The Fall

by J. L. Wood

  “You’re late, hun,” Joyce said, taking a brief look at Missy and then returning to her mirror, straightening the soft brown bun atop her head. Missy watched as Joyce’s dangerously long fingernails squeezed her ridiculous bun and then let her hand drop, as if she had just created a masterpiece. “You look like shit,” Joyce continued, batting long, thick lashes heavy with mascara.

  Missy ran her fingers through her hair, trying to remember if she had combed it or not. Pulling it back, she tied it in a messy ponytail. “It’s Saturday, and what are you, the fashion police?” Missy replied. “Where am I supposed to go? And what’s with the craziness outside?”

  “Oh, the angry mob of parents?” Joyce asked, typing something into the computer using only her index fingers, her nails creating an annoying click each time their tips hit a key. “They’re out there waiting for an open spot. We’re completely full here—only got one doctor. Also, communications been a bit wonky, hard to send, hard to receive this morning.”

  Missy peeked through the door toward the front of the building at the officers standing guard outside. “So what am I supposed to do here?”

  Joyce continued clicking on the keyboard for a solid minute before turning around to address Missy. “Well, you need to get to the gym and help out. You know, it’s really rude showing up four hours late. They could really have used your help setting up this morning.”

  Missy turned to leave, ignoring the comment. Joyce was strange, and they never got along. She would rather be cleaning up vomit or whatever task she would be assigned than to stay with her for another moment. As she started out the door, Joyce called to her.

  “Missy, wait! We should pray before you go!”

  Missy stopped in her tracks, annoyed. “Pray for what, exactly?”

  Joyce tapped the desk with her long nails. She leaned over her desk, her silver cross caught in her cleavage. “For the kids, dumbass.”

  Missy sarcastically waved goodbye and walked off, refusing to reply. Joyce played this game too often, and she would not put up with her sudden decision to be religious today. The crazy lady would have to pray by herself.

  “You’re selfish, Missy!” Joyce yelled after her. “But I’ll pray for the both of us. You’ll come around once you see what’s happening!” The yells rang throughout the hall, upsetting Missy even more, as they seemed to penetrate her skull. Praying never solved anything, she reminded herself as she approached the gym.

  Missy wasn’t sure what to expect when she pulled one of the heavy blue gymnasium doors open, but as she peered inside, her heart dropped. She tensed and held her hand to her chest to calm her breathing. Calm the fuck down. Now’s not the time to lose it.

  She stepped forward and gazed around. There were three rows of maybe fifteen small cots, each only a couple feet apart. Each cot was accompanied by an IV stand at the north side of the beds, hovering over the head of each of the children, who lay on top of a thin white blanket neatly tucked around a slender mattress in the cots. All the beds were occupied—the gym was at maximum capacity.

  Nearly all of the cots were accompanied by what Missy understood at first glance to be at least one family member, as she saw Timothy’s parents sitting on a small cushion near his cot, holding his limp hand. The far back wall of the gym was a mess of suitcases and people conversing, lying down, looking through their things, crying. Several brown tables were scattered along the sides of the gymnasium, holding bottles of water and what looked to be medical supplies and food.

  As Missy stepped farther into the gym, the heavy door slammed behind her, breaking the silence and causing those closest to her to jump. She tensed again and waved her hands. “Sorry,” she whispered. The room returned to normal after several of the inhabitants shot Missy a quick frown. She tiptoed along the outermost aisle of beds, searching for her friend Mary. A soft hand on her shoulder caught her attention, and as she turned around, hoping to see her friend, she found the school principal, Ms. Brackenridge, holding her finger to her lips, prompting Missy to be silent. Ms. Brackenridge pulled Missy aside to the left corner of the gym, closest to the front doors.

  “I’m glad you came,” Ms. Brackenridge whispered, her voice nearly inaudible. “As you can see, the sugar flu has gotten much worse. As of this morning, there’re no reports of children aged five to twelve in Houston who don’t have it.”

  Missy felt light-headed and unstable. She knew the sugar flu had been spreading; she just hadn’t thought that it would happen so quickly. “I don’t…I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Are you saying all kids have it now?” Her voice started to rise, and Ms. Brackenridge hushed her. “I’m sorry,” Missy continued in a whisper. “I don’t understand how it spread so quickly. It’s only been nine days. Is it in the air? In the city water?”

  Ms. Brackenridge shook her head, her eyes pointed downward, then looked back at Missy. “No one knows how all of the children got it or why it only affects them. Or why it’s centered on Houston. The CDC set this center up to see the effect of different medications on the children. Just utilizing the hospitals was not a big enough test base with the time sensitivity of this sickness.”

  “But we have Insidia, right? Why would they need different medications? Isn’t that what everyone is fighting over?”

  “We do have it, but it’s only a temporary solution. There is no real cure yet. Here, we are testing a new medication called Sim-Six. We are supposed to administer it once the Insidia stops working. The children are also on heavy painkillers to get them to rest.”

  Missy looked around the gym in an effort to avoid eye contact with Ms. B. She knew that if she looked at her, she would lose her composure. She didn’t want to make a scene. She needed to keep it together. She fixed her eyes on a woman silently sobbing over the legs of a small boy in one of the cots. As she returned her eyes to Ms. Brackenridge, she realized that for the first time, her boss looked disheveled. Her shoulder-length gray hair was frizzy, her blazer coated in dog fur, along with the remnants of a spill down the front of her blouse. The makeup around her eyes was smeared, meaning she’d probably slept in it.

  Noting Missy’s gaze, Ms. Brackenridge attempted to brush some of the dog hair off her blazer. “I had to bring my dog, Moose. Our contact at the CDC was unsure how long we would be positioned here. Did you come alone?”

  Missy nodded, and Ms. Brackenridge continued. “I’m not sure how familiar you are with the illness, but there are certain stages you need to keep an eye out for. It starts with dizziness and headaches, then is followed by a drop in blood sugar. That is when glucagon is administered. If the blood sugar still will not regulate, we give them Insidia. That should hold the child steady for a few days. When Insidia is no longer effective, we administer Sim-Six. It has to be in this order, as some children will fully recover at different stages. Insidia is in short supply, and Sim-Six even more so.”

  “And what is the recovery rate?” Missy asked, afraid of what she might hear.

  Ms. Brackenridge sighed. “Less than two percent with no treatment, five with glucagon alone, fifteen percent with Insidia, and it’s too early to tell for Sim-Six, but it seems to be effective thus far.”

  Missy felt dizzy and eased her way to the floor. No wonder there were crowds outside—death was nearly imminent with no treatment. She couldn’t stop thinking about Don’s warning. She now truly understood the gravity of the situation. It was much worse than she thought. So much worse.

  Ms. Brackenridge crouched by Missy. “We are keeping the gym as the sick ward. The rest of the school is closed off except for the fourth- and fifth-grade hallways.”

  In her nervousness, Missy popped one of her knuckles. “What happens there?”

  Ms. Brackenridge’s expression hardened. “We’ve already lost six of the children thus far. We’ve contained the deceased in the grade-four rooms and their families in grade five. The gym is overcrowded, and we cannot keep everyone there. There is a relief drop scheduled to arrive sometime this afternoon with more
medication, and they will pick up the deceased then.”

  The musty smell of the gymnasium overwhelmed Missy, along with the news of the deaths. A hot, thick liquid entered her esophagus, and she swallowed it back down, her throat burning. She tried to remain calm, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to cry, but it forced its way out of her. She covered her face with her hands, ashamed to let anyone see. Quietly, she sobbed into her hands, careful not to make a sound above a whisper.

  “It’s too much,” she whimpered. “I just wasn’t expecting this. I was expecting real progress, not…not this mess.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Ms. Brackenridge placed her hand on Missy’s shoulder and squeezed it tight. “I know it’s a lot, but you’re here, and you came to do something positive. A low survival rate is still something, and there could be a real cure soon. Don’t give up just yet.”

  Missy looked up and wiped at her eyes. The principal was right, but Missy didn’t have it in her to be the person she was expected to be. The hot liquid traveled up her throat again, and this time she had to hold her hand over her mouth to keep it from escaping. As she pulled herself from the cold, hard floor, her legs now wobbly, barely able to stand, she felt out of place, dysfunctional, unfit to be there. She should have kept driving past Bering Drive; she never should have turned.

  “Currently, we have Timothy, Ariel, and Lois from your class,” Ms. Brackenridge continued. “We started making calls out to the families last night, telling them that they can find medical care here, so more might show up. Priority is given to our students and then to those waiting outside. Also, Lois was dropped off at the front doors—she’s alone and will need some extra attention.”

  While Missy stared into the distance, the tears no longer spilling out of her eyes, hating herself for getting into this situation when everything told her to keep driving, she felt Ms. Brackenridge’s hand shaking her shoulder. Missy tried to look away, but Ms. Brackenridge grabbed her chin, forcing her to look directly at her. “I need you to pull yourself together,” she said. “We already don’t have enough people to tend to the children. I need you to pull all of your power from within and be a role model right now.”

  Missy clenched her teeth, Ms. Brackenridge’s grasp still tight on her jaw. “I can’t,” Missy replied. “I can’t do this. It’s too much. I didn’t expect this.”

  Ms. Brackenridge released her grip, and Missy’s head jerked backward. “And I’m sure all the parents out there with dying children didn’t expect this either. Get it together.” Missy frowned, embarrassed, and the principal continued. “I know that you might not think this now, since you just arrived and from the looks of it just woke up, but this is our duty. Parents are growing desperate for what we have here—medicine, medical care. The hospitals are full, and this is their last resort—to wait out there for a kid to die in our gym to give their child a spot. We are lucky the police arrived in time before anything got out of hand. Now go make yourself useful, Missy. I know you care about your students. Help them get through this.”

  Missy took a step back toward the first row of cots. She needed to get on Ms. Brackenridge’s good side and let her believe everything was well, then she would sneak out. She couldn’t handle this type of situation—it was too much for her.

  “I’m sorry,” Missy replied. “It was just a lot to take in. I’ll go make myself useful.”

  Ms. Brackenridge nodded, and Missy looked back with the principal still staring in her direction. She knew sneaking out would not be easy, but she would find a way. She always did.

  *

  Missy walked past Lois’s cot, paying no attention to her small frame lying soundlessly and alone. As she continued through the cots to the rear-left entrance to the gym, she turned to one of the tables on the far-left side, pretending she was going to get water from the cooler. An older woman in a lab coat tossed an empty paper cup into the trash bin next to her and then headed toward Ms. Brackenridge.

  The sight of what Missy assumed to be the doctor surprised her. The woman had dull light-brown eyes, the whites tinted yellow. She could tell that she was a beautiful woman when she was well, but she barely had any fat or muscle on her body. She looked like a walking skeleton, her clothes hanging effortlessly off her body. Small curly hairs, a mixture of grays and blacks, poked out from under a black wig tied in the back in a low-hanging ponytail. Missy could tell that she had applied makeup to reduce the dark circles under her eyes, and that had begun to wear off as the day progressed.

  The sight of the doctor terrified Missy. Of all the doctors in Houston, they were given the sickest one, the one who was surely on her deathbed. And although the woman’s eyes had a million stories floating behind them, Missy feared this was her last.

  I need to get out of here. This will not end well. She watched Ms. Brackenridge approach the doctor, and when she was certain the principal was not looking in her direction, she quickly walked toward the left single door and gently opened it, careful not to make a sound. As she stepped backward through the door, still ensuring that Ms. Brackenridge was facing away from her, she held the door until it quietly clicked into place.

  “Idiot,” she whispered under her breath as she took off down the hall toward her class, 3B.

  Once inside her classroom, she pulled back the animal-print curtains, exposing the small window. “It’s not my problem,” she kept telling herself as she fidgeted with the lock on the window. If she had known that the sickness was this severe, she would never have come to this prison. She would have stayed at home with Skiddy, where it was familiar and comfortable and safe. People made her sick, their smells, their dirty bodies, their sicknesses. If she wanted to take care of others, she would have gone into nursing. She didn’t want to touch anyone, and she certainly did not want to be touched. Finally, the lock snapped open, and she pulled up the window, inhaling the fresh breeze that flowed through.

  “Thought I’d find you here,” a familiar voice whispered from the doorway. Missy’s heart raced, and she was immediately overcome with shame.

  “I was just going to light one up,” Missy replied defensively.

  “No, you weren’t,” Mary replied as she walked over to Missy and sat on a large green bean bag by the window. Casually, she pulled a cigarette out of her silver holder and lit it, taking in a long, deep puff of smoke before blowing it out of the window. “Coward.”

  Missy slid her back against the wall to the floor beside her friend. Her eyelids lowered, and she began to bite her nails. “This isn’t me—I’m not made for this,” she said, her voice quivering. “I feel myself turning into someone else with all of this pressure. I knew something was wrong, I could feel it, and I can’t be here. I need to be home for Don when he returns. This is a big ask of me. And Skiddy is all alone. I need him.”

  Mary took another puff of her cigarette. “Excuses.” She looked her friend in the eyes and slowly shook her head. “I know you don’t watch the news, but this is really bad. We are needed here. The news report from the CDC this morning said this is affecting all kids within a certain radius of nearly a dozen locations around the world, and they haven’t been able to calculate how fast it will spread to the others. And they’re not sure why. They could die, Missy. All the kids that we know and don’t know could die. What would that mean for us? Come on, Missy, these are our kids. We need to protect them and help them fight this—whatever it is.”

  Missy’s eyes jerked to the side, and she stared at her friend in disbelief. A dozen locations? The sugar flu was even worse than Ms. B mentioned. It was no longer an epidemic; it was a pandemic. She rubbed her face with her hands in agitation, then looked back at Mary.

  Mary had always been the level-headed one of the two. They were close friends, but they were not made of the same cloth. Her friend was right: she needed to be there. “You’re right,” Missy said, holding out her hand for Mary to pass her the cigarette. “I lost it for a sec, but I’m good now.”

  “Better be,” Mary
said. If a stranger were to see Mary outside of the school grounds, they would most likely think she was an artist. Her blonde pixie haircut and soft green eyes suited her personality: free, fun, caring. She passed the cigarette and smoothed out the hem of her blue shirt. “Where’s Don?”

  “He went back to work. He’s traveling to Messier 83 to investigate some weird signals. It should take him about three days.”

  Mary’s forehead creased. “That’s the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy. Are you sure you got that right? That’s not a three-day trip. I can’t even think how far that is.”

  Missy flicked the rest of the cigarette out of the window. She shouldn’t have said anything about Don. She was never any good at keeping secrets, which was most likely why Don didn’t tell her anything in the first place. “Oh, I think maybe it was Mars. And since when did you become a space expert?”

  “Mars is two months away. And you know I’m a huge sci-fi geek. The only place he could go in that time is to the Moon. Going to the Moon sounds weird. I mean, we have a space station there. Why wouldn’t those people just check it out?”

  Missy scratched her head and let out a sigh. “You know I get confused with all that. By the way, I will have to cut out at some point and get Skiddy. He’s all by himself. I wish someone would have told me that we could bring our pets.”

  Mary sighed. “I take it Joyce didn’t tell you when she phoned you last night? She’s never really been a good receptionist.” She pulled the window down and stood up. “I’ll go with you to bring Skiddy back later. Oh, and did you see Ms. B’s dog? He looks just like her, with that constant look of disappointment.”

  “All I saw was all the dog fur on her,” Missy replied, laughing. “Take me to him.”

  Mary offered her hand to Missy, who grabbed it and pulled herself up. The two friends left the classroom, Missy making impersonations of Ms. Brackenridge as they returned to the gym, excited to see her grumpy dog.