Fever

by Amy Meredith

  ‘Seth’s car is right outside,’ Jess said, her eyes locked on him.

  ‘He’s not OK to drive though,’ Luke told her. ‘We should—’

  Nikolai appeared at the table. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked. Then he saw Seth. ‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ he said, pulling his cell out of his pocket.

  The paramedics arrived in a few minutes, two rolling a gurney, one leading the way. Eve thought maybe they were from the CDC. Whoever they were, they were dressed in hazmat suits. God, those things were scary. The paramedics were probably nice, normal people. But with their faces obscured by the suits’ headgear, they could be some kind of alien creatures come to study human beings.

  ‘Let’s get you up here,’ one of the paramedics told Seth. Even the voice came out sounding inhuman.

  ‘I’m fine to walk,’ Seth protested. But he had slumped down in his chair. Eve wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to sit up unsupported, forget about walk.

  ‘Seth, let them,’ Jess said, her voice sounding thick.

  He looked at her, then nodded, allowing the paramedics to help him to the gurney. ‘I’m going with him,’ Jess called as they began to wheel him across the patio.

  ‘It’s not protocol to—’ one of the paramedics began.

  ‘I don’t care. I’m going with him.’ Eve had heard Jess use that tone before – not often, but enough to know that some way, somehow, her friend would, indeed, be going with Seth.

  ‘Jess, we can come too. Or at least meet you there,’ Eve said.

  ‘No. Then I’ll just be worrying about you guys too,’ Jess told them. ‘Please just go home and stay safe.’

  Luke and Eve exchanged a quick glance, then Luke nodded. ‘Call us if you change your mind,’ he called after Jess.

  * * *

  Eve flipped over her pillow. The fresh side still felt too warm, and the thin sheet she was using as her only cover felt too heavy, like it was made of lead instead of Egyptian cotton with a very nice thread count.

  All she could think about was Seth being wheeled away by the team in their hazmat suits – that and Jess. Jess had kissed Seth so, so close to when his symptoms broke out. What if she got sick too? What if she died? Because some of the doctors on the news had predicted fatalities.

  Fatalities. Such an icy word. Eve didn’t want to think about a world without Jess in it, but now that the thought was in her mind, she couldn’t force it out. Fatalities, fatalities, fatalities. The word thrummed through her to the beat of her heart.

  She couldn’t just lie there and take it. She threw off the sheet and jumped out of bed. Now what? Standing up hadn’t made the horrible thoughts go away. Hot chocolate, she decided. Yes, they were in the middle of a crazy heat wave, but hot chocolate had always been her go-to when she was upset. And making it might distract her a teeny, tiny bit.

  Eve rushed down the stairs, getting a whiff of that delicious new-clothes smell from her pyjamas. Had she and Jess really been shopping only this afternoon? It felt like a million years ago.

  She hurried to the kitchen, flipped on the light, opened the cupboard over the microwave, and pulled out a tin of her favourite Fiori’s hot chocolate. Milk next. She opened the fridge and pulled out a carton.

  ‘Hot chocolate. Should have known.’

  Eve turned round, startled, and saw Luke standing in the doorway. She gave him a weak smile. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Yeah, me neither. I heard you going downstairs, so I thought I’d keep you company.’

  ‘Thinking about your dad?’ Eve asked. She poured the milk into a saucepan and put it on the stove.

  Luke nodded. ‘And Seth. And Jess. And everyone, I guess. But mostly them.’

  ‘I’m almost starting to wish there was a demon involved,’ Eve confessed. ‘Just so I could do something. Having everything so horrible and just sitting around drinking hot chocolate is going to drive me insane.’

  ‘Like you said, we’re going to research, try and find out if there is any demon connection. The weather keeps making me think there is. It’s too coincidental to have bizarre weather and an epidemic at the same time. It feels supernatural to me,’ Luke said. ‘Whether it is or not, at least we’ll be trying to figure out what’s really going on.’

  ‘I keep thinking about Jess and Seth kissing tonight,’ Eve told him. ‘It was so close to when he got sick. What if she gets sick too?’ A cold wave of fear crashed down on her, and she felt tears sting her eyes. She blinked them away, but not fast enough. Luke had seen them. In two long strides he reached her and wrapped her in his arms. He didn’t say anything, just held on.

  Eve wished she could stop time, at least for a little while, but that was impossible. She didn’t want to, but after a long moment, she forced herself to let Luke go. He looked down at her, not stepping away, not releasing her.

  He lowered his head, just a little. He was going to kiss her. If she kept standing there staring into his green eyes, he was going to kiss her. And he was a player. And she didn’t want to get involved with a player.

  She didn’t move. Luke brought his lips closer to hers. Eve looped her arms around his neck, and a jolt shot through her body, hot and fizzy. Her power! Before she could stop it, the power jumped from her hand to Luke’s neck. He jerked his head back, surprised.

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ Eve cried. ‘I don’t— It just happened.’ Emotion had always been a big factor in the control she had over her powers. When she was angry or scared, sometimes … bam! The power flew free before she released it. But she had never thought that attraction to a guy could have the same effect.

  ‘No worries. It wasn’t any worse than sticking a pen in a light socket,’ Luke joked gently. ‘I did that once when I was ten. It was a forfeit in some game I made up with my friends.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Eve said again. ‘I should, um, check the milk.’ She moved towards the stove, but before she reached it, Luke took her by the shoulders and turned her towards him. ‘Hey. It’s OK. Really.’

  He leaned close, close, closer, and kissed her, soft and gentle. Eve felt it all the way down to her toes, a tingling, sparking sensation that had nothing to do with her power this time. It was all Luke. Maybe this would be a better moment to stop time, Eve thought fuzzily.

  Suddenly a high screech cut through the air, shattering the moment. She stumbled away from Luke, whipping her head towards the sound, and saw a grey tabby cat in the tree outside the kitchen window. It stared at her for a split second, its eyes glowing gold in the moonlight, then it leaped from the tree and streaked away.

  ‘A cat!’ Eve exclaimed. ‘I almost had heart failure and it was just a cat!’

  ‘I’m really not a cat person, at least not any more,’ Luke joked.

  They looked at each other and both started laughing. Then he stopped laughing and so did she. Eve was pretty sure they were both thinking about their kiss.

  ‘I should probably— We need to get up early to start on the research,’ Luke said.

  ‘Yeah. I think I’m just going to go back to bed,’ Eve answered. She turned off the stove. ‘Not really the time for hot chocolate. The caffeine …’ They kept looking at each other until Eve turned and started out of the kitchen, Luke following her. So are we going to pretend it never happened? Eve wondered. Or will it be happening again?

  Luke kissed me! Eve thought before she even opened her eyes the next morning. She felt a smile take over her face. Or maybe she’d been smiling all night. She had definitely fallen asleep thinking about that kiss, so she’d been smiling then too.

  She sat up in bed and yawned in the bright light. It was cool in her bedroom because of the air conditioning, but she could tell just by the colour of the sunlight that today was going to be another scorcher.

  Luke kissed me! she thought again. I have to talk to Jess.

  She needed a confab with her best friend to figure out what it meant, that kiss. Was it the start of something? Or just a friendly gesture? The hug had definitely been friendly. But the kiss? />
  Damn that cat. If it hadn’t yowled and broken the mood … Actually, Eve wasn’t sure what would have happened. But she would have liked the chance to find out. She climbed out of bed. Fuzzy cow slippers or no fuzzy cow slippers? She decided to give the slippers a ‘yes’. She loved them – and it was not like they were in any way Care Bear-related.

  Now, what about make-up? A little lip gloss before she stepped out of her room, or was that too much? She always thought it was stupid when women in TV shows and movies went to bed with what was clearly a ton of make-up on. If they did that for real, it would be zit city – not to mention the mess it would make of the pillow!

  I’ll just fix my hair and maybe use some toner, she decided as she headed into her bathroom. She had just squirted a blob of leave-in conditioner into her palm when she heard Jess calling her name.

  No, not calling. Screaming!

  Chapter Four

  Eve flew down the stairs and yanked open the front door, vaguely aware that Luke was a few steps behind her.

  ‘Eve!’ Jess screamed again.

  ‘I’m here, I’m right here,’ Eve reassured her, shocked by the pallor of her friend’s face and the wildness of her eyes.

  Luke took Jess by the shoulders. ‘You’re OK. You’re here with us. Take a deep breath and tell us what’s wrong.’

  Jess gasped, sucking down a lungful of air. ‘Seth. I went to see him, and … Oh, God, Eve!’

  Eve’s bones turned to sticks of ice. Had Seth died?

  Jess pulled away from Luke and pressed both hands to her mouth, but a sob managed to escape. She shook her head, unable to speak.

  ‘Let’s go in the living room. We should all just sit down,’ Eve said. She looped her arm around Jess and started to walk her out of the hall. She looked over at Luke. ‘Maybe get her some juice?’

  Just as Eve got Jess settled on the sofa, Luke reappeared with a glass of pomegranate juice. He handed it to Jess and sat down next to her. Eve sat down on her other side and rubbed Jess’s back. ‘Start again. You went to see Seth, and …’

  ‘I almost didn’t get to see him. Is my mascara all over my face?’ she asked Eve.

  Eve knew that wasn’t the most important thing on Jess’s mind. It’s just that whatever had happened was so bad, her friend was having trouble talking about it. ‘You look gorgeous, as always,’ Eve answered.

  ‘I’m surprised they let you see him at all,’ Luke commented. ‘They won’t let me in to see my dad.’

  A small smile tugged at Jess’s lips. ‘I had to pitch a fit.’

  ‘Jess’s fits are legendary. She doesn’t go there often, but when she does – look out,’ Eve told Luke.

  Jess’s smile disappeared. ‘So, anyway, they said I could see him for a few minutes if I put on one of those hazmat suits, which I did. He’s over in the courthouse with a bunch of other sick people because no one else in his family is sick. They have all these cots in the corridors. So many people.’

  Her eyes glazed, and Eve could tell Jess was seeing it all again. ‘Drink your juice,’ she urged.

  Jess obediently took a sip. Then another. When she took a third, Eve realized again how hard it was for Jess to talk about whatever had happened to Seth. ‘You put on the suit and went to see Seth,’ she said, trying to coax Jess back to her story.

  Jess nodded. ‘Yeah, I saw him. And he was so excited that I came.’ She gave another smile, a bigger one, one that looked to Eve like it was about seventy-five per cent real. It faded almost as fast as the last one had.

  ‘It was hard to talk with that suit on. Hard to hear too. It covers your whole head,’ Jess continued. Eve struggled to stay patient. They didn’t need to know these kinds of details. They needed to know what had freaked Jess out so badly.

  ‘Mostly, we just looked at each other,’ Jess said. ‘Then …’ She pulled in a long, shuddering breath. ‘Then I saw something on his face. A little dark spot near his chin. I thought it might be a bit of food or something.’ Jess’s lips began to tremble, but she didn’t stop. ‘I brushed it away, and his skin came off on my glove.’ Her voice got higher with every word. ‘It was his skin. That black spot. Skin.’

  Eve’s stomach tightened into a small, hard ball just thinking about it. ‘What did the doctors say? You talked to them, right?’

  ‘I screamed until one of them ran over,’ Jess answered. ‘And the doctor wasn’t even shocked. Necrosis, he called it. He said it’s a new symptom of Flu X, but that they are keeping that quiet so people won’t panic.’

  ‘Everyone is panicked already,’ Luke said. ‘Did he tell you how many of the plague victims have the necrosis?’ Eve noticed that his hands had clenched into fists, his knuckles white from the strain.

  ‘They would have told you if your dad had it,’ Eve reassured him.

  ‘She just said that they’re keeping it quiet,’ Luke snapped. He shoved his hair away from his face. ‘Sorry.’

  Eve reached across Jess and touched Luke’s hand. ‘It’s OK. If my dad— It’s OK, Luke.’

  Jess swallowed hard. ‘There were more splotches of it on Seth’s body. On his shoulder. On his neck. One of his feet was almost entirely black. I couldn’t even … I didn’t … I just turned round and ran. I ran, Eve. Seth is going to hate me! I acted like he was repulsive.’

  ‘He’ll understand,’ Luke told her. ‘The guy is crazy about you.’

  ‘Those spots, they’re so horrible. It’s like the people who get them are dying piece by piece, their flesh just … sliding off the bones,’ Jess said. ‘Seeing it, I think it has to be a demon thing. It’s so awful, it has to be.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Eve answered.

  Luke nodded.

  ‘I don’t get how it got in though,’ Eve said. ‘The portal is blocked.’

  ‘Maybe that’s one of the things we should research,’ Luke suggested. ‘We should get started as soon as possible.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to focus on anything but Seth,’ Jess admitted. ‘Maybe you two should just do the research without me.’

  ‘No,’ Eve said firmly. ‘We need you, Jess. We have to figure this thing out as fast as possible. It’s the best thing you can do for Seth, and besides, it will give you something to do other than worry.’

  ‘You’re right. So let’s meet up at my house after school and get to it. Seth might call on my home phone instead of the cell, and I don’t want to miss him.’ Eve could tell Jess was struggling to keep her voice bright and peppy. ‘I have to get home and change.’ She stood up.

  Eve walked Jess to the front door. She gave her a hard hug. ‘See you at school.’ As Jess stepped outside, she caught sight of Mrs Brownlee across the street. She was wearing plastic gloves and a safety mask as she hauled overflowing bags of groceries up the driveway.

  Eve noticed that the bags were from a store over in East Hampton. Could the Deepdene store be completely sold out? Had the panic buying gotten that bad?

  She shut the door, overwhelmed by the feeling that things in Deepdene were getting worse by the second. Jess, Luke, and I have already saved the town twice, she thought. We can do it again.

  ‘This is just spooky,’ Jess murmured as she and Eve walked into the cafeteria for lunch a few hours later.

  ‘Spreepy,’ Eve agreed, the word for spooky-plus-creepy that they’d come up with back in third grade.

  For starters, the caf was way too quiet. Everyone was talking in whispers. None of the guys were up to their usual shenanigans designed to get the girls to look at them. Sometimes Eve was amazed by boys. Did they really think getting a girl to notice them while they were doing something inane – like shot-gunning a soda – was a good thing?

  The caf was also way too empty, just like every one of Eve’s morning classes had been. ‘How many people do you think are absent today?’ Eve whispered. There wasn’t a reason to whisper, except that everyone else was. But it felt wrong to speak at a normal volume when the big room was so silent.

  ‘I don’t know,
’ Jess whispered back as they got in line – if you could call three people a line – at the lunch counter. ‘In art, it was almost half the class. But it wasn’t as bad in the other periods.’

  ‘I heard James Frankel’s family actually left town,’ Katy Emory said from her spot in front of Jess. She spoke in a normal tone, and it almost sounded like she was shouting. ‘He’s skiing in Aspen right now.’

  ‘Briony’s parents must be relieved that she took off to see her old boyfriend,’ Eve commented. ‘I bet they told her not to come back until after there’s a vaccine or antibiotics you can take.’

  ‘The Frankels probably got extra-freaked living next door to the Delawares,’ Jess commented, voice still low. She took a yogurt, put it on her tray, then moved the tray a little further down the metal rails. ‘Belinda was one of the first people to get sick, remember? And her brother got it a couple of days later.’

  ‘Oh, God, did you hear the latest about Belinda?’ Katy asked, this time bringing her voice down too. ‘There’s a rumour going around that pieces of her face are falling off. Shanna was telling me that her parents brought in this plastic surgeon to the stars from LA to see what he could do for her.’ Katy gently patted her cheeks as if to make sure the skin was still there. ‘Belinda was supposedly completely losing it every time she looked in the mirror.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t be?’ Jess asked.

  ‘True,’ Katy said. ‘I wish there was something we could do for them, for everybody. But signing a card or something like that seems almost pathetic, with everything so horrible.’

  ‘We should do it anyway,’ Eve said. She realized she was almost at the cash register and hadn’t chosen any food. She grabbed a turkey sandwich, an apple and a soda. She had to make sure she kept herself in top form. Fighting a demon while coping with a hunger headache was probably a bad idea.

  ‘See you guys later,’ Katy said after she’d paid. She headed off for a table by the windows, where Tim Bentley was clearly waiting for her.