Bedlam

by Susanna Strom

  Knee-high grass baked in the front yards, and sun-scorched weeds clogged the flower beds. Eerie quiet gripped Northumberland Heights by the throat.

  My cautious neighbors would’ve retreated behind locked doors as civil unrest spread. Maybe some of them—out of their heads from late-stage flu mania—had come out of hiding and wandered the streets. Why else would so many front doors stand wide open? Or maybe intruders hadn’t bothered to close up a house when they were done ransacking it.

  I braked, pausing in front of my buddy Jordan’s house. The front door was shut, but looters had shattered the living room windows. Sheer curtain panels fluttered in the breach and caught on the jagged glass. A figure sprawled spread-eagle under the window. The last thing I wanted to do was to look closely at the body. Friend or foe, whoever lay there was beyond help.

  The silence and stillness of the old neighborhood rattled me. I pivoted my head from side to side, searching for signs of life.

  When I’d left the ranch in central Oregon early this morning, Ripper had handed me a shoulder holster and extra magazines for Grandpa Kurt’s Glock 17. “Got nobody to watch your back on the road,” he’d said. “Keep your eyes open and your pistol close, brother.”

  I’d nodded and shook hands with the former soldier.

  Kenzie had flung herself into my arms. She clutched my T-shirt. Tears glistened in her beautiful gray eyes. “Promise me you’ll be careful and that you’ll come back home to us as soon as you can.”

  “I promise, sweetheart.” The back of my eyes prickled, and I blinked furiously. I wanted to keep our goodbyes low-key. No way I’d break down and blubber in front of my friends. Time to lighten the mood. I chucked her under her chin and angled my head toward Ripper. “And I expect you to keep the big guy in line while I’m gone.”

  Kenz cracked an imaginary whip. “You know I will.”

  Ripper rolled his eyes, snaked out an arm, and hauled Kenzie against his chest. “Mind your manners, Mrs. Solis.”

  She tossed her hair and smiled saucily at him. “Make me, Mr. Solis.”

  Not so long ago, the sight of Kenzie in another man’s arms would have gutted me. I’d made my peace with the situation. It might strike some people as odd that I was still close with my ex—that her new man had become a trusted friend—but in this crazy, post-pandemic world, it made perfect sense. A familiar face, somebody you shared memories with, that was a gift. Moreover, reliable allies were the key to survival. And to staying sane.

  Shaking my head at the memory, I reached for the shoulder holster and touched the Glock, its solid presence a comfort. “I got this,” I said under my breath.

  My foot tapped the gas pedal, and the truck lurched forward. I turned right at the next stop sign. Only two more blocks to go.

  My pulse sped up as the pickup glided past familiar houses. The Rosens’ Dutch colonial. Chelsey Rosen was the first girl I kissed, right there on the front porch. The Lavignes’ French country house. Every Christmas, Mrs. Lavigne baked her famous macarons and passed them out to the neighbors. My mom loved those fancy meringue cookies and hid them from my sister and me. The Brocks’ Tudor. When we were twelve, Theo Brock and a bunch of us guys built a tree fort in his backyard.

  Memories assailed me from every side.

  The street curved and the McAllisters’ sprawling stucco house came into view, kitty-corner from my family’s place. I slammed on the brakes and squeezed my eyes shut against the sight of my best friend’s home. Jake. Shit. Sharp pain stabbed my chest. Jake and his girlfriend Ali had died during the first week of the pandemic. We’d been driving home to Boise from college in Portland when they fell ill. I’d sat deathwatch over them and had buried their bodies in Pendleton before heading back to Portland to look for Kenz.

  I opened my eyes. I owed one last duty to my dead friend.

  “I’ll check on your folks, Jake,” I said, pulling into the McAllister driveway. The front door was shut. Somebody—probably Jake’s dad—had nailed plywood over the large picture windows, like folks did who lived in a hurricane zone. No hurricanes or tornadoes in Boise. We thought we were safe from natural disasters. Guess Mother Nature showed us, huh?

  I hopped out of the truck, walked up to the front door, and pounded my fist on its surface. Holding my breath, I cocked my head to one side and listened. Nothing but silence greeted me, but that meant squat. If I’d survived the flu and somebody came knocking on my door, I wouldn’t answer. I thumped my fist on the door a couple more times—to alert anybody inside—then reached into my pocket. When Jake died during our trip home, I’d planned to keep driving his pickup. Somebody had hotwired and stolen it, but I still carried my dead buddy’s keys as a reminder of him and a talisman against bad luck.

  I unlocked the front door and stepped into the foyer. “Naomi? Brian?” I called out his parents’ names.

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled at the unnatural quiet. The McAllister house was always a loud, happy place filled with a raucous jumble of music, laughter, and conversations. The family never used the built-in intercom. They stood at the bottom of the stairs and bellowed for each other. This dead air felt all kind of wrong. Creeped out by the absence of sound, I walked over to the bottom of the staircase.

  “Naomi? Brian? It’s Kyle Chamberlain. Anybody here?”

  Silence.

  Duty done, I scuttled back outside and locked the front door. I retreated to the truck, then backed onto the street.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I turned my head and took my first look at my family home. Overgrown, sun-bleached grass swayed on the front lawn. Mom’s prized rosebushes were clinging to life, their bare, thorny branches twisting toward the sky. Brittle leaves littered the weed-filled mulch beneath the roses.

  Mom would fire the gardeners.

  I choked out a harsh laugh. After everything that had happened during the past four months, that was my first thought. I looked past the neglected landscaping to the house. The front windows were intact and the curtains drawn, but the door stood wide open.

  Another blow to my irrational, default optimism. So much for the fantasy that I’d march up the front walk, slip my key in the lock, and find my parents safe behind the sturdy door. I knew better. Of course, the virus that had laid waste to the world hadn’t spared my family. I parked the pickup in our driveway, threw my backpack over my shoulder, then cautiously approached the open entry door.

  Grandma’s sterling silver gravy boat lay on its side on the doormat. Before the flu, a burglar could’ve hocked it for a pretty penny. I couldn’t blame any thief for having second thoughts and ditching it on the porch. Was there anything less useful in the new world than a freaking gravy boat?

  I slid the Glock from the holster and stepped inside my family home. Dried leaves crunched underfoot. Dad’s laptop lay face down on the hardwood floor, another once-valuable item abandoned by somebody with looter’s remorse. Freezing in place, I strained to hear anything to indicate that I wasn’t alone.

  “Mom? Dad?” My voice echoed through the empty halls.

  I climbed the curving staircase and halted next to the double doors leading to my parents’ bedroom. Old habits die hard. My sister and I were expected to knock before entering, so I automatically rapped on the door before stepping inside. The light that filtered through the curtains revealed a room devoid of life. I wrinkled my nose. Rumpled, sweat-stained sheets covered the bed. Empty water glasses and bottles of ibuprofen crowded the bedside tables. A dried substance I didn’t want to look closely at clung to the sides of a bucket on the floor by the side of the bed. I stuck my head in their bathroom and closet—just in case—but found no signs of Mom or Dad.

  Retreating to the hall, I gently shut the door to my parents’ sanctum and leaned back against the wall. When I left the ranch this morning, I knew that I was unlikely to find my parents alive, but like I told Ripper, I had to see with my own eyes what happened to them. From the evidence in the messy bedroom, one or both of my parents had come down with the
flu.

  Where were they now?

  I padded down the hall and opened the door to the guest room. Another unmade bed. Somebody had knocked over a glass of OJ, and the puddle of juice had dried on the nightstand. My sister Kristen’s fluffy, pink bathrobe was draped across the foot of the bed. Entering the room, I kicked aside her husband Matt’s Idaho Vandals football jersey.

  In early May, when reports emerged about a nasty, new flu virus making the rounds, Mom called and ordered me to come home from college. Kristen and Matt attended graduate school in Moscow, almost three hundred miles north of Boise. I guess it made sense that Mom would summon them back home, too. Gather her chicks, like she used to say.

  So, where were Kristen and Matt?

  Moving quickly now, I strode down the hallway, checking every room. Dad’s study, Mom’s craft room, the bathroom, the bonus room over the garage. All empty. I hesitated for a moment outside my bedroom, then turned the knob.

  Walking into the room was like stepping inside a time capsule, a snapshot of my life before the flu annihilated the world. I hadn’t been home since Easter break—when Kenzie dumped me—almost six months ago. A lifetime ago.

  I dropped my backpack on my neatly made bed and glanced around the room. Photos and ticket stubs covered my bulletin board—happy memories from high school and college. My favorite books lined the shelves, the sports stories I read when I was a kid giving way to the spy thrillers I’d swiped from Dad’s library. A small, framed photo of Kenzie sat on my desk. I’d snapped the picture when she was curled up on her bed, reading one of her romance novels. She was biting her lower lip, her eyes wide, totally engrossed in the story. The quintessential Kenzie.

  Bet Ripper didn’t have a photograph of her and wasn’t likely to get one, not with the internet down and our cell phones dead. Nowadays, old school was the way to go. I slipped the framed photo into my backpack. Kenzie and Hannah were already planning our first Christmas on the ranch. The photograph would make the perfect present for Ripper.

  I shook my head. I was stalling, postponing the inevitable. Time to find out what happened to my family. Squaring my shoulders, I steeled my resolve, then jogged down the stairs and stalked through the arched entry into the living room.

  Whoever had broken into the house had no interest in the nineteenth-century Flemish landscape painting that hung over the fireplace or in the antique Chinese vase on the mantel. I skirted past Mom’s pride and joy—a Steinway grand piano that cost as much as a luxury car—walked through the dining room and pushed open the swinging door into the kitchen.

  Mom told me she’d sent Dad on a massive Costco run a few days before she summoned me home, before things got really crazy and the stores were picked clean. She said we were ready to batten down the hatches and ride out the virus. All I had to do was pick up Jake and Ali, and drive back to Boise, a journey that had gone terribly wrong.

  I hadn’t heard a peep from my family since that call in early May.

  Unlike the living room, the kitchen had been tossed. Cabinet doors hung open, revealing shelves stripped bare of all foodstuffs. I pulled a penlight from my pocket and directed the beam into the walk-in pantry. No surprise there. The shelves were empty, except for a jar of pickled asparagus that apparently nobody wanted.

  Stepping into the pantry, I turned the light on the whiteboard attached to the back of the door. My methodical mom kept track of everything she stored in the pantry. In neat, block letters, Mom had recorded Dad’s Costco haul: three cases of chicken ramen, water, a dozen jars of peanut butter, crackers, and hundreds of cans of soup, tuna, fruit, and vegetables. Whoever raided the place struck pay dirt. They’d left behind the seventeenth-century Chinese porcelain on the mantel and made off with the ramen. That told you everything you needed to know about the state of the world, didn’t it?

  No food. No family. What had gone down here?

  I stilled, an idea occurring to me. Maybe…

  Kristen and I had tried for years to get Mom and Dad to join the twenty-first century, to switch from paper calendars to planner apps on their phones, but my old-fashioned parents had resisted. I dashed back into the kitchen. A calendar was tacked on the wall above the built-in desk, still showing the month of May.

  Kyle and Kristen, Mom had written on the second Sunday of the month, the day I was expected home. Above my name, three red question marks. I imagined my mom tearing out her hair, unable to contact me, wondering why I hadn’t showed up. On Wednesday, two words: Kristen sick.

  My gut clenched. Kristen, my funny, smart sister. Hadn’t taken the flu long to worm its way into my family’s supposedly impregnable house, had it? On Thursday: Matt sick. Smartest guy I ever met, had been working on a PhD in microbiology. On Saturday: Kristen and Matt gone. On Wednesday the following week, one word, scrawled in my dad’s sloppy script: Karen. Mom. A dozen words in total, sketching the obliteration of my family. I dropped onto the desk chair. It was one thing to presume that the virus had taken them, another thing entirely to see the stark evidence of their deaths.

  Dad had been the last man standing. What would my quiet, introverted father do while the world fell apart around him, when he lost everybody he loved? I jumped to my feet and walked through the family room to the French doors that led to the backyard. Whenever he was stressed, dad retreated to his woodshop out back.

  I stepped onto the brick patio. Three mounds of earth marked the place in the lawn where Dad had buried his wife, daughter, and son-in-law. He’d put his wood working skills to use, assembling and staining crosses, and carving their names into the wood.

  “Nice job, Dad,” I murmured as I passed by. I pushed open the door to the woodshop, then staggered, burying my nose in the crook of my elbow. I saw immediately what had happened. Dad—sick with the flu—had retreated to his favorite place to await death. He’d spread a sleeping bag on the floor in the corner of the shop and… and…

  I stumbled backward, doubled over, then braced my hands on my knees. Shit. Oh, shit. Gasping for air, I forced myself to stand. I couldn’t leave my dad’s body in a shed. Time to nut up.

  I moved like a man in a dream, going through the necessary motions, but disconnected somehow from my surroundings. One small step at a time, that was the only way I could force myself to see it through. March to the garage. Grab a shovel. Dig a hole next to my mother’s grave. Drag the sleeping bag to the hole. Tip Dad’s body into the grave. Cover him up.

  That done, I sank to my knees. The mental fog that had shielded me from grief dissipated. “I love you guys,” I choked out. There was some small comfort in laying Dad to rest next to Mom. Together in life. Together in death. Probably more than many couples had nowadays.

  I sighed. All my questions had been answered. My family’s survival had always been a long shot, the trip a likely wild-goose chase. Now I had to look forward, to focus on building a life with my new family.

  “I’m okay, Mom,” I told her. “I survived the flu. I’ve got friends and a safe place to stay. The Chamberlains aren’t done, and you won’t be forgotten.”

  I stood and glanced at the late afternoon sky. I couldn’t make it back to Valhalla today; besides, I liked the idea of spending one final night at the house where I’d grown up. With a last look at my family’s graves, I went back inside and bolted all the doors. Odds were nobody would try to break into the place, but I’d learned to be cautious.

  I changed into a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then dug through my dresser and packed my favorite shirts and pants to take with me back to the ranch. Since the pantry had been ransacked—except for the pickled asparagus—I ate my own provisions for dinner. After chowing down on a can of ravioli, I wandered the old place, taking a last look at my childhood home. Hidden at the bottom of a desk drawer in Dad’s study, I found a bottle of his favorite scotch. Scotch wasn’t my drink—not even this expensive stuff—but I took a couple of swigs in honor of dad. I sat down at the piano and played a halting rendition of “Greensleeves”. Kristen had lo
ved our piano lessons. I’d bitched so much about them that Mom let me quit after six months. It was sad to realize that my hands would be the last to touch this beautiful instrument.

  The sun set, and I retreated to my bedroom. Might as well turn in early so I could leave at first light.

  I hung the shoulder holster on the back of my desk chair and set the Glock on the nightstand within easy reach. Yawning, I peeled off my tee and tossed it onto the chair. Somewhere in the distance, a dog howled. Instantly alert, I edged up to the window and drew aside the curtain, surveying the neighborhood. Moonlight touched dark houses and empty streets. I’d never seen the place so quiet and devoid of life.

  Light flickered in my peripheral vision and I turned my head. Was I imagining things? No. Across the street, a light bobbled behind the drawn shade in one of the upstairs bedrooms at the McAllisters’ place.

  Somebody was in Jake’s house? Pawing through his family’s stuff? Helping themselves to whatever they liked?

  Hell, no. Adrenaline surged through my veins. I stuck the gun in my waistband—the trigger safety would keep it from discharging—and ran toward the stairs, my fingers fumbling in my front pocket.

  I slipped out of the house, jogged across the street, then let myself in through the McAllisters’ locked front door. I knew the place almost as well as my own, so I didn’t need a flashlight to stealthily make my way up the stairs and down the hall toward the corner bedroom. Holding my breath, I slowly turned the doorknob.

  The looter mustn’t have expected to be interrupted; the knob twisted easily in my hand. I took one cautious step into the room, then paused. Behind me, someone panted, their panic-struck shallow breaths betraying their hiding place. I turned to confront them and sensed rather than saw an object arcing toward my head. I dodged left, then launched at my assailant, grappling them around the waist. Struggling, we shuffled across the floor, then fell across the bed. I rolled and pinned them beneath me. They bucked and writhed in a vain attempt to throw me off.