We ate a meager lunch that finished off the crackers—Maibe and I. Jane hadn't spoken to me in hours.
I handed Maibe the packaging so she could lick out the crumbs, and then set aside a bottle of water for Christopher. If we stayed inside the store for another day, we’d need to resort to the bathroom sink water.
Loud, clattering noises erupted what seemed like right outside.
“What’s going on out there,” Christopher shouted through his door.
I checked the front entrance to make sure it was still locked and barricaded, then returned to where Maibe stood on a countertop looking outside. I scrambled up next to her and we pressed our heads together. I smelled the stink of our combined sweat and fear from the last twenty-four hours. I ran a couple of fingers through my hair, felt oily build-up, and pushed all of it back behind my ears. The window was grimy and hard to see through. I pulled up my sleeve and wiped it across the glass.
People trickled down the street, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. Sometimes aimless, sometimes running with an unknown purpose. I couldn’t tell whether they were all sick, or if some of them were normal like us.
I jumped down and began pacing the room. Back and forth across the cold floor. The air in here was stale, dry, cold. Dust kept tickling my throat, making me want to cough. Every time I decided to risk going outside, find a car, drive like a mad woman to Cal Expo, some new sound obliterated my courage.
I tripped over the water bottle and forced myself to stop pacing. I picked up the bottle and went to Christopher's door.
“What are you doing,” Jane said as my hand touched the deadbolt. She sat cross-legged on the counter next to a window.
“We forgot to give him water,” I said.
“And?”
“And I’m going to give him some.”
She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, smoothing it down with her hands. “Don’t open the door. Are you crazy?”
I didn’t remove my hand and instead observed the texture of the door’s surface like it might be life or death. We needed to have it out, whatever ‘it’ was. Still, I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“I don’t think giving a sick man some water counts as crazy,” I said finally.
“And why do you,” Jane raised her voice, “get to decide?”
I pressed my back against the door for support. Maibe ducked her head into her blanket.
“I don’t ‘get’ to decide anything, Jane. But keeping water from him is cruel.”
“Don’t start with that high-and-mighty ‘it’s the right thing to do’ crap. I’ve known you too long for that. Please, you’ve been pulling that line since middle school.”
I squeezed the water bottle, making the plastic crinkle. “What’s your problem?”
She raised her left hand and began ticking off fingers with her right. “You ran after Mr. Sidner like nothing else mattered, putting me, Dylan, and Stan in danger—”
“I didn’t—”
“You took in this girl and those others, like psycho-Christopher over there,” she ticked off another finger, “without even asking if that was okay with Stan and me.”
“I did ask. We discussed it.”
“No, you didn’t, Corrina. Sure, you pretended to discuss it, but you’d already decided to take them on, and it didn’t matter who disagreed with you.”
I shook my head in frustration. I didn’t remember any of it going that way. Did it happen like that? Maibe had opened the door to the others, but had I already decided to let them in? “No. You’re remembering it wrong. We wanted to check them out first, and then decide.”
“Whatever,” Jane said.
“Why are you assuming the worst in people? I am not out to get you.”
“If the shoe fits,” she said. She ticked off another finger. “There’s still this last year of all the crap you like to throw at the people you’re supposed to care about.”
“And what about this last year?” I demanded.
“The way you’ve been so self-absorbed. When was the last time you asked, and actually cared, about what was going on in my life, my job? I’m the head ophthalmologist now at the office. Have been for a while—”
“How long have you been itching to have this conversation with me?”
“That’s not the point,” she ticked off another finger. “The point is you couldn’t be bothered to notice. This last year has been all about your drama, all about grinding Dylan down for losing his job. I’ve watched the two of you for years. He already feels so much responsibility for you, and you take advantage of it. You play the needy-guilty-orphan card—”
“What did you say?” My fists were in the air before realizing it. She knew me and what saying that would do to me. “Congratulations on the job promotion. Sorry I wasn’t paying attention because I was too busy keeping us from getting evicted. But in case you haven’t noticed, the world is kind of ending right now. Is this really the time to have all this out?”
“Yeah, Corrina. It’s not news you think you’re better than me.”
Some sort of infuriating half-growl, half-protest sound left my throat. I wanted to slap the sarcasm out of her. I hated that she sat there cool and collected, as if she’d mapped out this conversation a dozen times already and felt bored needing to repeat it for me. “Is that all of it? Are you done? Feel better yet?”
She paused, took in a long breath, as if debating whether to speak her next words. I wondered what cruelty she would dish out now. Maybe bring up some old high school wound, skewer me with a childish insult, pretend she never cared.
“It was me. It was me with Dylan. I was there when you weren't and he was going to leave you.” She stood up, wrapped the blanket around herself and went to stand by the barricaded front door.
Maibe stared at me with huge drowning eyes. No wait, I was the one drowning. The rushing sound of water filled my ears, my brain, my shaking body.
“What?” I whispered. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and examined its patchwork of cobwebs. “Is that why you ran to our house? Because it was…to him?” But then what was I to do with the last day, the forgiveness, the intimacy, the promises to make things better? My mistake had been with a coworker, but his—my best friend?
“He didn’t leave,” I said, struggling to hear myself over the ocean waves filling my ears. “How long, how did you…What did you…?” I’d once punched a girl in the eardrum for calling me a filthy name and my hand had made a satisfying swop noise and I wanted to hear that noise again.
“We were friends for a long time,” she said while staring through the little bit of door not covered by the barricade. “But things change.” She turned from the door and tightened the blanket around her shoulders. “The only thing that matters right now is figuring out how to get to Cal Expo, to Dylan, and—”
I didn’t stop until I was inside the bathroom and had slammed the door shut behind me. Either I got her out of my sight or I really would hurt her.
The bathroom fell into almost complete darkness with the door closed. I slid along one of the walls until I sat on the tile floor. I took long, slow, deep breaths. The air stank of mold. The tile chilled my hands and quickly seeped through my jeans. I would not give her the pleasure of hearing me cry.
I punched the tile wall. A sharp pain shot up my arm and into my shoulder. The feeling of wetness spread across my knuckles. I cradled my hand in my lap and focused on that pain instead of all the other kinds of pain I could feel. I had been stupid, pathetic. Dylan had made me a fool and I had believed him, and none of it had been true, and Jane had come out with it like it was nothing.
There was a knock on the door and I gasped out the breath I had been holding. The handle shifted. I shot to my feet and scrambled backwards until my tailbone cracked against the porcelain sink.
“Corrina?” Maibe’s tentative voice.
I relaxed my grip on the porcelain. “I’m here.” I didn’t mean to, but it came out as a growl. I sighed. Maibe didn’t deserve my anger. “I’m here, Maibe.”
“I’m sorry about Dylan,” Maibe said. “And your friend. You don’t deserve that.”
I let out one sob at her kind words and then I gulped down more air and choked on it, coughed, and turned to the sink for water, quality be damned. The coldness of the liquid hit my lips and I splashed some on my face, shocking myself into the here and now.
There were worse things happening out in the world than this commonplace betrayal I faced.
“Corrina, will you come out?”
“I just need some time.”
“I know, it's just…It’s a little less scary with you out here.”
I gripped both sides of the sink and let my head hang over it. I didn’t know if Maibe knew how much her words helped me in that moment. I had no idea if she was mature enough at twelve to understand that she had just given me something to keep me from wallowing in my misery. She probably was. I couldn't stay in the bathroom any longer, not if Maibe was brave enough to ask me for help.
“Thank you, Maibe.” I kept my voice soft and low. “I’m sorry I stayed in here as long as I did.”
I walked out of the bathroom, stiffening my back in anticipation of facing Jane again. She’d curled up in a nest of army blankets in the far corner, already asleep, or pretending. This was so stupid. This was so high school drama. The world was ending and she had gone for the cheap shot. I couldn’t let myself think about her or Dylan right then, all of it mixed up now. All of it treacherous and ready to suck me into an abyss.
The air in the main room seemed fresh by comparison to the moldy air I’d just been breathing. Maibe grabbed the hand I had used to punch the wall. I winced but did not pull away. I deserved that pain for abandoning her to Jane, for being a fool, for believing things could have gotten better so easily.
By how chilly the air felt already, I knew it was going to be a cold night. I only wore a few layers, and Maibe only had her sweatshirt. She guided me to a pile of blankets and I helped her set up layers of bedding. She crept into the makeshift bed and I tucked several layers of blankets around her before wrapping myself in several more blankets and curling up next to her for warmth.
I tried to fall asleep. Failed. Tried not to feel bad for myself. Failed at that too. I spent the hours examining the last few months like a forensic anthropologist. There must have been clues and signs, and of course I found them, obsessing about it now, reading into every word and look and doubt and intuition. And she had been my friend and he had been my boyfriend and my stomach flipped and I went into dry heaves.
I crawled out of the blankets, the cold floor painful against my hands. The blankets tangled and then slid away. I needed water.
Water.
Christopher.
I’d meant to give him water. I was determined to make up for forgetting. For letting Jane get the best of me. I crawled in the shadows, careful not to make noise. Everything was silent except for the almost hypnotic rhythm of their breathing. I swore I could almost see the frost of their breaths in the moonlit darkness. Two humps of gray, fuzzy blankets and two puffs of white mist. I could almost forget about the madness outside.
The MREs were set next to several bottles of water. It took almost a full minute to open the MRE silently with my numbed hands. The MRE tasted like paper on my tongue and sucked up what little moisture had been left. I swigged the water and swallowed, then waited a moment to see if it would all stay down.
It seemed okay, so I grabbed an unopened water, another MRE, and went to Christopher’s door. Before thinking about it too hard, I undid the locks, and forced the door open in one go. It made a horrible squeak and I froze, but the rhythm of breaths continued and I entered Christopher’s cage. A dim shadow seemed stuffed in the corner. It began to stir, but before it could rise up, throw off the blanket and overtake me—which in the dark on this night after everything, I suddenly had a great fear of exactly that happening—I set the MRE and water on the floor and retreated to the main room. Adrenaline pulsed through me as I raced to redo the locks as best I could in the dark, unsure if I got it right, but not believing it really mattered.
I headed back for my blankets when Jane’s voice cut through the cold. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
I paused, thought about ignoring her, then said, “No, Jane, YOU shouldn’t have done that.”
She did not respond and I went back to my blankets satisfied in a small way that I had kept my self-control and maybe showed a shred of self-respect.
This time, while sleep did not come quickly, it did drift in eventually. I dreamed Dylan was sick and injured and abandoned on some dirty asphalt street, calling out my name. All my limbs felt heavy, immobile. Something, someone was calling me. Dylan, I thought. He’s dying and calling out for me and I tried to force my limbs back to life, but felt resistance.
I awoke and expected to feel sharp stings as blood returned to my limbs. Instead, I felt rope around my wrists. My eyes flew open to darkness. I tried to move my legs and felt the ties around my ankles as well.
“Jane—”
“Shh.” Fingers pressed against my lips.
Every muscle in my body contracted and pulled against the ropes. I opened my lips again, ready to shout for help but the fingers pressed harder, mashing my lips onto my teeth. My mouth tasted the finger. Salty and rough. My eyes focused enough to see an outline. The bulk of someone hovered over me. The person leaned close and I smelled rotted food and something akin to a school locker room. Suddenly, cold water washed over my hand.
“Cheyanne, you're sick,” Christopher said. “It’s for your own good. Please don't fight me. It's your only chance. Cheyanne, you have to trust me.”
Pain sliced through my hand. I cried out.
He sniffed at my ear and nuzzled the space between my neck and shoulder with his nose. I tried to separate that part of me from him. He was touching some other person’s neck. He was not touching me, he was not touching me.
“This will protect you.”
Something warm pressed against the pain.
I heard sniffling. “Maibe?”
“He bit me,” Maibe said. I strained to see where she lay but only made out a dark lump against a darker wall.
The meaning of his actions sunk in. He was mixing our blood, infecting us with whatever he had. With a mutated form of rabies and some awful bacteria. I struggled to take my hand away but he only pressed his palm more firmly against mine. I watched a light flare. His lighter. It revealed Christopher—the lines on his face, the flush in his cheeks, the glaze on his eyes. I saw the rope around my wrists was shoelace pulled from my own sneakers.
“Jane?” No answer. “Jane?”
A headache pounded in my temples. My limbs were dead weights and my chest hurt.
Christopher scratched his eyes with the hand not infusing blood into mine.
I tried to think, could I break through the shoelace?
“There.” Christopher removed his hand from mine. “I’m sorry, Cheyanne—”
“That's not my name!”
His eyes cleared and he seemed to see me. “What's happened?” He looked down at my palm, the knife, the blood. “Oh God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I had a memory-rush. It happens…” His eyes lost focus again. “I love you, baby. You'll be safe now. I promise. You and the kids.”
“You’re a bastard,” I said.
Maibe moaned. “I’m so hot. I don’t feel good.”
“It’s probably going to be painful. It was for me. But don't tell the kids.” He stood up and sorted through our meager pile of supplies. He returned with a bottle of water and supported my head. I was thirsty, but my throat felt swollen and my tongue thick. I sealed my lips and turned my face away from the water.
“It causes hydrophobia at first, but you’ve got to drink something, while you still can. Come on, baby.” He forced my lips open with the bottle and tipped a small sip of water into my mouth. I almost spit it back in his face, but thirst overruled me. He laid my head down and stood back. The relief at his distance was immediate. I was still tied up, bleeding, infected, but at least he wasn't touching me.
Waves of heat rolled across my body, I broke into a sweat, I swore my hand wasn't clotting and I was going to bleed out on the floor. The muscles in my shoulder and around my knee spasmed. My eyes felt so heavy.
I fell into the memory-rush and the fevers, and everything disappeared.