White Flag of the Dead Read Online Free

place a white cloth on their mailboxes to alert emergency personnel to the presence of another victim .”
    I switched off the television and looked out my front window. I could see three houses with white towels on their mailboxes, and I wondered how many more will there be? Will there come a time when all the houses have white flags on them? If your house doesn’t have a white flag, will the officials think you’re immune and want to take you away for testing? Who knew?
    The last week was a blur. I went to work and tried to keep things as normal as I could, but the kids were scared. Some were talking about how their mom or dad or sister was sick, and they didn’t know what to do. Many of my students were absent, their parents taking them to relatives in Mexico or other states, trying to get away from the large population center of Chicago. I worried about my brother, who lived downtown with his family, but I spoke with him the other day and he seemed fine. I called my parents in Virginia, but was only able to leave a message. Their house was fairly isolated, and my father was an ex-marine, so I figured they would be all right.
    Two days ago, the governor of the state called for a suspension of attendance of public schools, the thought being that if a student were infected, he could easily spread it to many families due to the close nature of classrooms. For once the governor actually had a decent idea. So for the last two days I have been busy reloading ammunition, cleaning my guns, and stocking up on foodstuffs. Pickings were getting a little slim at the grocery store, as people began to see the wisdom of hunkering down and waiting out the storm.
    I was very grateful Ellie had managed to get to the store before the real storm of public awareness hit, and I managed to make a few runs myself. I had gone to the bank and withdrew as much as I could, figuring to replace it should the worst pass. I didn’t want to be caught up short without cash, and yesterday they announced on the news that credit cards are going to be suspended to try to prevent people from going overboard and end up losing everything when the crisis passed. I bought everything I could think of, and my basement was pretty well stocked. I was going to feel like a class A fool if this thing blew over quickly, but the little voice in the back of my head said we were in for a rough ride.
    Ellie was working today, and since I was home, I was doing the house thing with Jacob. He was such a little joy to have around. All smiles and not a worry in the world. His eyes, the little “chocolate browns”, as Ellie liked to call them just sparkled and when he looked at you it was if he was saying “I trust you with my world.” More than once I found myself just looking at him for a long time, wondering how in the hell I got so lucky.
    Jake was playing in the living room when I got a call from Ellie.
    “John?”
    “Yeah, babe. What’s up?” I moved over to the kitchen table so I could keep an eye on our little one. He couldn’t crawl yet, but he was pretty good at a military crawl and rolling got him into trouble more times than not.
    “Not a whole lot. We’ve been seeing a lot of patients today, and I might be later than usual.” Ellie sounded nervous.
    “All right, I’ll feed Jake and get him bathed.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but inwardly my concern just skyrocketed.
    “Thanks. And John?”
    “Yeah, babe?”
    “Are your toys loaded?” Ellie asked.
    That sent my concern into the stratosphere. Ellie never asked about my guns, letting me have my little hobby as long asdidn’t advertise it and kept my guns in a safe away from Jake. “Not yet, why?” I asked.
    “You might want to think about having them handy.” Ellie said cryptically.
    “Ellie, what is going on?” I said, more forcefully than I intended.
    “John, just do it. Please. There’s more to this virus than people have been told.” Ellie said. “I gotta go, they’re paging me to