The Way We Fall

by Megan Crewe

  For the first time in what seems like forever, there were people on the streets. Everyone was going to see the shipment come in. Some were carrying signboards with messages like end the quarantine now, as if that was going to change the government’s mind.

  Parked cars clogged the roads around the harbor, so we pulled over to the sidewalk a few blocks away and jogged the rest of the distance. My face mask made it hard to catch my breath. I heard coughing in the crowd, and we passed a woman who’d stopped to scratch her knee. My lungs started to burn. All I wanted to do was go back to the car and leave. But Mom caught sight of Uncle Emmett’s truck and hurried on. I was afraid if I took my eyes off her for a second, I’d lose her.

  A boat had just pulled in—our ferry. Several men and a couple of women in military uniforms stood in a semicircle on the asphalt between the crowd and the dock. A few more leaned against the railing of the ferry. They all wore the bulky masks I’d seen on the news, and each carried a rifle. I wondered if they were going to escort the government people through town to make sure no one tried to hijack the food. Or maybe the soldiers were the people who’d come to distribute it.

  The crowd surged forward as the boat docked. So many people were shouting, I couldn’t make out a single word. They were waving their signs and their hands, but they parted when the soldiers motioned for them to clear a way.

  Then Uncle Emmett lunged out in front, dragging Meredith by the hand. Mom pushed through the crowd even faster. The bodies pressed harder and harder against us as we forced our way forward. A cold breeze came off the water, but sweat was trickling down my back.

  There was still so much yelling around us I couldn’t hear what Uncle Emmett was saying. He gestured to himself, to the mainland, and to Meredith, who just looked terrified. The soldiers shook their heads and said something back. You could tell they wanted Uncle Emmett to move. But he stood firm, his voice rising until I could hear a few phrases: “killing children” and “live with yourselves” and things like that.

  The soldiers didn’t seem to care. One of them grabbed Uncle Emmett’s arm to pull him off to the side. He wrenched away and shoved the soldier hard enough to send him stumbling backward.

  A gunshot snapped through the air, so sharply my ears started ringing. And Uncle Emmett fell too.

  Mom gave a little gasp and reached toward him. At the same moment, the people around us shifted forward, the yells getting louder, the voices more furious. I lost sight of Uncle Emmett and Meredith as the crowd rushed past them. I heard another shot, maybe two—it’s a blur in my mind.

  When we reached them, Mom almost tripped over Uncle Emmett’s leg where he was sprawled on the ground. Blood soaked the front of his shirt. Meredith huddled against him, her head bent next to his, saying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” over and over. A gray undertone was creeping across his dark skin, and a bubble of spit quivered on his lips.

  For a second, the world seemed to spin. I closed my eyes and opened them again, and the scene in front of me looked just as awful as before.

  Mom grabbed Uncle Emmett’s shoulders. “Help me carry him,” she said, her voice shaking. “We have to get him to the hospital.”

  I leaned over to help, but a couple of men nearby realized what we were doing and hurried over. “Just show us where your car is,” one said, taking Uncle Emmett’s feet. I slid an arm around Meredith’s shoulders, and we squeezed back through the mass of bodies, which were weaving back and forth as if they no longer knew whether they wanted to go toward the ferry or away from the guns.

  I glanced back once. All I saw was the ferry pulling away from the dock.

  Uncle Emmett’s truck was blocked by the vehicles parked around it, so we had to carry him all the way to our car. The men who’d helped us eased him into the backseat. He wheezed, and Meredith shivered against me. Mom looked at the two of us and said, “Can you take her back to the house, Kae? I’ll call as soon as we know how he is.”

  I brought Meredith home in such a haze that I’m surprised we made it here so quickly, and I’ve done my best to distract her. She’s playing the new Mario game, though she’s staring at the screen like she isn’t really seeing it, and sometimes she lets the Goombas walk right into her. I don’t know what to say to her. Someone in the harbor—our harbor—one of the soldiers who was supposed to be bringing us food and medicine so we can stay alive, shot Uncle Emmett. And other people too, I think.

  And then they just left us.

  Please, please, please, let Uncle Emmett be okay.

  Mom got home about a half hour after I finished writing yesterday. She wanted to be with Meredith when she told her.

  Uncle Emmett was dead when he got to the hospital. The doctors did everything they could to revive him, she said, but the bullet nicked his heart. There was no way he could have survived.

  That’s not true, though. If he hadn’t gone down to the harbor, if he hadn’t pushed that soldier, he wouldn’t have gotten shot. He was so concerned about making sure he survived the epidemic that he got himself killed. It’s so stupid. It shouldn’t have happened.

  He was so worried about Meredith, and now he’s gone and left her alone.

  Is it awful that I want to punch him almost as much as I want to cry?

  Every time the floor creaks, I expect him to walk into the room to pick up Meredith. But I’m never going to see him again. Meredith is never going to see him again. He’s gone. Because of one stupid decision.

  Now I’m getting the pages wet. I’d better stop.

  This morning Meredith, Drew, and I went over to Uncle Emmett’s house to pick up her things. Mom didn’t feel up to it. She’s spent a lot more time in her bedroom than usual the last couple days, and when she comes out her eyes are always a little red.

  When we got there, Meredith just stood in the middle of her room, looking dazed. So I picked out the clothes I thought she liked best, and some books and toys. Then I stopped and gave her a hug, and she started to cry with short, gulping sobs. I patted her back and said the things you say when there’s nothing that would make what’s happening any better. The whole time a lump was filling up my throat and I was fighting the urge to join her.

  After she’d stopped, Drew came upstairs with a pair of binoculars he’d found, and we peered out the window.

  “Hey, check that out,” he said, and pointed down. On the spit just a little south of the house, a few figures in bulky plastic-looking suits were setting a boxy contraption by the water. They disappeared from view, then came back, each carrying more metal boxes. We watched them for a few minutes, passing the binoculars back and forth, but neither of us could figure out what they were doing. I started eyeing the mainland instead.

  I couldn’t make out much, even with the binoculars, but I thought I saw a couple of figures moving around in the harbor over there. Between us and them, a few patrol boats were sitting in the strait, watching for quarantine breakers.

  The ferry hasn’t come back. Dad said the government is trying to arrange something else, that they’ve decided delivering supplies at the dock is too “inciting.” It feels like they’re punishing us. As if shooting people wasn’t punishment enough. Uncle Emmett was the only one who died, but there was a woman and an older man who were injured. Are the soldiers going to be punished for murder and assault? Or is the army going to say the shots were justified, self-defense?

  At this point, I doubt they’ll ever tell us.

  Drew must have been remembering that day too, because he frowned and said, “I wish Uncle Emmett had told us about the protest ahead of time. I could have talked to him.”

  “You really think you could have changed his mind?” I said, lowering the binoculars. “He wouldn’t even listen to Mom.”

  “I wouldn’t have told him not to protest at all,” Drew said. “I’d just have told him there are better ways. The government was never going to give in and end the quarantine because of a bunch of islanders shouting—everyone on the mainland would have been pissed, for one th
ing. But everyone who wanted to leave could have started demanding a way for those who aren’t sick to be moved, like we were originally promised. If we’d gone on the internet, gotten the whole world aware of how we were screwed over, reached out to the media—Hey, did they have cameras down there yester…”

  He turned toward me as he started the question, and his voice petered out. Meredith was staring at the floor, her arms crossed tight in front of her and her whole body quivering.

  “Mere!” I said, squatting down beside her. She leaned into me, and the shivering slowly stopped. I squeezed her, my stomach churning and my eyes tearing up.

  “Daddy was trying to keep me safe,” she said. “He told me that.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know. And he’d have wanted you to have all the stuff that makes you happy, right? Let’s go downstairs and find your favorite movies. We should watch one of them as soon as we get back to my house.”

  Drew came down a few minutes later. He followed me into the kitchen when I went to get a bag for the DVDs.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I got carried away—I shouldn’t have said that in front of her.”

  I sighed. “Maybe your way would have worked,” I said. “But it’s not like we’re ever going to know. How can you be criticizing him when he just died?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “That’s just how I think. It doesn’t even seem real yet, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said softly.

  As we walked back to the living room, I felt him hesitate, and then he said, “Kae, if we could convince the government to start letting people off the island, if there was a safe way…would you leave, even if Dad wouldn’t?”

  We’d just come through the doorway, and Meredith looked up at me with the faintest hint of a smile. I didn’t even have to think to answer.

  “If it meant I could get Meredith out of here?” I said. “Yeah. For sure.”

  We gathered up her bags, and I kept my hand on her shoulder on the way out to the car.

  While we were putting the suitcases in the trunk, this girl who looked twelve or thirteen came wandering down the street. I noticed her as soon as she stepped onto the road. She was scratching her wrist. Every muscle in my body tensed.

  “Get in the car,” I said to Meredith. She stared at me for a second, but she did it without asking.

  “Hey!” the girl said, and then sneezed and wiped at her nose. “What’s going on? You going on a trip or something?”

  “Kind of,” I said. “We’re, um, in a bit of a hurry. See you around!”

  I had the keys, so I dove into the driver’s seat. Drew hopped in while I was fumbling with the ignition. The rattle of the girl’s cough sounded like it was right beside me. I told myself we were safe, the windows were closed, the virus couldn’t get in, but it still took me three tries to start the engine. The girl tapped on my window, and I hit the gas.

  “Why didn’t you want to talk to Josey?” Meredith asked as we roared around the corner. “She’s really nice. She babysits me sometimes.”

  “She was sick,” I said. “If you see someone who seems like they have a cold, or like they’re really itchy, you have to get away from them fast. Okay?”

  “Oh,” she said, so quietly I could hardly hear her.

  “We’re fine,” Drew said. “Kaelyn did the right thing. We got out of there, and we’re okay now.”

  His saying that made me feel better, but you know what? None of us knows what the right thing is. Uncle Emmett thought the right thing was pushing around soldiers to protest the quarantine. Dad figures the right thing is for us to never leave the house. Maybe I should have told that girl to go to a hospital, or tried to find her parents. Instead I just drove away.

  At least I kept Meredith safe. That’s the only thing I know for sure was right.

  So the government figured out another way to get supplies to us. Last night a military helicopter flew in and dropped the packages. Of course, with an air delivery there was no one to bring the food to people’s houses. A few volunteers took it to the town hall and put up flyers telling people to come there if they need anything.

  And one of the packages broke on the landing, so some of the medication they sent is unusable.

  Dad looks exhausted. Even when he’s home, he’s mostly in his study, still working.

  I didn’t say anything to him or Mom, but after I’ve finished writing here I’m going to head back to Uncle Emmett’s and grab whatever food is left in the fridge and the cupboards. We might as well leave what the helicopter brought for the people who really need it.

  I did ask Dad about the people with the big suits we saw on the spit the other day. He nodded when I described them.

  “The World Health Organization wanted to trap a sample of the island’s wildlife,” he said. “Most viruses have a reservoir in the local animal population—a species they live in without killing. If we can find the reservoir, we can isolate the virus more easily, which will help us develop a means of eradicating it.”

  “Any kind of animal?” I said. If you count insects and fish, there have to be thousands of species that have contact with the island.

  “For the virus to have jumped to humans, we’re probably looking for a mammal,” he said. “Or a bird—as we’ve seen happen with viruses like avian flu.”

  A bird. I remembered the dead gull Mackenzie almost stepped on, when we were at the beach on Labor Day. I can’t believe that was only a month ago.

  “Sounds like a long shot,” Dad said, when I brought it up. “The virus wouldn’t generally be killing the reservoir species; they’d have more of a symbiotic relationship. But I’ll tell the WHO people to make sure they catch a few black-backed gulls to test.”

  I thought to ask then, “What are they going to do to them? All the animals they catch? Take a blood sample?”

  Dad’s expression went grave. “They have to kill them, Kae,” he said. “A blood test isn’t enough.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. I probably just condemned a bunch of black-backed gulls. Isn’t there enough dying already?

  The right thing or the wrong thing? I wish there was an easier way to tell.

  At least some of those animals didn’t die in vain. Dad called this afternoon to say the WHO people have isolated the virus, which means they can start working on a vaccine. When Mom told us, we all cheered.

  The bad news is, it looks like the quarantine wasn’t totally successful. I’ve had the TV news on more than is probably good for my sanity, watching those helicopter views of the island. A couple of stations have reported a “virulent strain of the flu” going around on the mainland. Maybe it’s not even the same disease. As far as I can tell, no one’s died there so far. But if even one of the islanders who took off before the quarantine was carrying the virus, the mainlanders aren’t any safer than we are.

  “If you feel a cold coming on, do the responsible thing and take a sick day,” the reporters are saying. As if skipping work is going to do any good once people get to the extra-friendly stage. Our virus is a lot smarter than the ones you see in zombie movies. It doesn’t make its victims stagger around slobbering and moaning so anyone in their right mind would run the other way. It gets you cozying up to people so you can cough and sneeze it right into their faces.

  We just need the vaccine. Then we’ll be okay.

  I wanted to e-mail Mackenzie to find out what’s happening in L.A. But when I tried to go online, the browser kept giving me an error. None of the computers in the house worked.

  I went to check Drew’s last. He was already staring at the monitor.

  “I can’t get the internet going,” I said. “Is it connecting for you?”

  “We lost service some time this morning,” he said. “The issue’s not at our end. I’m working on it.”

  I don’t see what he can do if the problem’s not here, but with Drew’s computer skills, who knows?

  I figured I’d give Mackenzie a call instead, since she gave me
the number for their condo before they left in the summer. No luck there either. I tried the L.A. number twice, and then I tried Gran and Grandpa in Ottawa, and all I got was a recording saying, “This service is no longer available.”

  The local numbers still work. I called Uncle Emmett’s house and listened to the phone ring until the answering machine picked up.

  The internet and phones have gone down before, but always after a storm messed up the equipment. The weather’s been fine the last few days, and I can’t think of anything else that would have caused a problem.

  Why did they have to go down now? Until we’ve got either long distance or internet working again, there’s no way I can find out what’s happening to Mackenzie or Gran and Grandpa or anyone else outside the island.

  And there’s no way they can find out what’s happening to us.

  Maybe Dad will know what’s going on when he gets home. Maybe the technicians are fixing it right now.

  God, I hope so.

  The internet and long distance are still down. Turns out there was an “incident” at the communications building. One of the workers there got sick and started freaking out with the hallucinations, and ended up damaging the cables that come in through the strait. Dad says the technicians—the ones who are still healthy, anyway—are trying to fix them, but they don’t know if they can without parts from the mainland. Which, of course, we can’t get right away.

  Drew lent me his cell phone, after warning me that the reception’s really bad on the island. I got through to Gran and Grandpa’s number, but there was so much static I couldn’t tell if I was talking to a person or an answering machine.

  At least at the hospital and the town hall they’ve got satellite service, so we’re not completely cut off. Dad’s going to check in with Gran and Grandpa as often as he can.

  Drew snuck out again this morning while Mom was in the shower. It was the first time he’s done it since Uncle Emmett died, and this time he was gone for most of the day. After a few hours I started glancing out every window I passed, hoping I’d see him coming home. We’re so shut off from everything now, even our neighbors, it feels like he could get lost on the island somewhere—fall into the ocean, get shot—and we’d never know what happened to him.