by Elle Aycart
“Why didn’t you tell me about it? I would have come here right away.”
“It didn’t occur to me.” Being connected wasn’t that important to him. If anything, it was a chore, something he had to do to get the word out and keep donor funding coming.
She was going to reprimand him, he could tell, but as soon as they entered the shack, her cell started beeping nonstop, and she forgot all about him. “Thank God,” she breathed. “Back to the real world.” She sat on the first chair she found and immersed herself in tapping so fast, it was a miracle the damn phone wasn’t smoking.
He sat in front of her, enjoying how her eyes sparkled. So that was what an addict looked like starting a binge.
“Hi. You’re Patient Zero, aren’t you?” Shayna asked, approaching their table.
“Sky. I went to the doc and I’m free of infection.”
“Glad to hear. Don’t want to get my place shut down.” Shayna pulled the orange baseball cap she was wearing lower over her bright blue eyes and nodded at Logan in greeting. “What can I get for you?”
“A skinny soy latte, decaf, please,” Sky said, barely lifting her gaze from the phone.
Shayna frowned. “You haven’t checked the menu, have you?”
“They have coffee from a pot. Most certainly not decaf. Skinny milk they might have. Soy not a chance in hell,” Logan explained. “Their specialty is tea.”
“We make our own tea blends. Today’s tea—for the last couple of days, actually—is Jack Frost tea, thanks to the snowstorm, and ImmuniTea, thanks to you.”
Sky seemed to take it quite well. “Okay, one Patient Zero tea for me.”
“That’s a good name too. You got it,” Shayna said with a smile and turned to Logan. “Same for you?”
He nodded and she walked away.
“Maybe I should staple the clean bill of health on my back.”
“Nah, you’re fine. Just, for the love of God, do not sneeze in public. Although if you absolutely must, then do it tomorrow, during the 10K.” At least then they’d be all ready to run.
Sky rolled her eyes and went back to her cell, smiling and snorting and tapping like a madwoman.
“How’s the world been holding up without you? Inbox full?”
“Not quite,” she said seriously. “Old texts from my sister, mainly. Wondering why I haven’t sent her any pictures of the Eiffel Tower yet. Oh wait, she just replied to my message asking her to call the troopers.” After a second, she harrumphed. “So frigging typical.”
“What?”
“She sent me a laughing emoji and wrote, ‘Autocorrect’s messing with u, sis.’ I so would have died waiting for her help. I’m going to forward her the recording I did of my last will and testament while I was in the middle of the storm.”
“Why don’t you call her?”
“I don’t usually like talking on the phone. Or Skyping. I do better with emoticons and messages. Videos. Thumbs up. Although, when I found myself in Minnesota, I was so pissed that I wanted to yell at her in real time. I kept calling, but apparently she was too busy to pick up.”
“So you prefer interacting on social media because there’s no immediate feedback?”
“Haven’t thought about it. Maybe.”
Shayna brought the tea. It smelled sweet and refreshing. The concoction might have been named after Sky, but it didn’t bring her to mind. She was classy and high maintenance, and everything about her screamed “Expensive!” but she had a certain kick that the tea didn’t have. Attitude.
“Here you go,” Shayna said. “Sorry about the delay, but we’re swamped.”
And it would get worse. The longer the landline was down, the more people would be flocking to Shayna’s. Like in the good old days.
“This place is picturesque,” Sky said, sipping tea.
He chuckled. They had been there for a good ten minutes, and only now had she noticed her surroundings.
“Got tired of squatters on my lawn,” Shayna explained. “Considering this is a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ state, they weren’t going to go anywhere peaceably. So, I opened up shop.”
“I bet.”
“What’s with the baseball cap?” Logan asked. Shayna never covered her hair, much less indoors.
“Tabitha. Swear to God,” she said disgustedly. “She wanted me to watch her snowboard skills. Two hours in the blinding sun and ta-da.” She pulled away the cap to show greenish hair. “My beautiful blond dye went to fucking hell. We need a decent hair salon in this godforsaken place. I’m going to be wearing hats until I can get to Paris.”
“Ketchup will solve that,” Sky said.
“What?” Shayna asked, pulling her cap back on.
“Use ketchup, and the greenish tint will disappear. Wrap the hair in tinfoil and let it sit for half an hour.”
“Really?”
Sky nodded. “Don’t ask me why. Some sort of chemical reaction. I wasn’t great in chemistry class, but I never forget a beauty tip. I run a YouTube channel about beauty hacks.”
Both women ignored the chemistry professor sitting beside them and carried on.
“Wow, a YouTube channel? Like Martin.”
“Does he cover beauty tips too?” Sky asked.
“More like survival tips and how to build boobytraps.”
Sky recovered fast. “Oh, well, after you rinse off the ketchup, comb your hair with champagne and rinse again. Something about the alcohol and the bubbles enhances blond hair dye.”
“No champagne available in this town, that I know of,” Shayna said. “Plenty of other booze around, though.”
“Alcohol is considered the postapocalypse currency,” Logan explained. “Any self-respecting prepper has a booze stash.”
“Mainly hard liquor like whisky or vodka,” Shayna added. “Does whisky work?”
“I’m afraid not. No bubbles.”
“Dang.”
“Fake redheads have it easier,” Sky said, holding out a strand of her fiery red hair. “We rinse with cherry Kool-Aid to boost color.”
“Cherry Kool-Aid? Really?”
Sky nodded. “The dye color lasts twice as long.”
Someone flagged Shayna. “Coming, coming. Thanks for the ketchup tip.”
“She’s nice. Sweet,” Sky said when Shayna left.
“She runs the self-defense course for women. Hand-to-hand combat and weapons training. Sweet ain’t the word I’d use to describe her. And that ketchup remedy better work, Butterfly, because if she spends the afternoon pouring ketchup on her head for nothing, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Sky laughed. “It works. Believe me. What?” she asked at his inquisitive stare.
“Have you tried it?” Because Sky, with her expensive clothes and put-together look, very much did not strike Logan as the kind of girl to go for home beauty tricks.
“Sure I have. When you don’t have money for a hair salon or quality dye, you get creative, and you better be ready for anything. The ketchup trick I got from the social media you seem to despise so much.”
And on that note… “Here, I got this for you,” he said, handing her a phone. “Satellite connection. You can’t stay in this town without the means to call if you’re in a bind.”
“I haven’t agreed to stay yet.”
“I’m pretty much hoping this will sway you.” That morning, he’d had to call Leo and get him to translate some critical new techniques to the interns. Which meant that more than half his crew still hadn’t understood a thing. “I need my students to learn fast. They’re eager and clever, so it won’t be a problem. Couple of hours, five days a week, and in no time we’ll have this communication issue resolved.”
Sky narrowed her chocolate eyes on him, looking mischievous. “Does that mean I can use this cell to check Instagram and YouTube at your place?”
He cringed. The satellite fees were astronomical, and the Wi-Fi that ran off his landline was still down. “I’d rather you didn’t, but if you must, go ahead.”
His pained expression must have said it all, for she broke into laughter. “I’ll try to refrain.”
“You can always help out in the greenhouse to work off the charges.”
Now it was her face that said it all. “I’d better get acquainted with Shayna’s tea selection. I can tell I’ll be spending a lot of time here.”
“Does this mean you’re staying?”
“It means I’m still considering it.”
“I have a feeling I’m a bit overdressed,” Sky said, glancing around at the crowd.
The ballroom of the community center was buzzing with people. Apparently pasta parties were popular in NoName.
Logan looked at her. “Maybe a bit for this town, but you’re beautiful. Not sure white was the right color choice, though. I understand it’s in fashion, but eating spaghetti and meatballs from disposable plates gets messy. We of the bearded brotherhood can attest to that.”
She hadn’t thought about it. Whatever. She’d try to stay far away from tomato sauce, bearded men, and kids’ sticky fingers—which meant she’d be sitting in a corner. It wasn’t like Sky Gonzalez to make an appearance without looking her best. She’d considered skipping the gathering, but Logan had managed to convince her. Besides, he was right—if she wanted to know what this town was about, the fastest way was to meet all the wackos at once.
For a bunch of preppers with an overzealous pandemic squad, these people appeared rather normal, much like the ones she’d already seen on Main Street. Families with kids, older folks, most of them average-looking. There were no guns in sight, no hazmat suits. One suspicious group was dressed in camo pants and military boots, but they didn’t look unfriendly.
Kudos to the town, they had decorated the place with balloons and a big sign: 35th Winter 10K Pasta Party.
“Thirty-fifth?” she asked in a whisper. “How many events do you guys organize?”
“Two for every season. Runs are extremely popular.”
“Even in winter?” Because this place looked as impenetrable and hostile as the Arctic Circle.
“Especially in winter. Nordic ski races and biathlons are the shit around here.”
Of course they were.
“I don’t know what I’m doing at a pasta party,” she said under her breath while they approached the buffet table. “I don’t eat carbs in the evening.”
“Lucky for you, some of these people agree. They serve plenty of proteins too.” He pointed to the far end of the buffet table, where there were steam trays of chicken in sauce and platters of deviled eggs. There was Italian bread, rice, and Jell-O and brownies for dessert.
Talk about a hearty evening snack. Hopefully the community center was stocked with a defibrillator, because they were going to need it.
“Maybe fresh pasta isn’t such a bad idea,” she observed.
“Fresh? There’s nothing fresh here, Butterfly. The freshest ingredient is at least seven months old.”
Sky looked around, confused. “What do you mean? What about the eggs?”
“Seven months old. At the very least. Shelf-stable food. You see that lady there?” He motioned to a cheery, generously rounded woman. “That’s Pam, prepper chef, expert in food preservation. She cans everything in sight. When she gets a good offer on produce, she buys a whole pallet and finds ways to preserve it. She covers hard cheese with wax. I’ve heard that’s good for twenty years.”
Holy shit. And Sky had thought her grandma went nuts during canning season.
“So the Parmesan for the spaghetti…”
“Older than this community center, I’m afraid.”
That settled it. Everyone had seemed normal up to now. Appearances were so deceiving.
“The lady next to Pam is Netta, our extreme couponer,” Logan continued. “Responsible for keeping half the town stocked with processed foods. She’s not above Dumpster diving for newspapers. Her grandson is the paper boy. If you find the coupon inserts preclipped? Her doing.”
Man. “What if they spend all their lives prepping and nothing happens?”
“Worst-case scenario,” he said, lifting his shoulders, “they’ll have more canned goods than anyone in their zip code.”
She giggled. So true.
Sky’s plan was to avoid the food, the more so after discovering it had exceeded its expiration date in the last century, but Pam’s mission in life must have been to feed people, because she spotted them, and there and then it was game over. With bright smiles and Southern charm, Pam herded them to the buffet and walked them through all the dishes, making Sky try every single one.
“Yo, Patient Zero,” someone called out as she was attempting to explain why she wasn’t getting near the Jurassic eggs. She turned to see Shayna, whose hair was a perfect blonde. “Your trick worked,” she said, hugging Sky. “Thank you, thank you.”
“You should thank Saint Instagram and Saint YouTube, patrons of desperate women.”
“I will,” Shayna said with a laugh. “So how’s this crowd treating you? Have the Doris Days of doom tried any abductions?”
“So far I’m alive. Although I might die shortly from food poisoning,” Sky declared. “Too early to know yet.”
Logan chuckled. “Pam got us.”
“Don’t worry,” Shayna said. “She hasn’t poisoned anyone. Yet. There was that one year… but nothing could be proven.”
Fantastic. Thank God she’d sent the will to her sister.
That incident must not have been at the top of their minds, however, because everyone was eating with gusto. No surprise—the food, weirdly enough, tasted good.
It might have been her clothes, which made her stand out like a sore thumb, or maybe her reputation as Patient Zero, but nearly every soul in the place made their way over to greet her. That is, size her up. They seemed very amiable, even the Unabomber lookalikes in camo.
“I see they lifted the quarantine,” Ty hailed her. He clapped Logan on the back and nodded to her. “You signing up for the 10K?”
Sky shook her head so fast she almost got whiplash, then turned to Logan. “Are you running tomorrow?”
“Nope. I got diapers and lab work to tend to.”
“We’ll make a believer out of him yet,” Ty said with a cocky smile. “Excuse me. Going to carbo-load for tomorrow, before this eager crowd polishes everything off.”
“Tell me he’s not some conspiracy nutjob or something like that,” Sky whispered as Ty went to fetch some food.
“He’s a civil engineer.”
“So he’s normal.”
Logan’s smugness didn’t bode well. “You haven’t asked what he engineers.”
Oh God. “What?”
“Mostly underground shelters out of reinforced shipping containers.”
It figured.
Sky glanced around. The place was packed. “So many of these people are into running. It seems strange that preppers are so health conscious. They believe the world is going to end in a ball of fire, don’t they?” What did it mattered if their cholesterol level was fucked up?
“You’re forgetting the first rule of the zombie apocalypse,” Logan said, offering her a beer.
“What?”
He smirked. “Cardio, my friend.”
She burst into laughter. “I’m a city girl. I only run if someone sporting gang colors is chasing me. Or if there’s a good sale at Barney’s. Force majeure.”
“Oh, believe me,” Logan said, “a zombie would be so force majeure.”
As the evening progressed and the food disappeared, so did the families with kids. The alcohol flowed more freely and the music got louder. It looked like preppers were like any other red-blooded Americans and partied with the best.
“I’m not a fitness expert, but I doubt runners are supposed to drink their asses off the night before a 10K. Half of them are going to be severely hungover tomorrow.” Not to mention they were all but snowed in. That run wasn’t going to be a friendly, relaxed event like the ones she’d seen back home; it would be a damn Ironma
n lose-your-frozen-fingers competition.
Logan shrugged. “You never know when the apocalypse will catch you. You might not be at your best. You need to practice for that eventuality too.”
Sky studied him. “You’re not a prepper.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why do you take all this with such humor?”
“See those guys in military garb?”
“The Unabomber crew?” she whispered.
“That’s my sister’s crew. They’re prepping for a collapse of the global financial system and the ensuing chaos in society. She’s out of town at the moment with her fiancé.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“No offense taken. I used to think they were nuts. Heck, I still do most days, but there are far worse hobbies out there. And they’re smart people to have at your back. Come on, let’s dance,” he said as the music changed to a slow song.
That stunned her. “You dance?”
“If the girl is hot enough, I do.”
Of course he did. And he wasn’t half bad at it, actually.
Sky wasn’t sure if it was the Jurassic eggs, the pre-Columbian cheese, or the alcohol, the age of which she didn’t even dare to speculate about because the bottles weren’t commercially marked, but she was having a great time.
She’d been fearing the whole town was full of crazy people. She’d been wrong. They seemed like a pretty normal bunch—if one could ignore Logan’s sister’s crowd, the pandemic squad, the food preservation ladies, and generally anyone she asked for details about.
“Yes,” she said to him on an impulse.
“Yes what?”
“I’ll stay until my internship begins. On one condition, though.”
“Name it.”
“I have a dog. Arnie. He’s in a dog hotel at the moment. I’d love to bring him here.” She couldn’t take him to Europe, but if she was going to stay in Minnesota, her school could very well find accommodation where a dog wouldn’t be an issue. She’d contacted the kennel, and although they wouldn’t refund her fees, they had agreed to apply the money to a pet transport service of their choosing. Arnie would hate Minnesota, seeing as she hadn’t been able to find most of his treats and she hadn’t spotted a single salon in town, much less one for dogs, but it would have to do.
