by Anna Abner
Pollard was sitting at a small, round table in the breakfast nook with his cooking diary open in front of him. He saw me, hesitated like he might stand and hug me, but decided to stay seated.
“Maya,” he greeted. “Welcome to our new home.”
I felt even sillier. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.
“Sorry. I’ve got something…” He rose and ducked into one of the bedrooms.
So, he wasn’t over our earlier conversation yet. I glanced awkwardly at Juliet. “He’s mad.”
“He just needs a little time,” she assured, gesturing for me to sit on their sofa.
Nervous, I perched on the very edge. “I didn’t want to hurt him.”
She lounged beside me on the couch and threw one arm across the back. “You’re all he talked about after we escaped. Finding you. Saving you.”
Maybe the panic of escaping and losing each other had built up emotion in him that hadn’t been there before. It certainly wasn’t in me.
Hunny returned to the living room with a grocery bag full of clothes. She had her Saddle Club doll in a baby carrier strapped to her chest. “Ready.”
I stood, opening my arms for her, knowing she would be there. I turned toward Juliet. “Tell him I said bye? And maybe we can all hang out tomorrow when Ben’s feeling better? I have a ton of questions.”
“Sure.”
We left and quick-stepped downstairs to the ground floor, but I didn’t feel like going straight to our borrowed condo. Rattled after Pollard’s chilly reception, I wanted to keep moving. A good, long jog would help, but I didn’t want to abandon Hunny when I’d barely got her back.
“Let’s go talk to the doctor for a minute, okay?” I said to the girl.
“I guess.”
That answer was good enough for me. We dropped off her clothes in Dr. Lutan’s foyer, shouted at the closed bedroom door that we’d be back in half an hour, and walked to the hospital.
Beatrice waved hello from the front reception area. “Back so soon?”
“Can I talk to Dr. Lutan?” I asked.
“Of course. She’s on the second floor,” Beatrice said. “You’ll hear her.” She smiled at Hunny. “Do you want to wait down here with me? We can give your doll a vitals check.”
Hunny didn’t even glance at me, she was so excited at playing doctor in a real hospital. They went one way, and I went up the stairs.
As soon as I stepped onto the second floor I knew what Beatrice had been talking about. Dr. Lutan liked to sing. She was belting out a Whitney Houston classic, and not too badly, either.
“Hello?” I greeted, rapping on her door.
“Oh, Maya.” A little flushed, she gestured for me to come inside the lab.
She’d taken over the hospital’s simplistic laboratory and filled it with an industrial-sized generator, microscopes, centrifuges, and computers. There was only one chair and I dropped into it.
“You’ve been working on a cure, too?” I guessed.
“I never stopped,” she admitted. Taking a break from her work, she peeled off a pair of latex gloves and leaned against a messy desk. “What’s on your mind?” she asked. “Everything okay? Did Ben’s symptoms worsen?”
“No. Everything’s fine. But you didn’t come home last night. I just wanted to make sure we aren’t inconveniencing you.”
“No, no.” She waved away my concern. “I slept in the lab. I’ve got too much work to do to go all the way home at night.”
Hope swirled up through my chest. Maybe an end to the red plague was possible. “Are you making progress?”
“I am,” she said. “But I don’t even want to talk about it out loud and jinx it.” She knocked loudly on the surface of the wooden desk. “You and Ben will be the first people I tell when I have news.”
“Well, I just wanted to check.”
“Oh, one more thing.” She shuffled loose papers on her desk, and then pinned one to the surface with the tip of her finger. “You said Ben followed you into the lab and injected himself with the antiserum.”
“That’s right.”
“But.” She glanced up, shaking her head a little. “Why did he do that? Did he know it would cure him?”
I thought back to everything I’d said to Ben when he was still infected. “I told him there was a cure. Yeah. He knew it would fix him.”
Dr. Lutan was still confused. “He had enough wherewithal to understand and to want to be cured?”
“Yes.”
She went back to sorting papers. “I can’t wrap my head around it, but I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. He injected it. He cured himself. The why is insignificant.”
But I could tell it wasn’t insignificant at all. Not to her. And not to me, either. I made a mental note to ask him the next time I saw him.
“Hunny’s waiting for me. I’ll see you later,” I said. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.” On my way out, she added, “If he has a headache, there’s ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”
Downstairs, there was no sign of Hunny. “Did she go back to the condo?” I asked.
Beatrice nodded. “Yeah. I gave her a bunch of gauze pads and tape and she took off to start her own hospital at your place.”
I chuckled. “Okay. See you later.”
When I returned to the doctor’s apartment, Hunny met me at the front door. Her left arm was in a sling and she’d taped each of her fingertips.
“Hi!”
I ruffled her blonde ringlets. “Hey there.” She appeared to be alone. I didn’t hear her favorite cured Red moving around in the master bedroom. “Where’s Ben? Sleeping?”
“No. He’s not here.”
I sucked in a breath as the floor tilted slightly. “What do you mean?” But I didn’t wait for her answer. I checked the small kitchen, the living room, both bedrooms, and both bathrooms. There weren’t that many places to hide in the condo. He wasn’t there.
“Did he say where he was going?” It wasn’t like him to wander off. Maybe the concussion was worse than we thought.
“No. He was already gone when I got here.” Hunny belly flopped onto the couch, distracted by her bandages.
But I couldn’t catch my breath. My thoughts were shattered glass.
Where was he?
“I’ll be right back,” I said to the girl. “If you get lonely, go see Pollard.” I swung wide the front door. “I have to look for him. I have to make sure he’s okay.”
But Ben wasn’t at the hospital. Or the showers. Or the grassy playground. I ran all the way down the narrow, walled lane to the gate. One girl was sitting against the fence, monitoring who came in and out.
“Did Ben go out the gate?” I demanded, breathing hard as I came to a stop.
“Who?”
“Ben.” I did not have the patience for Twenty Questions. “My friend. Ben. Tall, black hair—”
“The guy with the red eyes?” She nodded. “He left a while ago.”
“And you didn’t stop him?” She’d let a person go out into the world to get attacked by zombies? Alone?
She scowled at me, and I could tell she’d lost her patience with me as well. “This isn’t a prison. I don’t tell people when to leave.”
I pushed through the gate and searched in every direction. No sign of him. To be certain, I jogged to the nearest parked car and climbed onto the roof to see even farther.
Nothing.
No one.
Ben was gone.
Chapter Twenty
I stayed on the roof of the car for long minutes, the sun a brand on the top of my head, but nothing moved. There was no sign that Ben was wandering the area, no indication he’d be back anytime soon. I surveyed from the river to the west to the gray tip of the Washington Monument shimmering to the north. I didn’t see or hear anything.
My feet itched to follow, to find him. But he could have gone in any direction. He could have driven off in a car. Without a plan, I’d be wasting time walking in circles.
And Hunny was waiting for me.
I hopped off the vehicle. “If you see or hear him, don’t let him leave,” I told the lady at the gate. “It’s not safe out there for a person on their own.”
Back in Dr. Lutan’s condo, Hunny had bandaged her doll like a mummy and was whispering into her delicate, plastic ear.
“Hey,” I said. “Did Ben come home?” I didn’t have much hope he’d doubled back and we’d somehow missed each other on the road.
She finger-spelled, “N-o,” and then abandoned her doll. “It’s dinner time. I’m starving. Can we go eat?”
I checked the wall clock. Five after six. “There’s no dinner bell here?”
“No. You can cook for yourself if you want, but almost everyone eats in the cafeteria. Can we go?”
“Okay.” I stood there for a moment, numb, thinking I should grab something before I left. Cell phone? Keys? Wallet? But I didn’t have any of those things anymore. They had no purpose in our new world. My thoughts simply wouldn’t organize.
We walked down the lane and back to the medical center, following a few other stragglers. I kept checking over my shoulder, hoping to see Ben hurrying to catch up. But he wasn’t there.
The hospital’s first-floor cafeteria had been retrofitted for the apocalypse. Open flame cooking. BBQ grills. Generators spewing gas fumes and smoke.
People lined up at the buffet with trays, just like in the old days, but instead of choosing à la carte options, everyone received a drink and an identical plate of hot food. Today was chicken fajitas with peppers and onions and a cup of fruit punch.
I didn’t care what the food was or how they’d prepared it or even what it tasted like. It didn’t matter. Ben had walked out of camp without even saying goodbye.
I’ll see you later.
That did not count as a goodbye.
“Maya!” Juliet waved us over to her table where she and Pollard were finishing their meals.
“Hi,” I said, sitting across from them. Pollard wouldn’t look at me, and it stung. “You’re not working in the kitchen.” I meant it as a question, but it came out an accusation. I couldn’t help it. I was furious. And scared.
“I work the breakfast shift.” He finally glanced up and his blue eyes were pained. “Lots of pancakes and oatmeal. You’ll see tomorrow.” He cracked the tiniest smile. “I recommend the oatmeal. The pancakes are rubbery.”
“Okay.” I picked at my meal, tasting a strip of grilled chicken. It was good.
“Don’t laugh, but I’m teaching the kitchen staff the yeast dinner roll recipe they used in Camp Carson,” he said.
“That’s probably the only good thing they ever did,” I grumbled.
“Where’s Ben?” Pollard’s question sounded just as accusatory as mine had.
Juliet laid her tiny hand on his forearm, sort of the way Simone used to do to taunt me, but I had the feeling Juliet wasn’t touching him to show off. She really cared about Pollard.
Which was a positive. I was happy for them both.
Even if Ben was gone for good and I was stuck there alone.
“He left the fence,” I said, faking nonchalance. He left. No big deal.
“What do you mean he left?” Pollard asked, dropping his anger as he sat forward. “That’s nuts. Ben doesn’t leave you. He sticks to you like glue.”
I ducked my head, feeling wretched. It was my fault.
“I’m sure he’s coming back,” Juliet said. “He must have needed to do something outside the fence.”
Right. Something he couldn’t do with me? Something he couldn’t tell me about?
“Yeah,” I lied. “Probably.” I dug into my meal, even though I wasn’t hungry, because it might be my last of the evening. Finished, I made lame excuses to Pollard and Juliet about being tired, and left with Hunny.
In my borrowed apartment, Hunny sat down with her doll, unrolling all the gauze and starting from scratch. If I’d had my guitar I would’ve played melancholy cover songs the rest of the night, but I didn’t have it. It was one more casualty of the red plague.
Instead, I got busy cleaning. Dr. Lutan was a very neat person, but that didn’t stop me from wiping all the counters with cleanser. I swept the hardwood floors. I tidied her clutter and sorted things where they should go. Finally, I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed her baseboards.
“What are you doing?” Hunny asked.
“Cleaning.”
“Why? Isn’t this someone else’s house?”
I didn’t know how to tell her I was so empty inside after losing Ben that I couldn’t possibly sit still or I’d fall to pieces. Cleaning kept me occupied and sane.
So, I said, “I like things neat and sanitary.”
Bored with my answer, she went back to playing doctor.
At bedtime she didn’t fight me at all. We changed into pajamas and crawled into Dr. Lutan’s cool-to-the-touch cotton sheets. Hunny melded against me, a living, breathing, heating blanket.
She fell asleep immediately, but I couldn’t rest. Not while Ben was out there somewhere. Maybe injured. Possibly hating me. Probably both.
I lay awake listening to Hunny’s deep breathing until I couldn’t take another minute of solitude. I crept out of bed and inspected the contents of the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Maybe I would clean the bathroom next.
The front door opened, and I scurried into the foyer, my heart a snare drum in my chest. But it wasn’t Ben. It was Dr. Lutan.
“Oh,” I said, my pulse easing out of panic mode. “Hi. Sorry.”
She did a double take. “Are you crying? What’s wrong?”
Her authoritative voice was oddly soothing.
The words burst from deep within me. “Pollard kissed me, and Ben left.” I gasped, my chest cavity a mound of concrete.
“Where did he go?”
“Out the fence,” I said.
“Our fence?” She steered me to the sofa and forced me to sit beside her. “Tell me what happened.”
“Pollard kissed me right in front of Ben,” I said again because it seemed like the most important detail, as far as I was concerned. “He thinks I’m in love with him, but of course I’m not.”
“You’re in love with Ben,” the doctor said, as if it were obvious.
And though my instinct was to deny it, I blurted out, “Yes. I love him.”
“He loves you, too,” she said. “He wouldn’t—”
“He does?” I exclaimed. How was she so sure about it? I wasn’t sure at all.
“Of course he does.” She patted my arm as if I were terribly young and silly. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“How does he look at me?”
She smiled wistfully. “Like you’re a treasure, Maya. A man doesn’t look at a woman that way unless he’s madly in love with her.”
The pain eased inside my chest, and I could breathe again. “Then why did he leave?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, getting back to business. “But if he hasn’t returned in the morning we’ll raise a small search party. You, me, and anyone else who wants to come.” When she met my gaze, her calm authority reminded me of my mother. She always made everything all right. “Do you know where he would go?”
“We’re from North Carolina,” I said. “But he likes Myrtle Beach.”
“Does he prefer highways or smaller roads?”
“Highways.”
“There you are.” She stood and dusted off her hands. “We’ll head south on I–295 and see if we catch sight of him. Now, I need to pick up some clean clothes and a notebook I left on the shelf. I’m staying at the hospital again tonight. Are you doing okay here by yourself?”
“Yes, thank you. But I’m not alone. Hunny’s staying with me. She’s my,” I stuttered over the word, “sister.” But it felt right. Natural. “She’s my little sister.”
“Oh, fantastic.” She removed her silver hoop earrings and laid them on the coffee table. “Did you see a pair of diamond studs?” she asked, frownin
g. “I left a pair here the other day.”
My stomach plummeted as I remembered Hunny messing around in the doctor’s things. “Uh, I’ll find them.”
“Here they are.” She lifted the top off a glass candy dish with random bits of stuff in it—two paper clips, a screw, a lost button—and scooped out the diamond studs. “They’re my favorite.”
I exhaled, promising to give Hunny an extra-long hug for keeping her sticky fingers to herself.
Dr. Lutan collected her things and then hesitated in the foyer. “I talked to the veep about you. She told me you’re interested in health care. I was thinking, maybe, you and Ben would want to stay here with me long term. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.”
“Really?” And I realized I’d like that, too. “Yeah, I would love to.”
“Good.” She smiled wistfully. “You remind me a lot of my own daughters.”
I didn’t ask if they were at camp or not. She was living in a condo alone. I sort of put the pieces together and assumed Dr. Lutan had lost family in the plague the same as we all had.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” She backed out of the door. “Get some sleep.”
I felt more relaxed since I had a plan, but I still couldn’t go to sleep. I was too jumpy, too scared, too sad.
I checked on Hunny and then went into the bathroom and wiped my face with a moist towelette, combed my hair, and inventoried the doctor’s cleaning supplies. She was well stocked. Sponges, cleanser, the works.
I was preparing to snap on a pair of yellow rubber gloves when the front door opened again.
“Did you forget something?” I asked, rounding the hall.
Ben stood, framed in the doorway, a pack on his back and my guitar in his right hand. I didn’t care about the gear. I squealed something completely unintelligible and launched myself at him.
He set aside the guitar and held me tight in the very best kind of bear hug.
I started talking and couldn’t stop. “Pollard kissed me, but I didn’t want him to. You know I didn’t want him to. I don’t have feelings for him. And when you left I thought I’d never see you again. I felt like I couldn’t breathe—”
“Pollard’s here?” Ben asked in clipped tones, as if he were making a report on his way to somewhere more important.
