“But Ethan thought my family was at the airport. So, they weren’t at home?”
Darla waited and then she nodded.
“How many planes did he check? It’s possible that they still left. Right?” Now she didn’t know which version she wanted to be true. If her mom could have left her daughter and son behind or if somehow they had never made it to the airport, both versions seemed awful.
She gave a non-committal shrug. “Nothing was happening smoothly over there. It wasn’t like he could just ask someone about a plane and they could point him in the right direction. But…Ethan believes the plane left. Took off. Escaped Portland.”
She didn’t know what that meant.
“So, you see this guy looking for his family and you decide to help him?” Grant asked.
“Not exactly,” Darla replied. She swatted at an invisible fly, fully aware that she was being vague.
No one said anything. Salem shuffled her feet and stared mournfully at the ground. Grant reached into his bag and pulled out his water; he had only a sip left and he dripped the last few drops on to his tongue.
“Wait, was there a girl with him?” Lucy asked and she couldn’t tell if she was hopeful for survivors or indifferent. Grant went back to reading and he flipped another page in the book.
“He was alone.”
This was not surprising news, but Lucy took a moment to process the implication that Anna was gone too. All those times she had encouraged her brother to end that dead-end relationship, her evil thoughts toward Anna’s idiocy and her false friendship. And now, somewhere between leaving her standing outside the secret door and the airport, Anna and Ethan had been dealt a forced separation.
Lucy was sorry that Anna was dead. But she felt worse for Ethan and she selfishly hoped that he had been spared watching her die in the end. There were too many people to weep for; even if she felt a pang of compassion, she would not shed tears for Anna.
“Tell me about the vials,” Lucy finally asked again. “Where did you get the information you shared with Spencer?”
“What vials?” Salem asked.
But before either of them could answer, Lucy heard the floorboards squeak. It was the familiar groan of a house bearing weight. They all heard it and paused, eyes, ears and heads pointed toward the ceiling. Their bodies shifted and they all went on high alert.
“What was that?” Grant asked and he stood straight up, crossing his arms over his chest. Darla stood up next to him, her gun slipping back into the palm of her hand.
“Nothing,” Lucy said because she wanted that to be the right answer. “Don’t houses just settle, make noises?”
But they heard the creak again, and then the shifting and shuffling and footsteps above them. Unmistakable, distinct.
They had entered an occupied house.
“No way,” Darla said and went to the window, moving the curtain back and peering out. She grumbled and nodded outward. “And there are the other Raiders. Fantastic.”
Lucy darted to the window and stole a peek. A ragtag group of boys and one girl ambled up the street. There were four of them in a line. One held a semi-automatic weapon, another a baseball bat. They were dirty and weathered and none of them was over thirty. A boy on a motorized scooter with a wagon attached to the back was leading the crowd. They stopped in front of the storefront. The girl holding the baseball bat took a whack at one of the neon signs in the window and it cracked upon impact with the sound of breaking glass; she pulled it free, the cord trailing behind, and jumped on it for good measure. The group laughed, encouraging her. She batted at another sign and then took the bat to the hood of a car in the parking lot.
The steps above them had also paused. The movement ceased.
Two of the four people ducked into the store, shouting indecipherable messages to each other. It was just a lot of noise and consonants. Lucy made a move like she was going to back away from the window, but Darla put her hand out, commanding her to stay.
Grant, still standing between them, had no view of the outside, but he watched the ceiling with interest—his ears trained on the movement above.
Outside, with a swift motion, the girl raised her bat in mid-swing and then she stumbled forward. The steel slipped out of her hand and it hit the sidewalk with a clang. She clutched her stomach and slid to the ground. The boys watching guard rushed to her as she sank, then they recoiled. They called out and the looters rushed from the storefront.
Watching wide-eyed, Lucy covered her mouth with her hand as the boys dropped the goods in the wagon and took off. The boy on the scooter pulled ahead and the rest followed quickly on foot. There was a single boy who stayed and he held a gun in his hand. He spun wildly looking for something to shoot. Someone to dare cross his path in his moment of anger and surprise. He sat next to the girl, talking to her.
She doubled over in the street on her hands and knees and her body shook against the heavy burden of the virus. It was crippling her.
“Why?” Lucy croaked and took a tentative step back.
“Why what?” Salem whispered.
“The girl,” she said, but she couldn’t find the words to express her anguish. Lucy spun to Darla, “But I thought…” Lucy ran her fingers through her hair and kept her fingers tangled near her scalp. “You were just lying to Spencer. The stuff you said at the school.” She couldn’t even begin to formulate the words necessary to ask the questions on her mind.
“Day six,” Darla answered as if it pained her too. “It’s real, Lucy.” And then her eyes shifted to Salem and Grant, who stood and sat respectively without comprehension.
Grant raised his hand up toward the ceiling. And then put a finger to his lips.
“On the move,” he said.
The steps were heavy now and labored. A single thud and then another; Lucy’s heart quickened, but her arms hung like lead weights at her sides.
There was no escape.
They could see two slippered feet appear at the top of the landing and they watched as the feet slid to the next step and the next step, with rigid and jerky movements.
“Zombie,” Grant whispered. “It’s finally the zombies.” He yanked the gun out of his waistband and held it up at an angle toward the steps. Lucy noticed that his arm didn’t wobble and he pointed the gun up the stairs with marked self-assuredness. It was as if Grant had never imagined he would have to shoot a person, but shooting a zombie came without effort.
“Don’t you dare shoot me son,” came a rough and steady voice, gravelly from sleep, but unafraid.
“Not zombies,” Lucy said and pushed herself back toward the front door, her eyes trained on the emerging figure of a man in a salmon bath robe, bare, skinny legs, socks rolled down around his ankles and worn-white slippers. His hand gripped the railing and he took each step deliberately. When he had reached a spot where he could see all three of them, he paused and made eye contact with Darla and stared at her without blinking until she lowered her gun. Then he looked to Lucy, his blue eyes striking and bright despite the weathered, wrinkled face.
Outside, they could hear the boy cry out and the pop-pop-pop of rapid gunfire. Each of them ducked, expecting the bullets to rain in their direction. But the man stayed firm and upright, unmoving. As they rose, he cleared his throat.
“Houseguests,” he mumbled. “If you’d have called beforehand, I could have put on pants.”
Leland Pine’s wife was still interned in their upstairs bedroom. After they had heard news that most of their children and grandchildren had perished, she retreated to the room where they had shared a bed for more than fifty years, finished off a bottle of pills, mixed with some clear alcohol from their freezer and drifted off to sleep.