FBR, Chapter Six, scene 1

Foreign Body Reaction
Alan McNeill
Chapter 6 Scene 1

“I guess since we're murderers I shouldn't complain about you turning Jasper into a thief,” said Bea, stretching her cramped legs out of her. They were taking a ten minute break on the hike. Darlene, Bea, and Ben had been hiking up and down a southeast ridge for most of the morning, carrying heavy almost forty pounds each in the packs.

“Bad to the bone, and a danger to all children, I guess,” said Ben, smiling and sitting down in front of Bea. Bea wore a long loose dress that each of the three women had come to adopt in the last three months. All the them tended to count time from the first flu case in Grants Pass.

“The truck battery's about shot. We need the shortwave and CB radios and scanner or we wouldn't know what is happening. You know that.”

“So you have to send Jasper with Mark to steal solar panels?”

Ben began working a bit precious aloe and oil into Bea's calves.

“God, not so hard, oh, that's good.” said Bea and finally, “Nice.” as Ben's hands worked.

“They'll be back soon I would think.”

“Why does he always take Jasper on these salvage trips?”

Ben thought about it a moment. “I think it is really her who takes him. Do you think she gives him a choice?”

Bea thought about it for a moment. In the three months since Jasper had come back with Mark, awake and alive and back to her old self, well no, thought Bea, she's not like her old self. Her old self was a spoiled teenager. The divorce had been hard for her, but she soon learned to play dad against mom to get what she wanted. That had been Jasper. The girl who came back with Mark that day Bea thought of, in private moments, as new Jasper.

Jasper had eaten ravenously, going through their dwindling stores of freeze dried Mountain House meals, then had fallen into a deep sleep that lasted until the following morning. Mark had sat by the fire and told them what he saw. He didn't try to make sense of it, he just told it in order. Everyone had questions, but Mark didn't have the answers, and he was not a man to supply them to ease the discomfort of others.

When Jasper awoke she spent more time with Bea, which might not seem strange, Bea thought, unless you had a fourteen year old girl, in which case you were probably aware that mom is “not cool“ at that age. In the three months they remained at the overhang shelter, she and Jasper had become mother and daughter again. They created new clothing for Jasper, and slowly Jasper's wardrobe changed to incorporate the hides that Mark tanned from the trap line that fed them throughout the winter months.

The entire three months would have been considered idyllic by most people, except at night they learned step by step what happens to an inter connected country that is slashed apart at every arterial road flu closures, military police, vigilantes and the ever increasing piles of unburied dead.

Mark and Ben took turns listening with an ear bud, and both took time in the truck during the day to listen to the CB. The CB radio provided little as they were far from I-5 but occasionally one of the linear amped rigs was powerful enough and they could hear single sided conversations for a while. The information was bleak.

The H5N1 virus burned out of control up and down the I-5 interstate corridor and across the nation. The ruined economy that had staggered zombie like after the financial collapse of 2008, had been dealt a deadly punch to trade. Roads went unrepaired, trucks did not flow like blood through the arteries of commerce, and anything that was available came by barter and trade locally, if the people dare meet each other face to face. Hunger drove them out, and they had to search and trade and barter for food, fuel, wood for heat. The flu road silently with them and it killed over two thirds of those who showed symptoms.

Some people had resistance to it, and never got sick, others got sick and got better. And a small few got it, never got sick, but continually spread the virus wherever they traveled.

The small band of five had grown together as tribe through the winter. Without Mark they would have starved. He worked harder than any of them to keep them fed and safe. His were the skills required now, and even though he worked, listened to the radio and took part in discussions about their future, he remained somewhat aloof, except to Jasper.

When Jasper wasn't with Bea working on a project she was shadowing Mark, and any time Mark went to check the trap line, Jasper was with him. When Mark looked for signs of others close to them, Jasper was right behind. At first he sent her back. He needed to concentrate, and moving through the woods like a shadow was not a game. He was armed and he didn't want to accidentally shoot her. He explained that to her.

He tried being stern, talking to Bea who just shrugged, and to Ben. Whether Ben liked it or not, he was the defacto leader of the of the small band.

Ben talked to Jasper.

Jasper stood five foot four now, at age fourteen, she had black hair that when combed out cascaded down the middle of her back past her shoulder blades. She had almond eyes with a hint of Mongol blood from some Indian forebearer. Her face was alive, and she had a new sensitivity that was unnerving. That was coupled with a warm sense of no personal space and a tendency to laugh and giggle at unreasonable worry and concern. Ben didn't make much headway with explaining why she couldn't go with Mark. She liked Ben, he really tried to make everything work out and make sense. He explained well and got excited when he talked. She enjoyed that now.

One day Mark was following a noise he hoped would be a deer in the brush ahead. He never used the pistols or rifles because of the noise. They remained undiscovered and he wished that to continue. He dispatched small game caught in the traps with a small oak club, and he carried a hickory bow that he had made years before. He made arrows from dried rose branches, straighted over the fire and broadheads from scrap metal. Fletching was provided by a coyote killed wild turkey.

The wind veered and Mark's scent drifted into the alder thicket below him. The doe was up and running, and Mark took careful aim. The arrow fell struck some limb or twig in flight and went low it seemed, but three bounds later she crashed to the forest floor, still.

Mark was pleased and drew his sheath knife to begin the butchering. He arrived at the deer as Jasper stood and wiped her knife on a handful of big leave maple leaves, and slide it back into her sheath. She handed Mark his arrow and bent to watch him dress the carcass.

“I missed.”

“Close though.”

“You killed her?”

“We needed her, and I'm hungry for something besides raccoon and rabbits.”

“Mark looked at the girl, “how . . .?”

“I knew where she would go, I heard both of you. I just sat down and waited.”

Mark grumbled, “I made no noise.”

Jasper laughed, but I can hear you anyway silly, then her face got that far away look that Mark had seen before. She placed her hand on the deer's still chest. She sighed and the wind stirred the leaves around them slightly.

Mark felt something move between all three of them, the girl, the deer, him and even the forest. He never told her not to come again.

They had returned that day, Jasper carrying part of the deer carcass wrapped in hide. Blood and fluid stained her legs as she walked, dripping from the meat. Bea watched amazed.

Jasper had been nearly a vegetarian before the, uh, attack, but now she happily munched any kind of meat, and she seemed hungry all the time. She ate rabbit thighs, chunks of raccoon, wild turkey, and fish.

Mark had mentioned once that Bea should listen closely as Jasper chewed. He swore she made a noise in her throat, sort of a growl. Bea had slapped him and just laughed. Mark was serious, but shut up. It was just good to see Jasper getting whole again, more than whole in a way she never was before. Her body was filling out. She seemed poised and thought so many things were funny. Yet she remained a fourteen year old girl woman, mercurial, changing moods, sometimes noisy and repetitive until you just couldn't stand it and then other times, in the middle of that she would become perfectly quiet, stand stock still and listen. At least Bea thought she was listening.

That had been a hard time for all of them. The destruction the flu caused, the deaths, and then the destruction people caused as the grip of civilization seemed to fall away from some of them like ill fitting clothes. Personally it had been hard for each of them not to be in contact with friends and loved ones. Ben said they couldn't turn on the cell phones because the cell phones contained chips that allowed others to know where they were. That was hard.

It was a great relief for Bea in January when Jasper started her period. Bea had been holding her breath in a way, she didn't want Jasper to have to hold onto that memory of the rapes, be defined by it, and to have to love a baby that constantly reminded Jasper of that time. So Bea was struck numb when she herself missed her period.

The thought of being three months pregnant shocked Bea back to the present and the warm, sensual touch of Ben's hands on her legs. She spread her legs a bit to give Ben greater access to her sore muscles. She was only three months pregnant by her back was sore already. Ben flushed. Bea laughed.

Ben was obviously attracted to her and had actually started getting pretty close until Bea had told Darlene that she was pregnant, or thought she was. Everyone knew it in short order, and Ben had withdrawn a bit more.

He listened every night to the nightmare that was modern America, and he was determined that they would not be infected or eaten by the monster that so many groups had become. But it seemed to cost him, there was no release from the horror for him, no comfort.

Bea had felt a connection to him the moment that he had touched her wound there in the mini van on that horrible day. They had been lucky. None of their group ever showed a sign of the flu. Ben was completely determined that it would stay that way.

Bea did mourn her brother Barry and was saddened that they had to bury him in hurriedly in an unmarked grave. Jasper told her mother that she knew just where Barry was and if Bea wanted Jasper could take her there. Bea no longer asked how Jasper knew, but she knew there would come a time that they would go there and she would get a chance to say goodbye to her brother in peace. Someday Bea had said, when it is safe again.

Bea only wished Ben could forgive himself for his decisions that day of the attack. Bea looked down to see if she was showing yet. Nope, not yet. After three months she needed to unwind too, and she sort of thought she could help Ben out at the same time. This massage was a good start. His hands were burning on her thighs.

“Anyway, Mark found a microwave repeater that is on top of Big Dutchman Butte,” said Ben. “There is no sign of power or life, and Mark and Jasper have been checking the trails and roads for several days. There are four good seventy five watt panels there.”

“We only have the short wave and the CB radio, why do we need it now, especially since we're on the move now?”

“We need power for the CB radios, recharging the phones if we ever use them again, and because they are valuable as trade items for other things we might need.”

“You mean we're going to actually talk to other people in person?” said Bea, betraying her excitement.

“Can't keep'em down on the farm once they've seen the city, huh?”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Anyway, The tower is not working and we might as well have them as someone else. I thought it was worth the risk slight risk.”

“Your decision boss, anything happens to Jasper, I'll kill you in your sleep, she smiled as she said it.”

“I'm not the boss, we've had this discussion before, but regarding Jasper, deal, kill me in my sleep if necessary.”

“A rose by any other name still stinks,” said Bea getting up to get rose hip tea ready for Mark and Jasper's return. During the winter, their primary drinks had been dried dandelion root and dried rosehip tea sweetened with honey. Both were excellent sources of vitamin C, and in short supply in their other foods.

Ben grumbled to himself, but he had to admit it. He ended up making a lot of the decisions. First because Bea and Jasper had been in shock for a long time after the abduction and attack, and then because they had all fallen into comfortable rhythm beneath the rock overhang on Chipmunk Ridge. Over three months, without really meaning to put much work into it, they had naturally turned it into a little tribe.

Odd thought Bea, that is how she thought of all of them, a group of five pilgrims. Every night they listened to the shortwave, the little Kaiko radio. It used little energy and was easily recharged from Mark's truck battery.

Three months had passed since Jasper's return. It was late February and in the Siskiyou mountains of Southwest Oregon the group of three women and two men continued their isolation. Spring was beginning to erupt, though early for even this warmer section of Oregon.

Ben stood up and Darlene returned from the woods, Bea said, me next and took off into the woods to relieve herself, then all there were on the way again, working by compass across the folded hills to meet Mark and Jasper. From there they would ride to their new home for the night. Game had become scarce as the months passed, and Ben was increasingly concerned about the black SUV that mark had mentioned on Jasper's return. From the description Ben was sure that it was Patricia. How and why she was there, he had no clue, and if that close, why was she waiting?

With the first hint of spring, Ben had made the case for moving towards the coast and they had agreed. There there would be more food choice and at least more distance from the flu horror of the I-5 corridor.

#