A Single Light

by Tosca Lee

  “Oh,” I say stupidly. I turn and stare down the block, seeing nothing. Feeling foolish. Relieved. Angry.

  “Please tell me you aren’t doing what it sounds like.” Irwin.

  “What does it sound like?” Chase asks, when I refuse to answer.

  “Like you’re trying to rescue someone who’s probably sick and is going to come flying out of the house or down the stairs or wherever you are and probably kill you both.”

  “Yup,” Chase says. I can hear his steps crunching back across the street, the wheels of the suitcase dragging behind him. “That’s what we’re doing.”

  I turn in time to see him round the corner, suitcase handle in one hand.

  A sledgehammer hanging from the other.

  “Where did you get that?” I say.

  “The garage. Found the key beneath a pot.” He leaves the suitcase on the sidewalk, walks over, and stands sideways near the door’s hinges. I move toward the wall behind him. He raises the sledgehammer.

  The bolt gives on the third strike and the door swings inward.

  Chase pulls back against the building. Drops the sledgehammer. Draws his pistol.

  I lay a hand on his arm.

  “If there’s a corpse in there it’s probably infected. Let me do it.”

  “No.”

  “Chase—”

  “We doing this or not?” he says, sounding angry.

  I grab his flashlight, flick it on, grip it overhand. Pull the one from my back pocket and thumb it on. He nods, and we step through the frame all at once, Chase in front, me behind, flashlights shining overhead into the dark interior.

  I take in the mass of empty clothing racks piled against the boarded-up storefront. The gaping hole in the wooden boards before the door. The radio set up on the squat coffee table, the soulless, old-fashioned TV. The corpse slumped back on the sofa, head lolled to the side.

  Five steps in, Chase coughs, arm across his mouth.

  Because even through our masks, we can smell it:

  Decay. Death. Hanging in the air like soup. Stirred for the first time in what—weeks? Months?—by the breeze through the open door.

  A soft knock sounds from somewhere above. Chase takes a flashlight from me, gestures me toward the front of the store, and then heads for what looks like a backroom.

  I rip aside the fabric hanging in front of a dressing booth. Start at my own reflection in the mirror against the wall inside.

  I step onto a lump of something. Lift my foot. Flash the light downward.

  A dead mouse.

  They’re everywhere. On the bench in the booth. The coffee table.

  The corpse on the sofa.

  I cautiously move toward the hole in the floorboards, shine the flashlight into the earthen basement. Jerk back at the naked figure below before realizing it’s a mannequin, arms at weird angles. Shelves line the wall crammed full of boxes, random objects, including a mantel clock and an old-fashioned cash register. I wonder if this was some kind of antiques store or pawn-

  shop.

  The knock sounds again. I pan the rest of the room. Finally force myself to take in the corpse splayed against the back cushion of the sofa. The worn jeans and dirty undershirt.

  There’s a note on the table—one of the flyers. It’s splattered with blood. Someone—the corpse, I assume—has written on it:

  If you find me and I am dead, please do not hurt my son. Otto is different. He is not sick. Or at least he isn’t as I write this. It is May 2. My name was Michael Boone. I loved my son.

  And then I see the pistol on the sofa.

  There’s a scrap of paper beside it filled with a simple list. An inventory.

  2 corned beef hash

  1 canned carrots

  3 canned spinach

  1 carton steel-cut oats

  2 gallons purified water

  12 nut bars . . .

  I glance around, but for all the dead mice, there are no wrappers or empty cans to be seen.

  If this man was infected, he didn’t die from the disease. He killed himself to conserve food.

  Static. “All clear,” Chase says through the headset.

  The knock sounds again, followed by another and another until it becomes one incessant rap.

  I move past an open restroom, the beam of my flashlight illuminating the vase of fake flowers in the corner. The garbage heaped around the trash can. The bucket I refuse to give more than a cursory glance.

  The stench tells me plenty.

  The sound continues, louder, more urgent, as I reach what turns out to be a small kitchenette, where Chase is unlatching a narrow door at the back. He throws it open and steps into the frame, pistol and flashlight raised. Glances up, and then at me.

  “There’s a second door. You sure about this?”

  “Chase, I think that’s his dad in there. He killed himself to conserve food for his son.”

  He looks away a moment and then lowers his head.

  “Otto?” I call.

  A soft rap.

  “We’re coming up.”

  Another rap.

  “But you need to know if you make a single move to hurt one of us, we’re armed, and we will shoot.”

  A moment of silence.

  And then a double knock.

  Chase shines the flashlight up the stairs, and then he’s taking them two at a time, me on his heels.

  The door at the top is sealed only with a chrome clothing rack section through a set of double handles.

  “That’s it?” Chase murmurs. “Why didn’t this guy bust this down?”

  “His dad said he’s different,” I murmur, four steps behind him.

  “What?”

  “He left a note.”

  Chase reaches the top landing. Tilts his head and slides the bar free. Pulls open the door.

  Soft light filters down the stairs.

  11 A.M.

  * * *

  Otto stands in the middle of the room, hands clasped together. He’s skinny, his dirty white T-shirt hanging off his shoulders. I guess him to be in his late twenties. He’s got fine bone structure, pale chin-length hair, and looks like he’s just won some kind of award. His eyes shine as he bites his lips together, a tear streaking down his cheek.

  We step up into a room with no furniture but a mattress. The walls are papered with pencil drawings of kids and old men, couples holding hands, a woman praying alone at a dinner table. A girl dancing in a tutu, a tiny tiara on her head.

  The page Otto used to write his message to us lies across the bed, the red ink bleeding through the portrait of a grandma holding a plate of cookies. I can practically hear her self-conscious laugh, see her blush through the gray lead.

  There’s a row of buckets in the corner, food containers neatly stacked against the opposite wall, most of them open or empty. A neat pile of pop-top lids and another of wrappers. Yet another of broken-down granola bar boxes. There’s a plate-sized hole high in the wall above the buckets—big enough to emit the faint breeze rifling through the drawings. Small enough to be plugged with a wadded-up sweatshirt.

  “Otto?” I say.

  He bounces a little on his heels.

  But in that moment, for all that I can tell this is a gentle soul, that he is some kind of savant even, and my heart drops.

  “Hey, man,” Chase says. “Lift your hands for me. Slowly.”

  Otto glances at me, brows lifted. Like a scared kid.

  “It’s okay, Otto,” I say.

  He lifts his arms as Chase pats him down. When he steps back, Otto glances toward the stairs and covers his nose, clearly upset.

  “My name’s Wynter,” I say. Because who’s he going to tell? Who is there to tell? “That’s Chase. Was that your dad?” I ask, tipping my head toward the stairs.

  He lifts his free hand, thumb touching his forehead, his expression bereft. His hands shaking.

  Chase looks around, scratching the back of his neck. It’s the same thing he did the day I cornered him at a truck stop
and asked to ride with him, not knowing what else to do. Not knowing he was hunting me the entire time. Except this time I know he’s genuinely trying to figure out what to do.

  “Otto, where did everyone go?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, gestures to the room around him.

  I try again. “Otto, is there a hospital nearby? A med center—someplace with a doctor? You know, doctor? My friend is very sick. I need to find medicine.”

  He looks intently at me, and for a moment I don’t think he’s understood. I’m about to rephrase the question when he suddenly glances around and then points at a wall. At first I wonder if there are actually medical supplies stashed in the wall behind his portraits. I go over and touch one of them, feel the solid and seamless wall behind it.

  Otto jabs his finger toward it again.

  My forehead wrinkles. “Another house? Is there a clinic that way?”

  “South,” Chase says, looking at Otto. “South, where? Sidney?”

  Otto nods. His stomach growls.

  I glance down at his stained T-shirt.

  “Hungry?” I ask.

  A minute later, Otto’s wolfing down an MRE and wrinkling his nose at the scent of the hand sanitizer lingering on his fingers as he tries to trade me the last remaining can from his stash: Dinty Moore baked beans.

  I shake my head with a smile he can’t see behind my mask. “You keep it.”

  Static in my ear. “Guys?” Irwin. “What’s your status?”

  “Looks like we’re headed to Sidney,” Chase says.

  “Hand me that map,” Irwin says to someone. And then: “Looks like fourteen, fifteen miles.”

  “Will the signal stretch that far?”

  “Should be good to thirty.”

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  Chase draws me aside. “We can’t leave him in the house with his dead dad downstairs,” he murmurs.

  “None of the buildings we’ve seen are safe,” I say. “He tries to go somewhere else, he’ll just get infected.”

  Otto finishes eating, points south again, and then at himself.

  “Chase,” I say.

  He turns, and Otto points again.

  “You want to go to Sidney,” Chase says.

  Otto points to us.

  “With us.”

  He nods.

  “Sorry, man. We don’t even know how we’re getting there. Unless . . . Otto, do you know where someone might be hiding a car?”

  Otto nods.

  “Can you show us?”

  Otto starts toward the stairs. Stops. Visibly falters.

  His hands go to his head and he lets out a yowl. It’s the sound of an injured animal from a grown man’s throat.

  I try to reach for his hands and he pulls away. I let go, unsure what to do.

  “Don’t,” Chase says. “Don’t touch him.” To Otto he says, “Hey, man, I have some bad news about your dad. But you already know that, don’t you.”

  Otto glances down and nods.

  Chase looks around, and then takes the dirty sheet from Otto’s bed, bundles it under his arm, and goes downstairs.

  Otto looks at me, wagging a finger. For a minute I think he’s saying not to go. Or that Chase shouldn’t have gone.

  He points toward the stairs, where Chase reappears at the bottom a second later. “Otto, you want to say good-bye to your dad?”

  He’s so frail-looking as he gazes around the room that’s been both sanctuary and prison for God only knows how long. I pick up the can of beans, a half gallon of water—all that’s left in a row of empty gallon jugs. Add the beans to my backpack and strap the handle of the water jug to the side. Produce a spare surgical mask from the front pocket, hold it up, and point to my own.

  “So you don’t get sick,” I say.

  He silently puts it on. Slips his hands into the gloves I hand him next, his fingers as articulate as a pianist’s. And then points to his ear and the headset attached to mine.

  “Some friends,” I say, unsure if he’s seen walkie-talkies before. “You want to take any of the pictures?” I ask, gesturing to the wall.

  He shakes his head and taps his brow. Retrieves a small sketchbook from the lineup against the wall and a carefully chosen pencil from an open case beside it. And then follows me toward the stairs, where he hesitates.

  I hold out a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, he takes it, the gesture not childlike so much as innocent—except for the resignation in his eyes.

  Downstairs, Otto pauses in the kitchenette. Walks slowly out from it toward the breeze stirring through the open door. Stops before the coffee table, tilts his head at the sheet-draped figure. I note Chase also hid the gun—as well as the dead man’s last message.

  Otto folds his hands, looks for a long moment at the figure, as a tear rolls down his cheek. And then he walks to the door, wincing at the sun.

  We follow Otto down the block to an outbuilding behind a boarded-up house, only to find that the lock on the door has been broken. When Chase swings the double doors wide, the space is empty.

  The car, if there was one, is gone.

  Otto’s expression is one of clear befuddlement. He wags his finger as he peers down the dirt lane behind the store before wandering out into the street, head cocked as though listening for something.

  And then he’s hurrying down the road, jogging stiff-legged, sketchbook swinging with his arm.

  “Otto!” I say, hurrying after him, Chase dragging the suitcase behind us.

  I slow as Otto turns down a street toward a fenced-in yard filled with a swing set and a bunch of kids’ toys, the array of Big Wheels, tricycles, and other assorted junk so thick I wonder how many kids could possibly have lived in the tiny two-story house. Am afraid to see the number on the spray-painted X on the door.

  Until we round the corner and I see the black and orange sign on the front of the chain-link fence:

  FOR SALE

  I stare at it, not parsing. Unable to imagine anyone wanting to buy a place filled with junk . . . until I see the row of bikes leaned up against the inside of the fence.

  Otto’s climbing delicately over the chain link when I realize he isn’t even wearing any shoes.

  “Hey,” Chase says, letting go of the suitcase handle. But Otto’s already over and tilting his head this way and that as though about to make the first major purchase of his life.

  “Wait,” I say. “Isn’t there someplace with a car?”

  “Do you see any cars?” Chase answers, vaulting the fence. He looks at the bikes and points. “I’ll take that one.”

  Otto shakes his head, points to another and then at Chase.

  “No,” Chase says, pointing again. “That one.”

  Otto motions him toward another bike.

  “Hey,” I say, walking around the side of the house to take in the shed in back, the outbuilding of the next-door neighbor. “There’s a lot of garages here we haven’t looked in. Hello?”

  When no one answers, I stride back in time to find the two men engaged in a heated, silent argument.

  “Guys!” I say, as Otto gestures and then turns his back on Chase altogether.

  “Oh, that’s great,” Chase says a moment later, shaking his head as Otto walks a bike out and gestures to it like a game show hostess.

  Even I, sheltered cult girl, know enough to tell it’s a women’s bike.

  With a baby seat in back.

  “I’m not riding that,” Chase says, making a motion across his throat, at which Otto emphatically gestures to another. He makes a motion as though breaking a twig in two.

  Static in my ear. “ ’Scuse me.” Irwin. “I hate to barge in, but what the hell is going on?”

  “Chase and Otto are arguing about which bike will offend Chase’s delicate sense of masculinity the least,” I say dryly. “Not realizing they’re going to have to ride without me because I DON’T KNOW HOW TO RIDE A BIKE!”

  Otto and Chase glance at me as one. A second later Otto holds up a fin
ger, marches off, and returns with a new bicycle.

  It’s got training wheels.

  For a minute, no one moves.

  Chase bursts out laughing first, Otto joining in with a guttural sound that reminds me vaguely of a donkey.

  “Oh, very funny,” I say, showing them both some one-fingered sign language of my own. Which only makes them laugh harder.

  I nearly do, too. Can only imagine what the three of us must look like: the only people alive in this patch of the Midwest, arguing about who gets to ride the coolest bike as though anyone’s going to judge.

  I feel myself start to smile. Can sense Chase gazing at me as I glance away, fighting back a chuckle.

  Until I remember that we were supposed to be on our way to Green River, Wyoming.

  Instead, Julie’s dying. And here I am, miles away from Truly, chasing medicine I don’t even know if I’ll be able to find. About to travel even farther away from where I left her and Lauren surrounded by diseased animals and squatters who might want their house back, and closed in by a door that will not lock, lest it shut them in forever.

  Sweat breaks out across my neck. I lean forward, hands on my knees, feeling like I might throw up when the breath that nearly became a laugh gushes out as a gasp.

  “Hey,” Chase says, instantly at my side. I don’t bother to push him away. He fumbles at my pack, and I hear him unscrew my water bottle. Sliding an arm around me, he lifts it to my lips.

  “I’m fine,” I murmur, and then gulp down water so fast I sputter.

  “We’re going to have to sleep at some point,” Chase says. “Can’t keep this up forever.”

  “I’ll sleep when I get back,” I say, straightening and taking the bottle. “Now. Show me how to do this.”

  12 NOON

  * * *

  Nebraska Highway 385 is a flat stretch of two-lane road bound on one side with inert power lines until they cross overhead and continue on east, as though they have better places to be than here.

  I pedal steadily down the right lane, the air devoid of all sound but the squeak of a wheel beneath me, the tread of Chase’s tires in front of me as he pedals standing up. The whir as he coasts, the gas can strapped to the baby seat behind him.

  I glance back at Otto just long enough to see him, face lifted to the sun, something sublime in his expression. I even think his eyes are closed, until he points ahead and I straighten in time to realize I’ve drifted toward the left shoulder. My handlebars jitter and I briefly panic. It took me fifteen precious minutes, one wipeout, and a near collision with a curb (and then a mailbox) to tame this yellow, old-fashioned-looking Schwinn with a basket in front like something from The Wizard of Oz. But no one snickered as I shimmied the front wheel down the street, overcorrecting my first turn.