The Way We Fall

by Megan Crewe

  He shook his head as if that were the most ridiculous idea ever.

  We sat there, not saying anything, for a few minutes. Everything inside of me felt like it’d been tied into tiny knots. Finally he raised his head and looked at me. The expression on his face made all the knots pull tighter, until I could hardly breathe. He looked beaten.

  “What’s the point, Kaelyn?” he said. “If nothing we do matters, if we’re all just going to die anyway—what’s the point of anything?”

  I don’t know. If even Gav can’t see the point anymore…What if there isn’t one?

  But I couldn’t say that. Not when he was looking at me that way. A thought started to uncurl in my head, so delicate I was afraid to touch it.

  Maybe I don’t need to be worried about the way I feel about him, Leo. This is different than it was with you. Maybe he needs me.

  So I did the only thing I could think of. I kissed him. And he brushed his fingers into my hair and kissed me back, hard.

  That was a good enough answer, for now. I hope I can find a better one. For both him and for me.

  I went back to the records room last night. Wondering if there was something both Dad and I managed to miss. I pulled out the files for the six survivors, including me, and randomly grabbed another ten for comparison. As I was tugging out the last one, my eyes skimmed over the names behind it, and I saw your folder, and your mom’s and dad’s.

  I hadn’t seen your parents in my rounds. I’d hoped they’d managed to stay safe, but I didn’t know. I could have asked Tessa if she’d talked to them; I could have gone by their house; I could have looked at the records earlier. Except I didn’t really want to find out. As long as I didn’t, it could still be good news. But yesterday, without really thinking, I set down the file I’d been holding and took out theirs.

  I’m so sorry, Leo.

  There’s a reason I haven’t seen them since I started volunteering. Your mom came in with the early symptoms a week after the quarantine was announced. Your dad followed her a few days later. They were both dead before I even got sick.

  There’s a folder for just about every person on the island in that room. Staring at them, I realized I could see how many of our neighbors the virus took, how many of our teachers didn’t make it, how many kids from school came to the hospital before Shauna and never left.

  I don’t know why, but the enormity of it hit me in that moment in a way it hadn’t before. Five seconds later I was across the hall in the bathroom, crouched on the floor, trying to keep my dinner down. Even when my stomach finally stopped churning, the back of my mouth tasted like acid.

  The quarry must be overflowing with bodies. So many people. People we spent most of our lives with. It has to stop.

  When I could stand, I went back to the records room, shut the file drawer, and made myself get to work.

  Organizing the information would be a lot easier on a computer. Drew could have made up a program like he did for those phone calls I was making…was that really less than two months ago?

  If Drew were here.

  But if the electricity goes, like almost everything else has, I’d lose all of it. So I started making charts on a pad of graph paper I found on the supply shelf, comparing numbers and dates and medications. How long it took each person to reach each stage. How much of which drugs at what time of day. Looking for any sort of pattern. The answer could be something so small, no one would see it unless they studied every little factor with incredible scrutiny.

  There’s so much data. So many factors. I filled six sheets of paper in three hours, and none of the information ended up looking remotely meaningful. Then Nell found me.

  “What are you still doing here, Kaelyn?” she asked. “It’s almost midnight.”

  I stared up at her, kind of dazed. My brain was swimming with medical notations it hardly understands.

  When I didn’t answer, her eyes went soft, but her voice got more firm.

  “All right,” she said. “Come on. I’m ordering you, as a doctor, to go home and get some rest.”

  As if sitting here in the same room as Meredith, knowing there’d be nothing I could do if she woke up and started sneezing right now, is going to make me feel any better.

  I’m going back today. And tomorrow and the next day until I’ve accounted for every tiny detail. There has to be a connection. I’m not stopping until I find it.

  It’s rained at least part of every day since Mom’s birthday. The cold driving rain that always comes at the end of the fall. Not pleasant, but we’re taking a car everywhere we go anyway, so I haven’t had much chance to be bothered by the weather.

  The good thing is, rain and fire don’t mix well, and Quentin’s friends obviously know that. As far as we can tell, they haven’t tried to light up any more houses. Maybe they’re just saving the gasoline they stole for when they can do the most damage. Or maybe they’ll finally get a clue and realize burning down a few buildings here and there isn’t going to solve our problems. Unless they do us a favor and burn themselves up too.

  Since the fires had stopped as long as it was raining, I figured it was safe to leave Meredith on her own for a little while—as safe as it ever is. So Tessa and I set off for a quick scavenging trip this afternoon.

  We went through a bunch of houses not far from Main Street, but half of them looked like the gang had already gotten to them. They’ve mostly focused on food and electronics, though, so at least we sometimes found pills and creams in the medicine cabinets.

  When we came to the third place with a vacant TV stand, Tessa shook her head.

  “I don’t know why they think a bunch of televisions and DVD players are going to keep them alive,” she said.

  “Maybe they’re planning on taking everything over to the mainland and trying to sell it,” I said. “When they figure out how to do that without getting shot.”

  Then I remembered seeing the garden shop the other day, so we swung by there. Tessa looked at the shelves for a few minutes, picking up packets and cartons and then putting them back, frowning.

  “I used to come here almost every week,” she said. “The woman who owns this place would special-order things for me. She loves this store.”

  “Chances are those guys will come back eventually and grab anything you don’t take,” I pointed out. “Or burn the place down.”

  Chances also are the owner’s already dead.

  “You’re right,” Tessa said. “And I can always bring back what I haven’t used and pay for what I did when she opens up again.”

  She took all the seeds and bulbs and as many bags of fertilizer as she could fit in the car, and a bunch of pots and planting trays. After she closed the trunk, she paused for a moment under the awning.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, and laughed lightly. “I was just thinking—Leo used to come here with me, help load the car. I’d be talking the whole time about all my plans, and he’d nod and grin so you couldn’t tell he didn’t have any idea what I was going on about most of the time. He wasn’t into gardening or farming or any of that. But he would be, right then, because of me. That’s the way he was.”

  She lowered her eyes and turned her head away. I hadn’t realized before how much she misses you. An uncomfortable mix of my own missing, and guilt—for the times I thought she couldn’t have cared about you enough—swelled in my chest.

  “He’s a great guy,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “The best.” And slid into the car. That was it, subject closed.

  “Is Gav all right?” she asked on the way to the hospital. “He hasn’t come by in a while.”

  “He’s okay,” I said. “He’s just—his best friend got sick. He’s been spending most of his time keeping him company.”

  Even though it hurts talking about Warren, knowing how worried Gav is about him, and even though I had an extra twinge of guilt realizing how hard it must be for Tessa to see us together when her boyfriend’s hundreds of m
iles away, I still got that warm, tingly feeling thinking about him. I floated in it, wondering how I could possibly be so happy about something when so much else is going wrong, the whole way back to Tessa’s house.

  She parked the car in the driveway. Everything looked normal. Then the upstairs window jerked open and Meredith’s voice brought me back to earth.

  “Kaelyn!” she called down. She gasped a couple times, that breathless gulping sound people make when they’ve been crying and are trying to calm down. “Be careful!” she said. “I think they all went away, but I don’t know.”

  My heart stopped.

  “Who?” I said. “What happened?” But she’d started sobbing and couldn’t answer.

  Tessa walked to the door and yanked it open. The knob fell off in her hand. Inside, the floor was caked with muddy footprints, and I could see that all of the cabinet doors in the kitchen had been flung open. Tessa hurried in that direction. I dashed up the stairs.

  The door to the master bedroom was closed and locked. I knocked on it.

  “Meredith,” I said, “you can come out. Whoever it was, they’re gone now. Are you okay?”

  She sniffled, and the lock clicked. The second she opened the door, I knelt down and pulled her into my arms. She buried her face in my shoulder.

  “It was that guy, the angry one who came into the toy store,” she said. “And a bunch of other people too, but I didn’t know them. He grabbed me and told me to show them where we kept the stuff you and Tessa have been taking from the houses. I said that you gave it to the hospital, and he got really mad. But then they started going through the kitchen, and he wasn’t paying attention, and I got away from him and ran up here. That was good, right?”

  “Really good,” I said. I was so angry, my voice shook. If I’d had a gun, and Quentin had stepped in front of me right then, I think I could have blasted him away without hesitating.

  I eased Meredith back and looked her over. Her wrists were already starting to bruise, a purplish pattern of fingers against the dark brown of her skin. I hugged her again and kissed the top of her head.

  Then a thin wail split the air, so pained it made the hairs on my arms rise.

  My first thought was that I’d been wrong, someone was still here, and they were hurting Tessa. “Stay here,” I told Meredith. “Keep the door locked until I come back.” She nodded solemnly, and I crept to the stairs, peering over the banister.

  I hoped I’d have more of a chance if I took our enemy by surprise, but I didn’t see anyone, just the ransacked kitchen and, as I edged into the hall, the back door swinging open in the wind.

  When I reached it, Tessa was standing on the patio just outside, her pale hands clasped in front of her. The rain was soaking her clothes and hair.

  She must have been the one who’d made that sound, but she was totally silent then. Just staring at the greenhouse. Seeing it, I jerked to a halt behind her.

  They’d smashed the entire front wall, and part of the south side too. Wet glass glinted on the patio stones. Boot tracks crisscrossed the garden areas, leaves and stems trampled in their wake. There were dips and pits in the dirt where plants—I guess the ones that were clearly edible—had been uprooted and taken, and others stood at half-mast, their upper parts torn off.

  The rain started to trickle down my neck, under the collar of my jacket. I shivered, but I didn’t want to move until Tessa did. I was waiting for her to spring into action, to start picking up the pieces and fitting them back together into the best shape she could make; to tell me that while what happened was really awful, it could have been worse. It can always be worse.

  Instead, she turned around and looked at me, her eyelashes dark and wet.

  “They knew when we’d be out,” she said. “They were watching us.”

  “Meredith said they were looking for the food we’ve been taking from the houses,” I said. “I guess they must have seen us….”

  I stopped. Because I knew how they’d happened to see us. They’d seen us because they’d known I’d survived the virus, and Quentin had been convinced I knew something about the cure, and so they’d been watching me. Possibly ever since that first guy aimed his shotgun at me. How else could Quentin have known where I’d be the day we went to the toy shop?

  And since that day he must have been waiting to take his revenge for the way I embarrassed him. The gang didn’t need the little bit of food we’d been gathering on our own. They had tons.

  Tessa had heard the story of the toy shop from Meredith. She’d obviously drawn the same conclusions I had, just faster.

  “It was because of you,” she said. Simply, stating a fact. Then she brushed past me and walked inside. As I hurried after her, her bedroom door thumped shut. She hasn’t come out since.

  If she hadn’t invited me into her house, this never would have happened.

  I don’t know what to do. How can I make up to her something so enormous I can’t imagine where to begin?

  First snowstorm of the winter. Not even really snow—sleet. Gray, slushy rain pattering against the windows since early this morning.

  Meredith and I were watching The Little Mermaid after dinner for the eighth time when the lights and the TV flickered and died.

  I don’t know whether the outage is temporary or permanent. Hopefully temporary. No electricity means no fridge, no oven, no microwave. Maybe no heat too.

  Gav called a little while after the power went. I could tell he was at the hospital because of the jumble of voices in the background.

  “The entire hospital went black while I was hanging with Warren,” he said. “They only just got the generator going. I heard the whole town’s gone out. Are you okay?”

  I’d had to grope through the dark for the phone. Meredith was still curled up on the couch, breathing shakily. I crouched down by the wall and closed my eyes. “Yeah,” I said. “Tessa’s looking for the candles her parents kept for emergencies. It’s kind of spooky, but we’ll live.”

  “I’ll come over,” he said. “Just got to say bye to Warren.”

  I wanted to see him. Wanted it so badly, my stomach ached that he wasn’t already here. I’ve hung out with him and Warren at the hospital a bit, but I feel uncomfortable intruding on their friendship, so I haven’t seen him much the last few days. But as I opened my mouth, the window beside me rattled with the wind and the sleet, and I could see in my mind the long slippery roads through the pitch black between him and me. The image of the shattered glass from the greenhouse rose up behind my eyelids, shifting into the Ford’s smashed windshield, and before I even knew I was going to, I heard myself saying, “No. Stay there.”

  “They don’t need me,” Gav said. “They’ll be doing lights-out for the patients in a half hour anyway. I’ll just—”

  “Gav,” I said, trying to sound firm, even though the ache in my stomach had turned into a heavy lump. “Don’t. I don’t want you to come. We’ll be fine.”

  There was a pause, and a sharp intake of breath, and he said, “Okay. Sure. Fine,” like it wasn’t fine at all. “I’ll see you later, then,” he added, and suddenly I was saying, “Bye,” even though I’d meant to explain.

  “Kaelyn?” Meredith said, as the dial tone droned into my ear. By the time I made it back to her on the couch, Tessa had come in with the candles, and we went to our rooms.

  Meredith finally dozed off a few minutes ago. The ferrets are perched on the upper platform of the cage, heads bobbing as they follow the flickering of the candlelight. I probably shouldn’t be wasting it on writing here. The box Tessa found only had a few left.

  Besides, it feels kind of fitting right now, to be adrift in the dark.

  So I’m here in Uncle Emmett’s living room again, where we sat a million years ago while Dad talked about a virus that had killed one person, that might be a risk. It feels so strange to be back.

  I took a nap on the couch this afternoon, and when I woke up and heard someone moving in the kitchen, for a second I thought it was Mo
m.

  “You don’t need to go to so much trouble, Grace,” Uncle Emmett used to say, and Mom would answer, “I want to know you’re having a decent meal at least once in a while,” and then he’d mutter something to himself and plop down in the armchair to watch TV. It used to drive me crazy how he’d complain about her making dinner, but never offer to help.

  I’d give my right arm to have them here, griping at each other again.

  We moved in yesterday morning—Meredith, Tessa, the ferrets, and I—because the electricity seems to be gone for good, and unlike Tessa’s house and mine, Uncle Emmett’s has a generator. Dad helped me fix the front door, and between our car and Tessa’s, we were able to move everything important in one trip. The gang took the computer and the TV when they came through, but those would have been luxuries we’d hesitate to use anyway. We don’t want to risk overloading the generator. We have the stove for boiling water and cooking, and we’ve got light if we have to use it. Which is all we really need these days.

  I’m not sure what everyone else in town is doing. The hospital’s fine, of course—it’s got the biggest generator on the island. And some other houses have private generators, so people can get by. Dad said there are a few empty places like that near the hospital for anyone who needs shelter. The church has one too, so the kids should be okay.

  Meredith and I are sharing her old bedroom. It’s a little cramped, but I brought the binoculars, and I’ve started watching the mainland from her window whenever I have a free moment, even though all I’ve seen so far are faint lights through the fog rising off the strait. Since we’re the hosts now, I figured I should offer Tessa the master bedroom.

  I don’t know what she’s feeling—but then, I’ve always had trouble telling. She went out to the backyard before we left her house, and came back in with nothing. I guess there wasn’t much she could salvage. There’s a stiffness in the way she moves, the way she talks now, that I don’t remember from before. Like she was broken and the parts didn’t fit together quite as well when she got put back together.