Читать книгу Earth's New Beginning: The Sleeping Death Contagion - John Gleed - Страница 9

Vero Beach was a town on the Atlantic coast of Florida, about a hundred and fifty miles north of Miami. Before SDC, the population of the town itself was about seventeen thousand permanent residents, plus a varying number of tourists, depending on the season.

The contagion had reached Vero Beach quickly. On that fateful Monday morning, the Browns, an older couple from Albany, were sitting directly in front of Jim Henderson on his flight to New York. They were on their way down to Florida to look for a new home for their retirement. They were sick of the harsh winters of northern New York State and, now they were both retired, it was time to prepare for their escape to the sun. The Browns’ close contact with Jim Henderson on the flight down to New York ensured they both became infected with the SDC virus.

From New York, they flew to Fort Lauderdale and picked up their rental car on Monday afternoon. They had plenty of time to drive north to the hotel in Vero Beach they had booked as their base for their Florida house search. By Tuesday morning, when the Browns met their real estate agent, their infection had progressed to the point where the mild cold symptoms were making their appearance. The infection was now very contagious and most of the people whom they met in Vero Beach became infected.

On Wednesday night, the Browns died in their hotel bed. Their bodies were not discovered until Thursday afternoon. The hotel manager had finally used his passkey to get into their room after the housekeeping staff got no response to their repeated knocks on the door.

On Friday morning, ten SDC deaths were reported to the local health authorities. The news from New York and other large cities was the main item on radio and TV. As soon as the news of the deaths in Vero Beach was made public, a panicky attempt to flee from the area began, ensuring the contagion would be spread farther and faster than ever.

On Friday night, nearly two hundred of the remaining residents died in their sleep. By the end of the day on Saturday, Vero Beach’s streets were deserted. Most people either had left town or were already dead. The only living people remaining in the town were family members of those who had died the previous night. Their devastating grief would not allow them to leave their loved ones without a proper burial. They also assumed they would be next. They preferred to die in their own beds, as opposed to going through the fruitless panic and stress of a doomed attempt to escape.

Jane Wood, a forty-year-old kindergarten teacher, was one of these people. Her husband, John and her four-year-old daughter, Lizzie, had died on Friday night. She had discovered that John had died in his sleep when she woke up early on Saturday morning to find his body cold and lifeless in bed next to her. She was devastated when she ran to Lizzie’s bedroom, only to find her beloved child had met the same fate.

Her call to the hospital had been finally answered after a long wait. The hospital had already been swamped with similar calls and more were coming in every minute. She was informed an ambulance would be dispatched as soon as one was available.

It did not come and, as Jane listened to the extraordinary news on the local radio, she realized it never would. She decided to stay with her family until she joined them in heaven. After taking three sleeping pills from the medicine cabinet, she lay down in her bed with her husband on one side and little Lizzie on the other. She did not expect to awaken.

The drugs put Jane into a deep, long sleep. She did not wake up until ten Sunday morning, after almost twenty hours of sleep. She was one of the few who were immune to the fatal consequences of SDC. It only took a few moments for her to remember the tragedy of the previous day. The lifeless bodies beside her brought her to quick consciousness and despair.

She was going to have to face the rest of her life without John and Lizzie.