by J. B. Beatty
“Do you have any plans to bring us food and water?” Silence. “I bring this up in the spirit of open discussion.”
I can visualize, oh so clearly, this Miller guy twirling around and looking up at the sky, realizing he had no idea what the protocol was for feeding quarantined prisoners.
“Now, yeah, that’s not an unreasonable request. Let me, uh, yeah, I’m going to talk to my people and see what we’re equipped to do.”
“Sir,” Justin steps toward the door. “Can I talk to you?”
“Now, well of course. Yeah, you can talk to me.”
Justin stands there for a few moments. I can hear the deputy clear his throat.
“Sir, can we talk face to face? That’s kind of what I meant.”
“Oh, now, well, no. That’s not going to happen just yet. You’re in quarantine. We can’t take any unnecessary risks.”
Justin sighs. “Well, officer, I’m a nurse, and I work in public health. One of my specialties is epidemiology.”
Silence on the other end.
“That’s the study of how to deal with epidemics. I am trained in how these diseases propagate and spread through a population and how to stop them. And if you don’t mind me saying so, this quarantine doesn’t make sense.”
“Wait, which one are you? Are you the black fellow?”
Justin looks at us quizzically. “Um,” he answers. “I am African-American, if that makes a difference to you. Though honestly, I fail to see why that’s pertinent now.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s alright, son. I was just getting it straight. But it’s not a big problem. I like to say we’re color-blind here.”
“Is it even a small problem?” Justin asks.
“You know, it’s funny that you don’t even sound black. Not at all. You sound mostly normal.”
“Ahhhh,” says Justin, slowly drawing out the word as he decides if that warrants any sort of response at all. “We can kind of turn it on and off, sir. That’s a thing… an ability we have.”
“Now, you mean everyone of your persuasion can just switch back and forth?”
“I don’t know if I can speak for everyone, but it’s common, yeah.”
“Then why don’t they just do it all the time? You know? Talk normal, I mean.”
Justin’s face is in his hands now. We are silent.
“Now, I don’t mean to sound argumentative, you know. I’m just saying it seems logical and it would solve a hell of a lot of problems with our world.”
Justin finally raises his face again. “Sir, about the epidemic. It’s definitely that flu that you referenced. It’s very severe and fast-moving. And it’s highly contagious. My point is…”
“Now right there. You sounded totally and completely white.”
“…Sir, that’s not important right now.”
“I’m not saying it is.”
“Good,” sighs Justin. “What I am trying to explain is that we cannot possibly be carriers of this flu. From all the evidence I have seen—and I have seen a lot in the last two days—the virus is only transmitted by sick people. Now, all of us have clearly been exposed and yet we’re still healthy. Which means that instead of being carriers, we have an immunity.”
“Damndest thing.”
Justin looks up. “What is, sir? That we’re immune, or that I’m using multisyllabic words?”
“Well, now, so you’re saying you think you’re immune. Okay. Well, can you prove it?”
“Can I prove it? Yeah, I can prove it. We’re not sick! That’s what proves it! This quarantine is not only illegal, but it’s ill-advised. If you let us out, I can meet with you and your people and give you some advice on how to handle this. I am an expert in the field. One of the top experts in the Midwest.” Justin turns to us and shrugs. Definitely some resume inflation going on here.
“Yeah, well, that’s all very interesting. I’ll have to get back to you once HQ gets back to me. I’ll let them know what all you said.” We can hear the deputy walking away from the door.
“What about food?” I yell.
“Yeah, that part seems to be reasonable. Let me check to see what the others say.”
“No matter what they say, it’s still reasonable,” I throw after him.
Maggie turns away from the door. “Omigod, what a fucking tool. Get me out of here.”
“Grab a shovel,” says Justin.
12→MAD WITH THE AGONIES
We wait hours and no food comes. I knock on the door and say, “Guard… guard?”
As if I roused him from sleep, a husky voice finally says, “What?”
“Can you please go check on the food situation for us?”
“No,” he says. “I’m not allowed to leave my post. And you might want to quit asking about food, because it’s not happening.”
“What?!” Maggie says. “You’re planning on freaking starving us to death?!”
“No, no one’s planning on starving you. But to give you food, we’ve got to open the door. And if we open the door, the flu will get out.”
For a moment, Maggie can’t shut her mouth. “Well, doofus, then I’ll just blow poison flu air at you from the cracks around the door!” And she starts actually doing it, blowing through the cracks.
“You know, young lady, that there is a bad attitude. And it explains a lot. It explains the tattoos.”
Maggie stops blowing, gets the look on her face and says, “Tattoos???” WTF again.
“You heard me,” the man’s voice said from farther away. He’s moved his chair away from the door.
“Back here,” Justin whispers loudly.
I turn and see him gesturing to Maggie and me to head to the far corner of the shed. I walk back with my hand over my head to ward away the spider webs that I keep brushing through.
“What?” says Maggie.
“Did he move away?”
“Yeah, because I blew flu on him.”
Justin rolls his eyes and says, “Okay, then. If he’s moved farther away from the door, he’s less likely to be listening in. I suggest we go full speed on digging our way out, so we’re ready to go as soon as it’s dark.”
“How can we help?”
“Check this out. I found a sledgehammer.” He gleefully shows us the monster pounding tool. “Which, unfortunately, we can’t use unless you can find something in here to dampen the noise. Look around everywhere in here and see if you can find anything cloth that we can wrap it in. A canvas tarp or anything like that.”
Maggie and I start feeling our way around in the mostly darkness while Justin goes back to prying at the concrete with his crowbar.
The shed seems to be just a dumping ground for items that might have been of use in the someday plans of the previous tenant, who I assume is one of the mounds in the front lawn. There are multiple lawnmowers, no doubt most of them not in working order. Two snowblowers. Random assortment of shovels, both snow and dirt varieties. Fishing rods. Baseball bat—which I set aside. An axe, old and rusty. I set that aside. A golf bag, which when I move it emits the sound of scampering mice. A collection of old license plates. What appears to be a large and not entirely intact neon sign that says “OPEN.” A sewing machine. And countless items that I am not garage-savvy enough to interpret. No sign of anything cloth, unless the golf bag counts.
“Here,” says Maggie. She’s on the other side of the shed and is holding up something at arm’s length.
“What is it?” I say.
“I don’t know. A sack of some kind. I think that’s burlap. There’s something in it.” She doesn’t seem anxious to check. “Man, this place is full of creatures.”
We head to the back corner and Justin takes it, reaches inside and pulls out a deflated football. Then he finds a softball. Then he turns it upside down and golf balls come out. And mice.
“This might work,” he says. He wraps the head of the sledge hammer in the burlap and then instead of swinging it hard, he holds on to the end and drops it to where he’s trying to widen the ho
le in the concrete. Again and again. And cracks start spreading. The noise is muffled and if no one is listening closely, we’re probably going to be fine. Justin sets the sledge down and starts prying again, making real headway.
Eventually, he clears away enough concrete for a person to slip through the space. A piece of rebar juts out, but he is able to use the crowbar to bend it to one side.
“Start digging,” he says, “down, not out. I don’t want anyone to see this from the outside yet.”
Maggie and I look at each other and she points at the hole. I start digging. The work is not bad—the soil is mostly gravelly sand. Eventually I have to lower myself into the hole to continue digging effectively. Before long I think I’m deep enough. I rest my shovel. Now we just have to wait until dark.
All the while I’ve been working, Maggie is chatting up Justin. I don’t know, I guess I feel a little jealous. Not that I’ve got any claim on her, I don’t mean that. I think it’s more of a she-may-be-the-last-eligible-woman-on-earth sort of thing. As far as I know. And Justin and I are the only guys I have seen between the age of 13 and 60 since this epidemic erupted. Plus, he’s large, manly, and I suppose people who are so inclined would call him handsome. Meanwhile, my dad used to lovingly call me a “98lb weakling,” though I actually weigh a bit more than that now.
“So what do you do?” she’s asking him.
“I told you. I’m a nurse,” he says.
“No, I mean when you’re not a nurse.”
“Ahh,” he says, sounding like he’s not used to thinking about this. “I work a lot. I mean, I don’t make a ton, but my mom’s rent is kind of high, because the place has a nurse there all the time just in case. It’s not a rehab place, per se, but they’re not on their own either. And she has some medical needs. Her memory is starting to fade, and she had gallbladder surgery last year.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“Ah, well… to be truthful, I don’t really operate in those terms. I’m the only kid that’s still in touch with her, and her support is just me and Social Security and Medicare. That’s a lot on one plate.”
“And when you’re not working…”
“I visit her… I sleep… Oh, I lift weights. I guess you might call that fun.”
“Do you ever go out?”
“Oh, you mean like social life. Like you want to know who I hang out with and what I do?”
“Yeah, that’s what this conversation is. But hey, if it’s a problem, don’t worry about it. I’m not trying to be nosy.”
“No, it’s cool. It’s just there isn’t a lot going on anymore. I had a special person, but that ended before the world ended. I haven’t been to a nice restaurant in a long time. That’s what we used to like to do when we could afford it. I suppose that person is either dead now, or trying it on to see if it fits. I think that’s our new normal now, right? Everyone we know is either gone or in line at the check-out.”
Then I see Maggie put her hand on his arm. On his big, muscle-bound, “I-lift-sometimes” arm. I think that counts as her making a move. He pats her hand and stands and moves away. I’m not sure what that counts as.
For me, the whole process of male-female interaction is a mystery. I’ve always felt there’s a secret language at work, and I’m the one guy who never figured it out. Telling a girl I like her, for instance, is for me an arduous, awkward process that nearly always ends in embarrassment. Having a girl communicate she likes me, well, I think I miss a lot of signals, if they happen at all. The two semi-girlfriends I have had both had to broadcast their intentions loudly and in several languages, including Braille. I’ve watched other humans’ interactions, like the one that just happened in front of me, and they still mystify me.
Luckily my little angsty moment is interrupted by the door opening. We all stand up. The incoming light nearly blinds us. Two silhouetted figures stumble into the shed and the door slams shut behind them. We listen to the clattering of the padlock as we wait for our eyes to adjust enough so we can see who our new guests are.
One is a man, who immediately says, “Hello? Are there…? Who are you?”
Justin steps forward. “There are three of us here. I’m Justin, and the others are Maggie and RB.”
“Arvy,” I correct.
“Yeah,” says Justin. “Now who are you?”
“I’m Eddie, Eddie Fisher. And this is Eve.”
“Eva,” she corrects him.
“What is going on here?” says Eddie. “We were just driving, trying to get away from the hordes. And these old guys stopped us and took us prisoner. What are they going to do to us?” He sniffles.
“At this point, it looks like their grand plan is to quarantine us until they get further instructions from their HQ, which probably doesn’t exist anymore,” I say. “Plus, they’re not feeding us—not out of a sense of evil, but because of crippling incompetence. As a result, the picture we have before us is painted in bleakness and desperation.”
“Huh,” he says, leaving his mouth open.
“Oh my god, Eddie Fisher!” enthuses Maggie, after standing back at first with her hand over her mouth.
“What?” he says.
“You’re really Eddie Fisher? Wow, this is absolutely crazy.”
“Yeah, I’m really Eddie Fisher,” he says slowly, confused.
“Why are we… what?” says Justin.
“He’s the drummer for OneRepublic. I used to listen to them!”
“That is definitely not me,” says Eddie, clearly his throat and looking for a spot to sit down. He selects the hood of a lawn tractor and brushes off his thighs.
“You look like him,” states Maggie with determination.
“I don’t even know what he looks like,” he says apologetically. “But there are a lot of Eddie Fishers out there.”
“Not so much anymore,” I offer.
“Liz Taylor’s fourth husband was Eddie Fisher,” says Justin.
“The drummer?” asks Maggie.
“Singer,” answers Justin. “He’s dead now.”
“They’re probably all dead now,” I say. “It’s been a rough weekend.”
“Can you drum?” she asks him.
“No,” he coughs. “No instruments.”
“Maggie, forget OneRepublic. Their time has passed.”
“I loved them in middle school,” she says. “Not so much anymore. I went country.”
“So what’s your story?” I ask the newcomers, now that I can see them better.
Eddie goes into a coughing fit, waves his free hand and finally points to Eva. We look at her. She’s a small white woman who trends very pale. She is sitting on the concrete.
“I’m Eva Schlotersky…”
“Schloter…?”
“Schlotersky… It’s Polish. Though my dad likes to say it’s Prussian, because Jadek—that’s what we called grandpa—was from the north.”
“Interesting,” I say. “When did he immigrate to the U.S.?”
Maggie throws her hands up in frustration.
“RB, can we do backstory later?” interrupts Justin. “I’m really more interested in the current situation.”
“Fine. I’m cool.” And I am. I just think that everyone has a story that’s unique. And I’m always interested.
Eva hesitates and then continues. “I don’t know what to say. I was at my sister’s house to take care of her; she came home from the football game and was really, really sick. I was making her soup and trying to keep her under a quilt on the couch. She was having hot and cold spells. Every once in a while, she would throw the covers off. And she was moaning—at first, the way we all do when we’re sick and we feel like hell. But then it got painful to listen to. And then…” She stops and drops her face into her hands.
“What?” Maggie says.
Eva shakes her head and cries.
“Let me speculate,” I say. “Your sister got worse and worse, and eventually she snapped at you. It was like she got her strength back and she turned i
nto a raging animal. She chased you and tried to kill you.”
“Yes,” sobs Eva. “Yes, how… how…?”
“Experience,” I say in my most sage voice. “Tolstoy wrote, ‘Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,’ but I think this weekend there might be a lot of commonalities. Call it a hunch.”
“She chased me. I fought her off but there was nowhere to run to. Finally, she cornered me in the kitchen. I put my arms up because she was snapping at me, and she started biting into my arm. I reached back and grabbed the soup pan and threw the boiling chicken soup into her face.”
Maggie murmurs at my side, “I would kill for chicken soup right now.”
“Kill for it, kill with it…” I say.
“It stopped her for a minute,” continues Eva. “And I backed away. I grabbed the knife I had been cutting chicken with. And I tried to get away. I tried to keep moving. But I tripped on something and fell on my back. She dived at me and I held the knife out. I had no choice. She fell on it. I didn’t mean to kill her.”
She continues sobbing and no one goes to comfort her. Eddie is busy snorting and snuffling. I debate internally whether I should move in and be the magnanimous one, but Justin gets the jump on me and kneels next to her, placing a big muscly arm around her shoulders and saying, “There now.”
If this is a competition, he’s killing me.
As if she doesn’t notice him, Eva continues her story: “I lay there under her, her blood everywhere. I lay there until I was sure she was dead. Then I pushed her off. I took a shower. The whole time I tried to make myself think of what to do next. I kept seeing her face when she was biting me. I couldn’t make myself think logically. When I got out I wrapped myself in a towel. I had to step around the blood to make myself some hot tea. And when I finally could think, I called 911. The dispatcher took my address and told me to stay there. She said she didn’t know when anyone could come. ‘Just stay there,’ she kept saying.
“But no one came. And on the news I could see that whatever changed her was changing people everywhere. I just wanted to go home. But I called my parents and there was no answer. I called everyone I knew and got nothing. I could see these sick, tortured people out the window, acting like animals. Finally, I got up my guts to pack some stuff and run to my car. Then I just drove. I drove and drove and drove and drove. But somewhere, I’m not sure where I was, I had to swerve around a group of those people. I had to run some over. I had to. They would have killed me if I had stopped. And something—one of them—got stuck under my car. I drive a Kia.”
