I will burn the house of course… just like all the others… or it will become infested with rats… that lesson had been learned after the third or fourth empty house. Rats will move in quickly and, with that kind of shelter, they will breed faster and have a higher survival rate. Rats carry and spread disease. That’s why I started setting the fires… burning the house eliminated a potential breeding ground. But first, I will salvage anything that can be of use to me… and it must be done quickly, before the insects and vermin are attracted by the smell of death.
What will it be like now that she is gone… now that I am the last resident… in the last remaining cottage? There will be no other human being within a 100 kilometre radius of me. Will I be able to deal with the silence and the solitude? Or will insanity finally claim me?
Now the ironic thing is – I have always wanted to be alone… even considered becoming a recluse at one time… living off the grid. But will the silence, the sheer emptiness of the situation, wear me down? Then again, I could always pack up the truck and leave, just as I had done when I came here in the beginning. The community histories I’ve written over the years… thanks to Mrs. Wright’s research… and with her full support… have done quite well. I have the means to go anyplace I fancy.
Looking back, the illness and deaths seem to have started shortly after my trip to town for winter supplies back in November of 2036. That’s when the pandemic was in full swing again… despite the vaccines available… with hotspots popping up mostly in heavily populated areas. But so many variants were popping up; the scientists were having trouble keeping up with them. The first two deaths in Second Eden happened before Christmas that year. After that they started dropping frequently… sometimes even two or three in the same month and other months with none.
Still, it is kind of strange that, even though I have done what I could to help the others after they became sick; I alone have shown no sign of illness during that time. I wondered why. I wasn’t naive enough to think I possessed some type of immunity. Could I be a carrier? Can I spread the illness to others without becoming sick myself? Have I destroyed this quaint little village?
And yet, somehow I fear, those may be questions to which I do not really want to know the answers. After all is said and done, some things are better left unknown. Or perhaps I’m just too cowardly to face the truth.
