The Scarlet Plague Page #9

"The Scarlet Plague" by Jack London, published in 1912, is a post-apocalyptic novel set in the year 2073, sixty years after a deadly pandemic—called the Scarlet Plague—wiped out most of humanity in 2013.

• Novel

								

relatives in some safe place. We decided on the Chemistry Building, at
the university, and we planned to lay in a supply of provisions, and by
force of arms to prevent any other persons from forcing their presence
upon us after we had retired to our refuge.

“All this being arranged, my brother begged me to stay in my own
house for at least twenty-four hours more, on the chance of the plague
developing in me. To this I agreed, and he promised to come for me next
day. We talked on over the details of the provisioning and the defending
of the Chemistry Building until the telephone died. It died in the midst
of our conversation. That evening there were no electric lights, and
I was alone in my house in the darkness. No more newspapers were being
printed, so I had no knowledge of what was taking place outside.

[Illustration: I heard sounds of rioting and of pistol shots 098]

“I heard sounds of rioting and of pistol shots, and from my windows I
could see the glare of the sky of some conflagration in the direction
of Oakland. It was a night of terror. I did not sleep a wink. A man--why
and how I do not know--was killed on the sidewalk in front of the house.
I heard the rapid reports of an automatic pistol, and a few minutes
later the wounded wretch crawled up to my door, moaning and crying out
for help. Arming myself with two automatics, I went to him. By the light
of a match I ascertained that while he was dying of the bullet wounds,
at the same time the plague was on him. I fled indoors, whence I heard
him moan and cry out for half an hour longer.

“In the morning, my brother came to me. I had gathered into a handbag
what things of value I purposed taking, but when I saw his face I knew
that he would never accompany me to the Chemistry Building. The plague
was on him. He intended shaking my hand, but I went back hurriedly
before him.

“'Look at yourself in the mirror,' I commanded.

[Illustration: Look at yourself in the mirror 100]

“He did so, and at sight of his scarlet face, the color deepening as he
looked at it, he sank down nervelessly in a chair.

“'My God!' he said. 'I've got it. Don't come near me. I am a dead man.'

“Then the convulsions seized him. He was two hours in dying, and he
was conscious to the last, complaining about the coldness and loss of
sensation in his feet, his calves, his thighs, until at last it was his
heart and he was dead.

“That was the way the Scarlet Death slew. I caught up my handbag and
fled. The sights in the streets were terrible. One stumbled on bodies
everywhere. Some were not yet dead. And even as you looked, you saw men
sink down with the death fastened upon them. There were numerous fires
burning in Berkeley, while Oakland and San Francisco were apparently
being swept by vast conflagrations. The smoke of the burning filled the
heavens, so that the midday was as a gloomy twilight, and, in the shifts
of wind, sometimes the sun shone through dimly, a dull red orb. Truly,
my grandsons, it was like the last days of the end of the world.

“There were numerous stalled motor cars, showing that the gasoline and
the engine supplies of the garages had given out. I remember one such
car. A man and a woman lay back dead in the seats, and on the pavement
near it were two more women and a child. Strange and terrible sights
there were on every hand. People slipped by silently, furtively, like
ghosts--white-faced women carrying infants in their arms; fathers
leading children by the hand; singly, and in couples, and in
families--all fleeing out of the city of death. Some carried supplies
of food, others blankets and valuables, and there were many who carried
nothing.

“There was a grocery store--a place where food was sold. The man to whom
it belonged--I knew him well--a quiet, sober, but stupid and obstinate
fellow, was defending it. The windows and doors had been broken in, but
he, inside, hiding behind a counter, was discharging his pistol at a
number of men on the sidewalk who were breaking in. In the entrance were
several bodies--of men, I decided, whom he had killed earlier in the
day. Even as I looked on from a distance, I saw one of the robbers break
the windows of the adjoining store, a place where shoes were sold,
and deliberately set fire to it. I did not go to the groceryman's
assistance. The time for such acts had already passed. Civilization was
crumbling, and it was each for himself.”




IV


I went away hastily, down a cross-street, and at the first corner I saw
another tragedy. Two men of the working class had caught a man and a
woman with two children, and were robbing them. I knew the man by sight,
though I had never been introduced to him. He was a poet whose verses I
had long admired. Yet I did not go to his help, for at the moment I came
upon the scene there was a pistol shot, and I saw him sinking to the
ground. The woman screamed, and she was felled with a fist-blow by one
of the brutes. I cried out threateningly, whereupon they discharged
their pistols at me and I ran away around the corner. Here I was blocked
by an advancing conflagration. The buildings on both sides were burning,
and the street was filled with smoke and flame. From somewhere in that
murk came a woman's voice calling shrilly for help. But I did not go to
her. A man's heart turned to iron amid such scenes, and one heard all
too many appeals for help.

“Returning to the corner, I found the two robbers were gone. The poet
and his wife lay dead on the pavement. It was a shocking sight. The two
children had vanished--whither I could not tell. And I knew, now, why
it was that the fleeing persons I encountered slipped along so furtively
and with such white faces. In the midst of our civilization, down in our
slums and labor-ghettos, we had bred a race of barbarians, of savages;
and now, in the time of our calamity, they turned upon us like the wild
beasts they were and destroyed us. And they destroyed themselves as
well.

[Illustration: Now in the time of calamity they turned on us 108]

“They inflamed themselves with strong drink and committed a thousand
atrocities, quarreling and killing one another in the general madness.
One group of workingmen I saw, of the better sort, who had banded
together, and, with their women and children in their midst, the sick
and aged in litters and being carried, and with a number of horses
pulling a truck-load of provisions, they were fighting their way out
of the city. They made a fine spectacle as they came down the street
through the drifting smoke, though they nearly shot me when I first
appeared in their path. As they went by, one of their leaders shouted
out to me in apologetic explanation. He said they were killing the
robbers and looters on sight, and that they had thus banded together as
the only-means by which to escape the prowlers.

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