Free H10N1 by M. R. Cornelius, Marsha Cornelius Page B

CDC.
    Why should he be different from anyone else? All over the world, people united against the CDC, the World Health Organization, any medical entity that had tried to arrest this current pandemic and failed. Cell phone towers shorted out from overload. Tweets spewed rumors 140 characters at a time. Blogs spread hysteria faster than the virus itself. In the end, the Internet crashed. According to one of the techs at the hospital, the problem was routers. They directed the flow of information traffic to the right address or destination, and they diverted data when a connection broke. But there was so much information traveling along the superhighway that the routers couldn’t redirect the data fast enough. Traffic backed up into jams so big that data was just electronically discarded.
    It wasn’t overload that killed television. It was simply a lack of manpower. As cameramen, floor crews, and even on-air personalities succumbed to the virus, stations cut back on broadcast time, and eventually just faded to black. Underground radio stations grew popular, with anarchists spewing hate, like that shock jock in New York who incited the riot in Central Park. And the clown in Geneva who told listeners on his shortwave radio that he was going to the World Health Organization headquarters and set himself on fire. He became an instant cult hero. For what?
    Rick drove on autopilot, going through the motions of zigzagging around the few cars on the highway. Sooner or later, Taeya believed, he would put her out. Hopefully, near a car with keys.
    He passed a sign for the Skyline Parkway, and it seemed to snap him out of his preoccupation with the tragedy. He hit the brakes and backed up. She actually unbuckled her belt so he wouldn’t have to order her out of the van.
    To her amazement, he turned onto the Parkway and kept on driving. A big brown road sign welcomed them to Shenandoah National Park. They were immersed in forest almost immediately. And she couldn’t help noticing there were absolutely no other cars on the scenic two-lane road. Was Rick going to put her out in the wilderness?
    She reached for the map book he’d reviewed with Lily, and looked up Virginia. The Skyline Parkway wove down the state, linking up with the Blue Ridge Parkway in Waynesboro. She followed the line on the map to the southern border and had to flip to North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkway went all the way to Asheville.
    Taeya hated to admit that Rick’s plan was brilliant. The military had limited resources, so if they decided to pursue him to recover their van, they would probably concentrate on major highways. Who would think of searching a scenic parkway along the top of a mountain range?
    She wanted to compliment Rick on his strategy, but he was busy compartmentalizing his grief into manageable sections. She remembered how much effort that took.
    When Randall was killed, she learned how to divide and conquer all those feelings. Rage was simple enough. She let it out whenever she felt frustration. She snapped at co-workers, she turned a deaf ear to patients who whined too much, she beat herself up for letting Randall get into that van. She even delivered elaborate tirades to his ghost for his stupidity. After a while, she just got weary from the rage and it went away.
    Loneliness wasn’t that difficult either. Before Randall came into her life, she’d always been on her own.
    But the pain, the memories—those were the toughest. They’d come at you from out of nowhere. She’d be standing in line to buy a bagel, and suddenly Randall would pop up, complaining that people didn’t wash their hands before they handled food. Or she’d see a silver-haired man up ahead, and catch herself walking faster, trying to catch up.
    Memories hurt the most, and they were the hardest to contain. It took determination to tuck them deep down, and vigilance to keep them there. Rick’s memories had gotten loose, and he was fighting a terrific battle to get them