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Tyler makes a joke of it the first time they see a news story about the Beipan Flu. He’ll always remember commenting to Josh “looks like CNN found a new disease to scare us all about” while sitting in an airport lounge. Tour was over and they were going their separate ways for the time being. A couple weeks off and then into the studio for their next album…finally. Tyler was preoccupied with everything he’d been writing, making demos, and worrying about how it all would come together, that he couldn’t spare the mental energy to care about people dying in China besides the most basic and momentary human sympathy.
They did their usually goodbyes as Josh’s flight to LAX left first, a quick hug and “text me when you land”. The two had been through this many times before, that they didn’t realize there was anything significant about this departure. Tyler hated living so far apart from Josh, but he’d comfort himself with the knowledge that in no time at all, they’d be back together.
But the virus Tyler has scoffed at was not just a typical overreaction by the media, a frenzy to rile up the population in what would otherwise have been a slow news cycle. What happens in a rural, faraway land is not so distant as it once was. Oceans no longer serve as a barrier to microbes, when someone in the contagious incubation stage can board a plane. In a matter of hours they’re on a completely different part of the Earth, having infected a couple hundred other people along the way. And those passengers unwittingly go on to infect still more and more, exponential growth of the disease thousands of miles from the point of origin.
Regions of China were on lockdown, memories of SARS and H5N1 still within recent memory. But it was just another news story that was just another terrible thing happening. If it didn’t touch their every day lives, people forgot; fatigued from every other awful thing they were bombarded with.
An epidemic is caused by the triad relationship of the agent, the host, and the environment. The agent–the virus, could burn too “hot” and kill the host too quickly for them to spread it to other hosts. The outbreak ends quickly; leaving the hosts dead but few in number. But give the host some time to move, access other susceptible individuals, preferably through the air, which is the hardest to control and prevent.
The environment is what determines the spread and how many people are affected. If the conditions all align, like sun and earth and moon to form an eclipse, then disaster. An outbreak unchecked turns into an epidemic which could possibly become a catastrophic pandemic.
When they teach about the LA Epidemic in history classes, the academics celebrate the successful prevention of a pandemic. The title of “Flu” only seems to decrease the horror that was this virus, just like the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. The comparisons between the two a hundred years apart were frequently made, though mortality would have been higher than 6% of the world population killed in the former.
Just as Josh was settling back in LA, seeing friends and shows, a single backpacker, freshly returned from China, went to the emergency room in a major hospital with flu-like symptoms and bleeding gums. The hospital did their due diligence of isolating him and calling the Department of Health to come investigate this strange case, but those measures did nothing for the people already exposed. His family, friends, fellow plane passengers, the students at the college he’d partied at just a few days before, malls, grocery store, public transportation, the boardwalk, a concert he went to.
Thousands of people were already infected and the disease was spreading rapidly. Within days of him arriving in the hospital and rapidly deteriorating; bleeding from his eyes and mouth, lungs filling with fluid, other cases came flooding into every hospital. The city was hit so quickly that everything changed in a matter of hours.
To Tyler, it felt like he went to bed in his normal timeline, and woke up in a completely different universe. The messages he read with disbelief turnd into a sprint to turn on his TV and find himself cast into some movie world. Los Angeles; quarantined overnight, no one entering but soldiers and medical professionals, and definitely no one coming out. Barbed wire and tanks and battleships in the water to make sure no one sneaks out.
If a single infected person escaped, there would be the distinct possibility that they could cause the pandemic that leads to destruction of civilization as we know it.
Tyler realized that If this was unreal to him, it could only be worse for his friends there. His first reaction was to call Josh. But if he expected the drummer to be terrified, he was instead shocked to hear how calm he was on the other end.
“Yeah, I mean this sucks we can’t leave, but Dustin and I have enough food and water for now. Internet and electricity are perfectly fine. The news is saying that FEMA has plans, and they’ll send rations nearby so we all aren’t going to public places. Seems pretty organized,” Josh yawned; it was still early over there for them, though he’d been fielding calls from his family ever since the quarantine began.
“But aren’t you like...scared? You’re trapped with this epidemic!” Tyler couldn’t help but freak out in light of Josh not appearing overly concerned.
“Well, duh. I’m scared. But the government seems to be handling everything pretty well and they keep saying this will probably just be for a few weeks. They said they may open sectors up as time goes on and there’s no infections. Dustin and I will be fine. We went food shopping before this even happened. As long as we have internet, we won’t kill each other,” Josh assured him.
Tyler wondered if he was overreacting or everyone else lived in a world of deluded calm. It wouldn’t help Josh to keep reminding him how terrifying the situation was, how every time he left his house to get rations, he ran the risk of contracting the virus. Tyler needed to support Josh, and made a silent promise to distract him.
They had almost unlimited time, and Josh called Tyler every single day to work on music. He had purchased electronic drums for those times that Tyler desperately needed him to work on a song and they were miles apart. Josh does as much as he can, and they build a collection of demos over the first month of the quarantine.
“I think the album is going to have a lot of electronic beats,” Josh remarked.
“Nah man, once we get you out here, we’ll have you on the full kit,” Tyler was half paying attention, fiddling with levels on his computer. The phone was on speaker next to his computer mouse--Josh’s voice tinny.
“Probably the first album ever made with half the band in quarantine--maybe we’ll get a Guinness World Record,” Josh laughed a little and then sighed, “I should never have left Columbus.”
And for the first time, Josh seemed hopeless, discouraged. All along he kept a brave face...or voice since Tyler could only guess what his expression was. He tried to stay so upbeat, which was what Josh was always like, but now even he was crumbling.
“Dude, you’ll be back here before you know it,” Tyler tried to sound bracing, but he knew as well as everyone that the amount of sick and dying in LA meant that the city stayed closed. Josh wasn’t getting out anytime soon.
“You’re the only one keeping me sane right now. Hearing my family worry endlessly...they keep asking how I’m feeling, if I have enough food. It’s like they’re getting ready for me to die.”
“Stop it! You’re not gonna get sick. You’re like, super fit and stuff and you even said that everything is really well organized. You’re gonna be fine,” Tyler leapt up from his chair, and began to pace with the phone in his hand. He was saying this for his own comfort as well as Josh’s, trying to convince himself that the situation wasn't bleak. The government had this under control. This would be all over soon.
“Besides, you're not supposed to be all emo and stuff. That's my job,” Tyler tried to laugh, but found the ability just outside his reach, as it had been ever since barbed wire and troops separated him and his best friend.
“We've run out of coffee, I think that's why I'm so grouchy,” Josh sighed.
“I could help you entertain yourself…” Tyler said as lecherously as possible. He need to cheer Josh up, he couldn't let him hang up feeling so lost.
“Bro...are you offering phone sex?” Josh said incredulously, then laughed.
“Gotta help my brahddy out. Probably getting boring in quarantine.”
“Don't tempt me. I'm like four days away from saying yes,” and within a few moments Tyler had Josh laughing and back to his usual cheerful self. It was the last time Tyler hung up feeling that he truly helped Josh stay positive, however.
Josh confessed more and more often how much he feared that Dustin and him would be stuck there forever. Shared his worries that LA will always be quarantined, that they would die before ever returning home to Ohio. Tyler tried his best to reassure him but the words rang hollow because there was nothing he could do. They were empty statements, everyone was at the mercy of the virus and the government.
The order Josh and Dustin had established crumbled within a day. Their precious routine that made sense out of this situation, gathered their rations, and kept them safe and sane was destroyed with reddened eyes and a cough.
Tyler had never heard Josh this hysterical before, not even during one of his really bad anxiety attacks. His breathing was gasping, wheezes rattling his body, that Tyler was certain this was the last time he'd ever hear Josh. Surely he had gotten the virus and was dying on the other end of the phone line. Tyler didn't know what to do, so he prayed.
Josh's sobs lessened as Tyler spoke to God, asking for strength. Slowly he was able to explain in a haunted, hoarse voice what had happened.
After over two months of being cooped up together, Dustin and he had essentially ran out of things to talk about. The two spent most of their time in separate rooms except for meal times of increasingly bland rations. They both were stir crazy and Dustin had snapped at Josh for practicing the drums too loudly. His head had been aching and Josh’s constant playing was driving him insane, he claimed.
They fought and separated once again, and Josh had counted on the belief that they'd make up. Dustin would cool off, have something to eat and a nap, then they'd be okay.
But instead they had their first inspection and everything went further to hell. A knock on the door opened by Josh led to a squadron of soldier dressed in full hazmat suits pushing their way into thse apartment.
“I let them in...I let them in…” Josh broke down.
“You had to. It wouldn't have changed anything,” Tyler reminded him.
Dustin emerged from his room and it was obvious, so obvious the throat swab done by the soldiers was unnecessary. An extraneous check to confirm what everyone in there knew and feared.
The apartment door slammed shut as the inspectors took Dustin away. Josh fell to his knees, but there was no one around to see him in his grief. Dustin may have walked away on his own two feet, but there was no chance he'd ever return. Beipan had struck Josh’s safe house. He had been exposed and his friend was going to die.
There's a difference between quarantine and isolation. Josh was the latter now; alone in hell. This wasn't purgatory any longer, hope of escape or rescue gone. The only humans he saw were through the window as they were dragged away every health inspection, Josh guessed he only had a few neighbors left.
Tyler was the life preserver and Josh only had his fingers holding onto the rope. He was only counting the days and symptoms until he developed the flu, certain he caught it from Dustin. Every cough was the virus invading his cells; multiplying and dividing until his system overwhelmed and the inspectors came to drag him out of the house.
In earnest, every phone call was goodbye. Tyler knew how much it was likely killing Josh to be trapped inside but for the times he had to risk going outside to grab his rations. Such a social, friendly person, Tyler didn't have to ask Josh how trapped he felt. It was obvious to anyone that he was suffering. All he had was Tyler, it was just getting too hard to talk to his family.
No matter how much law and order had been established initially, regardless of the troops patrolling, it is impossible to maintain complete control as death settles in. Fatalism creeps in from the shadows; pervades the alleyways and dark places where those fighting to survive take every advantage, uncaring of the immorality. Fearless of the inevitable contagion, they wait for unsuspecting victims. They steal and kill and linger.
The power started to come and go, outages across various sectors and no one knew who was responsible for the electrical problems. Was the government attempting to save money, were the criminals trying to fabricate an ideal atmosphere to play in, or was the infrastructure just falling apart as it would eventually?
Josh huddled in the dark and tapped, tapped endlessly. Sitting on the floor with a pair of drumsticks in his hands watching to see if this was it. If this was the blackout that would never end. Two more months had passed since Dustin was taken away. From then it was only a little time since Josh had learned from Tyler who heard from his mother who heard from Dustin’s family that both he was dead. Josh bided his time till the electricity came back and he could talk to Tyler.
Tyler, still in Ohio, watched the news endlessly, glued for tips to help his friend survive. He researched and told Josh what to do. It was his idea to tell Josh to start stockpiling his rations, store as much water as possible. He felt guilty hanging up the phone to have a full meal while Josh was barely existing on bland food. If there was any way to send this to him, any way to bring him home, he would have.
Knocks came at night and Josh knew thanks to Tyler not to open up, even if the voices shouted through the door that they were health inspectors. He made no movement, barely daring to breathe since he knew they were watching. Their scheme was to barge into the residences of unsuspecting victims. Steal their supplies all while having “fun” with them. They had lost their humanity and were riding to hell in a handbasket.
It happened more and more frequently, voices coaxing and taunting through the barricades Josh built to keep them away. He lay on the floor, still, but no tapping. Sometimes he entertained visions of ripping down the chairs and furniture he moved and emerging with a metal baseball bat and large kitchen knife. Attacking these unseen enemies and drawing blood. Finally having control over this situation causing fear in someone else rather than be the mouse terrified in its hole.
Josh found himself lusting for violence, and it scared him how close he was to breaking out of the apartment; not to fight the criminals, but to join them. To run the streets after curfew and break windows, stealing useless TVs, because the power was off more often than it was on. It didn't matter, he wanted to destroy the world that was already in flames around him. Madness was setting in, and he began to tap, tap, tap, with his fingernails upon the wooden floor.
When he closed his eyes and tried to picture home, everything was cloudy. His childhood home, his family’s voices, Tyler's face; he was nameless and forgotten. Los Angeles was a planet abandoned by civilization. The rocket ship had left him behind, and either a lack of oxygen or his own mind would kill him first.
The nights were long, stars had run from the sky, and yet Josh continued to wait. A little bit of electricity and then he could call Tyler, who talked to him more than he responded. Josh was just so, so tired though he spent most of his time in a state of near-sleep. Tyler sang to him through tears he tried to mask by clearing his throat. He sang the music that no one else heard, that was supposed to be his-- their masterpiece. They were going to tour the world with this record, Tyler reminded Josh who mumbled something intelligible. He couldn't really remember what it was like to be on stage. What the view of many thousand faces staring at him felt like.
He was on a moon far away, never to encounter another astronaut again.
The news, stuck in the 24 hour cycle, was determined to find a solution. They'd report, falsely generating hope in the viewers, that no new cases were reported for a few days. There'd be a reminder of the 21 day incubation period, and a chance that the quarantine would end. But then another sector would report a cluster, and the clock would reset.
Talking heads debated nuclear detonation in the city, wipe out the disease completely and make the land inhabitable as it already was. The few survivors were doomed anyway, so the benefit to the whole population outweighed their lives, as if they weren't loved and important too. As if it wasn't Josh , they talked about.
Josh who hadn't left his apartment in weeks and was nearly out of food. He had to go to the distribution center and collect his rations. He was facing death if he stayed inside just the same as going outside and risking infection.
He hadn't realized how weak he was until he tried to move the dresser from the front door. Many pushes, and a rest to catch his breath, finally he could squeeze his painfully thin body through the small opening. Josh had said his millionth goodbye to Tyler, letting him know where he was going today.
The two had assumed Josh would be safe in the daylight, but it only threw into sharp relief the dead bodies lying on the street as he stumbled toward the distribution center. Too many were dead to be able to staff the hospital. They would stay there until trucks came with shovels to scoop them up to be buried in a mass grave. There was no way to know anymore who was alive or dead for those inside and outside of the quarantine. There was no dignity in death.
Josh got his rations and began the trudge home as quick as he could, but his luck had run out. The descended upon him like wolves to an injured deer. Adrenaline could only keep them off for brief moments before he was overwhelmed and a flurry of blows rained upon him. Josh yelled from the pain, feeling bones cracking and choking on the blood pouring from his nose.
This isn't how he expected to die, at the expense of humans gone barbaric, savage. Josh couldn't care that they pried the food package from his torn up hands. He was no one, just another body on the street in the uncaring light from the sun. Josh was ready to decay and putrefy among his comrades.
Tyler stood in front of the mirror, examining at the damage the quarantine had ravaged upon his face. He was gaunt, circles dark to rim hollow, empty eyes. His family had expressed their concern far too much that he was wasting away. He was just a wisp of who he'd been when he said goodbye to Josh in that airport so many months ago. Tyler was consumed completely by Josh’s plight, his skin cracking and broken. Instead of a heart and lungs and organs working inside of him, Tyler was empty and translucent.
Tyler counted one to a hundred thousand or so it felt, waiting to find out if Josh survived the trip to get food. It grew dark in his house and Tyler didn't notice, his phone silent upon the counter. He'd count to a million before he'd admit Josh was dead, that's the promise he made. And after a million, he would have to learn how to live again.
The phone buzzed and Tyler stared at this miracle. Josh's name and a picture--private, never shared on social media because it was their own--his favorite picture of Josh flashed on the screen.
“H-hello?” Tyler's voice cracked, “Josh?” He asked to the silence that met his first question.
There was air on the other side that sounded like “Tyler”.
“Josh?!” Tyler screamed, there was no way he could hold it together anymore.
“Hi,” Josh’s voice was more wind than breath, but at least Tyler could hear him now, “I'm safe.”
“What? Where are you?” Tyler’s heart skipped a beat, imaging Josh somehow out of the city, on his way home to him.
“My...my ‘partment,” Josh coughed and groaned in pain. “Sorry...got hurt.”
“What happened?”
“Beat me up. Took my food. Tyler--I'm sorry,” Josh’s voice was resigned and Tyler understood what was going to happen next.
“No! Josh! You--you can't give up. It's almost over. The news said there haven't been any cases in weeks. They predicting this epidemic will be done soon!” Tyler pleaded but Josh sighed.
“Hurts so bad.” Both knew Josh couldn't go to the hospital. He'd definitely get the virus there, and it wasn't like they'd be able to fix him anyway.
“Josh you've been so strong this whole time. Don't stop now, now you're so close. Goddamnit Josh, live . Live like we've been telling everyone to do for years and years.”
Silence. Just breathing.
“You have to stay alive. So many people need you to, I need you to. You're the bravest person I know and you can do this. If you can't stay alive for yourself, do it for your mom and dad, you brother and sisters, everyone that has ever loved you, and for what it's worth...please Josh. Please. Stay alive for me,” Tyler was on his knees, forehead pressed to the sink.
“I should never have left Ohio.”
“I know,” Tyler agreed.
“I love you,” Josh confessed.
“You are so loved,” Tyler said and then the call disconnected.
He didn't cry, just stayed bowing to a God he wasn't sure he believed in anymore.
Tyler woke from the floor to robotically turn on the news like he had every other day before. Today the news was personal. Helicopters were hovering over large sections of LA that were set ablaze. Fire to burn away the sickness and remove the dead tissue from the land. Fire that purifies and cleans and the people are reborn from the ashes.
He stared at the map marked with borders and orange Xs to denote total destruction, one half of his mind understood that Josh was in the sea of Xs. Tyler knew exactly where Josh’s apartment was, where he had been left broken and helpless. There would have been no way he could've crawled out of the inferno. He was gone.
There was no miracle phone call and Tyler knew the helicopters were above the barren wasteland that was Josh’s neighborhood. Not a single building stood anywhere in the vicinity, and all of Josh’s loved ones gathered the admit defeat. Josh was dead.
The clock didn't reset. They reached the 21 days incubation period just a few days after the fire and then surpassed it. The epidemic was over but there was no victory celebration. Most of the city was dead and incinerated, only a handful of survivors were left, too traumatized to leave where they nearly died, where they lost so much.
The lists were endless and Tyler realized how many people he knew that were gone but lost in a sea of other victims. Even among the ‘celebrity’ list published on every news site, He was just ‘Dun, Josh; drummer of Twenty One Pilots”, not even worth a picture in the article among these ‘elite’.
Tyler gagged reading an article about the “angels from the City of Angels”. Cheesy, already people capitalizing on the massive loss of life. He could only imagine the movie deal being drafted to take advantage and make money.
He stopped reading the articles and spent his time imagining what happened in Josh’s final hours. Tyler woke screaming as he felt the flames that disintegrated Josh’s skin and made his best friend into smoke and sent him to the atmosphere. He could only hope Josh was unconscious or dead already before his body was devoured by the flames.
Tyler fantasized that it was Josh who set the fire that was heralded as being the end of the epidemic. A heroic sacrifice to end the suffering. Tyler couldn't blame him, he was so strong and had been through so much. In the few moments where Tyler wasn't cursing Josh and God for not keeping him alive, he was glad Josh was no longer in pain. He was in heaven, if there was one, or at least his smoke had flown into space like he'd always dreamt.
It was 21 days since Tyler last spoke to Josh and the day was a milestone. Almost a month since they said goodbye, after having practiced for so long. He wasn't even close to making it through his grief. Alternating between numb existence, sobbing with his face to the ground, and screaming with no answer. Normal grief should last for 3 months, but Tyler knew he'd never stop missing Josh with every ounce of his body.
Nighttime was the hardest, and he kept a single light on in the living room that felt more like the place where he himself was dying away. He sat in an arm chair, watching the door. Sometimes his mother came in, other times his brother. Friends came and went, grieving too, but Tyler was waiting for someone else.
Tap tap tap
Not a knock, but a message that Tyler stood to receive. What looked like the corpse of his best friend stood upon his porch, a smile upon its face.
“I made it,” Josh said, eyes the only thing alive in his skeleton and then fell into Tyler's arms.
He was so cachexic, Tyler easily carried his emaciated body into the house. Tyler felt the coughs that rattled every bone and watched the drop of blood the fell from the corner of his mouth.
“Home...I escaped. Everything was on fire. And no one saw me leave. Crossed the whole country in a truck. Had--had to come back. Had to see you.”
Tyler held him close, never expecting Josh to be this fragile and yet so strong. Amazed by the willpower to come all the way back. And Tyler didn't let go, happy to feel the pulse that showed Josh was real.
He ignored the redden eyes, the blood in Josh’s mouth, and the hacking cough. Tyler had in his arms the worst case scenario, for if a single infected person escaped LA, the virus would spread like wildfire reaching far and wide. The humans were stupid to think they could contain the tsunami too small to see with the naked eye.
He prayed Josh had stayed away from others for the long journey, hoped only he was exposed to the deadly germs Josh carried. Tyler was okay with their fate, resigned and satisfied to be killed indirectly by his best friend.
Tyler knew what he had to do, but he could put that aside for these precious moments as he held a dying loved one in his arms. Because they were all doomed anyway and he didn't want to wipe the tranquil smile off Josh’s face.
He waited until Josh fell asleep to carry him to bed. Memorizing the moment, he could almost feel the sickness creeping in. He left Josh upstairs and did a quick search on his phone for an emergency hotline direct to the CDC.
Tyler's thumb lingered over the call button, knowing a snowball was about to start rolling. It would grow and grow until it was a glacier. He wondered if they were the source of a new epidemic, if this was the end of the world.
He pressed the button and prayed Josh would forgive him. Prayed that there'd be a miracle and they would both survive.
For even in the darkest of times, there is always hope.