Not One Iota

"Mount up! We're moving out."

The sergeant's gruff voice broke Dari's reverie. She had been staring at the tiny pictures of her sons hidden in the silver filigree heart locket her husband had gotten her for Christmas before the world changed, before the pandemic and all of the variants came and went and took so many people good and bad. Her husband, arguably one of the good ones, had been infected during the second summer, after the US celebrated vaccinating 60% of the population. Before he'd had a chance to get vaccinated himself, the Delta variant had reared it's ugly head in the Midwest and ravaged through their state like a viral tornado wiping out whole neighborhoods while leaving other towns completely unscathed.

Jaden, her youngest, had succumbed a year later to the Eta variant, a particularly gruesome one that caused bubonic plague-like boils to erupt all over his tiny toddler body. The hospitals had been over-run with children and panicked parents, so the pediatrician had recommended keeping him home and sending Jamie, her five year old to stay with Lisa Kotarski, a retired teacher who lived across the street, since she was already vaccinated and this particular variant was exclusively affecting the 12 and under set.

Some nights Dari still woke from a dead sleep, the sounds of Jaden's whimpers echoing through her waking mind. She could still see him reaching for her covered in boils and her agonizing over whether to take him in her arms to console him knowing it would only open more sores. The doctor had been very clear. The survival rate of this variant was 10% at best. When Lisa knocked on the living room window the morning of their third day in quarantine and saw Jaden in Dari's arms, he had been dead for almost twelve hours.

Jamie survived another six months when the last great variant, Iota, swept through. At first it seemed like he might be one of the lucky ones, only suffering minor cold-like symptoms for the first four days which tapered off to an occasional clearing of the throat. On the fifth morning Dari awoke to find him standing next to her bed drenched in sweat and babbling incoherently about needing to find the fishing pole he'd gotten for his fourth birthday. His fever had spiked to 107. Dari did everything she could to bring it down. She laid him in a tub filled with ice water, and after the initial shock, he seemed to come back to himself.

"Momma," Jamie said pointing behind her to the doorway. "Daddy's holding Jaden's hand." He'd looked back at her smiling calmly, but as quickly as the calm came, it was over. Jamie started to convulse, his eyes rolling back in his head. Five minutes later it was over and Dari's last living family member was dead.

The government had started setting up safe zones where healthy people could group together and keep outside interaction to a minimum. Before Jamie's symptoms had started, they along with Lisa had been accepted into one of the pilot programs and were planning to be tested and move into their new house with John Gonzales and his wife, Poppy, who lived three doors down. Like Lisa, they were a retired couple who had both managed to make it through each variant unscathed. Twenty houses on their block and they were the only inhabitants left. They were being moved into a four bedroom house on the other side of town that had been left vacant when the family who owned it had hopped a flight to the UK earlier in the pandemic to be closer to family.

Jamie's death had delayed Dari's departure by two weeks. After all this time, the only thing that had remained constant about this virus was the fact that it could take up to fourteen days to appear after an exposure. Dari couldn't help but think this new plan was nothing but a pipe dream. This virus was merciless. She couldn't help but think that it was only a matter of time, that the government wouldn't be able to keep up with all of the variants and it would eventually get them all.

But, Dari didn't want to be alone when it finally came for her. She'd stuck it out for the fourteen days with not so much as a sniffle. Now, she was on her way to her new digs. She closed her locket and tucked it back inside her shirt then shouldered her backpack and got in line behind the rest of civilians waiting her turn to board the transport. She found that she didn't want to be here any more. Not one iota.