Chapter 10: William
Never before have I experienced pain like I bear now. It has been nearly a week since I first showed the signs and somehow I have managed this long. It began when I noticed my chest was a bright red color in the mirror. Then the rest of the horrors followed. However, none of the pain I physically dealt with prepared me for what was to come.
It was the day after I had become ill that I saw my wife succumb to the same illness. When I first saw the rash on her back, I walked into the bathroom and cried my eyes out. The disease at that point was all over the country. I thought we could avoid it if we secluded ourselves at the ranger station in the woods.
I was wrong. It infected me and she refused to leave.
A month ago, I had held my wife's hand as she fought against cancer. Those tears and long nights seemed to be worth every minute when the doctor told us that it had gone into remission. I had never felt so happy as we held each other in tears of joy. It seemed we had managed through better or worse. Things became much worse. A month after her remission, we were in the middle of the woods trying to fight another disease. It all seemed futile.
The plague was much harder on her. She was bedridden that night and needed to rest constantly. I think it was my love to take care of her that helped me to hold on so long while fighting my own symptoms. She died the following night in my arms as I sat in bed. I prayed that I would just die at that moment too, but I knew I wasn’t going to get any breaks. I kissed her forehead.
The virus had quickly changed her face, but she was still beautiful to me.
I wanted to take care of her body properly. I took a shovel from the shed and I buried her behind the station. The sores became worse and each time I drove the spade into the earth-I ripped more skin open. After lashing together two pathetic looking crosses the job was finished despite the debilitating pain. I carried her in, buried her, and read what prayers I could remember from church. I doubted God was listening, but it is what she would have wanted. Then I stuck in the one cross. The other, I hoped would be mine one day- right beside her. When I finished I realized how exhausted I was. My shirt stuck to my body with sweat and blood. I fell to my knees twice on the way to the ranger station alone. I didn't have anything left in me.
I walked to the bathroom, stripped, and turned the shower on. I tried to remain standing, but it was not to be. My knees fell to the floor, and they stayed there. The water turned pink as it washed off my body. I was in pain all over. The campground relied on a ground water source and should keep running for a long time. I stumbled out of the bathroom and changed into my uniform- the last clean clothes. In the kitchen, I tried to eat some food, but I threw it back up into the sink. The only thing that I could manage was a few sips of water. I fell into a chair at the table. A tablet and pen rested on it from when my wife and I planned to make a shopping list just a few days before. I saw her handwriting. Milk, marshmallows, strawberries... It was too much; sobs erupted uncontrolled from my throat. Each item brought up the simplest of memories that I couldn’t repress. I told her I didn’t need my lactose intolerance pills as I ate a bowl of cereal. I was up that entire night, and she never said I told you so. I once had teased her about how terrible she was at roasting marshmallows, as I pulled my own pathetic, sticky, black blob on a stick out of the fire pit. The sweet strawberries were her favorite on the hottest of days and blackest of nights.
Dots of salt water consume the paper until I finally muster the strength and courage to grasp the pen. I didn't know who I was writing to, but I need someone to talk to. Even if it is only a piece of paper.
“To whoever finds this-
I don't have long left. Burying my beloved wife robbed me of the last strength I had. She lies behind this ranger station. I am sure you can find the place beneath the soft soil. We tried our best to hide from death, but we were not so fortunate as to escape its wrath. My time is short. If one of the poor children left behind should find this note soon, throughout this station you will find food and water that my wife and I hoped would sustain us. Now I hope it may sustain you in your time of need. There is a safe in the back with a rifle. These woods are full of game, and if the virus has not spread to animals, you should be able to survive for a long time on the campground.”
I glance over my writing. It slowly becomes harder and harder to read. My hands are shaking; my vision blurs worse. I am thirsty. I am cold. I scribble a few more words, the combination to the safe, and lay it on the table. My legs carry me, barely, to the main room. They feel like rubber, and my entire body aches. Every breath burns my insides. I support myself from the couch then to the wall but my own weight becomes too much for me. I slide down the wall to my knees. The lights turn off; I must have hit the switch. I struggle my left arm up the wall, but I cannot find it. The little air in my lungs bursts through my mouth as I fall forward onto my chest. The bathroom is just a few feet away. I want to crawl in the shower and turn on the water so bad. I can feel my shirt again sticking to the blood slowly oozing from the sores all over me again.
I can't crawl. I can't yell. My body shuts down. I give up and close my eyes. Maybe someone will find this station. I'll be dead, but maybe, just maybe, I will have helped them.