Red Plague Boxed Set

by Anna Abner

  Even Mason.

  “We fought a lot when we were little, but I also remember karate class and going to the science museum with Mom and Dad. But,” my throat tightened again, “you were so selfish, Mason. I hate you for that.” My voice crumbled.

  “You don’t have to,” Ben said gently. His warm, rough hand reached for mine.

  “It’s fine.” I clasped his hand, blinking through a veil of unshed tears. “I want to. My dad,” I continued, and then I just went with the things I remembered best. “He loved Lord of the Rings. And dried banana chips. And he worked really hard at his job. He loved messing with chemical compounds and formulas. But I wish,” the confession hurt coming up like a weed from the cold ground, “that he had stayed home that last day instead of going to work. I wish he’d stayed with me.”

  I wanted to end the memorial service on an optimistic note. “I don’t know what happened to them, but I hope they didn’t suffer at the end. Goodbye,” I whispered, wiping a tear from my cheek as I bent and blew out my candle. Gray smoke rose to meet me.

  As I sat back I had to admit I felt a tiny bit lighter in my chest. I’d miss them forever, but I could go on without them and be okay.

  I stared at Ben, who hadn’t reacted to my elegy at all. “You don’t have to say anything, if you don’t want to,” I told him. His recovery was still a work in progress, and I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable. Maybe he didn’t remember his family that well. Maybe he carried a lot of bad memories.

  “I had a mom and a dad,” he said quietly. “They were really kind.” He glanced at me and then re-focused his gaze on the flame between us. “My brother was a good kid. And all I did was hurt them. Over and over.”

  I looked up, recognizing the pain and regret in his voice. I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. Or a bad person. I squeezed his hand in support.

  “I was a thief,” he continued, as if I wasn’t there. “And a liar. And I made them all miserable. They were probably glad when I got sentenced to Dogwood. Just so I would go away.”

  “Ben…” I couldn’t believe that.

  But he plowed ahead. “I wish I could’ve said I was sorry.” He bobbed his head and swallowed several times. “I’m sorry.” He released me, blew out his candle, and then disappeared into the garage.

  I sat there for a moment as his candle wick cooled from glowing red to coal black. I considered cleaning up, but in the end I left everything there like a tiny shrine to all we had lost and the regrets and grief we could—hopefully—leave behind.

  Without warning my sad song came back to me, starting as a string of chords in the recesses of my mind.

  Grabbing my guitar, I perched on the edge of the sofa. I hadn’t been able to forget the dirge, even after leaving my house, after meeting Pollard, after Ben’s cure, after Camp Carson. It was always there knocking on the side door of my mind.

  I hummed a couple notes, and then sang softly, “Come back. Come back to me.” I had it. The entire first verse and a little of the chorus. “Hey, Ben?” I called. “Can you come in here for a minute? I need your help.”

  I dug my song diary and a pen out of my backpack and tossed them to him one at a time. “Will you write down everything I tell you?” I readjusted my guitar, moving the strap. “I wrote the song that’s been bugging me for so long. But I can’t actually write until my hand heals.”

  In fact, strumming was difficult, too, but if I was careful I could brush the strings with my thumb and make a decent sound.

  I sang the chorus first, the easy part, “Way down here. I disappear.” It felt good to get it out, all at once. “My heart hurts when you leave. Come back. Come back to me. I’m no good alone.” And the first verse tumbled out as if it had been inside me all along. It just needed a little push. “I didn’t know the last time I saw you, it would be the last time. You didn’t say goodbye. Neither did I. I wish I could see you again.” I strummed a little faster, changed chords, and sang the chorus again, but softer. I played it all the way through a second time, messing with the tempo.

  As the music faded into the air, Ben said, “It’s really pretty.” He glanced at the book in his hands. “I think I got it all. Do you want to sing it again to be sure?”

  I played it from the beginning, and then again, telling him the exact chords to copy down under the lyrics. By the time I’d sang it through a final time I felt renewed. Purged. Clean. I could let it go and start a new song. A better one. A happier one.

  Ben laid my diary aside and settled back into the sofa, his eyes crisscrossing my face. “Will you play it again?”

  I did, for him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ben returned to the garage to pick through the previous owner’s storage. So far, he’d found a crowbar, a working flashlight, and water purification tablets in the bottom of a hiking pack. Slowly, piece-by-piece, he was putting together his own apocalypse survival pack. I had one, but beside a canteen, the only things I kept permanently were my iPad and my song diary. He was much more organized than I was.

  I joined him in the dark and musty space, wandering toward a metal shelf and pulling on the corner of a blue tarp. I gasped, scaring him so badly he ran over to battle whatever had startled me. But it wasn’t an enemy. It was a generator.

  “Oh, my God!” I dragged it into the middle of the garage. “Maybe it works!” I hadn’t been so excited about anything in a long time. The tablet that rested perpetually in the bottom of my backpack hadn’t turned on in over three weeks. And in it was every precious photo and video and audio clip I loved. Songs I had written. Texts from my dad. Pictures of Mom and my friends and everyone. I could hardly breathe while Ben and I tried to figure out how the generator worked.

  “It has gas in it,” he deduced. “The directions are right here.” He scanned the brief how-to guide printed on the side of the engine not much bigger than a car battery. “Stand back.” He flipped a couple switches and gave the cord a solid yank.

  Nothing happened.

  “Hold on.” He flipped the switches again, re-checked the directions, and then stood with the cord in his hand. “I think this should do it.” He pulled hard and fast, and the little generator rumbled to life.

  My heart leapt. I gave him a quick, hard hug before racing inside to find my iPad and wall charger. When I returned Ben had opened the garage doors and hauled the generator in front of the Hummer.

  “Oh, wow,” I said, babbling as I fumbled the cords. “I can’t believe this.” I plopped onto the concrete, pulled my legs crossways, and pressed the home button. After a couple seconds the low battery indicator came on. I had to wait a little longer.

  I didn’t care. I’d seen life in my little tablet. I bounced with joy. Finally, finally I would see my pictures again.

  I signaled for him to join me. “"I want to show you everything.”

  He sat, scooting until our bodies were flush down the side.

  My home screen appeared and despite there being a million and one things I wanted to see and read and hear again, my fingers tapped into my video folder on instinct.

  The screen went black, and then, as if by magic, I saw my mom’s face.

  I burst into tears. Just like that. One moment I was fine, and the next I was sobbing.

  Ben’s arm went around my waist as we watched the video I’d edited together almost two years earlier. It was a collage of photos and home movie clips of Mom set to a reverential, classical score.

  “I made this,” I said when I could speak through the tears. “After she died.” I touched the screen with my fingertips. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “You look like her,” Ben observed.

  I had inherited my mom’s black hair and my dad’s light skin. I guess I was a good mix of the two of them.

  And there was Dad, laughing in the background of the next video clip as Mom attempted to frost cupcakes for his birthday. There was more frosting on her hands than on the treats.

  The final image was a professional family photo we�
��d taken when Mason and I were thirteen and my parents were both fifty. We all appeared happy and at ease, which was probably why I loved it so much and had put it in the video even though seeing Mason’s face still sent arrows of anger and frustration through my chest cavity. In the picture there was no clue that he was capable of murder. Mom and Dad looked the way they always had, a little gray in their hair, a little nerdy, but kind. And there I sat smiling between them without a clue of what was coming for us all. Innocent.

  “I have an idea,” I announced, scrolling through apps. As I met his eyes a smile spread uncontrollably across my face. “Let’s have a movie night.”

  His eyebrows arched, and I couldn’t help smiling even wider.

  “Sure.”

  “Snacks, pillows on the floor, lights off?” I tapped a couple times on the screen. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good, old-fashioned movie night.”

  He grinned, his dimple popping, and I had to look away. It was too much cuteness to take in all at once, not when my emotions were so shredded.

  Ben connected the generator to an extension cord and locked us inside the garage. Together, we brought all the sofa cushions and a bunch of bed pillows from the house and, along with blankets, made a big comfy lounge on the concrete floor.

  We didn’t have popcorn, but there were corn chips and semi-sweet chocolate morsels and cases of soda. It was almost the same as I remembered. And I was giddy with excitement. For a little while we could be normal and pretend the plague had never happened.

  With our bounty spread around the cushions, I plopped onto the pillows and beckoned Ben nearer.

  He hesitated on the periphery, and for some reason I thought him standing uncertainly on the edge of the cushions was more adorable than anything I’d ever seen in my life.

  I smiled reassuringly and patted the spot beside me. “Come on. It’s safe.”

  Swallowing, he kicked off his shoes and crawled onto our cushion creation. He settled into a spot across from me, leaving a foot of space between us.

  Grabbing the iPad, I wiggled closer and rested my head on his shoulder. He lay very still for a moment, his entire body one long tense muscle, and then he shifted and slipped his arm up under my neck, making a pillow for my head.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked. “I’m not hurting you?”

  “Not at all.” I turned on the tablet and tapped the screen. “I love Hollywood musicals. I’m sorry I don’t have any guy movies on this. Let’s see.” I scrolled through the list of films on the device. “Have you ever seen My Fair Lady?” I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. Ben didn’t seem like the musical kind of guy.

  “Whatever you want to watch is fine with me.”

  “Okay.” I giggled at the thought of making him watch High School Musical. “You may regret that decision.”

  In the end, I turned on Mary Poppins and propped the iPad on my leg.

  The opening credits ran and I got overwhelmed by a barrage of memories of the last time I’d viewed it and how different my life had become in such a short amount of time. I sniffed to keep from crying like a big baby.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I miss my family,” I confessed, scrubbing at my face one-handed. “Sorry. I didn’t want to cry anymore.”

  “Go ahead and cry.” He pulled me in flush to his chest. “It’s okay.”

  I wiped my eyes on his shirt, and settled into a comfy position to enjoy the show.

  “Did you ever see this movie when you were a kid?” I asked, grabbing a handful of corn chips.

  He stole a chip from my pile and munched. “I don’t remember.”

  “Too bad. It’s a classic.”

  By the time the end credits rolled, Ben had fallen asleep. Maybe old-fashioned musicals weren’t his favorite, but it had meant a lot to me and I was so grateful he’d shared the experience with me.

  I closed the tablet’s cover, set it aside to fully charge, and curled into Ben’s warmth. I don’t even remember closing my eyes, and I was asleep in his arms.

  I woke beside Ben in the chilly garage, the generator long since dying from lack of gasoline and my tablet cold to the touch, knowing it was the last day we would stay in the house. The home had become special to me. But if we stayed any longer we’d miss Pollard. If he’d made it to D.C. before us he wouldn’t stay and wait forever. If we had any chance of finding him, we had to keep moving.

  Sleepy and warm I struggled into a sitting position, wincing as the wound on my back tore a tiny bit. If I wasn’t careful, the claw marks and bites would never heal.

  “Let me see,” he said. He gestured toward my shirt.

  Obediently, I turned, swung my legs off the edge of the cushions, and showed him my back. He raised the hem on my tank top all the way to the base of my neck.

  “How does it look?” I hadn’t seen it yet. Experiencing the wound was enough for me. I didn’t necessarily want to see what had been causing me so much pain.

  “Red and bruised,” he answered succinctly. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not unless I pull at it.”

  He let my shirt fall. “I’ll get the first aid.”

  That was another kit he was putting together, along with his larger survival pack. So far in the medical bag he kept all the good supplies we’d liberated from the hospital plus sterile bandages, the leftover cold medicine, and some bug bite cream he’d found in the bathroom. I had no doubt it would grow, though. Within days I predicted he’d have a full-blown, medical grade emergency kit sitting alongside his survival gear. Ben was like that, attuned to details and skilled at organizing.

  When he returned I’d already removed my shirt and clutched it to my chest as he unhooked my bra and applied fresh ointment and bandages. His fingers were gentle, but efficient.

  As he adjusted my bra straps to their rightful positions, I pulled my shirt back over my head.

  “Let me see your hand,” he said, rounding the makeshift bed to stand over me.

  I offered him my wounded right palm, and he examined it.

  “See any signs of infection, doctor?” I teased.

  “Very funny.” He made brief eye contact, his eyes twinkling with humor. “No.”

  I stood up, but Ben didn’t move, and I ended up way too close to his chest. I wobbled on the balls of my feet, teetering between falling back onto the pillows and plastering myself against him.

  Finding my balance, my eyes went instinctively to his chest. “Let me see yours.”

  Obediently, he whipped off his shirt and let it fall with a soft swish at our feet.

  That close, I couldn’t help seeing every single sign of his imprisonment. The circular marks, the burns, the IV scar. “I’m sorry about all of these.”

  My gaze skimmed over him, and then feeling brave, I laid my left palm over his heart. He was warm, and the contact raised goose bumps on both arms.

  Ben stared at my hand for a moment as if shocked I would touch him, skin to skin.

  “I’m sorry.” For all of it.

  He covered my hand with his own. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said gently. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

  Salty tears burned on their way out. Though I tried to stop, a choking sob broke through. “It was my fault you got shot. It was my fault you almost died in Camp Carson. It was my fault—”

  “No.” He squeezed my hand so tight one of my knuckles cracked. “You changed my life, Maya. Because from the moment I saw your picture a light bulb went off in my head that I could be better. That I could have a better life than the one I started off with. That there were good people in the world and I could be one of them.”

  “You did those things all by yourself,” I told him. “I didn’t do anything but send my brother a photo in the mail. Maybe it was my face that inspired you, but you made the choice to be better, Ben.” I couldn’t help myself anymore. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my face to his chest. Like we always did, we fit so perfectly, so comfortably, like we were made to h
old each other.

  The same way I had always fit into my mom’s arms. With my emotions raw and laid bare, I couldn’t help think she was dead because of me.

  “I could’ve stopped him,” I wailed, losing my sense of time and place. I closed my eyes, and wouldn’t have been surprised if when I opened them I was back in Mason’s blue bedroom as he angrily signed, “I wish she was dead. I wish I could kill her.”

  “Stopped who?” Ben’s voice snapped me back to the present.

  But I didn’t open my eyes. It was safer alone and in the dark.

  “You’re hurt because of me. My mom’s dead because of me.”

  “Whoa.” I felt strong hands gripping both arms. “What are you talking about?”

  I swallowed, hovering between confessing all and clamming up, never to speak of those horrible things again.

  “Mason told me he was going to kill our mom,” I blurted out. “He told me, and I never said a word.”

  I blinked my eyes open, more interested in his reaction than I had expected.

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Do you think you could have stopped him if you’d told your parents?”

  I sniffled. “Well, yes.”

  “They wouldn’t have believed it, anyway,” he said. “They wouldn’t have thought him capable of murder. You didn’t, did you?”

  I shook my head. I never thought my twin brother would actually do it.

  His hands rubbed up and down my arms in what I suspected was an unconscious movement. My skin warmed at his touch and I instinctively leaned closer, absorbing his heat.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he said with such conviction I started to believe him. “Even if you had told every adult you knew, including the police, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  “But what about counseling or—” The same argument I had with myself all the time. What if? What if? What if?

  “It’s done, Maya. He killed her. Mason did. Not you.”

  I bowed my head, feeling suddenly exhausted, just bone deep tired. “I know.”

  “Say it,” he said gently.

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  Ben’s hands ceased their rubbing and squeezed my arms.