“Thanks,” Riley said when she’d had enough. “I’m…sorry you have…to…do this…by your…self.”
“Don’t have anything better to do.”
As Martina stood up, Riley said, “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Merry Christmas.”
Martina had totally forgotten. “Yeah, merry Christmas.”
She went to her parents’ room next. They didn’t open their eyes when she poured water into their mouths.
Pamela had moved into the other bedroom with Mrs. Weber. Martina gave some to the girl before circling the bed to Pamela and Riley’s mom.
“Time for some water,” she said. She didn’t expect a response. Mrs. Weber hadn’t been awake for hours.
She put a hand under the woman’s neck to raise her head, but quickly dropped it. Mrs. Weber’s skin was ice cold. Martina touched the woman’s forehead. It was the same. Not wanting to do it, but knowing she had no choice, she felt Mrs. Weber’s wrist for a pulse. When she let go, she started to cry.
“What?” Pamela asked, her voice weak.
“Nothing,” Martina said, silencing her tears. How do you tell a young girl her mother had just died? “Go back to sleep.”
Pamela mumbled something, then fell silent.
Martina limped her way out of the room, back into the main part of the cabin.
They’re all going to die. All of them.
It suddenly felt as if the cabin were squeezing in on her, the air disappearing second by second.
She ran to the front door as fast as her stubbed toe would let her, wanting nothing more than to get out of the house. She grabbed her jacket off the hook, pulled it on, and started to don her boots but switched to her father’s instead. They were big enough that she should be able to keep the towel wrapped around the top of her foot.
Outside, the air was crisp and clear. She took a deep breath. As she exhaled, a cloud of vapor momentarily obscured her vision. She repeated the process two more times, feeling a bit more in control with each clearing of her lungs.
When she felt panic would no longer overtake her, she wondered what she should do about Mrs. Weber. At some point she would have to move her out of the house, right?
Not if I get sick, too.
If? When, right? When she got sick?
Everyone else had come down with it. She was just the last. Someone had to be. But, with the exception of Mrs. Weber, they had all fallen sick within a couple hours of each other. Here it was, five hours since the last one — Riley — had fallen ill, and Martina still felt fine.
Well, exhausted and scared out of her mind, but not physically ill.
It hasn’t hit you yet, that’s all.
She walked over to the car and climbed into the passenger seat. The keys were still in the ignition. As she turned on the electrical system, the lights on the radio came on, and a voice came out of the speakers.
“…time. North Korea has released a statement claiming that their borders are free and clear of the disease, and that the North Korean people are unaffected and will remain so. It’s important to note that this statement was sent in email form to all major media outlets, and was unsigned. North Korean state television has been showing a series of patriotic still images accompanied by music since right after—”
She turned the dial, hoping to find something else, anything but news. She discovered two other stations, but both were more of the same. At one point, she came across a quick hit of music, but then it was gone, and her attempts to get it back failed.
She switched the car off and stared out the window.
What am I going to do?
7
For the past few days, as Brandon had been on the run, his rest had been spotty at best. It was little wonder, then, that on Christmas Eve, with the snow outside his lean-to muffling all sound, he had fallen into a deep sleep for the first time since he’d left the Ranch.
On Christmas morning, he woke with the gradualness of a summer vacation day, slowly coming back to consciousness as his mind chased the wisp of a forgotten dream — not the running one this time, but something warm and inviting and happy.
It was the cold that finally reminded him where he was. At some point during the night, he’d slipped his head inside his sleeping bag, leaving only a small hole for air to pass through. It was more than enough, though, for the frigid tendrils of the winter morning to worm their way around his cheeks and across his nose.
He opened the hole wider and stuck his face out. For a second he couldn’t breathe, the cold a stark contrast to the heat of his bag. Once the shock passed, he looked around. The lean-to had worked incredibly well. Snow was piled against it nearly halfway up, yet none of the dead branches that made up the structure had collapsed in on him during the night.
He twisted in the bag so he could see the open end of his temporary house. It appeared that a good foot and a half of snow had fallen during the night. Though it was still cloudy, it wasn’t snowing now.
A white Christmas.
A year ago he would have gotten a thrill from that. Not today.
Keeping his legs within the warmth of his sleeping bag, he removed a package of trail mix from his backpack, and ate half of it before forcing himself to stop. He couldn’t be sure when he would next find shelter and more food, so he had to conserve his supplies.
A fire would have been nice, but while he had the book of matches that he’d found in Mr. Hayes’s pocket, no way could he find any wood to burn that wasn’t wet from the snow. So, with reluctance, he extracted himself from his sleeping bag, pulled on his boots, and packed up.
When he reached the highway a few minutes later, he spotted two rutted tracks running down the middle that definitely had not been there before.
A car, he thought. Judging by the several inches of snow that had accumulated in each trench, he realized it had come by sometime in the early morning while he was sleeping.
He grimaced at the lost chance of hitching a ride. At least the passing vehicle had done him one favor. By walking in one of the depressions, he was able to make better time than he would have otherwise.
Like the day before, he was struck by the silence. Was this how it would be from now on? Had the world turned quiet? Not the kind of thoughts a kid his age should be having, but as much as he wanted to be home looking through his baseball card collection or reading the latest X-Men, he knew that Brandon was gone. He wasn’t even a teenager yet, but at times he felt like he was already an adult.
Around noon, a noise in the distance momentarily cut through the silence. It was there for a second, then gone, not long enough to identify. Snow falling out of a tree, maybe? He’d seen that happen a couple of times already. There would be a crack of a branch as the weight of the snow became too much to bear, and snow and limb would come crashing down together.
Or maybe the sound had been nothing. Just his imagination.
He shook that thought away the moment he had it. Not nothing. He couldn’t let himself think that way.
It’s a truck, he decided. And it’s coming this way.
He could envision a pickup truck with a heated cab slicing through the snow, obliterating the tracks left by the car. No, no. A big rig. One with a sleeping cabin in back, and a built-in refrigerator stocked with food. It would stop as soon as the driver saw him, and the man behind the wheel would offer him a ride to wherever he wanted to go.