The Gemini Virus (33 page)

She held her breath as they approached their property. The tall hedgerow that delineated it from their next-door neighbors’ to the east blocked the view of their front lawn—where Dennis’s fear-glazed eyes were trained. From the passenger seat, Andi would get the first look by a split second. She zeroed in on the spot where Jack McLaughlin had fallen.…

He’s not there
.

It was true—the area where he had been lying when they sped away over two weeks ago was unoccupied by anyone or anything, just grass like the rest of the lawn. It badly needed cutting, but it was thick and it was green and it was
healthy
.
Oh my God …

She turned to Dennis, who now looked more bewildered than anything else. As he brought the van to a gradual stop, he mouthed three words soundlessly:
Where is he?

“Daddy, come on!” Chelsea urged.

“Yeah!” Billy joined in.

“Oh … sorry.”

He went up the small incline and into the driveway. Getting out, he came around to look once more, as if his mind had tricked him into seeing what he really hoped to see. But no, Jack McLaughlin’s body really wasn’t there.

The cops already came and got him,
his guilt taunted him.
Now they’re waiting for you. They’ll be here in a few minutes.

A large ball of ice formed in the center of his stomach, and he found he had no desire to move.

“Daddy, the keys! The keys!”

“Den, give them to me and I’ll open the door,” Andi said.

“No, I’ve got it,” he told her, his voice like something from a dream. His fingers seemed to find the right key on their own. He walked the three stone steps to the side door and worked the lock. When he pushed the door back, he paused.

Everything
looked
fine—but there was a smell as wretched as any he had ever known. It wasn’t as pungent or vile as that of the fluids that leaked from the broken blisters in the hospital, but it was in the same family, a cousin, maybe.

Jack … oh God, no …

He somehow got inside after they drove away. Maybe he broke a window.
Maybe the glass cut him coming through, and he bled to death. Maybe that smell is the scent of his decaying body. Maybe he’s slumped over your bed …

Andi looked at Dennis as if she was thinking along similar lines.

“Oh, pee-yew! What’s that?” Chelsea demanded, pinching her nose.

“I don’t know,” Dennis said. “Let me check it ou—”

“You want me to go?” Andi asked with no conviction.

“No, I got it.” Whatever was in here,
he
wanted to be the one to find it … or fight it. Not his wife, and not his kids.

He walked into the kitchen; a bright bolt of sunlight slanted down through the window over the sink. He crossed into the living room and found nothing—and no one—there. Then he walked slowly up the stairs to find nothing in either of the kids’ rooms, either.
Exactly as we left them…,
he thought with some surprise.

Back on the first floor, he kicked open the bedroom door like a cop; it whacked against the wall with a shudder. The bed lay unmade—but no one was on it. The two windows were still locked tight.

Through the dining room and into the den, there was still nothing. As he reached the back door, he discovered a clue to the mystery.
The smell isn’t as strong here
. He unlocked the door and opened it to get some air circulating. Then he headed back to the kitchen … and found the source.

He pressed his foot gingerly on the pedal of the tall plastic garbage can, and the lid popped up. The bag inside was full, and sitting on top was a ripped-open package of decaying hamburger meat, covered with maggots. The fresh odor that rose into his nostrils made him light-headed. His hand went to his stomach, and for a moment he truly thought he was going to vomit.

“Dennis?” Andi called from behind the door and not more than fifteen feet away.

“I’m right here,” he said conversationally. “I think we need to empty this garbage can.”

She gasped. “Oh no, I forgot!”

“Yeah.”

She stepped inside, the kids clinging.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, pulling the bag up by its red strap-handles and tying them quickly.

“I emptied some stuff out of the fridge the day we left, but then I got sidetracked and—”

“It’s no big deal,” Dennis said as he walked past her with the bulging bag rotating slowly. “Just get some windows open in here. I’ll start unloading the van.”

“Okay.”

For the next half hour, the Jensens worked in assembly-line mode, Dennis carrying bags and boxes to Andi in the doorway, and Andi giving them to Chelsea to be distributed in the appropriate rooms. Billy helped a little, too, in his own way.

Just as Dennis reached for the last suitcase—his own—someone said, “Well, look who’s back.”

He knew the voice, and his heart seized up like an engine. He spun around, certain his face was glowing with guilt, and found Janine Hartman, Carlton’s self-appointed Minister of Gossip, standing there.
Judgment Day has come.

She was a small woman, no more than five feet and perhaps an inch or two. She was slender, one could even say athletic, for someone in her mid-fifties. She kept her dark hair cropped short, severely so. But it was the eyes that caught your attention. Dennis and Andi had described them at various times as
sharp
and
gleaming
and
piercing
. They seemed to see everything, especially that which was not intended to be seen. Andi once said, “When I talk to her, I feel like she can see inside me.”

She stalked the sidewalks like a specter, knocking on doors and peeking over fences. A visit from her was akin to a colon search. She knew who bought the house three blocks over, what married person was having an affair, when everyone left for and returned from work, how the town was going to pay for the upgrades to the high school’s football field, and why the Italian place near the thrift store managed to stay in business even though it was never crowded. Every town had a Big Brother, and she held that claim in sleepy little Carlton Lakes. And as luck would have it, she lived just two doors down from Dennis and Andrea Jensen.

Dennis smiled but found it hard to maintain eye contact. “Hi, how are you, Janine?”

“I’m doing okay. Were you on vacation?”

It’s over,
Dennis thought.
Any hope we had of returning to our happy life is finished
. He imagined her clearly in his mind, going from house to house telling anyone who would listen that the Jensens had hit the road and left the rest of the town high and dry the moment things got tough. “Some neighbors,” she’d say, sowing the seeds of resentment. That’s what she did to people she didn’t like. Then everything would quietly change—no one would wave to Dennis as he came down the street at the end of the day or stop and chat with Andi in the supermarket. No more free lollipops for the kids at the bank. When there was a local social event, a folded copy of the cheap-but-somehow-charming invitation hastily made on someone’s computer wouldn’t show up in the mailbox. No one would know the name of a good plumber or auto mechanic; no one would have a ladder Dennis could borrow or an extra egg so Andi could finish the brownies she’d already started.
We’d still live here, but we’d be in hell
.

“Vacation? Well, I guess you could say that.” He swallowed hard before continuing. “We have a cabin in the Catskills, and we went there for a few weeks. Until this thing with the virus was over.” He said this in a confessional tone, like someone in a witness box no longer able to deny the evidence set before him.

His next line was going to be something about feeling like they had no choice, what with the kids and all. An attempt at justification, maybe with the slightest note of sanctimony, just enough to make her think twice before going on the offensive.

Then she delivered a jolt to his system when she said casually, “I did the same thing. Except I went to my sister’s house. She lives in New Hampshire.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d heard her correctly. “Your sister’s house?”

“Yeah. She lives up in North Woodstock. You won’t find it on many maps, but it’s a great little place. I was thinking of going up to see her anyway, because it’s really pretty up there.” She smiled and sort of half flapped her arms. “So this was the perfect excuse.”

Dennis stared dumbly at her, struggling to accept this miraculous turn of events.
She did the same thing.…

“Wow,” he said, unable to think of anything better. “How long have you been back?”

“I got in last night. I got a call from Terry Willis.”

“Terry Willis?”

“He’s a retired cop from town. He said a lot of people have started coming back.”

“A lot of … you mean a lot left?”

Jeanine snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I think half the town left. Who’d be stupid enough to stay if they had someplace to go? I wouldn’t.…”

She dismissed further exploration of this ridiculous topic by turning away to look up and down the street.

I guess that’s right,
Dennis thought,
I guess it really would have been stupid to stay. Two young children, a perfect place to hide out … who’d be stupid enough to stick around?

She didn’t know they had caught the infection, or that their dog had been responsible for the antidote that was now saving the world. The hospital staff had done a magnificent job of keeping their names from the media. And Dennis had no intention of telling her. That would’ve been
worse
than telling the media. If he were going to do that, he might as well call CNN directly.

“Have there been a lot of deaths here?” he asked. Half of him didn’t want to go in this conversational direction; the other half knew it had to be done.

Jeanine sighed. “Yeah, quite a few. You know Karen Larsen, the manager at the ShopRite? Her and her two sons. And Brian Higgins, whose father owns the two liquor stores. He’s dead.”

She rattled off a dozen other names: some individuals, some entire families. Dennis knew maybe a quarter of them, and he felt some guilt about that.
All these years and we still don’t know most of the people who live here. In the future, Andi and I are going to make a point of trying to—

“… was hit by a FedEx truck up on Harlan. Just walked right out in front of it. And then Sara Freedson, she had—”

“I’m sorry,” Dennis said, “who?”

“Sara Freedson.”

“No, before that.”

“Jack McLaughlin. You know, the elderly man who does crossing-guard duties?”

“He was hit by a…”

“By a FedEx truck, right up there on Harlan Turnpike.” She motioned in that direction. “A couple of weeks ago.”

My God …

“You mean he wasn’t … he was hit on the
road
?”

“Yeah.” She sensed his confusion. “Why? Did you know him well? I thought he just crossed you and the kids in the morning.”

“No, right,” Dennis said. “I didn’t know him that well. I just … wow. That’s terrible.”

“It is.”

“And Sara Freedson, you said?”

“Yeah, Sara was found in her home, up in her bedroom.…”

Jeanine reported the full details, but Dennis heard none of it. Then she cited a few others, wrapping up with the tasteless comment that the obituary columnist in the local paper deserved a raise. Finally, mercifully, she moved on, claiming she had to go over to Piedmont Avenue and see how old Mrs. Grady was doing.

Dennis lingered outside, watching her until she disappeared around the corner. When he got back in the house, standing in the empty kitchen, he covered his face with his hands and wept.

Andi heard him from the bedroom and came in, putting a hand on his back.

“Honey?”

He repeated the conversation. “… and of course it sucks what happened to him, but…” He looked in her eyes, already penitent for the rest of the thought.

“But you’re glad it wasn’t you who took his life.”

He nodded and wrapped his arms around her, and she held him tight as the rest of the grief poured out. She felt not like a wife then but like a mother, something she had learned a while ago was at least part of being a wife in the first place.
“Thank God it wasn’t me,”
he kept saying.
“Thank God…”

*   *   *

They spent the next three hours getting the house back in order—putting away clothes and toiletries, storing their luggage, cleaning and straightening. It was Andi who realized first what they were trying to do—get back to their comfort zone. The philosophy they seemed to be following was, “If we can make everything
look
the way it did before, maybe it’ll
be
the way it was before.” When they were finished, however …

It’s still not the same,
Andi thought, standing in the living room. She could feel a wave of depression moving into her.
Something’s missing. In fact, a lot of things are.
She looked through the big bay window at their neighbor’s house across the street. Doors shut, shades drawn, no cars in the driveway, grass too high.
Are they all dead, too? Will we ever see them again?
And the most sobering thought of all:
Just how far from the “old normal” have we gone? Will it ever be anything close to what it was?
She felt tears threatening but fought them off; she’d cried enough in the last three weeks. If nothing else, this experience would put a little iron in her soul. She sensed that now. It was a fundamental change, although for better or worse she could not yet tell. There would be a lot of uncertainty for a while, and it would take some time to work through all of it.
How far from the old normal have we gone?…

Determined to keep things as steady as possible for her own family, she went into the kitchen to start dinner. When she opened the fridge, however, she found it basically empty.

“I checked,” Dennis said. “Nada.”

“Then we’ll just get something.” She snatched the cordless phone off the wall and hit memory
5
—Golden Garden, the Chinese food place.