by Scott Cramer
Toucan awoke from her nap. That gave Abby more to do, another distraction. She changed her sister’s diaper and fixed her dinner—carrot slices, canned pears, and peanut butter. After cleaning up, she read to Toucan.
Toucan snuggled in her lap, turning the pages of Good Night Moon.
“Good night, purple moon!” her sister squealed with glee.
Despite reading aloud, Abby was inwardly making plans and debating the choices. They would have to go outside and search for Jordan and Emily soon. But who should go? She preferred for the three of them to stay together, but she was worried about keeping the dust off Toucan, who constantly fidgeted; her mask would never stay in place. That left either she or Kevin. She couldn’t imagine Kevin going. Based on their earlier trip to the Couture’s, she feared he’d panic and get lost. Only one option remained. She, alone, would have to step into the cold, clammy purple fog.
“Come here,” Kevin called excitedly. “Hurry up!”
She left the book with Toucan and rushed over to him. Her eyes immediately fixed onto a web page with an official looking logo and bold lettering at the top:
UNITED STATES CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL
Emergency Bulletin 1.0
A pathogen, introduced into the atmosphere by Comet Rudenko-Kasparov, has resulted in a worldwide epidemic. Symptoms include high fever, fatigue, and cramps, followed shortly by death.
The most vulnerable populations are adults and post-pubescent teenagers. Early autopsy results indicate the pathogen attacks the endocrine system, including the hormones, estrogen and testosterone, resulting in pituitary and hypothalamus gland failure.
The extent of the outbreak is unknown. CDC scientists are working with counterparts in France, China, Russia, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom to isolate the pathogen and develop an effective course of action.
For future updates and instructions, refer to this website or emergency broadcast radio frequencies, 98.5 FM and 1500 AM.
Corpses and human remains should be handled by trained emergency personnel. Contact your local police department or state civil defense office for assistance.
“The link just popped up on my Facebook page,” Kevin exclaimed. “The pathogen is killing adults and older teens.”
“What’s a pathogen?” Abby asked.
Kevin shook his head in amazement. “To communicate during a national emergency, the government can push links to sites. That’s incredible. I never thought that was possible.”
“Kevin!”
“A pathogen is a germ. You know, a virus or bacteria. The CDC is in Atlanta, Georgia. Friends of my parents work there. They’re scientists who specialize in making vaccines.”
“How come the scientists aren’t affected?”
“I bet they’re quarantined underground. If they go outside, they wear special suits called HazMat suits. Abby, has your period started?”
She leaned back. A boy her age had just asked about her period as if he were talking about the weather. “No, Kevin, it hasn’t.”
“Emily hasn’t gotten hers, either,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Abby felt her face flushing. “Why do you want to know?”
He pointed to the screen. “Post pubescent teenagers. The germs attack the hormones that our bodies produce during puberty, testosterone and estrogen. For girls, menstruation is one of the signs that puberty has begun. Also your breasts develop. We get hair on our faces and other places. Our voices drop. If you haven’t entered puberty, you’re safe from the space germs. There’s nothing in your body for the germs to attack.”
Abby thought about her immediate family. Toucan, who would not reach puberty for a long time, would be fine for now. Jordan seemed okay, too. Some twelve-year-olds had wispy mustaches, but her brother had no facial hair. She didn’t know if hair was growing other places on his body. His voice, as far as she could tell, hadn’t changed.
Her body, though, was clearly changing. Abby had felt her pants becoming snugger at the hips, and she had been wearing a bra for almost two years, ready again to get a bigger size. She hadn’t gotten her period yet, but it could come anytime.
She remembered her mother explaining menstruation to her when she was in the fourth grade. Mom had showed Abby tampons and sanitary pads and said the arrival of her period would be a normal part of growing up. The thought of seeing blood every month had frightened her. But three years later, when one of her fifth grade classmate had started her periods, Abby and her friends had all been jealous.
“What will happen when we enter puberty?” Abby asked.
Kevin read her facial expression. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. The CDC will develop a vaccine by then. They have the best scientists in the world.”
She wished she shared his confidence.
Kevin drummed his fingers, thinking. “Why didn’t Mr. Couture die right away? He lived for a whole day longer than our parents.”
“Your cousin saw some really old people alive, too,” Abby said.
Kevin did a Google search and formulated an answer. “Old people have lower levels of those hormones.”
“Kevin, there must be millions of survivors. Who’s still alive on the island?”
“Everyone in our school, for sure,” he said. “Maybe some high school kids, too. But a lot of them have probably passed through puberty.”
“The green car that drove by, do you think?”
Kevin was nodding. “Yeah, some kid was driving.”
Out of nowhere, a siren wailed outside the house. Abby rushed to the window. A blue light pulsed in the fog. She couldn’t see the police car, though. Her mind raced. Some policemen were still alive. They had finally arrived to rescue them! But then cold fear gripped her heart. What if the police were here with bad news about Emily and Jordan?
Abby flung open the front door, fearing the worst.
Out of the mist a little boy appeared followed by Emily and Jordan.
DAY 4 – IS ANYONE ALIVE?
“My daddy drives a big truck. It’s a diesel. He lets me blow the horn. I’m four years old. Daddy lives in Burlington. That’s in Vermont…”
Danny rarely stopped talking. Abby stayed in bed a little while longer, listening to him chatter.
“My mommy has a tattoo on her ankle,” the boy continued. “It says peace. P-E-A-C-E. That spells peace.”
Danny changed topics frequently, sometimes mid-sentence.
“I like cake,” he added. “My favorite is chocolate. What’s your favorite?”
Toucan’s eyes got big and she babbled. “Chocolate. Toucan. Chocolate.”
Danny and Toucan, despite the two year age difference, had become instant, inseparable friends. Last night, at bedtime, they had begged Abby to let them sleep next to each other. She had tucked the wild ones (Jordan’s name for them) into two sleeping bags on the floor in her room.
Finally, Abby got up and raised the window shade. In the first light of dawn the moon was hanging full and fat and pale purple in a field of fading stars, a scene at once beautiful and chilling.
Most importantly the fog was gone, which meant they would be able to leave the house to search the island for survivors, other children like themselves who had yet to enter puberty. The decision on their course of action had not been unanimous. Kevin had argued they should take care of themselves first. “We don’t know how long it will take the CDC to find a cure,” he said. “We need to store food, water, and medicine. We can’t save everyone!” Nobody could change his mind, but he had at least he had agreed to go along.
Downstairs, Abby discovered that she had slept the longest. Jordan and Kevin were already up, listening to the CDC radio broadcast. The robotic female voice repeated the web site bulletin. “Corpses and human remains should be handled by trained emergency personnel. Contact your local police department or state civil defense office for further assistance… ”
Emily was up and dressed, too, gathering supplies to bring on their mission: coloring books, crayons, a
flashlight, Saltine crackers, bananas, apples, and a jar of peanut butter.
After breakfast, they loaded up the trunk of the police cruiser and everyone piled in. Kevin and Emily sat in back with Toucan and Danny on their laps. Jordan climbed into the driver’s side. The top of his head was level with the top of the steering wheel. Abby claimed the passenger seat and buckled up.
They planned to drive straight to the house of Jordan’s friend, Eddie Egan. Eddie was a local. He’d likely know which families on the island had babies and toddlers. These younger kids, unable to care for themselves, would be in the greatest danger.
Before they left, Abby turned to face the kids in the back seat. “Want to play a game?”
“Duck, Duck, Goose!” Danny said.
Toucan clapped excitedly. “Toucan play!”
“Here are the rules,” she said. “When I say moo, cover your eyes. And keep them covered! When I say boo, take your hands away. Moo, boo.” Abby demonstrated. “Moo, cover them. Boo, take your hands away.” After they’d practiced for a while Abby was sure they understood what to do.
Jordan fired up the engine and, to the delight of the wild ones, blasted the siren. Abby brought the microphone to her lips. “Hello.” Her voice boomed from the speaker mounted on the roof.
Ready as they would ever be, Jordan backed into the street and headed in the direction of the harbor.
“Moo,” Abby said. The kids giggled and covered their eyes. “Good! No peeking.” They approached the green car wrapped around the telephone pole. Abby felt the pressure of tears and she pinched herself to stay composed. Her brother’s description of the accident had been vague. It was much worse than what she expected. Abby wondered what Ryan Foster had been thinking. Had he found his parents and then panicked?
They drove beyond the gruesome scene. Game over, Abby said, “Boo,” in a tone that echoed her sadness.
Jordan parked at the police station. “We need another radio,” he said and hopped out of the cruiser. He jogged inside the station, but quickly returned empty-handed. “Couldn’t find one.”
They drove to the harbor. Abby repeatedly called out over the loudspeaker. “We can help you. My name is Abby Leigh. I’m in the seventh grade. Please come to the car.”
The electricity was spotty. The jetty beacon flashed, but the neon sign at Haffner’s Gas was off. Street lights were on, traffic lights off.
Jordan steered around a minivan stopped in the middle of the road. The driver was slumped over the wheel. Danny pointed at a body lying prone on the dock, wearing bright yellow rain gear, hard to miss. “Look,” he cried. “That man is asleep.”
“Moo,” Kevin said.
Toucan and Danny ignored Kevin and gawked.
Emily pointed. “A bird!”
Abby thought that Emily was trying to divert the kids’ attention, but it really was a bird. The crow perched on a phone line. The first bird she had seen in three days.
“I’ll give a dollar to anyone who sees a seagull,” Kevin said.
Emily explained that on family trips their parents played a game with them, offering rewards for spotting animals. “A moose was twenty-five dollars,” she said. “We never saw one.”
“If anyone sees a bee, I’ll give them a quarter,” Jordan said.
“It’s too early in the year for bees,” Abby said.
“The average beehive has sixty thousand bees,” Kevin said.
“What if I see a beehive?” Emily asked.
Jordan winked at her in the mirror. “I’ll owe you a hundred dollars.” Abby saw her brother’s cheeks redden.
Here they were—driving a police car on what had recently been the island’s busiest street, talking about moose, beehives, Kevin proving he was a human encyclopedia, her brother flirting with Emily—Abby could only shake her head.
They turned onto Wildwood Drive. The winding road hugged the shoreline on the eastern side of the island. A quarter mile from the harbor, the passengers jolted forward when Jordan slammed the brakes hard, without apology.
“Deer,” Toucan squealed.
Abby turned to Kevin and smiled. “How much for a deer?” When she saw the expressions of shock, she looked out the window and quickly realized she had spoken too soon. In the field on the right, a pack of coyotes was chasing a small fawn.
The fawn zigged and zagged with the inevitable about to happen. Once the pack closed in, Abby could no longer watch.
They drove on in silence, passing mansions—summer homes for rich people—perched back on expansive lawns. Waves pounded the rocky shore on the opposite side of the road, sending up cascades of spray that dissolved into purple mist.
Up ahead, Abby spotted two boys standing on the side of the road. She recognized them from school. “They’re twins,” she said. “I think they’re in the first grade.”
Jordan eased to a smooth stop, and she climbed out.
The boys stared vacantly at her. She squatted to be eye level with them. “My name is Abby. You’ve seen me before?”
The one on the left nodded.
“What are your names?” she asked.
“Chase.”
“Terry.”
“Well, Chase and Terry, have you guys ever ridden in a police car?”
* * *
The addition of the twins crowded the car, so Jordan returned home to drop off everyone but Emily. The kids piled out of the police cruiser as if it were a school bus. He breathed a sigh of relief when Abby disappeared inside. She knew him better than anyone, and he was rarely successful trying to hide things from her. But now she suspected nothing.
With Emily beside him in the passenger seat, Jordan pulled away from his house, ready to resume the search.
Once they rounded the bend, he stopped in front of the house owned by the old man who mended fishing nets. “Promise you won’t tell anyone what I’m going to do!” Jordan said.
Emily narrowed her eyes. “How can I promise that? I don’t know what it is.”
“Do you trust me?”
She nodded and lightly touched his arm. His heart fluttered. “Okay,” she said, “I promise.”
Jordan reached behind his back and grabbed the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants. His fingers barely encircled the fat grip. He held it up. Heavy as a brick, the weight surprised him. He had no idea if it were loaded with bullets. The black metal gleamed and still held the warmth of his skin.
Emily gasped and leaned against the door. “Where did you get that?”
“The police station. It was in a drawer. You can’t tell Abby! We might need it in an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” she asked, her voice quaking.
“Coyotes,” he said.
Another danger might crop up — people wanting to take their food or hurt them. Jordan had considered what it might be like with millions of desperate, hungry survivors. The gun would offer protection. This thought he kept to himself.
“Jordan what do you know about a gun?”
Nothing beyond what he had seen on television and in movies. His parents had forbidden him to play with toy guns. He shrugged. “Just because we have a gun doesn’t mean we’ll use it. It’s only a precaution.”
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t like it.”
“Only you and I will know where it is.”
Jordan stepped out of the car and placed the gun inside a mailbox on a post beside the old man’s driveway. He’d find a better hiding place later.
Neither one of them mentioned it again.
Emily’s voice rang out through the loudspeaker as they drove through the harbor area. “My name is Emily Patel. Please come out. We can help you.”
She turned to him when they were on Wildwood. “Jordan, have you thought what the future will be like? Next year? Five years from now?”
He shook his head, not wanting to frighten her with his version of a desperate future.
“Except for a few adults,” she continued, “we’ll be the oldest people on the planet. We’
ll teach the younger kids what we know and open schools. We’ll read books on medicine and train ourselves how to be doctors. Machinery is so complicated. Maybe we’ll live like they did three hundred years ago.”
“I guess you’ve thought about it a lot.”
“Jordan, it will be the responsibility of our generation to keep the human race going.”
“Emily, look!”
Two cows were grazing in the Parlee Farm field.
“Have you ever milked a cow?” he asked, grateful for the distraction.
“You got to be kidding me?”
“How hard can it be? You just grab the udder and squeeze.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying,” Emily said.
Jordan stopped where they had a better view of the cows. They were black and white and huge. Space dust had tinged their white spots purple. “They have plenty of food with all that grass, but we’ll have to make sure they get fresh water,” he said and then raised Abby on the two-way radio to tell her about the discovery. She reminded him that Parlee Farm sold eggs, which meant they would also find chickens, assuming they had survived. After their discussion, Danny and Toucan took turns speaking with him. Toucan, especially, seemed excited to talk over a radio.
Jordan returned the mic and smiled sadly. “I guess when you’re two years old all of this is a big adventure.”
* * *
“The first clinical trials have determined the bacterial pathogen is resistant to penicillins, cephalosporins, macrolides… ”
The robotic voice was delivering a new update. The internet no longer worked, something about the ISP’s main server going down, Kevin had explained, which left FM 98.5, the CDC station, as the only source of news from the scientists.
“Danny, please get Kevin,” Abby said. She had last seen him upstairs, showing the twins, Chase and Terry, around.
Danny raced up the stairs with Toucan in hot pursuit.
Abby turned up the volume. “Trials remain inconclusive for tetracyclines and aminoglycosides,” the robot continued. “Genetically engineered modifications are being prepared… ”
She relaxed when the broadcast repeated. In fact, it played over and over again. But she could have listened to it a hundred times and still not understood much. It was ironic, Abby thought. The listening audience was under the age of fifteen, but you needed a college degree to understand the report. The scientists could use a lesson in how to explain things to kids. Luckily, they had Kevin Patel.
