“What happened?” I asked.
“He stuck me with a needle while I was asleep.” Deirdre said, probing a spot on her neck with trembling fingers. “Oh god, I think he infected me with that fucking virus.” She looked past us; there was an awful fear in her eyes. She screamed and charged for the stairs; I ducked into a doorway to let her pass, but Cortez stood his ground. He grabbed Deirdre’s wrist as she went by, and twisted. Deirdre’s feet came out from under her as if by magic; the knife thumped to the floor. Cortez dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her from behind as she struggled. I grabbed the knife.
“Calm down, calm down,” Cortez said, but Deirdre went on screaming. Her screams were deafening—it brought back memories of her flash concerts in the squares.
I went downstairs, past the others, who were trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and shoved the kitchen door open. “Did you infect her?” I shouted at Sebastian. He was examining his wounded shoulder. Blood was dribbling off his elbow, splattering on the floor.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. He looked up at me, grinning like a loon. “How could I not? Every minute is excruciating for that poor girl. Can’t you see it? I alleviated the suffering with one pinprick.” He snapped his fingers.
“It’s not up to you!” I said. “You don’t get to decide that for her.”
He shrugged. “I did, though.” A few drops of blood dripped onto the tile floor. Sebastian tisked and shook his head, still smiling. “Don’t worry about it. She’ll thank me in a few hours.”
“You’d better take a walk until we can calm her down.” It was Ange. Sebastian nodded, grabbed a kitchen towel and headed out the back door.
“I’ll kill him,” Deirdre shouted from the next room. “I’ll fucking kill him. I don’t want to be like you!”
“Not good,” Ange said.
“No, not good.” We went into the living room. Cortez had Deirdre in a full nelson.
“Did he really infect her?” Colin asked.
Deirdre grew still and looked at me, eyes wide. When I nodded, she threw her head back and let out a squeal of such terror and anguish that I stumbled backward. Cortez slowly released his grip on her and let her sink to the floor.
I went outside.
The morning was surprisingly crisp for March. A light breeze rattled the bamboo. Jeannie and Ange were already out there, talking in low tones.
“Sebastian’s got to go,” I said, shaking my head.
“That’s what we were just saying,” Jeannie said. “As soon as he’s physically able, we need to send him packing.”
“What a nut case,” I said. “I think all of these Doctor Happy people are a little off-kilter.” I twirled my finger near my temple. “That virus might make you happy, but it also makes you a little crazy.”
Ange and Jeannie nodded agreement. Inside, Deirdre was sobbing.
“It’s probably not a nice thing to say, but she’s probably better off with the virus, though,” Ange said. “Not that I’m condoning what he did.”
I smiled, kicked my toe against the steel porch rail. Maybe she did, but I still felt a sick dread at the thought of what she was going through in there. It must be terrifying, thinking of that virus racing around in your brain changing the chemistry, changing your personality, the way you think about things.
There was no way we could travel with Deirdre in the state she was in, so we waited. Sebastian kept his distance, lounging on the porch two houses down, his feet propped on the rail, humming, sometimes bursting out laughing for no apparent reason.
I spent some time in my room, some exploring surrounding houses looking for salvage. After five or six hours, the living room had finally grown quiet, so I ventured in to see how Deirdre was doing.
Cortez was still with her; they were sitting on the hardwood floor, a couple of glasses of water beside them. Deirdre was staring at the floor, her eyes wide. Cortez nodded a greeting as I took a seat on the couch.
“How is she?” I asked.
Deirdre looked over at me. “Why are you asking him?” I felt a chill as I looked at her face—her new face. It was nothing like the old one. The belligerent eyes and the withering, sarcastic twist of her mouth had vanished. Instead she was a mix of wide-eyed amusement… and something else. It ran like a ripple just under her skin.
She threw her head back and laughed as if I’d just said something absolutely hilarious. She laughed and laughed, finally subsiding into keening gasps and the occasional giggle.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
Deirdre considered the question, running a hand through her hair. “I feel… just peachy. Like the cherry on top of the sundae. Like the apple of every boy’s eye.” Shepatted Cortez’s calf. “Thanks for being my designated driver.” She stood, twisted at the waist to the right, then the left, like a runner getting loose.
“I think I’ll take a walk,” she said. We watched her saunter out the door.
Cortez and I looked at each other. “Wow,” I said. “She didn’t say ‘fuck’ once.”
“I know. Eerie.”
I followed her out, wondering how one takes a walk when the world is clogged with bamboo. From the vantage point of the empty front stoop I scanned the block. The bamboo was thrashing halfway across the street. The disturbance continued in a crooked line. A giggle drifted on the breeze, just loud enough for me to hear.
It was hard to grasp the notion of a happy, carefree Deirdre. There would be nothing recognizable left of her.
Across the street I spotted her rising out of the bamboo, climbing the ladder on the water tower. She was moving fast, a huge smile frozen on her face, her little legs stretching to reach the rungs.
Cortez joined me on the stoop.
“Where the hell is she going?” I said, pointing.
Cortez spotted her and grunted surprise. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s gonna climb to the top and sing songs about lollipops.”
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Deirdre! You won’t be able to get down.” I know she heard me, because she paused for a second, but she kept climbing. More tribe members came out, alerted by my shout.
“What is she doing?” Jeannie asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “She said she was going for a walk. I didn’t understand the old Deirdre, let alone this new one.”
“Deirdre!” I called. “Please come on down.” She was up high now, thirty or forty feet. The top was at least fifty. It made me dizzy just seeing her up that high.
“Deirdre,” Ange shouted, “it’s too high! Come down!” She put her hand over her mouth.
Deirdre reached the top, a narrow catwalk that skirted the bottom of the tank. She reached up, pulled herself onto the catwalk and turned to face out. She was still laughing, her chest and shoulders heaving with the violence of it. At least I thought she was laughing; from this distance laughing and crying would look about the same.
She lifted her leg and swung it over the railing.
“No!” everyone screamed in unison. Everyone but me. My lungs were frozen; my heart had stopped. Deirdre swung her other leg over so that she was sitting on the narrow rail.
She pushed off into empty space.
She looked like a little doll, a doll a naughty little girl had hurled over a railing. Her clothes flapped in the wind as she fell.
I was the first to reach her. She’d landed in a dry drainage canal, on a bank covered with stones. I pulled her head into my arms and held it. The others broke through the bamboo in ones and twos, and cried, or cursed, or asked Deirdre’s lifeless body why.
Sebastian came last, his arm bandaged with white socks.
“Pack up your stuff and get out,” I said.
“She just needed to give it time,” Sebastian said.
“Go,” I screamed.
Sebastian shrugged, turned away. “I’m so sorry,” he said as he disappeared into the bamboo.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Ange. I put my hand over hers and squeezed. Another han
d clapped my other shoulder. Cortez.
“Everyone?” It was Colin, shouting from the house. “I think the baby’s coming.”
“Go on,” Cortez said. “I’ll take care of Deirdre.” He gave my shoulder a hard squeeze, then nudged me toward the house.
I pulled myself up, my legs wobbly, and headed toward our temporary home.
Jeannie was on the couch in the living room with Colin kneeling beside her, holding her hand. Colin looked up. “Can you help me?”
I wanted to argue that I didn’t know anything about delivering a baby, but I could see in his expression that he wasn’t asking because he thought I’d be any better at it than anyone else. He just wanted me by his side.
I knelt beside the couch.
Ange grabbed Colin’s wrist, pulled him up, and repositioned him at Jeannie’s head. “Your job is to be up here with your wife. We’ll worry about this end.”
Ange looked at me. “Ready?”
“What do we do?” I asked. I was so disoriented; I needed time to deal with what had just happened.
Ange shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”
I turned. Sophia was kneeling behind us, her cheeks stained with tears. “Can you and Jean Paul build a fire and boil water?”
“Have you ever done this before?” Jean Paul asked.
“I’ll do it,” Cortez said, glaring at Jean Paul. I hadn’t seen Cortez return.
“Try to find some clean towels, too,” Ange suggested. “If there aren’t any, clean clothes.”
I think we were just lucky. The baby’s head was pointing straight down, and we didn’t have to do much except catch him when he came out.
Colin and Jeannie had a son. I both envied and pitied them. What would it be like, to be sick with worry every minute that something awful is going to happen to your child?
Chapter 8:
Pig Thief
Summer, 2033 (Two months later)
Ange rocked gently, one foot planted on the wood porch, the other tucked underneath her on the swing. We could see much of downtown Swainsboro from this vantage point—a dress shop, antique store, pawn shops huddled together in a row of red-brick buildings made this place feel deceptively small and old-fashioned.
There were people foraging in the music store across the street, their voices and the clatter of things drifting out of the broken store window. I considered going over and seeing if they had any news that we didn’t, but it wasn’t worth it. They wouldn’t know anything we didn’t.
People had been fleeing the country for the safety of the cities in droves for the past few years; now the cities weren’t safe either. But there was nothing out here to eat. There was nowhere to go.
Five or six people were relaxing on the wide white steps of the courthouse, their heads propped on their packs, a water bottle passing among them. They were young, and reminded me of our tribe back in the early days of the depression.
Music bleated in the distance. It was familiar. It grew louder, and
I recognized it as a classic rock tune by the Young Mozarts: “Carry My Heart Around with You.” The song was a little too saccharine for my taste, but under the circumstances it gave me a warm feeling as I watched the sun reflect off the shards of broken glass in the upper window of the Dragon Fire Tae Kwon Do studio. The music got louder. Ange stood, and I followed suit, peering down the street in the direction of the sound.
There was a placard bobbing up out of the bamboo, the person carrying it hidden. The banner read “Free Meal! Ask me how!”
“What the hell?” I said. Ange pulled open the screen door and called to the others to come out. They flooded onto the porch. I pointed to the sign.
“What the hell is that?” Colin asked. “It must be the fed army, looking for recruits.”
The kids in front of the courthouse were standing and staring at the sign. One of them shouted and waved; the sign changed directions, heading toward them. Two people approached on the steps—a man and a woman. The man laid the placard down. The kids formed a semi-circle around the couple.
Hungry as we were, we weren’t stupid. We watched the people for a few minutes.
“What do you think the catch is?” Sophia asked.
“I say we find out,” Cortez said.
“What, just waltz into an obvious trap?” Jean Paul said.
Cortez shrugged. “There are only two of them. I’m gonna check it out, you guys can stay here.”
“They’re probably armed,” Jean Paul said, “and have two dozen friends nearby.”
Cortez pulled a pistol out of his pants pocket. “I’m armed, too.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said, mostly because Jean Paul was against the idea. We climbed down the porch steps and slid between the waxy bamboo.
“That guy really has a stick up his ass,” Cortez said.
I chuckled. “He doesn’t seem to grasp that he’s not in an office building surrounded by private security any more.”
We stopped fifty feet shy of the steps, hoping to catch some of the conversation before deciding whether to proceed, but it’s difficult to move through bamboo without announcing your approach.
“Sounds like we’ve got more visitors,” The woman said. “Hello in there!” she called.
Cortez called a greeting in return; we pushed the last few yards and broke onto the white marble steps. The crowd was welcoming, especially the couple with the sign. They told us and the six kids (who I could now see were actually quite young, mostly in their mid-teens) how to get to the empty Bi-Lo where their tribe was camped, that their tribe would indeed provide us with a meal, no strings attached. Cortez and I probed them with questions. We didn’t want to seem ungracious, but we were still skeptical, despite how well-intentioned and harmless the couple seemed.
They explained that their tribe was looking to grow, to create a larger community and carve out a new town where they could all be safe and live a civilized life. It sounded nice, but my bullshit meter was in the red.
“What do you think?” I asked Cortez as the teens set off toward the Bi-Lo.
“Let’s play along for a while,” he said.
We could smell pork barbecue before the Bi-Lo was even in sight. The place was doing a fairly brisk business, considering there probably weren’t a hundred people within twenty miles of here. A man with kind eyes greeted us at the door. He didn’t have to introduce himself.
“Hello, Rumor,” I said.
He no longer looked like a Jumpy-Jump—he was dressed in a pair of tattered blue jeans and a green t-shirt—but as he hugged me like a long lost brother and cried that I was the man who had let him see the light, the singsong accent was the same.
“Come, come, you look hungry,” he said. “Let me prepare you a plate.” He guided us toward white plastic chairs with a gentle hand on my shoulder blade.
Cortez and I each accepted a paper plate of pork with a side of corn.
“Enjoy your food,” Rumor insisted. “When you’re feeling good and plenty we can catch up, and chat a little about what we have to offer you.”
“What you have to offer us?” Cortez said, eyeing the food warily.
Rumor waved at the plate. “There are no tricks here. My trickster days are long behind me. Eat, then we’ll talk.”
Cortez and I looked at each other. I shrugged.
“Can we get our friends?” Cortez asked Rumor.
Rumor assured him that by all means he should fetch our friends. Cortez went to get them while I ate.
I willed myself to eat slowly, to savor the wonderfully juicy meat, despite the urgent cries from my stomach that I eat faster.
The concrete floor of the Bi-Lo was scattered with tents and sleeping bags. Here and there people sat conversing in white plastic chairs, always in twos, one person holding a Styrofoam plate and mostly listening.
“How have you been doing?” Rumor asked, handing me a paper cup of sweet iced tea. He swung a chair around and sat so our knees almost touched.
“I’m no
t dead, so, better than most I guess.”
“Are you happy, though, Jasper?” Rumor asked. It surprised me that he remembered my name. Of course, I had been the one who’d let him see the light.
“No. I’m hungry and scared, and people are dying all around me. Of course I’m not happy.”
“I once offered you happiness,” Rumor said.
I didn’t get what he was saying, then I remembered. “Ah, the vial of blood.” I paused in my eating, eyed the food on my fork.
“Exactly, the vial.” Rumor pushed his palm toward my plate.“Eat. I can see you tensing, like a deer who’s just heard a branch crack. I gave you my word, there are no unexpected seasonings in the food.”
I ate. It was too late anyway. But I couldn’t help distrusting this guy. I’m not sure I could ever forgive someone for doing what he did. That he was regretful for killing Ange’s dog now, after I infected him with Doctor Happy, did not seem to merit absolution. I’ve never been a huge believer in giving people a pass for hurting other people just because they’re sorry about it later, and when that regret is virus-induced, I’m even less inclined.
“So that’s what this is all about? You’re recruiting people to the virus?”
Rumor laughed merrily. “Yes, of course!”
“But it’s not in the food?”
“We don’t trick people. We invite them here and offer them an opportunity to join our tribe. If we were going to introduce you to the virus by force, wouldn’t it be easier to surprise you with a needle as you walked in the door?”
That was true. “If you want to spread the virus, why don’t you just do that?”
“Is that how you would do it?” Rumor asked.
“No.”
He shrugged. “That answers your question. We respect people’s rights, as long as they respect others’ rights.”
I didn’t say anything. If they were so damned ethical, why hadn’t the people with the sign told us they were infected with Doctor Happy right up front? And then there was Deirdre. Sebastian hadn’t given her any choice.
Outside, Cortez appeared, trailed by the others. I waved them in. Baby Joel was sleeping in Colin’s arms, still looking too small to be real.
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