Solutions: A Man's Dilemma by James Gerard (no david read aloud TXT) 📕

Before the last one was finished loading Stephen quickly ran up to the back end and asked one of the survivors what was going on.  But the old man, all the old men and women stayed silent.  The look on their faces was the look of hopelessness.  The door rolled down and slammed shut before Stephen could further question the survivors further.  He could understand if the trucks were used to bring survivors to the buildings, but to take them away from did not make sense.

He marched into the building and found himself within the large kitchen area of the former hotel casino.  Everything looked clean.  Pots and pans and ladles and spoons and whisks and tongs and various other cooking utensils hung from stainless steel pegs jutting out of appropriate placed organizers.  Plates and glasses of all shapes and sizes were stacked high within the dishwasher room and on counters by the many steam kettles and ovens and griddles of the industrial sized kitchen.  All stainless steel sparkled under the bright lights.  Floors were swept and mopped.

Walking into the large dining room the sight of tables, bare of fine linen coverings, caught his eye.  The lack of flower arrangements, anything that suggested anyone had eaten off of them for some time was curious.  The absence of cooks and servers and all other kitchen personnel transformed the scene into a ghostly world of hidden spirits that once were alive and thrived in the hotel casino.

No one stopped the investigation as he walked into the main lobby.  No one was there to demand identity papers.  He simply walked to the elevator and had complete access to all areas.

Stephen inspected room after room.  The signs of life were left behind in the form of unmade beds, stained sofas and chairs, and loads of clothing that scattered the floors and closets.  He was hoping to find written notes, a message, but all the rooms were void of any writing instrument or paper.  The only thing written he could find in any of the rooms were copies of the Holy Bible stored safely in a drawer of some fancy looking chest of drawers or desks that were littered with paper cups emptied of liquids.

Stephen went down the strip investigating every empty hotel he came across.  No signs of security personnel, no signs of human activity around the perimeters, and no signs of anything that spoke of human activity in the once flourishing vacation getaway.

Hotel after hotel Stephen sifted through the remnants of vacant rooms searching for any message left by those taken away by the trucks, but none could be found.  The questions floating around his thoughts asked where were they taken and why?

But in the stillness of the day, the strange tranquility of the scene, the eerie serenity momentarily swept away the clouded thoughts and brought clarity into view.  Maybe the virus was drifting this way in the air?  That is why the survivors were transported in the refrigerated trucks.  They’re self-contained in case the virus is floating around in the air.  That must be it.

But at the same time he remembered the trucks he had seen well overhead travelling in a large convoy out to the desert.  The trucks had disappeared under the expansive plume of smoke.  Could the virus have been in hiding in the food and needed burning before consumed and spread to destroy its human hosts?  But to transfer the survivors in the same trucks?

Stephen resisted the urge to pay a visit to the regional superintendent and sniff about for the truth.  He felt it too risky to ask about things that did not concern him.  Then again, he questioned their motive to evacuate him to Las Vegas in the first place.  After all, he reasoned, there was not a single doctor to be seen.

Nearing the end of the trek down the long boulevard he spotted activity.  As he drove to the rear of the complex there again were the refrigerated trucks waiting for their cargo of survivors.  Quickly, as seniors were being assisted into a truck, Stephen ran over to talk with any one of the survivors.

“Do you know where they are taking you ma’am?”

She did not utter a word.  A man perched next to her on the bench seat took her hands in his and gently kissed them as she began to sob.

“I thought you would know that young man.”

“Look,” Stephen pleaded, “if you know please tell me.”

The old man smiled.  “As far as you are concerned young man we’re not going where you want us to go.”

Before Stephen pled again for an answer the door rolled down and slammed shut.  An attendant slapped the side of a panel and the truck sped away.  Just before the last of the survivors were packed into the last truck he rushed over looking for someone else to question, but it was too late.  The door was about to be closed.  In that last moment two smiles and two waving hands caught his attention.

“Mr. and Mrs. Pinkerton!”

The door slammed shut.  The truck raced away.

He looked around for anyone who looked as if they had authority over and above the authority and knowledge of all the armed men standing around, but the area was void of any old and wise men.

Stephen felt compelled to follow the trail to the end, but would they allow him to ascertain the knowledge sitting under the plume of smoke was the question that begged an answer.

 Having slept in the makeshift lounge at the regional center, Stephen was now prepared to follow his investigative nature and find out just what was happening.  He had played out a number of scenarios throughout the night, the same scenarios that had spontaneously surfaced the day before.  His instincts begged for clarity, to force a calm exposure and sound mind to rid the polluted thoughts born out of frustration.

He figured there was a logical explanation, a planned course of action for everything he had seen and encountered, but the dilemma seemed to be well crafted by those above him.  Even the advice from his old friend Robert was not only taken suspiciously, but acted on suspiciously as well.

He knew Robert as a man of good character, morals, and ethics.  He was as much as a man of God as himself, who approached the predators in the same cunning manner and with the same purposeful intent of putting an end to the cruel immoralities, dredging out the last terror filled moments of the innocent victim’s life, and providing comfort to family members with the knowledge justice would be served in regard to the lost loved one.

Stephen was convinced that it had to be the stress of the job that clouded the mind.  Too many cries from the innocent for understanding and compassion as they saw one last opportunity to go out from life on their terms stirred the passions deep inside.  He could see the objections to the decision made by some distant and cold agency; unfortunately, he represented that agency so therefore was the agency.

He even had to admit that the death of his wife and children weighed him down in doubts of the Lord’s love and mercy and compassion.  Stephen confessed to his Lord that even if he were not the loving and attentive husband and father, that by taking the only semblance of love he had known in his earthly existence served as an act he was simply unable to see as good.  Though he had time to grieve, the grieving came and went in days as he had to force himself back into the world and accept the challenge that the call of duty called for.  Nonetheless, revisiting the past only refreshed the memories of hurt and pain and stood in the way of the truth.

One last attempt, he reasoned, one last attempt to figure out what was going on.  He had no doubt that the long nurtured ability to uncover the lies still existed somewhere in the confusion of the pandemic, but felt himself slipping so badly that the strength to conjure up that ability had waned, seemingly never to return.   Still, the hope existed.  The answer to the question would not only come from careful cunning and precise maneuvers plotted out in the depths of his cognitive abilities, but through that hope as well.

He once again roamed the boulevard looking for just one more hotel casino yet emptied of the refugees.  Up and down the strip he drove, looking left and right, stopping and listening for any rumbles of diesel engines and rushed movements but the strip was now desolate.

He drove by the regional building and witnessed the empty shell.  The parking lot was as the desert itself; void of any vehicles that just recently made the lot their home.  Even inside, just hours before, the building was abuzz from the clatter of talk over phones and of graphics glowing from computer screens, but the scene was now silent and dark.

He looked to the desert to see the thick plume of smoke drifting high and over the desolate landscape.  If the answer were to come now it would have to be offered by the activity hidden under the smoke.  The tires screeched and the SUV sped towards the fiery site.

Just ahead Stephen saw a convoy of trucks slowly creeping along the last stretch of highway before it left the city.  Positioned behind the last truck Stephen followed the convoy just to a point where they reached the top of a rise before it descended down to the desert floor.  From the vantage point he could see a large depression in the sand.  From it came a plume of thick smoke, an eerie red glow and licks of flames.

Trucks drove towards specific spots around the rim.  All of a sudden drivers jumped out of the cabs as the vehicles sped up and plunged to their fiery death.

“What the hell,” whispered Stephen.

 He peered over the arid landscape for trailers, shacks or tents, but there were none to be seen.  The survivors must have been transferred to other trucks and taken to another location he reasoned.  The answer remained elusive from the current position.   A closer inspection was called for.

He cautiously drove down the stretch of highway unencumbered by any security check points.  Moving closer to the pit a whiff of the mild aroma wafting about the area caused a quick cough.  The smoke was drifting in the direction opposite his position so as to avoid the choking and blinding mess.  As he approached the depression just a few trucks were in the process of speeding up and plunging in its depths.   No obstacles blocked the path to the rim.

Looking down in the deep depression, through all the smoke and licks of flame, crushed and mangled remains of vehicles that leapt to their death littered the deep.  He looked around but no one could be seen.  But just as he was about to leave a voice called out.  He looked around but saw no one.  The voice shouted again.  He stopped, tried to figure out the direction it was coming from.  Once again the shout was heard.  He stepped to the very rim of the depression and looked down.  The answer to