by J. Thorn
He grabbed a cart and jogged toward produce, loading up potatoes, bananas, bell peppers. As screams kicked up from the front of the store, he rushed down the cereal aisle, sweeping cardboard cartons into his cart, then swerved for the breakfast meats, where he pitched packages of bacon three at a time. Others clogged the aisles, ignoring each other as they snatched up frozen pizzas, 12-packs of Coke, plastic rings of peeled shrimp. Trampled bags of chips spewed greasy crumbs across the floor. In dairy, a bald man tore a half gallon of creamer from another man's hands. The victim cocked back his fist and punched the bald man into a display of taco shells.
Raymond skidded through a slick of strawberry soda, grabbing at pasta and bottles of alfredo, then swung around to the opposite aisle to top his cart with bagels and bread. It was a good thing, he reflected on his way to the doors, the chains stuck to such ironclad, marketing-bolstered floor plans; with a layout nearly identical to the Ralph's down the street from him in Redondo, he'd wasted almost no time tracking stuff down.
He flew for the doors with tight-chested glee. A faint guilt, too, but he'd hardly been the only one plunging into the chaos. And you know what? He highly doubted anyone in that store was a month away from potentially starving. They weren't taking because they needed it. They were taking because everyone else was and they feared there might not be anything left tomorrow. They were taking because they were scared a few old people had died barfing blood. They were taking because talking heads on NBC predicted billions of dollars could be lost to sick days, potentially cratering the recession into outright depression, while talking heads on FOX claimed the flu pandemic was directly attributable to government involvement in the American medical system.
Right then, Raymond didn't really give a shit. He just wanted to get his stuff home, stick it in the freezer, and sleep a little easier knowing that if Mr. Choi took three weeks to get back to business instead of two, he and Mia would still have something to eat.
Sirens roared. Sunlight struck his face, even brighter than the store fluorescents. Sweat glued his shirt to his back. Shoppers scattered across the parking lot, bound for their cars or homes. At the turn-in to the lot, a police cruiser skidded in hard; two officers sprinted for the looters, reaching for their batons.
Raymond broke left for his white Altima. Soles slapping the asphalt, he weaved around a broken case of beer, glass shards bright amid the hoppy-smelling foam. He pulled up to his car, shopping cart clunking into his bumper. He popped the trunk and started dishing food inside.
At the exit fifty feet from his Altima, two more cruisers screamed into the lot, one weaving toward the Ralph's while the other swung in to block the exit. An officer unloaded from the passenger side, unholstered his sleek black pistol, and sunk in behind the car door. He pointed his gun at Raymond.
"Hands up!" he screamed.
Raymond reached for his gun.
6
Walt walked to the bed, pulled the comforter away from Vanessa, and shuddered, groaning. Half-dried blood weighed down the sheets, clinging to her cheeks and pooling around her neck, a stinking, chunky flow of red and phlegm and chunks like ground beef. He reached for her mucky chin. It was slick and room-temperature. Her mouth sagged open without resistance. Her bruised tongue oozed, sluglike, past her lips. Her glassy eyes stared through a question they couldn't form.
He called 911, sat on the floor, and cried. They'd take her away this night, wouldn't they? Would his last sight of her be at her funeral? Would her parents even invite him? He struggled to his feet, lurched to the bed. Paled by sickness, crusted with blood and spittle, her beauty hadn't been completely masked and erased—the lines of her cheekbones were graceful as ever, her lips soft and wide, her nose small and straight and freckled. He would never see or touch or hold her again. Numbly, he reached forward, palmed her heavy left breast, and squeezed.
He raced for the bathroom and heaved until the paramedics buzzed up.
They asked him quiet questions and he gave them clipped answers, replying even when they asked if he'd tried to get her in to see a doctor.
"Just like that," he said. "She was fine. I left. She died."
The paramedic pressed his fist to his forehead. "She's not the first. Girlfriend?"
"We'd turned things around. We had a future."
"Hey, kid, you still got one. Hang on."
Walt didn't see much point to that. He didn't see much point to anything. The paramedics left with her body. He got drunk and called her parents. He couldn't remember falling asleep.
Time became strange. He spent his days glued to his computer, combing the news for NYC death toll updates: dozens, then hundreds, soon thousands. The trajectory was mirrored around the nation, the world. Governments advised people to stay indoors, wash their hands, and handle their own food. Wash their hands! Three-quarters of the country was sick and they were telling people Remember: soap exists. Face in his hands, Walt laughed. He was glad they were dying. They deserved it. This was what everyone deserved.
Walt threw out the comforter. The sheets. Hauled the mattress to the curb and slept on the couch. He got a temporary debit card so he could drink Jim Beam straight from the bottle like the worst of cliches. He didn't care.
His parents called to ask him to come back to Long Island. He said no. Unless they floated off in one of their balloons, there was nowhere they could go where people weren't barfing up blood.
He'd never been religious. Not past 7, anyway, when he'd asked God for a bike. A couple weeks later, at the Unitarian church his parents brought him to, Walt left Sunday School and saw the feathery pulp of a baby bird ground into the sidewalk by strollers and well-shined shoes. No one else bothered to look down. He never got his bike. Instead, he believed in the goodness of man, their natural rights and inherent dignity.
With Vanessa's body somewhere under a hospital, Walt watched the LA riots with a smile. He nodded in satisfaction at the twelve-fatality trampling in the London tubes. The reverend Frank Phillips preached on TV about Revelations. Two days later, his cough forced him off a live broadcast mid-sermon. Walt set up a Google Alert for his obituary.
Four days after Vanessa's death, he decided to hunt down his mugger and stab him to death before the plague could get him.
A cold spring wind blew off the bay. Sunlight glittered like ice. Uptown was supposedly a ghost town, but the Village was still reasonably populated with its native artists, transgenders, college students, and professionals who imagined they were still cool, unaware the entire neighborhood hadn't been for at least a decade. Walt crossed the narrow streets with no particular pattern, jiggling the butterfly knife in his pocket. He knew there was no real chance the man with the shaved head would be in the coffee shops or cafes (the ones that were still open, anyway), but checked regardless, nauseated by the smells of espresso and fried plantains and kung pao. On the sidewalks, people lifted their surgical masks to talk quietly on their cells. Others hurried past, coughing into their fists, driving oncoming pedestrians to the other side of the street. Walt walked until his toes blistered, until his nose numbed in the wind, until the sun went down, then he bought a new pint and walked until he couldn't. He sat on the stoop where the man had sat and leaned against the iron rail that lined the stairs.
He woke sometime before sunrise, stiff, hungover, colder than stone. He dragged himself home and slept on the couch deep into the afternoon. The apartment still smelled like blood and the gritty blue cleaning powder he'd used to scrub it out.
He put down some water, whiskey, and toast. Before he'd managed to dress, he heard chanting in the street. A clump of protesters marched north, parkbound, clapping gloved hands, waving signs that said "VACCINES KILL" and "WHERE'S THE CURE?" and "SICK CROPS, SICK PEOPLE."
Walt brought his coat, a bottle, the knife. Washington Square swelled with students, middle-aged women in glasses, gray-haired men in corduroy vests. The drug dealers retreated to the shadowy, tree-thick corner, hands in the pockets of their black hoodies. Walt circled
the fringes, hunting for bald white heads. A woman with a frizzy ponytail descended to the center of the dry fountain, propped up a picture, and lit a candle. Notes and photos appeared as if conjured. Walt smelled wax, incense. The standard protest sights: a bearded kid slapping his bongos, 2-4-6-8 anti-government cheers, short-haired 50-year-old women yelling into megaphones. A squad car rolled to a stop alongside the arch on the north entrance of the park. An officer swung his legs out the door, leaned against the car, and muttered into his radio.
The crowd chanted, made speeches, told anecdotes about crowded hospitals and delayed appointments and insurance discrimination. People poured into the park by twos and fours, clogging the concrete around the fountain. On the south edge, a column of kids in red and black filed into the park, circled A's painted on their signs and sweatshirts and masked faces. They carried plastic shields and black batons. The cop near the arch grimaced and leaned into his car. Back by the swing sets, a man with a shaved head flagged down a college kid and bummed a cigarette.
The mugger lit up, squinted, spat smoke between his teeth. Walt walked over, hand in his pocket.
"Hey."
The man closed one eye. "What's up?"
"How was the curry?"
The man cocked his head, confused, then grinned slowly. "Tasty, man. I gotta go back to that place."
Three more squad cars joined the first up by the arch. Inside his pocket, Walt unfolded his knife. "My girlfriend died."
The grin seeped from the mugger's eyes. "Yeah, well, she's not the only one."
"If you hadn't stopped me, I might have gotten home in time."
"To do what? Suck the poison out? Cast a spell? I lifted your wallet, not your fucking medical license."
On the south side of the park, a man barked like a drill sergeant. The anarchists formed four orderly lines. Some belted riot masks under their chins while others raised transparent shields. Sirens squealed up on 5th Avenue.
"Maybe I'd have seen her."
The anarchists jogged forward in formation. Protesters shouted, deserting the square, shoving onlookers into the fountain. Someone screamed. By the arch, two mounted police clopped behind a knot of NYPD holding tasers and batons.
"She died," the man with the shaved head said. "Ain't nothing worse than your girl dying on you. But if you're trying to blame me for that, you need to get yourself some fucking grief counseling."
Wordlessly, the anarchists broke into a sprint. The outnumbered cops held their ground. The two mounted units trotted forward. The front line of red-and-black anarchists raised their riot shields above their heads, the curved plastic tonking under the horsemen's batons. The second line of anarchists rushed forward, surrounding the horses, and yanked the two cops out of their stirrups. Their own batons rose and fell. Sirens yowled over the screams. The horses reared. A kid in black collapsed, convulsing. From the arch, a policeman charged for the downed mounties, pistol drawn, emptying his clip into the anarchists beating the two downed cops.
Walt lunged forward, slashing at the mugger's face. The man shouted and threw up his hands. The knife cut a deep red line across his fingers. He swore, stumbling back a half step, then crouched low with his hands extended. Walt jabbed for his ribs. The mugger grabbed his wrist, folded it, wrenched away the knife. Walt smelled the man's sweat, heard the whuff of his breath. A bright point of pain burst through Walt's gut. Two more followed. The man drew back. Walt collapsed. Metal clattered on the concrete. Walt moaned, dry-mouthed, wet-handed.
"You fucking idiot," the mugger said. He turned and ran. Walt rolled on his back and clutched his stomach and thought: I want this. A bearded face poked into the narrowing tunnel of his vision. Words he couldn't understand. He saw Vanessa smiling, lying on her back in a field in Central Park.
* * *
"Get up. Hey, Stitches. Time to get up and go home."
Walt shook his head. Something tugged his nose, pinching. He pawed at his face. A strong hand grabbed his wrist.
"Let me take care of that for you. Don't want you losing any more blood."
The pressure on his nose increased, then disappeared. Something pinched his forearm instead. A black guy in scrubs stood beside his bed, winding thin clear tubes with strange, sharp smells of plastic and antiseptic.
"Can you walk? The answer better be yes."
"I'm in a hospital?"
"For the next five minutes, maybe."
Walt eased upright. "What kind of hospital wakes a stabbing victim up to kick him into the street?"
"One with two thousand sick people hacking their guts across the parking lot."
He leaned forward, wincing at the stitches tugging his stomach. "Am I...in trouble? Police-wise?"
The nurse pushed out his lower lip. "Officer came by a couple days ago, but you were out. Now they're a little busy with the fire up in Midtown to give a damn about whatever earned you a knife in the belly."
"Which hurts exactly as bad as you'd think getting stabbed hurts. At least give me some painkillers. The sick people don't need painkillers, do they?"
"Just a bed and someplace to die."
Walt laughed. The nurse didn't. "You're serious."
"Kid, if you're not sick yet, the last place you want to be is a hospital."
"You're talking like we're all going to be wearing tires and spikes by next Tuesday."
"All I know is I haven't seen one person bounce back." The nurse peeled back his sheet. "Get dressed. I'll get you those pills."
Walt had to lean across a chair to pull on his pants without stretching his stitches. The nurse opened the door, flipped him a rattling bottle, and gestured him out. As soon as Walt shuffled into the hall, the nurse rolled a second bed into his room. Walt went to the drinking fountain and swallowed a pill.
Patients in gowns slept on benches and coughed from chairs, dabbing blood from their lips. The air stunk of copper and warm raw meat. Walt hobbled to the receptionist, holding his stomach with one hand while he signed out with the other.
"I don't have any insurance."
She gazed at him over her glasses. "Then it's a good thing you didn't get stabbed a week ago. Get out of here."
He ran a hand through his greasy hair. "Since when could you walk out of a hospital without paying a pound of flesh?"
"Feds have suspended hospital billing until the Panhandler's finished," she explained, obviously not for the first time.
"Panhandler? Like a homeless guy?"
She snorted. "You been in a coma or something?"
"Maybe?"
"They traced it back to some wheat farmer in the Idaho panhandle. Thus—"
"Idaho doesn't have a panhandle. It's vertically oriented. More like a bottle neck."
"What are you, a cartographer? Just pretend somebody's holding the pan down by their side."
The front doors flew open, disgorging a pair of paramedics wheeling in a young girl vomiting blood onto the white tile. The receptionist stood, yelling questions; the medics yelled back.
Walt hobbled for the door. Vanessa was dead.
Ambulances clogged the front drive, lights whirling in the dusk. A queue of cabs let out coughing passengers who stood on the sidewalks, swaying, until a panting nurse emerged from a side door to escort them inside. Dozens of tents bivouacked the parking lot, overseen by dark-eyed doctors and a small patrol of soldiers in camo and gas masks. Walt got out his discharge papers. Nobody bothered to ask.
A block from the hospital, the firehose of traffic reduced to a drippy faucet. He crossed Second Avenue without breaking his slow stride. The sidewalks glittered under his feet. Metal bars shuttered storefronts on both sides of the street. Faraway laughter echoed between the towers. Walt limped down the stairs to the 28th St. 6-train. Two young guys waited on the opposite platform. His was empty besides a dead woman and a tacky pool of blood.
A breeze blew down the tunnel, carrying the scent of cold wet laundry. At least the trains were still running.
Home, first thing he did was get
in front of a mirror and tug up his shirt. Three inch-long sets of stitches tracked the left side of his stomach, looking sickeningly like ingrown hairs, but deliberately placed, as if he'd been plowed and seeded. He let his shirt fall back into place.
Online, he learned he'd missed Vanessa's funeral. Google alerted him to the death of the Reverend Frank Phillips, 72, infamous picketer of soldiers' funerals, dead of the Panhandler virus. MSNBC.com estimated the American death toll in the hundreds of thousands, with more by the minute. Millions worldwide. His mom had left five messages on his phone. She and his dad were sick.
She didn't answer his call. He stuffed some clothes in a backpack, washed a hydrocodone down with some whiskey, and caught the subway up to Grand Central, where he bought a ticket to Long Island. A towering black cloud rose from Midtown, spilling out over the Upper Bay. His fellow passengers—a dozen or so, three of whom, like him, showed no sign of the cough or watery, bloodshot eyes that formed the virus' early symptoms—watched in silence, detraining one by one in the quiet Island townships. He got off in Medford a little after eleven. His mom still wasn't answering her phone.
Though he'd quit a few months back, he bought a pack of Camels at a Shell station that, by the look of it, was the only open store on the street. On his way to the exit, he turned around and bought three packs more. After so long, the smoke tasted ashy and bitter. The way nonsmokers smell it. His head went tingly and light. If he hadn't had to slow down to keep his balance during the head rush, he would have tripped over the body sprawled on the sidewalk.
Walt crossed to the far sidewalk. Crickets chirped tentatively from dark lawns. TV screens threw pale flickers on closed curtains. A dog whined from behind a chain link fence. The windows of its house were black. Walt crossed the yard, dew dampening his Converse, and knelt in front of the small black dog, which waved its thick tail and battered at the fence with heavy white paws. He fed it Bugles from the bag he'd brought with him and scratched its ears. He barely felt his stitches; his breathing felt good. He told the dog it was good. He drank from his pint of whiskey, glass glinting in the darkness. The base of his throat burned but his stomach felt warm.