“Well, I wouldn’t go to you.”
After a while, he slept. Her dad woke and her mom came to replace him. She looked just as tired, just as haggard. Skilled application of makeup had hidden the bags, but it did nothing for the glazed eyes, that look of someone half-lost in the foggy wilderness of their own sleepless, anxious head.
“You’re here!” Her mom smiled, lifting the fog from her eyes. “Any news?”
“Nope. It’s been perfectly boring.”
“Good. I’ve had enough news to last me for the next couple years.”
There was no news over the next two days, either. The doctors surmised it was a staph-induced respiratory infection and started Alden on targeted antibiotics. He got no better nor no worse. Tristan took over Alden-watching duties at the hospital, lugging along next week’s reading and her mom’s sci-fi books. Coughs rang down the halls. Nurses jogged from room to room, feet slapping the linoleum. Tristan washed her hands six times a day, both to keep herself infection-free for her upcoming finals and because the hospital made her hands feel strangely greasy.
She had the house to herself Saturday afternoon. Her parents hadn’t had time to clean it in two weeks and she killed the daylight dusting and vacuuming and scrubbing until the kitchen marble shined under the track lighting. She ate leftover sesame chicken from the fridge and turned on the TV. Her dad was supposed to be back in an hour, at which point she’d return to the hospital.
Someone knocked just after eight. She muted the TV and jogged to the door; her dad had probably forgotten his keys again. She opened the door. Pete grinned on the porch, a brown paper bag in hand.
“Hey, Triss. Thought you could blow off some steam.” He stepped inside before she could say no, craning back his neck at the vaulted ceiling, as if seeing it for the first time. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
Tristan nodded, abruptly sad. There had been a time when Pete ate dinner at their house three times a week. A time when he’d been makeshift family, clearing the dishes from the table, her mom laughing at his jokes. By her junior year in high school Tristan had assumed they’d marry, live their lives together. Her parents openly joked about it. Seemed happy at the prospect. As Pete wandered to the kitchen, lost, brown paper bag dangling from his hand, she missed that time keenly, that certainty of her future, that she’d found who she wanted and he’d always be there with her.
“I brought something.” Pete tugged the paper bag away and clanked a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold onto the marble island in the middle of the kitchen. He grinned with half his mouth, eyes hooded. She’d seen that same grin every time he pulled her jeans down her hips and past her knees.
“Can’t,” she said. “Headed back to the hospital in a minute.”
“Do you remember when we first had this?” Without hesitation, he opened the upper cabinet where her parents kept their port and sherry and Glenlivet and took down two shot glasses. He clapped them on the island, unscrewed the tequila, and poured them to the brim. “I gave Mike P. twenty bucks to give his older brother to buy us a fifth. I drove us up to the lake and you hit it so hard that within an hour you were bellowing into the night. Just belly-roaring over the water until it bounced from the mountains. Remember that?”
He handed her a shot. Tequila dribbled over the lip of the glass, cold on her fingers.
“Amazingly enough, I do,” she said. “Though not much about what came after the yelling. A lot of puking, I think.”
“You were so funny.” He clicked his glass to hers and drank. Blaming the nostalgia, she tipped hers back, too. It burned her throat and stung her eyes. His hand lifted to his chest, as if he were about to wipe the tequila-induced tears from her eyes, then hung there in empty space. “What happened?”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “It was nothing you did.”
“‘It’s not me, it’s you.’ Then what happened to you?”
“We grew into different people.”
“Come on with the cliched BS.” He poured another pair of shots. “Maybe this’ll get you talking.”
“I really can’t,” she said. The nostalgia had begun to slip away. The happy years had been years ago. They were just things to return to in quiet moments with herself, luxuries she couldn’t afford to dwell on when she had so many real problems at hand. “My dad’s going to be back any minute and I’ll have to drive over to see Alden. I’m supposed to stay with him tonight.”
“Just one more. You’ll be fine. Your dad gets here and I’ll leave.”
She sighed and picked up the shot. “You shouldn’t try to keep up with me anyway. That’s a good way to go blind.”
He laughed, glancing at the microwave, as if seeking support from the green numbers on its clock. “You’re not that different.”
They drank. It didn’t sting as much this time. Her mouth salivated. “Would you consider yourself a feminist?”
He looked back at the microwave. “Me? Hell no.”
“That’s why we’re not together anymore.”
“Because I’m not some apron-wearing puss? A guy who helps lace up his wife’s combat boots while she barks about how life is unfair?”
She knew her test itself had been unfair, a total piece of Pete-bait, but the fact he could be so easily baited was proof enough. “Because that’s what you think feminism is.”
His brow beetled. “So you go off to college. San Francisco. Four years later, you’re too good for me.”
“I’m not too good, just too different.” She set her shot glass on the island as silently as possible. “And it would have happened wherever I went. I just didn’t know it yet.”
“So that’s it.”
“That’s it.”
He lowered his head. A pang spiked her chest. She knew he’d get over her in time. Whether next week, next month, or next year, he’d find someone else. Knowing him, his looks, his chest-deep confidence, it would be sooner than later—impossibly, the thought filled her with a jealousy that burned as hotly as the tequila—and his yearning for her would recede like the snows on the mountains surrounding the town. One morning, he’d sit in his kitchen drinking his coffee, just resting there before he got ready for work, and his new girlfriend would walk from the bedroom and smile, and he would smile back and realize he hadn’t missed Tristan in months.
Pete poured a third round. “One last shot, then. To us.”
Tristan gazed at the yellowish liquid under the white glow of the track lights. She already felt warm, fuzzy, her breathing relaxed. “You said the last one was the last one.”
“That was when I thought we still had a chance.” He handed her the small cool glass. “To the end.”
The pang returned. She shook her head. “Then it’s time to go.”
They clicked, drank. He leaned his palm on the island and gazed across the kitchen, nodding to himself. “I forgave you, you know. I was going to ask you to marry me.”
“Pete.”
“I mean, not here and now. Christmas break. But I could tell something was wrong. When I came here and went to hug you, you tensed up like I was warty Aunt Martha who smells too much like her cats.”
“It wouldn’t have been the right time.”
“I figured it was the distance stepping between us. I figured after you moved back, we could work it out.” He swung his eyes to meet hers. “Can we do that? After you graduate—can we try that?”
Tristan looked away, brushing her hair past her ear. “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late. Not until you’re dead. You could try, you just don’t want to.” He poured two more shots and held hers in front of her nose.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t? Like if you tried to swallow, nothing would happen?”
“I’m already half drunk. I’ve got to drive.”
He waggled the shot, splashing tequila on the floor. “So drive drunk.”
“Pete.” She pushed his wrist. “It’s time for you to go. If you can’t drive, you can stay here a
nd watch TV. Sleep in my bed if you need to. But my brother is sick and I have to go see him.”
He laughed hollowly, the sound bouncing off the hard marble. He strode around the island and shoved the shot glass at her mouth. It clinked against her teeth. She tasted tequila, gasoline and desert flowers.
“Stop it!”
“Take the shot and I will.”
He pushed harder, jamming the glass into her lips. She jerked her head. Tequila splashed the floor. She shoved him in the chest, but it didn’t move him; she fell back a step instead. He considered the liquid gleaming on the brown marble floor.
“That’s alcohol abuse. Guess I’ll have to do both to make up for it.” Pete drank his shot, then refilled hers and drank it too. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and planted his palms on the island, which she’d circled around to put between them. He smiled his I’m-taking-off-your-pants smile. “Vegas. Let’s go. Right now.”
“Ha ha,” Tristan said.
“We’ll tie the knot. Make it work. You just have to want it.”
She glanced toward the front door. Where was her dad? “We’re not going to Vegas, Pete.”
“No? You’d rather consummate things right here?”
“You’re going to bed. I’ll call you a cab.”
She dug out her phone. He slapped it from her hands, sending it skittering over the marble, then grabbed her wrists and ground them together.
“Let go of me!” she said.
“What’s the matter?” He leaned in, tightening his grip on her arms. “What’s so different? We’ve fucked a thousand times. What can once more hurt?”
She twisted her arms, fighting to free them. Her skin burned in his grasp. Fury poured over her, choking her. She hated the power he had—the power he thought he had. To shame and to ruin with sex and rape. He squeezed her wrists harder, mashing her bones together with his right hand grabbing her collar with his left. She tore her right hand free and slammed her fist into his nose.
He made a gagging nose and covered his bleeding nose. “What the fuck?”
His face went as hard as the marble. He clenched his fists and lunged. She grabbed the tequila bottle and jabbed it straight at his face. He came in low, meaning to tackle her, driving his head straight into the end of the bottle’s neck. Blood squirted from his forehead. He crashed to the marble floor, screaming, kicking his legs, blood washing between the fingers clamped to his head. Tequila glugged from the bottle in her hand, pattering to the ground. She sprinted for the front door. Her head buzzed with panic and liquor. The night was as cold as death. She slammed the front door and pounded down the driveway to her car, flinging the bottle into the yard. By the time she screeched down the road, the front door still hadn’t opened.
She blew through a stop sign by accident, rolled through the next, and forced herself to slow down. She spent more time watching the speedometer and her rear view mirror for signs of Pete than she did the road. At a stoplight, she adjusted the mirror. Her hand was smeared in red. Disgusting. Unclean. In a daze, she wiped it on the seat of her car.
She parked at the hospital and walked through the front doors, breathing shallowly so no one would smell the booze on her breath. Visiting hours were over and her mom and dad waited in the lobby.
Her mom cocked her head. “Something wrong?”
“Pete,” she said. “He came to the house.”
She explained briefly, clumsily. Her dad jerked to his feet, pale as a page. “Is he still there?”
Tristan shook her head. “I don’t know. I might have hurt him.”
“I’m calling 911.” He dialed, swaying as the dispatcher picked up. “I’d like to report an attack.”
Her mom grabbed her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“I let him in.” Tristan shuddered. “I let him stay. It could have been so much worse. I just stood there thinking he’d leave soon, and he kept getting weirder, and if I hadn’t—”
Her mom hugged her tight. “You couldn’t have known. It’s Pete. You know him.”
“He wanted to...”
Her mom pulled back and shook her head. “I had a Pete, too.”
“You did?” Tristan rubbed her eyes. “When?”
“College. Of course. Before your dad and I were dating. Jerry something.” She glanced at her husband, who’d hung up the phone. “Do you remember his name?”
Tristan’s dad pressed his fist to his mouth. He was ashen, sweating. “Jerry Molsen.”
“Jerry Molsen! Honestly, it was just like this. We’d broken up the week before. He came by my dorm and said he wanted to talk, so I let him in. I thought he might take it better if I let him just spill his guts. Maybe cry a little. He’d never done anything remotely violent. He looked like a poet, he had this long hair. Did you ever get that vibe from him, Dean?”
Tristan’s dad swallowed, blinking. He shook his head and swallowed again.
Her mom let out a stressed huff of air. “I let Jerry inside. And he talks a lot and he cries a little, and I hug him, and that’s when I feel it. He’s got a knife. It’s poking my stomach just deep enough to scratch me and he grabs me by the hair and he tells me to take off my clothes.”
“Jesus!” Tristan glanced across the lobby. “What did you do?”
“I told him I had to pee. And he let me go to the bathroom, the gullible sack of shit.” Her mom laughed through her nose. “Then I locked the door, opened the window, and screamed and screamed and screamed.”
“What did he do then?”
“What do you think he did?” Her mom laughed, toying with the buttons on her collar. “That cowardly little fucker ran away and slammed the door behind him.”
Tristan laughed. Her dad’s mouth twitched in a smile-like grimace. He planted his hands on his knees and bent over, sumo-like, and vomited blood across the hospital floor.
Her mom jolted back. “Oh my God! Doctor!”
Her dad sank to one knee, swaying. Tristan froze. Three days later, he was dead.
7
“Quarantined?” Shawn spat. “What the hell you talking about?”
“In a few hours, the labs will come back,” Ness said. “If they find anything, it won’t be anything they like. They don’t have the facilities to deal with that unknown, unlikable thing here. They’ll send us to Boise. Or the CDC in Atlanta. From there—”
“They can’t just haul us across the country. We’re citizens. We got rights.”
“If they believe you’re a credible threat to the public health, they can do whatever the hell they want. A carrier of an unknown and fatal disease might even fall under the purview of the Patriot Act.”
“Well, you can quit your fucking grinning right now,” Shawn said. “We’re not sticking around to let them crate us off to Atlanta.”
Ness’ glee drained away as if he’d been tapped. “But we don’t have a choice.”
“What do you mean, we don’t have a choice?” Shawn walked to the window and threw back the curtains. “If some general walks in here with a gun and says, ‘Sorry, boys, for the good of the country I’m gonna have to shoot you dead,’ do you have no choice but to stand there and get shot?”
“Yeah, but if you run, he’ll just shoot you.”
“No wonder you still live with Mom.”
“So do you!”
“Just ‘cause the bank screwed me over a barrel.” Shawn unlatched the window and shoved. It swung out from the sill, squeaking to a stop after opening to a six-inch gap. “Now start tying sheets together.”
Ness laughed in disbelief. “This isn’t The Fugitive. You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“More trouble than sticking around a plague-ward until they fly me to a lab and cut my ass into slides?”
“They’ll just make me tell them where you went.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Shawn shoved the stuck window. Its hinges creaked. “Because you’re coming with me.”
Ness backed away from the window. “You can’t make me.”
/> “I’m supposed to go home and tell Mom I left you here to be dissected? I’d rather take my chances with the men with the white coats and scalpels.” He stripped the sheets from the bed and knotted them together with the casual expertise of a former Eagle Scout. He glanced up, saw Ness was serious, and set his mouth, mustache quirked. “You either climb out this window on your own two feet, or I toss you out and use you as a landing pad.”
“Why would I want to go with you?” Ness glanced at the locked door. Should he go bang and shout? “If it is a disease, the best place for us is wherever they want to take us. That’s where they’ll make the cure.”
“You seen a lot of AIDS cures lately? You think they got a pill for Ebola? Ness, I am not messing with you. If there’s a plague and you’re sick, there’s not a damn thing they can do for you. And if you’re not sick, you really think a damn hospital is the place to be? Think!”
Ness gazed at the dark parking lot beyond the window. “Since when you are the expert?”
“You think I trust the Soviets to keep their smallpox sample locked away in a bunker? Now take off your pants.”
“What?”
“We’re three stories up, son.” Shawn shook the knotted sheets in his face. “We’re gonna need a longer rope.”
Ness went to the bathroom, took off his shoes, stripped off his jeans, and put his shoes back on. Back in the main room, Shawn’s triceps bulged as he tugged his jeans tight to the makeshift rope. He glanced at Ness’ pale white legs and whiter briefs and shook his head.
“It’s a good thing your right hand doesn’t have eyes.” He tied Ness’ jeans to the bottom of his rope, rolled the bed to the window, and knotted the sheet to the frame. With the line secured, he wrapped it around his elbow and clambered onto the bed. His head fit through the window’s narrow gap, but his hips and butt stuck. He lowered himself back inside, squinted at the frame, grabbed hold of the window’s edge, and shoved. Metal creaked. “Come up here and give me a hand.”
“You want to break a hospital window?”
“It’s either that or some egghead examining little bits of our corpses through a microscope. Get your bony ass up here.”
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 111