I squeezed Adrian’s hand. “It’s official. My dad loves you.”
“How can you tell?”
“This is my parents’ song. He wouldn’t share it with just anybody. It’s Dad code, he’s saying we can have it.”
He laughed. “Dad code?”
“Yeah. I can read him pretty well.”
“I like him.” He sounded wistful. “Both of them.”
Adrian’s dad split when he was young. From what I’d heard of him it was probably a good thing, but that didn’t stop him from missing what might have been.
“I can share,” I offered. “Lots of people use my dad when they need one.”
He squeezed my hand. “What was that you said to your dad when you said goodnight? Until the end of the world?”
“Yeah, it started when I was little. You know, like I love you more than the stars in the sky?” Adrian nodded. “Like that. One day I said, ‘I love you until the end of the world. And after.’ It stuck.”
We listened as the music swelled. Adrian looked down at our hands and rubbed his thumb in circles over mine. “So, do you think you’ll ever say that to me?”
We’d said I love you, but I wasn’t very good at expressing my emotions without feeling flustered. I didn’t have a lot of experience being in love. Actually, this was my experience being in love.
“Say what?” I asked, even though I knew what he meant.
“That you’ll love me until the end of the world? And after?”
I watched his thumb stroke mine. I couldn’t look up. All of this came so easily to him.
I forced the words out. “I already do. I just don’t say it out loud.”
His mouth moved to my ear. “Cassie Forrest, I love you. Until the end of the world.”
I shivered, not sure if it was his breath on my neck or his words. I wondered what we both did to deserve this, to have found each other so easily.
I smiled as I met his eyes, and my next words came easily. “And after, Adrian Miller.”
His hands were tangled in my hair as I pulled him closer on the creaky porch swing. The end of the song surrounded us, a gift from my dad, and in that magic moment the song became our own.
***
“I can’t remember, is this the turn?” Nelly asks.
I start, feeling like I’ve just fallen out of that swing. “Oh, um, yeah.” He turns up the dirt road, which means we’re almost there. I pump an imaginary accelerator with my foot. I want to be there so badly, yet I’m afraid, too. I wonder if my parents’ ghosts linger there, if they’ll haunt me as I walk the rooms.
Here’s the tree with the reflector on it, where I would start playing the song. I sing softly to myself, thinking that in the passenger seat no one will hear. Nelly does, though, and he joins in. It forces me to raise my voice, too.
“Oh, great,” Ana says. “A sing-along.”
Penny squeals. She’s an old hand at this song, having spent much of her summers here, at what she called her “country estate,” and I feel selfish for having denied her access these past years.
Penny’s voice is sweet and clear and purposely directed right at her sister’s ear. James gazes at her with a look I recognize. Adrian used to look at me like that. Then he opens his mouth and sings, and my jaw drops at the voice that comes out. It’s smooth and low and we look at him in surprise.
James flushes and shrugs. “Middle school chorus.”
I remember the last time I drove down this road, and my voice deserts me. I couldn’t play this song. My mom and dad were in the backseat, mixed together in a box. Somehow I had thought their ashes would be like cigarette ashes, but they weren’t. A little chunkier, a little more there, they didn’t disperse into nothing the way cigarette ashes do. They settled on the ground and worked their way into the soil. Once I got over my initial surprise it seemed fitting.
Penny and James sing the end in perfect harmony as we turn into the driveway. I can almost hear the music backing them up. They’ve left me and Nelly in the dust.
“Show offs!” Nelly throws to the back, before he takes my hand and we pull up to the house.
CHAPTER 50
It looks forlorn. The porch furniture has been put away, and the swing is off-kilter. Eric may not have made it here all winter. He doesn’t tell me, because I haven’t wanted details, although I do like knowing he comes here.
“Ready?” Penny asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
Gravel crunches under my feet. My mother’s flowers have fallen victim to neglect. I should have been here, weeding and trimming, keeping it tidy. Small patches of ice linger in the shady parts of the yard. Spring comes a bit later up here, but the crocuses and daffodils are sending up their tiny green fingers anyway.
My hand trembles. It’s just a house. I open the door and step in. Everything’s the same, layered with quiet like it would be when we’d come up after an extended absence. All it needs is people filling its spaces. And it isn’t just a house. All this time I thought I would be haunted by memories here. Maybe even by ghosts, if you asked me after a particularly bad nightmare. But the memories aren’t haunting. There’s the wood stove where we would make popcorn on movie nights, the table where we ate countless home-cooked meals, the quilt on the couch that I’d wrap up in on cold, damp days, the shelves full of books, my mom’s knitting basket. It’s all just stuff, like this is just a house, but it all means something, too.
I’m irritated suddenly, as I realize I’ve wasted three years that I could have been here, taking comfort in this place. It seems to have become a habit of mine, to refuse the things that would give me comfort.
“This is really nice,” James says.
His breath fogs in the air. We need a fire. I feel like we haven’t been truly warm for days and days.
“Thanks.”
Everyone mills around, touching things, peering out windows. For now this is their house, too. I want them to like it. I’ve given some thought to rooms, but I want to check with Penny.
I motion her into the kitchen. “So,” I whisper, “bedrooms. Are you and James going to sleep in the same room, or should I put you and Ana together for now?”
She fingers the knives that sit in a block on the counter and doesn’t look at me. “Um, I think we’ll be in the same room.”
“Okay.” I kick her foot and try to keep from smiling. “Is there gonna be a home ru—”
“Cassie, I swear I’ll kill you if you make a comment that has anything to do with baseball bases,” she cuts in, and pretends to grab a knife. “But, if you must know, yes, I’m planning to hit one out of the park as soon as possible.” We dissolve into giggles.
“What’s so funny?” James asks from behind us.
“Oh, nothing,” Penny says. We grin at each other.
I clear my throat. “Okay, guys, I was thinking Penny and James in my parents’ room. Peter,” he looks up from the bookshelves, “you can have Eric’s room. When he gets here, we’ll figure something else out. Ana and Nelly, one of you can sleep with me in my room and the other can have the office-slash-guest room. Or, since there are two twin beds in Eric’s room, one of you can sleep in there with Peter.”
Nelly and Ana look at each other. It’s clear Ana wants the room to herself, and Nelly capitulates.
“Looks like we’re bunking together again,” he says to me. “You’ve proven you can keep your hands to yourself.”
“Ha ha. I’m going to the basement to turn on the breakers.”
I flip the switches, but nothing happens. Thankfully, the water is gravity-fed, and the solar water heater is separate from the rest of the power. That means hot showers. I sniff my hand, it still smells like puke. I survey the rest of the basement. It’s warmer down here than upstairs, above fifty degrees, and light filters in from the ground level windows.
My dad was the electric guy, but Mom was the carpenter. Wooden shelves full of home-canned jars line the walls. There are tomatoes, peaches, green beans, jams of all colors, apples
auce and countless other things that were first grown, then harvested, and then preserved by them both. The summer and fall were times of canning jars and giant boiling pots and hot stovetops. It was hard work but worth it, my mom always said. And it was, come January.
Cans and large buckets of food line two walls. They contain flour, wheat, oats, sugar, rice, popcorn, beans, and dehydrated foods, amongst other things. Mom had it down to a science and rotated things out so nothing ever went rotten. She knew what it meant to be hungry; wasting food was anathema to her. Another shelving unit holds canning lids, candles, wax, batteries, lanterns, flashlights, a tub of medicines, shampoo, soap, conditioner, razors, and all the things we used to just run by the drugstore and pick up. I’m used to this abundance, but when I hear a gasp I remember it’s not normal to see this much food in one place.
“It’s like a warehouse,” James says. He runs his hands over the buckets. “There’s got to be thousands of pounds of food down here. I’ve always wanted a basement like this.”
He’s as crazy as I am. I’m thankful that he doesn’t make me feel like a freak for liking all of this.
“Cass’s parents planned for an emergency,” Penny says. She and I used to come down here and search for interesting treats, like a treasure hunt.
Peter’s voice comes from behind. “I didn’t realize your parents were hoarders.”
I imagine all the ways I could kill him. Maybe he doesn’t realize he’s insulting them. Maybe.
“They. Weren’t. Hoarders,” I say. “They were preppers. Hoarders take stuff they don’t really need, and they don’t share it. My parents grew a lot of this food. They also gave it away. They donated to food banks, and they kept enough in reserve to feed us through a hard winter if something terrible happened.”
I think about telling him how my mom was so poor growing up that sometimes she went without. That she would hunt for squirrel after school so there was dinner when her dad got home from work, dirty and exhausted. That the last thing she would ever do would be to let others go hungry when she had food. But he doesn’t deserve an explanation, to know these things about my mom. And, anyway, I think even if I told him he wouldn’t understand. Peter’s never had to go without.
I spin around. He’s watching me with a bored expression, like he’s letting me talk but doesn’t believe a word of it. “And imagine that, something terrible happening? No, I don’t believe it ever could. How about you?”
My hands tremble with rage as I glare at him. He breaks eye contact first. So this is how it’s going to be. Nothing I do will ever be right. At least I know where I stand.
CHAPTER 51
Our meager belongings are put away and a pile of smelly laundry sits in the corner. The house is warming up nicely. Peter sits at the table and eats crackers and peanut butter with homemade jam. I notice the hoarded jam is going down easily.
“Should we go see John?” Penny asks.
“He was visiting his daughter last week,” I say. “He was planning to call on his way back and come to see me in the city.” It’s the world’s worst timing, to be away from his supplies right now, but at least he’s with Jenny.
I head out to the solar shed. The hole in the bottom of the door is not a good sign. Inside, the batteries are strewn everywhere. One of the windows is broken and wires are chewed. Fluffy mouse nests are tucked in the debris, but something larger must have come in and then chewed its way out the door, maybe a raccoon or porcupine. The little fucker must have gone bananas in here. Power would have been nice, but there are plenty of lanterns and the kitchen stove’s two LP tanks are full.
I hear something in the woods as I leave the shed. My holster’s back in the house, machete, too. It was stupid to go outside unarmed and alone. I grab a piece of metal tubing and creep over the dead grass to the house.
I pick up speed at the sound of snapping branches until I hear a joyful bark that stops me short. It’s John’s dog, Laddie. He’s gray around the muzzle and limps on cold mornings, but he dances around me with a doggy grin.
“Laddie!” I kneel to hug him and get a slobbery lick on the lips. “What are you doing here? Where’s your dad?”
He sits and his tail sweeps away the leaves behind him. I hope John’s okay; he never would have left Laddie here by himself.
“Hello the house!” a voice rings out.
John strides out of the path between our houses. He looks much better than he did when I last saw him. Caroline died a year ago of a massive heart attack in her sleep. It hit him hard, and it seemed like he was trying to follow her to the other side. His broad frame is still on the thin side, now that Caroline isn’t here to feed him, but his eyes sparkle and his teeth flash under his salt and pepper beard.
“John!” I run into his bear hug and relax in his wool-shirted arms.
He grasps my shoulders and holds me away from him, his eyes moving up and down. “You’re okay? You made it here?” he asks, like I might be an apparition.
“I’m fine. We’re all fine. Nelly and Penny and her sister and, well—come in and meet them. Why are you here? Why aren’t you at Jenny’s?”
“The day I was leaving Jenny called and said the kids had a virus and I should postpone a week or so.” I gasp and he shakes his head. “No, no, they had bad colds. Fevers, runny noses, coughing. Thank God.” But worry crosses his face anyway. “I last spoke to them on the weekend. I tried to call you, but service in New York was down. You know Jenny, she’s like her mom, already battening down the hatches. They’re pretty rural. I pray they’re okay.”
“Oh, John, I hope so.” I cover one of his calloused hands. “But I am so glad to see you here, I really am. Come inside.”
CHAPTER 52
John’s booming laugh fills the house as he hugs Penny and Ana, shakes Nelly’s hand and is introduced to everyone else. His questions about where we’ve been get right to the point.
“An Army buddy of mine who’s high up at the Pentagon called me last weekend,” he says. “Said there were rumors this was a bioweapon gone wrong. That it’s ours, something called BornAgain. He didn’t know how it ended up all over the world. He called me on a secure line from somewhere underground, and if that’s not an indication of how bad this is, then I don’t know what is.”
He runs his hands through his white-streaked hair. “Told me to sit tight and wait it out. I asked him, ‘Wait out what and for how long?’ He said he wasn’t sure on either count. The party line was a month, but they’d picked that as an arbitrary number. Far enough away to scramble together some sort of military response and near enough that people wouldn’t panic when they heard it.”
My heart falls. I’m one of those people who heard it and felt relieved. Sam believes it, too. I’ll bet the National Guard did as well.
John notices my expression and I explain. “They told Sam the same thing. If everyone’s operating under the assumption that we only have to stick it out for a month, they won’t be as careful.”
Penny and James nod frantically, both thinking of their mothers, I’m sure. Earlier in the week I saw Penny holding James in the trees while his shoulders heaved. When I asked later, she said he’d tried to get his parents to take Bornavirus seriously, but they said he was being his wacky old self. He’s sure they’re dead, or infected.
James doesn’t give the impression of being the toughest guy at first glance, but I think he’s sturdier than most. He held it together the whole way here; I never had to wonder if he was okay. We were all scared, but it didn’t stop him. He’s different, and he’s smart.
A light goes on in his eyes. “I was reading some conspiracy theory websites and site said something about a bioweapon. At the time everyone had a theory, so I just skimmed it. I wish I could remember the details.”
He closes his eyes and puts a hand on his forehead like an old-timey mind reader. “It said the mutation of a military virus caused Bornavirus LX. Something having to do with soldiers killed on the battlefields being able to continue to fight. L
ife after death. BornAgain, I guess. I dismissed it as complete craziness at the time, but…”
“It might be true,” John finishes. “And the infected are going to last a lot longer than thirty days, from what my buddy said, or didn’t say.
“He always ribs me about my food storage, and when he asked how I was set for food, I thought he was joking. I laughed and told him I had years of food and plenty to grow more. ‘I know, John,’ he said. ‘And thank God you do.’ The way he said it, all quiet, made my blood run cold.”
“Years?” James asks. He drops his hand from his forehead and widens his eyes. And now, finally, I can say I’ve seen him look frightened.
CHAPTER 53
Unfortunately, John doesn’t have any idea about the solar. He’d planned to have my dad help solarize his house, but the plans died along with him. He does, however, have lots of stored fuel and a generator. He’s been running it for a few hours at night to keep his freezers frozen. And the best part is that he has a clothes washer. He even insists on taking our laundry back with him, so we can settle in.
“Eric took your generator for the winter,” John says.
Eric and Rachel rent a house that’s notorious for winter power failures, so that doesn’t surprise me. John told me Eric called after the bridges blew and said they were leaving. They planned on hiking here if they couldn’t take the roads. He told John to keep an eye out for me, although he wasn’t sure I’d made it out. I do my best to imagine them trekking through the woods safely, but they have hundreds of miles to go. Even though thinking about it makes my stomach twist, I obsessively picture them hiking along a trail, filling their water bottles, enjoying the views and snuggling in a sleeping bag under the stars, while I trace a likely route along the map in my head. Maybe if I will it hard enough it’ll be true.