I am ice-cold in the warm air. Blues, blacks, horns, bells, tones, and the taste of red meat overwhelm me. My mouth waters with hunger so intense I almost don’t recognize it. I begin to shake. My brother rushes over and puts his hands on my shoulders.
“Are you all right?” He seems to be shouting. I look at him. I can’t speak or move. I feel like I’m floating above everything and don’t have access to my limbs.
“What happened?” Kamal demands. I glance at Phoebe who stands hunched over, her hands on her knees.
“Luisa just saved my life,” she says. A drop of rain hits my nose. I blink. Tap my foot. Another raindrop. The sounds and colors start to calm. I walk over to the man.
“He was coughing,” I mumble. I pull up my mask. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Fuck, Lu!” my brother yells. “Did you touch him?”
My stomach is churning. I spit onto the ground. I find a still point in the dirt. I breathe. I notice the kitten again. She has no idea what’s just happened, what any of it might mean.
“She didn’t touch him,” Phoebe answers. “He tried to strangle me. She stabbed him.”
We all stare at Phoebe. She is now at risk.
“We have to go home,” Ben says. “This is insane.”
“No. Not an option,” Phoebe snaps.
“Dude, my sister just killed some infected zombie. Some infected zombie who almost choked you to death.” The meaning of his words is hard for me to grasp. It’s like he’s speaking a language I only sort of know. I pull out my phone with shaking hands. I dial my dad.
It rings and the wind rushes through the trees behind us. That sound, an echo of his image in my head. I don’t know what I’ll do or say if he answers. I just want to hear him tell me it’s all right.
“Who are you calling?” Ben asks.
My dad’s voice mail picks up. I click off. “No one.”
I bend down and let the cat sniff my hand. Her only concern is survival. Sitting on the ground as the thunder booms again, I realize mine is too.
“We can’t go back,” I say. “There’s zero guarantee of safety there and our only hope of helping Dad is to keep going.” Tears pool in Ben’s eyes. His lips turn down. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m okay.”
“What we shouldn’t do is stay out here any longer than we have to,” Kamal says. Phoebe nods and starts walking. I follow next as the rain starts, then Kamal, then Ben. We move quickly to the car. Light drizzle gives way to sheets of cascading water. White-hot blasts of lightning explode across the horizon and thunder pounds overhead.
Everyone climbs into the car, but I hesitate. A gust of wind rattles the trees again. It’s like a message without words. “Hang on,” I say and run back.
I kneel down next to the dead man. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Then I pull the knife from his back in one swift movement. The rain hammers down and washes away the blood. I hustle back to the car.
Phoebe is cleansing her neck with a wipe. “Can I have one of those?” I ask as I take my seat. She passes one back and I run it up and down the blade.
“You took the knife?” Ben asks. “It’s totally contaminated.”
“Not anymore.” I throw the wipe out the window, stuff the knife into my backpack, and we pull back onto the road.
“Let the record reflect,” Ben announces, “that I think continuing this trip is the worst possible idea in the history of bad ideas.”
“Noted,” Phoebe replies. She throws her gloves and mask out the window and replaces them with a fresh set from her pack. She offers me a clean pair too. “Here’s the thing, Ben,” she says. “You can’t worry about getting sick. You just have to put it out of your mind and keep moving forward.”
“I’m actually not worried about getting sick,” Ben responds. “I’m worried about some nut job like that guy or the guys in the tunnel blowing our brains out to get our car or our food or whatever. ARNS is honestly the least of our concerns.”
“Can you all be quiet, please?” I snap.
“Do you want to talk about it?” my brother whispers. I shake my head no and find the horizon out the window.
• • •
“What happens when someone dies?” I asked. My father was sitting at the foot of my bed.
“Well, lamb,” he said carefully. “They stop breathing.”
“Then what?” I asked.
“Different people believe different things. Some say they go to heaven. Some say their spirit gets taken back up into the stars and planets and comes back down into a new person or animal just being born.”
“Animal?” I asked.
“Some people believe that, yes.”
“So, like, I could be a horse?”
“Possibly,” he said. “It’s like they go away but then come back as something or someone else.”
“Can we see them when they come back?”
“Maybe. But we might not recognize them. I think they would look different and maybe be very far away.” I looked down at the hundreds of tiny silver stars embroidered on my quilt.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think that death is not the end. That’s the thing to remember. Even if we don’t know what’s next.” He swept the hair off my forehead.
“When we die, let’s be next to each other so we can stand up together and come back to earth together,” I said.
He smiled at me. “That’s a perfect plan.”
My eyes slowly hinged closed. The weight of his hand on my head was like the steady pressure of a ship’s wheel on the rudder, guiding my mind swiftly into sleep.
• • •
Hours pass along with the flat prairies of Western PA. Fast-food signposts dot the highway edge like giraffes on a savannah. Kamal and Ben fall asleep.
Phoebe leans over and reprograms the GPS. “Change of plans. We’re gonna stop in Ohio,” she says. “I have an aunt there. We’re gonna stay the night with her.”
“Okay,” I reply. “That’s nice. Right?” She doesn’t answer.
My phone buzzes. A new x.chat message from Nam.
“Holy shit. I got another poem.”
Phoebe whips around. “Let me see.” I hand her the phone and she reads it aloud:
“From dust he bloomed, a fragile rose whose petals slowly fell
As the seed inside kept burning still, the mind at least was well
They tore their clothes and begged for help, a nightly vigil kept
But when he was gone, all hope was lost and they, like Jesus, wept.”
She looks up at me. “Do you know what it means?”
“There’s something familiar about it,” I say. “But no, I don’t know.”
“You should respond. See if you can get him to tell you something more.”
“How do I do that?” I ask, wishing I already knew.
“Well, last time you gave him the answer to his puzzle.”
“Right.”
“Don’t do that. If you give him the answer, there’s nowhere left to go.”
“But he’s sending me a message and it seems like the answer is the message. I have to solve the puzzle to know what the message is.”
“Yes, but you can discern the meaning without telling him you’ve figured it out. Telling him the answer is just about showing him you’re smart. He already knows you’re smart. You need to be even smarter and coax him into revealing something more.” This is what Kamal likes about her. She’s persuasive. Or is she cunning?
“Say something like, ‘I know where you are.’ ”
“But I don’t,” I say.
She laughs. “Don’t be so literal.” Her salty eyes sparkle in the setting sun.
“Okay,” I say. I type the words: I know where you are. I read it over, trying to hear it through the ears of a phantom stranger. “No,” I mutter to myself.
“What?” Phoebe asks.
“Nothing,” I reply. I make a change. I know who you are. I hit send, then lean back and wait.
The sun is dropping fast when we arrive in Granville, Ohio. We wind up a hill lined by sweet old Victorians, their grassy lawns peppered with American flags and swing sets. Phoebe’s aunt Georgette lives at the top, at the end of a cul-de-sac. Birdsong and still summer heat envelop us as we step out of the car. This place already feels like home.
I follow Phoebe up the stone-covered path, past beds of brightly colored azaleas as Georgette bursts through the door. She’s got a silk scarf tied around her face and no gloves.
Two large huskies come bounding out behind her and the smell of something delicious cooking inside fills my nose. The dogs jump up, trying to lick my face.
“Kelly! Barb! Get down!” Georgette shouts. She grabs them by their collars and holds them back. Her wide, brown eyes meet mine. She tastes like honey and instantly, I wish she were my mom.
“Come in, come in,” she offers warmly, turning to Phoebe. “Sweetheart, let me see you.” Phoebe lifts her mask and, like dawn into day, she transforms into an awkward little girl. Her shoulders slope down, her eyes seem to beg.
“Hi G,” she says softly.
A sob escapes Georgette’s plum-colored lips. “It’s been too long.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Phoebe says. They hold each other’s gaze. A river of emotion passes between them and I’m reminded: Phoebe has a whole history I know nothing about.
“Well,” Georgette says, brightening. “I need to meet your friends.”
“I’m Kamal, Ms. Maxwell. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having us stay.” His good English manners make me want to I don’t even know what.
“I couldn’t be happier you’re here. And please call me G.”
“I’m Ben,” my brother adds. “This is my sister, Luisa.”
G looks at me the way my dad does. “Oh baby,” she says gently. “You need to lie down, don’t you?”
“That would be nice,” I say.
“I have two rooms, plus the basement. I leave it to you to decide who sleeps where.”
“Lu can have my room,” Phoebe says. “I’ll take the basement.”
G puts her hand on Phoebe’s back as we head inside. I glance at my watch. Nothing from Nam.
G leads us down the hall. “Everything is clean,” she says. Phoebe stops in the doorway of a small bedroom. She surveys the two twin beds with their pink rose-printed comforters. The walls are covered with drawings and photos. There’s a drafting table surrounded by paints, pencils, and markers. The whole room is teeming with the life of a teenage girl.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” She goes into the room and sets down her bag. I follow and take a seat on the edge of one bed.
I look around. “Is this all your stuff?”
Her expression is distant. “It’s my little sister’s.”
“Where is she?”
“You should rest,” she says. “I’m gonna take my stuff downstairs and help G with dinner.” She grabs her bag and walks out. I lie back and sink into the pillows. The opposite wall holds a charcoal portrait of G’s dogs posed on the edge of a cliff. They look strong and proud, like two sentries standing guard over a distant realm—the protected having become the protectors.
Time dissolves and I lose myself. The next thing I know, it’s nearly dark outside and someone is knocking on the door.
“Come in.” I sound groggy.
The door creaks open and Kamal’s head appears. “Dinner’s ready.”
I look around, then sit up. “Thank you.”
“How do you feel?” he asks. “Did you sleep?”
“I’m okay. I’m not sure if I slept. I feel like I didn’t.”
“You will. You’re in shock. You need to eat and rest. You’ll sleep.”
I avoid his gaze. “I just feel . . . I can’t believe what I did.”
“What you did was amazing.”
“I killed someone. I mean, what the fuck? Those are words you never think you’ll actually say, right? Those are words people on TV say.” My legs tingle. A burst of pine, but he steadies me with his eyes.
“You saved someone. That guy was going to die anyway. And he would’ve killed all of us if given the chance. You saved our lives, my life.” He pauses, just looking at me. “I’m feeling pretty grateful.”
I smile and step toward the door. He blocks me. His body seems to cast a shadow on the entire room. We stand there in silence. I tap my foot. If there were no ARNS would we be kissing right now?
If there were no ARNS we wouldn’t be standing here at all.
“We should go eat,” I say.
“Yeah. We should.”
Neither of us moves.
“Guys! Dinner!” Phoebe’s voice from the hall. It’s like a pinprick on the face of a balloon. We turn and go.
We sit down around G’s oval-shaped table. A massive tray of bubbling-hot lasagna rests in the center. My mouth actually waters.
G pours herself a glass of wine and offers the bottle around the table. “I know you’re all underage, but I won’t tell if you don’t.” She winks at me.
“This looks amazing,” Ben marvels.
“I was lucky to have gotten groceries before everyone started to hoard food. I’m trying to make it last, but this is a special occasion.” G looks at Phoebe, whose eyes are trying to disappear into her plate.
Kamal pauses, holding a spatula. “I hate to ask this, but is it safe to eat?”
“Well, it’s been cooking in a four-hundred-degree oven for over an hour, so I would think so. And I don’t believe I’m sick.”
“Good enough.” We lift our masks and dig in. It’s a relief to see everyone’s faces.
“This is absolutely delicious. Cheers.” Kamal raises his glass. “To G.” We all join him in the toast. The wine in my throat feels rough and comforting, like an old wool sweater. I sneak another look at my watch, still hoping for something from Nam.
“Have you seen any violence around here?” Ben asks.
“Not really, not yet. The town has been extremely sane. It’s a college town, you know, so people are rational, liberal. A lot of Christians here. Real Christians, social justice, take-care-of-your-neighbor kind of Christians. There’s a sense of community.” G sips her wine. “But elsewhere . . . my neighbor’s son has apparently joined one of those militias they’re talking about on the news. It’s terrifying. They’re armed and they’re scared. Doesn’t get more dangerous than that.”
“Yeah, we met a few of those folks on the way here,” Ben mutters.
G glances at Phoebe, who’s slowly chewing her food, eyes down. “I’ve got an electric fence around my property from when Kelly and Barb were pups. We raised show dogs back then. So as long as the electricity holds, I should be fine.”
“You and?” I ask.
G smiles and her whole face lights up. “Me and Donald, my husband.” Ben, Kamal, and I wait for her to say more. “Didn’t Phoebe tell you about Donald?” We look at each other, shaking our heads.
“Oh.” She takes a breath. “Donald died in Blackout. Along with his brother and his brother’s wife. Phoebe’s parents.” I hear this like the dull thud of a pile driver. A brown filter spreads over everything.
“Excuse me.” Phoebe stands and leaves the table.
“Phoebe—” G calls after her.
“I’m fine,” she snaps and disappears into the hall.
G twists the stem of her wineglass between her fingers. “She was seventeen and wanted to finish high school in Boston, go to Harvard. So she stayed there, lived with a friend’s family. Her sister, Juliette, came here to live with me.” She stops and looks out the window at the moon rising over the tree line. “Until today, I hadn’t seen her in five years. I never had children of my own.”
“Where is Juliette?” I ask, half-afraid to hear the answer.
G turns to me. “She woke up in the night with a fever. And a cough, they said. Just finished freshman year at OSU and was supposed to come home for the summer. The school sent her to the hospital, but their quarantine was full—” She breaks off. She takes a long sip of her wine. I taste the sweetness of honey on my tongue. “Once they saw she was sick, they wouldn’t let me bring her home. They said she had to go there.”
I grip the edge of the table. “Where?” I need to know. It’s like the details of Juliette’s story will tell me something about my dad.
“There’s an empty Walmart outside Columbus. They’ve turned it into a hospital, if you can call it that. I don’t know what to call it. It’s . . . I begged them to let me take her home, but they threatened to have me arrested. She was taken up there this morning. And now I’m waiting for news.” She tries to sound upbeat as she catches a tear with her napkin.
I want to tell her that I know how she feels, that my dad is in one of those places, that I’m scared to death. But I won’t get the words out without crumbling. And I can’t crumble. Instead, I polish off my glass of wine and pour another.
“You know, Donald was a man of faith. He never feared death,” she continues. “I like to think that’s why he was the one who died. He was ready on some level. I wasn’t. I’m not.”
“How long were you married?” asks Kamal. I look at him. What does he think about death, or marriage?
“Thirty years,” she says. “Nearly. Would’ve been thirty years that June. I was able to fulfill my wedding vows—until death, we did not part. I’m very glad about that.”
“You sound so strong,” I blurt out.
“I’ve had time. There’s a pain that never leaves. But there are other things, good things. I wouldn’t have had these years with Juliette. The chance to feel like a mother for a while. That’s been a gift.”
I picture my own mother’s face, her dark eyes and serious brow. Then, like the glow of a firefly, the image disappears. I stand up. I grab my plate and stop. “Should we each clear our own?” I ask.
“Might as well,” G replies. “But just leave everything in the sink. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“I cannot allow you to wash dishes after making that fantastic meal,” Kamal says. He puts his mask back on.
“Please,” she says. “I need something to do to fill my time. Otherwise I’ll just sit around and worry.”
We pile the dishes in the sink and go into the living room. We get comfortable on the mismatched couches and chairs. The dogs settle at G’s feet. They look alert. I feel safer with them there.
“Do you think Phoebe’s all right?” Ben asks as G turns on the news.
“This is all a lot for her.” G glances down the hall. “She cut us off completely when her parents died. I think it was easier for her to pretend we had all died. When I told her about Juliette, I really wasn’t sure she’d come.”
“I’ll check on her,” I say. I get up and head down the hall.
“Second door on the left,” G calls.
I arrive at the basement door and open it slowly.
“Phoebe?” I call down.
“Yeah?” Her voice sounds distant. I go down and find her lying on a cot, looking at her tablet.
“Hey,” I say. I try to sound unimposing.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“We finished dinner.”
“Great.” Her eyes remain buried in her screen.
“It was good to eat food.” I shift from one foot to the other.
Finally she sits up and looks at me. “So she told you the whole story, I guess?”
“I don’t know if it’s the whole story. She told us about your parents. And your sister. I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t kill them.” She shoots me a cold look, daring me to stay. I don’t move. “Regrets are like, I don’t know, they’re like roaches,” she says. “Even if you crush them under your foot, you can’t be sure there aren’t a million more behind the walls, you know? It makes it hard to sleep at night.”
I flash again to my father’s hand on the hospital door, to the time when I was five and told him I loved my mother more than I loved him, to when I never said anything about his letter of amends. I hear a clicking sound. I lean against the banister.
“I’m new to regret,” I offer. “Or, I’m new to confronting the things I regret. I never thought I regretted anything until this. I guess I always assumed there would be time to fix things or change them. But death makes going back impossible.”
“Yup,” she says. “Did Nam respond?”
“Not yet.”
“He will.” She returns her gaze to her tablet and I awkwardly turn to leave. “Thomas Bell just released a video,” she says. “You’re up for his Fellowship, right?”
“Yeah.” I turn back.
“What did you think? When you met him?”
“I thought he hated me,” I reply.
“I didn’t ask what he thought of you. I asked what you thought of him.”
I smile. “I don’t think I’ve actually asked myself that.”
“Well, you should,” she says.
“I thought he was a disconnected, arrogant weirdo,” I say after a moment.
Phoebe laughs. “There you go.”
“But I couldn’t help liking him.”
“Yeah. People seem to like him. Or hate him.” She turns the tablet and I kneel down next to her.
“Not too close,” she warns. I scoot back. She taps Play and an image of Bell fills the screen. He’s in blue, like always, lit up against the night sky behind him. City lights twinkle in the distance. The picture is swaying slightly.
“Greetings from the Pacific Ocean,” he begins. “I find it useful to step off steady ground regularly. To experience my foundation rocking underneath me. I do this to remind myself that in order to enjoy stability, I must create it. I must employ the thing we as humans are unique to possess—my rational mind. Without that, I am adrift.”
I look over at Phoebe. Was she always so cool, so tough? Or did she become that way because her parents died?
“Without seeming too mysterious,” Bell continues, “I say this because it speaks to the bigger problem we are facing. We feel out of control and we want stability to return. Our foundation is rocking and our government is not bringing us to safety. But I am one step closer to putting a stop to this disease.”
“Shit,” I whisper as hope rises in my chest and the smell of roses fills my head.
“I’m here to announce that the Avarshina Lab has identified the infectious agent at the root of ARNS. It is a type of previously unseen enterovirus, similar to polio, perhaps a derivative. We hope to know more soon. Until then, I ask you to find your own steady ground. Stay safe. Stay strong. Stay hopeful and know that I am doing all I can.” And he’s gone.
My heart is pounding. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Phoebe replies. “Can’t stop it if they don’t know what it is.” She clicks the tablet off. “His voice is so weird, though. He sounds like a mouse.”
I laugh. “Oh my God, yes!”
“Is that how he sounds in person?” she asks.
“Totally. And so quiet. Like, you can barely hear him.”
“Well, at least he’s brilliant,” she says. “I watch him and I think, he’s going to stop all this. He’s actually going to do it.”
I study her face for a moment. “Hey, can I tell you something?” I ask. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Of course.”
“They offered it to me. The Fellowship.”
“No shit! That’s amazing.”
“It is, right?” I let myself feel that joy for a second. An orange glow. “I haven’t really gotten to think about it. My best friend got sick right after I found out, then my dad. And my mom doesn’t want me to go, so.”
“You have to go.”
“I know.”
“You have to.” The look in her eyes is like antigravity. It makes me feel like I could do anything, like I could levitate.
“Do you want to come back upstairs and hang out?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Okay. See you in the morning, then.”
“Yeah,” she says. I turn to go. “Hey, Lu?”
“Yeah?”
“You saved my life today. Twice. Thank you.”
Another wave of orange. I smile. “Goodnight.”
I come back up. The others are glued to FLN. “Bell’s ID’ed the virus,” Ben says.
“Yeah, I just saw it too.” I sit down. The death toll is up to a quarter million and there’s no sign of it slowing down.
“But this is not good,” Kamal mutters.
“How’s Phoebe?” G whispers to me.
“She’s all right. Going to sleep, I think.” I stand back up. “And so am I, actually.”
“Sleep well, sweetheart,” G says.
I stop by a wall of G’s family photographs on the way back to my room. Time and space captured in a constellation of frames—one woman’s personal universe.
There’s one of G and a man. It must be Donald. They’re standing at dusk, in that particular blue light the setting sun leaves behind. They’re high on a cliff. Ocean waves rip a jagged curve along the shore beneath.
Their young faces look straight at the camera. They are real and ghostlike both, evaporating with the slow decay of the photograph itself. They are vulnerable—not afraid to show their feelings—that word transporting me back to the planetarium and my mother’s secret lover.
I close my eyes and picture my mother’s face that day as she introduced us to Dan. Her expression was hopeful and open. Her skin seemed to glow. I see her there, not as my mother but as a woman with her own unmet desires. I miss her, the old her.
“I love that one,” G says, appearing next to me. “We spent the summers on Cape Cod when Donald was teaching in Boston. We had a little cottage on a cliff. Phoebe and Juliette and their parents would visit. Those days were among the happiest of my life.” She stares at the picture.
“I’m sorry about Donald, and about Juliette,” I say. “And I hate just saying ‘I’m sorry’ to everyone because it doesn’t capture at all what I mean, which is that it’s awful beyond words and I wish you’d never had to go through any of it.”
“Thank you. I sense you know what it’s like.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. I relax into her for just a second. My mouth fills with that sweet honey taste. I tap my foot and swallow. “Nothing prepares you for life except living,” she says.
I nod. “Goodnight,” I reply. “And thank you. For everything.” I walk swiftly back to the bedroom, to the cool, hidden safety of the darkness.