The Last Town on Earth

by Thomas Mullen

  “Hi,” she said quietly, her voice muffled. “I’m just running by the store to get something. Doc Banes told us not to run errands, so I was hoping I wouldn’t bump into anyone.”

  It hurt him to see her cowering that way, stigmatized by her family’s new status. He stepped toward her, but she backed away.

  “Doc Banes says I’m not supposed to get close to anyone,” she said, looking down.

  “Are you sick?”

  She shook her head, and something inside him unclenched. “But my mother’s not well.”

  “I’m so sorry. I just heard today. I wanted to come by and check on you, but Doc Banes told me not to.”

  She nodded, and for a few seconds they stood in silence. He thought of how he’d felt when Graham had backed away from him outside the storage building. How could he possibly keep away from her? How could he of all people justify treating her that way?

  Finally, he took a step toward her, then another. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” She watched him approach, this time not backing away. “You shouldn’t get too close.”

  “Most people think I’m the one who let the flu in,” he said. “Best I can figure, if I haven’t gotten it yet, I’m not going to.”

  “I don’t want to be responsible,” she said, but her voice broke off, cracked. He thought he saw her eyes water.

  “I don’t want to be responsible, either.” He stopped a few feet in front of her, as close as two friends would normally stand. He could see the outline of her lips through the mask, see the gauze gently lean in when she inhaled.

  “I’m just gonna run to the store,” she said.

  “You mind some company?”

  He couldn’t see her smile, but he could hear it in her voice. “I’d love some.”

  They walked together, Philip retracing the steps he’d taken from the mill.

  “I haven’t left the house since yesterday morning, when Doc Banes made me fetch my father from the store,” Elsie said, looking around suspiciously, as if not quite sure whether she was glad to be in the outside world. “It’s so peaceful out here.”

  “Everybody’s hiding. You’re not the only one who’s been shut in.”

  “She keeps coughing and coughing.” Elsie shook her head. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “How are her spirits?”

  “It’s like it’s not even her. She can barely talk—can you imagine my mother quiet? A couple times when my dad said something real obvious, she’d give me this look like she wanted to tease him for it, but she couldn’t.” Her voice grew quiet again as she walked up to the general store and unlocked the front door. “She couldn’t even talk.”

  Inside, she lit a small lamp as Philip closed the door behind them. She asked him to lock it.

  “I don’t want to light up the place,” she told him. “People might think we’re open and try to come in.”

  “You need a hand with anything?”

  She said she’d be fine and disappeared into one of the aisles, carrying the lamp with her. Philip sat on a bench by the door and watched the light following her and turning a corner, leaving him in the dark. There wasn’t much food left on the shelves, he noticed.

  The light grew stronger again and there she was, a small satchel slung over her shoulder and the lamp in her right hand. She placed it on her mother’s desk and sat beside him.

  “Mind if we just sit her for a little while?” she asked. “I’m not in any rush to get back there.”

  “Sure.”

  He felt curiously excited to be alone with her again, behind locked doors. Mixed with this was his concern for her mother and for her own peace of mind, and his fear that he was to blame for what was happening. She didn’t seem to be holding it against him, though.

  “Is your dad okay?”

  “Me and him both. It’s only my mother so far.”

  “She’s been sick two days?”

  “Just about.” They sat side by side, each facing forward. He stole occasional glances at her from the corner of his eye. Her face was still, her eyes motionless above the mask.

  “She’s getting through, then,” Philip said. “First couple of days of the flu are usually the worst. I’m sure she’ll be up and chattering away in a couple more days.”

  She turned to face him. “Has anyone else died?”

  The fact that he couldn’t see the rest of her face made her eyes look even more vulnerable.

  “What have you heard?” Philip asked.

  “That the first man died, the Canadian. But that was a couple days ago, and I can’t get the doctor or my dad to tell me anything.”

  Philip breathed for a moment. He thought about lying but couldn’t. “Three more men died yesterday, Doc said. I don’t know about today.”

  She looked away again, and he saw tears welling up in her eyes.

  “But a lot more people are sick than dying—those guys were probably the worst off, you know? I’m sure your mom’s gonna be fine.”

  “Doc Banes said something to my dad this afternoon—took him into another room and closed the door. My dad wouldn’t tell me what it was, but a couple hours later, I saw him in the parlor and he looked like he’d been crying. He still won’t tell me.” The tears fell down her cheeks and she looked down, ashamed.

  Philip hesitated, then put his arm around her, squeezing her shoulder. “Doc Banes doesn’t know everything,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what he said. He’s been wrong about a lot of things.”

  He wasn’t a good consoler, he figured, because her crying grew louder, and before he could say anything else, she collapsed in to him, her masked face on his chest and one of her hands behind his shoulder. He kept his left hand on her back, rubbing gently, not sure if he should say anything else. He felt his heart race as her back rose with each breath. But at the same time, he felt his own eyes welling up from the weight of so much sadness pressing itself against him. Those men outside the mill were right—this was Philip’s fault, and all he could do was sit there and hold her and be thankful for the fact that she didn’t blame him, at least not yet.

  By the time the tightness in his throat had faded, Elsie was quiet.

  Eventually, she pulled back. “Sorry,” she said, sniffling again. “Now I’m all a mess.”

  “Don’t apologize,” he said, taking his left arm back. She reached into a pocket for her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. The mask was wet from her nose and the tears. “You can take that off if you want,” he said, smiling slightly. “I mean, if you’re only wearing it for my sake.”

  She paused, then pulled the mask down around her neck. It was the first time he’d seen her face since before he’d been placed under guard.

  “All right,” she said, then smiled back at him. “Though I’m not to blame if you sneeze later tonight.”

  “Deal.”

  He sat there silently while she wiped her eyes again.

  “Thanks for sending me that letter,” he said at last.

  He saw an instant of confusion cross her face, as if the letter were something she had written many years ago and remembered only dimly. “Sure. Figured you must have been a little lonely in there.”

  “I think I read it ten times.”

  “Really?” She smiled.

  “There wasn’t much else to do.” He had read it many times since, so boredom was no excuse. “I would have written one back, but they told me I couldn’t send anything out.”

  “And now I’m the one trapped someplace.” She rolled her eyes, somehow managing to smile at the situation.

  You kiss her yet? Frank had asked.

  “Maybe I could write you back then.”

  “That’d be nice.” She looked back at him, and her eyes didn’t seem as red. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be stuck in there, so you might have to write more than one.”

  “I’d be honored.”

  “One a day.”

  He smiled. “Yes, ma’am. Should they be a certain number
of pages?”

  “You can decide that.” Then she added, “At least one full page each.”

  “I can ask Laura to write you, too,” he said, then regretted it, fearing that he’d shattered a moment he hadn’t known how to handle.

  “Okay,” she said, looking at him calmly. “I’d be more interested in reading yours, though.”

  The way she said that made Frank’s question echo in Philip’s head again. Without thinking further, he leaned close to Elsie and she to him, and they kissed there in the dark building. It was quiet then, and all he could hear were the strange sounds their lips and mouths made. The kiss felt good, as if it were the first good thing Philip had felt in days, weeks, and it was worth any nervousness he may have suffered. She tasted like apples and smelled like something sweeter—he wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it was something he wanted to keep with him. At some point, he drew his lips from hers but kept his arm around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder and they sat there in the flickering lamplight, the shadows dancing in the aisles.

  It was cold in the store and she felt warm, leaning against him. He didn’t care if kissing someone from a sick house was unwise—he didn’t see how what he had just done could possibly be considered a mistake. He knew he had done plenty of things wrong in the past two weeks, but this wasn’t something to doubt.

  Elsie shyly asked Philip how long he’d wanted to kiss her.

  “Remember the time we were collecting driftwood and I found that piece that looked like a shield?” It had been a few months ago. He’d found a large, thin slice of bark that had somehow sheared off a tree’s trunk. It was soft and brittle from its time in the river, and perfectly pentagonal, as if someone had painstakingly carved it that way.

  “I still have that shield,” she replied, smiling. “It’s under my bed.”

  He smiled back. “I’m glad I gave it to you. I should have kissed you then.” So they kissed again.

  Eventually, Elsie said she should go home. “My dad’s likely to think something’s happened.”

  It was even colder outside than before, and Philip could feel the air’s thin fingers prying through his jacket, sliding in through the buttonholes, and digging into the pockets where his fingers were bunched into fists. The reality of the flu seemed to return when Elsie fastened her mask back on. Philip regretted losing sight of her lips.

  “You should probably let me go on ahead,” she said. “If my dad saw us walking together, he’d be angry because of what the doctor said.”

  “Okay.” Philip wanted to say something else, but nothing he could think of felt right. “I’ll write you” was all he said.

  “Okay.” Just as he was wondering if she was smiling through the mask, she pulled it down again, stepping toward him to quickly kiss him on the lips. And then she did smile, for a full second or two before the mask returned, smothering her lips again, and she turned around to walk home.

  He stood there buzzing for a moment, thrilling in his good fortune. He waited as the wind grew colder, until she had disappeared beyond the light of the streetlamps. Then he turned around and started walking, quickly, but not toward his house.

  Philip felt wonderful and horrible, nervous and bold, excited and confused. He had imagined such a moment for longer than he could remember, and it had finally happened. Yet he had never planned on it being initiated by Elsie’s need of consolation, had never expected his joy to be tempered by guilt.

  He was amazed that she felt the same way about him as he did about her. That she had confidence in him. For months he had been too afraid to kiss her, so with his heart still beating too quickly and his nerves still shivering, he felt the courage to do something else he’d been afraid to do.

  He walked faster, heading straight for the storage buildings.

  XI

  The town seemed even quieter than when Philip had first come upon Elsie, if such a thing were possible. And darker: there were no streetlamps, and he carried no light with him, all the better to stealthily make his way. Nearly every window was dark. As Philip walked farther, the occasional ominous sound he heard above the crunch of his boots was coughing. He heard it emanating from one house, then, a few blocks later, he heard another answering its call. Then another. It was as if the houses themselves were whispering to one another, spreading news of the flu.

  Philip was close to the storage buildings when he saw a sign of life at last. Three blocks ahead, a carriage pulled by a fatigued horse turned a corner onto the road where he walked. Philip retreated to the side of a house. Why was he hiding? It was the flu, he realized, making every innocuous or mundane action seem freighted with new meaning, wicked purpose. But maybe what he was doing really was wicked—he wasn’t honestly sure.

  Philip saw a lamp bouncing lightly above the head of the driver: Doc Banes. Of course—who else would be out? The weary doctor was returning from a house call, apparently, with his ubiquitous bag beside him. By now he would have been performing house calls for over twelve hours. The old man’s head hung so low that Banes might not have seen him even if Philip had stayed on the road. Philip both wanted and did not want to know what Banes had been through that day, how many patients he had tended, how many worried family members he had tried to pacify, how many fevered foreheads he had caressed, how many ominous verdicts he’d rendered.

  In a moment Banes was gone, hurrying toward either his home or the next stop on his nocturnal tour. Philip thought about the list of sick men’s addresses he had made for the doctor that morning and wondered how long the next day’s list would be.

  Philip walked back onto the road after the carriage had passed. The moon had disappeared and the black sky gone starless, his view of the heavens obstructed by invisible clouds. Here in the quarantine, they were cut off even from the sky.

  The storage buildings gradually emerged from the darkness. Two lamps sat on the ground, and standing between them was a guard, a lumberjack named Lightning. This was good news: Lightning was a hulking but gentle man and none too bright. Someone had once joked, “You’re just lightning quick, aren’t ya?” and the name had stuck.

  Lightning’s back was to Philip, and only when he was a few feet away did Lightning stir, cocking his head and then whirling around awkwardly. He pointed his rifle at Philip.

  Philip held out his palms, stunned that Lightning would point the gun at someone coming from this direction. But then he understood—he had woken Lightning up. The guard blinked as if shedding the fog of his dreams, and his voice was slurred.

  “Wha—whoozat?”

  “It’s me, Philip Worthy,” he said, cautiously stepping into the glow from the lamps.

  Lightning lowered his rifle. He was swaying a bit, as if sleep might conquer him again at any moment.

  “You all right?” Philip asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, fine.” Lightning had a deep and thick voice. “You s’prised me.”

  “You the only one out here tonight?”

  “Yeah. There’re usually”—a slow yawn—“two of us here, but now too many guys are sick.” Consciousness gradually returned to Lightning’s large brown eyes. “So, uh, why are you out here?”

  Philip swallowed, steeling himself once more. “I want to talk to Frank.”

  “Who’s Frank?”

  “The soldier. In there.”

  The gears in Lightning’s head turned slowly. “You mean the spy?”

  Philip nodded. He still couldn’t refer to Frank that way.

  “I can’t let you do that. Nobody goes in and nobody goes out, except when we feed him his meals.”

  “He’s not sick, is he?”

  “Who, the spy? No, he’s healthy. But—”

  “I’m going in there. I won’t be long. Don’t worry about it.” Philip took a couple of steps toward the door he had once been trapped behind.

  “Philip, you can’t do that.” Lightning sounded neither stern nor threatening—he mostly sounded stunned that someone was disobeying the rules. It was as if this possi
bility hadn’t occurred to him, and now that it was happening, he was powerless to stop it.

  “Then shoot me,” Philip said as he kept walking. Even if Lightning had been unarmed, holding Philip back would have been a simple task for a man his size. But the thought of using his strength that way probably didn’t occur to him. Philip heard Lightning curse himself, bemoaning his bad luck that the rules should be broken on his shift. “I’ll be right back,” Philip promised.

  Philip opened the door. Immediately, the smell of the place brought everything back: dead wood and twigs coupled with the odor of men locked up, of air that didn’t circulate. And the darkness: as soon as he shut the door, it was as if a hood had been placed over his head by an invisible executioner. He stood there for a moment, hoping his eyes would adjust, and gradually saw a faint light trickling up the cellar stairs. He made his way toward it, shuffling his feet lest he trip over something.

  “Hello?” he asked hesitantly, but heard no reply. They must be keeping him in the cellar, Philip decided. His deliberate footsteps made little sound, and he wondered if Frank was awake down there. When they’d been prisoners together, they had gone to sleep early, for lack of anything better to do. Now that Frank was completely alone, the boredom could only have intensified, laying slow siege to his mind.

  Philip’s footsteps on the wooden stairs were louder. “Hello?” he called out again.

  “Yeah?” The voice was quiet, subdued by layers of anger, resentment, resignation. The face wasn’t much better.

  Frank was sitting on the ground, a few feet from the lamp, leaning against a wooden beam to which his feet were apparently chained. The growth on his cheeks had thickened into a full-fledged beard, and a mangy one at that. His hair was disheveled and looked darker than before, probably from the dirt he’d been sleeping on, and his forehead was sooty as a miner’s. There was a blanket beside him and, in the corner of the room, the latrine bucket. The lamp cast its shadows upward, so Philip couldn’t quite see Frank’s eyes—they looked like dark holes cut into a mask behind which no man stood.