Pandemic (10 page)

The school sent a second message not long after.

The emails distracted me a little. If people were well enough to worry about how fashionable the masks were, then not everyone was falling over ill. That was a good sign, I hoped.

I dragged myself out of bed to open the safe, which was hidden on the closet floor in the laundry room. Dad said most burglars wouldn’t look for it there. It took a few tries before I figured out that the combination started with a counter-clockwise turn. Finally, the door clicked open.

Whoa.

While I had been stockpiling food, Dad had been accumulating quite a collection of medicines. There were cipro pills for anthrax, potassium iodide tablets for radiation, and a bunch of prescriptions I didn’t recognize. They were all grouped in sets of three. Dad was definitely prepared. Did Mom realize I wasn’t the only worrier in the family?

I took out the box of medicine he mentioned and closed the safe. A swallowed pill later, I didn’t feel any better.

When the phone rang, I said a silent prayer for good news. Dad could be released, or Megs could be better. Maybe Mom’s flight had landed and she was minutes away. I didn’t recognize the number on caller ID.

“Hello?” I answered with crossed fingers.

“Lilianna?” Mr. B asked.

Hope left my body along with my breath.

C
HAPTER
11

We’ve known since 1972 that waterfowl host just about every influenza virus there is. But no mutated virus could be passed from human to human. Until now.

—Blue Flu interview, anonymous researcher

A
t the sound of Mr. B’s voice, the memories came crashing back.

“Lilianna, I need to discuss something with you,” he continued.

“I . . . I . . .” My ability to speak was gone.

I didn’t slam down the phone or hurl it across the room. No drama. The drama had already occurred at his house. Instead, I pushed the “End call” button. Then I found the website for the phone company and blocked all future calls from his number and any unidentified callers as well.

What could he possibly want to speak to me about? It was crazy that he would call the house. If my parents had answered, they would have contacted the police, made a formal complaint. He must have known that. And did he really think I would just have a nice chat with him on the phone?

I needed to get rid of the angst, to find a way to release the fear. Finally, I went into the basement, closed the door, and screamed until my throat felt raw. At first I worried that the neighbors would call the police, but the yelling felt good. No one came to check on me.

It was a long sleepless night. I must have dozed off at some point because I woke up to a rainy grayness that matched my mood. Leaving the house wasn’t safe. Now that Mr. B had called, staying inside didn’t feel so secure either. I spent a lot of time pacing.

At noon on Monday, the church rang its bells. On a calm day, the sound carried to our street. Today their tone seemed sad, mournful.

I shook off the feeling. Of course the bells today were the same as any other day. Usually I only heard them on the weekend, when school was out. For a moment, I relished the fact that history class was taking place without me. Mrs. Nubrik would be droning on and on right that very minute.

This consolation didn’t last. I still couldn’t get through to Megs or Mrs. Salerno, or Mom or Dad. Hours of worry stretched ahead of me like a desolate road I had to travel alone.

Going to church suddenly seemed appealing. It was an odd longing, because I stopped attending mass regularly after Mr. B. I tried once or twice, but restlessness replaced the peace I used to feel when the light shone through the stained glass windows. Soon a few skipped weeks stretched into months. Dad was pretty much agnostic and Mom eventually stopped asking me to come with her on Sunday mornings.

But church was off limits now. There was no way I could go during my self-imposed quarantine. I convinced myself that any prayer counted, whether I was seated in a pew or not. I focused my silent entreaty on Megs and her health.

I wasn’t particularly hungry, but forced myself to eat some corn flakes with bananas. I had just finished when the doorbell rang.

“Leave the groceries out there please,” I said through the closed door.

“Lilianna Snyder?”

I peeked through the side window.

“I’m Officer Raitt. I need to speak to your parents.”

“They’re not here. I’ve been exposed to the flu so I’m not supposed to open the door.”

“It’s all right. It’s police business.”

“Just a minute.” I found one of Mom’s old sweaters in the coat closet and pulled it on over my pjs. Cracking the door the tiniest bit, I recognized Officer Raitt even with a pale blue mask across his mouth and nose. He had stopped Dad for speeding once on Noe Avenue, but let my father go with just a warning.

“How are you today?” he asked.

I stepped outside with a nervous stomach. Police at the door couldn’t be a good thing. But even my pessimistic attitude couldn’t imagine what would cause a cop to come to our house in person. Maybe someone called the police about last night’s meltdown after all? How could I explain my crazy screaming?

“Fine, thank you.”

“Are you symptomatic at all?”

“No.” Maybe that’s why he was here, to take me away and lock me up somewhere if I had the flu. Thinking about it made my throat compulsively tickle. A small cough escaped against my will.

Officer Raitt seemed preoccupied and didn’t react. “Sorry to stop by unannounced. Um, Detective Salerno asked me to come.”

Oh, that explained it. Megs’s mom must be worried that I caught the flu. Mom and Mrs. Salerno were thoughtful like that, looking out for each other’s daughters. Sometimes it could be annoying, as if having one overprotective mother wasn’t enough. Today, it warmed me like hot chocolate with marshmallows on a blustery day.

“You can tell her I’m doing all right. It’s nice of her to ask you to check on me.”

Officer Raitt looked away, toward the neighbors’ house. He studied their property for a long time. I followed his gaze, seeing damp shrubs, a neat lawn, an ordinary home. Nothing to hold his interest for so long.

Finally, he spoke. “There’s no easy way to break this to you.” He sighed, a heavy, unhappy sound. “Megan passed away yesterday.”

“Megan?” I tried to process the information but my brain clouded over. “You mean Megs?”

He nodded. “Detective Salerno asked as a favor if I’d talk to you, break the news in person.”

“Megs is . . . dead?” I asked, not comprehending the words.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“But the hospital . . . the doctors were taking care of her. She was admitted Saturday night. And she’s been studying for her AP test next month. Megs takes school very seriously.”

“I know this is difficult for you.”

“We were picking out clothes for her date. Her mom drove to the emergency room right away. Mrs. Salerno doesn’t like to take chances.” I shook my head. “You know them, personally, right? There must be a mistake.”

“I wish it was a big misunderstanding,” Officer Raitt said. “Because of the widespread illness, the funeral arrangements for Megan have been postponed. We’ll try to keep you informed.”

“The funeral . . .” I stood there, eyes wide, heart empty. “I need to call someone. My parents. I have to tell them.”

“Yes, you should let them know. It’s probably better if you can be with your family right now. I’m sorry I can’t wait for them to return. I have too many next-of-kin notifications to make.”

“Next of kin? How many people have died?”

“I can’t give you an exact figure. But off the record, staying home is probably a good idea,” he said. “Here’s my number in case you need anything.”

I tucked his contact info into a pocket and watched him stride toward his patrol car, toward a day filled with delivering bad news. I fought the urge to beg him to stay, not to leave me alone with the sadness.

After he left, I didn’t want to go inside to the photos of me and Megs on my desk, to the black shirt I borrowed from her and never returned, to the kitchen counter she’d sat on a thousand times after school. I went through the back gate and kneeled in the wet grass in my pjs. The air had that just-rained magical smell from my last dream about her.

Mindlessly, I pulled out blades of grass one by one until I made a large empty patch, losing track of time. Piling the grass in my palms, I let the breeze scatter the pieces. The world seemed so vibrant: the bright sky, picture-perfect clouds, a mourning dove cooing nearby. But Megs wasn’t a part of it any longer. How could that be?

Yet part of me had known it in my heart since the dream. Megs was gone.

In a way, she had said a final good-bye to me in that dream. She would have known I needed the last conversation, the closure. I hated loose ends, and Megs understood me better than anyone.

Megs was a part of my everyday life: the drama, the boredom, the survival. After the Mr. B incident, Mom and Dad had an unspoken rule not to talk about it unless I brought it up, which I never did. But somehow discussing it with Megs was different, less intimidating. Unlike my family, she wasn’t analyzing the long-term emotional implications to my mental health. She just listened.

Only Megs believed I could study anything I wanted in college, even major in history if I put my mind to it. To her, the future was a blank page with no lines. Anything was possible.

Once we made chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the night then ate them straight from the baking sheet while we discussed our ideal careers. In between giggles and bites of gooey sweetness, we ruled out nutrition-related fields that would discourage midnight snacks.

Megs and I spent one sleepover planning our weddings in detail. We found pictures online of our perfect white dresses and elegant bouquets: roses for her, lilies for me. She wanted to have her ceremony outside under an ivy-covered cabana on a beautiful spring afternoon.

A day just like today.

The phone rang. What if it was Mr. B? I hesitated. What if it wasn’t?

I moved like a sleepwalker back inside the house. It was Mom. Finally, the tears came.

C
HAPTER
12

Portico has become a hotbed of flu-like activity with more than 200 cases reported among its 10,000 townspeople. This has resulted in a record number of departures. “I’m not sure leaving Portico is the answer,” Mayor Hein said. But residents seem to disagree and cars jam all major roads exiting Portico. When a policeman asked one mother where she was taking her three children, their beagle, and their parakeet, she replied, “Anywhere but here.”

—Various Blue Flu interviews

M
om was stuck in Hong Kong, Dad in Delaware. I was in voluntary quarantine hell, monitoring my temperature every hour, waiting for the flu to descend upon me. If I sat perfectly still as the minutes ticked by, maybe I could sense the illness shift in my body, feel the cells mutate, and mandate them to stop.

The groceries came. That was the highlight of Monday. After putting the perishable stuff in the fridge, I spent most of the day sleeping between bouts of nausea. Whether it was the antiviral medicine or the grief, I couldn’t say.

Dad kept his word, texting me every few hours to check in. He insisted on ignoring text language and spelled out every word.

It took me a long time to type the five words, to condense the overwhelming sadness into alphabetical characters.

Later:

When I wasn’t checking for his messages, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t send flowers, visit her grave, or do any of the normal grieving things. Hours passed as I gazed outside, staring at the clouds. Remembering all the good times she and I had together made my chest ache.

On Tuesday, I texted her.

The phone rang in the kitchen and for a crazy second I thought it was Megs. I let it ring and ring, crying, unable to answer it. The machine clicked on and the caller hung up.

I did not want to think about Mr. B calling again.

I turned on the TV as a distraction and realized I wasn’t the only one in hell. Apparently, the flu had gotten stronger as it moved up the coast, with each state struck harder than the one before. New York and Connecticut prepared for the worst and various cases were being reported across the United States.

The camera panned over a group of somber gray tents. “The governor of New Jersey has declared a state of emergency,” a reporter wearing a pale blue mask narrated. “Tents like those behind me are being erected outside many Jersey hospitals to deal with overwhelming demand. Retired nurses and doctors are asked to help wherever possible. While schools, churches, and ‘nonessential’ businesses decide whether to remain open, the governor encourages them to keep the greater good of the public’s health in mind. ‘Loss of business income and school days can be recovered,’ he said in a press conference earlier today. ‘Loss of life cannot.’”