The Longest Night

by Lindsey Pogue

  “Go away, Sophie.” She slammed the door in my face, and with it came a wave of blood-burning fear. She looked near death, smelled like it too, and if she was as bad as that, Jesse probably was too. Maybe he was even worse. And I’d written him off.

  Guilt sank heavy and deep in my gut, and I shuffled back down the hall toward the elevator, gripping my churning stomach the whole way. The scent of Mrs. Phillips was nauseating and seared the inside of my nose.

  If school was cancelled because Katie’s kids were sick, and if Jesse and his mom were sick—as well as Henry and Sarah and the others visiting the clinic yesterday, it was hard to refute that the virus was here. A different sort of flu seemed like wishful thinking.

  I nearly broke into a run. Was I next or did I already have it?

  I shook my head as I pushed the elevator open. I already knew the answer, didn’t I? I’d felt sick for a couple days, and even if I didn’t feel as sick as Mrs. Phillips looked, it was the only logical explanation. Or had it really been the stress of my first, and definitely last, pregnancy scare? Part of me wanted to go down to the first floor and find my mom, but I knew she had her own shit to deal with. She’d called the divorce lawyer this morning and started her morning off with fresh tears. And if I was wrong and I wasn’t sick, she didn’t need to worry about me on top of everything else. She already did that enough as it was. I would wait until she got home tonight and tell her if I wasn’t feeling better.

  I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the tenth floor, hoping the fear and nausea that lingered from smelling Mrs. Phillips would pass or at least hold out until I got home, so I could puke in my toilet. I’d feel better after that.

  And if I didn’t? I would call my mom.

  The two floors up felt like nine, and I nearly wept with relief when the double doors finally popped opened, and I shot out into the hallway.

  “Hold the door!” a woman shouted.

  I stumbled back inside to hold the button, and glanced down the hallway to find a woman I didn’t recognize—I assumed a medic—wheeling a stretcher out from the apartment next to mine, at the end of the hall. Briefly, I questioned where the hell she’d come from and why I didn’t recognize her, but I didn’t have much time to wonder because, for the second time in mere minutes, I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.

  A person was splayed out on the stretcher rolling down the hallway toward me. Long, slender fingers gripped the side of it. It was JJ—it had to be. Hers was the only apartment down the hall from mine.

  Her body strained against a convulsion, and she began thrashing and coughing before she lurched upright. Blood splattered her clothes, and her green eyes were wide and circled with red.

  “It’ll be all right,” the medic insisted, trying to lay JJ back down onto the stretcher. The woman had blonde hair in a haphazard braid down her back. “Just hold on!”

  I jumped out of the way as the medic wheeled JJ closer.

  JJ was not going to hold on; she was coughing up blood—it was everywhere. Her arms flailed as she convulsed again, the gurney creaking and rattling as she struggled against it. Blood gurgled from between her lips and trickled down the side of her face and back over her crown tattoo, just below her ear. It wasn’t black anymore; it wasn’t even red—it was a muddled brown of bile and blood.

  The elevator doors dinged, like they were about to close, and I threw my arm out to bounce them open again before jumping into the hall, out of the way as much as I could be.

  JJ thrashed again, choking and gasping for air, and I covered my mouth to stifle a scream. The stretcher slammed into the back of the elevator and the medic hit the lobby button.

  As the doors began to close, JJ reached out, her hand splayed like she was reaching for me, and her eyes met mine. They weren’t green anymore, but red with blood, and she hissed like she was trying to say something.

  I choked back a sob as the elevator shut her inside and the hallway fell silent.

  I stood motionless in horror. Then my body began to quake. Lightness filled my mind, and my stomach sprang into another somersault. In a frenzy, I ran for my apartment on wobbly legs. My key card beeped angrily at me, then beeped again before the lock clicked, and I shoved the door open. It slammed against the wall as I barely made it to the bathroom. Falling to my knees, I heaved. As my body retched and fear seemed to swallow whole every coherent thought I had, I prayed what happened to JJ wouldn’t be my fate.

  9

  Sophie

  December 8

  My stomach lurched, and I squeezed my eyes closed as I breathed in through my nose. The vomiting. The aching. It was all I could do to take a sip of ginger ale and keep it down. That was supposed to help when you had the flu, right? I’d tried to eat a cracker, but it came roaring back up almost immediately.

  I dialed my mom’s cell for the seventh time, and again it rang until her voicemail clicked on. I hung up and tried her work phone. “Come on, Mom,” I rasped. I needed her. But like the first time I’d tried calling her office, it was busy. She was busy. With JJ? With the council meeting? It was probably about the virus, and I was afraid to turn on the television to find out what was happening. I didn’t want a confirmation that what had happened to JJ would also happen to me.

  I tucked the blanket higher around my neck and sank further into the couch. I wasn’t sure if the foul feeling in the depths of my stomach was from the flu or an effect of JJ’s blood-rimmed eyes, which I couldn’t stop thinking about. Fear had a physical effect—if I’d learned anything in the past couple days. And even though I knew better than to let it get the better of me, how could I not fear what I’d seen?

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to control each inhale and exhale. In through my nose: long and deep. Out through my mouth: steady, thoughtful, and controlled.

  It had been three hours since the medic took JJ away on the stretcher. Three hours of intermittent, unsteady pacing back and forth as I tried to gather the nerve to step into the elevator and go down to see my mom. She’d likely heard what happened to JJ and would know if she was okay. She’d know what to do to make me feel better. My mom had a remedy for everything, even when I didn’t want it. This time, though, I wanted it. I needed her to tell me I would be okay.

  But the elevator . . . It was my only option down. I was too nauseous and wobbly to take ten flights of stairs, and I’d hurl before I got halfway down. Fear. Sickness. Whatever was living inside me was taking its toll, and the past thirty-six hours without much food was starting to catch up with me.

  I peeled my heavy eyelids open and tried not to think about what I would find in the elevator or worry which parts of JJ might be splattered on the walls.

  I held my breath, waiting for a wave of nausea to settle again, and clung to the desperate hope that JJ had survived whatever that was. If she was okay, even so close to death as she seemed, then I would be too. Mrs. Phillips would be okay, and Jesse.

  With a slow blink, I stared at the soft glow of Christmas lights wrapped around the window. When I was little, we decorated a lot more than a few strings of lights. But our decorating tradition had dwindled over the years, resulting in untangling only a few strands on Thanksgiving and calling it good. Until now, I never missed our family time together. Where was my dad? He should be here with his family and not off with someone else, living a life that didn’t have us in it.

  Tears burned the backs of my eyes, and I choked out a sob. What’s happening? The news reports hadn’t said the flu was anything like what I’d seen. Had they? My mind was so fuzzy, I wasn’t sure of much anymore.

  Unfurling myself from my blanket, I walked over to the living room window and pulled back the curtain. The sky had darkened, and night settled in blotting out the gloomy day. I’d never thought Whitely was a scary place but it suddenly seemed terrifying. Where would they have taken JJ? To Anchorage? Seward? Everything was so far away I wasn’t sure she’d make the hour drive in either direction.

  The lights of the harbo
r flickered amidst the falling snow, and though it was barely five in the evening, the world felt darker and colder than usual. A cruise ship, docked at the deep-water pilings down at the mouth of the sound, sent an unexpected wave of chills over my skin. What was it doing here? We didn’t get tourist ships in port in the dead of winter.

  A blur of movement caught my attention, and squinting, I could just make out a caravan of lights moving toward me. The closer they drew, the more I could make out a half dozen snowmobiles. They were traveling fast, and headed for the apartment building.

  Heart racing, I dropped my phone onto the couch and trudged to the shoe cubby by the door to grab my Ugg boots. I leaned against the wall to steady myself as I tugged them on, dropping my right shoe as I almost fell over, then more adamantly tugged it on. It was all I could do to stay upright as my ponytail swung into my face, nearly throwing me off kilter again. My heavy, thick hair was more annoying than usual, and I growled as I made one last heave to get my other foot into my boot before it fell to the floor.

  Flinging the door open as quickly as I could, I hurried toward the elevator, resolved to push another wave of nausea away and make it down to the first floor to see my mom before it was too late. I hesitated at the elevator, but only for a second before I pushed the button down.

  The seconds were excruciatingly long, but finally, the doors opened. When a flash of red caught my attention, I closed my eyes and stepped inside, turning around as quickly as I could, only opening my eyes enough to see the panel in front of me. After pressing the lobby floor button, I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing through my nose to quell my hysteria as I prayed the elevator wouldn’t stop until it got to the bottom.

  10

  Alex

  December 8

  I dreamed of darkness in sweltering heat. Of heated metal searing through my skin so acute I imagined a knife slicing me from the back of my head down to the base of my spine. It was agonizing. Gashing. The feeling was what nightmares were made of if you feared dull knife blades, like I did. It felt like hundreds of them pierced my skin, and every heartbeat made the pain bolder, swelling to a blistering burn.

  I’d seen death, but in a wakeful sleep—conscious, yet unable to open my eyes—it was alarmingly close. And a hauntingly familiar darkness pulled me in even further.

  The recognizable scents of burning plastic and something inexplicably noxious filled my nostrils, sharp and astringent in the back of my throat. I pulled the bottom of my pajamas over my exposed, little feet, and swallowed the fear back down.

  “Perra estúpida.” The deep hiss of an inebriated voice lingered in my fitful dreams. His rage hummed in the oppressive heat of the upstairs, filling the hall closet where I hid. The hoarding, the dank scent of uncleanliness; it was like homecoming and a death sentence at once—hair-raising and grossly memorable.

  I heard her whimper. “I didn’t—”

  “Cállate! One fucking thing I asked, Maria. You want the whole fucking town to know what we’re doing in here? Is that why you keep drawing attention?”

  Shadows played beneath the closet door. “No, mi amor. Alejandro—it was Alejandro—he was outside playing—”

  There was a thump and scuffle, and I cringed knowing her shriek would follow. My insides churned and twisted. My blood burned.

  “Worthless fucking puta . . .” On the nights my stepfather was angry, the demon inside him would grow tired before my mother was too far gone. But on the nights he was angry like this—and in another world—there was no stopping him until the frenzied rage was satisfied; until she was nothing more than a trembling heap on the floor that might not move for days.

  My little sister began to cry in our bedroom. Though her voice was muffled, and the door closed, I worried he’d move on to her next.

  My mother shrieked.

  One fleshy thunk followed another, and my chin trembled, my body shaking just as violently.

  They wanted Kayla and me out of their hair as much as possible—outside day or night, it didn’t matter which. What they didn’t want was my bringing the kids down the street over to play at our house—a rule I never forgot, for my mother’s sake, but the neighborhood kids didn’t always understand. They didn’t know what would happen, like I did. They didn’t know the kitchen was off limits, or how it would be if my stepfather knew they’d been there.

  “Worthless—”

  A shriek filled my ears again.

  With little hands balled into fists, shaking with panic and fury, I turned the knob and pushed the closet door open with all of my might, screaming and snarling as hot tears streamed down my face.

  Hard wood hit sinewy muscle, and I fell back onto the pile of garbage bags I’d cocooned myself within as my stepfather shouted, not with rage this time, but with fear. His cry echoed in my head, descending with one deafening crash after another, followed by a final crunch.

  I scrambled to my feet and peered down the stairs in awe. Red smeared the dingy wallpaper like sled marks in the snow, and my stepfather’s body was unnaturally twisted. A dark puddle soaked the threadbare carpet beneath his head. He wasn’t moving.

  Relief flooded through me like warm water on a cool day. I basked in it, not fully certain what I’d done, but he’d stopped shouting and my mother had stopped shrieking. I looked at her with an unexpected sense of pride that instantly vanished when I saw her face.

  “No—” she gasped, seizing hold of my arm. Her sharp fingernails dug into my flesh as she tried to hold herself steady, and rose to her knees. Her eye was swollen shut and bleeding.

  “Stupid hijo,” she rasped, and climbed to her feet. She pushed me aside, back into the closet, as she scrambled past me. “Que hiciste—” My mother’s weak legs gave out, and she practically tumbled down the stairs after my stepfather.

  “Mama—” Kayla cracked opened the bedroom door, sobbing.

  “Go back inside!” I told her. “Go—”

  “What have you done!” my mother squealed. Her screams came hard and fast as she pleaded for him to wake up, and for God to take me instead.

  Foghorns echoed in the distance and wind lapped at my skin, making me shudder.

  I tried to open my eyes—I needed to move—but my mind and body were leaden with sleep. I could only doze in an inferno that felt like it was melting me from the inside out.

  This is how I would die.

  This was the end; my mother would get her final wish.

  11

  Sophie

  December 8

  The ride down was painfully slow as the floor number changed from four to three, then two to one, until I finally reached the bottom. The elevator doors slid open and a blast of arctic air hit me. The entry doors were propped open, and shouts emanated all the way down the hall.

  “Single file!” a man called from the entrance. I glanced back to find two men in reflective vests, ushering a group of people inside and pointing them toward the tunnel that led to the school. A dozen people entered, shaking and wrapped in snow-dusted jackets. One man had a toddler in his arms that didn’t look like it was even moving.

  They hurried past me, oblivious as I stood there waiting for them to pass.

  “Follow the hall down to the right!” one of the ushers shouted, and pointed with his flashlight, though it was barely visible in the overhead lights.

  Utter fear consumed me as I realized they were the people from the ship. None of them looked familiar, and all of them were potentially sick.

  “Mom,” I breathed, wrapping my arms around myself. All nausea was forgotten, replaced with a dread unlike any I’d ever felt before. None of this was a good sign.

  I headed down the hall behind the group, not dumb or curious enough to follow, but to check my mom’s office a few doors down. “Mom,” I said, louder this time, and my legs moved more quickly. The municipal offices came into view and I practically ran to her open doorway. “Mom—”

  She was at her desk and on the landline, just as I’d hoped. Her perfectly primped
hair was tossed up in a messy ponytail, away from her face, and her tailored pantsuit was wrinkled.

  “I don’t care, Frank!” She gestured wildly. “I need you to get me—” She cursed under her breath as he cut her off. She was clearly frazzled—her skin ashen with exhaustion, or maybe it was worry—and she looked defeated in a way I’d never seen before. But, she was okay.

  “Just—call me when you know something.” She slammed the phone into the cradle, and dropped her head into her hands.

  “Mom?”

  She glanced at me and her blue eyes widened. “Sophie—”

  “I saw the people coming in from the cruise ship.”

  “I know,” she said as she stood up, steering me back out the door. “But you need to go home.”

  “Is this all because of the flu?”

  “Yes, it is. That’s why you need to go back up.” She picked up a clipboard off her desk. The sheet of paper it held had a slew of names scribbled on it. Symptoms and Quarantine Area were written at the top of two columns; names were scribbled throughout—names I knew were crossed off the list. I gulped what little air I could manage.

  “Do what I say.” My mom gripped my arm. “Do not leave the apartment, Sophie. Do you understand me? This virus is spreading, and I don’t want you to get it.”

  I already did, I was about to tell her, but bile rose up my throat and I tried to swallow it down. “Mom—is what happened to JJ going to happen to me? Is she okay?”

  “Tessa” a voice rattled through the walkie-talkie. “You better get down here. There’s a—” She turned down the volume dial on the device.

  “Mom—”

  “You have to go upstairs, Sophie.” Her voice was thin and laced with desperation. “Please.” Her eyes shimmered, and the fear in them told me this wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. “It’s not safe down here, not right now.”