365 Days Alone

by Nancy Isaak

  Jay shrugged. “Whatever.” She yawned, not even bothering to cover her mouth in her fatigue.

  “You seem especially tired,” I said. “How are the patients doing?”

  “Sue and Rachel are slightly better. The rest are the same.”

  “Amelie?”

  “She’s the worst.”

  “Still?”

  Jay shook her head, almost angry. “Maybe it’s just that she’s smaller and more fragile. Honestly, Kaylee, I don’t know how much more her body can take.”

  “Is Peyton with her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Does she know about Yaz?”

  “Orla came.” Jay looked disgusted. “She stood at the door and told her. She didn’t even come in. Frankly, I think our President is scared of being infected.”

  “How did Peyton take it?”

  “I don’t think she cared. She has more important things on her mind right now.”

  * * * *

  There was one last thing I did before I left school that day.

  Even though he would never receive it, I dropped a ‘Secret Valentine’ through the slots of Jacob Riker’s locker.

  JOURNAL ENTRY #21

  I’m beginning to really dislike Sophia.

  She showed up at the Medical Center when I was helping Jay with the sick girls. I was holding one of the 12th grader’s heads, while she puked in a bucket. Suddenly, I hear this voice yelling about ‘God’ and ‘damnation’ and ‘plague’ being part of the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’.

  When I spun around, there was Sophia.

  She was standing at the doorway, holding a bible up in her hand like she was Moses holding up the “Ten Commandments”.

  “You must repent!” she yelled. “You must accept Jesus into your hearts!”

  I didn’t know what to do—I was so surprised.

  It was Peyton who came to our rescue. She simply stood up and walked to the door and slammed it in Sophia’s face.

  “Dumbass,” Peyton muttered.

  Then—without another word—she returned to Amelie’s bedside.

  JOURNAL ENTRY #22

  Everyone’s losing weight.

  And our tummies are always grumbling.

  It seems like every girl I meet is either food-cranky, has PMS because she’s on her period, or just plain old pissy.

  Except the 11th and 12th graders on the Protection Detail—it’s amazing how they look ‘exactly’ the same.

  Almost as if they’re not on rations.

  * * * *

  And now Shawnee is sick!

  Cherry is obviously devastated. She had thought that her younger sister was just tired because she hadn’t been getting enough to eat lately.

  She was wrong.

  Including Shawnee, there are now thirteen girls sick in the Medical Center.

  We didn’t have enough cots for all of them, so Orla had us go into the townhouses and bring back mattresses. We’ve put them on the floor and the sick girls are sleeping on those.

  The Council also assigned two other girls to take over Laundry Detail, so that Cherry and I could help out in the Medical Center. Of course, Cherry spends almost all of her time with Shawnee, so I do most of the work.

  I’m okay with that.

  Cherry’s going through enough—watching someone she loves waste away.

  * * * *

  Tray became sick, too. Sadly, it didn’t last long. (That sounds so horrible. What’s even more horrible is that I mean it.)

  She was in the Medical Center for no more than two days—puking up her guts, sweating, and shaking. Then she was back to her old mean self again.

  Jay thinks that Tray didn’t have the same thing as the other girls. She thinks that she probably had food poisoning from the way she was throwing up.

  Hmmm—that’s curious, don’t you think?

  What on earth could give Tray food poisoning?

  Especially since we’re all supposed to be eating the same thing.

  Wandy says that it’s because the Foxes and the Protection Detail are eating the pets now. She said that she’s been finding animal bones in the garbage when she takes it to the trash lot. When I suggested that maybe the Detail was trapping rabbits or squirrels and the older girls were eating them, Wandy just laughed.

  “How does that explain the collars and dog tags in their garbage, then?” she asked.

  * * * *

  About once a day Orla and her Protection Detail show up at the Medical Center. They never enter, just stand at the door, waiting for an update from Jay.

  Today—I think that Orla wishes that she’d never showed up.

  Jay was in a foul mood.

  “How do you think it’s going?” Jay snapped at her. “I’ve got thirteen sick girls and only three helpers.”

  “I can ask for volunteers,” Orla suggested.

  “Why don’t you just order them to come and help?” Jay said. “You have no problem ordering us to do everything else.”

  Orla looked shocked.

  Alice stepped forward, as if to tell Jay off, but—when Jay walked toward her—she immediately moved back. (She was afraid of being infected, the coward!)

  “How about you, Alice?” Jay goaded her. “You’re a big girl. You’ll certainly be able to lift these girls when we need to change their bedding.”

  “Jay,” interrupted Orla, gently, “let me see what I can do. I’m sure we can find you extra help.”

  “And I need more information!” Jay waved her arms around. “There have to be doctors’ offices around here. Send someone to check for medical textbooks. I need to figure out what we’re dealing with here if you want me to be able to fight it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Orla, turning to leave.

  “Do better!” yelled Jay at her departing back.

  Orla tensed—but kept on walking.

  ORLA GIVES US BAD NEWS

  Two days later, the girls started getting better.

  Sue and Rachel were the first to leave the Medical Center. The rest followed over the next forty-eight hours.

  Last to leave was Shawnee.

  She looked weak and broken when she walked out the front door—but she definitely was on the mend.

  Then—it was just Amelie.

  Still sick.

  Pale and clammy.

  In and out of consciousness.

  * * * *

  With all the other patients gone, Jay and I pulled up chairs—joining Peyton at Amelie’s bedside.

  “She doesn’t have what the other girls had, does she?” said Peyton sadly.

  “I don’t think so.” Jay shook her head.

  “Do you think she’s going to…” Peyton wasn’t going to say the word, especially not with Amelie beside her—but we knew what she meant.

  “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she doesn’t,” Jay promised.

  We were silent for a while, just sitting there, watching the rise and fall of Amelie’s chest with each shallow breath she took.

  “You should go,” Peyton said, after a while—so softly, that we could barely hear.

  “It’s okay.” Jay stifled a yawn. “I’ve got a few more hours in me.”

  “No.” Peyton shook her head. “You’re not understanding. You should go—all of you. Leave this place—while you still can.”

  I was confused; so was Jay. But before we could ask what she meant, we heard a raspy voice.

  “Peyton?” It was Amelie—awake after so long.

  She smiled weakly up at her sister and Peyton reached down, gently smoothing a stray hair from Amelie’s clammy brow.

  “Hey, brat,” Peyton said. “You think you could stop scaring me for a while?”

  * * * *

  The next night, the Council ordered an ‘Assembly’.

  We met after work in the theater. It was a somber collection of girls and conversation was conducted in low voices, with drawn faces and worried looks.

  With the exception of Jay, Peyton, an
d Amelie, it looked like everyone was there.

  Of course—Yaz was still missing.

  As soon as everyone was settled, Orla approached the podium. She was wearing another one of her ‘power suits’, this one in a dark plum. Unfortunately, the color—while pretty—did not go well with her red hair. Even in the dim light coming from the tiki torches, Orla looked pasty against the deep purple of her suit jacket.

  Flanking Orla, on either side of the stage, was a 12th grader from her Protection Detail. They looked appropriately serious—and well-armed.

  Tray, meanwhile, was seated in the front row. I noticed that she was in a deep discussion with Alice—who was sitting to her right. Every once in a while, however, Tray would turn around and survey the audience.

  Eventually we made eye contact.

  When that happened, Tray smiled. To anyone watching, it must have looked like Tray was happy to see me.

  Her smile was big and wide and showing lots of teeth.

  To me—she simply looked like a predator who had just spotted her prey.

  * * * *

  Jude leaned over and whispered in my ear. “To your right…look at Sophia.”

  Leaning forward, I caught sight of Sophia, sitting in the very last seat of our row. She had her hands clasped together, her eyes closed, and she was praying.

  “Whack job called me a demon today,” Jude told me.

  “It’s because she wants you to let Lily go to her church services,” I explained.

  “Not a chance,” snorted Jude. “If Lily wanted to go, maybe I’d say different. But Lily thinks Sophia is weird.”

  Down at the end of the row, Sophia had finally stopped praying. Now she was scratching her head—the way people with really dirty hair do when they haven’t bathed for a while.

  “She’s certainly not the Sophia I used to know,” I murmured.

  “Do you know what’s really funny?” asked Jude.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sophia’s always getting on everyone’s case about repenting so God will take them up to Heaven, yet she still got left behind…ironic.”

  * * * *

  At the podium, Orla began her speech:

  “Good evening, everyone. Well, this certainly has been a difficult couple of weeks. Because of that, I thought it was important to talk to you—to get the community up to speed on a couple of things.”

  (Someone yelled out, wanting to know if Yaz had been found. Orla shook her head.)

  “I am sorry to say that we cannot find a trace of Yazmeen anywhere. I know that some of you think that it was the beasts that took her. While I am not saying that this is impossible, I do think it is improbable. Since Yaz disappeared from a room with a locked window—with a Protection Detail standing just outside—it is my opinion that she probably got ‘taken’, just like all the others from our families who are missing.”

  (Someone else wanted to know if it was because Yazmeen had turned eighteen.)

  “I don’t know. But I think that’s a distinct possibility. Of all the girls here, there isn’t a single one who is over seventeen.”

  (Up on stage, the 12th graders from Orla’s Protection Detail frowned. One of them actually began counting on her fingers—as if figuring out how many months were left until her 18th birthday.)

  “Whatever the reason, Yaz’s disappearance has taught us that we need to cherish the time we spend with the people we love. And we also need to protect them. Not just from violence but—as we have discovered—from sickness.”

  (I looked over at Lily on the left side of Jude. She had fallen asleep, her head on the older girl’s shoulder. Farther down, Shawnee—seated between Wandy and Cherry—also seemed to be having difficulty staying awake. Her head was nodding, her eyes closing.)

  “We came close to losing girls through sickness this week…very close. This has shown us that we need to be better prepared medically. We need information—education. Before this thing happened, medical knowledge was ‘Google-able’. Now we have only what we can find in books.

  Which means that we need more books, because what we have in the school library does not meet our needs. So, in a few days, the Council will be sending a team to the Agoura Hills Library to bring back books—primarily medical texts.”

  (There was much interested chatter at that. Girls actually sat up straighter in their seats, looking excited.)

  “However—we have also received an unconfirmed report that the Agoura Hills Library has been vandalized and most of the books already taken. If this is true, then that means that we will have to travel farther north, to the Westlake Village Library. Obviously, that decision will have to be made by the Library Detail on the day of the expedition.

  Further to that, there is some concern about traveling through the Westlake Village girls’ territory. After some discussion with their representative, the Council has received permission and visas for ten girls and five members of the Protection Detail to travel through their city. If the Detail does not find what they need at the Agoura Hills Library, then Westlake will give safe passage to their library for this one trip only.

  To that end, a specific route along Agoura Road has been permitted. Any girl who strays from that route will be detained by Westlake Village and—possibly—shot.”

  (Some of the girls groaned. Our local Target store was in Westlake Village, which meant that we probably wouldn’t be making any side trips to do a little personal shopping.)

  “You must all remember that the objective of this trip will be to gather the books we need to manage our community—in a medical capacity and to educate ourselves for survival in this new world. If you wish to be part of this Library Detail—at the end of the Assembly—please write down your name on a piece of paper and hand it to Alice.”

  (I looked down the row at Sophia. ‘Organizing and lists’ were usually her responsibility. But Sophia didn’t seem to care that she was being left out. Instead, she rocked back and forth in her chair, chewing on a hangnail.)

  “To make it fair, we will place all the names of the girls who want to go to the Agoura Hills Library into a hat. Ten will be chosen at random to make the trip. The five members of the Protection Detail, however, will be chosen by the Council.

  For those of you who won’t be able to make the trip, I encourage each of you to create a list of books that you would like the Library Detail to bring back. Think carefully about what you want to read. Choose books for entertainment, books for education, and books for survival.”

  (All around me, girls were pulling out pieces of paper; lists were already being written.)

  “One of the other goals of the Library Detail will be to find books on agriculture. As you can all tell—given that we’re now on rations—our food is running out. It’s time for us to grow our own. So, if there is anybody out there with the knowledge or desire to be on our new ‘Farming Detail’, please let us know soonest.”

  (I actually thought that the idea of farming would be met with groans. Instead, I was surprised at how many girls actually looked interested. Beside Shawnee, I could see Wandy already writing ‘fertilizer’ and ‘organic farming’ on her book list.)

  “Now, I have a few other important items to tell you. First—in my discussions with girls from the other communities nearby, I am sad to say that there have been incursions by the beasts into the mountains around us. They have been reported all along Topanga Canyon now and Moorpark has witnessed them coming down from Simi Valley.

  Also, it appears that an area from Malibou Lake (different from Malibu) to Kanan and over to Triunfo Canyon has been taken over by some of the girls who were in one of the Probationary Camps near Malibu Creek. As you know, those girls are particularly vicious and violent juvenile delinquents, most being sent to the camps because of their criminal activities. They have now closed down all travel along Kanan-Dume Road (a specific part of Kanan Road that connects to the coast at Point Dume, Malibu). There, and along Mulholland Highway where it crosses Kanan-Dume, they are s
hooting at people.”

  (There were some gasps. If this was true, then that meant—between the beasts and the Probationary girls—Agoura Hills was close to being cut off on all sides.)

  “I will remind you once again that—under no circumstance—should you travel outside our community without a Council visa and at least one armed member of our Protection Detail. It has simply become too dangerous. And—inside our borders—do not forget that the curfew from dusk-to-daybreak is still in effect. This is for all our safety and security.”

  (I wondered if maybe this ‘oncoming-isolation’ was what Peyton had been talking about—when she told Jay and me that we needed to ‘get out while we still could’.)

  “And finally—I have very sad news indeed. While a terrible sickness has run through our human population, I am devastated to tell you that it has also run through our animal population.”

  (Beside me, Jude muttered, “Here we go.”)

  “I’m so sorry, everyone. Our wonderful animals—our dear pets.

  They’re gone.”

  MARCH

  GETTING RIPPED

  A few days after Orla’s Assembly, Sophia showed up at Cherry and Wandy’s front door—suitcase in hand.

  Although she wouldn’t say what had happened, Sophia was clearly upset about something that had gone on at the Foxes Compound. Whatever it was, it was enough to send her scurrying back to her old friends.

  Luckily for Sophia, Cherry and Wandy graciously accepted her back into the fold—but with some very strict ground rules.