They ate dinner by the dim light of a candle. Will hadn’t said anything about it, and she was hesitant to bring it up, lest she drive him farther away from the lessons he needed to know. The good news was that, despite the failed gun lesson, she had managed to teach him something valuable before they ate.
“I can’t find the can opener,” he said to her as they prepared their meal.
“It’s OK,” she said. “I know a trick to open cans without a can opener.”
“You do?”
She nodded.
“Your grandfather showed me.”
His face tightened up and he nodded.
“I’ll show you,” she said. “Outside.”
“Put the can face down,” she said when they were on the stone porch. “Then scrape it back and forth really hard.”
“Really?”
“The friction and the heat will chew away the seal.”
He set to work, focusing on the task at hand. The susurration of the stone biting into the metal lid filled the air. As he worked, he chewed on his lower lip, reminding her very much of her father in deep concentration.
“Is that enough?” he asked, pausing and looking up at her. His cheeks were red from exertion and a sheen of sweat slicked his forehead.
“Let’s see,” she said. “Hold it tight, up near the top.”
“OK.”
“Now give it a hard squeeze.”
He did, grunting as he did so. After a few moments, the metal seal failed and the lid popped free.
“Wow!”
But the excitement had faded as their reality crashed in around them. All alone. Charlotte dead. He pushed around his food, half a can of creamed corn, before abandoning it entirely. He got up and wandered around the living room, pausing at a family portrait hanging over the fireplace.
Five of them, mom, dad, and three kids under the age of ten, including a set of twin girls. They were dressed in khaki shorts and bright white polo shirts, kneeling in the sand at the beach. A date in the corner of the photograph indicated it had been taken in July, scarcely a month before the outbreak. She wondered what had become of them. If they had died in the plague, they had done so elsewhere, as the house had been empty of bodies.
“What was it like?” Will asked.
“What was what like?” she asked, scooping up the last bit of corn in her bowl.
“The plague.”
She froze, the spoon suspended halfway between her mouth and the bowl. He had never asked about the pandemic before. It occurred to her that although he had never experienced anything resembling a normal childhood, he had been spared the horror of living through those terrible death-filled days.
“It was very bad, buddy.”
“Were you scared?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Everyone was scared and panicked. And people do terrible things when they’re scared and panicked.”
“Were you afraid of dying?”
“Yes,” she said. “The disease killed almost everybody. I kept waiting to get sick. Every time I sniffled or coughed, I thought I was coming down with it. Some days I still think that.”
A memory spun to the forefront of her conscience. It was right about the time things were starting to collapse. The Internet had gone down, and electricity had become spotty. Her mom Nina was dead, but her stepdad Jerry was still alive, although very ill. There was a little market just outside their subdivision, one that sold fancy cheeses and wines and gourmet sandwiches but also sporting a small apothecary. She wanted to get some medicine for him, anything to slow down the infection’s dizzying course. He was burning with fever by then, coughing up blood.
It was the first time she’d been out in days; Jerry wouldn’t let anyone leave the house in the hopes that a self-quarantine would keep them safe. Her neighborhood was silent but for the rustle of the leaves on the trees, the flapping of wings of vultures circling overhead. She jogged the whole way, this neighborhood she’d lived in for three years now terrifyingly unfamiliar. It took her ten minutes to cover the distance.
The acrid tang of something burning tickled her nose when she made it to the little commercial strip that was home to Brigid’s Market. A black column of smoke drifted sideways in the sky, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The market appeared intact, the Open sign still hanging in the window. It was dark inside, though, as the market was on the same electrical grid as her neighborhood, which had lost power the day before.
It was a bright beautiful San Diego morning, mid-seventies, the air still, absent even the slightest breeze. Despite that, she was shivering, her teeth chattering together. Her heart was pounding so hard that in the massive quiet she could hear it in her ears. She cupped her hands around her face and pressed up against the glass, hoping she’d be able to see if anyone was lurking about. She felt naked, exposed and she was beating herself up for not bringing Jerry’s handgun, even though she had never used it.
But she had to try, goddammit, she had to try something. She pulled the handle on the door, which swung open without resistance. She took a step inside, keeping one foot in and one out. Then another step. And another until she was inside. The market appeared abandoned, and a yeasty aroma hung in the warm stuffy air. Ahead of her was a wire-rack display of wine bottles identified as STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS! A Merlot from Good Luck Cellars in Virginia (great with Brie!), another one from Polar Bear Vineyards (strong start, smooth finish, hints of oak) in Napa. Below each bottle was an index card bearing the notes of the staff member who had recommended it.
She took another step, which was as far as she got. In the first aisle, there was a little girl, maybe eight years old, sitting with her back against the cooler. She was still alive, barely, dressed in pajama bottoms and a short-sleeve t-shirt from Branson’s House of Wings. Her white-blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, revealing her bright blue eyes.
Her nostrils were dripping blood like a leaky faucet. In her lap was a small dog, which began growling as soon as Rachel rounded the corner. Its fur was thick with congealed blood. The animal made no move toward her, but it was clearly warning her to stay away. The girl’s head lolled gently toward Rachel; her eyes struggled to stay open but she managed to get them to half-mast.
“Hi,” she said softly. Rachel barely heard her.
Rachel clapped a hand to her mouth, trying but failing to hide the shock of seeing the girl’s ruined face. It looked like she had been crying blood and her skin was gray. She had no idea how the girl was still alive; she certainly wouldn’t be for much longer. The dog continued to growl at Rachel. The girl looked down at her wee protector and gently stroked her fur.
“Ajax, shhh,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
Ajax never once took his eyes off Rachel, standing a lonely vigil over his pee-wee-sized master. Not wanting to leave the little girl alone, Rachel sat on the floor and crossed her legs. She waited silently, as her butt went numb on the hard floor. The girl did not open her eyes again, and Rachel did not try to speak to her. An hour later, maybe two, the final seizure rippled through the girl and her body went slack. She was dead.
The dog tilted its head toward the girl’s face and whined softly. But it made no move to abandon its owner.
“What now, boy?” she asked. It didn’t seem strange to ask the dog what she should do now because it was unlikely she had a better idea than it would.
She whistled at him and held out her hand, hoping to coax him her way. She didn’t know why she did it; she supposed she couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving the dog behind in this mausoleum. She did it without thinking about how she would even care for a dog that wasn’t hers. She rose to a crouch, holding out her hand, pleading with the pup to come to her. But in the end, she didn’t have to worry about how to take care of the dog because he refused all her invitations. After raiding the store shelves for supplies, Rachel checked on the girl one last time. The dog had burrowed up into a little ball in the dead girl’s lap, casting a wary g
aze at Rachel.
All these years later, she still dreamed about Ajax, standing watch over that beautiful, ruined little girl.
“Do you think this family died?” Will asked, his gaze still fixed on the portrait.
“Yes,” she said. “They probably all died.”
“These kids were my age,” he said, his voice thick, cracking.
“It made almost everyone sick,” she said. “Even kids.”
“How come you and Pop-pop didn’t get sick?”
“I don’t know, sweetie.”
#
They had hunkered down in the huge master bedroom at the back of the house. It was wide and airy, the previous owners going minimalist in here. The bed sat on a wooden platform, covered by a musty bedspread. Two lights so unpretentious that they swung back around to pretentiousness hung from the ceiling. There was a simple chest of drawers up against the wall. A flat-screen television was mounted above it.
Will fell asleep quickly, but slumber eluded Rachel. The little dog Ajax ran free in her mind. How long had he waited with the little girl, how long had he protected her? How long before his own survival instinct took over? Why torture herself with questions that could never be answered?
Her body cried for sleep, her eyes thick and gritty with fatigue. She counted sheep, she practiced some breathing exercises. Slow inhale to a count of eight, hold to a count of four, exhale to seven. It took a few iterations, but eventually, her body loosened. She began slipping over the edge of consciousness when a sharp noise yanked her back from the precipice.
Her heart racing again, she considered the possible sources of the noise. House settling. It must have been the house settling. These houses were wearing down and with the world so quiet, every pop and creak was amplified. Yeah, that had to be it. The house settling.
Cannibals, cannibals were breaking in and they would kill and eat her and Will.
She pushed that thought out of her head, that was crazy, paranoid thinking. No one knew they were here, the odds of a bandit breaking into this house on this night were astronomically small. Math didn’t lie, folks.
Creak.
No, math did not lie, because math never said the odds were zero. In the pitch-black dark, her head throbbed with fear, her breath doled out in shallow spurts. It felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. She turned her head gently toward Will. His deep, even breathing told her he was still asleep.
She primed her ears, her breath frozen, lying perfectly still so she could detect the slightest noise.
Creak.
A pause.
Sniff.
She froze.
There it was.
Houses didn’t sniff. Joists and floorboards did not sniff.
She slipped out of bed, reaching for the M4 she’d left leaning against the nightstand. Another sniff, another creak, perhaps on the stairwell. The acoustics in the house were strange, made it difficult to triangulate the source of the noise. Death was close now, she could feel it.
She needed a plan, but it was hard to focus. Fear caromed through her, scattering her thoughts like bowling pins. One option was to blindly fire down the stairwell and ask questions later. But not knowing how many there were, if she didn’t get all of them in the first burst, she could leave herself and Will open to a lethal counterattack. On the other hand, if she didn’t open fire now, she might not get a chance to fire at all. She racked the M4’s charging handle and tapped the forward assist before switching the safety off.
Then someone spoke, the voice flinty and high-pitched, chilling her to the marrow. Probably a man, but she wasn’t certain of that. Behind her, the susurration of Will sliding out of bed, his little feet thumping the floor.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!”
She shivered in the darkness, the knowledge that someone was in the house with them making her feel cold.
“Mommy,” Will called out.
“Hush,” she snapped.
“We know you’re up there.”
She held her tongue.
“This doesn’t have to be messy,” the voice continued. “We just want your food.”
There was a desperation in the voice, gilding the speaker’s words with truth. Behind her, Will stirred. She didn’t know what he was doing, only that he was confirming for these intruders that they were here.
“Mommy,” Will said.
“Quiet,” she hissed.
She could make her last stand here; they weren’t getting their food without coming in this room. Simply cut them down as they bottle-necked at the door.
“You have sixty seconds to come downstairs with all your goodies.”
“Mommy!”
“What?”
“I know how we can get out of here.”
“What are you talking about?”
He motioned under the bed, so she got down on her knees and hazarded a look. A rectangular box was wedged between the bedframe and the floor. A shine of her flashlight revealed its contents – a fire escape ladder.
“Help me get it out.”
Will crawled under the bed and pushed on the box until she could get purchase on a corner. Together, they yanked it free and quickly removed the ladder from the box. Her last move was to pack up their remaining canned goods, a week’s worth of victuals.
“Time’s up!”
“In the bathroom,” she said, hustling across the room with the ladder under her arm, the straps of her backpack digging into her shoulders. “We’ll get out through the back.”
While Will unrolled the flexible ladder, Rachel went to work on the window, which was badly misshapen from years of neglect and inattention. Using her legs for leverage, she pushed hard against the sash, praying for it to break free and slide upwards. Try as she might, though, the window would not give.
“Mommy?”
“Yeah bud?” she replied, straining against wood so badly warped into the frame that it might as well have been a single piece.
“Do you smell that?”
She paused and slowly drew in a deep breath. A faint yet tangy aroma hit her nostrils.
Shit.
It was smoke.
These assholes had set the house on fire.
Using the barrel of the M4, she broke out the bathroom window, sweeping around the edges to clear the leftover shards of glass. With Will’s help, she hung the ladder’s frame over the windowsill. The ladder swung gently in the night breeze.
“You go,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
He nodded, his eyes wide open, his gaze fixed on the open window, the reality of their situation settling in on them. Seconds ticked by, but he made no move toward the ladder. He was gnawing on his lower lip, a sure sign of indecision in the boy.
“Sweetie, we have to get out of here.”
He nodded again but he remained rooted to the spot. The smell of smoke grew stronger.
“Just hold tight, and take one step at a time.”
“I can’t. It’s too high.”
Her chin dropped, and a sigh of sadness escaped from her throat. Once again, decisions she had made long ago were coming back to haunt her.
“It’s OK.”
“Are you sure?”
“They’re hungry. We’ll give them some food and they’ll go away.”
They went back out to the bedroom and made their way to the door. She didn’t want to bring Will down with her, but the setting of the fire had left her little choice. Besides, did it even matter if people knew he’d been born after the plague?
“I’m coming out!” she announced.
“Nice and easy,” the voice said. “Hands on your head. No one has to get hurt.”
After draping the M4’s shoulder strap around her neck, she placed her hands on her head and motioned Will to the same. They stepped gingerly into the hallway and then carefully made their way down the darkened stairwell, one step at a time. In the gloom, she could make out the outlines of several figures waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Her
heart was in her throat, as there was nothing stopping these people from murdering them where they stood. That was the world now; these people could simply kill them and leave their bodies to rot here in the foyer of this half-million-dollar house.
As they reached the landing, the group retreated slightly, making room for Rachel and Will. The foyer was dark, but not completely black, illuminated by lanterns the group was carrying. She counted six of them, four men and two women, all of them frightfully thin.
They were armed with handguns, aimed directly at them. It was an unsettling situation to be in, but the presence of the women reassured her a bit. Will pressed close against her, his body trembling. One was holding a thick piece of wood that was smoking heavily. Dammit. The house wasn’t on fire. It had been a ruse designed to flush them out.
“What do we have here?” the man on the far left asked. “A little family?”
He was the one who’d done all the talking earlier. He was short, only about an inch taller than Rachel, and very thin. He wore a thick beard, which covered up a face that had once been full but was now droopy with sallow skin. Several teeth were missing from his grill. The whole group bore scars of malnourishment and starvation, sharp collarbones pushing against skin and clothes that hung too loosely on underfed frames.
“How old are you, boy?” the man asked.
“Fourteen,” Will said, a fiction they had agreed on.
“Kind of small for fourteen, ain’t ya?”
Will shrugged his shoulders as only a real teenager could.
“Whatever. Get the bag,” the man said, nudging the woman standing next to him.
The woman approached Rachel and carefully worked the backpack off, one shoulder strap at a time.
“Can you leave us something?” she asked.
The woman leaned in close.
“Sorry,” she whispered. She gently squeezed Rachel’s upper arm.
“Here’s the deal,” the man said as the woman handed him the backpack. “If there’s food in here, everyone walks away happy. If there isn’t, well, let’s hope we don’t have to cross that bridge.”
He crouched and sifted through the bag, squealing a bit as he did so.
“Anything?” asked one of the others.
The Immune Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 70