by Olivia Myers
“Hey Emily,” Josh said with a smirk on his face as he sat down next to her.
She nodded. There was nothing to say to him, really. He was an arrogant jock and yet he was crazy intelligent. It didn’t make sense for a jerky jock to be so smart. What was more frustrating was the fact that he didn’t seem to struggle with anything. He was the only one in the class that didn’t break a sweat when the teacher announced a pop quiz. He seemed to revel in the torture of a tough math problem with only two minutes to solve. What made it worse was that he was also very cute. Emily couldn’t help but notice that.
“Studying hard, huh?” he asked, pointing to the closed chemistry book on her lap.
Again, not something that deserved a response. Emily was smart too, of course, and she and Josh were in a lot of the same advanced classes. The problem was Emily had to work hard to hold that spot at the top of her class. She dedicated hours upon hours to studying and mastering material to make sure she got the same grades Josh seemed to get with ease. There were many nights when she was up past eleven calculating equations, preparing projects, and reviewing extensive Shakespearean reads to just beat out her opponent by one point.
“Happy birthday, Emily!” One of the other students in the room called out to her cheerfully.
Josh smirked again before turning to look at Emily. “You came to a blood drive on your birthday? Either you are a special kind of crazy or a special kind of stupid.”
She simply rolled her eyes. He was too damn close, and he smelled too good. She huffed and turned to face the other direction.
“Happy birthday.” He said it a low, sarcastic tone that made her skin crawl.
Emily ignored him. She really hated the fact that he was so good looking because he had the personality of a typical jock. She wished he could retain that face and develop the personality of a nerd. Maybe then they could be friends…or more.
A nurse waved Emily forward, and she grabbed her backpack and sat in the chair. She didn’t look as the nurse pushed the needle in to start the blood draw. It stung a bit. She was usually a hard stick, but today seemed to be a good day. She only knew that from the time she’d spent in the hospital being poked and prodded. They’d never really found anything wrong with her, but they’d taken every chance to poke her and take blood. It still made her queasy, because this was voluntary and it was a lot of blood. The town had a huge blood drive every year, but this year was more significant. Everyone who gave blood would be entered into a drawing for a prize. They weren’t just in competition with a different town, they were in competition with each other. The town councils had hyped the prize up, but never said what it was. Everyone was curious. There wasn’t much going on in their small town so a big giveaway like this was all anyone could talk about.
Three freshmen stood at the front of the line, talking about possibilities.
“Maybe it’s a car,” one of them said.
“You’re only fourteen,” another said, squashing the poor boy’s hopes and dreams.
***
Days went by. Emily had a nice birthday party—she got the iPod that she’d asked for, as well as some gift cards to the mall in the nearby city. Everything else was going wrong, though. Shortly after the blood drive ended, many people in town got sick with no explanation. Being that they were so rural, speculation grew that it had something to do with the blood drive. Lowered immunity, contaminated equipment, poor handling, everything was on the table. The mindset of such a small town tended to breed erratic, superstitious thoughts, and that often spelled trouble.
After about three days of teachers and students alike just not showing up, school was cancelled. The school board decided to suspend classes until the end of the week, maybe even longer. Supposedly, the CDC would intervene and give them a better idea of what was going on. But until then, the town was on alert and advised to take caution when greeting others, handling any items, and being around small children and the elderly.
The first day of the quarantine, Emily came home early. She’d left behind a campus in disarray, as janitors raced to disinfect the rooms, desks, halls, and bathrooms as the students left. Emily approached the drive to find both her parents’ cars. They should have been at work, and she feared the worst. If she lost her parents, if they succumbed to whatever was devastating her town, she didn’t know what she’d do.
Emily walked through the side door of the garage and through the kitchen. Her mom was lying on the couch asleep with an ice pack on her head. On the coffee table beside her were bottles of various over the counter medicines and tissues. It seemed she had bought out the local CVS in order to shake the bug.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Oh yeah, sweetie.” Mom didn’t open her eyes and licked her lips slightly. “Your dad and I are sick. We caught whatever’s going around. What time is it?”
“Just after noon.”
“What are you doing home so early?”
“They cancelled school because everyone is so sick. They’re not sure when they’re going to let us back in. So far, it’s closed for the rest of the week. They sent this home.” Emily pulled a letter from her folder and handed it to her mother.
Her mom took the letter with a shaky hand. After glancing at it, she placed it on the table.
“Okay.” Her mom got up slowly from the couch and moved toward the room she shared with Emily’s dad. “I’m going to go lie down, and then I’ll get up tonight and fix dinner. Hopefully I’ll feel better. If I don’t, you have to fend for yourself. You can do that, right? There’s plenty of stuff in the fridge.”
Emily nodded as her mother walked away towards the bedroom. She flicked the TV to life and the news came blaring through the tube. It was worse than initially thought. People were now dying in their sleep. The town was on alert as the government declared a state of emergency. At that point, all they knew was that the sickness started like a flu virus, but it lingered much longer. The longer it lingered, the more it debilitated the host.
The hours ticked on and soon the sun began to set. Emily grabbed a sandwich and made soup for her parents. She checked in on them periodically. They both lay on top of the covers, still in their work clothes, and passed out like the dead. She fixed them each a bowl and attempted to feed them. She was only able to get a small amount of the soup into each of them. They looked pretty bad so she left them to rest. Emily opened a nearby window to let in fresh air and hopefully move some of the sickness out.
Emily took her time and showered. There was no rush, no homework, nothing to do. It was surreal that her parents were so ill and she didn’t even have a sniffle. She went to get into her bed and flipped through her cell phone. Every post on social media was about their small town. Conspiracy theories abounded and soon the words apocalypse, zombies, and government cover-ups were words that became a part of the daily gossip.
Emily pulled the covers up around her neck and slept quiet and peaceful through most of the night. At some point, her fears of contracting the disease from her parents surfaced, but somehow she knew that was not a concern. In the early morning hours, the eerie quiet from the town awakened the girl. She was used to her mom brewing coffee and its dark aroma filling the home. It was Tuesday and usually there was trash pick-up early, but today there was none. Even their neighbor didn’t fire up his restored 80s Mustang to head in to another day at the steel plant. The whole street was as quiet as a cemetery at night.
Emily hurried down the hall to check on her parents. They were in their same position and still very ill. She wiped their foreheads with a damp cloth, but there was no response.
“I love you,” she whispered to each of them.
They didn’t respond. They always told her they loved her back. Always. They had since she was a little kid. She sniffled, and tried not to cry.
On her phone, the death count was up. Every time she refreshed the page, it showed a higher number. “Should I call an ambulance?” she wondered. The streets were silent, though, and surely other pe
ople were sick like this.
She went back to the living room and turned on the TV. She hoped to hear some good news, but there was no such luck. The death toll kept rising and no cure or reason was in sight. For the rest of the day, Emily felt isolated, saddened, and frustrated. That evening she tried to feed her weakened parents, but they did not take a bite.
“If you find your loved ones are unresponsive, there is no point in bringing them to the hospital. They are no longer able to be saved, you must keep yourself from contracting the sickness.”
She chucked her empty bowl of soup at the television screen. What did that newscaster know?
Picking up her phone, she dialed 9-1-1. “911, what’s your emergency?”
“My parents are ill. Please, I need to get them to the hospital. I need an ambulance.”
“Please hold.”
Emily was on hold for three hours. Finally, she hung up. There really was no help.
Every morning she’d wake up and turn on the news, hoping a cure had been found. By now, she feared her parents were dying. They couldn’t last like they were for much longer. Their breathing became very shallow and raspy and their skin grew cool to touch.
She washed their bowls of uneaten soup and put them away. The trash can in the kitchen reeked. She filled the large green can outside and placed it at the edge of the garage. She looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of movement or life. Now, she wondered if she was the only one left alive. She pushed that thought from her mind. If the sickness hadn’t gotten to her through the vaccine, then there were others it hadn’t touched as well.
As the days dragged on, Emily read and watched reruns on TV. Soon, the device stopped working. It seemed that the world started to shut down as the illness ravaged the town. The last broadcast warned everyone to stay inside, as the disease could be airborne. Emily felt that was not true. She had been home with her parents for the week and still remained healthy, untouched by the disease.
The weekend came and went with no other news. She continued checking on her parents, wiping their brows, trying to encourage them to eat, but they wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t take any broth. On Monday morning, they were both dead.
She didn’t want to, but she needed to get them out of the house. There was no way she would leave them to rot above ground. Slowly she walked into where they slept. She said a small prayer and covered their bodies in blankets, sobbing heavily. After she covered them up she dragged their bodies out back as tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
Once outside, the same odor filled her nostrils as she realized there were more dead that needed to be buried. She spent the day using her dad’s mini digger. He was a contractor and had a well-stocked tool shed. The previous summer they had dug the garden that was on the far end of their property. She learned the basics and knew how the thing operated. She dug the two graves and dragged the bodies into place. After more prayer, she said goodbye and went back inside the house. It was hard not to pretend the two bodies she buried weren’t her parents, but she said something nice about each of them at the sink.
She cried for several hours, almost to the point where she couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t stay in the house; she would soon run out of food and supplies, and her curiosity about the state of town was too great. She pushed the deaths of her parents and neighbors deep down. It was too confusing – too heartbreaking for her to cope with, at least right now. She needed a chance to grieve. She just couldn’t do that from inside the house.
Stepping out onto the front porch, she gasped in shock. Far beyond her street, huge walls stretched into the sky. It looked like the counties surrounding Venners had put up huge walls to keep the infected out. How had the walls been built so quickly? The people building had to have worked night and day to get them up so fast.
She couldn’t be alone in this town. It wasn’t acceptable. If she was the lone survivor, and trapped in this walled city of the dead, she’d go crazy.
Someone else had to be here, she figured, and it was time she found them.
Deciding the best place to go would be the school, Emily grabbed her mom’s keys only to realize that both cars were gone. Had someone taken their cars? Why hadn’t she noticed before? She hadn’t had any reason to go to the front of the house—over the past few days, she’d only used the back door.
She looked around the neighborhood. There weren’t any cars in any of the driveways. She found that both strange and scary. What was really happening? Was this some kind of conspiracy? Was the government in on it? Was someone coming to get her next?
Well, she definitely had to rethink traveling anywhere. Walking had not been a part of the plan. But first, she needed to eat. While caring for her parents, she had only snacked. Plus, the indefinite halt on society meant that most of the stores were closed. Unless she planned to break in, it would be dumb to try and go to the store. Thank goodness the garden was full of fresh vegetables. As Emily walked back into the house, a new fear arose. How much longer would there be electricity or anything that made her old life bearable? Her fears mounted and now worry began to bubble to the surface.
Losing her parents was bad enough, but now her own survival looked bleak. No one else was around. Soon she’d lose basic comforts, and in a few months it would be getting cold.
Emily moved back through the kitchen, grabbed her backpack, and filled it nonperishables. She heated up some rice she had cooked earlier in the weekend and ate it fast, feeling it clump in her throat before she forced it down.
She gave a look to her house, wondering if she should bring anything else. But she was procrastinating, because she didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want more bad news, and she was afraid of what was outside, beyond her neighborhood. Here there was death, but it was safe. Beyond, it could be dangerous.
She didn’t have a choice—she had to find other survivors.
After pulling her bicycle from the back of the garage, she headed down the street and out of the neighborhood. As she got closer to town, she could see smoke billowing up. Some of the buildings were on fire. What had become of the town?
She made her way to what used to be a busy intersection. She continued to where one of the popular shopping complexes stood. Pedaling down the sidewalk, she peered into the windows. Racks lay turned over, and cash registers were strewn about the floor. In most cases, the windows were broken and doors had been kicked in.
The only good thing about looting was proof of survivors. She hoped the school would be a gathering ground of some sort.
***
High school had been a noisy place, with boisterous students and friendly teachers. Now it looked desolate. Nobody was laughing or throwing footballs around, nobody was gathered in small groups, talking and laughing. There didn’t seem to be any activity in the front halls or the main courtyard.
If anyone was here, they’d be indoors, she supposed. She approached the front door and jarred the large metal structures open. So far, there was no one. Only the faint smell of dust from the closed up structure remained. However, since the doors were open, someone had to be there. At least she hoped that was what that meant. Emily moved down the hall, careful to watch and listen at every corner. A strange nostalgia filled her as her hands rubbed against the metal lockers.
If there was someone in the school, maybe they were hiding. Maybe they were scared. “Hello?” she called. Her own voice sounded strange to her ears—she hadn’t spoken aloud in days, except her murmurs of encouragement to her parents.
“Hello! Hey, there! Emily!” A deep voice came from down the hall, and then someone stood before her.
He scared her to death, but seeing him was still a relief. “Josh?”
“Thank God! I thought everyone was dead!” Josh pulled Emily into an embrace.
She was shocked into silence by the odd display of affection after so many days of being alone – of thinking that she could be the last one alive.
Emily’s face turned
bright red. He was so warm, and he smelled nice. She shook her head knowing she needed to focus. She was here for information, and to find solutions. Daydreaming about the cute jock who doubled as a jerk was not going to get her any answers.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Probably the same thing you are. My entire family…they’re all dead. It was starting to smell at home, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t be around them anymore. I thought it was time to come out here and see if anyone else was alive. I kind of figured if whatever was going on was going to kill me, it would have by now.” Realizing he was still hugging her, he released her and took a few steps back. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. It’s nice to see another person. I don’t know about you, but my parents got sick right away. I tried to care for them, but... Anyway, I’ve been alone for a pretty long time. I’m glad to see you, even though you wouldn’t be my first choice…” Well that was mean of her, he’d lost his family, too. She opened her mouth to try to soften what she’d been saying, but Josh held up his hand.
“Not your first choice? What’s that supposed to mean?”
The problem with arrogant jocks like Josh was they didn’t know they had terrible personalities. They just assumed everyone loved them.
“Josh, you are always a jerk at school. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. It is nice to not be alone, but it would have been nice to be stuck with someone who had a little more compassion.” She didn’t mean to sound harsh – in fact, she felt bad after the words left her mouth. She’d always tried to be nice – but something about him just made it hard for her.
“Whoa, you are kind of harsh don’t you think, Em?” He spoke quietly, without the smugness and the annoying tones that had made her want to scream before. He actually seemed a little hurt, which was something she didn’t quite know how to cope with.
Emily cocked her head to the side. Did he really just give her a nickname? And so naturally? More of that jock behavior—he probably thought she’d be grateful. A small part of her was. A nickname meant belonging, and affection. She hadn’t felt either of those things since the sickness first descended on the town.
