The End of October

by Lawrence Wright

Disease was more powerful than armies. Disease was more arbitrary than terrorism. Disease was crueler than human imagination. And yet young people like these doctors were willing to stand in the way of the most fatal force that nature has to offer. But now they, too, were dead.

“Three million people,” Henry said. “Tomorrow they begin to return to their homes—in Morocco, China, Canada, South America, even on the smallest islands in the Pacific and little villages in the middle of Africa. But they will not travel alone. They will bring this disease with them. And the whole world will be infected, instantly, with no warning, no time to prepare.

“As much as possible, we need to urge people to shelter in place. It would be best to announce it this morning so that preparations can be made—the National Guard called up, police reinforced, borders closed, sports and entertainment facilities shuttered, nonemergency cases discharged from hospitals, schools closed, public meetings postponed, and the government shut down. In addition, any travelers need to get home at once, before the pandemic takes root in America.”

“The what?” “Typically, with a pandemic, you have two or three big waves of contagion before it settles down and becomes the normal flu you get every year. That lasts until the next pandemic comes along. So, if this one is like the 1918 flu, the really big wave will hit in October. But of course we don’t know what this one will do.”

“In a single day, this economy has lost—what is it, two trillion dollars? In a day! One fucking day! I don’t know when we can open the markets again. And you tell me how many people have already died,” the vice president said, once again holding Bartlett responsible, but he wasn’t pausing for her answer. “We’ve got hospitals closing their doors, turning people away! We can’t even bury people fast enough. How did we get to be so totally unprepared for this?”

Life, Jill thought, it’s majestic, it’s continuous, with or without us. And then she convulsed into sobs.

Henry would have liked to believe that, but he knew what they were dealing with. Influenza never made just a single visit.