" But maybe his father was right. Maybe what had happened in 1918 could never happen again.

"U.S. Reveals Detailed Flu Disaster Plans."

Cole decided to make this the topic for his research report. Plans for manufacturing and distributing vaccines and other medications. Plans to quarantine the sick and to call up extra doctors and nurses and to replace absent workers with retired workers so that businesses wouldn't have to shut down. Plans to keep public transportation and electricity and telecommunications and other vital services operating and food and water and other necessities from running out. Plans to mobilize troops (for Cole this was the only exciting part) in the event of mass panic or violence.

One day he would ask Pastor Wyatt why, despite all these plans, everything had gone so wrong.

"Son, that is just the thing. That is what people did not--and still do not--get. There is no way you can count on the government, even if it's a very good government. The government isn't going to save you, it isn't going to save anyone. There's no way you can count on other people in a situation like we had. People afraid of losing their lives--or, Lord knows, even just their toys--they'll panic. Even fine, decent Christian folk--you can never know for sure what they'll do next. So I say, love your neighbor, help your fellow man all you can, but don't ever count on any other human being. Count on God."

What Cole didn't know was that most of the plans he read about that night would have been sufficient only for an emergency lasting a few weeks. "

― Sigrid Nunez , Salvation City