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 Brian Hill
Desolation
 Copyright © 2022 by Brian Hill
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or
otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal
to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other
means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters
and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's
imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Brian Hill has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this
publication and does not guarantee that any content on such
Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products
are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product
names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service
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 Contents

1. Acknowledgement
2. Chapter 1
3. Chapter 2
4. Chapter 3
5. Chapter 4
6. Chapter 5
7. Chapter 6
8. Chapter 7
9. Chapter 8
10. Chapter 9
11. Chapter 10
12. Chapter 11
13. Chapter 12
14. Chapter 13
15. Chapter 14
16. Chapter 15
17. Chapter 16
18. Chapter 17
19. Chapter 18
20. Chapter 19
21. Chapter 20
22. About the Author
 Acknowledgement
I’d like to thank my Beta readers, Mike, Beth, Debbie, and Darrin,
for their help in shaping this novel.

If you’d like to join my beta reader or advanced review copy

(ARC) team, please join my newsletter at: http://counting-to-
infinity.com/news/
 Chapter 1
Will crunched his last fry in a dingy booth at a Denny’s outside
of Raleigh, North Carolina, unaware that this would be one of the
last normal days of his life. A thick book sat on the table by the
remnants of his meal, page opened to a dense diagram. His brow
was crinkled with the effort of concentration as he highlighted
passages, but the din of the restaurant made it difficult. Boisterous
laughter erupted behind him, and he muttered something in
irritation.
Raleigh was a university town, hosting Duke, NC State, and UNC,
in addition to a gaggle of smaller schools. Every time Will was sent
here, he saw the same scene: young adults, college kids, enjoying
that brief stretch of time between the carefree life of a child and that
of an adult.
They were the source of the uproar tonight.
As Will listened, he became very conscious of what he had
missed. He had grown up poor, to a rural family, and had been
unable to attend college. Further, he and his wife Shae had been
careless, and before you knew it, he was a father before he could
legally drink.
Will was tremendously lucky that he was good at something–
computers–that both paid well and didn’t require college. Now that
he was nearly thirty, he made a living traveling all over the country
teaching tech.
Still, Will imagined the carefree life of a college student, and
pined for what he thought he had missed.
Will left a generous tip, signed the check with a frustrated scrawl,
and walked out into the summer night.
You don’t have it so bad, he told himself as he drove back to the
hotel. You have a good job where you get to travel for a week and
then take two weeks off, you’ve got a book coming out soon, Shae
still loves you despite everything, and Kai is a great little boy who is
turning into a hell of a ball player. You could have done a lot worse
coming from where you did.
 This helped, a little, but he was still feeling a little bitterness as
he entered his room and dialed Shae on his cell.
Shae picked up on the third ring.
“Hey.”
“Hey baby,” he said. “How’s things?”
“Ok. How was your trip?”
“Same as always,” Will said, his voice heavy with weariness.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing, really. You know, just…. seeing all these college
kids makes me kind of wish I had gone. It’s stupid.”
“You could still go,” she said encouragingly.
His temper flared, briefly.
“No I can’t,” Will said, his voice a bit indignant. “We still can’t
afford it, and I couldn’t attend classes while traveling all over in any
case.”
Hurt in her voice, Shae said, “I could get a job…”
“Come on Shae, you know we can’t pay the bills on what you can
make.” He sighed heavily into the silence, and then said, “Look, just
forget it. It’s dumb and I know it, but it just bothers me sometimes.
I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“I love you,” she said, still sounding hurt.
“I love you too,” he said, without much feeling.
***
At ten P.M., washed and dressed in his pressed slacks and a
button-down polo, Will arrived with his students in the hotel lobby
for a meet and greet. After a short round of introductions with the
twenty students in his bootcamp, he began to go over the general
rules and expectations.
“Class will be in the Crabtree conference room. We’ll begin each
day at eight A.M., unless otherwise noted. We’ll end when we end,”
he said seriously, holding his gaze steady as a few students winced.
Then he grinned a little.
“Don’t worry. Most days that will be around six P.M., but some
days, if we are behind, we’ll have to come back after supper. I’ll try
to keep those days to a minimum, but I need your help. Pay close
attention and take this seriously, and we should be able to keep to a
reasonable schedule.“
“One final thing: My room number is 214. If you need anything,
feel free to call me. I am available after classes if you have
questions, and if you are going to miss a day for any reason, please
let me know as soon as possible.”
As he said this last, he made eye contact with two of the
students, Nick and Ed, maybe? Will was always horrible with names,
but those two looked pretty pale, and had been coughing pretty
badly. Luckily, they were both from the same company, so maybe
they were just getting over a bug they caught at work.
Nothing derailed a bootcamp faster than a classroom full of sick
students.
Will gave a little smile and finished with: “Hope to see you all
bright and early in the morning.”
As was typical, there were several students who hung around
afterwards and had questions; IT bootcamps, at least when run
correctly, were pretty grueling, and many students felt anxiety and
insecurity. But it was sales’ job to ensure these guys had the
necessary background knowledge, a job they tended to do better
early in the quota cycle, and his job to make sure they made it
through successfully.
Walking back to the elevator, Will felt like he was going to be ok
with this class. There were a few who were going to take a lot of
extra effort to get them through the last exam, but there always
were. The students were mostly industry vets sent here by their
companies to either update their certifications, or attain a new one
for a new role. No ‘career changers,’ which could be a nightmare
since they almost never had the prerequisite knowledge.
In any event, as Will slipped into his room, he felt a little better
about the week than he had felt since arriving. Now if he could just
keep from coming down with whatever Ned and Rick, or whatever
the hell their names were, had.
***
 The next morning, right as he was walking out the door, Will’s
hotel room phone rang.
“Mr. Hale?” the incredibly stuffy, nasally voice on the other end
asked.
“Yes,” Will replied.
“This is Bob, one of your students from last night.”
“Of course, I remember,” Will said, unable to place the stopped-
up voice and having absolutely no idea who in the hell this was.
“Listen, Ted and I both got much worse overnight. We’re both
running fevers and don’t think it’s a great idea if we come in this
morning.”
Recognition hit him like a thunderbolt, and Will immediately felt
thankful they wouldn’t be coming in. Fever meant contagion, and
getting the entire class sick on the first day was the absolute last
thing he needed.
“Of course, Bob, whatever you guys need. Please take care of
yourselves. Do you need a doctor?”
“No, I think we’ll be alright. Just feels like a bad cold. Need to
rest a day or two and we’ll be ok.”
“Ok, well, if you do, the front desk should be able to get you set
up with a recommendation. You guys aren’t the first sick students
we’ve had,” he said, smiling into the receiver. “Just take care of
yourselves and don’t worry about the class. You guys are just
updating the cert, so I can get you squared away after hours, no
problem.”
“Great, thanks so much, Mr. Hale.”
“Call me Will. And no problem Bob.”
Hanging up the phone, Will felt thankful for dodging that bullet
as he walked out of his room and toward the elevator.
***
Monday’s class, for the most part, went remarkably well. The
students were largely attentive and had great questions. The labs
were all completed with minimal fuss, and no major technical
problems occurred. However, there was one troubling thing: His
nose.
 Around three P.M., Will’s nose began running, and steadily got
worse. He also felt a bit run down. He justified this to himself by
telling himself he was always tired toward the end of the first day
back in front of students, but he couldn’t keep the nagging thought
out of his head that he might have what Bob and what’s-his-name
had.
Even more worrisome, Will noticed he wasn’t the only one. One
of his older students looked worse than Bob had last night, and
several more seemed to have the sniffles or a mild cough. Some
were smokers, though, so that could be the cause. He would just
have to wait and see.
At dinner time, he had very little appetite, which, at five-foot-ten
and nearly 250 pounds, was not common. He was trying not to
worry, but was getting steadily more uneasy. The only thing worse
than having a classroom full of sick students was having a sick
instructor. Normally, there was a backup on call for just such a
contingency, but this month they were overbooked. He wouldn’t be
able to get relief at all.
At the front desk, Will stocked up on antihistamines and aspirin,
then headed for his room.
Back in his room, he was just checking his email on his laptop
and thinking about how miserable he was feeling when his cell rang.
Looking down, he saw it was Shae. Remembering his last
conversation with her, and feeling simultaneously ashamed and
frustrated, he hesitated, but then answered.
“Daddy!” a tiny voice on the other end exclaimed, and his face lit
up involuntarily.
“Hey buddy. How’s things?”
“Good. I helped Grandaddy get the cows in today, and he gave
me five dollars. So now I just need forty-five more for the new
glove.”
Will laughed despite himself. “Cool buddy. How was practice
today?”
“Ok,” Kai said. “We played pepper and did some double-play
drills. Oh, and I almost hit one out during batting practice, but
Bobby caught it. He’s such an asshole.”
 “Watch your language!” both Will and Shae said simultaneously.
“Give me that and go clean your room,” Shae said testily, and Will
heard Kai’s feet running down the hall.
“I don’t know what’s got into that boy with his mouth lately,” she
said, still a bit exasperated.
“Can’t really blame him, when we cuss like sailors,” Will said.
Shae sighed, but didn’t argue. Will could hear Tobi, their five-
year-old Yorkie mix, barking excitedly at Kai in the background.
“Listen hon, I’m feeling like crap and may be coming down with
something, so I’m gonna let you go so I can hit the sack early
tonight.”
“Ok,” she said, disappointment clear in her voice.
“Sorry, but hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow. Tell Kai I love him
for me.”
“Ok,” she said, then after a brief hesitation, “I love you.”
“Love you too, baby,” Will said, meaning it this time, and ended
the call.
Sleep came with difficulty and was constantly broken up by hard,
phlegmy coughs that rattled his entire chest. He began shivering
uncontrollably throughout the night, despite grabbing every cover in
the room, and he knew that meant he had a fever. That made him
worry about class tomorrow, which made it even harder to get back
to sleep.
When his alarm went off, Will was already awake. He groaned
and sat up. He noticed he was out of tissues, or rather, they had all
been wadded up and migrated to the little overflowing trash can, so
he plodded to the bathroom and blew his sore nose on a handful of
toilet paper.
He looked in the mirror and was not pleased by what he saw. He
was a broad shouldered, overweight man in his late twenties, with
blonde hair and blue eyes. None of that had changed, but his
normally pale skin looked almost ghostly, with the consistency and
pallor of bread dough. Dark bags hung under his eyes, which
themselves were bloodshot. He looked dead tired, which was
roughly how he felt. Still, he had a classroom full of students
depending on him, and no relief in sight, so he might as well get on
with it.
He reluctantly began getting ready for work.
About a half hour later, Will was buttoning his shirt when his
hotel phone rang. This began a procession of at least six phone calls
from sick students. Christ, this was looking worse and worse. Still,
he didn’t get a call from Bob or what’s-his-name, so maybe they
were over it already. If so, there was still hope for the rest of them
to recover in time so that this class wasn’t a total loss. Will forced
himself to think positively as he headed down.
Will walked into the classroom, and his face fell. Three students
populated the room, and they all looked as bad as Will felt. Will
suspected one of them, Jake something, had not even showered,
and may have actually slept in his clothes.
What a clusterfuck, he thought to himself.
Will looked down at his roster sheet, where he had marked off
those who had called in and those who had arrived.
“I’ve got nine of you accounted for. Anyone heard from any of
the other students?” he asked the classroom.
Everyone shook their heads to the negative.
“Ok. I’m going to wait about thirty more minutes for other
students to arrive before getting started, then.”
No one seemed to object, and Jake even cradled his head in his
arms and seemed to go to sleep.
After forty-five minutes though, no one else had arrived, and Will
was feeling worse by the minute. It was no use trying to teach the
way he felt, and even at full strength, he would have to reteach all
of this anyway when the rest of the class got well. This was a waste.
Time to cut them loose so they could at least get some rest.
“Ok guys, looks like we’re it, and we’re all a wreck. Since most of
the class isn’t here, I’m going to cancel class for today and
reschedule for tomorrow. I’ll talk to head office about making the
day up. Maybe we can reschedule flights and extend through
Sunday, or just book you guys for a future boot camp. One way or
the other, we’ll figure it out.”
 Here he paused as a deep, wracking cough took over, and then
leaned over and spat a wad of something thick and dark yellow into
the trashcan.
“Sorry about that, guys,” Will said as he wiped his mouth with a
tissue. “Anyway, go back and get some rest, let’s reconvene
tomorrow at the normal time.”
Everyone seemed incredibly relieved at this news, and shuffled
out without so much as a goodbye.
On the way back to his room, Will stopped by the front desk to
grab some cough medicine, and noticed the clerk looked pretty badly
off herself.
“Unfortunately, we don’t sell cough medicine,” she told him with
a pained expression. “There’s a little convenience store a few blocks
down though, and a CVS just down past the hospital.”
Will sighed heavily. “That’s ok, I’m just going to try to get some
rest for now. Looks like everybody’s coming down with this bug.”
“No kidding,” she said. “It’s so bad they ran something on the
news about it,” she said while nodding toward the muted TV on the
far wall. “They were telling people to stay home if they could and
wear masks, like COVID all over again.”
“Looks like that ship has already sailed, at least for us,” Will
commented.
“Yep, looks like,” she said, smiling grimly.
“Well, hope you get to feeling better,” Will said as he made his
way back to the elevator.
“You too,” her voice rang out from behind him.
Back in his room, Will sat down at his PC and composed a quick
email to his boss explaining the situation. Then, after a coughing fit
that made him so lightheaded he was seeing spots, he decided to
take a nap and recover some energy.
He grabbed a couple of water bottles and brought them over
beside his bed, then grabbed the spare box of tissues and the trash
can and brought them within easy reach. As he was undressing, he
remembered he had forgotten to place the ‘do not disturb’ sign on
the door, so he remedied that, and then bundled up and fell asleep.
 As he slept, his fever ratcheted up. Coughing fits periodically
overtook him, accompanied by a thick, phlegmy discharge. He
drained both water bottles, and through a heroic effort, got up and
dragged the case beside the bed before collapsing again into
troubled sleep.
As his fever intensified, he drifted in and out of consciousness.
He kept swallowing fluid and phlegm as he slept, and it made him so
nauseous that he vomited during a coughing fit. At that point, Will
had enough presence of mind to roll onto his stomach with his head
lying off the bed and the trash can directly under him.
He faded in and out, and the hours passed in a blur. At first, he
drained water bottles when semi-conscious, but as the fever drug
on, those periods became more and more rare. Eventually, he lapsed
into a long period where he knew nothing.
 Chapter 2
When Will finally awoke, the first thing he was aware of was an
intense, all-consuming thirst. His throat felt like a desert plain: so
dry that fissures had cracked open, exposing what was underneath
to the elements.
Lying face down on the bed, head directly over the trash can, he
took in the scene. The trash can itself looked like an abstract
painting from hell. He saw droplets of dried blood, phlegm, and
vomit from his ordeal sprayed in and around the bowl of the can in a
chaotic shotgun pattern, occasionally gracing a dresser, carpet, or
wall.
The room reeked of those smells mixed with the stench of stale
sweat, urine, and feces.
Looking around, he saw his water bottle, sitting on the
nightstand where he had left it last night. He immediately propped
himself onto an elbow and began draining the bottle. He could feel
the water invading the crevasses in his throat. As it ran over his
dried skin, he felt the sting subside into cool, loving caresses. It was
deliciously painful, and Will thought he had never truly appreciated
how wonderful plain water tasted.
Abruptly, he retched it all back up violently, spilling the rest of the
bottle.
Will gathered up his strength and hauled himself into a sitting
position, then grabbed a second bottle. Steeling himself, he drank it
slowly, a few sips at a time. The third bottle he drank faster, but still
cautiously. By the fourth bottle, Will simply drained it in one long
pull, lost in the taste and soothing feeling of it.
Will became aware that he had soiled himself during the night.
With disgust, he got up and staggered to the bathroom and started
the shower. He then stripped off his underwear and dropped them
into the trash.
He took a long shower, cleaning himself thoroughly and enjoying
the feeling of the hot water on his skin. As he did, he went back
over last night in his mind. That was, by far, the worst sickness he
had ever been through. He couldn’t remember much of it, but he
had a strong feeling that he had come very close to dying. Whatever
he had, it wasn’t just a bad case of the flu. It was a once in a
century, maybe a once in history case of the flu. His priority needed
to be to check on his students; some of them may need immediate
medical attention.
Will got out of the shower and quickly dressed and groomed
himself, taking an obscene pleasure in brushing the furry feeling out
of his mouth. He felt a little better as he got more hydrated. As he
stepped back into the room and saw his bed, Will realized he needed
to get housekeeping up here in a hurry, and tip well. He grabbed his
phone and room key and bolted out the door.
In the elevator, he checked his phone, only to find it was
completely dead. That’s odd, he thought. He knew he forgot to
connect it to the charger yesterday, but one day and night shouldn’t
have drained it. The elevator dinged, and he put it out of his mind;
one more problem for future Will to deal with.
He stepped out of the elevator and into a ghost town. The large
lobby was empty. The hotel restaurant, over to the left of the lobby,
was also devoid of life. Will didn’t know what time it was, but
judging from the sun shining in through the glass entryway, he
guessed it was midafternoon. Someone, even if just employees,
should be around.
As Will came around the corner, he saw that the front desk was
vacant as well. He walked up to the desk and waited.
The front desk came up to about chest height, made of an
almost burgundy hardwood topped with a black speckled granite
countertop. A few flyers were in a holder and a stack of business
cards rested on the right side. Will turned around to see if the TV
was on and just muted, but it was off.
Eventually, Will called out: “Hello?”
There was no reply. In fact, there wasn’t even the sound of
stirring behind the office door. His voice was swallowed up in the
empty room.
“Hellll-ooooooo?” He said much louder.
More silence.
 Will tilted his head in puzzlement. He looked for a bell, but
apparently those only exist in movies.
Eventually, he looked around to make sure there was no one in
sight, then feeling both silly and slightly guilty, Will went behind the
reception counter and knocked softly on the office door. No
response. He knocked harder, but the result was the same. Finally,
he took a deep breath and opened the door, grimacing in advance of
the outburst he subconsciously expected.
Instead, he was greeted with the sight of a small, tidy office. A
short desk was flush against the wall beside the door, with a generic
PC and monitor, a few random knick-knacks, and a framed photo of
a cute little girl in pigtails on it. A set of filing cabinets was flush
against the far wall, and on the wall was a white board with what
looked like some kind of shift chart, listing who was covering various
shifts on various days.
He looked at this with Interest. This was Wednesday afternoon,
so according to the chart, Mary was supposed to be covering the
front desk. Well, whoever Mary was, she was woefully delinquent.
Feeling like he was snooping, Will softly closed the office door and
went back around the counter.
He scratched his head, trying to think of what he should do next.
He could just sit and wait; that was the ‘correct’ thing to do. Will
fidgeted as he contemplated.
No, he decided. I’m going to at least try to figure out what is
going on. Was the hotel evacuated, and I was just too far gone to
wake up? Is everyone sick?
He needed to know.
Will walked around the corner, past the elevator. Ahead, he could
see the conference room, just down the hall on the right. He could
now see the table set up with the catered meals, and that struck him
as odd. This had to be midafternoon, so the caterers should have
already removed lunch.
He noticed that the Bunsen burners, which the caterer always lit
under each tray to keep the food warm, were out. The lids to the
burners were sitting on the white linen tablecloth beside the burners,
just like always, but no flame came from the burners.
 As he got closer, Will heard a high pitched, intermittent buzzing
sound that he recognized immediately as flies. He could see a
handful of the nasty little creatures buzzing around the food, which
was cold, stale, and other than the flies, untouched. Their iridescent
green bodies stood out prominently as they crawled all over the
mashed potatoes.
Speaking of which, this looked like… dinner? He guessed they
could have served fried chicken with potatoes and gravy for lunch,
but he was almost positive that was on the schedule for dinner
instead. Either way, it looked like no one had eaten it, and it had sat
for quite some time.
Will’s felt his stomach growl intensely. He ignored the old food,
but he knew his next act needed to be to find something to eat.
First, though, he needed to do what he had come down here to do.
He opened the conference room door and peeked inside. No one.
Everything looked exactly like he had left it yesterday, as if no one
had even showed up today.
Will took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
As a child, Will had attended Southern Baptist churches. These
were real ‘fire and brimstone’ affairs, where Hell was talked about a
lot more than Heaven, and the rapture, which was the apocalypse by
another name, was almost venerated. He had a genuine anxiety as a
kid that the Lord would call all the faithful back to heaven one day
and he would find himself left on Earth, alone, because he had not
measured up.
This was starting to feel like that.
Will shook his head at the absurdity of the thought. It felt
strange to realize that the idea of the rapture still created so much
anxiety in him, despite the fact that he had ceased believing in any
kind of God years ago. The shit they indoctrinated you with as a
child kept a very strong purchase on your psyche.
Will shook the thought out of his mind, then turned and strode
back into the lobby. He needed to find his students’ room numbers,
damn it. If that meant he had to look them up himself, he was going
to do it. People might be dying. He would explain that to the
authorities if needed.
 Will went back to the reception counter and walked around. The
counter was dominated by an LCD screen and a small desktop,
mouse and keyboard. A stack of keycards and a card encoder were
off to the side, along with a stack of hotel business cards in a holder
and a three-level inbox with various papers in it. The front desk
phone, one of those big black jobs with a little LCD display and
about 7000 buttons, sat beside the PC.
Under the counter was custom cabinetry, with several drawers
and a large open section containing a squat gray laser printer on a
slight platform. Over in the corner was the pantry area, stocked with
snack food, medicines, and drinks in a small refrigerator with a clear
glass front door.
Will’s stomach growled, and he went over and tore into a bag of
potato chips. He jammed the chips into his maw by the handful,
spilling chips out of the bag and getting crumbs everywhere. Will
didn’t care. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this hungry.
Will devoured four bags of snack food before he began to feel ok.
Licking his fingers clean, he looked around for a napkin, but came up
empty. Fuck it, he thought, and wiped his hands on his slacks. He
then turned his attention to the computer on the counter.
The LCD screen was in power saving mode, so Will smacked the
spacebar to wake it. A familiar Windows 10 screen popped up with a
PIN prompt. He grinned slightly. With a multi-user machine like this
one, the PIN would either be really easy to remember, or more likely,
written somewhere close by.
Security would take a back seat to productivity in retail
establishments - the last thing in the world you want is to be unable
to check a guest in because you forgot the stupid PIN.
Will looked around for any sticky notes, but didn’t see any. He
began pulling open drawers one at a time and methodically sifting
through the contents. He hit pay dirt in the third drawer he opened.
There, on a pad of hotel stationery, was the number 928174. He
typed that into the PIN box and he was in.
Chrome was up in full-screen mode, and some kind of property
management cloud app was open. Will didn’t know a thing about
property management systems, but he had fudged his way through
enough software that this didn’t phase him.
He looked through the top menu items. Front Desk seemed
promising, so he clicked that, and then selected the Reservations
item.
This brought up a screen with rows and rows of names. The total
at the bottom said 223 active reservations.
Shit. That was going to take some time to look through. He
needed to filter this list.
Will’s company had booked the hotel as a group, so he really just
needed to find and search for the group ID. Problem was, he was
horrible with names. He remembered Bob, but he’d be damned if he
knew what the guy’s last name was.
Then Will’s eyes lit up; he was part of the group.
He found the search button and searched for his own
reservation. It popped up, and he found the group ID, which was
just an arbitrary number. Will then tried searching using the number.
No results.
Hmm. Maybe the search function only looked in the name field?
After a little scrounging, he found an advanced search button. He
clicked it, which brought up an advanced search page where he
could choose a field to search on. He chose group ID, and entered
the number for his group.
The results list populated with exactly twenty-one entries.
Now that Will had the student’s room numbers, he began calling
each room in the order they appeared on the screen, using the front
desk phone. Room by room, every single call got sent to voicemail
after five rings. Not a single answer.
The tiny hairs on the back of Will’s arms stood at attention.
Will stared blankly at the screen for a moment, then, in a burst of
decisiveness, he held down the CTRL key and then hit the ‘P’ key. A
high-pitched whining noise, followed by some mechanical clicks and
thunks, signaled that the laser printer had begun printing the page.
When it had finished, Will scanned it for first-floor rooms. Jake
Evans was in room 112, so that was his first objective.
 The hotel was laid out in a kind of U pattern, with the lobby, front
desk, elevators, and conference rooms all at the bottom of the U.
The rooms themselves were all on a long wing on the left side of the
U. The restaurant was blocking the end of the wing on the right,
with the hotel pool between both of the wings. So, for the first floor,
you had to go to the left, past the conference rooms, to get to any
of the guest rooms.
Room 112 was about sixty feet past the last conference room, on
the right. Will walked up to the door, took a deep breath, and
knocked hard three times. The sound reverberated down the hall.
No answer came. He placed his ear to the door and listened for a
minute or so. Other than the drone of the AC, there was no sound
that he could detect.
Fuck, he thought.
He pounded until his hand throbbed and then put his ear back to
the door. Still, only the low rumble of the AC was discernible. Will
paced back and forth, brow furrowed.
He abruptly turned and marched briskly back toward the lobby.
At the front desk, he examined the key card encoder. It was a slim,
gray plastic box with a swipe strip on one side, a small LCD display
at the top, and a numeric keypad with an enter key, a delete key, a
question mark key, and a key that looked like a small house. There
were also four little arrow keys. The LCD display was showing some
kind of logo.
Will hit the Enter key. The LCD read ‘Enter authorization key’.
Christ, Will thought, of course it couldn’t be that simple. He began
digging through the drawers again, looking for a key card that was
labeled or maybe looked different. Nothing.
Will stood there for a moment, chewing his lower lip, lost in
thought. Then he went into the office area and started rifling
through the desk. In the top drawer there was a keycard attached to
one of those wrist-band thingies that looked like it was made of old
phone cord; kind of like a rubber slinky or something. He grabbed it
and went back to the encoder.
He swiped the card, and the little display showed three options:
1. Guest keycard
 2. Read/Verify
3. PMS mode

Guest keycard seemed like the logical choice, so he hit ‘1’ on the
keypad. A new menu appeared:
1. Guest
2. Adjoining Suite
3. Common Door Suite

He hit ‘1’ again. The display now asked for the room number. Will
typed 112 and hit Enter. The display then showed a lot of options he
didn’t care a bit about. Will left everything at the default and hit
Enter. The machine told him to swipe the key, and Will did as
instructed. The machine’s display pronounced ‘Success!’, so Will
guessed he had done everything right.
He then spent the next fifteen minutes programming cards for all
the other student rooms, writing the room number on each card
with a Sharpie. That done, he gathered the cards and walked
towards the rooms.
As he moved, Will could feel his pulse increase as the seriousness
of what he was planning to do sank in. He knew he was hopeless
when it came to first aid. Hell, Shae even took care of tending to Kai
when he got hurt. He wasn’t sure how he could help, and he was
not looking forward to finding students as sick as he had been. But
what choice did he have? He was responsible for these guys, and
that meant he had to do something.
Outside room 112, Will steeled himself. He didn’t know what he
was going to find in there, but chances were very high that it would
not be pleasant. Will had of course seen gore before; it’s damn near
impossible to watch TV in America without blood and guts. But he
had never been exposed to a lot of real trauma.
He absently wiped a cold sweat from his brow.
Will had already forgotten the student’s name, so he looked
down at the printout one last time. Jake. The guy who napped at his
desk yesterday. Shit.
 ‘Ok, let’s do this,’ he thought. He pounded on the door again,
hard, and yelled: “Jake? You in there, man?” Nothing.
“I need you to answer me, or I’m going to come on in. You
there?”
Still nothing. Guess he was going to have to do this after all.
He slid the key into the reader. A little light went green and a
small click came from the door, shockingly loud in the complete
silence of the hotel.
He twisted the knob and slowly opened the door, calling out as
he did.
“Uh, Jake? I’m coming in man, just here to check on you….”
He trailed off as he took in the room. At first blush, it looked
pretty normal. Just like Will’s room, Jake’s room door opened into
what Will referred to as a ‘hotel default’ room layout.
There was a short hall directly in front of the door, with the
bathroom door directly to the left. Past the bathroom door was a
little open storage area with the ubiquitous permanently attached
hangers, along with an ironing board. Past this, the room opened
up, with a combination entertainment center/mini-fridge/microwave
area directly ahead flush against the right wall, and the room
expanding about six or seven feet to the left. Over by the AC unit on
the far wall was a plush chair and a lamp, and flush against the left
wall was the bed and two adjoining night tables.
Jake was on the bed.
From where he stood, Will couldn’t see much more than the foot
of the bed, but two sock covered feet were poking out from under
the comforter.
“Jake?” he called again. No answer.
As he was listening for Jake to answer, Will noticed the smell. It
was mostly the same smell he had woken up to earlier. Puke, piss,
shit. But there was a hint of something else too, something he didn’t
think he’d ever smelled, but it reminded him of roadkill. It was the
faintest of the smells, but it still caused his stomach to do
gymnastics.
He’s dead, Will thought.
 Will’s shoulders slumped, but he still held a little hope that Jake
was just sick like he himself had been.
He had to know. He couldn’t just leave because he was
squeamish.
Slowly, swallowing hard and trying not to be sick, Will walked
further into the room. He walked past the little closet area and got a
full view of Jake.
Poor Jake.
Jake was lying on his back, with the covers thrown off of his
upper body. His left hand was lying on his chest, near his neck,
Around his neck were scratch marks, and dried blood was under his
nails.
Jake’s right hand dangled limply off the side of the bed.
His skin looked loose and was almost devoid of color, except for
the tips of his fingers on his right hand, which had become the color
of a plum that had just begun to rot; a deep violet color trending
into black.
Jake’s face was the worst.
He was staring straight up into the ceiling. His eyes were open,
and the whites were almost completely ebony. His mouth was open,
and full of old vomit. Crusted vomit was on the side of his face
running down to the sheets.
Will turned around and immediately regurgitated his chips.
Yanking the door open, he went out into the hall and dry heaved for
what felt like days, leaning hard against the far wall for support.
Tears were streaming from his eyes with the effort of his stomach’s
heaves.
Jake’s room door, spring loaded, slammed behind him. It echoed
in the long hall, but Will barely registered it.
Will walked in a daze back to the lobby and plopped heavily into
a chair. He looked at his hand, which was jittering, surprised to find
the room key for Jake’s room still in it. Will let it fall to the floor. He
began shivering violently as the adrenaline rush abated and his
thoughts coalesced back into something resembling normalcy.
Will remembered Jake being a decent student, and a nice guy. A
bit quiet and reserved, but capable. He was just an acquaintance,
like almost all of his students, but Will still found it difficult to believe
that he was gone. It was surreal.
His concern for his students was out of a sense of duty, more
than anything. But even when you don’t really know someone,
there’s still a palpable sense of loss when they are gone.
Especially if you are the one to find them.
Will sighed. He had to think. What should he do? The answer
came immediately: 911.
Still trembling, he got up and crossed the room to the front desk
again. Picking up the receiver, he hit the number for an outside line.
He got a busy signal. He pulled the phone away from his ear and
stared at it perplexed.
He tried again. Same result. He slammed the phone back into the
receiver.
“Goddamn shitty fucking stupid phone system, do I have to fix
you too? Can’t I just catch a break?!” he yelled out to the empty
room.
Will struggled against the combination of despair and fear
gripping him. He needed to find people. He needed help. He didn’t
know how to handle this. He needed the police, he needed an
ambulance, he needed to find out what in the fuck was going on.
Will sat, put his head in his hands, and tried to wrestle his
emotions back under control.
What he needed, first and foremost, was emergency aid. He
thought for a bit and then realized his cell phone should still work,
he just needed to plug it in. He went back upstairs to his room to
connect his phone.
Upon entering the room, however, he wrinkled his nose and
reconsidered. Instead, he grabbed his charger and headed back to
the lobby.
Will plugged his phone in and, while he waited on it to charge,
rummaged around for the remote he knew he saw in one of the
front desk drawers.
After rummaging for a while, he eventually found it and snapped
the TV on. The channel it landed on was some kind of reality TV
channel. Everything looked normal, but this wasn’t his aim. Will
wanted a news channel, so he began surfing. The HGTV’s, and
Discovery’s, and HBO’s of the world looked mundane. The same
show was on the channel that was advertised on the guide. But
when he finally reached the news channels, it was chaos.
Several showed SMTPE color bars, kind of a weird division of
equal length bands of gray and various colors over the top two-
thirds of the screen, followed by two thin bands chaotically arranged
in more colors.
One station, it might have been CNN, showed an empty
broadcast studio. No anchors. No overlays, just an empty studio. Will
realized the TV was muted, and unmuted it. No change. He jacked
up the volume. No real discernable sound.
Moving on, he came to CSPAN, and finally struck ore. It ran a
simple text message, with a calm, confident (though if he was
honest, scratchy) male voice mirroring the white words on the blue
background in a loop. However, it was so loud and distorted after
Will’s cranking of the volume, he couldn’t understand the voice. He
muted it again.

It read:

“This is a message from the Emergency Notification System. This

message was authorized by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency on behalf of the President of the United States. This is not a
test.
A virus, similar to the seasonal flu but much more virulent, has
impacted the United States. The spread of the illness seems to be
much more rapid in urban areas.
We are working with all due haste to treat this illness. In the
meantime, isolate at home. Stay away from large gatherings of
people. Wear a mask when out. Drink plenty of fluids. Sleep lying on
your stomach, with pillows under your abdomen, to help with fluid
buildup. If a loved one is unresponsive, transport them to the
nearest hospital. Ambulances will be in high demand. If the situation
is not life threatening, personal transport is recommended.
This message will be updated once every 24 hours.
This message was recorded 6/22/2022.”
 Chapter 3
Will stared at the repeating message with a mixture of hope
and despair. Despair because it verified for him that this was a
nationwide, extremely contagious illness. Hope because the message
specifically called out urban areas, and his hometown, with a
population of roughly 1,200 souls, was clearly not an urban area.
This was the first time since he had woken that he had actually
thought about home. How were Shae and Kai doing? He felt a kernel
of worry growing inside him, but he didn’t give into it just yet.
Instead, he knew he had to figure out what his immediate situation
was before he could worry about his family. ‘Apply your own mask
before applying your child’s mask’, and all that.
Will focused on the message’s date. The message said it was the
twenty-second, but Will thought he had only slept for one day. It
should be the twenty-first.
Did he sleep for two days? How could he verify the date?
Windows, he thought. Windows used Network Time Protocol
(NTP) to synchronize time with time servers on the Internet. If a
Windows PC was connected to the Internet, it should have the
correct time.
He rushed back around the counter and smacked the space bar
on the PC. The PIN screen appeared again.
Will let out an exasperated sigh.
He dug through the drawers until he found the note with the
code, entered it, then looked at the time display in the lower right of
the screen. It read 6/24, 4:45 PM.
Will dropped hard, involuntarily, into the office chair behind the
desk. His mind was a swirling mess of conflicting information. The
TV said the date was the twenty-second, or at worst, the twenty-
third, assuming typical governmental incompetence and a failure to
update the message. His memory said it should be the twenty-first.
But the fucking computer, the most accurate arbiter of time, said it
was the twenty-forth.
 He had some understanding of NTP, the protocol Windows used
to set the system time. Basically, for a stand-alone computer like this
one, there was an atomic clock in Arizona or somewhere, and the PC
would occasionally reach out to this server to get an updated
timestamp, along with some additional data to determine the round-
trip time. As long as the box was connected to the Internet, it should
have pretty accurate time. Certainly not off by days, anyhow.
Hmmm. Maybe this system was disconnected? He opened up a
command line and typed ‘ping 8.8.8.8’.
He used to tell his beginner students Ping was like an instructor
testing if his students were awake. You fired a data chunk into the
ether at a target, kind of like a teacher throwing a softball at a
sleeping student. If the target was alive, the target responded with
an ‘ouch’. If not, there was a good chance the target was dead, but
that meant you didn’t need to run away.
The poor taste of this joke right now was not lost on him. Will
grunted and looked back to the screen.
The target responded. 8.8.8.8, one of Google’s public DNS
servers, reacted nearly immediately.
‘Ok,’ Will thought, ‘There’s no major break in Internet
infrastructure. I need to verify what the actual date is.’
He typed ‘today’s date’ into Google, smashing the enter key
afterwards with a loud ‘clack’.
It immediately popped up Friday, June 24, 2022.
Oh shit.
He’d been asleep for at least three days. No wonder he was so
thirsty. And hungry.
It also explained the horrible state of poor Jake.
Ok, he thought. This was bad, but in some ways, it was also
good.
This explained why no one was around. The FEMA message had
told everyone to stay home, and by God, they were doing it, unlike
the COVID pandemic. At least that was a positive for humanity.
People learned from their mistakes; super surprising.
On the downside, it meant that he was likely the only person left
in this hotel to help his students. So, as horrifying as it might be, he
needed to get after it.
There was the added benefit that a hospital was literally across
the street from the hotel. As long as he could get the sick students
to the car, he should be able to get them to help.
He checked to make sure the stack of key cards was still in his
back pocket along with the paper printout, and made his way back
down the hall to the rooms.
The next student was right down the hall from Jake’s room, in
room 119. Frank something. Will repeated the routine from Jake’s
room, pounding on the door and yelling, then steeling himself and
entering.
Frank was curled up in the fetal position on his side, but
otherwise, the result was the same. He must have lasted a little
longer, because the smell wasn’t nearly as bad, and the side of his
face touching the bed was only a darkish blue, the color of an angry
thundercloud. He still had the same eerie black sclera, and the same
speckles of mixed snot and blood were all over the bedspread and
far wall.
Will left, softly closing the door behind him. He pondered for a
second, and finally dropped the key on the floor in front of the room
door. This way, if he ever got a hold of 911, he wouldn’t have to dig
through a pile of cards to get them into the rooms.
He moved onwards. Room 122 was empty. All the student’s
books and things seemed to still be there, but there was no sign of
the student. There was also an absence of blood and vomit, which
was a good sign. Maybe he was up wandering around the hotel, just
like Will was?
Will checked his paper, and saw this room was registered to… oh.
Ted Harris. The first student to get sick. No chance he’s wandering
around. Probably he and whatever the other guy’s name was both
went to the hospital after calling in sick. Hopefully, they got help in
time.
The next two rooms fit the pattern that was beginning to emerge
with his students. Lying in bed, blackened eyes, blackened
appendages where they were near the ground, same infernal
artwork on the beds and walls.
 Will felt the beginnings of something drag at him from deep in
his stomach.
He thought he understood a little now of how rescue dogs feel
when they face a scene of complete destruction, like the twin towers
collapse on 9/11. He wanted to find someone, to help someone, so
badly. Finding only dead people, over and over? He was beginning to
expect death. To lose hope.
The thought that was in his head was: Why go on? Why continue
if it’s just more of this horror show?
The answer that came back, immediately if reluctantly, was:
Because there’s no one else.
He went on.
Three rooms later he came upon something different. Entering
the room, Mark Thomas’s, according to his sheet, Will couldn’t smell
the now normal smells of vomit and rotting meat. Getting a bit
excited, he rushed into the bedroom area, calling Mark’s name. No
one was there, but the sheets were messed up. He retraced his
steps to the bathroom, where the door was almost shut.
Knocking, he called ‘Mark?’
No response.
Will gently pushed the door in, which bumped up against
something and stopped after opening about a foot. Will took an
exploratory sniff and cursed under his breath.
He pushed harder on the door, forcing whatever was obstructing
it to the side, and wedged his way into the bathroom. There, lying
sprawled on the floor with his head to the left of the bowl and his
feet wedged between the door and the sink cabinets, was Mark. The
bowl was cracked, and there was a slight spray of blood on the
edge. Mark’s head was laying with the left cheek to the floor. His
right eye, not blackened like the others, was staring blankly at the
bottom of the toilet. An impressive pool of dried blood was under
him, filling the last three feet of the bathroom with a tacky puddle.
Will sighed and silently backed out of the room, dropping the key in
front of the door.
The next seven rooms held more of the typical ‘dead student in
the bed’ scene that he was beginning to classify as ‘normal’. There
was no anticipation of maybe finding someone he could help now.
Just a kind of building dread about what he was going to find, and a
grim determination to push on.
Will had begun counting down. Fifteen down, five to go. The next
room was Bob Collins’s, the other patient zero from his class. Like
Ted’s room, Bob’s was empty, though it was a bit more of a mess
and had vomit in the trash can. Hopefully, those two got to the
hospital in time and were ok. Four to go.
In the seventeenth room, Will finally found something different.
Taking a breath, he smelled the same suite of odors that had now
become normal, but without the rotting smell. He walked in, calling
out, to find the student tangled in a pile of covers on the floor beside
the bed.
Expecting the worst, Will walked over to see the student’s face.
The student was lying on his left side, back to the wall, facing the
bed. His eyes were shut. His face was pale, but uniformly so. There
were pebbles of sweat on his skin, and God in heaven, he was
breathing! Will stuck his hand under the student’s nose to check,
and there was no doubt. Soft and shallow, but he was breathing.
Will whooped in triumph. He checked the student’s name on his
sheet: Nathan Adkins. Will gently called his name, then louder.
Nothing. Will repeated this and gently slapped Nathan’s clammy
cheek.
Jesus, he’s burning up, Will thought. He had never felt a human
being so warm. Waves of heat were radiating off of him.
Will immediately began trying to untangle Nathan from the
covers. Will was trying to get Nathan’s legs untangled, and was
already breaking a sweat, grunting with effort. Nathan’s legs didn’t
want to cooperate; they flopped around like they had a mind of their
own, going whatever direction gravity and joint mechanics dictated,
like one of those old articulated toy snakes.
Eventually, Will got him unwrapped. He stood by Nathan, panting
and wiping sweat from his brow, thinking. What else could he do to
get Nathan cooler?
He could get some cold rags and drape those on him. Or even
better, he could put Nathan in the tub and run cold water.
 Will went around to pull Nathan up by his arms, but the way
Nathan was wedged meant that he couldn’t really get any leverage.
So Will backed up, grabbed Nathan by the ankles, and pulled him
into the room itself. This took a few minutes, and Will was huffing
like a lifelong smoker at the end, but he got it done. Nathan’s shirt
was now rolled up under his armpits where the friction from the
carpeting had pulled it up.
Still breathing heavily, Will went around and pulled the shirt over
Nathan’s head, then got his arms out one by one, discarding the
inside out garment on the floor. Taking a deep breath, Will bent
down, reached up under Nathan’s armpits, and grabbed him in a
kind of bear hug from behind.
Once Will felt like he had a good hold on Nathan, he slowly stood
up with him. Nathan stunk, and his greasy hair was rubbing on Will’s
cheek disgustingly, but Will persisted. Nathan’s skin was slippery
with sweat, but Will found he could drag him a foot or so before he
needed to set him down and reestablish his grip.
Lift, drag, ease down, re-grip, repeat.
After what seemed like an hour, Will got Nathan into the
bathroom. Will sat himself on the edge of the tub to rest, with
Nathan between Will’s knees, leaning against him and the tub wall.
Sweat was stinging Will’s eyes, and his heart was pounding like a
speed metal drummer: hard and fast. This was the most physical
labor he’d done in years, and he was clearly very out of shape. But
he was making progress. If Will could just get Nathan over the lip of
this tub, he would be home free.
He realized now he had no chance of getting Nathan to his car
and to the hospital. Getting him into the bathroom had been a
herculean task. Will wasn’t sure he could even get him in the tub.
No, he would need to get Nathan cooled off, then he could run to
the hospital himself and see if he could find help. Besides, he had
three more rooms he had to check.
Will mentally prepared himself, then got his arms around Nathan
and lifted him again. He stepped into the tub with Nathan’s upper
body, but couldn’t seem to get Nathan’s hips over the lip of the tub.
There just wasn’t room to go straight back with him, and Will wasn’t
strong enough to lift him any higher.
Thinking quickly, Will backed away from the faucet, trying to
pivot Nathan’s body more lengthwise into the tub.
It didn’t work. Instead of pivoting, Nathan’s hips just slid closer
to him. As Will struggled, Nathan slipped, and instead of holding him
under the armpits, Will was now holding him above the shoulders.
Then Nathan’s arms and head plunged through Will’s clutched arms,
and dropped into the tub with a series of dull thumps.
Nathan was now lying with his torso in the tub, his hips on the lip
of the tub, and his legs as the balancing weight out into the floor.
His back was bent concave, with his hips at the highest point and his
legs and torso sloping down on either side. It looked painful and
possibly injurious.
Will quickly exited the tub. Grabbing Nathan’s legs he pulled
them around towards the faucet, which had the side effect of sliding
Nathan’s hips toward the tub. With a heavy, hollow thunk, Nathan’s
hips slid off of the lip and into the tub. Will arranged Nathan in a
drawn-out fetal position, then examined his head positioning. It was
too low to run a bath; too much chance of drowning. However, if he
left the drain open and ran a cold shower, Nathan should be fine.
Will cut on the shower and adjusted the spray so that it was out
of Nathan’s face. He didn’t remember how much water it took to
drown you, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Nathan’s clothes were
getting soaked now, but it didn’t matter. Will had to reduce Nathan’s
fever, and this was all he had to do it with.
Will checked to make sure Nathan was still breathing, then
propped the room door open and took off after the rest of the
students.
Fifteen minutes later, Will walked back to Nathan’s room,
shoulders slumped and eyes downcast. All three of the rooms
contained the same dismal scene. Out of twenty students, seventeen
were dead, one was hanging on to life by a thread, and two were
status unknown, presumably in the hospital.
Will went into the bathroom to check on Nathan. His color was
still bad, but he had stopped sweating. Will felt Nathan’s head; it
was a little cooler. This seemed like a positive sign, so Will left the
water running and went back down to the lobby. On his way to the
door, he went by the reception desk and grabbed his cell phone,
which was showing fifty-seven percent charged, and had two
voicemail notifications.
Will quickly unlocked the phone and went to the voicemail app.
Both were from Shae, which caused a simultaneous feeling of relief
and anxiety. Will opened the oldest, which was from seven thirty-
eight P.M. on the twentieth, and listened.
“Hey honey. I know you are probably sleeping, but I wanted to
let you know that the news is saying there’s a really bad virus going
around. I’m going to keep Kai out of school tomorrow, and try to
convince Dad to take a day off. Just… Please call me when you wake
up and let me know you are ok. I’m probably overreacting, but I’m
worried. Anyway, please call. Love you. Bye.”
Will exhaled hard as relief flooded him. Shae had seen the news
and was taking the right precautions. Good. There was a chance she
and Kai were going to be ok. He quickly teed up the second
voicemail, which was left at seven twenty-three A.M. on the twenty-
first.
“Hey, it’s me. Just hoping to catch you before class started.” Her
voice had a defeated, dejected sound to it. “Listen, it’s getting worse
in Charlotte. The death toll is already up to nearly 15,000, and that’s
up from a little over 200 yesterday. I couldn’t convince Dad to stay
home from work, so I’m going to keep us isolated up here until this
all blows over. And now you aren’t answering, and…”
Shae made a choking sound, like she was trying to hold in a sob.
Getting control of herself, she continued.
“I’m really worried Will,” she said, voice trembling. “Please call as
soon as you get this and let me know you are ok.”
She was obviously worried sick, and Will felt the guilt hit him like
a punch to the gut. He hadn’t realized she had called before his last
class. Will had a habit of silencing and ignoring his cell during the
workday. It’s almost required when presenting is your nine-to-five,
but that didn’t stop him from admonishing himself for missing the
opportunity to comfort Shae.
Will thought about what Shae said about his father-in-law, Lewis.
Lewis was probably not taking this seriously at all. He was one of
those folks who prided himself on never missing a day of work, so
his response didn’t really surprise Will. If Shae kept Kai and herself
isolated, though, it wouldn’t matter.
Will fretted in silence for a moment. He knew that if Lewis got
sick, nothing would keep Shae from going to help him. She was a
daddy’s girl to the core.
Pacing the lobby, Will dialed Shae’s number with shaking hands.
The phone didn’t even ring, it just immediately answered, and an
unfamiliar voice said: “The wireless customer you have called is
currently unavailable. Please try again later.”
The hell? Does that mean her phone is dead?
No, he thought. It usually went to voicemail then, but he couldn’t
be sure.
Maybe she forgot to pay the bill? No, that couldn’t be it, his
phone seemed to work fine, and they were on the same account.
Maybe the tower is out? There’s only one tower with decent
reception at home, so that could be it.
How could he test to see if it was the tower?
Lewis was on the same carrier; more out of the fact that only
one carrier had reasonable reception on the farm than any kind of
brand loyalty. Will would call his father-in-law, and if he got the
same message, that was a pretty good sign that the tower was
down.
Will looked up Lewis Morgan in his contacts and started the call.
“The wireless cal…”
Will hung up as soon as he recognized the voice.
Ok, so the tower is probably out. That could be no big deal,
maybe just a freak malfunction with no one to fix it, or it could be
something major, like a county-wide power outage.
How could he get more info?
First, Will went to his carrier’s website to look for an outage map.
He found lots of information on how to find power company outage
sites, but very little on figuring out if the carrier itself was the
problem. Typical; just passing the buck.
Will stepped back and took a different approach. In google, he
searched for ‘wireless outage map’, and got a bunch of links from a
site called downdetector. Downdetector was a site that took user
reports of outages for all kinds of websites and tallied them. Using it,
you could search and see if the website you couldn’t reach was
down for everyone or just you. Apparently, they also did wireless
carriers.
He found the link for his carrier and clicked it. A map of the
continental US popped up, with blobs showing outages.
Will had never seen this map, so he wasn’t positive what ‘normal’
was supposed to look like, but he guessed this wasn’t it. There were
huge blobs around a few metro centers, most notably Seattle and
Detroit, as well as a lot of isolated blobs in places he didn’t
recognize. Finding the approximate location of home, he saw it was
covered with a large blob as well. The map scale was basically
country wide, and there didn’t seem to be a zoom feature, but he
suspected Charlotte and all the surrounding areas were knocked out.
Well, that explained the inability to reach Shae, but it still didn’t
tell him if they had power. If their power was out, he would have to
abandon Nathan and get down there as fast as he could. Food would
probably already be going bad, and he didn’t want them to risk
going out when he was presumably immune now.
Will went to his power company’s site, and after a little digging,
found a great map for outages. He could see there were indeed
several, but zooming in to street level, he was relieved to see that
the farm was not on the list.
As long as Shae was careful, the family should be ok. If they
were infected already, there was probably nothing Will could do.
Unlike with Nathan here, Shae and Kai were a long way from the
nearest hospital, and it was going to take Will a minimum of four
hours to get back home from Raleigh.
Will considered abandoning Nathan and heading home anyway,
but the more he thought about it, the more agitated he got. Nathan
was here, in a dire emergency, and Will was the only one who could
help. Leaving him was basically the same as killing him.
On the other hand, Shae was being sensible, isolating. Further, as
far as he could tell, neither she nor Kai were in immediate danger.
He had to put some faith in Shae’s judgment and hope they would
be ok, at least until he could get help for Nathan.
Besides, if he could get help from the hospital, he could leave
Nathan in their care and head home. A couple of hours wouldn’t
make a difference for Shae and Kai, but it could literally be life or
death for Nathan.
 Chapter 4
Will exited the hotel through the automatic front doors, and
stopped dead under the awning, dumbfounded by the sight in front
of him. Directly across the street was one of the hospital parking
garages, a typical multi-level, dingy concrete eyesore. A little to the
right, down a short entrance road, was the Hospital emergency
entrance. In front of this was the six-lane main road, which fed off of
the Interstate about a thousand feet to the right.
On every square inch of this, as far as Will could tell, was a
completely motionless vehicle. All six lanes were full of cars. Cars
were jammed in spaces that were not lanes. On sidewalks. In the
grass. An ambulance sat motionless under the emergency entrance
awning, red lights still spinning, but completely boxed in.
Nothing was moving, save the occasional bird and the emergency
lights on the ambulance. The cars all seemed to be empty.
Will walked in a daze through the hotel parking lot towards the
main road. As he got closer, he saw that, indeed, the cars were
mostly empty. Occasionally, however, he’d come across one with a
body inside, laid out on the back seat or reclining in a front
passenger seat. In the summer heat and humidity, even with the
windows rolled up, you could smell them before you saw them.
That they were still sitting in the cars did not bode well for the
state of the hospital. Will’s shoulders slumped; was there really any
chance he was going to get help in the hospital, when they couldn’t
even help folks in the parking lot?
He shook his head, but continued on. He simply had no other
options for saving Nathan that he could see, so he needed to see
this one through.
Stumbling along like an extra in a zombie movie, he passed the
open back doors of the ambulance and went through the automatic
doors. The smell hit him like a physical barrier, and he knew he was
in a crypt.
The main desk area was directly in front of him, with no one
manning it. To the right were the individual rooms, going for a good
way down the hall, and to the left was the waiting area.
Will’s stomach lurched as he looked around the waiting room.
There were beds all along the walls, all of them occupied with a
body. A hundred blaring alarm tones blended into a monotonous
cacophony. There were even a few makeshift cots on the carpet,
with bodies laid out on the floor.
Worse, though, were the chairs. They were all concentrated in
the center of the room, in neat, tight lines that were spoiled here
and there by fallen chairs. Several of these were filled with slumped
bodies, but most were empty. Bodies littered the floor where they
had fallen out of the chairs, fluids staining the carpet.
Will rushed back out the door and retched, dry heaving for a few
minutes, eyes squeezed tightly shut as the acid burned his throat.
My God, he thought, there’s no help to be had. They are all dead.
The whole hospital.
The implications of this were thundering in his head.
If this was the scene nationwide, it meant that those who rushed
to the hospital were probably all dead. Only those who actually
stayed at home with their entire household would be alive. And even
the survivors would eventually have to venture out for food. Could a
corpse infect someone? How long did the virus survive without a
host? He had no idea.
Shit. He had to focus. How was he going to help Nathan now?
He thought quickly. He was standing by a hospital, which
presumably had supplies he could use. What did he need? He hadn’t
the slightest idea. He pulled up his phone and did some quick
googling.
Will knew the disease was a virus, that’s what the emergency
broadcast message had said, so antibiotics were useless against it.
What about antiviral drugs? He began searching, but there were a
bewildering array of them, and most of them were specific to one
type of virus or another. He searched specifically for those used to
combat the new virus, which was being called H15N9, and he found
no consensus on what was effective.
This was bad, because he wasn’t about to play guinea pig with
the one life he had under his care. Besides, Will didn’t know what
Nathan was allergic to, and a bad allergic reaction would probably be
the death of him. So, he began looking for general flu treatment
information.
According to CDC guidance, his first step should be to hydrate
Nathan. Will couldn’t give him water, the guy was unconscious.
However, he was at a hospital and they probably had loads of saline
and IV’s. After that, it was about treating the symptoms, which
included aches and coughing.
He could grab all of those things here and head back.
Will pulled the collar of his shirt over his nose to help with the
smell, took several deep breaths, and headed back inside. He knew
nothing about how an ER was organized, so he just began opening
up the rooms and rummaging inside. All of them contained the same
scenes; three bodies packed in each room on stretchers; wires,
tubes and beeping machines connected to people who had no use
for them.
He averted his gaze and rummaged. Finding nothing useful, he
moved on to the next room. Upon finding the same layout, Will
realized they must store the drugs elsewhere.
He began searching random rooms, and found success in some
kind of prep room, which seemed to have all sorts of goodies. There
were a few locked containers where he assumed the really good
stuff was kept, but all the stuff Will needed was right out in the
open.
He grabbed a half dozen bags of saline, looked at them, and
realized he had no clue what he was doing. Back to YouTube he
went. He found several videos detailing the process - thank God the
big pharma companies put training videos on YouTube - and
gathered all the ancillary do-dads he needed for the process. He
found a little rolling cart in a corner and dumped all the stuff in it.
Also making their way into the cart were one of those gun style
thermometers, a box of band-aids, a box of alcohol prep pads, some
gauze, and a bunch of acetaminophen, both oral and injectable.
His ‘purchases’ bagged up, Will wheeled the cart through the
morgue of the ER and out the door.
 He had only dimly registered the time of day when he went in,
but it was a lot different coming out. It was still pretty warm, but
dusk would be here soon. He must have spent over an hour
rummaging in the hospital. Will began pushing the cart through the
gauntlet of cars back to the hotel.
He was doing reasonably well at this until he tried to cross the
road. Try as he might, he couldn’t find a break large enough to allow
the cart through to the other side of the road. There were plenty
that were wide enough for Will to squeeze past sideways, but the
cart was about two foot wide on its narrowest side, and none of the
gaps were that big.
Will thought about the problem, then he laid out the contents of
the cart on the hood of one car. Once empty, he rolled the cart a few
feet to the trunk of the car in front. Will grabbed the uprights of the
cart, and half lifting, half sliding, pushed the cart up onto the trunk.
With a screech, he pushed the hard plastic cart across the trunk of
the car, wincing at the long scratches it left in the car’s shiny paint.
The cart fell off and clattered to the ground, the sound jolting in the
city’s silence.
Goose pimples rose on Will’s arms. The city was much quieter
than he had ever heard it. In even a small city, there’s a constant
rumble of background noise as cars move about, but none here.
There was a pretty faint hum as AC units ran, but that was it.
Will shook it off and squeezed between the two cars. Righting
the cart, the plastic of which seemed none the worse for the little
adventure, he filled it back up with his goodies and continued. Will
pushed the cart the rest of the way without too much trouble, but as
he neared the hotel entrance, his stomach cramped so hard he
nearly doubled over. He had been without food that he hadn’t
thrown up for three days now. Probably, he should eat.
After re-entering the hotel, Will immediately pushed the cart over
to reception. As before, he went around the counter and grabbed
several bags of chips. Unlike before, however, he expedited the
feeding process by opening the bag, crushing up the chips, and
dumping the contents right into his mouth.
 This was thirsty work, and he grabbed a bottle of water out of
the fridge and drained it without so much as stopping for breath.
Tossing his trash in the can, he grabbed the cart and went up to
Nathan’s room.
He found Nathan in the same position, shivering slightly. Did this
mean his fever had broken? Or was that an old wives’ tale? Maybe it
was just the constant cold water. Either way, the best thing to do
was probably to shut off the water and take Nathan’s temperature.
He twisted the shower fixture to off, then grabbed the
thermometer he had brought. After some fiddling, he scanned
Nathan’s forehead, and got a reading of 101.3. Google said this was
a low-grade temperature, and the advice was to let it run its course.
Nathan was still shivering, so Will decided that the first order of
business was to dry him off. The first step to doing that was to
remove his wet clothes. He had never undressed a grown man
before, and the thought weirded him out a little.
Nathan’s pants were a bit of a struggle. He had to actually lift his
hips to get them out from under him, but after some cursing, he got
them moving down. Luckily, his time in the shower had washed
some of the worst of the stink from him, but it was still a pretty
nasty job.
Will finished wrestling the pants and boxers off Nathan’s legs. He
stopped to think. He probably should throw the clothes out, but he
didn’t know how many changes Nathan had. Will laid them out flat
on the bathroom counter to dry.
He then grabbed a few towels and began drying Nathan himself.
Nathan was even more slippery now than he had been, and Will felt
like he was trying to wrestle a greased pig.
Eventually, Will got him as dry as he could, but Nathan was still
shivering slightly. Will went and grabbed the spare blanket in the
little storage cubby and covered Nathan up.
That finished, the next course of action was to get the IV in. First
up, Will hit YouTube again and watched the video on how to do this
a few more times. He then washed his hands thoroughly and dried
them with a clean hand towel.
 This done, he pulled the cart into the room and grabbed one of
the IV packages. Following the directions, he found a vein in
Nathan’s hand, sterilized the area with an alcohol wipe, and
attempted to insert the IV. He missed, which he knew because no
blood flowed into the little clear plastic thingy like it did in the video.
So, he tried a few more times, until he saw he was doing more harm
than good.
Will moved to a spot on the wrist and tried there. After two or
three tries, he finally got it. He followed the procedures for flushing
the IV with saline, then got the bag of saline and plugged it in. He
hung the bag from the shower curtain rail and stepped back, nearly
glowing with satisfaction.
He was helping. He might actually help save Nathan, and it felt
good. Meaningful. Maybe more so than anything he had done in his
life. Maybe this was why people went into the medical field?
As Will finished up with Nathan, his stomach felt like it was
chewing itself up. He needed food. Not the junk food he had been
mollifying himself with, either. He needed real food. Like a
cheeseburger.
Or four.
He left Nathan’s room, mind already running over the ingredients
he would need, and headed toward the restaurant.
 Chapter 5
As he headed into the dining area, Will realized he was going to
need some lights. The wing the restaurant was in had windows
facing both the pool and the side lot, but the blinds were all down.
The result was that the empty dining area was both gloomy and sort
of creepy.
He cut his phone’s light on, and began canvassing the walls for
switches. He found a large bank of them on the front wall and
flipped them all on. Instantly, the entire dining area was bathed in
fluorescent light. He headed through the dining area towards the
back.
On the back wall there was an opening, and through it and a
short little hallway was the entrance to the kitchen. Will entered,
then stopped and looked around. There were so many implements
and containers, he wasn’t sure where to start. He started exploring.
He located all the food he needed relatively quickly. They kept
the unrefrigerated items in a pantry area to the rear of the kitchen.
Refrigerated items were kept in a large walk-in fridge, and frozen
items were in a smaller walk-in freezer. He was very careful with the
doors, visions of freezing to death inside vivid in his head, until he
noticed a safety release on the inside of the door. Guess the
manufacturers had seen all those movies too.
Will grabbed a bottle of vegetable oil and went over to the
griddle. It had a bunch of red temperature knobs and a couple of big
red buttons, and he really did not want to blow the place up fiddling
with them. He noticed the manufacturer’s name on the front, and
back to Google he went in search of a manual.
Ten minutes later, he had the griddle lit and heating, sans
explosion. He poured a light coating of oil on the griddle and went to
grab the meats.
A few minutes later, he was back with some ground beef and
bacon. Another foray into the storage area, and he came back with a
slice of bread, milk, minced garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and
ketchup.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
the cause of such an interference. Conciliation should then be
offered by having at hand a little, sweetened water, which may be
sprinkled, or rather let drop, from a feather or a brush. The sudden
motion of the hand required in the act of sprinkling irritates the bees,
so that, instead of making them our friends, they may become our
foes. Mr. Langstroth recommends that a fine watering-pot, filled with
sweetened water, be used for the purpose. Care must be taken not
to drench the bees; only just sufficient should be given to run down
the sides of the combs, as well as sprinkling the top. As soon as the
bees really understand that syrup is being given them, they feast
upon it, instead of angrily attacking the operator. Thus pacified, and
with gentle treatment, but little difficulty will be found in proceeding
with the work required. But the unskilled operator should on no
account neglect to put on a bee-dress and gloves, as described
above. We would err on the side of caution, although there is an old
saying that "a cat in gloves catches no mice;" and the apiarian will
find that his fingers are not so free to work as he would like, for
gloves, make them rather clumsy in drawing up the frames.
The frames must now be gently prised from front to rear; this may
be done with a small screw-driver or other stout instrument with a
wedged end to go into the notches. The frames fit loosely so as to
allow of a little movement from back to front; a lateral or side-way
movement might kill the queen, or, if not so fatal as that, might crush
some of the bees and injure the brood combs, which must be
carefully avoided. Of course, much depends upon the nature of the
operation that has to be performed, whether or no all the frames
should be thus loosened. If it be for making artificial swarms, or for
any purpose requiring an interview with her majesty, the whole of
them must be loosened, because it often happens that all the combs
have to be examined, sometimes twice over, before she can be
discovered. Bees are very apt to build their combs in a slightly
waving form, and in extracting one it will be needful to make room
both for the comb and bees upon it to pass without scraping the next
comb, and there will be a difficulty if the apiarian attempts to draw
out one comb whilst the other frames are located in their appropriate
notches. Let the operator gently proceed to lift, say, the third frame
(allowing it to lodge on the little block that divides the notches)
slightly nearer to the fourth frame, and the second nearer the third,
so as to admit of sufficient space to lift out the end one. Very
carefully and slowly he should lift the frame by taking hold, with
thumb and finger, of the projecting shoulders that rest in the notch;
and he must not let it touch or scrape the next frame or the sides of
the hive, so as to crush or irritate any bees.
After the end comb is thus removed, it will be easy to extract the
others, as there will now be plenty of room for drawing them out. A
hive of exactly the same size should be at hand; and in case it be
desired to remove the combs and bees into another hive, care
should be taken that each comb occupies the same relative position
that it did in the old hive.
In handling the frames, it should be borne in mind that they are to
be held perpendicularly. To gain a view of both sides of the comb
when searching for the queen, or for any purpose requiring full
inspection, with a little dexterity in twirling the frame round, the
reverse side may be brought to face the operator, without letting the
comb break away by its own weight, and so fall out of the frame,
which it will do if allowed to deviate from its upright or downright
position. If the operator could see an experienced person perform
the operation, he would quickly understand how combs may thus be
handled without any risk of a smash.
When placing frames in the hive, care must be taken not to crush
a bee between the projecting shoulders of the frame and the rabbets
or notches on which they rest, and on no account must the frame be
let down with a jerk, or the bees will become exceedingly fierce: the
frame should be so slowly deposited in its place that a bee on feeling
the slightest pressure may have the opportunity of escaping unhurt
thereby. The crown-board should be replaced by first resting its front
edge in its place, and then slowly lowering the after part, looking
carefully under, and momentarily raising it when necessary to avoid
crushing a bee. Should the hive have its super on, the same
directions may be followed. The super with its honey-board may be
bodily taken away, and so placed and confined for a time that
robber-bees cannot find an entrance, and also be far enough from
the apiarian to be out of danger of being broken or overturned by
him.

ADVANTAGES OF BAR AND FRAME HIVES.

It will be asked, Why all this trouble about bar and frames with
straight combs built upon them? We have shown the full command
which the bee-keeper has over a hive so constituted, and we now
proceed to show how, in skilful hands, these advantages may be
used successfully; though; in the hands of the unpractised and
unskilful, the contrary may be the result.
All the bars and frames in an apiary ought to be of precisely the
same dimensions, so as to fit every hive. This is essential for the
strengthening of weak hives. A hive that is weakly may often be
advantageously strengthened by having put into it a comb of brood
from a populous stock, to which an empty frame from the weak one
may be given; no bees must be on the brood-comb—these should
be shaken off or gently dislodged with a feather into the hive from
which the comb is taken. The frames of combs should then be, one
by one, placed so as to fill' in the vacancy, leaving the empty frame
nearest the side. When a hive has been in use many years, the
combs become very black, and every bee that is bred in a cell leaves
a film behind. It may be understood how in this way the cells become
contracted, and the bees that are bred in them correspondingly
reduced in size. After the lapse of at least, say, five years, it may be
necessary to begin removing the old combs. This may be done by
cutting away the comb, or by substituting; an empty frame for one
with old black comb, gradually moving the frames towards each
other. By taking two away in this manner in the spring or summer of
every season, the combs in course of five years may all be
reconstructed, and fresh clean ones be secured for breeding in,
instead of the old black ones that otherwise would remain as long as
the stock could live in the hive.

ARTIFICIAL SWARMING.
 Every bee-keeper knows the anxiety he feels in watching and
expecting a swarm to come forth, fearful lest his favourites should,
"like riches, take wing and fly away,"—a mischance that it is
desirable to prevent. In our description of natural swarming, this will
be found fully treated of; we propose here merely to point out how,
with the movable frames, this work of Nature may be assisted—we
say assisted, because artificial swarming should, as nearly as
possible, resemble natural swarming; that is, it should be performed
at the same time of the year, and when the populous state of the
hive makes a division desirable. This is easily known to be the case
when bees hang out in clusters at the entrance, wasting their time in
enforced idleness instead of being abroad gathering honey. It is also
necessary that the hive contain drones.
When such, is, the state of the hive, the facility of affording an
artificial swarm with a movable frame-hive is a decided advantage.
The best time for performing the operation is about ten o'clock in the
morning of a fine summer's day. The following directions should be
carried out:—Place ready a counter or bench that is firm and strong,
and which has space on it for the inhabited—or, rather, the over-
inhabited—frame-hive and the empty one, which is about to be made
the receptacle of a separate stock. The operator, attired in his bee-
dress, and having the other appliances ready, may now open the
hive[17] as before described, and proceed to take out the frames,
carefully examining both sides of each comb to find the queen;[18]
she is generally in the centre of the hive, so that it is not always
needful to take out all the ten frames. As they are examined, the
frames may be put into the empty hive, and when the object of the
bee-master's search is found, he must carefully remove the frame
containing her majesty, and may place it temporarily in the empty
hive, at one end by itself. Next he must proceed to put the frames
back into the old hive, closing up the vacancy caused by the removal
of the comb with the queen on it, and leave the empty frame at the
end. Then he may place the frame containing the queen, with the
few bees that maybe upon it, in the centre of the empty hive; and,
finally, putting all the other frames in, and replacing the lid, the bee-
master will place this hive in the exact position occupied by the old
stock. The bees that are on the wing will go to the old spot, and,
finding the queen there, they will rally round her, and very soon form
a sufficient number to constitute a swarm; comb-building will at once
begin, the frames will, in a week or so, be filled, and a satisfactory
stock will thus be established. By doing this, at the right time, just
before the bees are about to swarm, or when there are many drones,
all the trouble of watching and waiting for them is saved. Mr.
Woodbury claims the honour of having originated this mode of
swarming.
[17] Bees are apt to take the interference more kindly if the
stock be moved a little distance from its accustomed stand; in
such case, place an empty hive in its place, to amuse returning
bees. These can be shaken out when the hive it is desired they
should inhabit is restored. If the hive be kept in a closed bee-
house, the entrance should be shut down until the hive is
replaced, when the clustered bees may be at once admitted.
[18] Italian queens are more easily detected, being of a
brighter colour and, generally, larger than English queens.
This operation we performed, exactly as described above, with
one of our improved cottage-hives, one afternoon at the latter end of
May, 1862. Whilst inspecting our bees, we caught sight of the queen
on the comb in one of the bell-glasses. This was a chance not to be
missed, and we immediately resolved to form an artificial swarm, for
the hive was very full of bees. Besides, being obliged to be away
from the apiary most of the week, we were glad of the opportunity of
so easily establishing a colony without the uncertainty and trouble of
hiving a natural swarm. In the first place, we slid a tin under the bell-
glass, and removing the stock-hive from underneath, we took it a few
feet away; then we placed an empty improved cottage-hive where
the old stock had stood, and put the glass of comb containing the
queen and a few bees over one of the holes in the crown of this new
empty hive. The bees that were left abroad belonging to the old
stock returned as usual to their old entrance as they supposed; soon
a sufficient number formed a large cluster in the hive and began
comb-building, the queen remaining in the glass until the cells below
were sufficiently numerous for her to deposit her eggs in them. The
division answered exceedingly well; both hives prospered: the old
hive either had some princesses coming forward to supply the loss
of the queen, or the bees used a power that they possess of raising
a queen from worker-brood in the manner we have previously
described.[19]
[19] See Section I, page 9.
The foregoing account illustrates the successful formation of an
artificial swarm; but, with a cottage-hive, gaining possession of the
queen is quite a matter of chance. With a movable frame-hive she
can at any suitable time be found.
Precisely the same plan is to be adopted with the old stock in the
frame-hive as we have described in the case of the cottage-hive, that
is, to remove it some few paces off: when the hives are in a bee-
house, a similar result may be obtained, by placing the new swarm
for a day or two to the entrance used by the bees when with the old
stock, and the old stock may be removed to an approximate
entrance. Some apiarians recommend that a space be left between
the two hives, by placing the hives on the right and left of the old
entrance, in order that too large a proportion of bees should not
enter the new hive at the old position, to the impoverishment of the
other. But we have found the mode adopted with the cottage-hive
answer so well, that we see no reason for recommending any
different plan.
It is the office of the bee-master to assist, not in the least degree
to oppose, nature. We know that when a natural swarm issues forth,
it has its impregnated queen, and, when located in a new abode, it
commences building worker-combs, leaving the building of the few
drone-combs to a later period; but if a division of the hive should be
made, by putting half the combs in one hive and half in another, the
hive that is either queenless or contains an embryo queen will busy
itself with building only drone-comb; thus a number of receptacles for
useless bees is provided, which tends to weakness, and eventually
to loss of the hive.
In the plan we have recommended for forming two separate
families, we nearly follow the natural state of things; the comb that
the queen is upon is the only one that is taken from the hive, and this
vacancy should be filled in by moving the frames together, so as to
leave the empty frame at the end. The bees, under the government
of the impregnated queen, construct the combs and furnish their new
above, as before stated, with worker-cells.
By adopting the plan above described, the movable bar and
frame-hive will prove far superior to any of the dividing hives, which
provide for equal division of the combs.[20]
[20] At page 143 of Mr. Langstroth's "Honey Bee," other
methods of artificial swarming are described, the perusal of which
will well repay the scientific bee-keeper.
Perhaps the greatest advantage the movable frame-hive
possesses is, that a full knowledge can be attained of its exact state
as regards the queen, the population, and the quantity of food in
stock. During weather of a genial temperature, the combs may on
any fine day be inspected, and thus, a knowledge being gained of
the deficiency existing in a hive, the necessary means may be
adopted for supplying the want. Sometimes such an examination will
verify the fears of the bee-keeper, when, having observed that his
bees have ceased to carry in pollen, he has thereby received
warning that the queen has been lost at some juncture when no
successor to the throne could be provided. Such a hive has entered
on a downward course, and will dwindle away entirely, unless a
queen should be given to it, or else some combs containing young
brood not more than three days old. By the latter method, the bee-
keeper will gain an opportunity of seeing the bees set about their
wonderful process of raising a queen from the brood thus provided
for them.
When a bee-keeper has become skilful in his calling, he maybe
desirous to encourage the breeding of queens, or rather of
preventing their destruction. He will seek to use the propagating
instincts of the worker-bees as a set-off against that innate hatred of
rivalry which prompts the reigning queen to kill the tender royal
brood.
 An ingenious little contrivance has been brought into use by
continental bee-keepers, especially by Herr Kleine, a German pastor,
to prevent the destruction alluded to. It consists of a small wire cage
(in fact, a pipe cover), as represented in the above engraving, placed
over a queen-cell to protect it from the mother-bee's animosity, and it
also serves to prevent the young queen, when hatched, from
escaping; for she will have the same jealous feeling toward her
sister-princesses, should there be more in the hive. The bee-master
may thus carefully remove and appropriate her.
Particular attention will have to be exercised to affix the cage into
the comb by pressure, as far as the middle wall, but at no point must
it touch the royal cell itself. As the cage will probably project so as to
touch the adjoining comb, a little incision and removal of a portion
may be necessary, to allow space for it. It can, however, be
squeezed into any shape to suit the position required.
This covering need not be put over the cell until the egg is a little
more than a week old. The animosity of the reigning queen does not
generally manifest itself until the royal brood approaches maturity.
It is said that these cells are unmolested on the tenth day, but
that on the eleventh day they may be found tenantless.
Notwithstanding the apiarian's care and skill, many disappointments
are frequently experienced in endeavouring to establishing fertile
young queens at the head of colonies.
Hives found to be queenless may be supplied either with matured
queens or with queen-cells. If the latter are sufficiently numerous,
their introduction may easily be effected by exchanging a comb in
each hive; if they have to be cut out and place loosely in the new
hive, a triangular piece of comb should then be removed with them,
to be used as a block in preventing any pressure coming on them. A
space must be cut out of the middle in the centre combs of the hive
into which they are to be introduced. Special care must be taken not
to bruise the royal embryos, as they are particularly sensitive to
pressure. It is sometimes best to introduce royal brood into
queenless hives in preference to matured unimpregnated queens,
because, as mentioned at page 8, bees are reluctant to receive
virgin queens, whilst they will tolerate one hatched in the hive, who
will speedily depart to seek a drone. Bee-masters mostly use small
hives for queen-rearing, consisting of, say, four combs. By extracting
from a populous hive four such frames of combs (with the bees on
them), and having eggs in the first stage (see page 9), or better still a
royal embryo, the bees will rear a queen or queens therefrom. Care
will have to be exercised to ensure that there is a sufficient number
of bees to mature the brood brought from the hive.[21]
[21] These weak little colonies should have small entrances,
so as to be better able to defend themselves from the attacks of
robber-bees, and they will require to be assisted and
strengthened by feeding.
A colony of this character is technically called a "nucleus."
Such operations as queen-rearing should only be attempted in
warm summer weather, and when drones are abundant.
A very great advantage that the Woodbury bar and frame hive
affords, is the safety and convenience with which a stock of bees
can in it be transported to any part of the kingdom: by a few
additional arrangements, stocks have even been sent in it to distant
countries. In many districts hives are removed to moors, and heaths
in autumn, for the purpose of gathering heather honey. In this
operation, the frames are a great support to the combs, very much
lessening the risk of a break down and consequent loss.
From a hive that has been inhabited all the winter, we have not
unfrequently lifted out the frames and removed the stock to a clean
hive; and we believe that the change has always been useful The
bees find a clean floor-board and a clean hive to breed in, free from
insects that may have harboured in crevices about their former
abode. When the change has been made, the old hive can be
thoroughly cleaned and used in the same way for making the
exchange with another stock. The process for handling will, of
course, be the same as before described. We have found that,
where this plan has been carried out, the bees seem to progress
faster. Perhaps a little stirring up may be useful in arousing them
from their winter doze. The time we recommend for doing this is in
the beginning of April, but a fine warm day should be chosen.

DRIVING.
Driving is an operation by which bees are induced to vacate an
old settled hive and to enter an empty one. Many apiarians prefer
this mode of effecting an exchange of hives to the plan of fumigating
the bees.
The greatest success attending such a transfer will be in the case
of hives well filled with combs that are worked nearly to the floor-
board; and it may be remarked, that bees are generally so far
provident, that they leave an open space in which to pass
underneath their combs over all the floor of the hive. When the old
hive is inverted, the bees crawl up the combs, and thus more easily
pass up into the new hive, which the operator places over the old
one, with the intent that they should enter it.
The best time for performing this operation is about the middle of
the day, and when the weather is warm. It is essential that the
operator be protected with a bee-dress and gloves, as before
described; and previous to commencing his task, he must provide all
necessary implements. These are:—a couple of hives, one of which
should correspond in shape and size with the hive from which the
bees are to be driven; a cloth to tie round at the junction when the
new hive is placed on the old one; some string to keep the cloth in its
place; an empty pail to receive the top of the old hive, if one of the
old conical shape, but if the stock of bees is in a square box-hive
with a flat top, a firm stool will be the best; and a tube fumigator with
some fungus, which will complete the material of war. The bucket or
stool must be placed securely on the ground, about a yard from the
place where the full hive stands; then a few puffs of smoke, blown in
amongst the bees, will cause them to retreat up amongst the combs.
The bee-master must now turn the hive[22] upside down very gently;
letting it rest in the pail or on the stool; he then quickly places the
empty hive over the full one, and ties the cloth round it, to prevent
any escape of the bees. If the cloth be damped, it will cling the closer
to the hives. The third hive is intended to be placed on the stand
formerly occupied by the stock, so as to retain the few returning bees
which had been absent in the fields. Care must be taken that all
crevices through which it is possible for the bees to escape from the
united hives should be effectually closed. When the two are fairly
united, the operator will proceed by rapping the full hive gently with
the hands or a couple of sticks, more particularly on that side where
the combs are the most thickly placed—that is, if the hive be not
equally filled. A stock is in the best condition for driving twenty-one
days, or thereabouts, after a first swarm has issued; the brood will
then have hatched out, the bees will quit more readily, and there will
be no loss of larvæ in the cells.
[22] Care should be exercised in turning the hives over to keep
the combs vertical, or they are likely to break from their
foundations.
It generally happens that, in about fifteen minutes, the bees
regularly commence the ascent; their exodus will be known by the
distinct rushing sound which is always noticed when a colony of
bees is on the move. The first thing bees do when disturbed is to fill
their honey-bags, as they invariably do at swarming time;
consequently, after the first rush into the new hive is over, as in the
case of a swarm, the "flitting" bees are not much disposed to take
wing. When the noise made by the ascending bees has been heard,
and has in a great degree subsided, the cloth may be removed, and
the old hive, now deserted, may be taken indoors; and if a few bees
yet remain, they may be brushed off with a feather. An experienced
apiarian, on first hearing the rushing noise before mentioned, will not
hesitate to tilt the top hive over a little on one side, so that he may
watch the bees during the ascent; the queen may be seen passing
up, and if the operator desires to take her away, he can secure her
by placing a wine-glass over her. This expedient is often resorted to
in the autumn, when stocks are to be united, for in such a case the
removal of the queen prevents some fighting.
If the taking of the honey be the object of the bee-master, then
"driving" is manifestly a better plan than resorting to the fumes of
sulphur for the purpose; for the bees from whom the store is taken
can be joined to stocks that are weak in numbers, with considerable
advantage to the future prosperity of the apiary.
When the removed bees are to be joined to another stock, the
operator will proceed as follows:—At dusk, dislodge the bees on to a
cloth, sprinkle them with sweet syrup, and place the hive to which it
is intended to join them over the mass; they will gradually ascend
into the hive placed for them, and early next morning the hive, with
its slender stock thus augmented, may be removed to its stand.
Should the operator not have been successful, or not sufficiently
skilful to gain possession of the queen, he may leave it to the bees
themselves to decide which queen they will have.
By this plan of "driving," artificial swarms may be secured by an
"expert" even in common hives, though those do not afford the
facilities for such a purpose as do the bar or bar-and-frame hives.

CHANGING OLD STOCKS TO NEW HIVES.

We frequently find that the possessor of a stock of bees in a
cottager's common straw hive is desirous of removing the whole
stock of bees and comb into one of our improved hives, in which the
honey may be obtained without the destruction of the bees. We
mostly discourage such a transfer, attended as it is with much labour,
and requiring a considerable amount of apiarian skill. An old-
fashioned hive may very readily be rendered a humane one, simply
by cutting out with a sharp-pointed knife the middle of the top of the
hive; a piece may thus easily be taken out, so as to leave a round
hole two or three inches in diameter, but care must be taken that the
knife does not penetrate much below the straw, lest it reach the
comb or the bees—and it will be safer for the operator to have a bee-
dress on. There should be ready a round adapting-board, with a
corresponding hole, which may be secured on the top by putting four
long nails through the same number of holes in the board; then a
cap-hive or a glass may be placed on the top, for the purpose of
admitting the bees, who will soon crowd therein to work.
This hive or glass will form a super or depriving-hive, and can be
worked as profitably as most of the improved hives. For the sake of
an improved appearance, an outside case, either of zinc, straw, or
wood, may be dropped over all, and then, if well painted, the whole
will form no disfigurement to any flower-garden.
This is, beyond doubt, the easiest way of overcoming the
difficulty, but as it may not satisfy all, we now proceed to describe
how a complete transfer may be made. No hive offers such facilities
for the correct placing of the combs in a perfectly upright position as
does the bar-and-frame hive. As before remarked, we should be
slow to recommend any one to attempt the operation who is not
already pretty well accustomed to the handling of bees and
acquainted with their habits; but by carefully carrying out the
following directions any one may successfully perform the feat. The
first thing is to get the bees away from the combs: there are two
ways of doing this,—one is by fumigation (see page 145), the other
by driving (see page 179). Whichever plan may be resorted to, have
the bees confined in the old hive on their stand until you are quite
ready to admit them into the bar-and-frame hive. Have in readiness
all the necessary appliances. These consist of a large knife for
cutting the hive, a good-sized table on which to lay the brood-combs,
a basin of water—for washing off honey which may besmear the
hands,—tape or cotton string to fasten the combs in their frames, a
pair of honey-cutters for cutting out the combs, jars to hold the honey
that runs out, and a feather for brushing off any bees that may
remain. It is necessary that the operator should have on his bee-
dress and india-rubber gloves. Then begin by slicing off a piece of
the hive with a sharp table-knife; carefully cut out the working combs
—cut them large, so that they will squeeze into the frames; and, to
be more secure, wind some of the tape round to keep them in
position until made fast by the bees. After a few days, these
fastenings may be removed. Care should be taken that the combs
occupy, the same position in the frames as in the hive from which
they were extracted. Having thus prepared the hive, the bees may
be let into it, in the manner Mr. Woodbury recommends for a swarm
(see page 159). It may be as well to keep them confined a few
hours, giving them water at the top, until they make the combs
secure; the new hive will then be less likely to offer an attraction to
bees from other hives, who, if feloniously inclined, might come to
rob. This transfer should be made when the weather is such that the
bees can fly about: when not warm enough, it should be done in a
room at a temperature of about 70 degrees. An expert apiarian could
perform the operation in less than three quarters of an hour, and with
little loss. A week or so after a swarm has left the old stock is
perhaps the very best time for such a removal. Should the operation
be performed in the open air, the bees from surrounding hives will be
sure to come in great numbers to obtain a share of the honey
necessarily exposed, for they delight in plunder. In order, therefore,
to avoid annoyance to the operator, and the excitement which is
certain to be induced in surrounding hives, it is better to conduct the
dissection in some building with closed doors. In some instances a
routing of this kind has a beneficial effect; old stocks of hives that
have previously appeared to be dwindling are often aroused to
activity by their removal into a fresh domicile.

WEIGHING HIVES, &c.

One of the most effectual modes of ascertaining the condition of
a hive is by weighing it. Such knowledge is most important at the
close of the gathering season, in order that the bee-keeper may
determine whether he ought to give his bees artificial food to enable
them to live through the dreary winter. A knowledge of the numerical
strength of the colony is also useful, in enabling the bee-keeper to
decide which hives will be benefited by being joined together, on the
plan explained in the articles on "Fumigation" and "Driving."

A hive can very easily be weighed, if a Salter's Spring Balance be

suspended near the apiary. The hive, having a strap or cord passed
under and over it, crossing at right angles on the top, may be hooked
on to the balance, so that the weight will be indicated on the dial.
The annexed engraving represents a tripod stand, with a
weighing-machine of the above-named construction, to which a hive
with a super is attached. Such an arrangement will be found
convenient for those bee-keepers who may not possess suitable
sheds in their gardens, where a hive could be thus suspended from
a beam.
This contrivance is both portable and simple, and can be used
from time to time; or, if the apiarian desires to have the hive
constantly suspended, a water-proof covering might easily be made
to drop over, and adapted so as to admit of being raised occasionally
for ascertaining the weight shown on the dial.
To prevent the hive being swayed to and fro by the wind, three
cords (gear ropes) might be attached therefrom to the three legs of
the stand. The height of such a stand need not exceed four feet.
Much interest might be derived by watching the daily or hourly
increasing store brought into a hive during the gathering season.
Mr. George Fox, of Kingsbridge, and Mr. S. Bevan Fox, of Exeter,
have for some years each kept one stock attached to a "Salter's
Circular Spring Balance," suspended from a beam under a shed,
and, from experience, find that from a hive so balanced a criterion
may be formed of what other hives in the apiary are doing through
the day.
Many ingenious contrivances will, no doubt, suggest themselves
to the apiarian for suspending hives in this manner. For instance,
instead of the cord being tied round the hive, three or four strong
irons, with a screw at one end and a ring at the other (known by iron
mongers as "eyes"), could be screwed into the floor-boards, to which
the attachments might be made fast. It will scarcely be necessary to
hint that great care is necessary that full provision should be made
securely to support the increasing weight; a fall would be most
ruinous, and terribly enrage the bees.
The weight of the hive should be marked on it when empty, so
that the exact amount of its contents may at any time be ascertained.
A colony of bees at Michaelmas ought to weigh from 20 to 24 lbs.,
that is, exclusive of the hive; if falling short of that weight, the hive
should be made up to it by the artificial means before recommended.
Experienced apiarians are able to judge of the weight of a hive by
lifting it a few inches from the stand; or by looking in at the windows
of a stock-hive, a conclusive opinion may be formed as to the state
of the colony. If the combs within view be well filled and sealed, it will
be safe to consider that the hive contains sufficient stores to carry
the bees through the winter.
 VI. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.
STINGS: THEIR PREVENTION AND CURE.
OME of our readers may deem us neglectful in having, as it
were, left them to struggle through their bee-keeping novitiate
without informing them how to avoid being stung by their docile
but well-armed flock. Of course, having described the bee-dress, we
have supposed that the apiarian was clad, if not "in complete steel,"
at least in the head-gear and gloves, which will render him
invulnerable. The best safeguard from the anger of bees—as,
indeed, from the malice of men—is a quiet and peaceable spirit. The
apiarian will learn to handle his bees not only as "if he loved
them,"—as the quaint angler says—but as if he fully believes that the
bees love him. This they will do whenever he approaches and treats
them gently. There are some cases of exception to this generally
peaceable disposition of the bee; perchance a few bees are
dyspeptic, and refuse to be pacified, let their master seek to bribe
them never so wisely. Then, too, sometimes the bee-master himself
may be dyspeptic, which the unerring olfactory sense of the bees
speedily detects, and their anger is immediately aroused. Some few
persons, owing to constitutional peculiarities in their breath or
insensible perspiration, are objects of constant animosity with bees,
who, by driving them from the apiary, are giving a physician's advice
without charge for a fee. Some of the choicest perfumes used by
ladies are offensive to bees; and one may feel very certain that the
"fine puss gentleman," who disgusted the brave Hotspur with his
"pouncet-box" and praise of "'parmaceti for an inward bruise," would
have been speedily driven from an apiary in ignominious flight.
Occasionally, even a skilful apiarian may inadvertently crush a single
bee; such a mischance is detected by the community with much
more facility than by any "crowner's quest," and their prompt verdict
decrees the summary punishment of the offender. There would be
much less fear of stings if it were always remembered that bees are
never aggressive. "Defence, not defiance," is their motto. They
scarcely ever attempt to sting when away from the hive, and very
seldom indeed at the time of swarming, for then they are gorged with
honey. When molested by angry bees, do not attempt to beat them
off; the safest and best retreat is a green bush. Thrust your head into
this, or if no such refuge be near, in an emergency, throw yourself on
the ground, and, with face downwards, the bees will soon leave you.
Yet some people appear to think they must inevitably be stung if
they meddle with bees and for their sakes it is needful to explain why
it is that a sting is painful, and how the wound inflicted by the bee
may be cured. Those familiar with the usual microscopic objects will
know how marvellously delicate, and yet effective, is the mechanical
structure of a bee's sting. (See page 46.) This weapon, as we see it
with our naked eye—finer than a needle's point—is only the sheath,
which lengthens or contracts like the tubes of a telescope. The dart,
as before said, is barbed on each side, so that the bee, when very
angry, is scarcely ever able to withdraw it, but

"Deems life itself to vengeance well resigned;

Dies on the wound, and leaves the sting behind."

There are, indeed, some happy mortals whose "blood such an even
tenour keeps," that a bee-sting is to them simply a puncture, and
nothing more. Dr. Bevan has suggested that lovers should subject
themselves to the ordeal of a bee-sting, in order to prove, we
suppose, that their temper is proof against "the stings and arrows of
any outrageous fortune" that matrimony can bring.
It is the homoeopathically minute tincture of poison injected by
the bee which causes inflammation. The first thing to do is, to
remove the sting, which, even when detached from the bee, will
continue to penetrate still further into the wound. Next, press the
hollow point of a watch-key exactly over the place stung; this will
express a considerable portion of the virus. Then dip the hand, or
bathe the part with cold or tepid water, for the poison is volatile, and
will thereby be dissipated to a great extent. On no account whatever
should the part affected be rubbed; to do that will diffuse the poison
and increase the inflammation. The specific remedy for a bee-sting is
taught us by chemistry: the venom is an acid which an alkali will
immediately neutralize when brought into contact with it. Spirits of
hartshorn will generally be found effectual for the purpose, and
should always be kept in an apiary. There are also several other
remedies more or less effectual, according to the special constitution
of the patient. A strong infusion of tobacco-water applied to the
wound after the sting has been extracted is a specific for many
persons; others find relief from the application of a sliced onion.
We have heard the remark from several who have kept bees for
years, that the poison from a sting has little or no effect on them;
after receiving many inflictions, their flesh appears to become so little
affected, that the swelling and pain at one time experienced no
longer trouble them.

POLLEN, OR FOOD FOR INFANT-BEES.

Bees, when fully grown, feed almost wholly on honey; but the
larvae require for their development a more substantial kind of
nourishment. Such solid fare is found by the bees in the pollen of
flowers, a farina which contains some of those nitrogenous elements
in which honey is deficient. The body of a worker-bee is covered with
hairs, to which the pollen adheres when, by contact with the bee, it is
rubbed from the anthers and stamens of flowers (see page 41).
Dewy mornings or humid bowers suit the bees for the gathering of
the pollen. If the atmosphere be too dry for kneading it into pellets,
they roll themselves in the blossoms and trust to the good offices of
the bees at home, who, on their return, brush off the farina into the
cells intended for it. A portion of this "bee-bread" is taken at once by
the "nursing bees," who are supposed to subject it to some change
before offering it to the larvæ; but the greater part of the pollen is
stored away and sealed over in the cells for future use. In April and
May, the bees are frequently busy "all the day" in gathering pollen,
and often one community of bees will collect about twenty pounds
weight of "bee-bread" in one season.