by Ronald Malfi
They all got sick soon after arriving at the park, undoubtedly the result of eating the gas-station hot dogs, and each of them heaved repeatedly into the underbrush. David and Tim sobbed while David’s mother vomited almost politely behind a lilac bush. Emmitt soon joined them, the sounds of his upchucking like the uncooperative growls of a stalled engine. In the confusion, Emmitt had dropped his lit cigar into a nearby trash receptacle; the debris inside blossomed into flame. After wiping his mouth on his sleeve, David rolled over and watched the flame dancing in the barrel, tongues of fire licking the sky, so bright it hurt his eyes to look at it, to stare—
He stared—
So bright, he couldn’t—
“Daddy.” It was Ellie’s voice, swimming down to him as if from the opening in a well.
David blinked and realized he wasn’t staring at a fire—or even the memory of a fire—at all, but directly at the sun, which filled their entire windshield. The car was positioned at an angle off the highway, facing backward, the vehicle’s nose butted up against the guardrail. His door was open and he had his left foot out on the ground, a cool wind blowing the damp hair off his sweaty forehead.
He looked at Ellie, who stared at him with terror in her eyes.
“Hey,” he said, and rubbed the side of her face.
“What happened?” she asked. He voice was barely audible. “You were talking and then . . . then . . . you just stopped and turned the car around . . .”
He glanced down and saw the car was still in Drive. If he’d taken his foot off the brake . . .
No.
“Jesus, kid,” he said, pulling his leg back in and shutting the door. “I guess I was daydreaming for a second there, huh? Not enough sleep.”
“You just . . . just pulled the car over and turned around and . . .”
“Hey, everything’s okay.” He gave her his best smile. “Why are you so upset?”
“You scared me. You were talking, telling me a story, and then you started talking funny and then you just stopped.”
“I’m tired, El. Very tired.”
He could see that her eyes were searching his. In the end, he looked away.
“Let’s get back on the road, okay?”
After a moment, Ellie nodded.
They got back on the road.
36
Four months earlier
As more and more students dropped their courses, the college granted the remaining students the option of completing the semester from their homes. Certain instructors lectured via Skype while others simply e-mailed assignments to their students and awaited the return e-mails with the work attached. For David, who taught English literature, the change was welcome and easy: There was little he needed to lecture on, and his students could all read the assigned work from the privacy—or safety—of their own homes. Papers were submitted to him via e-mail. When someone failed to send in a paper, David would send a follow-up e-mail as a reminder. If that e-mail went unanswered, David gave up. He assumed he was dealing with your basic collegiate delinquency—there were always a slim few who carried their laziness straight out of high school and into college . . . and, David supposed, throughout the rest of their lives, too—but on the chance that something more profound had come into these students’ lives, he was not going to be the one to inquire about it.
He assumed a good number of them died in those final weeks before the school year ended.
The faculty was also allowed to work from home, yet David opted to come to campus at least two days out of the week. For one thing, there was little work he could get done with both Kathy and Ellie at home now. Kathy had taken to homeschooling the girl, and while Ellie had always been a good student, Kathy became frequently frustrated in her inability to get the information across to her. But it was more than this distraction that caused him to work in the English department’s office these few days a week; it was Kathy’s overall disposition, which seemed to be worsening with each passing day. Her eyes always looked clouded with dark morbidity; her thoughts always seemed to be elsewhere, occupied by some distant but oncoming doom that, sometimes, David could feel if he sat too close to her or stared at her long enough. If he spent too much time around her, she would inevitably lash out at him. Lately, their arguments had been frequent and fierce.
This change in Kathy terrified him. However, he didn’t have the luxury of falling apart. Kathy’s disposition forced him to remain falsely positive, if only around Ellie. His hours spent at the college allowed for him to release some of his own anxiety without worrying about keeping up a strong front for his family’s sake. Sometimes he had to pull over on the shoulder of the road during the hour-long drive to the college, overcome by a panic attack. Sometimes he sat in the department office’s lounge area with the lights off, staring off into space, terrified to talk to anyone else on campus for fear that their conversations would inevitably turn apocalyptic.
Sometimes Burt Langstrom was there, sometimes he wasn’t. When he was there, he acknowledged David with the same detachment as Kathy. More than once David wondered if this was a sign of the illness itself—a preemptive disassociation prior to the onset of the hallucinations. Indeed, there was a fog about Burt that spoke to his mind being elsewhere. Wandering was the word that immediately came to David when he looked at Burt like this. His mind is wandering. But for obvious reasons, he didn’t like to think about it in those terms.
On this particular afternoon, David arrived in the lounge to find Burt propped up on the ratty sofa, eyes glued to the television on the counter. On most channels, it was nothing but news reports now. Today, the news report was about some small island in the Pacific whose entire population had died. The newscaster kept using the term extinct in all its forms, which made David think of the dodo bird. And then birds in general.
“I didn’t know you were here today,” David said, pausing in the doorway of the lounge.
Burt did not answer.
“You look like a zombie. You shouldn’t be watching this madness.” He reached out to turn the TV off, but Burt barked at him. It was just that—a nonverbal bark, just like an animal might make. David froze. When he looked at his friend, he saw that Burt’s eyes were bleary with tears.
David went to the fridge, stuffed his lunch bag inside, then stood there breathing heavily with his hands on his hips. He considered not coming to the college anymore, just like the students, for the sheer purpose of keeping away from Burt Langstrom. The man was setting him on edge. He no longer liked being around him. No, it was worse than that: He no longer felt comfortable around Burt.
“I’m no mathematician,” Burt spoke up suddenly, “but they say there’s a baby born somewhere in the world every eight seconds. The rate of infection from Wanderer’s Folly has just surpassed that. Like I said, I’m no mathematician, but I can figure out what that means.”
“I think you’re driving yourself mad,” David said.
“Conspiracies abound, David.” Burt turned and faced him. He’d lost weight so that his cheeks hung from him like the jowls of a hound dog. His eyes were rheumy as a hound dog’s, too. David didn’t like the pallor of his skin. “You should read the Nadsat Report,” Burt said.
“What’s that?”
“Online newspaper. Government cover-ups and the like. They’ve been posting some thought-provoking articles. They’ve got some insight, boy. Think the government might be responsible for this whole thing.”
“The government,” David said.
“They’ve been following the birds’ disappearances, too. Early on. Like, before the mainstream media. Suspected something was up from the very beginning. You know what they’re talking about now?”
“What’s that?”
“The quarantines. Say some are legit but others are a ruse. They think people are being taken away against their will and studied in secret hospitals.”
David said nothing.
“Government thinks maybe some people out there might be immune. If you’re in a qua
rantined zone, where pretty much the entire population has got the Folly, and you don’t, well, maybe that’s something important. What do you think about that?”
“I just don’t know, Burt.” He felt suddenly exhausted. These conversations made him nervous.
“The Nadsat Report,” Burt said, still staring at the TV.
“You been eating, Burt?”
“Sure. Say, how’s the family, David?”
“They’re okay.”
“You’re not still sending that daughter of yours to school, are you?”
“Kathy’s been homeschooling her.”
“Sure, sure.” Burt nodded. His wet eyes danced around the room. “Laura’s been doing the same for our girls. Don’t let their friends come over anymore, either. Moon-Bird complained on that score, but I wasn’t budging.” Burt turned a grim smile toward him. David imagined he could see the man’s skull through the thin, transparent fabric of his flesh. “Moon-Bird’s what we call our youngest. A nickname. It comes from a book of poems she likes.”
“I think you should see a doctor, Burt.”
“The only fellow I’m going to see, David, is the guy who rents those RVs off the beltway. Remember me talking about him?”
“Of course. That’s still the plan?”
That grim smile widened. Burt’s teeth looked gray. “Still the plan, Stan,” he said.
“Maybe I should drive you home.”
“Don’t think so. Thanks, though.”
“Do you even have any work to do? Papers to grade?”
“Not a one,” Burt announced. He turned back to the television. There was a toothpaste commercial on now. “I’m just out here gathering my thoughts. I guess I come out of habit. It makes it easier to pretend that things are still normal by coming in here every day.”
David understood. It was what he was doing, too.
“You said your little girl is all right, David? She acting fine to you?”
“She’s fine, Burt.”
Burt Langstrom’s brow creased. “Yeah, but . . . how do you know?”
“I . . . I don’t know, Burt. But she’s the same. That’s all. She isn’t sick.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess. That’s real good.”
“Are your girls all right, Burt?”
“Oh yeah, David. They’re beautiful. Just goddamn beautiful.”
David left him that way, opting instead to head across campus to the administrative offices. Only one secretary was there, reading a magazine behind a screen of bulletproof glass. She wore a surgical mask over her nose and mouth.
“I need to look up a phone number of someone in my department,” David said, speaking into the microphone box in the glass.
The secretary’s brow creased. “Who are you?” Her voice was barely audible.
He held his faculty ID against the glass.
The secretary got up and approached the glass. Once David gave her the information, she rooted through her computer before supplying him with the telephone number. He entered it into his phone, thanked the woman—she had already gone back to her magazine—then slipped outside into the quad.
It was springtime and the afternoon was alive with the sound of insects of all kinds. Without birds, the world was becoming choked with them, and in such a short amount of time. Long-legged things popped out of the grass, and a variety of flying thingamajigs navigated from flower to flower. It got so you couldn’t open your mouth outdoors without inhaling a few.
He dialed the number, heard it ring several times. He realized he was holding his breath. It kept ringing, and he was about to hang up when a woman’s voice answered.
“Is this Laura?” he said.
“Who’s this?” said the woman. She sounded nervous, on edge. He’d met Laura Langstrom a number of times, at various social events at the college. David and Kathy had also been over to the Langstroms’ for a cookout last summer, a hospitality David kept meaning to repay. Laura Langstrom was what someone might refer to as a hefty woman, with meaty upper arms and thighs that stretched the fabric of her pants. She had always been pleasant enough—the entire Langstrom clan had always been happy and cheerful—but now she sounded like someone who’d been holed up in a cave for half a year and had forgotten how to converse with another human being.
“This is David Arlen, Laura. From the college.”
“Burt’s college?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Is that where he is now?”
“Yes.” He thought it odd she wouldn’t know where her husband was. “He’s—”
“Is he okay?” she said, cutting him off. “Did something happen?”
“Well, nothing happened, but—”
“You wouldn’t be calling me if something hasn’t happened. Just tell me.”
“Burt’s okay. I’ve just been worried about him lately. His . . . his behavior, I guess. His . . .” His what? Attitude? Outlook? Entire persona? He didn’t know how to finish the thought.
“Does he seem sick to you, David?”
“He seems severely depressed. I think he should talk to a doctor.”
“We’ve all been to doctors. We had our quarterly test just last month. We’re all clean here, David. Folly-free, as they say.” She practically sang this last part, as though it was part of some advertising jingle.
“That’s not the kind of doctor I’m talking about. I think he needs to see . . . well, maybe a shrink.”
“We don’t have a shrink.”
“Maybe he should get one. Listen, I know this is coming out of left field, Laura, but I felt I should do something—”
“Tell me,” Laura Langstrom said, and now her voice dropped, as if they were two criminals conspiring over the phone about an upcoming heist. “How is your family, David? How is . . . uh . . .”
“Kathy and Eleanor,” he finished for her.
“Yes!” The word jolted from her. “Yes, that’s right. How are they? Are they healthy? Have you gotten blood tests recently?”
“We’re all clean.”
“Are you sure?” Her words hung there, the emphasis on that final word somehow sounding perverse. As if she was taunting him.
“As sure as we can be.”
“Because sometimes you can’t trust them,” said Laura.
“Trust what? The blood tests?”
“Yes, that’s right. But not just the tests. Them. Do you understand?” She whispered this last part.
“No. Who’s ‘them’?”
“Them,” she said. “Them. You want to know something? We don’t let anyone come over anymore. I suggest you do the same.”
“We’re keeping to ourselves,” he said, suddenly wondering how this panicked woman on the other end of the line had managed to usurp this conversation.
“And Burt and I, we keep watching them. Because I think part of this whole thing—the part they don’t report about on the news, I mean—is the sneaking part, the part that creeps up on you and gets you, infiltrates you, even when they tell you the blood tests are all fine. Fine and dandy.” Again, she lowered her voice to a whisper: “But I don’t believe it. Not for one goddamn second. You might think we don’t notice those . . . slight changes . . . in their behavior, David, but we do. We do.”
“Who are you talking about?”
Laura Langstrom’s response was a single whistling exhalation.
“Are you feeling all right?” David asked.
“Me? Oh, I’m just fine, David.” Her normal voice again, as if some pill had just kicked in and regulated her. “We’re just all so scared, David.”
“Burt mentioned something about packing up and driving off somewhere.”
“Now?”
“No, not now. He said something about renting an RV and—”
“It’s beyond that,” Laura said flatly, once more cutting him off. “I’m afraid it’s beyond all of that, David.” She cleared her throat. “It’s David, isn’t it? I’ve forgotten.”
“Yes,” he said. This was a bad idea
.
“Maybe,” she said, “it’s beyond that for all of us.”
“I’m not sure I—”
Laura Langstrom hung up.
37
They stopped for milk shakes at a dusty curbside burger joint, slurping them down while seated at a picnic table, a yellow and white umbrella over their heads for shade. At one point, when Ellie got up to use the restroom, David went inside the place and bought a road map and a pen. His phone had GPS but he was reluctant to use it. Opening up the map at the picnic table, he found their current location, which was halfway across Kansas, then located the area in Colorado where he knew Funluck Park to be. He penned some calculations in the margin, estimating the time it would take to get to the park in Colorado, and then how long it would take to make it to Wyoming from there. It was a lot of driving.
A man in white shirtsleeves and dusty slacks ambled over to the Oldsmobile. David glanced up at him and watched him, unobserved. The man was spooning frozen custard from a Styrofoam cup into his mouth while he walked around the front of the Oldsmobile. He was a large fellow with an expansive midsection. Beads of perspiration stood out on his sun-pinked forehead. The man turned and saw David staring at him.
“Ninety-nine Cutlass, am I right?” said the man, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the car.
“You’re right,” David said.
“Used to have one just like it, ’cept in powder blue. How many miles?”
“More than you’d think.”
“Don’t you know mine went for just over three hundred thousand? And she was still purring when I sold her for five hundred bucks to some teenager.”
David forced a grin. He was uncomfortable talking to the man. Something about the guy reminded him of Detective Watermere.
