Chapter 25
The Walls Go Up, August 15, 1918
- Suddenly, everyone in Manifest is showing symptoms of the Spanish influenza. Oh no.
- Lester Burton, Arthur Devlin, and Sheriff Dean all decide to take little vacations away from the town, so they don't get sick, too. The jerks.
- And finally, the county medical examiner puts the town under official quarantine. No one can leave or enter.
- One by one, the townspeople start coming outside and washing off the make-up they'd used to trick the doctor and their bosses.
- They all get right to work making Velma T.'s elixir, mixed with Shady's whiskey.
- As they work, they share their stories about coming to America.
- They had all been scared they wouldn't be let in to the country. When they arrived, they had to pass a health screening, and if they failed, they were sent right back home.
- While the ladies shuck corn, the men build a few more stills, and Shady teaches them how to make whiskey.
- Meanwhile, Velma T. has her mixture ready to add to it.
- She's a little upset that her medicine never really worked all that well till it was mixed with whiskey, but she's willing to go with it.
- Mrs. Larkin has stayed in town and disapproves of the whole thing. No one knows why she stayed, and they just hope she doesn't get them all in trouble.
- They decide to use the huge baptistery in the Baptist church to mix the whiskey into the elixir. Mrs. Larkin is not pleased.
- Shady leads them in prayer, and they start mixing.
MANIFEST HERALD: September 15, 1918
- People all over America, as well as the troops overseas, are coming down with the influenza. And people are dying. A lot of people.
LETTER FROM PVT. NED GILLEN
- Ned's getting homesick, so he reminisces about stuff from Manifest—like one of his pals writing a poem—"Ode to the Rattler"—in the classroom. The war's getting him down, poor guy.