Evacuation Zone

A quiet afternoon. A moment of peace in a world where calm had been forgotten.

Nessie opened the local news app.

"World war is imminent. There doesn’t appear to be a way to deflect it this time." The female newscaster pointed to an oil field on a map. The location was only a few hundred miles away. "The line has been drawn across the oil fields. How long it will go on, and its destruction is too much to predict at this time."

The newscaster droned on about the impending war before the recording cut off. The recording ended on the picture of the evacuation zone. Her home near the middle of it.

Nessie sat her full coffee cup down.

Time to pack and leave. Friends had scattered far and wide. With families of their own to worry about. Family far away. Outside of the evacuation zone.

Nessie stood up and walked to the window. The lone tree in her front yard danced in a gentle breeze. Limbs swayed. No leaves fell. Somehow, she'd find hope for her children. Donna and Toby should grow up safe, without fear, if she could find a way to get them safely away. Roads would soon be packed with slow moving cars of evacuating families.

A horse trotted around the tree in the front fenced in yard. Bayboy nickered and walked up to the porch to pluck a slice of apple off of a chair.

Nessie smiled. Hope.

She grabbed a few clothes, a little food, and shoved it into a shoulder pack. Nessie opened the door to Donna's room.

The teen napped with her teddy bear curled up in her arms.

She touched her daughter's shoulder, and almost tucked the blanket in. "Donna, wake up. Hurry, we have to go now."

Donna sat up. "Now?"

Nessie nodded. Tears threatened to make speech impossible.

Donna grabbed a packed bag beside the bed. She dropped her teddy bear inside.

"Where are we going?"

"We have to hook up Bayboy and Juney to the cart. They will take us outside the evacuation zone."

Nessie called for Toby.

Toby grabbed his bag, and dropped his electronics in. He wouldn't go anywhere without them.

Nessie and Donna hooked the horses up to the cart. Donna grabbed a crate of squeaking chickens and pushed them to the backboard before tying them in.

Donna crated the two barn cats she could find. The others were off hunting, and would have to be left behind. Tara, the stable dog, jumped up beside the cats.

Nessie tied their bags in beside the back seat of the wagon. With the motor vehicle roads packed, they’d be able to take trails the cars couldn't.

They climbed in. It would be a long ride beyond the edges of the evacuation zone.

"Where will we go?" Donna asked again.

"To your grandparent's home." Nessie urged the horses on.

Bayboy and Juney trotted down the busy road.

People and cars passed, almost unseeing as they rushed to pack a few belongings and leave. One sided phone conversations were shouted while people raced to and fro with items they thought they would need.

One neighbor stopped them. "Can you take my pony with you? Tie her to the cart if you have to."

"I'll ride her." Donna jumped out of the cart with Tara beside her.

They enjoyed the wind blowing in their hair, and quickly lost count of the hours and the miles traveled. At first, the houses, and roads seemed to fly by. Soon the homes were further apart, with meadows and trees making perfect landscapes. They wouldn't be beautiful long inside the evacuation zone.

By evening, the horses had carried them to the farmhouse almost hidden behind a stone fence. They halted at the front door. A spray of gravel splashed against the doorframe.

"Who’s there?" Mother opened the door.

"We are home."

"Come in." Mother reached for a bag.

"I'm ready. I have to take the chickens and cats to the barn. I have a pony for now. A neighbor gave her to me to keep safe."

"Are you sure?" Mother looked into the cart. "You may be here a while."

"I'm sure."

Nessie untied the chickens. She lifted the crate over to her mother. "Are Katy and Daniel here?"

"Both are out gathering supplies. They'll be back soon." Mother held the door open. "Bayboy and Juney will be fine in the yard till they return."

Nessie gulped. Daniel. She had never been home to stay for any length of time since she and Daniel had been a couple. It had been at least fifteen years. He had married her sister. 

She had married soon afterwards. Her husband had died a dozen years ago, only months after Toby was born.

Mother handed her a cup of tea. "Relax. You are home."

"Not sure it's a good idea."

"That battle was fought a long time ago. You are all past it now. Let the children have each other to grow up with and trust. They'll need a trustworthy family. More than ever."

"I know. We are so close to the evacuation zone. Too close." Nessie sipped the tea. Somewhere else had to be safer.

"Where can we go? No country takes refugees in anymore. And they might separate us."

Nessie closed her eyes. All this fighting over oil. The compressed bones of the ancestors of today's living beings. It made no sense. The more fighting over it, the less there was for the purposes it was used for. Deformation of the Earth's crust from use had already damaged, or destroyed, many vital ecosystems.

The porch screen door opened. Daniel stepped in. "Saw Bayboy and Juney outside. I put them in the corral." He glanced over at the table at Nessie. His face turned red.

She waited. Her hand trembled.

"Glad you are here. Don't want to worry about you." He pulled out a chair and sat down. "Will you stay?"

"You sure?"

He nodded. "This is your home too. And your children's. How are Donna and Toby?"

"Resting in the living room. I don't want them to worry."

Daniel laughed. "Oh they'll worry. Katy will be here with Elle and Salena soon. She went shopping for supplies."

"That's good." Nessie closed her eyes a moment. Peace. Something that had been forgotten. Would her children ever know it? The leaders of so many countries seemed intent on constant bloodshed. It was actually amazing any people were left alive as long as the war had been going on. Now, it was on their front doorstep. A major oil field being battled over to drive the engines of war. After the oil was gone, would the war end?

Days passed. News reports weren't good. Father came home with seeds, and a plow that didn't require fuel. Lots of different kinds of seeds.

"We need to plant as much as we can. Should have been planted a week ago." Father drank some water and glanced around the family table. "We will all have to work here. Leaving our homestead will have to be limited."

"What about work?" Katy asked.

"You are needed here more. Everyone is."

"And my job barely exists anymore." Daniel covered his eyes. "Always thought it would last forever."

The next day they prepared the soil to plant. A garden had been here many years before, when they were children. Often, half ornamental, or forgotten by those who worked and didn't have time to collect the fruits of their labor. They planted beans, corn, squash, and more. It took a whole week to prepare and plant the garden. Each day, water was brought by bucket from a well several hundred feet away.

Each night, the news grew worse. The news showed pictures of the battle as it slipped and slid across the oil fields and towns in the evacuation zone. Drones captured pictures, and bits of conversations to share with the people outside. Reporters wouldn't dream of going in there with the fighting going on.

Drones captured photos of sick fighters. People coughed, and clutched their sides. Some collapsed on the fields with their weapons beside them. Drones gathered the weapons and the sick.

Father went out one night and returned with a small herd of cattle, and another of goats. "Wish I could have found a donkey or lama too."

"Where did you find these?" Nessie yawned in the predawn rays of light.

"A farmer who was dying asked me to come get them. They come with his herd dogs." Father pointed at two large white dogs by the barn. They were stretched out panting as if they had returned from a long run.

"How bad is it out there?"

Father's eyes glazed. "Worse than the news says. Glad we are off the main roads, and away from most people."

The news reported that the hospitals just outside the evacuation zone had been placed in quarantine. 

Too late. 

Many people had been in for routine medical tests, and gone home. Delivery vehicles had carried products in and out of the now quarantined area.

Whatever the sickness was, it passed through neighborhoods and homes. People who came in contact with it didn't survive. For some, the incubation period was short, only a matter of hours. For others, it might be weeks. No one knew who had been exposed, and who hadn't.

Children died in their mother's arms. Parents succumbed to the illness while holding the bodies of deceased children. 

No one knew if the disease was chemically induced, or a natural one, that had mutated beyond the ability of the remaining doctors to determine its origin.

The war was on their doorstep. 

Panic spread. Homes and buildings were broken into. Many burned to the ground.

Children, dirty, and in ragged clothes, stumbled from shattered home, to broken home, searching for food and shelter.

The scenes the drones portrayed shocked Nessie and the family as they gathered around the computer. There had been no live reporters for a few days, so they may not have survived either.

"We have the garden," Mother said.

"It'll feed us. If no one steals from it." Father glanced at the door.

It had been barred and locked tight inside. The garden was outside. Anything could happen at night, and they wouldn't know till morning.

Nessie, Donna, and Toby had moved to sleeping in the living room instead of the basement. Katy and Daniel's two girls, Elle and Salena, stayed with them, instead of in the attic. 

Nessie shivered. 

Donna and Toby huddled in the corners they had chosen to sleep in. As far away from her as they could be. They couldn't have the accustomed privacy of individual rooms. 

Mother walked into the living room. "We'll need to go into town tomorrow."

"Is that safe?" Nessie arranged her bedding as comfortably on the floor as she could.

"Not really. Katy is concerned. With so many sick people not isolating themselves, we could bring illness home."

"Why take the danger?"

Mother glanced toward her bedroom. "We need supplies. Food till the garden produces, and other things that may not be available now that factories are completely shut."

"Are you sure that's all?"

Mother lowered her eyes. "I'm about out of blood pressure medication. Katy is weaning me off it as safely as possible." She turned and walked back to bed.

Medication.

Nessie tucked herself into her bedding. 

So much medication not being created anymore. 

No pharmacists to dispense it. 

No doctors to diagnose or treat illnesses.

The drones had reported that the hospitals were full of dead and dying. With the nurses and doctors falling beside their patients. One drone had not found a single living person in an entire hospital. The photos of dead and decaying bodies were gruesome. No sign of rats, cats, dogs, or other animals attracted to the bodies left in the open meant they were deadly. Even the vultures ignored their bloated rotting corpses.

Nessie followed Donna and Katy through the big box store.

Items were knocked off shelves. Rats ran rampant in the grocery section. Food boxes had been broken open, and mice looked up at them as if they dared them to interrupt their eating.

Nessie grabbed Donna's hand. "We don't need to be here. Send Daniel and Father to this section."

"Better go choose a few clothes. At least two sizes larger than you normally wear. It may be a while before we can make more." Katy swung her stick at a rat that raced toward them, followed by a rather fat cat.

Nessie and Donna hurried to the clothing section. They piled shirts and pants into an empty cart. 

Mother hurried up the aisle beside them with a cart loaded with towels in front of her, and pulled a one with bedding behind her. "Where is Katy?"

"I think she went to get soap."

Donna grabbed the cart with the bedding and walked toward the soap section.

Once they reached the front of the store, Katy walked toward them with a cart full of items.

"What did you get?"

"Soap, shampoo, and razors. We may not have them for much longer. I don't want to imagine living without them."

"We can learn to make our own." Nessie tucked a shirt into the basket as it tried to slip out.

"They won't have any books like that here."

"We can try the library." Nessie stopped beside Katy and looked through the pile in her sister's cart. Lots of soap, some shampoo, and razors. Enough for a year or more, even for the whole family. She glanced up at her sister's face. Her eyes were wide, and face pale. The enormity of the situation was sustained through her tense shoulders, and the single tear on the verge of toppling out of one eye.

"We will survive." Nessie had survived so much already. Even seeing her own once beautiful home demolished in one of the drone videos.

Katy nodded. "All together. I saw a doll that looked so real, like a toddler, crumpled on the floor back there. Let's go."

They met up with the rest of the family along the front of the store.

"There aren't any lanes open." Daniel pushed a cart filled with pet food and supplies.

"I haven't seen anyone else in here beside us and the mice and rats. Not even employees." Father stopped his cart of gardening tools and glanced back as a set of clothing racks fell over. 

 A large cat pounced out of the rack onto a pile of rats covering an open pile of gathered food.

"We better get out of here." Nessie pushed her cart toward the customer service desk.

A young woman leaned against the counter. Her long stringy hair spilled out all over the counter. "Don't come closer."

"We have to pay for purchases." Father stepped closer.

"I think I have the illness too. Take it. Take it all before the rats eat it. The managers won't be back." She held up her arms to bar them back.

"I don't think you can do that," Nessie said. "We don't want to steal what we need."

"No one is coming. Everyone is dead." The woman slumped to the floor behind the register.

"We better go." Father pushed the cart out of the store. "She may be right. We can keep an inventory for better times."

That night, the drones flew over the evacuation zone and sent back pictures of fires. Lots of fires. Explosions and more. The last drone picture flickered out of view.

Meanwhile, outside, the garden flourished under a fresh gentle rainfall. One that would hopefully be enough to put out the flames in the oilfield. To wash away the ash, and burned debris.