He was planning on burying her in their garden, but arthritis and the constant threat of the Raiders across the street thwarted his attempts. He had given up hope that she would receive a burial and had taken to sleeping on the floor beside their bed for long hours. He’d been unable to take his own life in return and so he just waited for the illness to come claim him. Praying that he’d feel the unmistakable symptoms of the virus, he wished for death, but it never came.
Leland handed Darla a coffee mug with an illustration of an American Eskimo dog on the side filled with sweet tea that they had made with the all their remaining water and heated on Leland’s old gas stove. She placed her lips on the rim then sucked up the hot liquid between her teeth, then raised mug in a cheers after swallowing, and smiled a thin smile, tight and still suspicious.
“I haven’t seen many survivors beside the Raiders…the looters,” Darla corrected. “Especially not anyone…”
“Older?” Leland finished for her.
“No offense,” she shrugged.
“None taken,” he replied. “Virus wiped out most the older population first. And the little ones too, I suppose. When you think about who was dying early on it makes it even more difficult to comprehend that someone could do this to us.”
“Unfathomable,” Darla agreed.
Lucy took a mug next; the sweet tea had an overpowering fruit smell and she gagged it down. She was thirsty, but fruity drinks always reminded her of the long road trips to her grandparents’ house where her mother shoved juice boxes and packages of gummy bears at them to quiet the rivalry and announcements of boredom.
They all stood and sat around, drinking the sticky-sweet mixture out of an assortment of dime store coffee mugs and weighing their words. The clouds had rolled back over the area and everyone paused to listen to the sound of rain running down the gutters. Grant was the first to finish his drink and he set his mug down on the table and mumbled a sincere thank you. Leland raised his glass in reply.
“I never thought I’d have anyone in my kitchen again,” Leland said. “Raiders, as you call them, would come by periodically and I’d watch them and it would just make me sad. Seems like such a shame. I’ve lived this long life, seen so many things. Served my country and raised my kids. And here I am, one of the last ones standing? A waste if you ask me.”
No one said anything. Then Grant turned, “What branch of the military?”
“Navy,” Leland replied, then he chuckled, wiping the corner of his mouth with his finger. “Cook. Oh boy, I was a mean navy cook. When I met my wife, she was this wispy little thing, all eager and excited to go on a date with me. Didn’t take me long to fatten her up. Plump little gal she turned out to be after we got married. She blamed me and I knew it was true.” His eyes were misty, but his smile was wide.
Lucy couldn’t help but realize that maybe the Pines, in their old age, had pondered a life without each other. Mortality had to play an important role in their everyday thoughts; death was certain for everyone, but the closer you neared to the end of your life, you had to prepare your heart for imminent loss. Maybe Leland had hoped he’d go first and here he was, alone, without anyone.
“My dad wanted me to go into the military,” Grant said and he slid his eyes to the table. He played with the edge of a paper napkin. “Threatened to send me to military school if I couldn’t keep my grades up.”
“Military isn’t the same now,” Leland said and he stretched his hands above his head. “Long ago, you didn’t have a choice. You had to serve and you had to give up youth and plans. But now? Young people have all sorts of options. You have choices.”
Leland’s words were fresh in their ears when Darla laughed without missing a beat. It was loud and abrupt, but she cut it short when she saw their expressions. “I’m sorry,” she then said, looking to each of them. “It’s not funny.”
Leland nodded. “I see my mistake. It’s easy to forget.”
“The opposite is true for me,” added Salem from the back of the kitchen. “I can’t forget. Not even for a second.”
Grant looked at Leland with sympathy, bypassing Salem’s comment. “But I guess we’re in a war now though, right?” he asked.
“Oh really son?” Leland shook his head. “No, no. No war.”
“There’s nothing left to fight for,” Lucy said. But Darla disagreed by sighing and shaking her head.
“We have plenty to fight for. It’s just a matter of how to fight for it,” Darla added. She turned to Leland. “You seem like a good man. Honest. And I’m sorry for your losses, I am. We can’t take up too much of your time though. We really were just passing through.”
Leland put his hands on the table. “Don’t rush away on my account. The company is nice.”
But Darla started to stand, taking one more sip of her drink before presumably announcing the group’s departure. Lucy watched as Darla put the chipped mug to her lips. Then her eyes grew wide and her breath quickened. She was looking at something beyond Lucy, something that had caused her to freeze.
Without a word, Lucy turned and looked behind her, where Salem was standing. She had dropped her hand to her side, her fingers still gripped the porcelain of her I-Heart-Grandma mug, but her breathing was labored. Her face had gone an eerie shade of white. Her skin was milky and green and her eyes moved to each of them in turn, shifting, darting, afraid.
“Lucy?” Salem whispered. “Grant?” There was a tremor in her voice and it rose with panic.
“Salem!” Lucy jumped from her chair, knocking it to the ground, and started toward her friend.
She reached her just as Salem slumped forward, her mug hitting the kitchen floor with a crash and shattering into tiny pieces.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In an instant Lucy knew exactly what was going to happen next. She knew because she had seen it many times before and she knew because Salem was not looking at her, but looking past her, like she was on the other side of a two-way mirror. She had never been so close to someone succumbing to the virus before and never watched someone she loved in the act of dying. Lucy wiped her hand across Salem’s brow and her friend’s skin was on fire, clumps of her dark hair stuck to her forehead. A small trickle of blood started dripping from Salem’s left nostril and without thinking, without regard for her own safety, Lucy wiped the blood away with her bare hand; she only succeeded in smearing it down across Salem’s cheek.
“Hey, Sal. Come on…please look at me. Sal?”
Salem was trying to talk and Lucy cradled her head, lifting her up into her nap, but Salem groaned and shook her head. Lucy set her head back down onto Leland’s kitchen floor.
“Give it to me,” Lucy cried over her shoulder. “Give me the vaccine.” She was screaming, but her voice sounded foreign and strange.
For a second, she turned her head from Salem and looked around the room. Leland had pushed himself backward and he stood next to his refrigerator; he still clutched his tea with white knuckles. His wife had not died of the virus and Lucy realized that perhaps this was the first person he had seen succumb to it firsthand. She was sorry that Salem was in his house, sorry that he would never be able to look at this spot without remembering this moment.
Grant had taken a tentative step forward, but he looked lost and confused and he had started to cry. The look on his face made Lucy angry. She read resignation and futility in his eyes and she hated him for it.
Astounded by everyone’s inaction, Lucy turned to Darla with tears dripping down on to her borrowed sweatshirt and she pleaded.
“She needs it now, Darla. I need it quick.” But when she turned to Salem, her breathing had already started to slow. She fought for breath, her chest rattling with fluid with each attempt to draw air into her lungs.