Maybe.
“Are you open?”
The old man sighed. “We been out of power for all of an hour and business just stopped.” He shook his head. “We’re usually packed around this time.” His eyes twinkled as he winked at me. “City folk, you know, stopping by for their healthy lunches from Healthie’s. We got the best organic sandwiches this side of campus and everybody likes to know they’re getting free range chicken on homemade rolls.”
I smiled at the man. He was welcoming and warm, and despite his cheesy and obviously rehearsed sales pitch, reminded me a little bit of my deceased grandfather. I wondered if this man had grandchildren. It was none of my business.
“You can shop.” He smiled with a nod toward the stack of orange shopping baskets. “I’m just working on getting the generator started up to get the credit card machine going and the lights back on. Nobody wants to shop in the dark. It’s spooky. Go ahead and get what you need. Give me five minutes, and I’ll be back to ring you up.”
He disappeared again into the back of the shop, where I could hear him tinkering away. The sound of metal against metal filled the otherwise silent shop, and I wondered momentarily how difficult it actually was to get a generator started. My parents had purchased a small generator when the Y2K scare was going on, but after the power stayed on and everyone lived, they had placed it in one of the back barns so I’d never taken the time to learn to use it.
I grabbed a basket and began to peruse the aisles. The shelves were too close together and I kept worrying that I would inadvertently bump into one. I imagined knocking over a box of dried pasta and having to hand pick up macaroni noodles from the dusty floor. To calm my nerves, I slid my backpack off and placed it by the register. I didn’t want Mr. Healthie to think I was going to steal anything, but I also didn’t want to knock down a jar of pasta sauce and have to help clean up glass in the dark.
I snatched a few water bottles and a couple of protein bars and dropped them unceremoniously into my basket. I skipped the canned foods. If the power was going to go out on campus, I didn’t want to be eating cold soup for days on end. One aisle of the store had protein shakes, so I grabbed a few of those to add to my collection.I noticed a stack of candy bars on one shelf. I glanced down at my new weight gain and shrugged. A few more pounds wouldn’t kill me. The candy bars went into the basket.
By the time I finished shopping and brought my basket up to the front of the shop, the lights were beginning to flicker back on. The old man reemerged from the back of the shop with a huge grin.
“That’ll do it!” He said, wiping his hands on his apron and making himself comfortable behind the cash register.
“Cash or credit?” he asked.
“Debit.” I answered, flashing my new ATM card.
He swiped my card and handed me the keypad to enter my PIN. I hit the button for cash back.
“How much you want?”
“What’s the maximum?”
“Twenty.”
“I’d like twenty, please.”
Mr. Healthie counted back my change as I glanced outside. The two ten dollar bills were fresh and crisp. I almost felt bad as I folded them in half and imprinted those greens with their first creases. The regret passed as I pushed the money deep into my pocket and glanced out the window. The streets were fuller now than they were just ten minutes ago. The road was full of cars: the sidewalks, of anxious pedestrians.
“It sure got busy,” I said aloud.
“People are scared.” The old man said. “According to the news they’re out of vaccines now. Seems as soon as they get a new shipment, they run out almost as fast. Everyone’s afraid they’re going to get the influenza virus and keel over.”
“Are you scared?”
The man’s gentle smile was reassuring as he patted my hand. “Being scared never did anyone any good,” he said. “But you should take this.” He handed me a thin white dust mask from behind the counter and slid an identical one over his face. “No charge, my dear,” he assured me as I reached for my pocket money. “Put it on, and go straight home, dear. Things are going to get a lot worse after this.”
Chapter 2
I left the Healthie’s shop feeling more confused than afraid. I walked in a daze back to my dorm room, going in the opposite direction as most of the wanderers on the street. Cars honked and beeped at one another. Most of them were full of families, suitcases, and well-loved dogs. A few people were crying. Most of the pedestrians were trying to run, but there were too many people, so they moved more like slow-swimming fish. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to keep walking against the flow of people without getting injured, so I slipped into an alley and crossed streets.
That had happened fast. After all, not everyone was without power, and even if they were, it was just a power outage. I wondered how many people were rushing to hotels or to nearby farmhouses to meet up with relatives and friends who lived outside the city. It seemed like a good bet, honestly, except for the traffic. Part of me wondered if people would just be better waiting until the morning to try to leave. After all, the congestion on the roads would surely be gone by then.
My dorm wasn’t far, but the walk took me nearly an hour. Every street was the same, it seemed: stopped cars, yelling, shouting, and crying. By now almost everyone had on some sort of mask or face covering. I wore my scarf high above my own mask, the one the old man gave me. My scarf hid my white mask, and I hoped that it also hid some of my growing fear about the situation.
Was the flu really that bad?
Why was everyone freaking out so much?
Was it really so terrible that I hadn’t been vaccinated?
Was I going to start throwing up and dying?
I didn’t see anyone dead in the street, but I passed a woman leaning over and vomiting. Her puke splattered as it hit the hard cement of the sidewalk. I didn’t stop to help her. I tried not to look, instead.
Why hadn’t I gotten vaccinated? Mentally, I chastised myself, but the truth was that when I’d had the chance to get the shot, I’d turned it down. I’d never gotten the flu shot. My mom was terribly against vaccines and believed that too many shots caused immune system problems in kids. She’d delayed most of my shots as a child, finally vaccinating me around age five, much to my father’s relief. The military had imprinted the realization in him that vaccines were vitally important. He faithfully got his flu shot every year, usually the first day they became available. I wondered, after hearing my mother’s comments about the shot this year, if Dad had gotten vaccinated. He always did, after all. This year seemed different, though. This year something didn’t feel right.
I had never felt the need to get the flu vaccine, at least not before this. I’d always been a fairly healthy kid. I ate right, for the most part. The occasional candy bar wouldn’t completely destroy my immune system, right? But what had made this year’s flu so terribly horrifying? For the last few days, people had been talking about it more and more, but until this afternoon, I hadn’t noticed anything especially out of the ordinary. Now, as I waded my way through crowds of people, pushing and shoving my way home, I wondered how long it had been since something did feel normal. It had been forever ago, it seemed, even though to me, it had really only been a few hours.
“Watch it,” a woman shouted as she bumped into me and continued walking. Well, walking was an understatement. She was wearing a backpack and carrying a large duffel bag, so she was doing more of a waddle than a walk.
“What’s the rush?” I hollered back.
She stopped and turned back at me for a moment, looking me up and down like I was an idiot.
“Get out of the city, kid. Don’t you watch the news?”
Then, before I could say anything back, she was gone. I watched her waddle away, vanishing into the sea of people running and shoving, trying to escape. I wondered how many bruises I’d have tomorrow from the pushing. More than a few, I imagined.
Maybe I should watch the news, I thought finally.
I was still pretty new to the city, and to be fair, it wasn’t a huge place. Cedar Brook was a great college town and there were plenty of things to do, but with a population of barely 70,000, it was still small enough to give you some breathing room.
Most people owned single family homes and although there were a lot of houses on any given street, almost everyone had a yard. Still, in the area around campus, it was body-to-body right now.
Where had all of these people come from?
Didn’t they all have homes to go to?
I wanted to pull up the news on my phone, but didn’t care. I worried that if I even tried to look down at my phone, it would be all over. Someone would bump into me and I’d drop my phone, then Mom would yell at me for being careless. I was willing to take a lot of risks in life, but angering my mother was not one of them.
I glanced at one of the narrow houses lining the side of 11th Street. It was large, and the yard was empty. The family car was gone. I wonder if they had evacuated the city successfully, or if they were stuck at work. The long yard was filled with toys. One of the bikes was knocked over on its side. If I was going to have a family, I’d want to make sure we had a yard filled with toys, too. That was one thing I liked about living in Cedar Brook. Even though I was a dorm rat, it was fun to walk off campus and see kids playing in their yards with their trikes and scooters. It brought back a lot of fond memories of my own childhood, which suddenly seemed very far away.
I finally reached the dormitory I lived in only to find that the power was indeed out and that my key card wouldn’t work.
So much for electric security making the dorms safer, I thought.
I banged on the door and shouted for someone to let me in. No answer. I knocked harder, louder.
“Hey! Let me inside!” I pressed my face almost completely against the glass, which probably wasn’t a great idea. Given the sudden problem with germs, I should have been more careful. I peered inside the dim lobby and tried to see if anyone was inside.
“Let me in!” I banged again. “Hey! Hey!”
There was no one there.
No one was going to answer.
Where was everyone?
Had everyone left?
Unlike downtown Cedar Brook, the area around the dormitory was empty. It felt much deader than usual, much more quiet. Normally there were at least a few people outside smoking, lighting up cigarettes in quiet rebellion against their parents. Not today. Today there was no one. Today there was only me.
After what felt like forever, but was really just a minute or two, Elizabeth Baker, my roommate, appeared and let me in. I took my mask off and walked inside the dorms.
“Stop your shouting,” she whispered, glancing around nervously. Apparently satisfied that I hadn’t been followed or that there weren’t any weirdo’s outside, she moved over so I could get in the building.
I slid inside past her. “What’s with the voice?” I asked in a normal tone of voice, refusing to whisper simply because she was. I wasn’t one to follow the crowd.
“Haven’t you heard anything?” She pushed the door shut tightly behind me.
“Anything about what?”
“They’re saying it’s the end of the world. Come on.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs. We trekked to the fifth floor and I cursed the powers that be for the lack of an elevator. I hated taking the stairs. I wasn’t a fatty by any means, but I was out of shape and on days like today, it really showed.
Sweaty, tired, and sore, we arrived at our floor and headed back to our room. Elizabeth pulled out her old-school key and unlocked the door. I felt relieved that while we had key cards to get into the building, we had real keys to let us into our bedrooms. It didn’t make much sense, in the long run, but it worked to our advantage today.
We scurried inside and she closed the door behind us. Then she locked it and slid the dresser in front of the door. I raised an eyebrow. Was she serious?
“Liz, come on. What’s the deal? It’s just the flu.”
“Not anymore.”
She sat down on her bed and turned up the battery-operated radio I had bought her for her birthday. I’d written carefully on her card.
A wise gift for a smart girl. Just in case.
We had power outages only semi-regularly, but with Kansas storms, you could never be too careful. Even if the power was on, there was no guarantee your Internet would be working or that you’d be able to get cell service to make a call. A radio was really the best way to make sure you stayed informed during a crisis.
I slumped my heavy backpack to the floor and immediately felt lighter. I stretched my arms, relieved to have a few minutes to breathe after my crazy day, and sat down next to her on the bed. For a brief second, I felt normal again. I ran my hand over the delicate stitches in the quilt. She loved this blanket. Her grandmother had made it for her as a college present and the love and dedication that had been poured into the blanket was obvious. Elizabeth talked about it constantly. It was really her pride and joy.
The radio static was heavy as Elizabeth switched the channel, trying to find the right one. I had an identical radio in my Bug Out Bag: the survival pack I kept in case I needed to make a quick exit. My parents had always warned me to stay alert, keep watch it anything seemed suspicious or dangerous, and to be ready to evacuate at any moment. I was relieved for their good advice now as I glanced over at my red backpack. It had sat lonely and forgotten by the side of my closet, but after today that bag didn’t seem so silly after all.
I had never thought before that I would need my Bug Out Bag, but I had prepared for any type of natural disaster I might encounter.
Hurricane?
I had a poncho in there.
Flooding?
All of my important records were in waterproof bags.
Fire?
I had a facial mask to protect me from smoke inhalation.
Disease?
Oh, there was a bottle of hand sanitizer. No big deal.
Yet despite my attempts at preparation, I found myself in the midst of some sort of weird urban panic, totally clueless to what was happening, and my idiot roommate who only grazed by with C’s because of her bleached out smile and matching hair, was taking charge of the situation.
“Listen.”
A woman’s voice was speaking, making an official announcement. I couldn’t make it out at first because of the static, but Elizabeth adjusted the antenna on the radio and soon the voice was clear and solid.
“We’re getting reports of rioting, widespread panic, and looting. The death count from the flu virus has increased.”
The voice cut out for a moment but then continued.
“Officials are warning everyone to stay indoors, avoid contact with anyone who appears ill, and to avoid panic. Now is not the time to run to the grocery store or the gas station. Again, do not try to run a quick errand as this will only tie up the roadways and prevent national response teams from being able to-” the voice cut out again.
This time it didn’t come back on.
After a moment the regular channel’s DJ returned to the air and began to talk about how glad he was for his 12 pack of diet soda. Without a word, Elizabeth turned the radio off. Her eyes were wide and serious.
“See?” she said. “They’ve been talking like this for half an hour. It’s like, first they report everyone needs to go get vaccinated, and now they’re saying it doesn’t matter, that this thing is spread too big. And now there is looting and panic. In the streets. In America.” She added the name of our country for emphasis, as if I had somehow forgotten where we lived.
“I tried to call Jacob,” she told me. Her boyfriend of three weeks lived in an apartment off campus. Elizabeth spent most of her nights there but always ended up back in our room eventually. “The lines are down, though. I couldn’t even get through. Not even a text.”
“Not even a text?”
“Nope. It just says pending. Then, after a bit it says me
ssage failed. It’s weird, Paige. It’s just weird. I hope he’s okay.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I told her nonchalantly, even though I really had no way of knowing whether that was true or not.
I peeked through the blinds and looked out the window. The road in front of the dorm room was a campus-only road. Across the street was another dormitory. Behind that, another. There were never very many cars on the roads here and today was no different. It was mainly pedestrians that perused the streets on campus, and most people didn’t bother trying to drive through the hordes of wandering students who filled the streets between each class.
“Who else is here?” I asked Elizabeth. “Did anyone stay or did everyone leave campus?”
“Half the school has been missing for a week. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Liz, it’s the middle of the semester. Half of the school has dropped out.”
“Well, apparently, half of the remaining half has gone home. Everyone either has someone who’s sick, is sick, or doesn’t want to become sick. It’s us and a few guys on the second floor. The rest of the kids left as soon as they heard there were riots.”
“The second floor? Nick and the Poggins?”
“Yeah,” she laughed. The guys on the second floor were famous for their loud music and impressive guitar skills. When the trio weren’t practicing their instruments, they were busy trying to get the world’s high score on some game they loved. Of course they wouldn’t leave. Those guys wouldn’t mind if the power was out since they had portable game consoles and battery-operated DVD players. They were a beacon of technology and were obviously well supplied with enough gamer gear to get them through a few days’ worth of World of Warcraft raids and Call of Duty tournaments. I wasn’t sure how anyone could survive solely on Dr. Pepper and Code Red, yet that group managed to do it. They were impressive, if nothing else.
I looked outside again. I wondered what my chances were of getting out of town. The streets inside the city itself were obviously jammed. They were bad half an hour ago when I was wading through foot traffic. I had no doubt they were worse now.
Never Look Back: A Dystopian Novel Page 2