by Tim McBain
She could have sat anywhere, but she chose a position where her thigh (which was bare, as a result of the minuscule shorts she was wearing) was practically brushing up against his hair. I mean, I know I shouldn’t care because there’s no way she likes him — all she ever talks about is how she can’t believe I find him attractive — but she still flirts with him when he’s the only male attention in the area, and it drives me nuts. Does she have to flirt with everyone?
As if answering me psychically, she reached out and started fiddling with his hair.
Max sat up. He played it cool, but I’m pretty sure he moved because he didn’t want her touching him, and so I silently cheered inside. Because I am a petty jerk.
He eyeballed me and said, “We were just talking about how Erin likes—”
I gave him this tiny panicked look. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want him to tell Breanne about our soup restaurant idea. She wouldn’t get it. For a second I thought he didn’t catch my worried glance.
But then he said, “—Doctor Who. But I myself prefer Battlestar Galactica.”
I felt relief and also more heart-goo leaking all over the place on my insides.
“Jesus. You are both huge nerds,” Breanne said.
Dinner starts soon. I can hardly wait, even though it will almost definitely not be soup.
Your partner in soup-making crime,
Erin
Erin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
5 days after
Weird day.
Weird, weird day.
I was in the quarantine tent, doing my final rounds of logging vitals for the five patients I was in charge of when Lisa approached me. I still feel guilty about what happened to her, like my mom and I not getting raped is somehow unfair or something. I know it’s dumb, but I can’t help it.
“There’s someone asking for you at the door,” she said.
I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but that wasn’t it. My eyes flicked to the rows of plastic sheeting that formed the barrier between us and the outside world. I couldn’t see through them from this angle, so I thanked Lisa and walked closer.
Breanne was my first thought, but as I shifted the first layer of clear PVC out of my way, I could see that was wrong. This person was taller and dressed in dull beige from head-to-toe. National Guard.
Max.
But when I slid through the next curtain, I knew that was wrong, too. He wasn’t tall enough.
It was Bennett. Maybe the last person on the planet I would have expected.
I stopped short of the last layer of sheeting. We really aren’t supposed to leave the tent without thoroughly washing and changing back into our “street clothes” if we’re going to be in contact with other people.
He must not have seen or heard me, because he just stood there on the other side. He faced away from the entrance, and he kind of shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Being so close to the “plague tent” made him nervous, I think.
I didn’t know what to say to announce my presence. Even something as simple as “Hey” struck me as too… personal or something. And “What do you want?” seemed a hair too rude.
So I skipped past that and said, “Breanne isn’t here.”
It was the only thing I could think that he’d want from me.
He spun around as if I’d startled him, which might have made me laugh if it was anyone but him. I suppose I did get a twinge of satisfaction at seeing that the brave and mighty Jay Bennett was sometimes scared.
“What?” he said.
“If you’re looking for Breanne—”
His head shook back and forth.
“No. It’s you I wanted.”
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I still couldn’t fathom what he’d need from me.
“What is it?”
“I need you to come with me.”
I waited for him to elaborate on that, but he didn’t.
“Why?” I asked.
“Goddamn, you ask a lot of fucking questions,” he said, scowling.
Perhaps remembering that he was asking for my help with something, Bennett sighed and softened his tone. “I need you to come talk some sense into Rippingale.”
Max. Just the name made my heart beat a little harder.
“What happened?” I asked and then realized I was asking yet another question. “Sorry. Just… can it wait like fifteen minutes? My shift ends then.”
Bennett nodded. He didn’t say anything else, so I turned on my heel and went back inside the tent.
I swear the next quarter-hour passed by at turtle speed. I kept glancing down at the big gold watch on my wrist. It felt ten times heavier than usual, too, and it’s a heavy watch. There’s a big pile of analog watches in the quarantine tent. Aside from needing something that tells time for the medication schedule, we all need a watch with a second hand so we can count heart rates and respirations when we take vitals. I picked the biggest, most old-mannish watch the first day we volunteered. I thought it was funny. But then it sort of became “my” watch. It’s occurred to me that it probably belonged to someone who is now dead, but I try not to think about that.
Anyway, at the end of our shift, I washed up and changed into my clothes in record time. I wanted to beat my mom outside so she wouldn’t see me walking off with Bennett. It would be too hard to explain at this point. Before leaving, I made sure to drop my Dead Man’s watch into the bin.
Bennett had moved off a ways from the tent by the time I emerged.
“Ready?” he asked. “Let’s go.”
He turned and headed for camp, without bothering to explain what it was he needed me to do. But I figured the more I asked, the more he wouldn’t want to tell me. Classic dickhead.
There was something else, too. I had the distinct impression that he was keeping a healthy distance between us as I trailed after him back to camp. I couldn’t resist pushing it.
“You’re afraid of it, aren’t you?”
“Afraid of what?”
“The plague,” I said, wiggling my fingers at him. “You think if you get too close to me, you’ll get infected.”
I sidled closer, and he dodged away, genuine worry showing in the whites of his eyes. I laughed.
“Why shouldn’t I be scared of it? Fucking mystery plague no one barely knows anything about. We’ll see if you find it so amusing when you die shitting your insides out.”
That wiped the smile off my face. It was the most honest thing I’d ever heard him say, maybe. And suddenly I remembered that despite being one of the biggest jerks I’ve ever met, Bennett was still human.
“I’ve been working in there for almost a week, and I’m not sick.”
I was trying to be reassuring.
“If you ask me, we’d all be better off if one of you slipped a little something extra into the IV bags one of these nights.”
It was a moment before I realized what he was suggesting.
“You’re saying we should kill them?” I asked, horrified.
We came to a halt in front of one of the National Guard barracks tents. Bennett stared down at me with those blue eyes the same color and temperature as an iceberg.
“Don’t kid yourself about what you’re doing in that tent every day. You can tell yourself that you’re helping and doing some good. But you’re only prolonging the suffering for those people. Ending it quickly would be a mercy. Not to mention the fact that it would keep the rest of us from getting infected.”
Of course he’d tack that argument on at the end. Because that’s what it was really about. Saving his own ass. Before I could say anything in response, he disappeared through the flaps of the tent.
I followed him inside.
My eyelids squinted against the dim interior. The smell reminded me of your brother’s room: B.O., cigarette smoke, and some other boy-stink I can never quite identify.
I heard a clang, and then Bennett’s voice rang out in the darkness, “Hey, Rip. I brough
t your jailbait to see you.”
I could see just enough to know that the sound had been him kicking the leg of a cot. And by the shape of the sleeping bag on top of it, Max was inside. I wanted to slap Bennett.
"Why are you such an asshole?" I asked. "I thought you wanted to help him."
"I do."
"Then leave."
He just gave me a shady fucking smile and moseyed out of the tent. I waited a few moments and then poked my head out. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to loiter outside and spy on us or something. He strolled down about three tents and started chatting up another group of soldiers sitting around a folding table.
I ducked back inside and squatted next to Max’s sleeping bag. When my vision adjusted to the lack of light again, I could see that his eyes were open. He faced away from me though, gazing blankly at the wall.
“Max?”
He blinked but didn’t respond. The rims of his eyes were red. Like maybe he’d been crying.
“Bennett’s gone.”
Still he said nothing.
“Also, I brought you a double bacon cheeseburger.”
That got his attention. He swiveled his head around and pushed the sleeping bag away from his face so he could see me. I smiled. His lips quirked, but he didn’t quite smile.
“Liar.”
“Sorry. I had to make sure you weren’t catatonic.”
He reached up and rubbed his eyes, and something occurred to me for the first time.
“You’re not sick, are you?”
Max shook his head and said, “Not with the plague, if that’s what you mean.”
I pushed his feet to one side so I could sit on the edge of his cot.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said sarcastically.
“I’m trying, but some dickweed won’t move his legs out of my way.”
He scoffed and shifted in the sleeping bag to give me more room. I surveyed the interior of the tent from my new position. There were just two cots. I assumed the other was Bennett’s. Especially once I saw the 5-gallon water jug filled with Bic lighters.
“I assume those all once belonged to famous rock stars?”
Max laughed for the first time since I’d entered the tent.
“Maybe. They’re all stolen. I know that.”
I pivoted my butt so I could look at Max.
“He shoplifted them?”
“No, he takes them from people. Like if he’s at a party. He’ll ask to use someone’s lighter, and then he keeps it.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“Why steal a bunch of crappy lighters?” I asked.
“Aside from being a pyro, you mean? Did I tell you about the time he lit a guy’s rat-tail on fire?”
“I’m saying he has that nice Zippo. And while we’ve established that the Kurt Cobain story is a load of horseshit, that lighter is still way better than any of those plastic pieces of crap.”
Max’s gaze flicked over to the giant plastic bottle.
“I think it’s a game to him. To see if he can get away with it.”
“Yeah, that does sound like loads of fun. I think this has inspired me to start lifting the pen from the visitor sign-in sheet in the quarantine tent.”
Max smiled.
“That’s not it, though.”
I raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“There’s no risk of you getting caught stealing the pen. That’s the part he likes.”
“So he wants people to catch him pocketing their lighters?” I asked.
“He told me that it almost always goes down one of three ways. Some people notice right away and stop him. And then he gives the lighter back. Some people don’t notice at all, and maybe never even figure out what happened to it once they realize it’s missing. Sometimes they do, and they come back asking for it. And he can just play it off like an honest mistake. But he says every so often, he can tell that someone notices that he’s taken it, but they don’t say anything. They’re too polite or too scared to say something. He told me that’s his favorite part. The idea that they know what he’s doing but don’t try to stop him.”
I stared at him for a minute before muttering, “What a fucking psycho.”
I knew Max was feeling better when I got that hissing laugh out of him.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“I don’t need any convincing. Believe me.”
Several seconds passed in silence. I’d gotten him to talk and to laugh. But he was still in the cot. Whatever had happened was still bothering him.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong now?”
My voice was barely above a whisper, and I didn’t look at Max when I spoke.
Another stretch of quiet ticked by. The sleeping bag rustled under the slightest movement, but he held pretty still. I didn’t think he was going to respond.
“There are these two big trucks parked behind the quarantine tent,” he said finally.
I was so startled by his voice, I almost glanced over at him. But I forced my eyes to keep staring straight ahead. I didn’t want him to stop.
“I’ve seen them.”
“Do you know what they’re for?”
I swallowed, suddenly having the premonition that the story my mom had told me was a lie. Maybe I’d known the real truth all along, somewhere in the back of my mind. I shook my head.
“They were using them as makeshift morgues.”
My heart was beating so loud in my ears by then that I’m surprised I could still hear him.
“The trucks were refrigerated before, but…” he trailed off.
“Now they’re not,” I finished for him.
“Now they’re not,” he repeated. “I guess the smell is becoming a problem, among other things. So Sgt. Grantham asked for volunteers to… take care of it. No one wanted to do it. Shocking, huh?”
I turned to face him then.
“And you got picked?”
He nodded.
“Grantham assigned each squad leader to the task. Punishment for the lack of volunteers. And each leader had to pick someone from their squad.”
“And Bennett chose you.”
“It was… the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Bodies stacked four or five deep. Feet and hands and legs all tangled up in each other. Bennett laughed when a couple of us threw up. He said, ‘What’s wrong, boys? It’s just a little bit of spoiled meat.’”
“What did you do with them?”
“First we had to unload them all. We used a wheelbarrow to cart them away from camp. And then we doused them with gas and set them on fire.”
“Jesus,” I breathed. “I bet Bennett loved that part.”
“He kept making barbecue jokes. Asking if we prefer thigh meat or breast meat.”
I sighed. Bennett really is a total cock.
“The only reason he even cares if I get out of this sleeping bag is because we’re on the same team for the stupid contest. I thought I might have been close to getting one of the trucks started up, so he’s been on me all day to get back to work on it. But what’s the fucking point? With the plague and everything else, maybe no one will even be left to care pretty soon. We’ll all just be a pile of rotting meat left for the crows and vultures to pick at.”
A long stretch of silence followed.
Max closed his eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have unloaded that on you.”
“No, it’s OK.”
“It’s not,” Max insisted. “That was fucked up.”
His hand was resting on his chest, and I grabbed it and held on to his fingers. I needed him to know that I understood those feelings.
“The first dead body I ever saw was my dad.”
His eyelids flicked open.
“Was it the… I mean…”
“The plague?”
He nodded.
“No. Cancer. Before any of this started,” I said. “Every night I wished for him to get better when he f
irst got sick. When he didn’t get better, I started wishing instead that he just wouldn’t die. That he’d make it a little longer.
“But eventually, that wish changed to not wanting him to be in pain anymore. No more needle pokes and sickness from the radiation and chemo. No more bedpans and catheters. I wanted him to… have some peace.
“And when he did finally die, I felt relieved. I was sad, too. But to know he wasn’t suffering anymore… you can’t really say that out loud, though. It would freak people out. I felt like the whole world was a lie after that. Like everyone was walking around, pretending we aren’t sacks of flesh and bone that eventually go bad.”
My eyes were focused down at a small hole in the lining of Max’s sleeping bag, half-dazed. I blinked up at him.
“I don’t know what my point is, really.” A dry sound that was half-chuckle, half-scoff came out of my mouth. “This probably wasn’t the pep-talk Bennett had in mind when he asked me to come here.”
My hand still held Max’s fingers. I went to pull away, but he caught me.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Oh right,” I said. “Anytime you want someone to boost your existential dread, I’m your girl.”
He tugged at my wrist.
“I mean it.”
I met his eyes, and the way he was looking at me, I started to get that fluttery feeling in my chest again. He was about to say something else, but a beam of bright light filled the tent as Bennett poked his head inside.
“You done boning in here, or what?”
Max scowled and kicked free of the sleeping bag.
“I’ll be out in a minute, asswipe.”
Bennett retreated, chortling to himself.
I blushed when I saw that Max was only wearing boxer shorts. He stooped to put on his pants, and I figured that was my cue to leave.
“Erin, wait,” he said, and I stopped just short of the tent flap.
He took a step forward and hugged me. I didn’t know if it was because I told him my dad died or what.
Then he said, “I’m glad we’re friends.”
Your BFF, who has been banished to the Friend Zone,
Erin
Delfino
Outside of New Bern, North Carolina