the priest’s attention from the dead woman back to the dark doorway.
He could barely see, but it was almost impossible for him to miss the shapes of the dead on the floor. The stench of the rotting corpses caused him to retch, but he continued to slowly thread his way among the bloating bodies of Shade’s family. A stiff forearm stuck out from a tattered sheet on a mattress inside the doorway. The rest of the victim lay covered. Several others lay upon the earthen floor where the deadly virus had ended their lives. Trying to hold his breath, Father Russo crept deep inside the cinder block windowless hovel, his heart beating as if it were going to leap out of his body and escape the nightmare on its own. Stepping over and around the bodies in the dark, the priest focused on the faint noises radiating from a far corner. There, he found the filthy baby, lying on the floor wrapped in an old, dirty blanket, barely breathing.
Making his way back to the barricade with the baby, Father Russo found himself facing another serious problem. The village men were furious when they learned he held a survivor from the desiccated village in his arms. Most of the men ran away terrified, but one large black man would not back down. It was obvious from his angry demeanor and gestures that he wanted the baby dead. He even motioned menacingly at Father Russo with a machete to go back, pointing at the village and making a stabbing motion with his weapon.
Father Russo wasn’t to be intimidated, not after the hell he had just been through. To the old priest, the bundle in his arms was the reason God had sent him to the village. As Father Russo stepped toward the man who now held the machete raised high over his head, the priest spotted the look of terror on the villager’s face as his eyes locked on the crying infant. Father Russo suddenly jumped toward the man, holding the baby out like an offering. With a scream, the man turned and fled down the path away from them, as if he were being chased by the devil. Father Russo, with the dying baby cuddled in his arms, began the walk back toward his church.
Father Russo and the nuns in the convent hospital treated and tended to the frail baby. The priest spent the first night sitting beside the old bassinet the nuns had pulled into the room. He stayed awake all night, praying beside the small baby, stopping only to change a dirty diaper or to hold her in his arms while she nursed hungrily on a bottle. Father Russo saw the concern on the nun’s faces and knew deep down the small infant would probably not survive her ordeal. Perhaps she already carried the Ebola virus. The priest himself might have possibly contracted the deadly virus, especially after his risky visit to the village. “What happens is God’s will,” Father Russo had whispered to the baby, kissing her softly on her forehead. He gave a quick thanks, realizing that the baby’s head was cool, and not burning with fever, like the other virus victims.
The nuns finally persuaded Father Russo to leave the bassinet and get some rest. He had been sitting with the baby for nearly thirty hours. The nuns assured him they would take good care of his favorite patient. If anything changed, someone would summon him immediately.
The call came nine hours into his sleep. A young boy, Abeeku, an orphan who lived at the convent and did odd jobs for the nuns, stood shaking the priest’s shoulder. “Come, Father, come quickly,” he said, flipping the blanket off the priest and grabbing Father Russo’s forearm, helping him to stand. As Father Russo put on his glasses and slipped on a pair of sandals, Abeeku handed him his robe. Father Russo struggled to put it on with one hand as Abeeku, holding his other, earnestly began to lead the priest down the steps from his room, toward the hospital.
Silently, Father Russo mumbled a prayer, as he was led toward the hospital. “Another grave to dig,” he thought to himself, picturing the white crosses in the field near the chapel. Once at the hospital, he was surprised to see the atmosphere wasn’t one of sadness or loss. Several nuns met Father Russo with a smile and a bow. Abeeku led the priest to where an older, small-framed Benedictine nun, Sister Nutina Grace, sat rocking the baby in her arms. Wearing the traditional black and white habit of her order, she looked up with a huge smile.
“God has sent us a miracle,” Sister Nutina said quietly to the priest in French. “He has snatched a beautiful soul away from Satan and given her to us.”
Bending down, Father Russo placed a hand upon the baby’s forehead. It was cool. The baby made a smacking noise, but continued to doze.
“God spared this angel. There is no fever, no disease,” Sister Nutina said, rocking the baby slowly. Father Russo patted the nun’s small hand and let out a long breath. Stepping out into the cool African air, he made his way toward the chapel. Abeeku held a heavy wooden door open for him and then stepped back into the dark. Inside, the candles were burning on the walls, and the altar in front sent shadows dancing across the rows of pews. Father Russo sat, and in the silence, gave a prayer of thanks. He wondered what would happen to the baby now. The nuns had decided to name her Shade, which meant “singing wind” in African. “After all, Father,” one nun explained, “if she hadn’t been singing, you never would have found her.”
The answer to Shade’s future would come a few days later, when Charlie and his parents paid a visit to the convent and met Father Russo and his staff. Charlie’s parents fell in love with the small baby in the nun’s care. His mother rocked and talked quietly to the baby for a long time before she held the little bundle out to Charlie. “Go ahead Charlie,” she said smiling, “why don’t you hold her? See if she grows on you.”
Shade did grow on him, and Charlie was thrilled when his parents told him that his new baby sister would be joining their family, and traveling back to the U.S. with them.
Growing up in the U.S., Shade blossomed from a near-dead victim of the Ebola virus to a tough, “see the hill, take the hill,” type of woman. In school, her mind worked like a sponge, soaking up everything she saw and read. She aced every test and exam. Charlie remembered her throwing a fit in high school when she received a B+ on an exam. She acted as if the world had ended. She didn’t take crap from anyone and never backed down from a fight, even taking on the school bully in a brawl that left both of them bruised and bloody. Shade was as sharp physically as she was mentally. She lettered eleven times in track and basketball and challenged the school board until they let her compete on the “boys only” wrestling team.
After graduating high school, Shade immediately applied to the police department. She easily breezed through the exams and physicals, and once in the Academy, found her calling. She worked the streets, kicked doors down at drug houses, fought drunks twice her size, and worked her way up the career ladder, landing in an officer position in the Criminal Intelligence Division.
Now, visibly disturbed, Shade began to pace around Charlie’s apartment with her arms crossed. “Sit down, guys,” she suddenly ordered. Maggie and Charlie sat together on the couch, as Shade pulled a kitchen chair into the room and sat in front of them.
Shade, looking down at the walkie-talkie on her gun belt, turned one of the knobs, and the sound of police traffic went silent. Facing them again, she jabbed her index finger threateningly and scooted forward to the edge of her chair. “Listen up, both of you. What I say here, what I tell you, everything is top secret and never, ever leaves this room. Do you understand?” Shade asked, looking at both of them. Maggie gave a short burst of nervous laughter, realizing that her world of reality had been turned on its side and things were somehow never going to be the same.
They both anxiously nodded in agreement, and Shade began to talk in a low voice, the same tone she used when sending a warning to some young hoodlum on the streets. “There is serious shit going down. Bad stuff, and I only know part of it. Last night, they called in all the command staff, everybody, on duty, off duty, on vacation, everyone,” Shade emphasized, poking her index finger at the palm of her hand. “The word is that the U.S. is under some kind of cyber attack, and that martial law is being put into effect. We are supposed to keep doing our jobs, but now the army and the National Security Force is in charge.”
“That’s bizarre,” Charlie said to Shade, leaning forward on the couch. “So, what do you think is going to happen?”
“It’s total bullshit,” Shade snapped. “First, cyber attacks don’t hit on this kind of scale and affect this many areas of communication. Even our IT guys at the station were shaking their heads and