by Joe McKinney
“Nice polish.” I poke her in retaliation.
James peeks at Penny from under his hair and smiles. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Penny says.
“You’re coming tonight?” he asks, as he leans into the fridge.
“Yeah.”
He straightens up and pops open a soda.
“What, no Hot Pocket?” I ask. He laughs. Penny watches us with a look of confusion.
“I decided to go with the other thing,” he says, and looks from me to Penny.
They smile shyly at each other. I kick my shoes off and stand up holding them. I think they might want to finish this stimulating conversation in private.
“I’m going to go wait for that news conference,” I say. When I get to the door I look back and smile when I see he’s already in my seat.
***
A blond reporter stands in front of a hospital.
“Many hospitals have a backlog of cases. Police are busing the sick to other hospitals throughout the city. Nurses and doctors are being asked to come back in for emergency shifts.”
Penny takes out her phone and furrows her brow. Her mom might be on her way back into the thick of things.
“The New York City Health Department’s statement is about to begin.”
A man with a bit of gray hair and a sizeable belly stands at a microphone. He looks tired. He rubs his hand on his chin and begins.
“I’m Michael D’Angelo, of the New York City Health Department. As you are all aware by now, we have an outbreak of Bornavirus LX in New York City. While it is a serious virus, we don’t want anyone panicking due to incorrect information.
“The CDC is providing treatment for those who have contracted the virus. We have set up emergency treatment areas throughout the city. It is very important that you receive treatment if you suspect you’ve been exposed. Do not try to care for an infected person yourself. The risk of transmission is great due to the nature of the virus.”
“What do you mean by the nature of the virus?” a reporter shouts.
D’Angelo holds up a hand. “Bornavirus LX causes aggression in the final stages. This leads to a transmission of the virus through bodily contact, as patients will bite and scratch their caregivers.
“Transportation is set up at local hospitals to take people to the new treatment locations. Time is of the essence. As of now we estimate there are twenty thousand people infected in New York City.”
The reporters and all of us in the room gasp. He nods.
“I realize that sounds like a lot. But it is the same number of people that Madison Square Garden holds, to put it into perspective. We can keep it at that number if New Yorkers follow our guidelines. We recommend that people go out in the next few days only if necessary. We can use the weekend to treat those affected and eliminate any new cases.
“Please visit our local CDC website for information on the treatment centers. Your local news stations will post the locations. We all know New Yorkers do their best under pressure, and we will have Bornavirus knocked out by Monday. We need help from all of you so that we can do our jobs to the best of our abilities. Thank you.”
He mops his brow with a handkerchief and steps down, ignoring the reporters’ shouted questions.
Everybody talks at once. Julio, our boss, uses his deep voice to catch our attention. “Listen up, everyone. We’re going to finish up early today. I don’t want you guys out in this any later than necessary. I’ll call preschool parents to see if they’ll pick up the kids early. The afterschool program will have to go on as scheduled, but I want the rest of you home.”
People applaud and Julio smiles under his thin mustache. He raises his hands for silence. “All right. That means home, not out.”
He looks at Nelly, who pretends to look behind him as everyone laughs. “Really, let’s all take care. I’ll see you on Monday.”
There’s a holiday atmosphere in the room as people leave to get their stuff. Penny hangs up her phone, her eyebrows straight lines with concern. “I left a message for my mom. I have to get back downstairs to the kids. I guess I’ll meet you later?”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I say. “I’ll wait for you. You’re not walking home by yourself. As soon as the kids are gone, we’ll leave.”
“Yeah,” Nelly says. “And then we’ll get that drink.”
I face him with my hands on my hips. “Seriously? Did you not hear Julio?”
He shrugs as we stare at him.
“Dude,” James says. “Pretend it’s the nuclear bomb of viruses. Let’s just go to Cassie’s.”
“Fine, fine,” he says with a sigh. “But we won’t leave without you, Pen. Just come up when you’re done.”
Chapter 5
James reads me and Nelly choice snippets of virus information as we wait for Penny in my cubicle. My cell phone buzzes. I can hear my brother talking before the phone even reaches my ear.
“Cass? Are you there?” He sounds worried.
“Hey, Eric!”
“You’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Fine. Why?”
“Well, it took me eight tries to get through. They’re reporting that New York’s crawling with infected people. Something like one hundred thousand sick.”
“They’re telling us it’s twenty thousand and they’re busing them to treatment centers. Where’d you hear that number?”
I think about that estimate from earlier: Fifty thousand by noon. It’s almost three o’clock.
“About five minutes ago. On CNN. They did their own estimate based on what they’re seeing by helicopter. And right after they said it, the screen went black.”
“Really? Are you sure they shut down CNN?”
Nelly and James look up at that.
“That’s what it seemed like. Cass, you guys should go to the apartment. You’ve got Dad’s supplies, in case you can’t leave for a while.”
“We’re heading there after work. Julio let us out early, but we’re waiting for Penny.”
There’s camping gear and food in the basement below the apartment we grew up in. Our landlady insisted I move in after my parents died.
“Eric, how about you? What’s it like in Pennsylvania?” Eric’s always so sure of himself that I forget to worry about him sometimes.
“They’re reporting that there are some people infected. But, you know, it’s pretty rural here. Rachel and I are going to sit tight all weekend. I’ve got a couple of extra cans of food,” he jokes.
I laugh. He’s always planning for an emergency just like Dad was.
“Cass, Rachel’s brother called and said he can’t leave his apartment in Philly.”
“What do you mean, can’t?”
“Too many infected in the streets. He can’t go outside at all. People are getting attacked, and the police aren’t doing shit. Maybe you should head for the cabin if it gets worse. That’s what I’ll do, too. We’ll meet there if we can’t get in touch again. Promise me, Cassie.”
Eric knows I won’t break a promise.
“Eric,” I say cautiously, “I can’t promise that. We’ll be fine in the apartment, I’m sure. How would I even get there? The F train?” I try to lighten the mood by reminding him I don’t have a car. None of us does.
“I’m fucking serious!” he says.
He sounds scared. Eric doesn’t get scared. It’s that edge in his voice that makes me listen as he goes on.
“You know what to do. You’re resourceful. Don’t let your brain get in the way. Cass, I have a really bad feeling.”
I’m silent. I am thinking too much. My dad used to say that nothing will get you killed faster than ignoring your instincts. One hundred thousand people. That’s five Madison Square Gardens. Five Madison Square Gardens’ worth of people wandering around, basically rabid.
“I promise, E. I’ll leave if it gets worse.”
He lets out a breath I didn’t know he was holding. “OK. I love you, Cass. Until the end of the world.”
“And after.
Love you. We’ll talk later, okay?”
I tell Nelly and James what Eric said, and we head for the TV. But where CNN should be, there’s a Time Warner Cable technical difficulties screen. James flips to NY1 News. It’s still on, at least. They say the situation in the west is resolving itself. The virus is expected to be gone by Monday in all of the United States.
“Bullshit,” James says.
“What’s bullshit?” Penny says as she walks in with her bag.
“That this will be over by Monday. They’ve shut down CNN,” James replies.
“Really?” Penny frowns and points at the TV. “But they didn’t shut down everything.”
“Just the stations telling the truth, maybe,” I say, which earns me an eyebrow raise from Nelly. “I spoke to Eric. He says there are more infected here than they’re saying. He made me promise I would go upstate if it came to that.”
Penny’s eyes go round as she nods. Then she looks at her phone and remembers something.
“I left another message for my mom, telling her we’re going to your apartment, but I have to go home first. Ana left a voicemail. The phone didn’t even ring. She said she was coming home after work but she forgot her keys. I can’t get her to tell her to come to your house instead.”
Ana is her little sister. She’s always forgetting her keys, even though she’s twenty-five years old. And she expects someone to be there to open the door, just like she expects people to do anything else she wants. Penny wouldn’t normally rush home for her, but today is different.
“So we’ll go to your house and head to mine later,” I say, like it’s no big deal. But I picture a street in Philly where you can’t even go outside, and I shiver.
Chapter 6
I take deep breaths of the soft air as we head up the avenues. I grew up in this neighborhood, in a mixture of Irish and Puerto Rican families, and I’ve always loved it.
The old ladies, their lined faces ranging from a pale ivory to a dark brown, are in their aluminum-legged chairs getting up to speed on winter gossip. Salsa music pours out of windows. Barbeques are lit and kids race around. I’m always glad I decided to move back when I walk home from work.
Nelly watches the outdoor festivities and pouts. “See? Everyone else gets to have fun. But, no, we have to go hide inside.”
“Stop being a crybaby,” I say.
He laughs. But I know what he means. It doesn’t seem like things could be bad, the way the neighborhood is out enjoying the day. No one seems to care.
“I don’t know why no one is listening to what’s going on,” James says, and shakes his head.
“What’s going on is that everything is fine, according to the news,” Penny reminds us. “Not everyone is dissecting everything they say and spending hours on the internet. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be safe than sorry, but no one else thinks this is a big deal.”
Every step in these shoes has become torture. That’s what I get for going for form over function. I can’t even wear platforms without wobbling like an eight year-old playing dress-up. I should’ve stuck to my boots. I consider taking them off, but the sidewalk is covered with a layer of what resembles congealed fat.
We wait for cars to pass on the corner. I nudge Nelly and point to James and Penny’s intertwined hands. He winks at me as I catch a glimpse of someone coming out from behind a dumpster. He’s probably been taking a leak and I don’t want to embarrass either of us, so I avert my eyes.
A rasping exhalation makes me turn again. An older man with dark, matted hair shuffles forward with a dirty hand out. At first I think he must be asking for change, but his skin is gray and his mouth gapes. Almost half of his neck is gone, like a bite was taken out of it. He must be infected. The wound is edged with black and filled with clotted blood and bits hanging that I really don’t want to identify. The stench of something rotten wafts past.
“Let’s go!” James yells, and yanks Penny’s hand.
My ankle twists as I turn, and I gasp at the jolt of pain. I have to get out of these stupid shoes. Nelly steadies my elbow as I kick them off and we race across the street. Half-Neck follows. By the time we reach her building he’s halfway there. Penny scrambles to get her key in the lock of the outer door. Maybe we should just keep running.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Penny begs.
Her hand shakes but her key slides in. We fall into the small vestibule as Penny works on the next lock. Half-Neck appears and spreads his hands on the door. Brown flakes smear off his filthy fingers onto the glass. His eyes are filmy. He sniffs the air with a guttural moan and paws at the door.
“C’mon, before he breaks the glass,” Penny says.
We rush through the second door. Once inside the second floor apartment, the door locked behind us, I collapse on the couch. James runs to the window.
“Oh my God,” Penny says. Her hand’s at her throat, like she’s trying to hold in a scream. “What the fuck was that?”
We’re all silent, our chests heaving and eyes wide. That’s not what I thought an infected person looked like. He didn’t look sick; he looked like a monster from a horror movie. And he chased us. My skin crawls when I realize he might be chasing other people right now.
“I’m calling 911.” My voice sounds far away as I dial with a shaky hand. “We can’t let him walk around.”
After twenty rings I hang up and try the landline. An automated voice tells me they’re too busy to answer. “They’re not answering.” This is not good. This is New York fucking City. “They’re too busy.”
Nelly watches out the window. “Still there. Penny, when’s Ana coming home?”
Penny jumps for the phone and presses redial over and over. “Ana!” she yells, when she gets through. “Where are you? Okay, listen. There’s a guy out front trying to attack people. Go to the service door. I’ll stay on the phone with you. James and Nelly will open it so you can run right in. Do not come in the front!” A shrill voice sounds on the other end. “Ana, please. Just do what I’m telling you to do!” She turns to Nelly and James. “She’s five minutes away. Will you go make sure it’s safe? One of you run back up if it’s not.” They nod and leave.
“They’re on their way down,” she says into the phone. A couple of minutes pass in tense silence. “Is the door open? Go. I’ll see you upstairs.”
Penny grabs Ana in a hug as soon as she enters. Ana gives her a cursory pat then pulls away and smoothes her long hair. It’s lighter than Penny’s, with hints of gold. She wears brown suede knee-high boots and a long sweater with leggings. The sweater must cost as much as my yearly clothing budget, including my sandals back on the corner. Ana looks a lot like Penny, with her dark eyes and small nose, but she doesn’t have Penny’s curvy softness.
“So, what’s with the crazy guy downstairs?” Ana strides over to the window. He sits slumped against the glass of the door. He’s not moving. I hope he’s dead.
“He tried to attack us on our way here,” James tells Ana. “That’s what the infected people are doing. You get the virus through bodily fluids.”
Ana turns from the window and shrugs. “So, this is that swine flu or whatever? I can’t believe people are going so crazy over it! The bar we were going to go to closed early. Now I get to spend Friday night here.”
Now that she’s safe, I want to put her out there again. “Ana,” I say, in my best stop-being-a-little-shit voice. “Sorry your Friday night is ruined. But did you hear James? The man tried to attack us. Your mother is stuck at the hospital with these people. There may be a hundred thousand infected in New York. And it isn’t swine flu.”
Ana sticks out her bottom lip. “Fine, whatever.”
She picks up her bag and saunters off to her room. I love Ana the way you love a little sister that you also don’t like sometimes. That sweet little girl she’d been must still be in there. One summer at my parents’ cabin she had found an injured rabbit and nursed it back to health. She didn’t trust anyone else to do it. When she and my dad let the heale
d bunny go, she sobbed and spent the rest of the week looking for more animals to save.
“Whatever, indeed. At least she’s safe,” Penny says, and she raises her eyes to heaven.
Nelly pops the tops off four beers. James puts the TV on a local channel. CNN is still off air. I listen as I dial 911 over and over.
“Buses are filled to capacity with the sick. Family members are being asked to pin a note with the infected person’s information onto their clothing and leave the area, with promises that they will be informed of the patient’s progress. Police say this is to protect family members from being infected. We’re going live to the scene at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn.”
I set the phone down and move closer to the TV. A reporter stands outside of the hospital where Maria works. Penny leans forward like she’s trying to catch a glimpse of her mom. The number of people out there is staggering. They’re lying down, standing up, sitting. They shuffle forward onto a waiting string of buses. As each bus fills up and pulls away, it’s replaced by a new one. City buses, school buses, Greyhound coaches—it looks like anything with more than four seats has been pressed into service.
“They’ve been funneling people onto buses for several hours, but more arrive to take their place. We were just informed we are being moved to an area a few blocks away for our own safety. We will continue to monitor the situation down here. Back to you.”
Nelly lowers the volume as the news anchor lists the treatment centers again.
Penny sighs. “Well, I don’t imagine my mom’s going to be home soon. There must have been five hundred people waiting out there. I just hope they’re giving the nurses the anti-viral medication.”
Penny grabs her phone and walks to the window, trying her mom again. Her beer hits the wood floor in a foamy crash that makes us jump. One hand covers her mouth and the other points to the street.
Chapter 7
There are four of them in front of an apartment building down the block, bent over on the shady side of the street. One is Half-Neck, astonishingly still alive, his head canted to the left. There’s an old lady wearing a flowered housedress and wispy gray bun, a hipster with off-kilter aviator sunglasses and a Hispanic man wearing a half-tucked shirt and jeans.
