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3

Two months later

G ene is missing. I didn’t notice it until today, but the lunch I brought him last week is still sitting on the breakroom table where I left it. My stomach sinks when I see the familiar plastic container with the sticky note on top.

“Shit.” I wheel my bike to the stairs and carry it up (the elevator died last month, though thankfully no one was in it). When I get into my office, I look through the staff directory for Gene’s phone number. Cell service is never guaranteed despite the government taking over the networks, but if he has a landline, I might be able to reach him.

I flip until I find the custodians, then scan to his name. Only one number. No address.

My desk phone gives me a comforting dial tone, and I punch in his number. It rings once, then gives a “this number is disconnected” recording.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” I tell myself. Plenty of people don’t have working phones anymore.

Returning the receiver to the hook, I sit back and press my palms to my face. Think, dummy, think . The weather has warmed a bit, but it’s still frigid in my office. My breath clouds from my nose as I open my laptop and hope—not for the first time—that the university Internet is still running.

Gene and I are the only ones left in my building, the university barely holding together now. The core systems are still working, though. Maybe the squatters realize it’s in their best interests to have power and Internet access, so they’ve left those bits of infrastructure alone. The Internet itself is sketchy, though. Plenty of domains unavailable because of missing servers. Some places have no power, others have damaged infrastructure, so the former connectivity of the world wide web is gone. The only sites that have a decent track record of being available are government ones.

“All right, Gene. Where do you live?” I do a quick search on his name, then add his phone number to the terms. A few more clicks and then I find a cached page from a defunct people search site. If it’s correct, Gene lives on Maple about a mile from the school. Based on the street map (and assuming they’re still accurate) I could make it there and back home before dark easily.

I chew my lip as I consider my options. I’d intended to run a few blood samples I’d received from the hospital and get them started on testing. But the centrifuge will take half an hour to set up and then another twenty minutes or so for its first run. If I don’t run the vials now, I’ll have to hope the specimen refrigeration stays cold enough despite power blips for me to run them tomorrow. It’s rolling the dice on whether the samples will be viable overnight. Maybe I should listen to Juno and move my lab to the governor’s mansion where the power is steadier, but I’ve been staying at the university out of sheer will. A foolish desire for the feeling of my life from before. And more than just a little bit for Gene. Everyone else has abandoned ship but us. I couldn’t leave him.

I can’t leave him now, either. It’s already two o’clock, my morning filled with election briefings and planning with Juno and her core team. Though glad to be included, I was fidgeting so much that Juno told me to go ahead and get to my lab before I levitated out of my chair from sheer impatience.

I glance out the window at the sunny sky, the blue reassuring me that this is a good day, a fine day to visit a friend. Besides, Maple Avenue isn’t far at all. I can make it there and back. It’s not reckless if I keep my head down and go straight to his address. I’m not helpless—no matter what National Guardsman Mike thinks. I mean, I do have weapons.

I have to go. What if Gene’s hurt? He wouldn’t stop showing up without leaving a note or saying goodbye. If I tried to call in a welfare check, I’m certain the dispatcher would laugh me right off the line—if I could even get anyone in the first place.

I stand and wheel my bike out of my office, then lock the door behind me. I’m going to check on Gene and get back here to work up my samples. Easy peasy. When I return to the capitol, I’ll ask Juno if there’s any possible way we can get him a position there. Maybe I’ll finally cave and set up a makeshift lab in the basement and Gene can be my assistant.

With that bit of hopefulness, I set out from campus. More makeshift villages have popped up along the streets, and they only grow thicker the closer I get to the hospital. Hanging a left to avoid the tents and barricade at the entrance to the plague triage unit, I pedal hard and cruise along the sidewalk past the silent stadium as a few cars and cyclists pass. A man yells at me from somewhere at my back, but I don’t stop. These days, curiosity is dangerous.

I slow when I reach I-35. The interstate runs overhead, and the underpass has become a more permanent city where dozens if not hundreds of people have taken up living. The entire street is closed off with bits of tent and plywood and even a huge green road sign that used to mark the on-ramp. Only one lane remains open, the shadowy area just wide enough for a single car to pass beneath the bridge.

Glancing around, I make sure the street is clear as I slow and stop. The makeshift structures keep going on either side, showing no signs of a way across. I can either ride along the service road and hope for a bigger opening or try to pedal up onto the Interstate and cross there. I wouldn’t have to worry so much about car traffic, but the Interstates have become a thoroughfare for people walking and biking—and with that comes danger. A river of people is bound to have more than a few alligators lurking to pick off stragglers and take whatever items they might have. No, I’m safer making a break for it on the surface street.

The dark corridor beckons. Not a single car or cyclist has come through it since I’ve been waiting here and thinking, the sun still moving inexorably across the sky and reminding me of the coming dark.

Gripping my handlebars tightly, I start pedaling, my body tense as I approach the narrow lane. I can see the sunlight on the pavement on the other side. It’s a straight shot. I pedal faster, determined to make it through as quickly as possible.

When I enter the shadow of the overpass, a sharp whistle cuts through the air that sets my hair on end.

A board slides out in front of me, and I have to hit my brakes so hard I ride up onto my front wheel as another board slides into place behind me. Trapped.

Breathing hard, I reach up and check that my mask is in place. Then I grab my pepper spray and hold it out, my finger on the trigger.

“Have to pay the toll.” A rough female voice comes from the other side of the board ahead of me.

“What? What’s the toll?”

“What’ve you got?” She taps the other side of the board twice. “Hear that? It’s American steel. Make any moves I don’t like, and it’ll shoot right through this wood and into your gut.”

“I’m not armed. I?—”

She snickers. “Well, that’s not too smart of you, is it?”

“I’m just trying to visit a friend. I haven’t heard from him, and I’m worried he?—”

“Dead.”

My stomach churns. “What?”

“If you haven’t heard from him, then most likely he’s dead. Maybe you don’t know, but there’s a plague.” She coughs, the sound full of smoke and phlegm.

It’s not like I haven’t thought of that, but it’s not an outcome I want to call into being by speaking it out loud. The highwaywoman has no such compunction.

“Come on.” She taps the board again. “What’ve you got on you?”

I spin my backpack around to my front.

“Easy now.” A man’s voice comes from above. When I look up, someone is perched on the bridge’s metal framework far overhead, his rifle aimed at me. “Drop that spray gun, and put your hands up.”

Shit !

“Now, girly. I’d hate to waste a bullet on you.” He taps his finger on the trigger guard.

“Okay, okay.” My voice shakes right along with my hands as I drop my pepper spray and raise them.

“Now, back to business. What can you pay with?”

“I have, um, gauze, alcohol?—”

“What kind?” the man calls.

“Rubbing alcohol.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t hide his disappointment.

The door in front of me slides all the way open and the woman appears, a bandanna covering her face and a protective plastic shield over it. “Hand it over.” She keeps her gun in one hand and grabs the backpack with the other.

“Got you covered,” the man in the rafters says. “No sudden movements, girly.”

The woman holsters her pistol and unzips my pack.

“Nothing of real v-value,” I stammer. “Antibiotic ointment, gloves, half a sandwich, stethoscope, vials and needles in case I need to take a blood sample, thermometer?—”

“You take blood samples?” the woman asks as she digs through my stuff.

“Not usually. Well, I mean, I do when I’m working my triage shift, but I’m more of a researcher than a?—”

“You’re a nurse?”

“A doctor. Look—” I reach for my bag “—I can show you—Ow!” I fall backward against the panel behind me. My left eye throbs, and I blink away tears as I gawk at the woman. “You hit me! What the hell?” I have the sudden, irrational desire to hit her back.

“No sudden movements.” The man above me chuckles.

I put my hand over my smarting eye and watch as the woman continues going through my things as if she didn’t just clock me in the face. The very real danger I’m in drenches me like a bucket of ice water as I struggle to regain my balance. These people won’t hesitate to use violence. I realize far too late that I’m not prepared for this.

She pulls out my knife. “I thought you said you weren’t armed?” She raises her brows.

“Not like the way you’re armed.” I gesture toward the gun at her hip. “Besides, it’s dangerous out here… clearly,” I add.

“Next time you should keep your knife somewhere you can actually reach it.” She clucks her tongue and hands my bag back to me. “And pepper spray won’t stop a bullet or someone looking to take you down.” She kicks my precious spray to the side, and it rolls away beneath the edge of a blue tarp. Leaning closer, she squints at me. “You’re telling me you’re a doctor? What are you, fifteen?”

“Twenty-six.” I sit up a bit straighter on my bike.

She considers me for a few moments that seem to last forever. Then she sighs and calls, “Les, we’re good.” She waves a hand at the man positioned in the girders.

“Come on.” She takes a step back. “Leave your bike. No one will touch it.”

I doubt that, but she’s the one with the gun.

“This way. Follow me.” She disappears into what becomes a labyrinth of paths through areas of tents and wood, construction materials and scavenged items used for walls. Coughing and voices are all around us, and I’m quickly disoriented though she seems to know the way by heart. Each step that takes me farther from my bike adds to my foreboding. I shouldn’t have come. God, I’m so stupid to think I could get to Gene and back in the space of a few hours. I berate myself silently—all too aware of how Candice would scold the hell out of me for being stupid if she knew what I’d gotten myself into—as I follow the woman until she finally turns and sweeps aside the entry to a tent. “In here.”

I stop and look around as a man hurries past us, his head down. “What’s in there?”

The highwaywoman just stares at me, her arm holding the way open.

I swallow hard and step forward. It’s a small square room with luggage piled in one corner, blankets and pillows strewn about, and a tiny pantry-like area with canned food and a microwave.

“Mommy?” A little girl lies on a cot, her face turned toward us. “Mommy?”

She’s covered in pustules, the rash fanning out from the sides of her nose like a butterfly done by a face painter. No more than ten, she has big brown eyes and clutches an old Cabbage Patch doll to her chest.

“Hi,” I force myself to say brightly as I walk in and kneel beside her. “Nice to meet you. I’m Georgia.”

“Mommy?” the little girl asks the woman uncertainly.

“She’s a doctor, baby. Let her look at you.” The highwaywoman’s voice has softened.

The girl’s eyes widen as she looks at me. “No needles!”

I hold my hands out, palms toward her. “No needles. See? Your mommy brought me here to see you. You’re very important to her.”

She smiles a little, her lips cracking at the edges where the pustules have crusted on the corners of her mouth. “I know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Marisol.” Her voice is raspy but warm.

“What a pretty name.” I unzip my backpack and find a pair of gloves. Pulling them on, I say, “Marisol, I’m just going to examine you for a moment. If that’s okay? It won’t hurt.”

“You promise? Last time we saw the doctor, he hurt me.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Needles.”

“I promise. No needles.” I take her temperature then warm my stethoscope against my gloved palm before pressing it to her chest. “Breathe in deep for me.” As I listen, my eyes try to water, but I swallow down my emotion. I’ve gotten good at it. “One more time?” I help her roll to her side and listen to her back. “Okay, good.” I ease her back into position as she squeezes the doll to her chest. “Just one more thing. I’m going to feel the bumps. Is that okay?”

She gives her mother another glance before looking at me. “Um, just don’t press them too hard. They hurt.”

“I know they do. You’re being really brave.”

She nods. “Mommy says that, too.”

“Here we go.” I brush my thumb over the angriest pustules beside her nose. They don’t open or ooze at all, just remain hard like tiny marbles under her skin.

Stripping off my gloves, I carefully fold them so the contaminated surfaces are covered. “All done.”

“That didn’t hurt.” She coughs. It’s dry and rough.

“Thanks for letting me look at you, Marisol. You did great.”

She smiles up at me, her sunken eyes still bright.

“Here.” I dig around in my backpack and pull out my half sandwich. “Do you like roast beef?”

“I don’t know. I think so?” She looks at her mother questioningly.

“Yes. She does.”

“Good. This sandwich is really going to hit the spot.” I hand it to her.

“Thanks.”

Her mother jerks her chin toward the entrance, and I follow her out, my steps and heart heavy.

“This way.” She winds us through the maze of makeshift apartments until I catch a few rays of sunlight up ahead. Stopping, she turns to me. “Tell me.”

“When did you take her to the hospital?” I keep my voice low, calm.

“A week ago, when she got the shakes.”

“What did they say?”

“You know what they said.” She pins me with a hard stare, her face looking younger in the faint light. “What do you think?”

I cross my arms, stuffing my hands against my sides. “Her fever is 102, lungs have fluid, but her cough is dry, elevated resting heart rate, and the pustules have a granular base.”

“What does that mean?” Even as she asks the question, I see it in her eyes. She already knows.

“It means her case is likely fatal. Within three days, give or take.” I used to sugarcoat it, used to tell people that doctors were working around the clock to find a lifesaving treatment for the plague. To just hang on. To pray if they were religious. To do anything and everything to keep hope alive.

I don’t do any of those things anymore. I can’t. It’s all lies until it isn’t. Until someone actually does find a way to stop it.

She puts a hand on the concrete support beside us, her hand tanned and weathered. She leans forward, her body crumpling in on itself. Gunshots ring out on the Interstate overhead, a baby cries nearby, and distant sirens blare.

We stand in silence as the world, rotting and doomed, continues around us, cruelly oblivious to a dying child and her grieving mother.