Growing up poor in Alabama meant hands stained red from the dirt and scabby knees stained the same color by eating pavement. It meant making do and making repairs and making a dollar do the work of ten. It meant pride, because pride might not fill a belly, but it could sure make the sting of hunger seem righteous, like something that had been honestly earned. Kathleen had always hated the rich, happy-looking kids she’d seen on television, because they were nothing like anyone she’d ever met. Where was the red dirt under their fingernails, the stains that could have been earth and could have been blood and were really both at the same time? Where was the hunger, big enough to eat the world? Where was the need?
It was here. It was ever and always here.
They pulled up in front of the Taylor house. It was small, and clean, with a well-weeded vegetable garden out front. Kathleen frowned when she saw Top eyeing it speculatively.
“Sorry there isn’t a truck on cinder blocks out front, to tell you you’ve got the right place.”
He turned his gaze on her. “You’ve got a lot of mad in you. That can be a good thing. But please don’t aim it at me. I’ve never said a thing to make you think I’d be that judgmental.”
Kathleen flushed red. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long week.”
“I’m sure it has.”
They got out of the car, Kathleen leading the way up the narrow path to the front door. She rang the bell, stepping back and waiting. And waiting.
And waiting.
“Let me try,” said Bunny. He stepped past her and twisted the doorknob hard to the side. There was a clicking noise as something inside the lock broke. He pushed the door open, offering Kathleen an apologetic smile. “Looks like it was open.”
“I hope you’re ready to pay for that,” said Kathleen, and stepped past him into the hall.
The smell of sickness stopped her in her tracks.
Sick people had a smell, and that smell hung heavy in this house, sinking into the walls. She took a breath and started forward, Top and Bunny close enough behind her that it should have felt claustrophobic. Instead, she found their presence oddly reassuring, as if by having them there, she could prepare for whatever she might find.
She was not prepared.
The back room — formerly the TV room — had been transformed into a makeshift medical ward, presumably because the family couldn’t afford to send anyone to the hospital, if they even trusted it after the number of people they’d seen admitted over the past week. Four of them were lying there, two on the couch and two on the floor. All four were dead. Kathleen recognized Vince and his sister, Angie; the process of elimination said that the other two must be their parents.
Something scrabbled at the back door. They had locked the dogs out at some point, maybe when they realized how sick they were. That was all that had saved them from being eaten by their own pets, whose domesticated behaviors would eventually have given way in the face of hunger. Kathleen’s stomach did a slow roll. This was so much worse than she could have dreamed. So much worse.
“Look.” The voice was Bunny’s. She turned to see him holding up a bottle of water. The label was something bright and geometric, with no clear brand. He was looking at Top, expression grim. “We missed one.”
“Fuck,” Top said tonelessly. He sounded resigned, as though he had never expected anything better from the world.
“Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?” asked Kathleen.
The two men exchanged a look.
Kathleen sat behind her own desk, fuming silently. These people — these strangers — came to her town and refused to answer questions, refused to provide solutions; refused to do anything beyond going through the Taylor house and confiscating half a flat of bottled water. It didn’t make any sense.
“We’re not from the CDC,” said Dr. Sanchez.
Her head snapped around. “You said—”
“We said we were from the government: that was true,” he said. “We belong to a bioterrorism task force, responsible for preventing and intercepting scientific threats to life as we know it. What I am about to tell you is confidential.”
“People are dying,” she said.
“You have my profound sympathies, but those people are already dead,” said Dr. O’Tree. “They have been exposed to a biological agent which has caused a normally genetic disorder to become communicable over short distances. The good news is, it can only activate when the exposed person is already a carrier for the gene in question.”
“The bad news is, there is no cure,” said Dr. Sanchez.
Kathleen stared at them. Phil spoke first.
“This is bullshit,” he said. “What is this, a chemical spill? There was something in that water, something that wasn’t supposed to get out, and now you’re making up stories to cover your own asses? You may think we’re hicks here, that you can say whatever you want and we’ll just believe you, but we’re American citizens. We have rights. You can’t just use us for your experiments and expect to get away with it.”
Dr. Sanchez looked briefly, profoundly, weary. Kathleen found herself wondering how old he really was, how many rooms like this he had sat in, how many suspicious local medical experts had called him a liar because he’d given them information that they didn’t want and didn’t know what to do with.
She believed him.
It was a small, terrible realization. Small because it came so easily, at the end of so many other, impossible things; terrible because it meant that she now lived in a world where this sort of thing could be believable, where this sort of thing could be real. This could be her reality. It was not a comfortable thought to have. She would have rejected it, if she thought that she could.
“What can we do?” she asked.
Dr. O’Tree looked to her. “You can make them comfortable,” she said. “The normal treatments for galactosemia should slow the progression of the more ordinary aspects of the disease, while the rest continue unabated. You’re going to lose them all. You should accept that now. It will make everything else easier.”
“If this is in bottled water, there should have been some sort of public notice,” said Phil. “A recall. A health and safety alert.”
“It’s not only in bottled water,” said Dr. Sanchez. “There are two aspects to this attack. Bottled water, to provide the activation sequences; in this case, they activated the carrier gene for galactosemia. And the groundwater.”
“What?” Kathleen half stood, alarmed. “It’s in the water?”
“Without the bottled water, what’s in the groundwater is harmless,” said Dr. Sanchez. “My people will sweep the town and recover all remaining bottled water. We think the biological agent was released accidentally. A storm, a crack in a containment tank — or this town was meant to be one of their testing grounds, and was canceled before it could be activated. Whatever the reason, this is a terrible accident. You have our full sympathies. The CDC is already en route, and they will be able to help you with the care these people need.”
“How many more cases can we expect?”
“It all depends on the water.”
There had been six flats of water.
Top and Bunny had been able to recover five, and the three remaining bottles from the sixth. They had been stored in garages and under the stairs at the church soup kitchen. Top stacked them in the back of the SUV while Bunny looked on.
“There’s one good thing about all this,” he said.
“You found something good?” Top asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s not summer yet.”