White Wasteland, Jeff Kirkham [ebook reader with highlight function TXT] 📗

I’ve been doing therapy with her myself. You guys probably don’t know how much she does to keep our people together, myself included.” He sat back down.

“Do we know who else is involved?” Jeff Kirkham asked. His wife Tara wasn’t in the room. She lay in the infirmary recovering from her ruined lungs, as much as she would ever recover.

“It couldn’t possibly be her alone, but she won’t tell us about anyone else,” Jason spat. “Frankly, I’ll be glad to reduce our numbers, given how much of my wheat we’ve spent hiring outsiders. I think we have too many people relying on my stores of food already. Those who can’t stick to our agreement need to be shown the door. This is survival, not playtime.”

“We would be sentencing them to death,” Burke Ross reminded everyone, especially his son. “They’re not just an amount of wheat we would be saving. People will die if we exile them. People we care about.”

“How many people did she sentence to death by letting the flu in here? Eleven? Plus others like Tara Kirkham—maimed,” Jason fired back at his father.

“Those people that died are gone and there’s nothing we can do about it,” the elder Ross said. “Jacquelyn and any others; they’re still with us. There’s a big difference. Our children and our grandchildren will never forget their faces if we force them out those gates.”

“What choice do we have? We’ve sent others packing for less. If we stop keeping our word around here, we’re all dead,” Jason argued.

The door to the conference room burst open. An orderly from the infirmary stood in the entry, panting. She scanned the room and her eyes stopped on Jason Ross.

“Come quickly to the infirmary. Emily collapsed.”

Jason jumped up and ran out the door, Jenna Ross behind him. The others remained, waiting for news, and whispering about the fate of Jacquelyn Reynolds.

Jason Ross mashed up against the clear, plastic barrier, listening as his unconscious daughter’s breath rattled. Her breathing sounded like a straw at the bottom of a milkshake and her skin had turned an ominous shade of plum. He would give his life to make that rattling stop. His lovely daughter was being transformed into a bloated creature before his eyes.

He tore at his hair and yelled at Doctor Larsen when he approached. “What the hell is wrong with her?”

“It’s the flu. Second waves are common. We have three other cases in the infirmary and one more on its way from the Lower Barricade. I told the others that it was too early to hold group meetings. Just because the flu backed off doesn’t mean we were in the clear.”

Jason didn’t know who “the others” were and he didn’t care. The doctor’s complaints meant nothing to him.

“How could this happen so fast?” Jason barely held back the urge to grab the doctor by his lapels and shake him.

“Several patients have come down fast like this, especially among the young and the strong. All we can do is to let it run its course. She has severe ARDS and it came on quickly. We need to isolate everyone she came in contact with, now.”

Jenna Ross gave the doctor a list of people who had direct contact with Emily that day, including Jacquelyn’s children and Gabriel. Everyone in the prayer service had probably been exposed too.

Jason stared sullenly at his suffering daughter. He hated Jacquelyn Reynolds. His throat tightened and he could barely swallow.

He whipped away from the plastic cubicle and stormed back toward the meeting room.

Jeff had seen men come unhinged before, but it always shocked him—like eating eggs every morning to one day discover that the eggs were actually wet tissue paper. A man could be like that. A man could hold secret fissures in his heart, and one day suddenly crumble to dust and rubble.

Ross burst into the room and bellowed that the flu had returned to the Homestead in a second wave. Jeff hadn’t even known that was possible.

“Jacquelyn’s fucking OUT of the Homestead. And anyone who helped her is OUT.” Jason stormed, his fists clenching and unclenching as he hovered over the table. “And fuck any of you who wants to debate it. That includes you, Dad.”

Burke Ross looked more sad than angry, but he was apparently unwilling to wade into his son’s apoplexy. Jenna floated into the room behind her husband and took the seat nearest the door.

Jason choked, wavered, snorted back tearful rage. “The flu is back and it’s their fault. Four more cases are in the infirmary and we need to move back to quarantine immediately. We lifted it too soon. Again, we’ve let ourselves be weak and now more people will die. I’m done being soft. If you want to waffle on our agreements, go down and look at Emily before you open your fucking mouth. My daughter is drowning.” Ross slammed his hands on the table. “Whoever did this is out of the Homestead. It’s done.”

Nobody, apparently, wanted to tangle with Jason’s grief and rage, so they remained silent.

Jenna Ross spoke into the hush. “I helped Jacquelyn.”

The words echoed like a death knell.

Jason’s face went slack. Every eye in the room drifted between he and Jenna. His eyes lost focus and rolled as he looked away and gathered himself.

“Then you’re out too…”

Jeff stared at his hands on the cherrywood table rather than watch the husband and wife. His own wife lay in the infirmary, alive but reduced. He thought about his knee on Vanderlink’s head, his pistol jammed against his brain stem, pressure on the trigger. He knew Jason’s anger. Even so, he could not fathom a man who would walk his wife to the executioner, even in a fit of grief.

Something bloomed in Jeff’s chest. The Mormon president had planted it when he’d put his hand on Jeff’s shoulder, but Jeff didn’t notice the tiny fleck of a seed at the time. The seed raised its dowager head now. A nodding sprout burning green life.