by Cross, Amy
"She's dead," I say, catching my breath for a moment.
He doesn't reply. He just stands there, open-mouthed and wide-eyes, and all the color drains from his face.
"I told you," I continue. "You need to get away from the door. We don't know how infectious it is. We might have to leave the house."
Slowly, Joe starts shaking his head. "What the fuck did you do to her?" he asks.
"No-one did anything," I say. "This just happened, about half an hour ago. You heard her coughing yesterday, Joe. You know she was sick."
"Fuck," he mutters. It's as if the sight of all the blood and pus has almost completely sobered him up. "No. Fuck. No."
"Come on," I say, grabbing a towel from the bannister and using it to cover my hand as I swing the guest room door shut. "You can't get drunk right now," I continue. "We all need to stick together. We need to work out what to do, because whatever happened to her, it doesn't make sense. It's something new. It's something dangerous."
"We need to go and talk to Mom," I tell him. "We need to work something out together, and then maybe we can decide what to do."
He shakes his head.
"What does that mean?" I ask. "Joe, we need you."
He shakes his head again. It's as if he's in total shock.
"Joe, this isn't the time to get like this," I continue. "You have to come downstairs so we can talk about what to do. You have to -"
Suddenly he pushes me to one side, turns and storms back down the stairs. I follow him through to the front room and finally into the kitchen, where our mother is sitting at the dining table. She looks terrified, as if she's been listening to everything that's been happening and she's scared of what Joe might do next. As soon as we're in the room, she stands up and edges back to the far wall.
"You're drunk," she says, her voice wavering.
"Fuck you," Joe spits back at her as he goes over to the taps and checks to see if they're working.
"There's no water," I say.
He doesn't reply; he just keeps turning the taps on and off, over and over again, as if he expects them to magically start working. After a moment, he goes to the wall and starts flicking the light switch on and off as fast as possible. There's something frantic about the way he's desperately trying to fix things, as if he thinks sheer force of will and determination will be enough.
"Nothing's working," I say, glancing over at my mother and seeing the look of fear in her eyes.
"Of course it's not," Joe replies, going back to the taps and trying them again. "Not with you two fucking idiots running things." He tries the taps a few more times, before stepping back and kicking the side of the sink. "What's wrong with this fucking place?" he shouts. "What the hell did you two do to it?" With tears in his eyes, he turns to me and I see that he's shaking with rage. "What did you do to her? Why did you kill her?"
"Joe -" I start to say.
"You too!" he yells, stepping toward me. "Whatever the fuck you two are doing, you're going to stop it right now!"
"We're not doing anything," I say, moving over to the other side of the kitchen.
"Don't fight," my mother says. "Please, Joe, you're drunk. You need to go and calm down -"
"No," he replies. "That's not what I need to do. I need to get those fucking grins off your fucking faces, and then I need to find that other bitch and teach her to think she can fuck with me!"
"Joe -" my mother tries to say.
"Shut up!" he shouts, pulling the table back and then slamming it against her legs. She lets out a cry of pain.
"Hey!" I shout, stepping forward.
"Keep out of this," Joe spits back at me. "You're just a kid."
Instead of saying anything, I wait a fraction of a second until he's turned back to look at our mother, and then I tap him on the shoulder. He turns to look at me again, and that's when I do it: I swing my fist at his face so hard, I swear to God I'm scared I might break my knuckles. Instead, I connect perfectly with the side of his cheek, and he tumbles back against the wall before slumping to the ground. I stand in silence for a moment, stunned that I actually managed to knock him out. I've never punched anyone before in my life.
"Sorry," I say, turning to my mother.
She pauses for a moment, and then she pushes the table away so she can step over to the door. "Let him sleep it off down there," she says eventually, with a blank expression that almost makes it seem as if she doesn't really care. "Your father can deal with him when he gets back."
"How much longer do you think he'll be?" I ask.
She doesn't reply. Instead, she simply turns and heads through to the next room, leaving me standing next to my unconscious brother while my fist starts to throb from the impact of the punch. Eventually I open the door to the pantry and drag Joe through, figuring he might as well be out of our way while he sobers up. As I step back into the kitchen, I take a deep breath and look down on my hands. It's hard not to imagine bacteria on them; millions and millions of bugs and germs, crawling all over my skin. I could spend all day and all night scrubbing myself from head to toe, but I can't shake the feeling that I'll never be entirely clean again. If this virus has shut down the world, it must be fairly easy for it to jump from one person to another. The only question, then, is how long it takes to show symptoms.
Chapter Eight
Manhattan
"Calm down," says Bob, stepping out of the building, still holding his rifle. "Everybody calm down!"
My mind is blank. Completely blank, as if some deep self-defense mechanism has realized that I can't possibly be expected to process the reality of the dead body. With his head seemingly blown apart, cracked open to reveal a yellowy brain and a mass of spattered blood, the corpse looks so shockingly fresh. I can even see how the thick pool of blood is still seeping into the dust, creating a kind of bright red paste. It's not until I've been staring at the mess for a few seconds that I realize the dead man's face is still half-attached, blown to one side like a discarded flap, with one eye having come loose. Finally, after what feels like an eternity but was probably only a couple of seconds, I realize that this dead body is - or was - Albert Carling.
"Who -" Henry starts to say.
"Don't look!" I blurt out suddenly, springing into action and grabbing my brother so that I can twist him around.
"Get off!" he shouts, pushing me away before stepping closer to the body. "This is the guy from the building," he says, before looking over at Albert. "Did you do this?"
"I'm gonna explain," Bob replies, raising his hands as if to show that he means us no harm. "When I got back just now, he was on his way out with a load of our supplies. I challenged him, and he attempted to cause me bodily harm. Therefore, I was left with no choice but to use lethal force in order to defend myself." The way he's speaking seems so formal, but at the same time almost childlike; it's almost as if he's giving a book report on how and why he blew a man's brains out. "This was self-defense," he says again, making sure to speak slowly and clearly. "Self-defense."
"Where was he going?" Henry asks.
"I don't know," Bob replies. "But you can see for yourself. He was intending to steal from us." He steps aside and holds the door open; a few bags of food are strewn across the foyer. "He was gabbling like a madman," he continues. "Kept saying we were all gonna infect him. I guess he'd decided he was gonna make it alone. I have no problem with anyone wanting to go off like that, but he was trying to take our food. I couldn't let that happen."
"So you killed him," I say, feeling a knot tightening in my stomach. "You didn't have to do that."
"I did what I believed to be the best thing in a difficult and tense situation," Bob continues, sounding as if he thinks he's at some kind of military tribunal, "and I based my decision on my perception of the danger at the time." He pauses for a moment to clear his throat. "I'm entirely comfortable with my actions and I'd do the same thing again. We're in a tight situation, and I'm not going to tolerate thieves."
I take a deep breath, tryi
ng to keep myself from throwing up. This whole situation is so strange, so hyper-real, that I don't really know how to react. I guess some people would turn and run, and some people would just stand and stare, and others would start ranting and shouting; my reaction is simply to stand there, wondering if I'm going to throw up or faint. I swear to God, it feels like something big is about to happen to my body, but I have no idea what to expect. Finally, and with very little warning, I take a few steps over to the wall, kneel down on the ground, and vomit. It's such a robotic reaction, like the most cliched thing to do, but I can't get the image of Albert's dead body out of my head. As soon as I've finished vomiting, I start to shake, and then eventually I have to move out of the way as the puddle of brown, partially digested food spreads toward my hands.
"Maybe you kids had better go inside," Bob says. "I'll clean up the mess."
"Come on," Henry says, reaching down to me, "let's go upstairs."
Without arguing, I get to my feet and allow Henry to lead me into the foyer. We walk past the spilled food and over to the door that leads to the stairwell; at the last moment, I glance back and see Bob leaning his gun against the wall as he prepares to deal with the mess. I know Albert seemed a little crazy, and I can totally understand why Bob had to stop him taking our food, but I still feel as if killing him was something of an overreaction. Couldn't he just have scared him off, or at worst just knocked him out? It just seems like Bob took the decision to shoot far too easily, which only heightens my fear of the guns that he and Henry are using.
"This way," Henry says, pulling my arm and taking me into the stairwell. "There's no point staring at it," he continues as we walk upstairs. "Are you feeling okay?"
I don't reply. I can't reply. The sight of Albert's shattered head is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. That, and the dead body in the car, which was just as horrific. Until these two sights, I was able to make myself believe that there was still some semblance of the normal, real world left in this situation; now, it's as if we've passed a threshold and entered something entirely new, where dead bodies are rotting in abandoned cars and people get their heads blown off if they try to steal some food. I feel as if all the rules of life have suddenly been changed, and the worst thing is that I can't see a way back from this point. Now that people are actually dying, it seems as if no-one going to be able to come along and wave a magic wand to make everything alright.
"Maybe you should get some rest," Henry says as we reach the top floor and head along to our apartment. "I'll go back down and help Bob, but you should just try to sleep or something."
As we reach the door, I stop and stare at our desolate, dust-covered apartment. Something in my body starts to seize up, and I realize I can't keep going. When I see the dust on the floor, I can't help imagining Albert's blood soaking into the entire building.
"Elizabeth?" Henry says, turning to me. "Are you okay?"
"This isn't going to end any time soon," I say suddenly. "Is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"This. All of it. The lack of power. The lack of water. The empty streets. It's not some temporary passing thing. It's not a blip. No-one's gonna come riding in and save us. This is the world now, at least for a while."
"Maybe longer than that," he replies. "Maybe forever."
"Do you seriously believe that?" I ask. "Do you really, truly believe that no-one's gonna come to the rescue? Don't you think that some day soon, the power's gonna come back on and water'll start flowing from the taps again?"
"If someone was coming," he says, "wouldn't they be here by now?"
"Not necessarily. They might have limited resources. They might not know where to start, or they might be starting with Washington, or..." My voice trails off. Every time I try to put my faith into words, I end up sounding like some kind of babbling idiot; the truth, though, is that I can't lose hope.
"I'm going to help Bob," Henry says after a moment, turning and heading downstairs. "You should probably stay up here for a few hours," he calls back to me, "at least while we clean up."
"Be careful around Bob!" I shout back at him. "Henry? Be careful with those guns!"
I wait for him to reply, but there's nothing. I guess he's decided that Bob's his best bet right now. Maybe I was a little heavy-handed earlier, and maybe I should have let him feel as if he was a little more in control. By trying to emphasize my authority, I probably just pushed him away and made myself seem like a total idiot in the process. I fucked up, but there's still time to turn things around. Nothing's forever. Good things and bad things alike, they have their time and then they end. One day this nightmare will be over, and we'll start getting our lives back into shape.
I just hope Henry doesn't do anything stupid before help comes. I feel like I've completely lost control of my brother; it's as if, by giving him that gun, Bob has gained his complete confidence and trust.
Sitting in the stairwell, I stare straight ahead and listen to the sound of Henry's footsteps getting further and further away. Despite everything that's happened, I still feel as if things are going to be okay; despite the bodies in the cars, and the burning planes, and the complete lack of intervention from the government, I'm convinced that eventually life is going to start getting back to normal. There's still a good chance that our parents are out there somewhere, making their way here. We just have to stay calm, remain in the building, and hope that sometime in the next few days there'll be a sign of things getting better. It's just not possible that the world will stay like this. Someone, somewhere, is going to intervene and make sure that things improve, and I still believe that somewhere out there, our parents are slowly but surely making their way back to us.
Day Four
Chapter One
Oklahoma
"Did you punch me?" Joe says, staring up at me from the pantry floor.
"No," I say after a moment. I figure we've got enough problems without having to deal with Joe's wounded ego. "You passed out last night, so I dragged you in here."
"Shit," he continues, sitting up and rubbing the sore spot on the side of his face. "Feels like someone got me with a right-hook. I swear..." He pauses, as if he's remembering something. "I guess not. I must've taken a bit of a tumble, huh?" Grabbing hold of the side of a nearby cupboard, he hauls himself to his feet and immediately lets out a groan. "Fuck, that's not good."
"What?"
He sighs. "Nothing. I guess you know it was a good night when you can't remember a damn thing." He blinks a couple of times, as if he's trying to clear his head. "I feel like someone's ringing a bell in my head. You ever had a proper hangover?"
"Dad's not back yet," I say.
He stares at me for a moment. Even in his hungover state, he clearly understands that something's wrong. "How long's he been gone now?" he asks cautiously.
"Almost two days. He said he'd be back in one, so..." My voices trails off as I try to avoid facing the truth. The thing about our father is, he's a very straightforward kind of guy. If he says he's going to be back in one day, he'll be back in one day; the fact that he's late, even in this kind of situation, is a bad sign. The only reason I can think for him not to be back is that he can't get back.
"Maybe he's got a flat," Joe points out. "With his hernia, he'd have plenty of trouble fitting a fresh one. You thought to go take a drive and see if he's pulled up by the side of the road somewhere between here and town?"
"There's another problem," I say.
"Yeah?" He laughs. "Well, that sounds perfect, 'cause we just haven't got enough problems right now, have we?" Pulling the door open, he heads out into the kitchen, and then he stops again. Slowly, he turns to me and I see there's a look of shock on his face. "Lydia," he says eventually.
"You remember what happened?" I ask.
He stares at me for a moment. "Is she -"
"Dead? Yeah. Upstairs still. I can't work out how to get her out of the house. Even if we get all the bits together and clean the room, there's no way we can clean ourselve
s after. But it's not like we can just leave her there, 'cause that's gonna make the whole house stink in a day or two. So we've got a real problem."
"What the fuck happened to her?" he asks. I can't work out of the color's fading from his face because he's hungover, or because he's remembering the sight of Lydia's body, or a bit of both.
"She was sick," I explain, walking over to the cupboard and grabbing one of our few remaining bottles of water. "Here," I say, "you need this." I pass him the bottle and wait while he drinks. "She got worse and worse," I continue eventually, "and eventually she could barely even stand up. She was coughing blood all day and all night, and then she stopped. That's when I went in and..." I take a deep breath as I remember the moment Lydia's body exploded all over me. "I don't know what caused it, but something about her wasn't right. She was all messed up. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not a normal kind of sickness."
"Yeah, well..." He pauses, before walking over to the sink and staring down at the drain. After a moment, he leans down a little further before vomiting.
"I'm collecting rainwater," I tell him. "I put out some big barrels this morning. There hasn't been any rain yet, but when it comes, we should have plenty. We need food, though. We're running low."
"And where do you think I'm gonna magically get food from?" he asks.
"I thought maybe you know how to hunt."
"Hunt?" He turns to me. "Are you serious? What the hell are we gonna hunt around here? You want grilled rat brain for dinner?"
"I want something for dinner," I reply. "I'm starving, and we've only got enough food for about two more days. Don't you think we should start taking a look around, maybe set out some bait?"
"What the -" He stares at me. "What do you think's gonna happen, Thomas? You think we put out something tasty and we're gonna catch ourselves a cow or a nice leg of lamb? The most we could find around here - and I mean the absolute, very most - would be some kind of fucking squirrel."