The Hours

by Robert Barnard

Nolan traced a finger over the mouse pad of his laptop. He clicked on the YouTube video for Arabella, hit play, and stood back as Jim, Chloe, and him watched the four minute long video together in silence. When it finished, the screen faded to black, and the three stood around the laptop, arms crossed and quiet.

  Jim was the first to break the silence. “What the hell am I supposed to take away from that?” he asked.

  Nolan scoffed. “What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious?”

  “You want us to travel there? To live there?” Jim asked.

  Chloe said: “It’s not happening. It’s never happening.”

  Nolan shook his head. “Why not? It’s safe there. It’s secure. We could all have a real future there.”

  Jim chuckled. “There’s a million and one reasons why you’re going to have to let this dream die and die quick,” he said. “The first being that—oh, you know—it’s only a mere quarter of a million dollars for each of us to live there. What on earth makes you think that could happen, Nolan? You need to get your head on straight. You need to go to class more.”

  Nolan slammed the screen of his laptop shut. “We could afford it. We could all afford it if we wanted to.”

  “Sure,” Jim said. “Sure we could. If we combined every last cent of our savings accounts, sold this beautiful home—that we all enjoy—here in the hills of Colorado, then sure, we could empty our bank accounts and go live in a tiny, cramped apartment in a super complex in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, Nolan, it’s technically possible.”

  Nolan scoffed. “And you’re with him on this?”

  Chloe shook her head. “I like Colorado, Nolan. I like our town. I like our community. In two weeks I’m going to be a cadet for the Cherry Valley Police Department. It doesn’t make sense to pack everything up, spend all our money, and leave it all behind for some mysterious compound in the middle of the desert, ran by some wackjobs who are profiting off people’s fears.”

  “I should have guessed that both of you would react this way,” Nolan said, and he shook his head.

  “The fact that you’d seriously think this family would want to make such a blind leap is worrisome,” Chloe said.

  “Worrisome?” Nolan asked. “Worrisome? Those people you’re so quick to write off as wackjobs are going to be the only ones who survive when EV1 strikes again. They’re going to be the only ones prepared. We’ll be sitting ducks here. It’ll be New York all over again.”

  “EV1 isn’t going to happen again,” Jim said, sternly. “And even if for some reason it did, we lived through the worst of it, we’d know what to expect. We’d be prepared.”

  “Prepared?” Nolan said, and he laughed. “Yeah, we’re prepared. Where’s our radio, Jim? Do we even have one in this giant house of ours? Candles? Batteries? Canned goods?”

  Jim shook his head. “There’s a radio in the garage, there’s some flashlights in my bedroom closet—”

  “No,” Nolan said. “You don’t have any idea where anything is. Do you know why? Because I’ve checked this house. Every square inch of it. We’d be worse off than we were in New York. We have nothing. Nothing. A food pantry full of microwavable popcorn. Three of four cans of baked beans and soup. There’s thirty bottles of water in the fridge last time I counted.”

  Jim put his hands on Nolan’s shoulders. “I know, in New York, you got the worst of it, son. I know that out of all of us you lost the most. But EV1 is over. We’re vaccinated. We’re immunized. You saw how fast it was contained when we had no idea it was coming. There’s procedures in effect now.”

  “The vaccinations are a joke,” Nolan said. “When EV1 comes back, they won’t stop it. It’s a placebo the government gave us so that we all sleep safe and sound at night.” Nolan bit his bottom lip. “And don’t ever call me son again.”

  “Nolan!” Chloe shouted. “Get the hell out of here. Go take a shower in the guest bedroom. Cool down. Don’t talk to him like that.”

  “It’s okay,” Jim said. “It’s okay.”

  Nolan grabbed his laptop from the counter and marched off down a darkened hallway. “Maybe I’ll just go by myself then,” he shouted as he stomped away.

  With Nolan in the guest shower, and Chloe in hers, Jim was once more left alone in the kitchen. He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and retreated to his bedroom.

  The room still smelled of her. Of Dana. A novel she’d been reading was still on her nightstand, a bookmark wedged roughly halfway through it. Her reading glasses rested beside her bedside lamp. She must have brought her contacts with her.

  Jim strolled to the side of their bed, sat down on it, and picked up a picture frame from atop her nightstand. Nolan had taken it their first week in the new house. Dana was smiling, the first time in months. Jim was covering his face with one hand. They were both walking Dana’s pug, Elliot.

  Jim missed that dog. He missed Dana.

  As he sat the picture frame back down, the phone in his pocket buzzed. He reached into his sweatpants, plucked it out, and checked the screen. He hoped that it’d be news from Dana.

  But the text message alert read that it wasn’t from his wife, but someone else entirely: Sherri Gordon. An old friend who was also maybe one of the reasons Dana had decided to travel across the country on her own and with little notice.

  Jim met Sherri, a nurse at East Violet Memorial Hospital, during the dawning hours of NYVO. She’d tended to his wounds several times that awful day. The last time he had seen her was after his sergeant at the East Violet Police Department came to his home, viciously attacked him on his own lawn, and bit deep into the flesh of his chest.

  Yes, Jim had been bitten by one of the infected, and bitten badly. By all accounts and measures of the way the EV1 virus travelled, he should have been a dead man within twenty-three hours of receiving the critical wound.

  But Jim lived on. Not only that, but all of the tests that Sherri performed showed something quite miraculous—Jim never tested positive for EV1. By all indications he was clear of the virus, despite being injured in a way that should have infected him immediately.

  Jim swiped the touch screen of his phone, read the message from Sherri. It simply said: We need to talk. Soon.

  He shook his head and clicked a small green icon beside Sherri’s name. They’d talked countless times in the past two years, sometimes friendly, often times romantically. Though he tried to keep their peculiar relationship discreet, Jim was certain that, on at least one occasion, Dana had been privy to their communications.

  The phone rang, and a gentle voice on the other end answered: “Jim?”

  “Hey,” Jim said. “I just got your message.”

  “Well, I just sent it,” Sherri said, and she whispered a little laugh.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “It’s just that—” Sherri paused. “Is it a bad time?”

  “It’s never a good time,” Jim said, and he rubbed the wedding ring on his left hand.

  “It’s kind of important,” Sherri said. Her tone, usually playful and fun, turned droll and flat. Jim sensed something was wrong.

  “Spit it out, Sher.”

  “A lot has happened in the past day,” Sherri said. “A lot. I don’t think it’d be wise to talk about it on the phone. I know this is—this is crazy, Jim, I know—but could I see you in person?”

  Jim froze. It was one thing to flirt through text message, to tell Sherri all the things he’d do to her if she was lying naked beside him, to have late night raunchy phone calls when Dana was off at PTA meetings or coffee shops with her trendy friends. But seeing each other in person? That was a leap forward—a leap in what could only be the wrong direction for his rapidly failing marriage, Jim surmised.

  “It’s that important?” Jim asked.

  “It is,” Sherri said. “With the travel ban lifted, I could drive out first thing in the morning. I’d be there by tomorrow night if I drove nonstop. This isn’t about us, Jim, really—I don’t want to interfere with you and Dana.”

  “Dana’s
out of town,” Jim said. “For at least a couple of weeks.”

  “That would keep things from getting messy,” Sherri said. “But like I said, it isn’t about us. There’s a lot you need to know. A lot has happened in New York over the past few days.”

  “Sure,” Jim said. “Then come out. We can talk it over. Gas is going to cost you an arm and a leg. Do you need some cash?”

  Sherri laughed. “I’ll manage,” she said.

  “Okay,” Jim said. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Sherri said, and the phone disconnected.

  Jim sighed, tossed his phone onto his bed, then wandered towards his bathroom. He couldn’t imagine what would be so important that Sherri would insist on driving to see him, but he was too tired to linger on it any longer. A shower and a shave, he thought, and then bed. For having spent the entire day doing nothing, I am exhausted.

  He stepped into the bathroom, flicked a light switch, and examined himself in the tall mirror above his sink. He was a bit svelte now, much thinner than when he was a cop in New York. His skin clung more firmly to his bones than it did before.

  Not drinking enough water, he told himself, and he scratched at his chin and studied himself in the mirror.

  He pulled his t-shirt up and over his head, yanked off his sweatpants and boxers. Right away, underneath the harsh, bright fluorescent light of his bathroom, he noticed it.

  On the inside of his left thigh was a giant purple boil, the size and shape of a pinball. How he’d gone all day without feeling it was a mystery, but now it throbbed. On all sides of it, a maze of darkened veins and flared skin surrounded it.

  Dammit, Jim thought, and he caressed it with a fingertip and winced.

  He opened a medicine cabinet to the left of him and pulled out some gauze and rubbing alcohol. He washed his hands in the sink, scrubbed them with some hand soap—the kind that smelled like strawberries, that Dana insisted on always buying—and took a deep breath.

  He placed his left index finger on one side of the boiled knot and his right index on the other. He pressed lightly and couldn’t restrain a fast, high-pitched yelp.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, and he took a second deep breath.

  Again, he placed pressure onto either side of the cyst. It ached, rooted deep into Jim’s leg. It’d almost be shocking if it was the first time it had happened, but the giant ulcers had appeared before. The first one showed up on his chest, just above his left nipple, roughly nine months after leaving New York. The second one appeared on his neck about six months after the first. This was the third, and it hurt one hundred times worse than the first two combined.

  Jim muffled a yell and pushed harder. The skin atop the boil whitened from the pressure, but the abscess would not give. A thin layer of sweat formed over Jim’s forehead and he felt nauseous, felt as if he might pass out. The pain was terrible, harsher than he imagined it’d be, and with each push it was getting worse.

  Jim inhaled and gave one final, hard push to the boil. It burned as if it was on fire, and it burst. A string of bright, goopy purple tar shot from his thigh and squirted onto the sink. There was a brief moment of relief, as if the whole ordeal was over, and the wound began to bleed and bleed and bleed.

  He poured some rubbing alcohol out onto a cotton ball and swabbed at the swollen mound of flesh on his thigh. He grit his teeth with each pass.

  He held the cotton ball firm against his leg and, after a short while, the bleeding stopped. He leaned forward against the bathroom sink and wondered. Wondered how many times he’d coughed up blood, and how he wished he’d kept as good of track at that as he did the boils and sores. Wondered what was wrong with him. Wondered how sick he was. That was it. That was the word he was afraid to use. He’d survived being bitten, survived NYVO, but he was sick, as much as he’d pretended not to be.

  Jim grabbed a bathrobe from the door behind him, wound himself tightly in it. He’d done enough pretending, he reckoned. He’d pretended EV1 would never make a reappearance, despite secretly stockpiling a cabin in the middle of nowhere in case of just such an event. He pretended that what happened during NYVO could never happen again—a romantic attempt at making his family feel safe—despite feeling deep down, that it easily could.

  Nolan was worried sick about what the future might bring, and it was causing him to act childish. Perhaps, Jim thought, the first step to Nolan acting like an adult would be to treat him like one.

  It would be a big first step, but with the uncertain nature of his health, it was a step that it was time to take.

  Jim strolled to his nightstand, opened a drawer, and pulled out an eggshell colored envelope. Inside was a note he’d written months earlier.

  He walked to his bedroom door and out into the living room. Nolan was sitting on the couch, finishing his cold burrito and watching a cartoon on the giant flat screen television.

  “Are you okay?” Nolan asked. “I thought I heard you scream.”

  “It was nothing,” Jim said. “Stubbed my toe on the bedframe.”

  Nolan nodded.

  “Listen,” Jim said. “Man to man. I don’t keep cases of bottled water stocked in the house. I don’t keep thousands of cans of beans in the basement and cases of ammo in the closet. Not because I don’t want to be prepared for another day like NYVO, but because I’ve wanted to keep some sense of normalcy for you, and for Chloe, and for Dana. I wanted to try my best to keep this home as close to how it was before NYVO. I thought it would help us heal.”

  Nolan nodded. “Sure, Jim.”

  Jim rubbed his eyes, pulled the white envelope from under his arm. “I’m a realist, Nolan. I want to believe something like NYVO could never happen again. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be prepared if it did.” Jim handed the envelope to Nolan, who took it nervously. “If the time ever presents itself to open that envelope, Nolan, open it.”

  Nolan shrugged. “How will I know if the time is right?”

  “Trust me,” Jim said. “You’ll know. Keep it in a safe place. Don’t let Chloe see it. It’d only worry her.”

  Nolan nodded. “Of course, Jim.”

  “Now take that damn shower,” Jim said, laughing. “Really. I can smell you from here. And then talk to Chloe, okay? Take it from me. Communication is important. You don’t want to wake up and find out she’s taken a trip across the country without you knowing. I know it’s been hard. I know the two year anniversary of NYVO will be rough. But you two have got to start taking better care of each other if you want this to work.”

  Nolan swallowed. It felt weird getting relationship advice from his girlfriend’s dad. “Noted,” he said, after a brief, awkward silence filled the room.

  Jim tightened the belt on his bathrobe and headed back to his bedroom. “Well then,” he said. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” Nolan said. “And—Jim—are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

  “Better than ever,” Jim said, and he closed his bedroom door behind him.

  SIX

  Nolan stepped out of his shower. How long had he’d been in there? Five minutes? Twenty? When he found those brief moments of relaxation, those serene escapes where memories of New York ceased to haunt him, time moved mysteriously. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast.

  He toweled off, brushed his teeth, combed his hair. Actually combed it, instead of just styling it with his fingers and hands.

  When he slid open the pocket door between the bathroom and his bedroom, he found Chloe sprawled across the bed, wearing nothing but one of Nolan’s old t-shirts. She was still, her half-open eyes glued to the television screen that sat on the dresser opposite the bed. He stopped for a moment to appreciate her, long and slender, still the most beautiful girl he’d set eyes on—inside and out. She looked peaceful there, and Nolan liked that.

  “Hey,” Nolan said.

  Chloe turned her head towards the bathroom door. “Hey.”

  “I know I was pretty…stupid…out there earlier.”

/>   Chloe grinned. “That’s an understatement.”

  Nolan frowned in the bathroom of the doorway.

  “I’m teasing you, nerd,” Chloe said, and she patted the bed.

  “I’m worried about your dad,” Nolan said, and he strode towards the bed. “I thought I heard him crying. He said he stubbed his toe, but—”

  “Don’t worry about him,” Chloe said. “He’s had it rough with Dana for a while now. I guess today it all came to a head. They’ll both figure it out. We will too.”

  Nolan slumped onto the bed. “I never asked you about your day.”

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” Chloe said. “It was a doozy.”

  “Come on,” Nolan said. “I want to hear.”

  “I was late this morning. Hannah almost killed me. Sergeant Fuller had me running laps all morning long.”

  Nolan chuckled. “As punishment? That’s funny. You can run the way I can eat cheeseburgers.”

  Chloe nodded. “Yeah. He tries to push us hard, but you’re right. I really didn’t mind. It felt good to blow off some steam. Being late, running laps…that wasn’t the worst of it.”

  “What was, then?”

  “For starters,” Chloe said, “seeing the price of gas skyrocket was a kick to the pants. A fill up for the Challenger cost as much as your PlayStation.”

  “I heard about that on TV,” Nolan said. “But the president already gave some long, boring speech about it. Promised that prices would fall back to normal over the next few days. He issued some order or something.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Chloe said. “There’s more.”

  “What?”

  She sighed. “I pulled my pistol on some idiot fry cook at the Taco King today.”

  “What?” Nolan said. “Why?”

  “He was goofing around with the cashier, I guess he thought he was being flirty or funny. I don’t know. He started swatting at her, like he was infected with EV1. It was convincing.”

  “What an asshole,” Nolan said. “All of them out here, the ones who didn’t have to go what we went through—it’s all a joke to them. An inconvenience.”