“Make no mistake. This is a very serious crisis. We will assist the stricken countries in their recovery. We will offer our assistance via the UN and the WHO to contain this outbreak. I would implore you not to make the mistake of believing everything you see and hear on social media or the more sensational media outlets. We’ll provide official updates on a regular basis as to the situation in these regions. Please go to the website shown below to check on the status of any of your family or colleagues who may be traveling in the impacted zones. God bless you all and god bless the United States of America.” The image of the President faded out. The Oval Office replaced by a burly guy in coveralls beating the hell out of a kitchen counter with a sledgehammer.
“Can we switch to a news channel?” LeBron asked.
Nancy and Yue looked like they might rebel for a second. They were thinking that if they flipped the channel, they’d never find out which of the three houses the couple from Idaho ended up picking. Drew snagged the remote and flipped to CNN. Noticing his mom and Yue staring daggers at him he tossed the remote down on the couch and stared right back.
“You both know they’ll rerun this same episode twenty times this year. There’s no way you won’t see it again at some point.” He said defensively. His mom wasn’t one to just let someone walk in and change the channel on the show she was in the middle of. She let it slide when she saw what was being shown on the TV. The news was showing some graphic video with warnings plastered all over the screen that viewers should be cautioned.
The images were of a street at dawn. The correspondent was describing a night of insanity. The man had spent the evening in Tel Aviv in a hotel reserved for the news media. He’d been given a room with a small balcony. He’d spent the night wrapped in a comforter lying on his balcony when he started hearing people rioting in the hallway of the hotel. The street below had a few people stumbling around drunkenly. Bodies were spread out in various poses. It looked like a truckload of mannequins had been dumped off the top of the hotel.
“That’s awful. I just hope they keep that mess over there. We don’t want any. Now give me back the remote.” Nancy said stretching her hand out towards Drew. Knowing he wasn’t going to be able to dissuade her he handed it back to her and hopped up to follow LeBron upstairs to the loft. Situated around the couch Yue, Bart and Nancy immersed themselves once again in HGTV.
Occasionally over the week they heard more about the illness raging through Africa and the Middle East. Most Americans tended to ignore it. They’d grown desensitized thanks to the twenty-four hours a day of doom and gloom they were constantly bombarded with. Jerusalem burned while millions of Americans were focused on perfecting the latest dance to upload to see how many likes they could get. Images of decimated African villages were lower on the webpage than the story about the latest celebrity DUI.
It was like the USA had ADD. The story failed to hold anyone’s interest after the first wave of outrage over the videos had receded. Stories concerning massive riots in foreign countries didn’t rate too many news cycles. The common man on the streets may not have realized it but in the upper echelons of the government protocols were being activated that no one had ever before taken seriously. The signs were all indicating that the storm that’d started in Cairo could grow large enough to ravage the globe.
Chapter 3: Stocking Up
“My fellow Americans. Today I have issued executive orders blocking all travel into or out of the United States effective immediately. This includes travel to either Canada or Mexico. The state of affairs in the world is such that we need to keep our country clean of the disease currently spreading across all of Africa, Europe and Asia. We will establish blockades and militarize the borders. States of emergency have been declared in each state to allow all governors to request whatever additional aid is needed from the federal government to ensure this disease doesn’t cross our borders. An effective national quarantine is the best defense.”
Bart muted the TV before the President got the opportunity to do his standard spiel blessing everyone and everything. He sat there for a moment rubbing his temples. He knew what was coming next. He may not know what was going to happen once the sickness made it over here, but he knew what the fear of those monsters was going to do. He knew why the government was working so hard to keep everyone in the dark. If it hadn’t been for social media the government may have been able to keep everything hidden a little longer. The citizens of China would probably all die completely ignorant of what was going on thanks to the superior level of government censorship available there.
“This is going to be bad.” Bart said loudly. Looking around the couch he made sure he had everyone’s attention. He had to stare at the kids and cough a couple of times to get them to put their phones down.
“Sorry dad. What do you think’s going to happen?” Yue asked.
“There’s going to be a run on supplies. First thing we need to do is figure out what we need and go buy a ton of it. People are going to be civilized at first but pretty soon the supplies are going to run low. There’s probably enough on the shelves at any given time to support everyone living around here for
