The System

“We’ve stayed with dead bodies before,” Grant offered. “The dead can’t hurt us.”

Shrugging, she let him pull her up the small steps to the library. “Feels different, I guess.” Then Lucy paused. She tightened her arm as Grant continued forward, and then she yanked him back. He complained, rubbed his shoulder with his free hand, and then looked at her.

“What?” He dropped her hand and met her on the second-to-last step.

“Did you hear that?” Lucy’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. She left the stairs and took two big strides back into the middle of Main Street, her head spi

“Hear what?” Grant asked, confused and worried.

She heard it again.

A bark.

Distinct and crisp as anything.

She spun to Grant and raised her eyebrows expectantly and Grant nodded.

“Shared auditory hallucination?” he said to her, his voice cracking.

“What direction was it coming from?” Lucy did a half-jog away from the library and listened again, cupping her hand around her ears—hoping that her grandmother’s old trick of amplifying sound would help her detect from what direction this animal was coming from.

Closer now. A bark. A real bark. It was getting closer and closer. Grant migrated back toward the church and then she heard him call out.

“Lula! Look! God Almighty…”

Ru

They watched as it rushed forward, the dust flying up on his heels. It grew nearer and nearer until it pounced up on Grant playfully when it reached him, licking his hand and jumping up and barking. A leash was still attached to a collar around its neck. Grabbing the leash, Lucy tugged the dog over to her and scratched behind its ears. The dog nuzzled her hand.

They heaped love and affection upon that dog like they were men in the desert who just found water. Squatting down into the street, Grant let the dog lick his entire face. And Lucy giggled as the dog jumped and leapt around them with obvious excitement. It was the first living thing they had seen since they left Oregon and they couldn’t help but think the dog was a miracle.

“Maybe the virus didn’t make it here,” Grant said.

“So the dogs weren’t affected in Nebraska?”

“Yeah, but—”

Lucy understood the question before he asked it. This dog wasn’t emaciated from two years of neglect; it was sleek and well-groomed. Its bright red collar looked brand-new and it reacted to humans with trust and comfort. This was someone’s pet.

And it was alive.

Looking down at the collar, Lucy palmed the silver paw print and ran her finger over the inscription. Then she let out a puzzled hum.

“What?” Grant leaned down.

“This dog’s name is Frank.”

At the sound it his name, Frank licked Lucy and barked once.

“And?”

“Well…Frank lives at…Floor A. Pod 6. Room F.”

Grant didn’t answer. He just looked down and gave Frank a scratch on his rump, a goofy-grin plastered on his face.

“Frank! Fra-ank!”

They jumped and Frank’s ears perked up at the sound of his name. He joyfully barked again and Lucy and Grant paused.

“Oh no,” Lucy whispered. “A person,” she said as a sigh.

Exposed and without cover, they could only freeze, Frank’s leash in hand, and wait.

“Gun?” Lucy asked as she shot a quick glance at Grant.

“Car,” he answered. Grant frowned. “I wasn’t thinking—I—”

Around the corner of the library, a woman materialized. She was young, but older than them, and tall and dressed for a jog in shorts and a tight tank top. She had earphones in each ear, she was still bouncing along to a song they couldn’t hear, and her eyes sca

And the woman saw Frank before she saw them.

When her eyes traveled from her dog to the person holding his leash, she paused. Her eyes narrowed. She tugged her earphones out of her ears and even from over twenty yards away, they could see the fear in her eyes. She assessed the distance between them and then in a flash took off ru

Grant and Lucy could only stare.

She was there. And then she wasn’t. Fast as lightening across the empty Main Street and into the only place downtown they hadn’t entered.

“Well?” Grant asked.

Lucy’s heart was pumping wildly and she looked at her friend wide-eyed. “Well, what?”

“Should we follow her?”

“Are you crazy?”

“She was just as surprised to see us as we were to see her,” Grant offered. “You know what it means though…” he smiled.

Lucy stared at the closed door and the poor confused dog calling for his owner. She replayed the image of the woman’s face seeing them and the quickness with which she fled the scene.

Brixton, Nebraska was not a dead-end after all.

“Gun first. Library second,” Lucy commanded with an authoritative nod. And Grant clapped her on the back.

“That’s my girl.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Ethan’s eyes opened. He blinked and tried to move, but his body felt heavy, like he was attempting to pull his arms through maple syrup.  He was in his own room, in his own bed. Everything was the way it had been before: there was his desk, still littered with homework from his college classes; and there, on his dresser, was a picture of him and A

His blinds were shut tight, but light slipped between the slats. Ethan tried to raise his hand, but it barely moved. Nothing was working right—his body defied every command and Ethan groaned. Then he felt wetness across his abdomen and he turned his head to see the girl—the curly haired one, with the long legs, the high forehead, and the aquiline nose—bathing him, section by section, with a tub of baby wipes. The girl, Ainsley, he remembered, but only barely, lifted his left arm and ran a wipe down under his armpit and across his side; he emitted some noise of disapproval and tried to pull away from her, but his limbs were beyond his control.

She set his arm back down and paused, looking at him, her head turned, without saying a word.

“How’s your pain level?” Ainsley asked clinically when the silence had become too oppressive. No greetings, no small-talk.

The mention of pain sent Ethan’s nerves tingling and his leg began to ache on command. Deep, throbbing, shooting waves of pain emanated from his upper thigh and traveled down to his toes.

“My leg hurts,” he replied.

“On a scale from one to ten?” the girl asked.

He hated that question. His pain could not be quantified in numbers. It was excruciating, his leg throbbing; he was unable to think of anything else besides the pain. However, if he said ten, then there was nowhere to go—if the pain got worse, could he just add a number to the scale? And what if he said eight, but they assumed an eight was manageable? This was not manageable.

“It just really fu—freaking hurts,” he snapped at her. But Ainsley didn’t flinch or blink or seemed disturbed by his outburst. She just stared at him, her big brown eyes locked onto his, and then she nodded once—a mechanical action, without warmth or objection. She picked the heavy blanket off of Ethan and folded it over her arm, and then she bent down over Ethan’s leg and inspected his stump.