mass. About his chest and shoulders hung a single, mangy garment of goat-skin. His arms and legs, withered and skinny, betokened extreme age, as well as did their sunburn and scars and scratches betoken long years of exposure to the elements.

The boy, who led the way, checking the eagerness of his muscles to the slow progress of the elder, likewise wore a single garment—a ragged-edged piece of bear-skin, with a hole in the middle through which he had thrust his head. He could not have been more than twelve years old. Tucked coquettishly over one ear was the freshly severed tail of a pig. In one hand he carried a medium-sized bow and an arrow.

On his back was a quiverful of arrows. From a sheath hanging about his neck on a thong, projected the battered handle of a hunting knife. He was as brown as a berry, and walked softly, with almost a catlike tread. In marked contrast with his sunburned skin were his eyes—blue, deep blue, but keen and sharp as a pair of gimlets. They seemed to bore into aft about him in a way that was habitual. As he went along he smelled things, as well, his distended, quivering nostrils carrying to his brain an endless series of messages from the outside world. Also, his hearing was acute, and had been so trained that it operated automatically. Without conscious effort, he heard all the slight sounds in the apparent quiet—heard, and differentiated, and classified these sounds—whether they were of the wind rustling the leaves, of the humming of bees and gnats, of the distant rumble of the sea that drifted to him only in lulls, or of the gopher, just under his foot, shoving a pouchful of earth into the entrance of his hole.

Suddenly he became alertly tense. Sound, sight, and odor had given him a simultaneous warning. His hand went back to the old man, touching him, and the pair stood still. Ahead, at one side of the top of the embankment, arose a crackling sound, and the boy’s gaze was fixed on the tops of the agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at sight of the humans. He did not like them, and growled querulously. Slowly the boy fitted the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bowstring taut. But he never removed his eyes from the bear.

The old man peered from under his green leaf at the danger, and stood as quietly as the boy. For a few seconds this mutual scrutinizing went on; then, the bear betraying a growing irritability, the boy, with a movement of his head, indicated that the old man must step aside from the trail and go down the embankment. The boy followed, going backward, still holding the bow taut and ready. They waited till a crashing among the bushes from the opposite side of the embankment told them the bear had gone on. The boy grinned as he led back to the trail.

“A big un, Granser,” he chuckled.

The old man shook his head.

“They get thicker every day,” he complained in a thin, undependable falsetto. “Who’d have thought I’d live to see the time when a man would be afraid of his life on the way to the Cliff House. When I was a boy, Edwin, men and women and little babies used to come out here from San Francisco by tens of thousands on a nice day. And there weren’t any bears then. No, sir. They used to pay money to look at them in cages, they were that rare.”

“What is money, Granser?”

Before the old man could answer, the boy recollected and triumphantly shoved his hand into a pouch under his bear-skin and pulled forth a battered and tarnished silver dollar. The old man’s eyes glistened, as he held the coin close to them.

“I can’t see,” he muttered. “You look and see if you can make out the date, Edwin.”

The boy laughed.

“You’re a great Granser,” he cried delightedly, “always making believe them little marks mean something.”

The old man manifested an accustomed chagrin as he brought the coin back again close to his own eyes.

“2012,” he shrilled, and then fell to cackling grotesquely. “That was the year Morgan the Fifth was appointed President of the United States by the Board of Magnates. It must have been one of the last coins minted, for the Scarlet Death came in 2013. Lord! Lord!—think of it! Sixty years ago, and I am the only person alive to-day that lived in those times. Where did you find it, Edwin?”

The boy, who had been regarding him with the tolerant curiousness one accords to the prattlings of the feeble-minded, answered promptly.

“I got it off of Hoo-Hoo. He found it when we was herdin’ goats down near San José last spring. Hoo-Hoo said it was money. Ain’t you hungry, Granser?”

The ancient caught his staff in a tighter grip and urged along the trail, his old eyes shining greedily.

“I hope Har-Lip ‘s found a crab... or two,” he mumbled. “They’re good eating, crabs, mighty good eating when you’ve no more teeth and you’ve got grandsons that love their old grandsire and make a point of catching crabs for him. When I was a boy—”

But Edwin, suddenly stopped by what he saw, was drawing the bowstring on a fitted arrow. He had paused on the brink of a crevasse in the embankment. An ancient culvert had here washed out, and the stream, no longer confined, had cut a passage through the fill. On the opposite side, the end of a rail projected and overhung. It showed rustily through the creeping vines which overran it. Beyond, crouching by a bush, a rabbit looked across at him in trembling hesitancy. Fully fifty feet was the distance, but the arrow flashed true; and the transfixed rabbit, crying out in sudden fright and hurt, struggled painfully away into the brush. The boy himself was a flash of brown skin and flying fur as he bounded down the steep wall of the gap and up the other side. His lean muscles were springs of steel that released into graceful and efficient action. A hundred feet beyond, in a tangle of bushes, he overtook the wounded creature, knocked its head on a convenient tree-trunk, and turned it over to Granser to carry.

“Rabbit is good, very good,” the ancient quavered, “but when it comes to a toothsome delicacy I prefer crab. When I was a boy—”

“Why do you say so much that ain’t got no sense?” Edwin impatiently interrupted the other’s threatened garrulousness.

The boy did not exactly utter these words, but something that remotely resembled them and that was more guttural and explosive and economical of qualifying phrases. His speech showed distant kinship with that of the old man, and the latter’s speech was approximately an English that had gone through a bath of corrupt usage.

“What I want to know,” Edwin continued, “is why you call crab ‘toothsome delicacy’? Crab is crab, ain’t it? No one I never heard calls it such funny things.”