Chapter 1, ANGEL BABY

My name is Ethan "Duke" Anderson, it’s April 27, 2014  I write this after 26 days in the hospital with my wife Jennifer Sue Anderson, she lay in the bed before me, in a comma, fighting for life. Though I think if she could see what is going on around her she might embrace death. The "shrink" at the hospital gave me this journal a couple weeks ago and said something like “write down your “feelings” and we can talk.”  He died two days ago, of what? I have no idea, he’s just dead, I asked and got an oddly blank stare for nurse Fauna, (she seems to be some sort of unofficial "boss", nurse all the other nurses seem to dowhat ever she says. Some of the younger nurse even follow her around like puppies.)

I've noticed lately the news is showing hospitals all over word being over run, the governments of most countries are telling people to stay at home if the are feeling sick. There is some talk of quarantining cities likeNew York and. L.A, it’s kinda calm here though there are a lotta sick people, but calm, it reminds me of how blue the sky was in my little slice of the northwest on that September morning in 2011.

04/29/14

The pace seems to have picked up here lately, the overhead speaker seems to a nonstop stream if "code red" and "code blues", the staff seems to be stretched beyond any reason and my dad has been here quite a bit more in the last couple of days, dressed in his paramedic blues, he stops in from time to time but mostly he just   rushes by with some new poor victim of this... What ever this, strapped to that bright yellow gurney, I've taken to counting them as the go by. (46 yesterday), he is looking more and more worn down every time he flashes by the door.

In comparison to what the images news has been showing, for the last few weeks while I've been in this tope painted hospital room.The valley seems calm, by comparison. Still this really feels significant, makes me think of what it must of felt like during, the Spanish flu outbreak of the early 1900's.  

Jenny and I haven't had kids yet thank God, I have a hard time keeping myself together these days, imaging telling a my child "that everything is going to be okay"or "mommy is going to be fine", even though I knew full well it wasn't true would break my heart.

05/01/14

It's been 2 days since my last entry, Jenny looks worse today her face is just flat white, not pale, WHITE, I couldn't help but cry, I feel so damn helpless, I really don't think anyone saw me, not that I care a bit, I know it doesn't help anything but...It's hard to explain, I know there are thousands of other people going through this right now, and to them I'm truly sorry. 

05/03/14

Nurse Fauna hasn't been by the room today, not once, which makes is disconcerting because she seems to almost live in this fluorescent nightmare of building. Some young red headed nurse wannabe walked into the room stared blankly at her clipboard like it was her first day. When I ask where Fauna was she said she would “see if she can find a doctor”. Like it was a preprogrammed response to any question. It was not conferring to me at all.

Called my dad, just to talk to another human, he said "he couldn't talk at the moment" and I could hear the siren in the background and just let him go.

"Come on Jen snap out of it please, please baby girl."

  05/09/14

Jenny died 4 days ago, though I never saw a doctor or a nurse, she made a horrible back arching gasp and then fell limp, it was a long fight, and lord knows she fought. I will never forget the pain in her milky eyes as long as I live. REST IN PEACE MY SWEET ANGEL BABY I LOVE YOU...

Preface

Duke of the Valley

I’m not sure I have heard him introduce himself as “Duke” or even refer to himself as anything other than “Dutch” (which turned out to be the name of his grandfather’s plow horse.), but he did respond to the name "Duke" and most people addressed him as such.  In this time without rules and constant danger, Duke’s farm seemed like little slice of heaven. 

When I arrived here were eight people not including Duke. my understanding is he took them in, one by one as the wondered the deserted highways, alone,starved to the brink of delusions, and with out hope. He was tall man (about 6'4") beared with pearcing blue gray eyes and sandy blonde hair that typically bushed out from under his well worn Seattle Mariners hat.Now ono one has ever said the leader of this little group talked to much, but it seemed when he did open his mouth, it was concise and strait forward and we all listen.

The “farm” was located about 30 miles north of Walla Walla, Washington, if I were to guess, I would say that Duke  had been there for a while before what many people consider the end of the world. It really wasn’t much of a farm, there was maybe two inches of water deprived topsoil on top of what appeared to be nothing but rock, at one point it might have been a wheat farm of some sort, but that must have been decades ago, a time long before even the “first wave”.

Duke found me half-starved staggering down the middle of North Touchet road, just south of the old highway, to be honest I think I was walking out to the dessert to die like some biblical mad man. A life of constant hiding and survival had taken its toll on me and I was ready for what at the time, seemed like the sweet release of death.  He slid down the gravel embankment with his Henry’s .45 lever action clutch in his hand like some sort of wild west gunslinger, a day or two earlier, when I still had any motivation I would have made some effort to hide but at that point my parched lips just prayed for a quick death. As soon as he had hit the dirt covered roadway  and had steadied himself, he walk slowly toward me raised his hands and said 

 “Are you okay ‘fella?, ya’ don’t look okay” he said in his oddly soothing Sam Elliot style voice.

My mind even in its massively dehydrated state envisioned jumping down the near by gully,  pulling the 7 shot .22  caliber  revolver that was stashed in my belt and trading shots with this lone man they way I had been forced to do so many times over the past  decade and a half, but my body just didn't have any any fight left in it and I stood there rocking like a blade of grass in the slight breeze. I recall thinking “I’m dead” and then my knees gave way and I hit the ground, hard, I have a slight memory of those dusty boots and then darkness for what I’m told was three days…