Contaminated

by Em Garner

  I begin to think maybe we’re safe.

  Thanks to Dillon, we have enough food to last us for a long time. Water’s not a problem. We can even manage heat. It’s news I’m hungry for, and the radio’s not giving any. And, in fact, a little over a week after Dillon took me to Foodland, the radio goes silent. Not totally—the stations are still playing music and commercials, but that’s it. Nothing live. Not even a DJ. And, after listening long enough, I begin to hear a pattern. They’re just replaying all the same programming over and over again. I run through the dial as slowly as I can. I catch static. I catch voices, but they’re obviously prerecorded. Every station.

  I turn off the radio. Opal’s reading a book to my mom, who’s sitting by the window, looking out. I can’t stand it in here anymore. I have to go outside, breathe some fresh air. Give in to the panic I’ve been holding at bay. So I do.

  Everything is quiet. I can hear the soft brush of wind in the trees, which are just beginning to get a few leaves. I can hear the crunch of leaves on the ground as the squirrels chase one another up and over and down. I can’t hear Opal’s voice, but if I listen very, very closely, I can hear the low, constant warble of a siren. I think it sounds like a fire siren, but I can’t be sure. It’s not changing or coming closer, at least.

  I look up at the sky, which is blue and clear of clouds. I scan it for the white trails of planes. We’re so close to several airports and military bases that even in the best times, they still passed by overhead every day. Today, though, nothing interrupts the endless blue of the sky.

  When I hear the crashing of footsteps, I look around to see the source. I expect a deer, or maybe the pack of dogs. I don’t have a weapon, so I back up toward the house. I can see a tiny figure far down at the bottom of the yard, coming through the trees, not even trying to get up the driveway.

  It takes me a second or two of terror to see his face. “Dillon!”

  He puts on a burst of speed and crawls up the steep hill of my front yard on his hands and knees. He’s covered in mud and briars, his face scratched. His fingernails are coated in grime.

  “They’re everywhere,” he says. “They came into my house. They took my dad.”

  Dillon bursts into exhausted tears and sits right down on my front stoop to put his face in his dirty hands. I sit beside him and put my arm around him. I have nothing to say. I can only hold him.

  “Mom, too,” he whispers against the side of my neck. “They came in with some papers saying they were taking him away, and she… she went nuts, Velvet. She started kicking and screaming. The soldiers took her, too.”

  “Soldiers, not cops?”

  He looks up at me with tear-blurred eyes, streaks of white cutting down through the dirt on his cheeks. “Yeah. Soldiers. There were cops out, too, knocking on doors, but they’re just serving people with mandatory testing notices. Saying if you don’t report to the testing center within a certain time, you can be arrested.”

  “Dillon, I’m so sorry! What are you going to do? What can we do?”

  “Nothing, Velvet. There’s nothing we can do. I was in the back bedroom when they came in. I went out through the window. They never saw me.”

  “You came here on foot?”

  He nods. He’s a little calmer now, and doesn’t even seem embarrassed about crying. “Yeah. They’re all over the place, soldiers, cops. There are ambulances and fire trucks all over, too.”

  “Are there fires?”

  He nods again. “And I passed some car accidents. I can’t tell if it’s really another outbreak or more looting or what. But we’ll be safer here.”

  I’m not so convinced, but where else can we go? “The radio’s not saying anything. Just the same programming over and over.”

  “A few hours ago it all switched to the emergency broadcast system. TV, too.” Dillon shivers.

  I take his hand. “Come in and get cleaned up. Have something to eat and drink. Get warm.”

  * * *

  A few more days pass. We can’t be on red alert that long—it wears us out. Dillon’s quieter than usual, but I would be, too, so I do my best to keep him distracted and cheerful. Opal, also. Distracting them works for me as well.

  My mom doesn’t try to speak, but she does work with the pen and paper. It’s not just that she’s not coordinated enough to draw what she means, I think it’s the mix-up in her brain that makes her put beans in the cupboard and cereal under the sink. She knows what she wants to say, what she means, but it comes out scrambled. Still, she tries, and she seems better every day.

  The collar worries me. It continues to blink steadily when it’s supposed to stay solid green. I want to take it off her, but I’m afraid. Cutting it off will kill her. Shorting it out will kill her.

  “I need the key,” I tell Dillon one night after Opal and Mom have gone to bed, leaving us to cuddle under the blanket in front of the fire. “The special key.”

  Dillon frowns. “My mom had one. I’m sorry, I didn’t think to bring it.”

  “It’s okay.” I stroke his hair. “You didn’t know.” He won’t accept that. “I should’ve thought about it. I mean, she didn’t use it at home because my dad didn’t have the collar, but she had to use it all the time at work. I’m sure she had it. I should’ve brought it, Velvet, I’m sorry. Your mom…”

  “Even if we could take it off, Dillon, it might hurt her more than it being on. I mean, she’s getting better, right? But what if it’s somehow because of the collar? Something it’s done to her brain to reconnect the wires? We just don’t know.” I’m so tired, I can’t make sense of it. “I want to take it off her, but I don’t want to hurt her more. Maybe it’s okay she has it on.”

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” Part of that’s true, because part of me is angry that he hadn’t brought the key. But it’s not Dillon’s fault. How could he have known any of this was going to happen? How could any of us know?

  Neither of us tells the other it’s going to be okay anymore. We just listen to the radio, the same songs over and over, the same lame DJ jokes, even the same weather reports. We wait and wait for news, something to tell us maybe it’s even safe to try and get into town.

  We wait for something, for anything, but it never comes.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I’M CUTTING MY MOM’S HAIR. IT’S SO LONG and thick that it’s hard to keep clean. We can bathe every day with soap and water in the tub, but the days of long, luxurious hot-water showers with lots of suds are over, and we don’t know for how long.

  “I’m going to go chin length with it, Mom. It’ll be a lot easier to keep clean and out of your face, and it won’t be so hard to brush.” I’ve already cut Opal’s hair, though I haven’t had the guts to do mine yet. I’ll wash it in a bucket of freezing water and spend an hour combing it, if necessary, to keep it long and pretty.

  “Uno!” Opal cries and slaps down the card. She squints her eyes when she laughs.

  I catch Dillon’s wink and think he’s letting her win. My mom shifts in the chair. I hold the scissors steady, gather her hair into a ponytail, and cut it as evenly across the back as I can. I put the hair, still tied with the elastic band, in an old brown-paper grocery bag and then trim the ends. Or try to. It’s hard when Mom starts twitching.

  “Mom, you have to stay still.”

  She twitches again. I put a hand on her shoulder, thinking she’s trying to talk, but her muscles are hard and taut under my hand. She falls forward, off the chair.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no…” I drop the scissors and kneel beside her.

  I don’t understand. She looks the way she did the day in the apartment when she went into Mercy Mode. But nobody’s threatening her now, and even if she thought me cutting her hair was traumatic, she showed no signs of trying to get away or fight me about it.

  “Mom!” I’m not sure what to do, so I tip her head back a little.

  Her eyes are glazed. Her jaw opens, snaps shut. Her body goes stiff.

  The light on the
collar’s gone red. Steady, unblinking red.

  “Dillon!”

  He’s there in an instant, kneeling beside her. He takes her hand. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I was cutting her hair, and then she just started… doing this.” I’m aware that Opal’s watching us. I don’t want her to see this, but I don’t know how to keep her from it.

  “Malinda.” Dillon says this quietly.

  My mom’s eyelids flutter. Is she focusing on him? I can’t tell.

  “Breathe slowly,” Dillon says.

  I don’t think she can. I don’t think she can do anything but succumb to what the collar’s doing. It doesn’t seem to be getting worse, though, not like in Mercy Mode, when she went into a seizure.

  That’s when we hear it from outside. Loud, constant beeping, the sound a huge truck makes when it’s backing up. The warble of a siren. And then, distorted but understandable, the voice.

  “… Under government-ordered inspection,” the voice is saying. “All residents will be prepared to allow entry. Repeat, this neighborhood is under government-ordered inspection. All residents will be prepared to allow entry.”

  “They can’t do this, can they?” I wasn’t sure I’d be able to speak until the words came out.

  Dillon shakes his head. Together, we hold my mom’s hands. She’s gone pale, her face strained. She makes a low, endless mutter of pain.

  Who’s doing this? Sending wireless signals into her brain? Killing her by remote control?

  “Do something!” Opal screams suddenly. “Help her! Help Mama!”

  “We have to help her. We have to get this collar off. They’re only taking people with collars,” I say.

  “They took my dad,” Dillon reminds me. “And he’d had the ice-pick treatment, remember?”

  “Then we have to get this collar off her and make sure she can speak. That’s all they’ll need. Right? Right?” I cry, desperate.

  Unless they want to take us all in for mandatory testing, or if they even do it right here, in the field. Unless they’re just taking us all away again, this time not to assisted housing but to some test labs somewhere, to stick us with needles and try to figure us out.

  “You need to get this collar off my mother,” I say to Dillon in a low, steady voice so unlike mine, it’s as though a stranger’s talking. “Now.”

  We have no idea how much time we have before they get here, or what they’ll do when they arrive. I just want to save her. Somehow.

  “Paper clip.” Dillon strokes the hair from my mom’s forehead. “Get me a paper clip.”

  “Opal, go!”

  She scampers off. Dillon loosens the buttons at the throat of my mom’s shirt. Her hand tightens on mine, but she seems calmer. Opal’s back in a minute with a handful of paper clips that scatter on the floor.

  Dillon picks one up and bends it straight. “There’s a slot on the side. We have to stick this in there. Short it out.”

  “No, no. I don’t want to short it out!” I flash back to the training video. I think about losing my mom.

  The voice is getting closer. So are the loud beeping and the siren.

  My mom doesn’t stop twitching, but she does turn her head to look at me. Her eyes are wide. Her mouth’s turned down in pain.

  She shakes her head slowly. She lets go of my hand and puts her fingertips to her temples, one at a time. Then to the collar.

  “Take it off,” I hear myself say, looking into her eyes.

  She blinks. I think this means she’s relieved. I focus. I remember how she reacted that first night when I brought her home, when she was still so afraid because of whatever they’d done to her before they let her go. How far she’s come since then.

  And I think of how much I love her.

  It’s a risk we have to take. She wants it, and even though I’m not convinced we can do this—if it were that easy to disconnect the collar with a paper clip, wouldn’t more people have done it? I nod at Dillon.

  “Hold her still,” he says. “I’m going to go as fast as I can.”

  Opal runs out of the kitchen. I think it’s because she can’t bear to watch, but I hear the front door open. She’s back in a minute while I try to find the tiny hole Dillon says is on the collar.

  “They’re in trucks,” Opal cries. “They’re across the street, knocking on the door!”

  How long? Ten minutes? Five? Maybe only three. Our driveway’s long, but it’s not that long. It’s also nowhere near big enough for a truck, not to mention the tree’s still down across the bottom. They’ll have to walk up. That gives us some time.

  Dillon’s running his fingers over the collar, but he shakes his head. “Can’t feel it. You do it. Your fingers are smaller.”

  I take the paper clip. I feel the collar, which is warm to the touch. I run my fingertips back and forth along it… and then I feel it. The tiniest, weeniest hole in the plastic. Just big enough for the tip of a paper clip.

  Opal’s run off again; she’s back in seconds, breathless. “They’re coming up the driveway.”

  It’s now or never. My mom’s gone quiet, though sweat stands out on her brow, and her mouth is pinched.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  She closes her eyes.

  I slip the metal into the hole. I feel a slight resistance.

  “What should I do?”

  “Push it in as far as it will go,” Dillon says. “It’s like the reset button on a Wii or a hard drive. Hold it for a few seconds. It should reset.”

  Something whirs inside the collar. The light stays red. My mom gasps. Opal cries out, but she’s a good, brave kid, and she runs out of the kitchen again to check on the soldiers. She doesn’t come back this time, but I don’t have time to worry.

  My mom’s entire body jerks, every muscle stiff. The collar doesn’t beep this time, it growls. All the lights start blinking. I don’t know what this means.

  We can’t hold her still. She thrashes, kicking, and gets Dillon in the stomach. He lets out an “oof,” and doubles over for a second but then comes right back to hold on to her shoulders, trying to keep her still. Her heels drum on the floor. Her hair, the style I just cut, whips in front of her face.

  I’m not crying. Not screaming. Not breathing.

  I’m watching my mother die.

  Then in the next instant, the collar beeps. Something unhinges. It springs open, and Dillon yanks it off her neck. My mom gasps, but goes still. Her eyes are closed, her breathing shallow.

  Dillon gets up, takes the collar, disappears into the pantry with it. I hold my mom’s hand and wait for her to wake up. I hear Opal’s voice, high and chattering. The thump of boots.

  My mom opens her eyes. Dillon’s there, collar gone. Together we put our hands under her arms and help her sit in one of the kitchen chairs.

  “Mom. Can you hear me?”

  She nods. Her expression is more clear than I’ve seen it in forever. She looks pale, tired, still in pain, and her hair is damp with sweat, but she looks better. Unbelievably better.

  “And I like horses, do you like horses? And my favorite flavor of ice cream is peanut-butter chip, is that what you like?”

  I have to hand it to the kid. She knows how to talk someone’s ear off, keeping the soldier’s focus on her and not what’s going on in our kitchen. My mom’s still shaking a little when I turn to face the soldiers. Four of them in full fatigues. They have guns, but this no longer surprises me.

  “Hi,” I say, like we have soldiers in our kitchen every day.

  “Ma’am.” He nods at me. Then at my mom. “We’re doing a sweep of the neighborhood.”

  “Oh…” I act pleasantly stupid. “Are we not supposed to be here?”

  He shakes his head after a second. “This neighborhood’s been closed off and presumed empty, that’s all.”

  “Oh. Well, we’ve lived here for a long time.” I shrug. “Are you kicking us out?”

  “Our orders are merely to make a sweep of the neighborhood and check th
e safety of the residents, ma’am.” He’s eyeing my mom, who hasn’t said a word. “We’re looking for Contaminated. Our orders are to bring them all in. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you all to cooperate.”

  He looks like he’s had a lot of people not cooperating, and I sort of feel sorry for him and the three others with him, who haven’t said anything. I shrug again. “Sure, okay. But we’re all fine here.”

  “Ma’am,” the soldier says to my mom. “I’m going to have to ask you to stand up and show me your neck.”

  I don’t look at her. I don’t want to give anything away. My mom stands up slowly, pushing her chair back. From the corner of my eye, I see her fold open her shirt.

  The soldier looks relieved. “You, too, sir.”

  “Sure.” Dillon does.

  So do Opal and I, for good measure. My heart’s pounding so hard in my throat, I’m sure they’re going to see it throbbing through my skin.

  The soldier pauses again and focuses on my mom. “Ma’am, is this your house?”

  She nods. His face hardens. He points at me. “This your daughter?”

  She nods again. Everything’s lost. They’re going to know.

  “What’s her name?”

  “My name’s Opal,” Opal says.

  The soldier’s not a machine. He looks at my sister. I see a struggle on his face, but in the end it doesn’t matter. He looks back at my mom.

  “What’s your daughter’s name, ma’am?”

  The other three have tightened their grips on their guns. I hear the soft sigh of Dillon’s breath. I think I’m breathing but everything is tipping a little, so maybe I’ve forgotten.

  “Her name,” my mother says in a thick and rough but clear voice, “is Velvet.”

  AFTERWORD

  THE SOLDIERS LEAVE.

  My mom blinks and blinks. We help her to the couch, where she lies down and promptly falls asleep. I watch her breathing and wonder if she’ll wake up.

  “Turn on the radio,” Dillon says. “Maybe something’s on.”