When the murmuring around the basement had lessened, and most of the group had found a metal chair to sit in, Monica signaled the start of the meeting.
“Thank you all for being here tonight,” Monica said. “I know you have busy lives, and squeezing in our little gatherings isn’t always the most convenient. But I’ve found that, during these challenging times, with so many questions and so very few answers, there is a great strength to be found in sharing our hurt, and our hope, and our experiences.”
Dana slid her thumb between her index and middle finger where she wished a cigarette would be. She had taken up smoking—a habit that she had always found foul and offensive—during her second week of stay in the camp at Albany. An elderly man in a bunk nearby had offered her one—“ you look like you could use it.” Ever since, Dana made a nightly routine of sneaking a black, clove cigarette on the back patio. If Jim had known—he probably did, the smell clung to her hair and clothes—he was too polite to say anything, or just didn’t care at all. Once, he stumbled upon Chloe and Nolan passing a joint back and forth while cuddled in a hammock on the back lawn. He waved, and went back inside. Chloe and Nolan waved back. After New York, Jim found that many of the things which would once infuriate him now didn’t bother him at all.
“There are so many new faces here tonight, that I think we could spend some time introducing ourselves once more.” Monica spoke with a sweet, buttery tone that heavily masked her thick accent. “So let’s go around the room and one by one, tell us a little bit of your story and why you’re here. Dana, should we start with you?”
Dana’s gaze snapped from her hand, to the crowd around her, then to Monica.
“Sure, I. Um.” Dana had never been nervous at the meetings. This was her fourth or fifth one at least. But it was the first one to land on an anniversary.
“My name’s Dana, and I’m—”
“Welcome, Dana,” the assembly interrupted in an eerie, uniform voice.
“Yes, hi. It’s nice to see you all. Like I said, my name is Dana and I was. Well, I am. I’m an English teacher—or at least I was one, back in New York, and….”
Dana trailed off. Jim held her hand, kissed the top of it tenderly, then stood up.
“Hi everyone, my name’s Jim Whiteman—”
“Welcome, Jim.”
Jim nodded. “And the beautiful girl to my right is my daughter, Chloe, while the beautiful young lady to my left here is my fiancé, Dana. We’ve all had a rough day, with it being the—you know, anniversary—so I’ll try to keep this short and sweet.
“I was a police officer in a small town in New York called East Violet. Not sure if you’ve ever heard of it.” A few faces in the basement nodded and smiled.
“My partner and myself were one of the first responders to a home that had been infected with EV1. It was at the very start of the outbreak, we didn’t know what was going on then…my partner’s name was Min. Min Chow. And I lost him.”
Jim felt a lump travel upward in his chest. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat.
“We were a small department but we tried the best we could. After that flight went down, though, there was no keeping up with it. We lost a lot of good men.
“I found Dana outside of a grocery store on the way to pick up my daughter. Her car was broken down and she was stranded outside with a crowd of looters.”
Dana glanced up at Jim. The lie had been told so many times now, that the story of their first encounter rolled off of his tongue with ease. It was so convincing that each time Jim told it, Dana would day dream that it was actually how they met. She would be stranded in the parking lot with a flat tire, or maybe a dead battery. Jim would see her in the crowd of panicked faces and swoop in like a hero in one of Nolan’s comics. “Let’s get out of here,” Jim would say, wrapping a broad arm around her, whisking her off into his police car. There were no planes exploding above them, no rapists bleeding to death at Dana’s feet.
“We hunkered down,” Jim continued, “until a National Guard unit came through. We were very lucky, I know that not many made it to the refugee camps.
“After that, we packed up whatever we had left and headed for Colorado. My daughter was accepted to Colorado State before the outbreak, and it seemed like as good a place as any to start fresh.”
Jim nodded, bowed uncomfortably, and returned to his seat as those around him put their hands together for light, courteous claps.
Chloe whisked her bangs from her eyes and glanced around the room before introducing herself.
“Welcome, Chloe.”
Without standing, Chloe plainly said, “Pretty much everything my dad just said,” then leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. She had found the meetings to be quite boring. It could be because, between the four of them, she had lost the least; or, because she was so busy catching up on school work in preparation for graduation. Sympathy for relocated survivors only stretched so far—there were minimum requirements in place that Chloe had to satisfy to make up for the weeks of senior year she missed.
“Is that all, Chloe?” Monica asked, her eyebrows raised high.
Chloe said “mhm” with a confident nod. Her place at the meetings were as a cheerleader for Dana, Nolan, and her father. Dana had been a wreck since the morning they left East Violet, when she discovered her sister’s death. Nolan was as much of a wreck, if not more—he was just much more brilliant at disguising it.
Nolan tugged at his plaid shirt and stood before the group.
“My name is Nolan Fis—”
“Welcome, Nolan.”
Nolan forced a smile before continuing. “My name is Nolan Fischer, and I escaped New York with my girlfriend, Chloe, her father, Jim, and our English teacher, Dana. It’s weird, right? I know.”
The attendees seated around Nolan chuckled and nodded.
“I’m thankful for these three because they’re the only reason I’m alive. I’m sure of it. There were a dozen situations where I could have died the day the outbreak started. That plane that went down crashed through my high school, and I found out a few weeks after that an engine landed on my house…if you can believe that. I didn’t know because I was staying with Chloe and her family, and when the evacuation came through we left immediately without going back….”
Nolan could feel the familiar sting of tears welling in his eyes.
“I was supposed to meet my parents in Albany, at the refugee camp. But they never made it. I haven’t heard from them or seen them since the outbreak began, and, I’m just supposed to accept that they’re dead, I guess?”
The faces in the crowd, once smiling and chuckling at how a young boy ended up on an adventure with his girlfriend, her dad, and his English teacher, now turned flat and somber.
“It’s hard, but it would be easier if I knew what happened to them. I’ve been going to grief counseling once a week, and apparently I’m still in the denial phase, and I’m not supposed to be. But I don’t care. I like to picture them escaping alive. I like to think that I just haven’t found them yet.”
Nolan detested crying in front of Chloe. He absolutely hated it, and he could feel the tides of sadness rolling and tingling up the back of his neck, so he decided to abruptly sit down.
“That’s it, I guess.”
***
“Could you believe the wait at your fancy pants vegan place?” Jim said, and he slid a chair out from their table for Dana to sit at.
“I can, it’s supposed to be fantastic,” Dana said, scooting into her seat. “I’m sure you’re all real torn up that we didn’t eat there.”
Nolan smiled. “I would have given them a chance. They looked good. It was only a twenty-minute wait.”
“Thank you, Nolan,” Dana said as Jim sat down beside her.
“I think I would have starved to death if I had to wait twenty-one minutes,” Jim joked, picking up a menu and pretending to look it over.
Chloe looked disgustedly across the table at a giant, animatronic Cat dancing behin
d her father’s seat.
“Did they have to sit us next to Carly the Pizza Cat?” she asked, not trying to disguise the attitude in her tone.
“You used to love this place when you were a kid,” Jim said, not bothering to look up from his menu.
“Yeah, dad. When I was a kid.”
Jim set his menu down.
“We haven’t ordered yet, we can go somewhere else.”
“No, dad, I’m starving too.”
“Exactly, and that’s why we’re here.” A child went running by their table, his fists clenched full of golden arcade tokens and paper tickets. “Why not make the best of it? You can challenge your old man to some skee-ball after.”
Chloe tried to hide the smile creeping from the corner of her lips.
“Ah, there it is,” Jim said.
“Whatever, dad.”
Nolan rubbed his shoulder with the palm of his right hand.
“Don’t tell me you’ll be too sore for skee-ball, Nole,” Jim said, noticing Nolan grunt as he rubbed his shoulder.
“Are these things supposed to take this long to heal?” Nolan asked.
“I don’t know,” Jim said, “I’ve never had one.”
“It’ll be tender for a week or so,” Dana chimed in. “Let me see it again.”
Nolan rolled up his shirt sleeve. On his shoulder, covering a small pink scar, was a cartoon bullet wearing exaggerated kid gloves.
Jim sneered and shook his head.
“He’s just being a grumpy old man,” Dana said. “I think it’s cute.”
A waitress stopped by the table wearing a brightly colored red and yellow apron.
“It’s a space-tastic day at Planet Pizza. My name’s Melissa, what can I get for you folks?”
Jim looked up from the table. “I don’t think we’re ready yet. Getting the four of us to decide on pizza is like negotiating diplomatic relations, you know?”
The waitress nodded. “I’ll bring y’all back some drink cups and give you some time to decide. In the meantime…”
The waitress reached into her apron and pulled out a stack of gleaming, golden coins.
“Your first fifteen Planet Medallions are on us.”
“Well that’s great,” Jim said, and he thanked the waitress.
Jim spun a coin on the table, making eye contact with Chloe as the waitress breezed away.
“What do you say? Loser gets the check,” Jim said, challenging his daughter.
“No, dad…”
“What? Cause you can’t afford it? Or are you too chicken shit?”
A mother two tables down, seated with her young children, glared at Jim. For a moment, he forgot they were the oldest guests at Planet Pizza.
Again, Chloe couldn’t resist smiling.
“Teams?” she asked.
“Fine, if you think it will help.”
“Then I get to pick first.”
“Gee, I wonder who you’ll pick—”
“I pick Nolan.”
Nolan looked up from his phone. “No, don’t bring me into this.”
Chloe looked annoyed. “Come on. You have to.”
Nolan nodded reluctantly. “Fine.”
Jim looked beside him at Dana.
“Jim, please—”
“What? You’re going to leave me with no teammate?”
“Do I have to?”
Jim grinned, and in a tone that clearly mocked Chloe’s, said, “Come on. You have to.”
Dana looked around the table. Nolan had pocketed his cell phone, Chloe was twitching her legs up and down in anticipation, and Jim was clearly ready to leap from the table at any moment.
“How did I end up with you nutcases?” Dana asked, only half smiling.
Without warning, Jim prodded Dana’s waist, tickling her just where he knew she was the most sensitive. Dana let out a burst of uncontrollable laughter.
“You wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jim said, grinning and looking Dana deep in the eyes before kissing her. “Come on.”
“Fine, fine,” Dana said, standing up from the table just as their waitress was returning with four empty, plastic cups.
“Executive decision, just a plain cheese with pepperoni,” Jim said to the waitress.
Dana raised her eyebrows at Jim.
“Half cheese, half pepperoni,” Jim clarified. “And some salads and breadsticks would be nice, too.”
“Perfect, I’ll put it right in for you,” the waitress said, reaching into her pocket before Jim could walk away.
“Here,” she said, handing him another small stack of tokens, “but don’t tell anyone.”
“I really appreciate that,” Jim said, pocketing the coins. “Thank you.”
“It’s no problem,” the waitress said. “You have a beautiful family.”
“Oh…” Jim said, before getting ready to explain. Dana, Nolan, and Chloe were already waiting at a skee-ball table on the other side of the restaurant. Chloe was impatiently waving for her father to come over.
“They really are, aren’t they?”
TWENTY-THREE
“Good evening, and thanks for tuning in. I’m Vivian Morales, and on behalf of all of us at CNN, we welcome you to a very special episode of America Tonight.
“Its been eight months since a deadly virus swept across New York City, reaching as far upstate as Orange and Putnam counties. Scores of citizens are still displaced and unable to return home. Countless more have perished from the disease. With no exact numbers available, current estimates project that nearly one million people have died as a result of EV1.
“Now, as the nation continues to mourn and close in on the eight month anniversary of the outbreak, there appears to be signs of hope for America. This evening, the Dow and Nasdaq closed with the most optimistic point growth of the past eight months. The American dollar is growing stronger by the day. And, perhaps most importantly, it has been several months since a confirmed case of EV1 has been reported.
“Yet, there are still many more questions than answers. Joining us tonight to help answer some of those questions, and perhaps better understand EV1, is Dr. Paul Merrill. Dr. Merrill is a Harvard educated immunologist, a leading researcher of EV1, and was one of the first members of the medical community to encounter the virus.
“Doctor, thank you for joining us.”
Dr. Merrill froze for a moment. Vivian Morales was so much prettier in person than she ever appeared on television, and though they had met before taping, the doctor was still a bit star-struck. Though his appearance years prior on The Daily Doc made him no stranger to a television studio, the sudden realization that this was his first live broadcast worried him. The intensity of the lights on set made him queasy, as did the smell of the makeup that had been caked onto his face just moments before the show was set to air.
“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Morales,” the doctor answered confidently, after a short pause.
“Many believe that what we experienced last fall was a modern day black plague. What would you have to say to that?”
“Well,” Dr. Merrill said, folding his hands together. Stick to the script. The script, the script, the script. Each question and answer had been carefully rehearsed with Agents Perry and Ritchie hours before the interview was set to broadcast. The purpose of the interview was to reinforce two things in the mind of the American public: first, that the EV1 virus was under control; and second, that New York would sooner—rather than later—be safe again for habitation.
“We did not experience a modern day black plague, and we should thank our lucky stars that we did not.” Dr. Merrill sighed. “The black plague annihilated one-third of the earth’s population—EV1 has claimed less than one percent of that number at best. I don’t say that as a disservice to the many, many who have perished. I say it so that perhaps some comfort can be brought to those listening or watching at home, by putting this situation in perspective.”
“You, as well as several other leaders of the scientific community, have
expressed a sense of certainty that the virus is under control. Just recently, you published a report wherein you used the term ‘tamed’ when referring to EV1. If the virus has yet to reach the scale of destruction of the black plague, can you be certain that it simply hasn’t reached its full potential?”
“Yes.”
“And how? There are entire communities—many in areas no where near New York or the affected counties—that have isolated themselves away from the world. If there was a little boy watching right now from one of those neighborhoods, who hasn’t gone outside a two mile radius of his front door for nearly a year, what would you tell him?”
“First, I would tell him not to be afraid. I would tell him that all of these comparisons to the black death are trivial and without merit. The black death was caused by a parasite, this recent epidemic was caused by a virus. The black death occurred during a time that was woefully distant of the modern miracles of science and information that we posses today. I would tell that little boy to go outside and play.” Dr. Merrill looked into the camera. The script. “Then I would tell his parents to consider taking a vacation, and to stop living underneath a cloud of worry.”
“I have it written down here, doctor, that you were actually the one who named the virus—despite the fact that yourself and several other doctors in New York encountered it simultaneously.”
“Yes,” the doctor lied. “EV1. The extermination virus.”
“That’s a very gloomy title for a virus from someone who believes its reign of destruction has come to an end.”
Dr. Merrill chuckled. “The name came from a moment of passion. It was never my idea for it to stick. Certain individuals read my field notes, and things got carried away from there. I don’t think that’s what’s most important right now.”
“I would argue that it is important, doctor, when the same person who once believed the virus would exterminate mankind is now telling us to go outside and play.”
The doctor felt a drop of sweat bead on his forehead. Vivian was meandering from the script.
Hour 23 Page 22