The Traveling Salesman
On May 3, postal facilities around the world were inundated with the greatest mass mailing in history. In the United States alone, more than two hundred million three-inch cube shaped boxes were brought to post offices to be sorted, transported and delivered. This was not the first free sample ever to be sent directly to consumers' homes. Over the years, manufacturers have sent out sample size packages of laundry soap, travel-size bars of soap or self-sealing sandwich bags. This was, however, the only time samples of chocolate were sent through the mail. Although an estimated ten percent of the recipients threw the boxes away unopened, ninety percent—men, women and children, young and old alike—plopped the tasty piece of candy into their mouths and ate it.
On the morning of May 4, everyone who had eaten the free sample of chocolate woke up with red blotches on their faces and severe flu-like symptoms. By the end of the day, anyone who came in contact with the sick people developed the disease themselves. The pandemic was swift and deadly. With a one-hundred-percent fatality rate, three-fourths of the population of the United States was dead within ninety-six hours.
* * *
Sixteen-year-old Brandy Holcomb and her eighteen-year-old brother were sitting at the kitchen table of their family farm, both picking at the spaghetti they were eating for dinner. Neither one spoke. The two empty chairs were paramount on both their minds.
"We ought to eat something," Lonnie said.
He then followed his own advice by putting a large forkful of pasta into this mouth, chewing and swallowing.
"I can't," Brandy said. "I'm too worried about Mom and Dad."
When they heard the news of the deadly disease sweeping across the country, the teenagers' parents decided to go into town and stock up on supplies before the sickness reached their rural community. Under normal circumstances, such a journey would not have taken more than a couple of hours. The Holcombs, however, had been gone for a day and half.
"I'm sure they're all right," Lonnie told his sister, although he honestly believed he would never see his mother and father again.
"Then why haven't they come home?"
"You know how it is in the movies, when there's a contagious disease threatening everyone's life the government steps in and puts people into quarantine."
Brandy's face brightened as she asked excitedly, "Do you really think that's what happened?"
"Sure," Lonnie replied, trying to sound convincing. "Now eat your spaghetti. We shouldn't be wasting food. Until this whole pandemic thing is over, we ought to ration what we have."
"I guess you're right—at least until Mom and Dad get back with fresh supplies."
After the siblings finished eating, Brandy took the dishes to the sink to wash them.
"It's best not to waste water," Lonnie advised her. "Let the dirty dishes pile up in the sink and then wash them all at once. And for now, no showers. Just fill the basin with water and use a washcloth."
"Talk about roughing it!" the girl complained.
They went to the living room and turned on the television. None of the regularly scheduled programs were being broadcast. It was like September 11 all over again with every station dedicated to coverage of the health crisis. The news anchor, who would himself succumb to the disease in less than twelve hours, delivered the grim details. Both the president and first lady were dead. The vice president and his wife had already developed symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization offered little hope for the survival of humanity. Their teams of doctors, wearing contamination suits, were desperately working around the clock to find a cure, but the last sands were rapidly spilling from the hourglass.
The news anchor, sweating profusely, could no longer perform his job. Before he slid from his chair onto the floor, he delivered a dire warning.
"If anyone out there is listening to me ... if you haven't caught the disease yet, go as far away from civilization as you possibly can. Your only hope for survival is to avoid all human contact. After the rest of us have all died out, then it will be up to you ...."
When the newscaster's eyes rolled to the back of his head, Lonnie picked up the remote control and turned off the television.
"Maybe that's why Mom and Dad never came home," Brandy said. "Someone in town must have been sick, and they're afraid of bringing the disease back to us. But that doesn't mean they'll come down with it."
"It's time for us both to face facts," Lonnie said. "You're not a child anymore."
Brandy's eyes filled with tears.
"I just used that argument on Mom last week. She said I was too young to go on a camping trip with Carol and Mary Jane without adult supervision. I insisted I was no longer a child. Now look at me! What I wouldn't give to have our parents walk through that door and take control of everything!"
"We have to take control of things ourselves," Lonnie said gently.
Although in the past, the two had often argued and vied for their parents' attention like most siblings, that night they clung to each other. They were all the family they had left.
When Brandy turned on the TV the following day, there was nothing but static on all channels. Turning on the radio produced the same result.
"Can you get a dial tone on the phone?" Lonnie asked.
She picked up the receiver. Nothing.
"So, we have no way of knowing what's going on," the girl concluded.
"At least we're safe here. We have food, water, fuel."
"For now, anyway."
"I'll go up to the attic after breakfast and bring down Ma's old Mason canning jars. We'll need to preserve as much of the food out of the garden as we can so that we'll have enough food for the winter."
"You think it'll be that long before help arrives?"
"What help?" the brother asked. "We have to proceed on the assumption that everyone in town is dead including the police and first responders."
Brandy began to cry. She did not want to believe that her friends, relatives and, most importantly, her parents were all gone.
"What about the people on the surrounding farms? How do we know they aren't in the same predicament we are?"
"Do you want to risk your life finding out?"
"I know you don't care for the taste of oatmeal," Brandy said, changing the subject. "But we ought to use up the food in the cabinets before it goes bad."
"Good thinking. We'll eat the perishables first."
That evening the living room light flickered a few times and then went out.
"There goes the power," Lonnie declared ominously. "Where did Ma keep the candles?"
"Can't we just turn on the generator?"
"We may have greater use for it later. Whether we like it or not, from now on our goal is to conserve whatever we can whenever we can."
* * *
Strong winds buffeted the farmhouse. Inside, Brandy put on her heaviest sweater to fight the chill in her bones. She did not bother to ask Lonnie if he would light a fire in the woodstove; she already knew he would refuse. They had agreed to put on additional layers of clothing to combat the cold until the temperatures dropped below the freezing point.
One look at her bedroom emphasized the great change that had come over her life in the past few months. Her computer and television had been put in the cellar, and piles of clothes, both hers and her mother's, were stacked up on her desk. Sweaters, coats, gloves, hats, scarves: she would need them all to survive the winter. She looked despondently at the items on her dresser: makeup, nail polish, perfume. There was no longer any need for them. Only the scented aromatherapy candles would be of any use.
What point is there in remembering the past? she thought, tearing her eyes away from her high school graduation photograph.
She pulled a wool cap over her unwashed hair and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
"This is the last of the oatmeal," she told her brother when he brought in a bucket of fresh milk.
"Just when I was finally getting used to it," he laughed.
"There are some unopened boxes of Cheerios in the pantry."
"Once the cold weather sets in and we start running the woodstove, you can cook on top of it. You know how to make hotcakes?"
"No, but I don't think it's that difficult. Remember when Mom used to make chocolate chip pancakes on Sundays after church?"
"What about the blueberry waffles?"
As Brandy looked at the lumpy, bland-tasting oatmeal, tears came to her eyes.
"All the little things we took for granted!"
"Do you know what tomorrow is?" Lonnie asked.
"I stopped keeping track of the days months ago."
"I haven't. I mark each day off the calendar in my bedroom. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Why don't we celebrate?"
"Why? What do we have to be thankful for?"
"We're alive."
"Great. I'll cook a turkey, and we can have all the fixings with it: mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing. And for dessert, apple pie or do you prefer pumpkin?"
His feelings hurt by his sister's sarcasm, Lonnie finished his oatmeal in silence. When he was done eating, he put on his coat and went outside to look for wood.
"I'm sorry," she apologized when he returned an hour later, his arms full of branches.
"That's okay," he said.
As he was putting the kindling in the box beside the fireplace, he recognized a sound he hadn't heard in months. The brother and sister looked at each other.
"It's a car!" Lonnie exclaimed.
"Maybe it's Mom and Dad!"
Brandy ran to the door, but her brother grabbed her arm.
"Wait! You don't know who it is."
Lonnie went to the gun cabinet, took out his father's hunting rifle and loaded it.
"Stay behind me," he ordered as he approached the front door.
Brandy moved the curtain aside and saw a white car in the driveway.
"That's not Dad's car," she announced, her hope plummeting.
"Stop right there!" Lonnie called.
The man, about thirty to thirty-five years of age, was a stranger to them. He saw the gun and quickly raised his hands in the air.
"Don't shoot," he cried. "I mean you no harm."
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
"I am—or rather was—a traveling salesman before this cursed disease killed off all my customers. I heard a man on the car radio some time back warning everyone to avoid other people. Since then, I've been living off apples and any other food I could find growing around here. I ran out a few days ago. I haven't had anything to eat since. I passed by the entrance to your farm, and ... Well, quite honestly, I had hoped there was no one here."
"Well, we are here," Lonnie said.
"I don't suppose you have any extra food to spare. I don't expect you to give it to me. I'd work for it. I'd do anything you want."
"How do we know you aren't carrying the sickness?"
"I haven't been within sight of another human being since May. If I had caught anything, I'd be long since dead."
"We want to help you, but—I don't mean any disrespect—you could be lying to us."
Brandy tugged on her brother's sleeve.
"The illness acts quickly," she said. "People die within forty-eighty hours. If he has no symptoms tomorrow, he's sure to be healthy."
"Tell you what," Lonnie called to the stranger. "I'll put a plate of food out for you. You stay in your car tonight. If you're still well tomorrow, I'll let you come inside."
"Much obliged," the stranger said.
Meanwhile, Brandy prepared a simple meal: canned peaches and a handful of Cheerios. Then she took an extra blanket and pillow out of the linen closet and handed them to her brother.
"Here," he said, "you take the gun and cover me. If he makes a move in my direction, you shoot to kill. Got that?"
His sister nodded.
"You go wait in your car until I'm back inside," he told the stranger. "You hear me?"
"Yes."
No sooner had Lonnie returned to the house than he locked the door behind him and barricaded it with a chair. His precautions proved unnecessary. The salesman picked up the food, blanket and pillow and took shelter in his vehicle. The next morning, he was still sitting peacefully behind the wheel. When Brandy and Lonnie saw that he had no symptoms of the deadly disease, they finally invited him inside.
"My name is Hershel," he introduced himself. "I really want to thank you for helping me out."
"You said you're a salesman. What do you sell?" Brandy inquired.
"I did sell farm equipment, but that was before the world went to hell."
"You got anything in your car we might be able to use?" Lonnie asked.
"Nothing but catalogs, I'm afraid. I couldn't very well tote around samples of harvesters and milking machines."
The two teenagers looked downcast. They had taken a stranger into their home, another mouth to feed, and what would they get in exchange?
"Unless you have something else you need me to do," Hershel said, "I think I'll go chop down that tree yonder and split it up into logs."
"But we already have a decent supply of firewood," Brandy objected.
"Nothing lasts forever, and don't forget that wood has to seasoned before you burn it."
Hershel proved to be a hard worker, cutting down the tree and splitting the logs much faster than the teenagers could have done.
"I'm glad we took him in," Brandy told her brother. "I only hope we have enough food for three people. After all, we don't want to starve."
"We won't," Lonnie said. "I promise you that."
Three weeks later, the temperature dipped below freezing, and Lonnie decided it was time to light the woodstove. This meant not only heat for the house, but also a surface to cook on.
"I forgot what it's like to have a hot meal," Brandy said, enjoying the taste of the deer Hershel had shot and dressed.
With a full stomach and a warm body, Lonnie fell asleep in his father's recliner. Brandy sat on the couch and watched the lamplight flicker on the wall as she listened to Hershel cleaning the hunting rifle at the dining room table.
"When do you think it will be safe again?" she asked.
"Safe for what?"
"For us to go into town."
"Why would you want to do that? There's nothing there but ...."
Remembering that the girl's parents were probably among the victims, he held his tongue.
"They can't all be dead!" she cried. "There must be some people alive, people in rural areas like us."
"It's possible."
His tone suggested it was not probable, however.
"I don't think I'd want to go on living if this is the way things will be from now on."
"You don't want to talk like that," Hershel said, putting the rifle down. "You're a young girl."
"What have I got to look forward to? I used to dream about all the places I wanted to see: New York, London, Paris. Do you know I've never even seen an ocean?"
"That's one dream that may come true. Despite the pandemic, the oceans are still there."
"Have you ever seen one?"
"Once. My wife and I went to Florida on our honeymoon."
"You have a wife?" Brandy asked with surprise. "Is she ...?"
Hershel nodded, his eyes cast down.
"My kids, too."
"I didn't know you were a father."
"I had a boy and a girl, ages ten and seven. We all lived in Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. The kids took sick the first day and my wife the day after. I should have been there, but I wasn't."
"It's not your fault," the teenager said, trying to comfort him. "No one knew this disease would strike. It took the whole world by surprise."
"It certainly did."
Brandy looked at Hershel and saw immeasurable sadness in his eyes. It was as though for the first time since he had shown up at their farm asking for food the salesman let his guard down.
* * *
Snow fell steadily throughout the night, and despite the fire in the woodstove, it was cold in the old farmhouse. Brandy kept a vigil at the kitchen window, waiting for Hershel to return.
"I hope he found a deer," she said to her brother. "It's been a week since we've had any meat. I'm tired of eating canned fruits and vegetables. What I wouldn't give for a hamburger and fries right now."
Lonnie did not answer her. He had seen how low their food supply was. There was a good chance they would run out before spring arrived. If it were only he and his sister, they could have gotten by, but Hershel was a drain on their supplies.
"Damn it!" Brandy exclaimed and turned away from the window. "He's come back empty-handed."
The girl then went into the pantry and returned with cans of applesauce and green beans. A few minutes later, the hunter came through the back door, shaking the snow from his boots.
"It feels good in here," he declared as he hung his coat and hat on the hook beside the door. "It must be below zero outside."
"I hope you find a deer soon," Lonnie said. "We're running dangerously low on food."
As the salesman warmed his hands above the woodstove, he muttered, "'Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.' Matthew 6:26."
"That's a great philosophy!" the teenager cried angrily. "I wonder how many millions of people over the centuries took comfort in that Bible verse as they starved to death."
"Lonnie Holcomb!" Brandy shouted, ashamed at his outburst. "That's no way to talk to Hershel. He's only trying to help."
"Quoting scripture isn't gonna put food on the table."
"I apologize for my brother. I'm sure he didn't mean it."
"That's all right," Hershel replied. "We've all been under tremendous pressure. And sometimes it's not easy to accept God's will and trust in his mercy."
"Let me tell you a little secret," Lonnie said, showing no remorse for his behavior, "something I never dared tell my parents. I don't believe in God; and if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't put any store in his mercy, especially now that he's destroyed most of the people on the planet."
Brandy burst into tears as her brother fled up the stairs to his bedroom. As upset as she was with him for creating such a scene, she couldn't argue with his reasoning. If there was a God—and now she seriously doubted it—he was not a very merciful one.
In the wake of the argument, a grim silence permeated the farmhouse, broken only by an occasional mumbled Bible verse from the salesman. Then one night, long after Hershel had fallen asleep on the living room sofa, Lonnie tiptoed across the hall to his sister's bedroom.
"Are you asleep?" he whispered through the partially open door.
"No. Come on in."
"We have to do something before it's too late."
"Do what? What are you talking about?"
"The food. We don't have enough to last out the rest of the month."
"What do you propose we do, take Hershel's car and drive into town?"
"No. For one thing, we still don't know if it's safe to leave the farm. For another, that old car of his has been sitting there all this time. I doubt it will even start."
Brandy knew what was on her brother's mind and wished she could put her fingers in her ears to avoid hearing the words come out of his mouth.
"You've heard of the Donner party ...."
"Stop it!"
"If we don't do something drastic, we're all gonna die. At least this way the two of us will have a fighting chance."
"I won't resort to ... cannibalism to survive."
"Don't you think that's what's been on his mind lately? I bet that's what's behind all his Bible thumping. He wasn't like that when he first got here."
"You can't possibly know what he's thinking."
"This is a new world we live in, one where the rule is kill or be killed, or more likely eat or be eaten."
"I can't!"
"Didn't you notice he never lets the hunting rifle out of his sight, that it's always within easy reach? How long is it gonna be before he shoots us? First one and then the other."
"How are we going to do it?" Brandy asked, unable to bring herself to utter the word kill.
"I'm going to try to get the gun away from him while he's asleep. Then I'll shoot him in the head."
"Oh, God, no!"
"It'll be the quickest way and the least wasteful."
"When?"
"He's sound asleep now," Lonnie said.
Brandy felt the bile rise from stomach.
"I suppose we ought to do it and get it over with before we change our minds."
The girl followed her brother downstairs, both tiptoeing so as not to alert the salesman to their presence. As Lonnie had suspected, the rifle was on the floor beside the sofa, less than a foot away from the sleeping man. He signaled for his sister to duck down, and then he slowly inched toward the gun. His hand was trembling as he reached for it, and his heart was beating wildly in his chest as he picked it up and aimed it.
Brandy closed her eyes and held her breath waiting for the explosive sound, but none came. Had her brother lost his nerve?
Click.
The gun was not loaded.
Hershel opened his eyes and looked up at the boy above him. There was no surprise in his expression, only immense sadness.
"I really had hoped it would never come to this," he said.
When the salesman raised his head from the pillow, Brandy saw the discoloration on his cheek.
"Don't go near him, Lonnie!" she cried, reaching for her brother's arm. "He's got the disease!"
"That's impossible! He hasn't gone near anyone to be exposed to it."
"I didn't have to, for I am the carrier."
"I don't understand," Brandy said.
"The disease was not the result of some madman or terrorist group. It is God's judgment upon man. I am the instrument of his wrath. After the majority of the people died from the illness, I was instructed to seek out those in the isolated pockets of the world and infect them. You two are the last surviving humans on the planet. I ought to have killed you when we first met, but you gave me food. You showed compassion, and I convinced God to spare your lives."
"That's insane! The disease must have affected your brain," Lonnie said, not believing a word Hershel said.
"But you're human," his sister reasoned. "You told me you had a wife and children."
"That was many, many years ago. They died in the plague that swept through Europe back in the fourteenth century, as did I myself."
Brandy watched in horror as the disease rapidly spread through Hershel's body, resembling time-lapse photography. The patches of mottled skin developed into blisters and pustules.
"No!" she whimpered. "I don't mind dying but not like that. Please show us mercy and let our deaths be quick."
The angel extended both his arms. Brandy took his right hand while Lonnie took the left. When their fingers touched his, a peaceful weariness engulfed the teenagers. They sat down on the couch, side by side, and Brandy rested her head on her brother's shoulder.
"If there is a heaven, we'll get to see Mom and Dad again," she said hopefully. "And there'll be plenty to eat, including hamburgers and ...."
Mercifully, she was dead before she could say the word fries. As the last breath escaped from her lungs, the world as humans knew it disappeared forever. Everything created by man’s mind or his hands vanished from the face of the earth, leaving behind a pristine world, an empty canvass upon which God’s new masterpiece would be painted.
Hershel spread his wings, took flight and traveled to what had once been known as the Atlantic Ocean. It was from that cold, wet womb that the nature's new species would be born. Over several millennia, the marine creatures would wash up onto the shore, slowly evolve and then eventually walk upright like human beings. Hopefully, these beings would have none of the violent and self-destructive tendencies that their predecessors had been prone to.
As the weary angel stared at the waves breaking on the beach, he thought about Brandy Holcomb and how she would have enjoyed standing on that spot before she died.
Image below is of Hugh Laurie starring as House.
Speaking of illnesses, Salem is such a hypochondriac! Whenever he gets sick, he conjures up Dr. Gregory House to care for him.
