by Tara Brown
Joey opens her mouth, but I leave before I have to hear anymore. I’m not excited about it either. I grab my flashlight and gun and slip out onto the front porch. The gravel street is silent. There isn’t even a twig breaking or a leaf scuttling.
There is only silence.
It’s almost worse than a leaf dragging across the gravel or a twig cracking. Where are the birds? Are they sick too?
My stomach aches but I know we need the stove. I can’t turn on the generator for lights; it makes more noise than a freight train. But the stove is a must.
I take a breath, looking out at the bright afternoon and decide if I act casually, it’s no biggie. I’ve started it a hundred times—today is no different.
Of course when I’m on the second step to the ground level, my brain mentions that in fact, that is not true.
Today is different.
Today I am potentially an orphan and definitely in danger of being attacked by the things everyone is becoming. The biters.
When my feet crunch onto the gravel, I take another deep breath. I feel exposed, like when we are bow hunting and I’m alone in my perch, waiting for something to come.
Only now I am waiting for a person to come—a person who wants to kill me for no reason other than wanting me to be like them. I shudder as the memories of Julia’s father’s face, and Mr. Baumgartner’s, fill my head.
I push them away and slip behind the house to the small door to the underside of the cabin.
My fingers shake when I reach for the handle, looking all around me and listening like I am alone in the forest. I open the door slowly, peeking my face into the dimly lit space. It looks identical to how it did the last time I was here. I take one last look around and make a run for it, the way I always do. I treat it like an obstacle course. The house is built on huge stilts for the snow in the winters. The underside of it is beams, joists, and posts with hay and grass on the ground. Joey and I hate it down here.
I run—jump to a beam—swing from one joist to leap over another beam—drop into the exposed underneath of the house—crawl over the old hay and dead grass to the propane tank. I open the valve—check the line for smell, and then do the same routine back to the door. I crouch at the entrance and listen to the sound of my pounding heart and ragged breath.
There is nothing.
When my heart slows to a slightly more normal pace, I tell myself none of this is any different than when I was a kid and pretended the wolves would get me so I had to make it fun.
I open the door and creep along the side of the house again, still listening. Hiking and hunting are the same as this. I have to believe that.
I hurry, grabbing a fast load of firewood and knocking at the door. I can’t help but look behind me as the door opens. Joey looks worried until I am inside and the door is locked again. Furgus raises his head and scruffy eyebrows at me from his bed in front of the woodstove. He hasn't even batted an eyelash since we arrived. For him this is a happy place.
I carry the wood over to the huge potbelly stove and start the fire the dog is waiting for. “The smell of the burning wood might draw people here, so we will only burn late in the day to get it warm inside.”
As the sun sets I can’t help but feel stressed. I don’t have any idea if we will be okay or not, if my father will come or not, or if all of this is more serious than I can imagine. And I already think this is damned serious.
“Can we pray before we sleep?” Lissie asks.
My head snaps around. “What?” I catch my first glimpse of the cross on her throat. I don’t know how to pray but I smile. “Sure.”
Joey gives me an eye roll. Lissie puts her hands out and we stand in the living room holding hands. Her warm hand feels so small in mine. So does Joey’s.
I close my eyes and spit out the first words that come to me. “Dear God, uhm . . . me and Lissie and Joey and Julia are super grateful for the help you’ve given us so far. I mean, we got lucky a couple times, so I guess thanks for that. Please keep our parents safe and uh . . . us. Keep us safe here and Gus—not sure how you feel about dogs, but can you keep him safe too? Please make everyone leave us alone, except our parents.” I’m rambling. I crack an eyelid and see their little faces are covered in tears. I nod. “Thanks, God.”
“Amen.” Lissie mutters as Joey pulls her hand away and hugs herself. “Can I sleep with you?” I’m about to say no when all of their little faces turn to me. I sigh. “We can all sleep together.”
The cabin is warm from the fire. If anything, it’s too warm, so I open the door to the potbelly wood stove and tamp down the wood that’s in there. I spread the cinders out, just like my father used to and close all the drafts. “Check the windows. Make sure everything is double-locked.”
They each take a room, double-locking the windows and making sure all the curtains are drawn. The dim candlelight is perfect. I doubt anyone would even be able to see it from outside with the curtains drawn.
I place a chair under the only doorknob we have in the house. “Our aunt keeps a chamber pot in her bedroom. You hover over it like a toilet. It’s what we use at night, okay?”
They make a face—it’s almost the same for all three. Julia wrinkles her nose. “What do we do when we finish?”
“Chuck it out a window.”
“What if we step in it the next day?” Lissie asks.
“Let’s worry about that in the morning.” I sigh, almost feeling like we are back to normal and Joey and her friends are pissing me off back home. “Bedtime.”
We all climb the loft stairs, including Furgus who I know is going to sleep right in the bed with us. When we get to the top I pull the set of stairs up into the loft. I hated this annoying set of stairs when I was a kid—flimsy and cheap. Now I thank the gods my dad never made proper ones.
We crawl into bed, sharing a room with two double beds. Furgus sleeps with me and Joey, completely covering the bottom half of the bed.
I look at us all snuggled into bed, the girls with their stuffies, and smile. “We made it here, we made it through a day. We’re doing better than a lot of people.” I give Joey a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for bringing Songa.”
She smiles. “You would have been sad without her.” She passes Furgus his monkey—a stuffed toy he has had since birth that he never ruined. It’s the only toy he has always treated with kid gloves. He drags Monkey into his embrace, laying his head on the stuffed animal’s chest and closes his eyes.
When I blow out the candle, I feel for my phone in my pocket and switch it on. The signal is gone still. I flip through the photos. Mom on the phone, heating up dinner. Me and Tanya at the concert. Me and Tanya on the bus after the concert. Me and my friend Jamie at the school dance. Me and Sasha in a tree. Me in front of the new truck Dad bought. Joey and Julia on the couch playing with their iPads. Dad trying to teach us to fly-fish, what a fail that was. I smile, even here in the lonely dark, and remember how sucky we were. The next picture is of me with my cool pale-blue bow and quiver set. I thought I was so badass with it—until I shot myself in the foot anyway . . .
I flick off the phone to preserve battery life and lie back.
In the dark I can hear the moment the girls are asleep and I take the couple minutes I think I have before sleep takes me too and whisper, “God, if you can hear me, I need you. I don’t have a plan. I don’t know what to do. If you could send me a sign, or help us out in some way, that would be awesome. I got these girls, and I don’t know what to do.” I listen to the night around me. “I’m scared. I know I’ve never prayed before, but they’re little. Can you just help us? My dad is our best bet. Please get him here. We can’t be alone. We’re kids.”
I close my eyes but my brain is still going over the details and questions.
Is it this bad everywhere or only in Laurel?
Is it the fresh air—the cold fresh air mixing with the virus and making them last longer than they should?
What is the head jerk?
Is the cabi
n safe? Did I make the right choice coming here? Did I have a choice? Am I going to get us all killed?
The worst question I have running through my head is—what if we are alone? What if our parents are dead and it’s the four of us?
What do four little girls know about staying alive?
I clutch Songa and think about the things I have going for me, instead of against. I am on a possibly deserted mountaintop, it’s cold here, my cabin is double-locked, and the stairs to the high loft are up here with me.
I have a feeling I am one of the safest people within a hundred miles. Maybe a million miles.
Chapter 4
Day Three
The giggles are getting to be more frequent.
Julia holds up a picture. “See, mine looks more like him.” The picture is of a tabby cat. Lissie giggles. “No, that looks like a seal.”
I smile from the pot of Kraft Mac and Cheese I’m stirring. Joey has her nose wrinkled up as she hurries to finish hers. She does everything slower than her friends. She has a subtle learning disability with reading and writing. So school things have always been harder for her, but in everything else, she is faster. She runs faster, pushes her body harder, and takes challenges with ease. She smiles wide, still wrinkling her freckled nose. “Mine is better.”
The other two do something that makes tears fill my eyes. Her picture is by far the worst but they both nod. “It’s awesome, Jo.”
She looks at theirs and rolls her blue-gray eyes. “Whatever. Yours are way better.” She slaps the picture down. The three of them are like a set of triplets, but look nothing alike. Julia has soft-brown eyes and dark-brown hair. Lissie has bright-blue eyes and shiny blonde hair. Joey has gray-blue eyes and reddish-brown hair, like Dad and me. But they’re all about the same size and height. They all have perfect little faces and funky ten-year-old teeth that are half baby teeth and half adult. They are children. I smile through the sickening feeling in my stomach and spoon the noodles into the bowls. “Here, girls.”
They leave the crayons and paper at the old coffee table and climb up to the dining room table my mom bought at a garage sale. They sit silently and eat from the bowls that were ours when we were little.
I take a bite from the pot, noticing it is missing that buttery taste that milk and butter add. Lissie gives me a look. “This isn’t as good as my mom’s.”
“No butter and no milk. I had to add a bit of water to it. We have to ration the milk.” I sigh. “This is something we’re going to have to get used to. Everything is going to be plain and boring until they can make the sick people better and stuff.”
Their little faces drop and Julia stops eating.
I’m an idiot.
I sit down at the table. “So, who here was in Girl Scouts?”
Lissie scowls. “Not me. I’m in ballet.”
It makes me chuckle as I nod at Julia and Joey. “You two were though. What did you learn there?”
Julia shrugs. “We didn't do anything. We made marshmallow banana boats and helped old people.”
“Did you learn to make fires or cut firewood or cook or anything?”
Joey grins. “I can make toast on a fire like Dad taught us and I can make smoothies in the Magic Bullet.”
Lissie raises her hand. “I can do that too.”
I eat another bite and laugh harder. “I don't think we have any of those. Until they fix the sick it’s going to be fires and eating as little as possible.”
Joey looks at the window. “What about Dad? Do you think he’s with Mom yet?”
I nod, swallowing the bitter taste that suddenly fills my mouth. “I do.” I dish Furgus up some of his canned dog food and nod at the sink of warm water I heated up. “You girls are on dishes.”
Julia cocks an eyebrow. “No dishwasher?”
Joey slaps her hand against her head and Lissie snickers. “Of course not.”
Julia ducks behind her bowl. “Oh yeah. I forgot. Man, we gotta hand wash like the dark ages. Remember when we watched that cartoon and they were hand washing the dishes and he used magic to do it? Why can’t we have magic?”
I sigh and put the pot on the counter. “That's not the only thing that's like the dark ages. I’m going for firewood so we can make it warm again tonight.” I grab my handgun and glance out the windows. There is nothing but a fresh layer of snow on the gravel. I pull the chair from the door, my stomach instantly feeling the flutterings of anxiety.
I wrap my fingers around the knob and swallow hard.
When I turn the locks and crack the door, the cold air rushes in at me. It smells fresh and inviting. What a lie.
My heart is trying to dig its way out of my chest, but I manage to step out onto the porch without running back inside like a little girl—like the little girl I am still.
“Lou!”
I jump and look back at the house, pressing my back against the door I’ve slammed far too loud. The girls are all standing there in the doorway. Joey gives me a hilarious face. “What are you doing? We gotta—go.”
It takes several breaths for me to get my heart rate back to reasonable. “Let’s not do shouting like that. Everyone speak calmly so I don't have a heart attack.”
“We gotta go.” They furrow their brows, making me snort as I get the door open again. My ears perk up, listening for anything that might have heard us.
I glance at the ramp that leads beside the house. It’s high for when the snow falls. The whole house is built high. It should be safe so I nod. “Stay together.” They slip past me, scrambling up the thin catwalk to the large double-door outhouse. Lissie and Joey go inside. The wind blows Julia’s dark hair in front of her face. “Lou, you think my mom is okay?” She pulls the hair back so I can see her brown eyes again.
“Yeah. I do. Our parents are smart people. Your mom’s an engineer—she’s smart.” I know this because I have always wanted to be her when I grow up. She let me come to the college where she taught robotic engineering and take part in the events the classes would have with building things. I wanted to be a robotic engineer, once upon a time.
This week I want to find my dad. If I find my dad and the karmic cost is that I have to work at the supermarket the rest of my life, that’s cool. It’s not like my plans are ever set in stone anyway. Last week Sasha almost had me convinced we should take a year off and backpack Europe.
Now I’m not so sure Europe is there. My eyes keep a steady scan of the gravel road and tree line. I don’t know what to expect, but with the girls outside with me I feel safer. I feel braver.
I truly am a chicken.
I should feel safer with them in the house, but I hate being alone out here. It’s quiet and creepy. And just when I think I should be focused on survival, my brain won’t stop thinking about the fact my friends are down there. I can’t do anything but wonder how they are. Have they made it somewhere safe?
My bestie from Laurel, Sasha, is out of town. She texted me the morning before everything went bad. She was on her way back to Laurel. I doubt she made it back, but her dad is a trainer for the Griz at the University of Montana, so she’s probably still alive. She only sees him in Missoula every other weekend or if there’s an important game on. He’s a beast of a man and there is no way he would let her get hurt. Not to mention, she can run faster than anyone I know, even Joey, which is saying something.
Sasha is the star of our lacrosse team. She is a savage, and if any one of my friends is alive, it’s her. Tanya being in the city makes me nervous.
Loud thumping behind me makes me jump again. I’m wide-eyed and holding my breath when I see it’s just Joey and Lissie running down the plank from the outhouse. They’re laughing and smiling. I wish taking a poop would make me feel that much better.
Joey points. “You wanna go while we’re out here? We can take a watch.”
My stomach turns a little. I nod. “Scream if anything even moves and run back inside. Barricade the door.”
“WAIT FOR ME!” Julia screams from the
outhouse.
“They will. It’s okay.” It’s amazing how fast we all settle back into panic and fear. Nothing has changed, but just the prospect of being alone in the outhouse makes her almost lose it.
I guess I’m not the only chicken. ‘Course they’re ten and eleven. I’m seventeen and a senior. They’re in sixth grade.
Julia comes out wiping her hands from the icy-cold hand sanitizer my aunt keeps up there in huge bottles.
I point at the door. “Stand there and don’t move. Don’t screw around. Just wait for me and then you can go back inside.” I walk the plank to the outhouse. When I get inside, the toilet is warm. I would hate that normally but today it’s nice. It feels a lot less like being alone.
My tummy rumbles and I close my eyes for a second, just letting myself go for the minute I need.
When we are all back inside I decide I don't care that it’s daytime; I need the comfort of it, so I get the fire going. I lie down on the couch and close my eyes. No matter how hard I try to pretend my parents are here and we’re skiing, all I can see is Mr. Baumgartner’s eyes looking up at me from the window in the door. My fingers ache from the memory. A single tear slips down my cheek as that image is accompanied by the memory of closing my own mother into the bottom of the stairs.
I need my dad.
We’ve been here two days. Where is he?
“Lou?” I open my eyes to Lissie’s face right in mine. I back away. “What?” The tone is a little mean—I can tell by the way she winces. “There’s a noise.” She looks at the window as she says it.
I look up and see the sky is darker than it was a minute ago. Did I sleep? No, I couldn’t have. Lissie ducks, even though the curtains are all closed up, and walks to the window on the side of the cabin. It faces a cabin next door. It’s through the woods a little. The lots up here are huge in case people want to put in septic tanks.
Joey and Julia are there in the window, already on their knees and peeking through the bottom of the curtain. I rub my eyes and drop to my knees. Joey looks back. “There’s a car next door.”
