Autumn in the City of Lights

by Kirby Howell

  Relieved to see her mood almost returned to normal, I leaned back in my chair and wrapped up the remaining half of the sandwich to give to Grey.

  Connie opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated. I waited, too tired to push her. She looked at me, then said, “Happy Birthday, Autumn.”

  I nodded. My nineteenth birthday was today and had been in the back of my mind since the clock at the end of the hall clicked over to midnight.

  “Thanks Connie,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Let’s go home,” Connie said, heaving herself to her feet. “I made a little cake for you,” she said, trying to sound cheerful.

  I hugged her suddenly, so grateful for her. For her friendship, for the motherly way she took care of all of us, for her very presence. Her unborn baby was a warm bump between us. She hugged me back.

  “You know I’d do anything for any of you?” she whispered into my hair.

  “We know,” I whispered back.

  We stood quietly for another moment in our embrace. When we broke apart, her eyes were bright with tears, but she ignored them and picked up her bag, leading the way toward the hospital entrance.

  “I want to check in with Grey first. He might have something I can do to help out.”

  Connie frowned. “You both need some sleep, is what you need.”

  “You’ve known Grey longer than I have. Do you think you can make him leave the hospital while something like this is going on?”

  We found Grey with a group at the main entrance of the hospital. I paused when I saw he was helping carry a sheet-covered stretcher toward a waiting horse-drawn wagon painted black. The mortician was here to take Teddy away.

  I was surprised when no tears stung my eyes as I watched Teddy’s draped body disappear into the bed of the wagon. He’d had some mysterious connection to his late wife, Eleanor, and that was enough to stop me from feeling too sad at his departure. He was back with her now.

  Grey turned to face me suddenly, and our eyes locked. He looked shaken and deeply exhausted. As he neared me, I took a step back, but he passed with only the slightest of nods while he listened to Jen, who rushed along beside him.

  “Zak’s fever has remained steady at 103, but Andrew’s temperature spiked to 107 a few minutes ago. I’ve been applying the cool compresses, but he’s burning through them. He’s still conscious. I think you should go see him next. He’s in room four.”

  “Keep the cool compresses coming,” he said to Jen. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I caught up to him as he stopped at the desk and picked up one of the seven clipboards spaced out across the surface. I could see that each one was titled with the worker’s names and room numbers.

  He fished a pen out of his chest pocket and made a notation at the bottom of the page titled ‘Teddy, Room 109’. I read Grey’s note upside down: T.O.D. 7:15am. He put it back on the desk, but face down this time, and stared at it a moment.

  “Grey?” I said again. I felt a wild desperation to make sure he was okay, to help him, to comfort him. He looked at me. His bright blue eyes usually sparkled with life, but were now dull.

  “Here, you need to eat,” I said and pressed the sandwich into his hand. He looked at it a moment, then slipped it into his lab coat pocket.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You should go home. You don’t need to be here.”

  I opened my mouth to insist there had to be something I could do, but he’d turned and disappeared before I could say anything.

  I returned home with Connie and, after making her promise to wake me in a few hours, I stumbled upstairs, ignoring Rissi’s pleas to tell her what was happening at the hospital. I shut my door and leaned against it, staring at the bed, its warm blankets and soft pillows piled high. Instead of climbing into its comfortable depths, I slid down the door and curled into a ball on the floor and fell soundly asleep.

  When I woke, my back stiff and my stomach growling impertinently, I opened my eyes to sherbet-orange light soaking the room. Sunset, I realized. I’d slept all day. I jumped up, ignoring the pain in my back, and flung open my door.

  I found Connie, Daniel, Ben, and Rissi sitting at the table, the remains of dinner in front of them.

  “You said you’d wake me up in a few hours! What happened?” I cried to the room in general.

  “You needed the sleep,” Daniel said over the rim of his coffee mug.

  “I need to get back to the hospital,” I countered, heading around the table for the back door.

  “You can’t help, Autumn. Sit down and eat.” Daniel’s commanding voice made me pause.

  “There’s always something —” I began.

  “Not this time,” he said. “Sit. We need to talk.”

  I sat down, and Connie appeared at my side with a steaming bowl of corn chowder and a wedge of cornbread the size of Texas.

  “Eat,” she said, then sat down again across from Daniel.

  “Enough with the commands,” I said, beginning to feel irritated. Why was everyone so against having my help?

  I caught a mild stink eye from Connie and slumped into a chair.

  “I heard Grey hasn’t left the hospital since you all got back from the oil rig,” Daniel said.

  “We couldn’t have known. I hope he doesn’t blame me,” I said, my voice flat.

  I don’t think he blames anyone,” Daniel added. “That’s not a game he usually plays. But with all the new sick and dying, on top of the stress of finding a cure for the Crimson Fever for Connie and me... well, I don’t think he’s in a good place. It might be best if you give him a little space.” I started to object, but Daniel pressed on. “I actually think we could all give him some space. God knows what it was like for him the first time everyone got sick. This new outbreak has got to be bringing some of those memories back.”

  “But I don’t understand why this is happening in the first place. We’re all immune,” I nearly shouted.

  Ben put down his drink and leaned forward in his wheelchair. “Those men were not immune, Autumn.”

  “But how is that possible?”

  “Castor and Pullox are ten miles out in the Pacific. That’s far enough out that the sea breeze would constantly be blowing inland, keeping the air around the oil rigs free of The Plague virus. Staying out on that oil rig saved their lives.”

  I sat back in my chair, my bowl of corn chowder forgotten. How could we have known that taking seemingly healthy men from the oil rig back to New Burbank would kill them? We’d assumed everyone still alive was immune. But there could be more pockets of people left who were never exposed.

  “What about the jet stream?” Rissi asked, and we all looked at her. I raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “The jet stream,” she repeated, a hint of frustration in her little voice. “The big wind that carries all the weather around the world.”

  “What about the jet stream?” Daniel asked her.

  She sighed in an overly annoyed fashion. “Wouldn’t the jet stream also carry The Plague all around the world?”

  Ben considered what she was saying, while she barreled on. “Ben used to really be into weather, and he’d make me sit and watch The Weather Channel with him. He showed me how the weather we get in California comes from across the ocean, or from Canada, or from Mexico, depending on where the jet stream is, and after we get it, it goes across the country to the East Coast. So wouldn’t the guys on the oil rig get sick from the jet stream carrying The Plague from wherever it was before?”

  The butter balanced on Connie’s motionless knife slowly melted and slid to the waiting slice of cornbread below it. We all stared at Rissi. She flipped some of her long brown curls over her shoulder and stared back at us.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “You are your brother’s sister,” Daniel said, chuckling.

  “So? Aren’t I right? Ben?” She glared at Ben, as if chastising him for not speaking up in support of her brilliant, and obviously correct, theory.
<
br />   Ben finally spoke. “It’s an interesting concept, Rissi. If we didn’t have evidence from Castor and Pollux to work with, I’d say it was worth considering. I think whatever the jet stream could pick up of The Plague must get too diluted across the massive Pacific Ocean to be of any harm from one distant oil rig or island to the next. There’s just so much we don’t know about The Plague. The only thing we know for sure is that it’s strong... strong enough to survive this long and keep infecting new people. It’s remarkable, really...” He stared off into space again, considering.

  “Rissi, you should mention your theory to Grey,” Daniel said. “It might help him figure out a cure or inoculation for the newborns.”

  Rissi looked pleased with herself. I leaned over Ben’s shoulder and thumbed through the photos of the oil rig spread out in front of him. Regret panged through me when I came across the one of Kevin and me. He’d trusted us to be their salvation, and now, half the men he was responsible for were dead.

  “We need to go back out to the oil rigs to check on Kevin and the others,” I said. “I know we weren’t supposed to go back for another several days, but he deserves to know what happened to his friends, and they also need to be warned to stay out there and away from the mainland.”

  Daniel nodded. “We can leave tomorrow morning. The voting for the representative to go to Paris is supposed to happen tonight at the library, so we should all make sure to cast our votes. I’ll be glad when the elections are over. The squabbling over delegates got old months ago.”

  I stood up, pushing my chair back. “I’m going back to the hospital to see what I can do.” Daniel started to object, but I cut him off. “I won’t get in Grey’s way, or crowd him. I promise.”

  Daniel seemed satisfied and nodded agreement. Connie gave my mostly full bowl a pointed look, and I picked it up, shoveling a few spoonfuls of chowder into my mouth, then set the bowl back on the table.

  “I’m coming with you!” Rissi exclaimed.

  “No you’re not!” we all replied in unison.

  “But I want to tell Grey about my —”

  “Not a good time, Riss,” I told her. Her face fell, and I stopped to hug her. She half-heartedly returned the squeeze. “There will be time later,” I promised her.

  The roads were busier than I’d ever seen them. Snicket and I cut across deserted lawns and down uncleared side streets to avoid the crush of horses and wagons full of people going to cast their votes at the old Burbank Public Library. A backpack of food Connie insisted I bring with me to hand out to the hospital staff bounced on my shoulders as I cut down another side street. I kept my eyes trained on the tall building less than a mile away: the hospital.

  When I arrived, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the sky was darkening. I tied Snicket to a post with a few other horses in the parking garage and entered the hospital’s main doors.

  The reception area was empty. I stood still and listened. Everything was silent. I walked toward the desk, and a chill passed through me as I stared at the bottoms of the scuffed wooden clipboards. All but one was turned upside down.

  A muffled sniff caught my attention, and I followed the noise to the supply closet. I paused outside the door. Someone was crying inside. I tapped quietly on the door. The sniffling stopped, and silence followed. I was raising my hand to tap again when the door swung open. I moved back quickly as Jen stepped out.

  “Hey Autumn, are you looking for Grey? He’s around here somewhere. I’ll go find him for you.” She took care to keep her face pointed away from me. I guess she didn’t want anyone to know that she’d been crying, so I tried to play along.

  “I just came by to see if I could do anything. Connie sent some food with me, too.” I motioned to my backpack. “Has anyone eaten?”

  “Not really. It’s not been a good day,” Jen said, as we started to walk down the hallway.

  “I saw the clipboards,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I think Grey is in room six, with Zak. He’s the last patient. He’s unconscious.” Jen finally turned to face me, her cheeks splotchy with color and eyes bright with tears. “You can give me the food, if you like, so you can go see him. I’ll make sure everyone gets something to eat.”

  I quickly opened the bag and pulled out one of the covered bowls of chowder and a foil-wrapped piece of cornbread and then handed her the backpack.

  “Thank you for this,” Jen said, her smile warm but trembling. “Tell Connie thank you, too. And if you see Ben later, will you tell him I’m sorry for not having time to come visit these last couple of days?”

  I smiled and nodded, then excused myself. I found room six and peeked through the window before opening the door. I knew I probably shouldn’t bother Grey, but I couldn’t will myself away. He was arranging bags of ice around Zak’s head, neck, and shoulders. I pushed open the door. Grey didn’t look up at the sound.

  “Hey...” I said, stepping into the room. "I brought you something to eat.”

  “Thank you,” Grey said, finally glancing up at me. He motioned for me to sit down on top of the ice chest.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said. “You should rest, though. I bet you haven’t slept yet.”

  He shook his head. “No one here has slept. I keep telling them to go take breaks. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

  “I gave Jen a bag of food. She’s going to pass it out, so maybe they’ll all have a chance to sit down and rest for a while.”

  He pushed back one of Zak’s eyelids and shined a light into his pupil. I stepped closer to Grey, touching his arm. He didn’t respond. Something dense bumped against my leg, and I glanced down. The side pocket of his white lab coat bulged, and I peeked down into it. The half sandwich I’d given him early this morning was tucked in the pocket, still wrapped in the holiday plastic wrap. He hadn’t eaten.

  “Grey, please sit down and rest. Just for a moment.”

  He pulled his arm from my grasp and reached across Zak’s body to inspect his other eye. “I can’t,” he said simply.

  “Of course you can. I’ll watch Zak, or I’ll go get Jen to come in, and you can go sit down and eat something and maybe take a short nap —”

  “No,” he said sharply, and I stepped back. He didn’t look at me but continued to bustle around the bed, arranging the ice bags and checking the IV. “What if he wakes up while I’m gone? Or what if he slips into a coma? As long as I’m here, I can do something for him.”

  “Okay, you don’t have to leave the room.” I pushed the ice chest toward him. “Just sit down and eat.”

  “Not now, Autumn.” His voice broke when he said my name, but I charged ahead.

  “Grey...” I didn’t want to say what needed to be said. But he needed to hear it. “You can’t save him.” Without the Elemental Vitamin, Grey didn’t have a chance of saving anyone. But he hadn’t been able to find it because of me. Because I broke the chain, and the vial was lost back in Hoover.

  I stared at his back. He didn’t move. His hand rested on one of the ice bags, already mostly melted. His head tilted forward, chin to his chest.

  I went to his side and turned him to face me. His face was blank, his eyes dry and empty, staring at nothing. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Please just go,” he murmured.

  Stung, I stepped away, then turned and fled the room.

  Jen and a few of the other nurses were sitting in the reception area, silently sipping soup and dividing up the cornbread. I didn’t feel like socializing, so I kept walking and found my old chair in the hallway next to the never-ending vine wallpaper.

  My thoughts were like a plate overflowing with spaghetti – I’d try to catch one as it slipped off the side of the dish, but five more would slither off the other side while I was busy with the first. I sat there a long time, spiraling downward in my misery.

  I didn’t move when the chair next to me creaked under the weight of someone sitting down. I could tell it was a man, but it wasn’t Grey, or Daniel. Curious,
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Karl.

  I sighed. I might just kill him. Here and now. Most of our problems would go away, I was sure of that. And it couldn’t make me feel any worse.

  “What do you want?” I asked, dejected.

  “I came to offer my congratulations,” he said.

  I looked at him, confused.

  “You’ve been elected to be the representative of New Burbank at the Summit of New Nations.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “What?!” I demanded.

  “Don’t kill the messenger,” Karl said, holding up his hands.

  I stared at him. He was surely joking. I couldn’t have been chosen to represent New Burbank in Paris.

  “Diego would have gotten the popular vote.” He feigned sadness for Diego for all of a moment before continuing. “But in the wake of his untimely death, you were a shoo-in. According to the New Burbank general public, you make people feel ‘safe.’” He shook his head in disbelief. “Though it’s probably just your famous mother you remind them of. Obviously, none of them has ever been on the receiving end of your right hook, or they might have a different opinion of you. All in all, I’d say very well played.” He nodded as if impressed.

  “I didn’t play anything. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but Grey and I have been a little busy since getting back from the oil rigs.” I gestured to the hospital we sat in.

  “It seems death and devastation follow you wherever you go these days.”

  My eyes narrowed at him. I stood, still stiff, not only from the unknown amount of hours spent sitting, but also from the ten hours of sleep on my bedroom floor. It was nearly 3 a.m. by now.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked.

  “I didn’t. Diego, before he died, of course, invited me to be present during the counting of the votes. What with our spirit of cooperation, full transparency and all that. They just finished tallying the votes an hour ago, and I was on my way home. But I thought I should stop by to see how the patients were doing... not so good, I see. That’s when I found you. Seems like the universe keeps putting us in the same place, Miss Winters. What do you think of that?”