The Way We Fall (19 page)

I went into town today, and no one aimed a gun at me. Small victories.

I’d run into Gav yesterday when I was heading out of the hospital, and he told me Dad had asked his group to inform people about the water problem while they’re doing their next food run. Which makes sense. Everything will just get worse if people who haven’t caught the virus pick up something else by drinking contaminated water.

“When are you going?” I asked right away. “I’ll come with you if you need more people.”

“We’ve got a bunch helping now,” he said. “But the more we have, the faster the rounds get done. We’re going out tomorrow morning—I could come by and pick you up.”

He sounds, and looks, so much more confident than he did the last time I saw him, when he was beating himself up about what happened with Quentin. But he still watched me tentatively after he said it, as if he thought I was going to tell him to take a hike.

“That’d be great,” I said, and smiled, and he smiled back. Right then, even though I hadn’t found anything in the records, it felt like a good day.

So this morning he came by in the old Ford, and we headed to the hospital, where everyone was meeting. For an operation that a week ago only consisted of three guys, Gav and Warren got organized amazingly fast. As he was driving, he told me the details.

“Warren’s divided the town into different areas,” he explained, “and there’s a list for each one. Plus another for the places on the outskirts, the farms and everything. The lists let you know which houses to skip, to save us time. You knock on the door, give whoever answers a bag of food. Today we’ll also tell them about having to boil the tap water. And you ask them if anyone inside has symptoms. If they do, or we see someone who’s sick, we do our best to convince them to let us take them to the hospital. One of the nurses is setting up a home in the church near the hospital for the kids who are alone, so if you see any, make a note and we’ll hopefully have somewhere to bring them in the next couple days.”

“Wow,” I said, and he laughed.

“I know,” he said. “It sounds like a lot. But once we get going, it’s not that different from how we did things before. I still wish—”

“If you say you wish you could do more,” I interrupted, “I will hit you. I really will.”

“All right, all right!” he said, ducking his head. But I know he was thinking it.

When we got to the hospital, a cluster of people was waiting outside. I recognized Warren and another guy who’d been with Gav’s group before, a middle-aged woman I’d see helping around the hospital, a youngish man who used to wait tables at the Seaview Restaurant, one of the orderlies, and a few other adults I only vaguely knew.

Gav’s expression went serious. He nodded to them as he stepped out of the car, but I saw his shoulders hunch just slightly, as if he was a turtle fighting the urge to duck into his shell. Then he hurried over to Warren, who was sitting on the fringes of the group in the driver’s seat of a car, the door open.

“Good to see you, Kaelyn,” Warren said, and glanced at Gav. Something silent passed between them, and a second later Gav’s face looked a bit more flushed than it had before. He shrugged and leaned on the car door.

“So what’s the plan today?” he asked.

Warren shuffled through a bunch of papers that looked a lot like the ones he’d been holding when I first met him.

“We’ve got five cars today,” he said. “I divided the lists up to fit. Each group should have to make about eight stops, except the outer area group, but they only need to do one house at a time. Patrick and Terry already loaded up the cars like you asked, so I think we’re ready to go.”

He handed the papers over to Gav, who eyed them and then the waiting group.

“You know,” he said, “one of these days I’m going to make you stand up there and talk for yourself.”

“And
you
know they listen to you better than they’ll ever listen to me,” Warren replied. “Just talk—they’re all raring to go.”

Gav pretended to scowl at him before he jogged over to the hospital steps. He hesitated for a second, then shouted for everyone’s attention. Warren turned to me with a half smile.

“He liked the job better when it was just us guys,” he said. “But he manages to get everyone working together anyway. And don’t let him give you the impression he’s taking credit where he shouldn’t. This was all his idea. I just help make it work better, because he asked me to.”

“You don’t think this is important?” I said.

“I know it’s important,” he said. “Put me up there, though, and I’d freeze up. And he
feels
it. That’s what gets people going.”

We both looked toward Gav, who was gesturing in the air as he explained why everyone needed to know the water wasn’t safe. Whatever nerves he’d been feeling before were gone. He stood straight and steady, and he had that familiar intensity in his eyes, like it was a matter of life and death. Which it was, after all.

“You seem like you’ve been friends a long time,” I said to Warren.

“Yep,” he said. “Since second grade. The teacher kept making fun of him because he hadn’t learned how to swim yet. He wanted to get back at her, and I came up with the perfect prank. We have conspired together ever since.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What did you do to her?” I asked.

His smile turned a little wicked. “I don’t think he’d like it if I told you,” he said, and tipped his head toward Gav, who was coming our way. The other pairs were ducking into their cars with maps and lists in hand. It looked like Gav had handed off his car keys to the orderly.

So the three of us piled into Warren’s car, the guys in the front and me in the back with a heap of bagged food.

In some ways, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. When we were driving and talking, I could almost believe we were just a group of friends out for a ride. And most of the people whose doors I knocked on looked healthy and relieved to see me, even when I told them about the problem with the water.

But then there was the woman who just grabbed the food from me and shut the door before I could say anything else. I heard a little boy’s voice on the other side, chattering away with a sneeze here and there. And the man who couldn’t stop coughing and had to be taken to the hospital.

“I’ll drive him,” I said, and Gav gave me a horrified look.

“I take the sick ones,” he said. “I’m the one who wanted to start bringing them in—I’m the one who should handle it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But I’ve already gotten sick, and you still can. It’s common sense.”

He couldn’t exactly deny the facts, so in the end I got my way, even though Gav insisted on helping the man into the car. As I came around to the driver’s seat, he touched my arm.

“Keep an eye out,” he said. “If you see someone driving around who’s not part of our group—”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll be careful. Thanks.”

I made it to and from the hospital just fine, so that wasn’t the worst part of the day. The worst was all the addresses we were already skipping, and all the ones I had to cross off the list because there hadn’t been any answer the last three tries. In the end, we only found people at forty-three houses. Warren looked at the sheet I brought back at the end of the morning, littered with
X
’s, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll redo them before next time,” he said to Gav.

Gav nodded, like it was no big deal, but a minute later he swiped a can of beans from the trunk and hurled it down the street. It made a heavy clunk when it hit the pavement.

At least we’re trying, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I’m pretty sure that’s not what he wanted to hear. I wish I could say something better.

They hit Uncle Emmett’s neighborhood—that gang Gav says Quentin joined. I went down to the house this morning for one last look around, and I found the door wide open. The knob had been wrenched off.

I had a moment of panic and almost bolted for the car before it occurred to me that I could be at one of the safest spots in town. They’ve already taken whatever they wanted. Why would they come back? They’re about as likely to loot the house a second time as I am to catch the virus again.

There wouldn’t have been much worth stealing. The liquor cabinet is empty, and it looks like they rummaged through the bedrooms, searching for valuables. But Aunt Lillian took her jewelry box with her when she left, I’m sure, so they would have been disappointed.

For a few minutes I was worried they’d snatched the binoculars, which I’d really wanted to find, but I unearthed them in the mess by Meredith’s bed.

The patrol boats were still anchored in the strait, keeping watch. Beyond them, the mainland looked the same as it always did. I caught little flickers of movement and the gleam of lights through the haze.

It’s hard to imagine life continuing as usual over there. People going to school and buying groceries and hanging out with their friends without masks plastered over their faces. It’s like a totally different planet, across vast distances of space, instead of a town just a few miles away over some water.

That might sound horribly pessimistic, but honestly, it’s better than the alternative. Because the alternative is that life isn’t continuing as usual, that they’re falling just as fast as we are.

I’ve tried to imagine what you’re doing right now, Leo. Sometimes I picture you in class, spinning and leaping while your teachers watch in amazement. It’s a nice thought, but I know it’s not true. Because you have to know what’s going on now, and you wouldn’t just continue on as usual. You might be over there at this exact moment, trying to negotiate with whoever’s in charge to let you come home.

I wonder if Drew’s with you. Maybe he got across all right, but his scuba gear was damaged on the way, and even if he’s found something that would help us, he’s stuck there. But someday, when the island’s safe again, you’ll both come back to us.

I wish that day didn’t feel so far away.

When I left the house, I took the binoculars with me. I don’t want to have to come back. As I was heading down the front walk I saw movement down the street and paused. A body was sprawled outside the house four doors down, half on the sidewalk, half on the road. Someone who had died of the virus or the water or was shot—I wasn’t close enough to tell. A coyote was tugging at its arm. I looked the other way and got in the car.

I really can’t judge, after all. Coyotes have to eat to survive too.

On the way back to Tessa’s, I took a detour toward the harbor. Not too close, because I remembered Dad’s story about the trigger-happy soldiers. But near enough that I could get a pretty good look with the binoculars.

I couldn’t see anyone moving around on the docks. Then I scanned the boats, and my skin went cold. The ones in my line of view were half submerged, white bows or sides protruding from the water where they were tied to the dock, some with chunks missing from their rims or splintered holes in their hulls. It looked as if a giant had stomped through swinging a sledgehammer. I followed the bending lines of the docks, trying to spot Uncle Emmett’s cruiser. The wreckage was too messy to make out any identifying details, but from what I saw, none of the boats escaped unharmed.

The big storm Dad mentioned couldn’t have caused that much damage—I’ve never seen a nor’easter smash up boats that badly. So it must have been a person. Or people.

I started feeling so queasy I had to put down the binoculars and close my eyes. Every time I look around, something else is broken.

The hospital’s been getting noisier the last couple days. Dad and Nell haven’t said anything, but I suspect they’re almost out of sedatives. You can hear the whole progression of the disease standing in the halls: coughing and sneezing and aggressively friendly chattering and shrieks of panic. It took me three tries to get a nurse’s attention yesterday, and I realized why when she popped out an earplug to hear me properly.

The virus has a voice, and it doesn’t sound very happy.

I’d meant to spend the afternoon in the records room, but after an hour of going over every detail of the treatments one more time, comparing the survivors to people who died, I put the files aside and walked out. I’ve checked and double-checked over the last few days, and there’s nothing. Nothing special the six of us got and no one else did. No miraculous solution just waiting for me to stumble on it.

As I stepped out into the chilly air, I heard the buzz of a passing helicopter. It whirred by overhead, back toward the mainland. A reporter collecting news footage? Or another delivery that the gang will have snatched up? I pictured the bunch of them tossing all the meds the hospital desperately needs into the back of their stolen truck, and my hands balled into fists.

I went straight back to Tessa’s. She was kneeling in the greenhouse, pruning one of the shrubs.

“We should start going out again,” I said. “Scavenging. We never finished all the summer houses.”

“I did the rest on my own,” Tessa said.

“Then we’ll do regular houses,” I said. “We can start with your street.”

“You mean break in?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

I almost thought, Why not? The gang’s already looting people’s homes for their selfish reasons—why shouldn’t we, to help the hospital? But thinking of them reminded me of the day when the guy with the truck shot that woman right in front of me, and my stomach turned. I don’t want to follow their lead, not in anything.

“No,” I said. “We don’t have to. I know which houses are empty, from going out with Gav. We’ll check the doors and only go in if they’re unlocked.”

So yesterday and this afternoon, we got Meredith watching one of her DVDs and then headed out. I make Tessa wait outside while I take a quick look around, to be sure each place really is empty. The first couple times I broke out in a sweat as I walked down the halls to the bedrooms. But I haven’t come across anyone yet, well or sick, alive or dead. After a while, the memory of the dead woman and child in the summer house started to fade.

Which doesn’t mean going in isn’t awful sometimes. The summer houses were so polished and remote, I could pretend no one ever lived there. The places we’re scavenging from now, they belonged to people I passed on the street or nodded to in the grocery store. People whose presence lingers in the photos propped on side tables and the notes left on kitchen counters, the toys scattered over living room floors and the posters hanging on bedroom walls. But none of them are coming back.

I’ve learned to keep my mind and eyes focused on the next drawer, the next cabinet, tuning out everything else as much as I can.

We haven’t found a lot, mostly basic stuff like Tylenol and Tums, but anything’s better than nothing. And we’re grabbing any food we find, too. Gav might have enough stashed away for now, but who knows how long it’ll be before we manage to take another delivery from the mainland. Tessa and I brought it all to the hospital, and I stuck the food in the kitchen there.

Gav came over last night to go over the self-defense training with Tessa and check that Meredith and I remembered what he’d taught us, and I saw him this morning for the usual rounds. But I didn’t tell him what we’re doing. It’s not that I’m worried whether he’d approve. Of course he would. He’d get all excited and want to take over and make it part of the regular food run. And it wouldn’t be mine anymore.

Maybe I should want to get more people involved. But for some reason it feels so important right now to have this one thing that belongs to me.