Page 60 of The End of the World As We Know It

He crept toward the window and the erstwhile Debra. Beyond her reposed a Yamaha motorcycle with a sidecar, the former driverless, but the latter occupied by a mutilated horror that was almost certainly Debra’s beloved. He figured Jeff had been dying from the superflu, and Debra had ventured here because the pharmacy had been plundered, but in her haste to get inside, she’d botched her mission and bled to death. Baker grasped her hair and lifted, and sure enough, a glass wedge the size of a pizza slice had implanted itself in the soft tissue under her chin. He was surveying the pool of congealed blood on the floor when something brushed his pant leg. He nearly kicked out before he realized it was a tiny black kitten. He sagged against a medicine rack and shut his eyes until a rhythmic slurping forced them open again.

The kitten was lapping at the blood spill.

“Ah,man,” Baker groaned. He was about to turn away when he discovered an object glinting within the puddle.

Tortoiseshell spectacles.

Taking care not to disturb the kitty’s feast, he suppressed his revulsion long enough to try the glasses on. Debra had been as blind as a mole rat, yet when he brought a medicine box close to his facehe could read the label. He spotted the worddewormerand chucked it aside.CHERISTIN, the next box read. Some kind of flea treatment.

Cursing, Baker moved down the aisle, primarily to find an antibiotic, but also to put some distance between him and the slurping feline, who was purring so rapturously he felt he should offer it some privacy. He spotlighted the topmost shelf and distinguished the wordAMOXICILLIN. He’d have whooped for joy if not for the corpses and an atavistic dread of being eaten alive by feral cats. The place was giving him the willies, so he gathered as many boxes as he could and, eyes aching from Debra’s overzealous lenses, he returned the spectacles and got the hell out of there.

The amoxicillin didn’t touch Lenora’s fever. For much of the night, she tremored so violently he worried she’d combust in his arms. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink. She wasn’t even interested in the horror movies he screened for her. In desperation, he toted out the record player and a dusty LP of Chubby Checker’sThe Twist. He could hardly look at the album cover because it reminded him of his son. And when he dropped the needle and the first notes sounded, he decided this was a terrible mistake.

But Lenora was watching him from the La-Z-Boy, her ears pricked up.

“You like it?” he asked.

Her eyes widened, the sickness fog perhaps clearing a smidge. Baker swayed his hips, and Lenora sat up straighter. He started to sing, but his voice came out croaky. He swallowed, tried again, and this time it was better. He was no Chubby Checker, but under the gruffness of disuse, the melody was there.

Lenora rose unsteadily.

He finished the first verse, gyrating as vigorously as his body would allow, and crooned the chorus. Lenora tilted her head, fascinated.

Baker bopped over to her and twisted for a few beats. Lenora seemed to vibrate, her hooves jittering in place. Baker executed a spin, and all of a sudden the room took on a paler hue. It wasn’t until he was falling that he realized how woozy he was. He smacked the floor—butt, skull, and shoulder blades all at once—and for a time he lay there, delirious and achy. The song ended, but Baker scarcely noticed.Superflu, he thought. Or he was just a dumbass who hadn’t eaten enough today.

Something brushed his cheek. He blinked until his eyes refocused.

Lenora stared down at him. He could’ve sworn she was smiling. Before he could get his hands up, she darted in and licked his nose. He laughed and spluttered, but Lenora didn’t seem to mind. She was too busy licking him.

They spent the next day pigging out, watching horror flicks, and reading a novel calledI Am Legend. He’d planned on getting to it for years and figured now was as good a time as any for a story about the last man on earth. Lenora munched the lettuce he hand-fed her, but she didn’t go wild until he broke out a fresh pack of Nutter Butters.

At five thirty that afternoon, she sneezed for the first time.

Baker shot her a sharp glance, heart thudding, and waited for the next sneeze. It didn’t come. Dust, he told himself. He really ought to tidy up the place, especially now that he was a father again. About ten minutes later, Lenora let loose with a double-sneeze, and this time there was shiny stuff ringing her nostrils.

Mouth dry, Baker hastened into the kitchen and rifled through the medicines with shaking hands. Aside from the amoxicillin, what could he give her? He microwaved some soup, tested it to make sure it wouldn’t scald her, and positioned it on the La-Z-Boy. She glanced at it, turned away like the world’s harshest food critic, and nested her chin on her foreleg.

She sneezed again.

Cold terror washed over him.

Baker snatched up the dog book and hurried back to the kitchen. No use letting Lenora see how worked up he was. Just paranoia. Understandable in such dreadful times. He scanned the list of human medicines that dogs could ingest, but the only one he owned was aspirin. He crushed half a pill and mixed it with sugar water. By the time he’d put on a brave face and reentered the living room, Lenora was breathing hard and looking at him imploringly. It knocked Baker’s wind out.

No, he thought.

He offered her the bottle, but she ignored it. Her labored respiration made his stomach clench, the phlegmy rattle of it too much like Pastor Wiggins’s.

“Goddammit,no.”

He stroked her fur, and that seemed to calm her for a time, but then she burst out with a flurry of sneezes. He choked back a sob.

“It’s okay, girl,” he murmured. “It’s okay.” He caressed her back, kissed the tuft of hair between her ears, whispered words of encouragement. She looked at him appealingly. He got her mucus on his fingers, and he didn’t give a damn. If this was superflu, she could very well have gotten it from Dead Ed, and wouldn’t that be the worst fucking joke in history? This wonderful girl cut down by a shit stain like Dedaker?

Lenora scrambled up, her breathing rapid. He worried she was hyperventilating and had no idea what to do for her. Should he find a paper bag for her to breathe into? Did he own any paper bags?

He placed his hands on her sides and pressed his forehead to hers. “Stay with me, girl. Stay with me.”

Her breathing grew shallower. Within a couple hours she was whimpering and struggling to take in air. Shortly after that, she was gone.