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“No,” she said, like it was the dumbest question she’d ever been asked. “Will you?”
“No,” he admitted. “I guess not.”
A pickup cruised by. They both watched it in silence. There were fewer vehicles passing every hour.
“They’re saying three percent of people seem to be immune to the virus. Did you hear that?” Kelly said.
“I don’t love those odds.”
“No, they suck bad.”
It was a chance, though. There was hope.
“Neither of us has it yet, and lots of other people do. Maybe that means something,” he said.
Kelly nodded. “Maybe it does.”
Joh
She nodded. “Thank you.”
• • • •
Back at the drive-in, Joh
He wondered what it felt like, to be trapped in your frozen body. Were you numb?
If he was going to die, he wanted to feel a terrible pain in his chest and be dead before he hit the ground. He didn’t want to have days and days where he knew he was dying. That was when you took stock, when you had nothing to do but think about your past, and he didn’t want to think about what a waste his life had been to this point.
He’d always thought he was just slow getting started, that he’d leave Ravine and Burger King for bigger things. His first plan had been to hit it big with the band, then it was opening his bar and grill. His savings, the house, a little inheritance money was the kickstart he’d been counting on for the past decade or so, except,
surprise
: his Dad had his own dreams, even at seventy-one and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Dad was staring out at the big white screen through the window, his hands in his back pockets, smiling.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Wait and see.”
No one showed up. Not one car. Joh
Green Lantern
tonight, but Joh
Ghostbusters
out of a pile of old films his dad had bought on Ebay a month before they opened. He didn’t think he could sit through
GL
again, but a comedy, especially an old, actually fu
Joh
• • • •
At 7 a.m., Joh
“I should start calling you Florence Nightengale.”
Kelly smiled, but it was the smile of a Burger King cashier toward the end of a shift. She looked exhausted; there was a sheen of sweat on her face, as if she hadn’t washed up in a while.
“You were studying to be a nurse, weren’t you?”
“For a little while.”
“Why’d you stop?”
She shrugged. “Because I was too stupid. Couldn’t pass the biology courses.”
Joh
Again, she attempted a smile. “Thanks.”
“You’re really going door to door?”
Kelly pushed her hair out of her face. “If you get it and I don’t, you’ll be happy to see me and my water bottle.”
Joh
That made her smile. “It’s nice to know someone is.”
He watched, arms folded, as she slid into her dad’s SUV.
Maybe he should be going with her. If he made it through this, for the rest of his life people would ask what it was like, what he’d done. It would be nice to be able to say he worked tirelessly to help people, that he hauled water and fed his friends and neighbors, and even strangers. And if he didn’t make it through this, maybe God would look more favorably on a man who wasn’t there for his kids if that man had died helping other people’s kids.
Kelly was putting the SUV in drive. Joh
Kelly smiled brightly. “When this is over, I swear, I’m go
• • • •
As soon as Joh
Joh
The boy watched him, watched Joh
“I know. It breaks your heart,” Kelly said.
Joh
Kelly gave him a hug, patted his back. It felt good—safe, warm—to be in her arms. “I cried all day yesterday. Eventually you run out of tears, and all you’ve got is a big lump in your throat.”
The lights went out; the picture on the TV contracted to a dot and vanished.
“Shit,” Kelly said.
Something in the boy’s eyes told Joh
• • • •
“Come on in,” Kelly called when Joh
“I’ll check on you at lunchtime. Try not to worry; everything’s going to be okay. Help is coming.”
He paused as he passed Kelly’s room. She had a billion CDs, a big Union Jack for a bedspread, a Black Sabbath poster on the wall, and a long shelf up near the ceiling crammed with hundreds of Beanie Babies.
Joh
“Jeeze,” he breathed.
Kelly, in a Luzurne County Community College t-shirt and jeans, was brushing her mother’s hair. “I figure they’ll feel better if I stand them up once in a while, exercise their muscles a little. Can you help me?”
Joh
“I didn’t realize they could stand,” he said. They stayed in pretty much any position you placed them in, but he’d figured standing would take too much coordination.
“They can. You ready to go?”
Joh
They started with the first house on the left on Princess Lane. When they knocked, an upstairs window creaked open.
“What do you want?” it was a woman, Joh
“We’re checking for people who need help,” Kelly said. “Anyone around here that you know of?”
“I haven’t gone out.” They turned to go. “If you were smart, you’d stay in your house, too.”
“Somebody’s got to help these people,” Joh