“The virus,” Jesse says, his voice light, though he watches me with the anxious gaze of before. “Bornavirus LX. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about it.”
“Of course I have. I just heard there’s ten cases around here now. It’s down by Uncle Craig, too.”
“When’s he coming?”
“He flies up tomorrow,” I say. Craig is my other best friend and their adopted uncle. He’s also the most neurotic person I know, though he says I should thank him for making my neuroses seem average by comparison. When I couldn’t get through to him earlier today, I left a message joking that I hoped he wasn’t infected with the crazy virus and too busy attacking people to answer.
“Tell him to be careful. This shit is fucked up.”
“Did I raise you to speak that way?”
“Fuck yeah,” Jesse says, at the same time as Holly says, “You sure fucking did.”
I laugh. The Winter family also curses plenty. “Quiet, the both of you.”
They grin and return to their video. At an ear-piercing scream that lasts a good three seconds, I shove the ice cream into the freezer and walk around the counter. The video is of an empty city street, possibly San Francisco, and the bearer of the camera is running uphill past closely packed Italianate homes. Along with the standard noises of microphone jostling and heavy breathing, there are distant yells.
“Wait for it,” Jesse says.
The camera stops and pans to face downhill. At the base of the street, maybe two blocks away, is a throng of people large enough to fill the dip in the road past where it rises again in the distance. They’re coming toward the camera, though it’s impossible to make out details.
“Jesus Christ,” the camera holder says, his voice as shaky as the image. He’s around Jesse’s and Holly’s ages from the sound of it. “Do you see that? All those zombies?”
There’s fear in his voice. A horrified awe. It makes my stomach churn in a visceral, get-out-now kind of way.
“Go!” a female voice yells. The cameraman is jerked around, then begins to run, before the screen goes black.
Jesse clicks out of the video and scrolls down the web page. “It says they shut down communications in California yesterday, but he managed to upload this from San Francisco somehow. No one’s heard from him since.”
“He could’ve used footage of a marathon or protest or something,” Holly says. “You can do crazy shit with computers.”
“They haven’t said anything about closing the highways,” I add. “Craig would’ve called if it were that bad.”
Jesse lifts his phone and jiggles it. “He wouldn’t be able to call if they shut everything down.”
“Oh, God,” Holly says. “Imagine Uncle Cray in something like that? He’d die.”
Uncle Cray is short for Uncle Cray-Cray, which the kids took to calling him years ago. Craig got a kick out of it, and it stuck. I grab my phone and dial him again, disconnecting when I get voicemail, then return to my bags of groceries. It sounded like real fear in the cameraman’s voice, but it was only a stunt of some kind, likely for subscribers. All anyone under the age of thirty wants is subscribers to their YouTube channels, and people love zombies enough that they’ll be all over that video. I might believe an alien invasion, but zombies are a little much.
“While I have no doubt the government would deny a zombie apocalypse even while we were being eaten alive,” I say, “I’m fairly certain there’s no zombie virus.”
Jesse sighs. I point at him. “But there’s still a virus. Maybe you guys should stay in tonight, have people over and hang out in the basement if you want. You don’t want to catch it, zombies or not.”
The reports of the sick attacking others are real enough to kick off the familiar tingle of worry in my chest. Maybe the kids are in college, but they’re my babies. Ethan jokes that I still fear SIDS will steal one of them in the night, and though I laugh, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. There are so many ways to die, so many things that can go wrong, and I have a card catalogue of every single one of them in my head, ready to be rifled through and obsessed over at any given moment.
“Jess,” Holly whispers, her features serious but eyes glittering, “look at Mom. She’s doing her freak-out thing.”
“Do you think she’s imagining all the ways zombies could eat us?” Jesse murmurs.
I flip my perfect children the bird. They crack up. “How was your test, sweets?” I ask Holly.
She blows out a breath. “I don’t know. Physics is kicking my ass. I forget everything as soon as I learn it, but I think I remembered enough to do okay.”
Her right hand moves to her left, and she begins to pick at her cuticles. It’s a nervous habit, one that leaves her fingers bloody at times. Though she’d always been apprehensive, Ethan’s addiction brought it to the forefront. Between time and therapy, she’s learned to handle it well, but it creeps out in stressful situations. I hate it, hate the thought that I might have given her my anxieties. Crazy hair is bad enough.
“I’m sure you did fine,” I say.
“I have to do better than fine. If I want to get into a good vet school, I have to ace everything.”
“You usually do, even when you think you haven’t. And if you don’t this time, you can ask for extra credit.” Holly nods quickly. I reach across the counter and place my hand on hers to draw attention to her picking. She smiles sheepishly and tucks her left hand beneath the counter as I lift a container from a bag. “I got you Toby’s Tofu Dip. And a spare to take home with you.”
“You’re still a vegetarian?” Jesse asks his sister. “Didn’t you outgrow that annoying phase yet?”
Holly smacks his arm. “Caring about the humane treatment of animals isn’t a phase, ass.” She squeezes his bicep. “Ooh, someone’s been hitting the gym.”
Jesse pokes her side. “Ooh, someone’s been hitting the ice cream.”
“I have not. And someone’s an asshole.”
I turn from the refrigerator. “It’s a miracle I didn’t drop you two at a fire station and take off for parts unknown.”
They make their usual faces at our long-standing joke. I may have been tempted to drop them at a fire station in the throes of the sibling rivalry decade, when they fought every waking moment, but they’ve been friends since their teen years.
“Mom, you look skinnier,” Holly says.
“I’m using the treadmill.”
I’ve been on it every day for three weeks in an effort to lose the few pounds I gain every winter, which I jokingly call my winter coat. The weight has always slid off in the spring without trying. Not this year.
“You mean the spare closet?” Jesse asks. The treadmill in the basement is often covered with things that need to air dry and old coats waiting to be packed up.
“Haha,” I say, and blow Holly a kiss. “Thank you, Daughter. You’re now my favorite child.”
I continue unpacking groceries. Listening to them joke-squabble, I could almost forget what I saw earlier and pretend Ethan is at work. Almost. But the food in the refrigerator, the bags of chips and boxes of crackers on the counter, and the wide variety of alcohol, remind me that Saturday is our anniversary party.
If the kids weren’t here, I’d be fighting the urge to search Ethan’s dresser drawers, his toiletries, and his desk in the basement for signs of drugs: an almost-invisible line of dust on a smooth surface, a syringe, a pill or two, a bag of powder. Even if all the proof I needed was clutched in his hand on his way to his car, I’d already be doubting myself.
My chest closes. Dread works its way up to my brain, crowding out all other thoughts. I have to do it. The next time Ethan accuses me of wanting to leave, I have to find the strength to say he’s right. I have to face his hurt expression and hold my ground through the recriminations that will come.
“Muh-om!” Holly yells.
I snap out of my thoughts. “Yes, girl child?”
“Dad said he was leaving work early. Where is he?”
&nb
sp; “I guess he had to stay later than he thought.” I shove a package of cheese into the fridge, glad my back is to them, and then about-face with a pasted-on smile. “I’m sure he’ll be home soon.”
“Okay.” Holly stands from the counter. “I’m going to find Willa.”
After she leaves, Jesse sets his arms on the counter. He has been hitting the gym. Where he was toned before is now thicker muscle, and I half want to ask him what he did with my little boy. “What’s going on? With Dad.”
“Nothing. You don’t need to worry.”
“You don’t need to protect me.”
Three years ago, Jesse walked in on his father snorting pills. It’s been impossible to lie to him about Ethan’s recovery or lack thereof, depending on the moment. Holly knows about her dad’s problem, but in a past tense way. Dad had a problem five years ago, and now it’s fixed. She doesn’t know about the relapses or how strained our marriage has become.
Jesse doesn’t need to know that last part either, though I sometimes suspect he does. I wipe the perfectly clean counter to avoid looking at him, then move to the garbage can and brush off the non-existent crumbs. “Actually, protecting you is the official description of my job as a mother. The only things you need to worry about are finishing college and having fun. Then getting a job. We’re tired of paying for your insurance, since you have fifteen speeding tickets.”
“Two, Mom. Two speeding tickets.”
“Whatever. Stop speeding. I don’t want to have to identify your body on the side of I-5.” I knock on the wood chopping block, as I always knock wood when I’ve jinxed myself. Usually, I wouldn’t even joke about one of the kids dying—it’s too much like tempting fate—but it slipped out. I knock on my head for good measure.
“Mom…” Jesse’s eyes are full of an earnest love, the same as when he was little and would insist he loved me more than I loved him, which was sweet but so colossally wrong.
I walk to the kitchen side of the breakfast counter and touch his cheek the way I did back then. It’s rough now, but I can still see that soft little guy inside. “I love you, boy child. But you only need to take care of you. And maybe any zombies that happen past. I’d poop my pants if I had to do it.”
Jesse laughs and shakes his head.
3
Tom
I park my bicycle in the garage and walk through the door at two-thirty on the nose. When work is finished at the shop, we close for the day. My employees appreciate the bonus free time, and happy employees are good employees. Though if it’d been one of our swamped days, the news that Bornavirus has hit Eugene might’ve had me locking up early anyway.
Sheila is chopping vegetables in the kitchen, and she smiles when I enter. “Hi, sweetie.”
“I don’t like the look of that virus,” I say.
I didn’t pay much attention to Bornavirus until late last night, when I clicked a link here, another there, and ended up on various forums. I laughed off the crazy talk about how California’s borders are unofficially closed and their communications down, how the virus leads to such aggression that some call it the zombie virus, how the victims resemble the dead—or are dead, though no one could agree on that—and appear to feel no pain. Today, one of my employees, Mark, went on and on about it. Zombie apocalypses and headshots and how he plans to take every last one of the undead down. Those zombie fanatics definitely have a screw loose, but I still don’t like this virus.
“I’m fine,” Sheila says in response to my announcement, “and how are you?”
“Sorry, hon. I’m good. We got that job.”
“We did?”
I nod as if it isn’t a big deal—a huge deal. It doesn’t fool Sheila, who jumps up and down, planting a giant kiss on my lips. “Would you smile, Tom? I promise it won’t kill you.”
I grin the way only Sheila can make me do. This job will put us in the black for the year, payroll included, and it’s barely April. We do all right—better than many—but I want a decent retirement with no penny-pinching, unlike my parents. And I definitely don’t want my kids to have to support me as I did my own folks.
“What do you say we go out this weekend to celebrate?” I ask.
“We are going out. Rose and Ethan’s thing, remember?”
The dream of a good dinner and a movie, followed by some mind-blowing sex, is dead before it ever fully materialized. “Do we have to?”
“You know we do.” Sheila tucks her blond hair behind her ear. “Clara’s coming down tomorrow, anyway. It’s been months since she visited, and I want to see her.”
Small talk with people I don’t want to see is not my idea of a celebration. And Clara will pick a fight with me the second she walks through the door. My daughter is too much like me—the parts of me I don’t like. “We’re barely friends with them. They won’t notice if we don’t show. Rose gets on my nerves.”
“Rose gets on your nerves because you’re an antisocial grump. She’s only trying to put you at ease. Herself, too. I know you won’t believe this, but she’s shy.”
I make a derisive noise. Sheila levels me with her serious expression. “Rose has been good for Clara. And me. Do you know how many times she talked me down during the teen years? Don’t you dare be a jerk to her. She’s good people.”
“All right, all right,” I say. Maybe it’s that Rose is four years younger than us, or that she acts like a teenager herself, but she got through to Clara when no one else could. Though I’m thankful for that, Rose drives me a little crazy. Flighty people always do—especially flighty people who turn their flightiness into accidental success. Success is supposed to happen by buckling down, making plans, and not deviating from those plans. It’s a tried and true method.
I spent years attempting to knock that work ethic into the kids’ heads, and then Rose decided to be a realtor just before the getting got good, lucked into a high-priced home as a client, and, from there, grew a successful business that she and Ethan plan to sell later this year. As far as I can tell, she does nothing but flit around town. One of those people who never has to worry about a thing.
“Stop frowning, Tom.” Sheila raises her knife jokingly. “You know, you’d like Rose if you gave her a chance. I wish I were a little more like her.”
“I don’t,” I say, and resign myself to the party. I’ll have a few drinks, put up with Rose yapping at me, make nice, and then come home the second it’s permissible. “I like you just the way you are.”
Sheila’s eyes crinkle, and though I can see she’s aged, those lines sit under the visage of the girl I met in college. She can still loosen me up, make me laugh at myself—as much as that’s possible now. Once upon a time, it was easy enough.
“Okay if I get in a workout?” I ask. “I’ll help with dinner after.” I follow my exercise plan religiously. If you go soft in your forties, it’s harder to get back in shape.
Sheila leans against the counter, one hip pushed out suggestively. “What kind of workout? Jeremy won’t be home for a few hours.”
I smile. Of course, every now and again, changing a plan is fine by me.
I get in a quick workout after the first, then shower, towel off, and pick up my phone. I usually work out to music, but I listened to the news today, and what I heard—thirty-five cases in the Eugene area—has made me uneasy enough to call Clara. I can’t remember the last time I called her. Usually, Sheila sticks me on the phone for a few stilted lines of conversation. Or, since Clara’s at school in Portland, I see her on weekend visits. It’s obvious Sheila misses her, and I hadn’t realized it’s been that long since she came down.
The notion that I’m likely the reason Clara doesn’t visit more makes an unwelcome appearance. No sooner do we get in the same room than a fight breaks out. If I’m truthful with myself, I know it isn’t just Clara, but I don’t know how to change it. Sheila is being punished by our antics, however, and if there’s anything she doesn’t deserve, it’s punishment.
I check the clock. It’s a little on the
early side. I’ll give it an hour or two, just in case Clara’s busy. It has nothing to do with the fact I’m feeling good, happy even, and don’t want to fight just yet. Or that’s what I tell myself.
4
Rose
Willa arrived with a few soft toys from her previous life. The stuffed mouse is her favorite, and she chases it around the living room, her tiny nails clicking on the wood floor.
“Willa!” Holly calls. The dog spins in a circle and stops, her barrel chest heaving with anticipation. Holly tosses the toy. “Get the mousie!”
Even I laugh as Willa takes off on her stick legs with her curled tail bouncing. I can’t fathom why Ethan presented me with this gift, especially since I’m more of a cat person. Not that you can call Willa a dog; a freak of nature is more apt.
When Willa returns, Holly coaxes her into her lap, where Willa settles down and chews on her toy. Holly rests her cheek on Willa’s head. “I just want to squish her, I love her so much.”
“Don’t get too attached,” I warn. “I may be finding her a new home.”
Holly’s forehead wrinkles. “Isn’t she your anniversary present?”
“Yes, but she was…unexpected.” Trying to explain drains me of energy, like everything having to do with Ethan. “Dogs are a lot of work.”
Holly nods as if she understands, but it’s clear she doesn’t. Aside from the pets we already had, she spent most of her childhood bringing home animals to fix. We nursed baby birds, stray cats, neglected dogs, and even injured moths.
“Maybe I can take her,” Holly says.
“Does your apartment allow dogs?” Jesse asks.
“I can ask. She’s practically a cat, anyway.” She kisses Willa’s head. “Aren’t you, Willa Vanilla?”
Guilt twists in my middle, along with anger at Ethan for landing me in another no-win position. “She’s fine for now. Don’t worry about it just yet.”
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 2
