Empty glass mason jars filled with colored marbles decorated a sill between the lone window and the single deep stainless sink. The marbles were varying shades of blue and green that, even in the diffused shafts of light, gave the appearance of tropic waves harnessed and trapped in glass.
The upper cabinets were glass fronted. Behind them stacks of white plates and bowls stood in neat rows. The only color behind the glass fronts was the cabinet holding coffee mugs.
School logos, watercolor landscapes, or text decorated the collection of mugs. One oversized cup glazed in bright red had the familiar “World’s Greatest Mom” stenciled across its face in curly script. Another proclaimed, “Sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to be here.”
Despite the variety in shapes and sizes, the mugs and cups were orderly and arranged in neat rows that stair-stacked from the tallest in back to the shortest in the front. Whoever had decorated the home and maintained it bordered on obsessive compulsion.
The galley ended at the refrigerator, a side-by-side stainless with an ice maker and water dispenser in the freezer door. Mike put a hand on the door handle but didn’t open it. No good could come from finding whatever was left in an uncooled refrigerator/freezer.
He looked at the floor between his feet and the fridge. Unlike Barry’s house, there was no melted ice pooled underneath and around the defrosted icebox. Not only was the floor dry, but there were no water-stained rings evident of a previous melt. And the stainless steel surface of the refrigerator was spotless.
The sink was too. And the gas cooktop. And the microwave.
Aside from the unavoidable dust in the air and lying in fine layers on every surface, the house was immaculate.
“Here’s a pantry.”
Behind Mike, Barry stood at an open door. He stared into it space beyond it.
Mike didn’t move. “Anything good?”
“Well,” said Barry, “there’s something weird.”
“What?”
“A calendar. It’s tacked to the wall. And it’s got days marked off.”
“What’s weird about that?”
“The last mark is January 26.”
Mike tried to calculate it in his head. “That’s more than six weeks ago, right?”
“About.”
“Anything else?”
“Some sealed jars of uncooked pasta,” said Barry. “Cans of sardines, an unopened box of saltines, a bottle of balsamic vinegar and a container of salt.”
Mike pulled his pack from his back and swung it to the floor. “Odd assortment. But some good finds. I’ll load it up if—”
“Hey.”
A voice from the home’s entrance. Mike lifted his spear gun and leveled it. Barry swung around, his back to the pantry door and aimed his rifle.
Mike tensed. His finger slid to the trigger. His heart was in his throat. Pounding.
From the kitchen, they couldn’t see the entrance. They stood motionless. Waiting. Listening.
A knock at the open door. “Hey. You guys in here? You okay?”
Mike relaxed and lowered the weapon. It was Brice.
Barry lowered the rifle and frowned. “In the kitchen,” he grunted. Then softer, “I coulda shot that idiot. Sneaking up on us like—”
Brice appeared at the kitchen entrance. “Sheesh, guys. You’ve been gone a while. How long were you going to leave us hanging?”
Mike eyed Brice then looked past him. “Where’s Kandy?”
Brice motioned over his shoulder with a jerk of his head. “On the landing outside. Figured it was good to have her stand watch. What did you find? Anything good?”
“A few snacks,” said Mike. “Nothing else yet.”
Brice stepped into the kitchen and tugged on a drawer pull. It slid open, the flatware inside clinking against the organizer insert. He plucked a steak knife from the drawer and held it up. The blade glinted in a thin bar of sunlight leaking through the window above the sink. He turned the knife over in his hand, inspecting it. “This place is clean. I mean super clean. Like nobody has been here since the Scourge.”
Brice set the knife on the counter and pawed three more from the drawer. He took a vegetable peeler and a large serving fork.
“What do you need those for?” asked Barry. “We’ve got that stuff at my house.”
“Who knows how long we’ll be at your house?” Brice said with a shrug. “Can’t hurt to have duplicates anyhow. It’s called redundancy.”
Mike laughed. “Is that your word of the day?”
Brice smirked. That gave his answer.
Since they’d left the Rising Star, Brice had studied a word every day from the pocket dictionary he’d taken from Barry’s house. Whenever Brice used an unlikely word, something Mike hadn’t heard him use with any frequency in the past, it was the word of the day.
Mike smiled at Brice and knelt to unzip his heavy pack. “Back at R, then?”
Brice opened another drawer. Without looking up, he said, “If I didn’t study a different letter every day, I’d get bored from the redundancy. Do you know how many words there are that start with A? I’d still be on the As if I didn’t skip around.”
“No judgment,” said Mike. “Just curious.”
From the pantry, he pulled all of the items Barry had mentioned. They barely fit into his pack, but he managed and zipped it closed. Brice pulled a butane lighter from a drawer and added it to his collection. Then he said to nobody in particular, “It feels weird, doesn’t it?”
Barry was opening and closing other drawers. “What feels weird?”
“Taking stuff. Looting it.”
Barry shoved closed a drawer. “It’s not looting. Nobody’s here. Nobody’s going to use any of this. We’re repurposing it so it doesn’t go to waste or fall into the hands of bad people.”
Mike chuckled.
Barry turned on him. A scowl drew deep creases in his face, which was half in shadow. “What’s funny, Mike? Did I say something funny?”
Mike lifted his pack from the floor with a grunt. He heaved it onto his shoulders and adjusted the straps, picked up his spear gun and only then did he address Barry. “It’s just that nobody ever thinks of himself as the bad guy, right? Everyone is always the hero of his own story.”
“Or her story.”
All three men looked over at the galley entrance to see Kandy standing near the dining table. The nine millimeter was in her hand at her side. She took two steps toward the kitchen and leaned on the doorframe.
“What are you guys doing?”
“Stocking up,” Mike said. “Taking what we can.”
Kandy nodded. “Anyone check the bedrooms yet?”
Mike nodded. “That’s next.”
“Mind if I start?” she asked. “This isn’t my mission or anything, but the longer we take here, the less time we’ll have at the bridge and beyond. I figure—”
“Go ahead,” Barry interrupted. “Knock yourself out.”
Kandy stood upright and disappeared from the entry. Mike followed her.
She was right. They’d spent too much time admiring the place and pillaging the galley kitchen. This was a distraction costing them valuable daylight. And for what? Sardines and a butane lighter? Some steak knives? Redundancy had its merits, but it wasn’t worth risking the bigger picture.
“Hold up,” Barry called from behind them as they reached a dark hallway, which led to the rest of the single-level house. “Wait for me.” He jutted his chin toward the length of the carpeted hall. “How many bedrooms?”
Kandy spun and squinted. “Looks like two or three. There are four doors. All of them closed. One is a bathroom.”
Mike checked over his shoulder. Brice emerged from the kitchen with his bag over one shoulder and his weapon in hand.
Barry sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. “Do we each take a door?”
“Sounds good,” said Kandy. She marched through the opening into the hallway. Heading straight back to the door at the end of the hall, she slowed as she
got close and lifted her handgun. She didn’t wait for the others and didn’t stop until she reached the door. With one hand she turned the knob and pushed.
She stood in the doorway, her body silhouetted against the gray light coming from the bedroom. The tension in her body relaxed and she lowered the weapon.
Kandy spoke without turning around. “You need to see this.”
Barry stepped into the hall ahead of Mike. Then Mike motioned with his head and let Brice go second. Mike took up the rear. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see whatever it was that had caught Kandy’s attention.
The carpet was soft under his feet, cushioning his heavy, trudging steps toward the end of the hall and whatever awaited him there. He wanted to take off his boots and socks and feel the plush fibers between his remaining toes. Even better, sit down right there in the hallway and run his fingers through it.
Mike reached the end of the hall. The others were in the room now. Brice stepped to one side when Mike entered. At the opposite end of the room, between two windows and beneath a large abstract seascape framed behind non-reflective glass, was a king bed. Its wrought-iron frame was painted white, the spindles twisting in parallel lines to form the frame against the wall.
Mike noticed the duvet first. It was white and gray. The sides were tucked into the bed frame, revealing the thickness of the mattress and the bed’s iron side rail.
He noticed the shovel next. It was on the duvet. Foot of the bed. Its blade curved to a point. Angular and spotless, it fit with the rest of the immaculate home aside from its spot on a bed.
Last and Mike wasn’t sure why this wasn’t the first thing he’d seen, was the body. A woman. At least Mike assumed she was a woman. Decay made it difficult to know from the face. But her hair was long and in ponytails neatly braided and resting on her shoulders.
She was on her back, tucked into the bed. The duvet was to her chest. Her arms were at her sides above the covers. Eyes closed, had it not been for the sunken features or teeth gleaming from behind receding lips, she might have looked peaceful. Asleep, not dead.
On her chest was a paint stir stick. Black lettering decorated it, as it had on the grave markers outside. On the nightstand next to the bed was an empty glass on a coaster. And an empty orange prescription bottle.
They stood in silence. Mike wasn’t sure if it was sadness, reverence, the sense of having intruded, or a combination of all three that kept the others cemented in place. But Mike stepped to the bed. He read the name written vertically on the stick. He said it aloud as he had the others outside.
“Grace.”
He studied her face. Looked at the necklace that hung at her chest above the stick. It was a thin gold chain with a filigreed oval locket. The initial G was in silver. The rest of the piece was gold. Or brass. He wasn’t sure in the dim light. To his left was the nightstand. Mike picked up the bottle.
“Flurazepam hydrochloride.”
“That’s a sleeping pill,” said Barry. “Betsy takes them sometimes.”
Mike put the bottle back on the nightstand. That was when he noticed a piece of paper folded in half. It was tucked partially under a lamp. Mike reached for it with his fingertips and slid it from the table. It was folded twice. When he opened it, he found it was two sheets of lined paper torn along one side as if ripped from a notebook. The printed handwriting was as precise and orderly as the house.
Mike studied the note, reading the words but not processing them.
Barry broke the silence. “What’s it say?”
Mike’s mouth was dry as he began to speak. A lump in his throat swelled and he swallowed it down. “It’s dated January 27, 2033.”
Barry’s eyes widened. “That accounts for the calendar in the pantry.”
“What about it?” asked Kandy.
Barry made a writing motion in the air with his finger. “It had x’s through the dates. The last one was January twenty-sixth.”
“Keep reading, Mike,” Brice urged.
Mike spoke slowly and enunciated. The writing was easy to read.
To whomever finds this,
Thank you.
Thank you for finding this so that my story doesn’t end with me. It’s important that someone, anyone, knows what happened here. Though, as I write this, I’m not certain anyone is left to find this. I might be writing this to the ether, for an audience that will never materialize.
I’ll start by telling you my name is Grace Ward. I am twenty-nine years old. I was born in Akron, Ohio, grew up in Cleveland and moved to Florida for college eleven years ago. I earned a degree in graphic design from Flagler College. I got a job at a small engineering firm doing drafting work.
I met a man through a dating app. We fell in love. We got married two years ago and bought this house. His name was Ryan Ward. He was a beautiful person who spent his life helping others. You might have seen his name on the marker out front. He was the last to die.
The others were friends of ours. We took them in when it became clear the Scourge was more than a simple outbreak. Ryan and I were the only ones among our social group to own a home. The rest lived in apartments. It wasn’t as safe in places with a lot of people. Ryan, being the kind soul that he was, invited them to crash with us indefinitely. I protested. We all stayed inside the house. We turned off the air conditioning. We did everything we could to stop the disease from affecting us. It didn’t work.
Bobby was the first to get sick. That was November first. We were in denial at first. It was a cold or allergies. We were certain. Of course it wasn’t. It was pneumonia. By the time he died six days later, Blair, Tony and Alice were showing symptoms.
We thought about leaving them here, but there was nowhere to go. It was worse outside. The gunshots, the fires, the sirens, the roadblocks. Ryan thought it best we take our chances in the house with the sick. There were people surviving the illness, according to the news stations. Then Darren, Jeff and Katherine contracted it.
Within two weeks of Bobby showing the first symptoms, half of the house was dead. We couldn’t leave them inside. The smell. I can’t tell you how bad our house smelled.
Ryan told me it was psychosomatic. Have you ever smelled something that wasn’t there? It’s like hearing noises and making them into something they’re not. Even if he dismissed me, Ryan agreed we couldn’t keep the bodies in the house.
So late at night on November 13, several of us carried the bodies outside. It was a Sunday. It was quiet that night. We thought it was a good time. Ryan and George dug a grave. It wasn’t a grave. It was a large hole. It’s not fair to call it a grave.
We put the bodies in the hole and covered them up. I stood at the window in the second bedroom and looked down at the mound of sand over their bodies. It made me sick to my stomach. I was sick to my stomach for days.
A week later, there was another hole. Gibson, Ryan and I were the last ones alive and Gibson didn’t have long. The disease was getting more aggressive. The symptoms got worse so much faster. It took Bobby a week to die. Gibson was gone in forty-eight hours.
Ryan was the last to die. And his death was the worst. He suffered.
It was so hard to carry him down the stairs to the hole. I have to be honest with you, I didn’t carry him, I dragged him. He was too heavy.
It’s incredible to me how different a person’s body feels when they die. I thought I knew everything about Ryan. The way his soft skin felt. His warmth. He was always warmer than me. And he smelled good. I could bury my face in his neck and inhale. He was intoxicating.
The body I dragged down the steps on November twenty-seventh was Ryan. It was cold. It was rigid.
After he was gone, I spent the next few days in bed. I expected to get sick and die. I didn’t. I’m immune, I suppose. I’m not sure that’s a blessing.
When I forced myself from bed, I went to the storage closet we have in the carport. We planned on painting the walls of the house before the Scourge put everything on permanent hold. Ryan took more than his share o
f stir sticks from Home Depot. I used them as grave markers. I’m sure you saw them out front. It made the holes feel more like proper graves. That was important, I think. People need to be remembered. Otherwise, what’s the point? If your memory dies when you die, it’s as if you never lived.
After cleaning my house from top to bottom, scrubbing the sickness from it, I cleaned again, until my battery-operated hand vacuum died and until the water stopped running clean. That’s when I made the decision.
You might think I took the pills and ended my life because Ryan is gone. I’ll admit that’s part of it. I never imagined living without him. I’m sure none of us imagined this, right? You never considered finding me here, did you?
But that’s only part of it. I took the pills because I am alone. I have nobody. More than that, I have no purpose. I’m not a graphic designer anymore. I’m not Ryan’s wife anymore. I’m nobody’s friend.
“To be or not to be; that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles.”
That’s Hamlet. Shakespeare. Sorry if I seem pretentious. I don’t mean to be. I’m not one of those people who goes around quoting literature. But I was in the play in college. I don’t think I mentioned I was a theatre arts minor. I played Ophelia. I digress…
All of this is to say that I no longer see a point in living. This is no life. It’s barely survival. I took the pills. All of them. And it’s time for me to sleep. I can neither take arms nor suffer. Maybe that makes me weak. It means I’m going to hell. But I believe that hell in the afterlife can’t be worse than what I’ve endured. I hope you’ll tell my story to others and that you have someone to share yours.
Tears streaking down her cheeks, Kandy said, “Is that it?”
Mike lifted his eyes from the paper. “That’s it.”
Kandy inhaled and puffed her cheeks. She exhaled, blowing the air from pursed lips. “I get her,” she said. “I totally get her.”
The Scourge (Book 2): Adrift Page 14
