The Becoming

by Jessica Meigs

“It’s not,” Josie agreed. She nodded and chewed her lip again as she twisted from side to side, never taking her wide eyes off of Cade. “It’s not SpongeBob.”

  “Well, what is it then?” Cade sent up a prayer that Josie hadn’t seen anything that would traumatize her. Cade’s older sister would kill her if Josie came back from her latest visit with a new set of nightmares as a parting gift. Cade was sure that Lindsey still hadn’t forgiven her for the last batch of nightmares after Cade took Josie to the circus and the girl had a run-in with a clown.

  “There’s a lady talking and people running and yelling.” The little girl looked worriedly down the hall toward the staircase. If Cade focused hard enough, she could just make out a woman talking, her tone urgent, though her words were indistinct.

  “Did you tell Andrew?” Cade asked as she looked down the hall with Josie. She focused her gaze on the head of the staircase. Her eyes narrowed, as if she were trying to will Andrew to get off the couch in the den and fix the problem downstairs.

  “He didn’t say anything,” Josie replied, much to Cade’s surprise. It wasn’t the answer she expected; she really wasn’t sure what she had expected. But it definitely wasn’t that. “I think he’s still sleeping.” She shifted her eyes back to Cade and scuffed her bare foot at the hallway carpet.

  Cade made a face of annoyance; she would have to inform Andrew—again—that she wouldn’t tolerate him lounging around sleeping all day. She was already irritated that Andrew hadn’t come out to join the rest of them for the barbecue. Ignoring Josie when the girl had a problem was another thing altogether, a situation that might have gotten him kicked out and sent home if Cade had been in a worse mood.

  Cade set the comb on the sink and knelt down in front of the little girl. She brushed Josie’s bangs back from her brown eyes and gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ll tell you what,” she started. She leaned to look at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock in the bedroom across the hall. The numbers told her that it was after nine at night. “You’re going back home tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s past your bedtime, and you need plenty of rest for the trip back home, don’t you?” Cade suggested. She hoped dearly that she sounded at least slightly persuasive. It would be much easier to talk to Andrew with Josie tucked away in bed and not practically in front of them when things degraded into an argument—as their discussions always seemed to do lately.

  “I guess,” Josie mumbled with a small shrug. The little girl didn’t quite look at her, and Cade knew that Josie didn’t agree. But her droopy eyes told Cade everything she needed to know.

  Cade offered Josie a hand as she stood again. “Come on, chick. Let’s get your teeth brushed and get you all tucked in.”

  Josie went to sleep easily, for which Cade was thankful. She smiled indulgently as she looked in at her niece from the doorway, watching as she curled onto her side with her cherished stuffed elephant in her arms. Cade turned on the night light and slipped out, leaving the door cracked so she could hear if Josie called out for her in the middle of the night.

  Cade went back downstairs after a quick stop in her bedroom to change into her own pajamas. She paused in the doorway of the den and looked in on Andrew. Surprisingly, he wasn’t on the couch where she had left him. She turned her head and spotted him in the kitchen. He stood in front of the opened refrigerator, staring inside listlessly.

  “I think Josie’s been playing with the remote,” she told him. Andrew didn’t reply, but Cade saw his head bob as he nodded. Cade sighed out loud as she went to the couch and began to dig around the cushions and pillows, searching for the remote as she half-listened to the television.

  …say they have no indications of what the White House plans to do regarding the viral out…

  “Ah, here it is.” Cade scooped up the remote triumphantly and shoved the cushions back where they belonged. She aimed the remote behind her and turned off the television, cutting off the woman’s voice with the click of a button. Tossing the remote onto the coffee table, Cade headed to the kitchen door again to look in on Andrew.

  Andrew remained in front of the opened fridge, drinking straight from a carton of orange juice. Cade made a face. Strike one, she thought. She’d have to make a note to toss out the remainder of the juice before Josie drank any of it and buy a fresh carton. Especially considering how under-the-weather Andrew had been feeling all day since he’d gotten back from his trip.

  Andrew lowered the carton and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “What was that about Josie and the TV?” he asked. He looked pale and a little sweaty, his cheeks flushed, and his voice hinted at just how tired he actually was.

  “She’s playing with the remote again,” Cade said. “She changed the channel onto a horror movie or something.”

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t even notice,” Andrew admitted with a wince. He moved toward Cade and wrapped his arms around her in a loose embrace. “Why don’t we relax on the couch, maybe watch a movie or something?”

  Cade grinned despite her annoyance. “I think I like that idea. Are you feeling up to it?” She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and frowned; he felt hotter than he should have. “You feel like you’re running a fever.”

  “I’ll be fine. Let me go get us some drinks, okay?” Andrew offered. He turned to go back into the kitchen, and Cade watched with a deeper frown as he wobbled on his feet. She shook her head and went back to the coffee table, scooping up the remote again and turning the television back on.

  The horror movie Josie had found was still on. Cade made a face of disgust and jabbed at a button on the remote to change the channel. She really couldn’t stand horror movies. The senseless violence made her stomach turn. After spending twenty-five years of her life living in Israel and seeing horrible acts of brutality committed on the streets, Cade no longer found anything awesome or cool about watching people get hacked to death, even if it was fake.

  Cade shook herself free from her thoughts and glanced up at the television. She frowned in confusion. She was sure she had changed the channel, but the same footage still played on the screen. She pressed the channel button a few more times, thinking maybe the batteries in the remote had died, before she realized that similar footage was playing on nearly every local channel. Reflexively, she changed it to a news station.

  Cade’s eyes widened, and she bit back a gasp of shock.

  “Rioting in Downtown Memphis!” the banner across the bottom of the screen proclaimed.

  Cade sank onto the couch, her eyes still wide. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the remote control almost hard enough to break it, her heart pounding in her chest. She watched as a nearly frantic journalist reported the events. The street behind her was aglow with flames from a tall building, and several people wandered around in shock as emergency personnel swarmed over the scene. A bead of sweat rolled down the journalist’s face as she spoke shakily into the microphone, and Cade wondered if the sweat was from stress or from the heat of the fire.

  “What’s going on?” Andrew asked as he came into the living room. He held two drinking glasses in his hands; condensation ran down the sides to wet his skin. He squinted at the television and cocked his head to the side.

  Cade glanced at Andrew long enough to take in the fact that it was indeed him before she turned her gaze right back to the television. “There’s a riot in Memphis,” she replied. Her voice betrayed her shock at the news.

  “Wow,” Andrew breathed. He dropped to the couch beside Cade, nearly spilling the drinks all over both of them. When he plunked the glasses onto the coffee table, the liquid in one of them sloshed out over the rim. “When did this start?” Andrew asked as he wiped the condensation off on the thighs of his pants.

  “I’m not sure,” Cade admitted. She turned up the volume after a momentary glance back at the staircase. She didn’t want to wake Josie by turning the volume up too much; she and Andrew would never get the preschooler back to sleep i
f she came downstairs.

  Andrew gave an almost imperceptible nod, intent on the screen for several minutes. The silence during that time hung heavily between them, and the feeling of it lying across her chest like a wet blanket made Cade uncomfortable. “That’s really not all that far from here,” Andrew said as a map of Memphis came up on the screen. A bright red star marked the location of the riots and fires in question. Andrew grabbed his drink as he studied the screen and added, “Barely three miles.”

  Cade drew in a breath of surprise as she realized that Andrew was right. Three miles wasn’t much at all. It was less than the distance she ran every morning: five miles, religiously, just after sunrise. Andrew abandoned his drinking glass and went to the front window, his steps still unsteady as he crossed the carpet to look out into the darkness. “You don’t think it will come over this way, do you?” she asked.

  “No, I think we’ll be okay here,” Andrew said. He rested his hand against the cold pane of glass. He spoke in an absent tone, as if he weren’t totally focused on what he said. It disturbed Cade enough to draw her attention away from the television, and she frowned as she rose from her seat to join him. She wasn’t reassured or convinced. The sound of the reporter’s voice on the television made her stop in mid-step, and she half-turned to look back at the screen. The woman’s voice had taken on a heavier, more noticeable sense of urgency.

  We’ve just received a report … I’m sorry, is this correct? the reporter asked someone off camera, her voice shaking slightly. Cade couldn’t decide if the reporter was excited or terrified, but both options made her feel nauseated. She dug her nails into her palms as she stepped closer to the television. We have just received an unverified report from one of the county hospitals that numerous victims of the riots appear to be in some sort of delusional state. There are reports of the injured attacking the doctors and nurses trying to assist them…

  “Jesus, what is going on?” Cade snapped. A twinge of genuine fear buzzed down her spine. She reached for the television remote again and flipped through a few channels. Cade settled on another news program, where a somber-looking man sat behind a desk, holding a small sheaf of papers; she could just make out the faint tremble of the sheets as the man’s hands shook.

  Once again, the footage you are about to see may not be appropriate for younger viewers. It was taken on the street outside the Southside residential fire by Fox News reporter Veronica Sawyers.

  Andrew drifted away from the window and stood behind the sofa. The scene changed to footage of a young, healthy-looking blond reporter, microphone in hand, her hair and makeup perfectly applied.

  Police and first responders are asking everyone to please remain indoors at this time. They’re suggesting that you lock all of your doors and windows and— She halted in her report and turned in reaction to someone speaking off camera. As she let out a shocked gasp and a muffled Oh my God, the camera panned around to the scene near her.

  What Cade saw froze the blood in her veins.

  A young man had been thrown to the sidewalk by two other men. They crouched over him and pawed at his clothes with a frightening degree of franticness. Cade thought at first that they were mugging the man, but it became apparent soon enough that something much more awful was happening. Blood blossomed forth. As one of the men leaned down and bit the still-struggling young man, tearing a chunk of flesh from his shoulder, Cade let out a choked gasp and turned away from the screen. She clapped her hand over her mouth as bile rose into her throat. She turned her eyes instead to Andrew. He stared at the television, his eyes just as wide as hers, his skin pale.

  “Oh my God,” Andrew whispered a weak echo of the television reporter. His hands trembled as he held them at his sides. He reached out and gripped the back of the sofa as he saw Cade looking at them.

  “What are they doing?” Cade asked. She risked another cautious glance at the television. She didn’t want to see anything further, but her morbid curiosity won out over her disgust.

  “I think … I think they might be eating him,” Andrew said. His fingers dug into the sofa cushion, and he licked his lips nervously.

  On the screen, Veronica Sawyers let out a small shriek of fear as the two men, moving away from their now-dead victim on the sidewalk, started in her direction. My God, they’re coming this way! Run! she yelled. The camera thudded to the ground as the cameraman decided that the reporter’s advice was worth taking. Blood-spattered sneakers filled the screen as the killers ran by. Then the feed went black and cut back to the studio, where the news anchor looked even more shaken than he had before the clip had aired.

  Before Cade or Andrew could speak, the shrill sound of the phone ringing cut through the air. Cade stood abruptly from her perch on the edge of the couch and moved to answer it. She saw Ethan’s name on the caller ID and snatched up the receiver without any hesitation. “Eth?”

  “Did you see the news?” Ethan asked without preamble. He sounded breathless and upset. Cade didn’t like his tone of voice; it made her stomach feel like it was twisted up in knots.

  “Yeah, I did. What the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know, but Anna’s gone.”

  Cade’s eyes widened as she understood the source of Ethan’s agitation. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

  “I mean just that. We were getting ready to go out, and she got a call from the hospital asking her to come in. It was on a volunteer basis only, but she insisted on going,” Ethan explained. “The PD called and told me to stay put for now and that they’d call in two hours for me to come relieve the ones already there, so I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, and I wanted her here with me. I tried to stop her. I don’t want her out there by herself. But Anna was determined to go, even though I kept telling her that it was too dangerous. We argued about it, and she eventually took the keys to the Lexus and left without saying anything else.”

  “Oh God. Is there anything I can do?” Cade asked. She shifted her weight onto one leg and rested her hip against the table. She fought the urge to look back at the television as the news anchor warned of more potential graphic images.

  “I don’t know. I need to go after her,” Ethan said. His voice took on a heavy sense of urgency. Cade’s heart choked her as she shook her head at the phone, even though Ethan couldn’t see the movement.

  “No, you don’t need to go anywhere. You need to stay put,” Cade said. “If she comes back and you’re gone, she won’t know where to find you. Have you tried her cell phone yet?”

  “Yes. I think the network is overloaded,” Ethan said. His voice was taut with thinly veiled frustration. “None of my calls or texts will go through.”

  “All the more reason to stay right where you are,” Cade said. She grabbed her purse and dug through it. She located her own cell phone and flipped it open. Just as Ethan had said, the display read, Searching for network. She frowned and tried turning it off and back on, but that didn’t help. “What should we do?” she asked. She kept her voice low, and she twisted to put her back to Andrew. “Do you think this is bad?”

  “I only know what I see on the news and what I hear on the police scanner,” Ethan said. Cade sucked in a breath and bit her bottom lip hard enough to bruise when she heard just how serious he sounded.

  “And what are you hearing?”

  “I’m hearing a lot of shit that’s telling me that nobody should be out on the streets and that everybody should be getting somewhere safe,” Ethan said. “I’m hearing riots and robberies and lootings and muggings and carjackings and murders and everything else illegal you can think of. All of this has happened within the past hour or two. So yeah, I think it’s pretty bad.”

  Cade glanced at the television again as she digested Ethan’s words. Thankfully, the screen showed only the news anchor speaking solemnly into the camera. Andrew still had his back to her. Cade read the banner at the bottom of the screen again and asked in a hushed voice, “Do you think this is related to that virus outbreak in Atlanta? Th
ey had rioting too, you know.”

  “It might be. I don’t know,” Ethan admitted. “One of the symptoms is high fever, and Anna said that that could cause some delirium if it was high enough. That could be what has people acting so crazy. That’s just my theory, though. I’m definitely not a medical expert.”

  “Eth…” Cade glanced at the television again and said hesitantly, “I saw on TV some footage of a couple of guys actually eating a man. Does that sound like just a case of bad fever and delirium to you?”

  A weighty silence fell on the line between them. “Eating him?” Ethan finally said. The incredulousness in his voice came through loud and clear on the telephone line. “Are you serious?”

  “As a heart attack,” she said.

  “Fuck,” Ethan breathed out slowly. “This shit is … there are no words. I have no idea what is going on.”

  “I doubt anyone does,” Cade admitted. She looked toward the stairs and then back behind her once again. Andrew still stood behind the sofa, his eyes locked onto the television. “Ethan, I’ve got to go. I think Drew is still feeling jetlagged, and I want to go up and check on Josie.”

  “Call me back when you get the chance,” he said.

  A smile quirked at the corner of Cade’s mouth. “Okay, no problem.” She hung up the phone and let out a breath to steady herself. Then she turned toward the stairs. “Hey, I’m going to go up and check on Josie,” she said to Andrew. He didn’t respond, but Cade shrugged it off as fascination with the news reports and began to climb the stairs.

  The upstairs level was calm and quiet, dark and soothing compared to the brighter lights and noise downstairs. Cade started toward the guest bedroom where Josie slept, but she paused in the doorway to her own bedroom. She stared into the dark room thoughtfully as she considered gathering her important documents, just in case. She finally went inside and opened the top right dresser drawer. She took out a flat yellow manila envelope and made sure that her IDF identification, social security card, and naturalization papers were inside it before she went to the closet door. She took out the black plastic case she’d stored in the back of the closet and set it on the bed, dropping a medium-sized duffel bag and a pile of clothes and other essentials beside it. She smoothed her hand over the rifle case to reassure herself and left it there for ease of access. Once she’d packed her bag, she turned to the task of checking in on Josie.