At the End of Everything, page 11
WALKER: Solace? Why—
MRS. GREEN: You know your dad regretted turning you in, don’t you? He spoke about it often. He believed he did the right thing, but maybe we’ve been too harsh. Once he recovers, the two of you should talk.
WALKER: Once he what? What is going on, Mom?
WALKER: Mom?
MRS. GREEN: I’m sorry, Walker. I’ll give Tibby your love. Stay safe out there, okay? I think you might be safest of all of us now.
This phone call has been disconnected.
PLAGUE OUTBREAK AND PANIC SPREADS ACROSS THE NATION
• Following outbreaks of a virulent strain of Y. pestis in cities and counties across the nation, the president calls for a calm and measured response.
• The rapid spread of the disease has caused governors in at least half the affected states to declare a state of emergency and institute harsh lockdown measures.
• Government agencies are investigating the possibility of bioterrorism or other forms of chemical warfare, though without any proof so far.
What started with a few seemingly unrelated cases of pneumonia shortly before Thanksgiving has devolved into a rapidly spreading new disease. In the past week alone, more than 275,000 cases have been counted, with nearly 80,000 deaths.
While the first death was confirmed ten days ago, scientists theorize that this new strain of Y. pestis has been in the country for at least fourteen days, with initial cases either undiagnosed or unrecognized altogether. It’s possible that initial outbreaks stem from the near invisibility of those cases or the expansiveness and virulence of initial vectors.
Unnamed sources within the CDC say they are instead working under the assumption that the index case—who is as of yet unidentified—traveled knowingly or unknowingly while infectious, with airports and other forms of transport creating a viable environment for endemic spread of the disease during the holiday rush.
What appeared to be localized outbreaks at first is now turning into uncontrollable spread in three states, with the rates of infection and death climbing exponentially in at least half a dozen others.
A presidential task force of scientists has been instated to create rapid-response alternatives for treatment, containment, and vaccination. Existing plague vaccines are available in other countries but not currently in the United States, and none have proved effective against inhalation and airborne variants of Y. pestis.
Kitchen Inventory List
• 60 cooked meals (That’s enough to keep us going for three days. I know it sounds like a lot, but there are 21 of us, and I don’t think there’ll be another food delivery anytime soon. We were supposed to get one this week, I think. I don’t expect we’ll see it now.)
• Frozen packages of meat (chicken and beef)
• 3 frozen tubs of butter
• 15 loaves of bread
• 75 eggs
• 3 bags of rice (50 lb each)
• 2 bags of potatoes (50 lb each)
• 4 bags of beans (50 lb each)
• 5 bags of flour (25 lb each)
• 1 tray with 6 cans of tuna
• 2 trays with 8 cans of green beans
• 1 tray with 8 cans of chickpeas
• 2 trays with 8 cans of carrots (Ew.)
• 1 bag of lentils
• 10 boxes of cereal
• 12 boxes of mac and cheese
• Vegetable stock powder
• Five packets of ramen
• 25 fruit cups
• 2 cups of past-its-shelf-date chocolate pudding
• 3 oversize boxes of granola bars (peanut butter and protein)
• 2 trays with 12 jars of peanut butter
• Half a bag of raisins
• 3 gallons of milk
• 5 gallons of some kind of juice
• 2 containers of instant coffee
• Leftover instant soup
• An absolutely ridiculous amount of tea
• Salt
• Pepper
• Sugar
• Honey
• Ketchup
• Mustard
• Vinegar
Fourteen
Emerson
The world can change and change again in a few days’ time. I’m not sure I’ll ever catch up enough to grow used to it.
It’s been seven days since we were abandoned. Out of the twenty-two of us, one third of us are sick. The infirmary is overflowing.
And the garden won’t grow. Rationally, I know it wouldn’t in a few days, but I hoped to see some improvement. I don’t know why I even offered to do this. I don’t know anything about gardening. I’d only been to the communal garden twice before, and it’s a mess.
When our little squad showed up with shears and shovels, most of the plant beds were covered with fallen leaves, while some of the plants were pruned to be nothing more than stick figures, and—according to Khalil—no one had planted any fall crops. I nearly laughed at that. To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Even here. We did what we could. Under a drizzle of rain, with the drops tapping out a rhythm on the shed’s wooden roof, we set about to cleaning the leaves and the dead twigs, and covering the roots of the trees and plants with straw from the shed.
But a week later, the leaves are still changing colors and falling. Faith started coughing two days ago, and she’s in the west wing now, alongside Chloe Hughes. The infirmary only had space for five beds.
The four of us have gathered in the small shed. An intimidating collection of garden tools lean in the corner. Dust motes float in the air, and the smell of fertilizer permeates the beams. And all I can think about is how this garden is a metaphor for all of us: far more dead than alive.
“It’s meant to be educational,” Khalil says with a sigh. He was here when the garden was first planted. He’s standing in front of a worktable, and he’s sifting through packets of seeds we found in the drawers. “Learn to care for a peach tree and reap what you sow? Something like that. They said it would be great for ‘people like me.’” He makes air quotes with his hands.
“What does that even mean?”
He shrugs. “Occupational therapy for all of us with ADHD and other weird brains? Not that they’d ever acknowledge those labels, mind you. They just call what we have behavioral problems and criminal tendencies.”
Riley rolls her eyes. “Right, those.” She clears out some cobwebs around her head.
“So how do we make any of this nutritional?” I ask, gesturing at the seed packets.
“Well, we can eat persimmons in a couple of weeks.” Khalil looks at the orange trees in the corner of the garden with a wistfulness that aches. They’re flanked by other trees, but they’re the only ones that look like they’re bearing fruit.
“Besides, it’s not like we’ll actually need to be able to sustain ourselves,” Mei says, with more determination than I’d ever felt about anything in my life. She’s holding a hand rake and uses it to pick at her nails. “Isaiah said as much last night. The state senate promised to look into the situation in prisons and residential facilities. They’ll come for us.”
Riley scoffs. “They’ll think about us. And then decide they have other priorities. They left us here in the first place, remember?”
“Grace said there were no plans. That doesn’t mean they can’t still make plans,” Mei objects. “It’s only been a week.”
“It’s only been a week here. It’s been longer on the outside,” Khalil says.
Silence.
“It’s a mess out there. They will come.”
Riley picks up a packet of cucumber seeds and frowns at it over her makeshift mask. The bright yellow fabric pops against her dark skin. “Of course. And who knows, maybe they’ll decide to let us all go and live free and happily ever after. And the plague will magically disappear, and we’ll find unicorns in the wild.”
I can’t help but agree with her. Isaiah did mention the state senate adopting a resolution to look at incarcerated populations, but he also spoke about outbreaks in the juvenile detention center, and it didn’t sound like they were doing anything about that. It didn’t sound like they could do anything about anything. Death rates continue to rise, and from Isaiah’s news reports, daily life has almost ground to a halt.
If a third of us are sick and it’s the same outside, it must be chaos. There’ve been pandemics throughout history, and everyone knew there would be another one sooner or later. The literal plague must have been on scientists’ watch list. But I don’t think anyone could have anticipated this—not anything like this. The news stories call it a nightmare scenario, and not for nothing. We have no better antibiotics or other treatment.
It nags at me. The question of what it’s like back home. Are my parents sick or safe? Can they still go to church? Does their faith make them less afraid?
Maybe I should try to call. Be the better person. Father Michael would tell me to honor my parents.
“Maybe you can simply give up,” Mei snaps. “But I won’t.”
Riley shakes her head and mutters something under her breath.
Mei narrows her eyes. “What was that?”
“We should ask Isaiah to find us information on fall and winter crops,” I say, before the situation escalates further and we lose more precious time to fighting between ourselves. If I’m honest, that’s the main reason why we’ve only cleaned the garden and done nothing else yet. Everyone is scared and touchy. I nearly punched Khalil yesterday when he reached out and poked my shoulder, and two days before that, Faith snapped a rake in two with the sheer force of her frustration.
“We have some,” Khalil says, putting seeds aside. “Beets and carrots and kale. Some of them should’ve been planted already, but we can try.”
“Ew, kale.” I say it to make him smile, before I can stop myself.
Thankfully, he simply glowers. “It’s food.”
“Yeah, fair enough.” I hold out my hands to take some of the seed packets. “We should try.”
“We can plant the seeds and take care of them. We can make something grow.”
“Reap what you sow?” I wince.
“Something like that.” At this, the corners of his eyes crinkle, but it’s nothing more than a ghost of a smile. How do you smile when the world is breaking?
We carry our shovels into the garden and dig row upon row. One seed at a time. An hour in, my back hurts and so do a variety of muscles I didn’t know I had. My hands ache from holding the shovel. I might grow calluses, but I don’t have them yet. This is work. It’s hard, but it’s comfortable. The garden has a gentle peace to it, to the four of us working in tandem, without words to spare but in the knowledge that we’re together. And on the other side of the fence, we have more ground to plow, if we need to.
Seeds in good earth.
One of Father Michael’s sermons about the Parable of the Sower floods back to me. He insisted that we should strive to be good and fruitful soil for the word of God and not let ourselves be distracted by the cares of the world or swayed by any hardship. Only those seeds planted in the good soil will bear fruit and truth and justice.
What am I now? What would he think of me, if he saw me here? A seed among thorns? Or maybe I’ve grown into those very thorns myself. Let me get taken away and eaten by the birds; I won’t grow on good soil anymore.
I ram my shovel into the ground with fierce abandon, until wood splinters dig into my hands and the work replaces my thoughts. Until someone at the entrance to the garden calls out.
All four of us immediately pause our work. I glance sideways to Riley, and all of us feel the same immediate, overwhelming fear crawl up our spine.
Near the gate stands Grace. She’s pale. She’s lost so much weight in only a week, and I don’t think she’s slept at all. She’s developing a permanent frown. Her hands clench and unclench at her side, and she scans the garden until she sees Mei.
“I thought you’d want to know—” Her voice trips, and she clears her throat. “I’m sorry, Mei. I thought you’d want to know. Serenity died today.”
* * *
The world can change and change again over the course of a single day too. Serenity dies. She may be the first, but she certainly won’t be the last. All of us know that, but there’s a difference between knowing and seeing it happen. It’s fear that goes from realistic to real in the blink of an eye, especially when, midway through dinner, Isabella collapses.
Casey—already sitting on his own—gets up and helps her. He leaves the remainder of his food to grow cold, and we finish our meal in silence.
It only makes it worse.
Father Michael’s words about seeds in good soil echo in my mind. The dead plants. The fallen leaves. The harsh scraping of shovels through dirt. All of it combined forms a constant buzz like a violin with a misshapen fingerboard. I cannot still it and I cannot ignore it, and I don’t know how to stop myself from breaking, one piece at a time.
Serenity should not have died here today, alone, away from any family she might have. None of us should be here. Not like this.
If we’re seeds among thorns, that isn’t our fault.
The thoughts keep nagging at me, overwhelming enough to tremble my bones and try to break me from the inside. It doesn’t stop until I find myself back in my room, my violin case in hand.
The air here is cold and humid, and it’s no good for a fragile instrument like this. But all that matters is the familiar movement of my hands as I unclasp the case and take out the instrument. Take out the bow.
I can’t think. Thinking hurts, and I need something, anything to stem the pain.
I let my muscle memory guide me through tuning, let my audible memory guide me to the right tones. They all sound colder and shriller, struggling as much with being here as I am.
My hands hurt. Holding a violin bow is nothing at all like holding a shovel.
But it doesn’t matter.
It should hurt.
I don’t know how else to pull the ache from my bones.
I close my eyes and play. One of my favorite pieces: an arrangement of Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor” for solo violin. I’ve never managed to play it slow enough, but tonight I do. It yearns and it aches, and it tears through the air. It teases more hopeful themes combined with baroque drama, and underneath it all is a sadness that leaves me empty and alone.
All I can do is let the music speak. I make mistakes. I miss notes. I put all my pain into it. And by the end of the piece, I breathe. My sorrow and my restlessness click into place.
I’m no great violinist by any means, but making music makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. To soothe, to rejoice, to celebrate. Father Michael’s words still linger in the back of my mind, but they’re quieter now.
I will let myself be distracted by the cares of the world.
Outside my door, I’ve amassed a silent audience. Logan sways back and forth. She has her hands folded—one hand over a fist—and holds them near her heart. Nia is clinging to Riley and has tears in her eyes. Xavier is deadly pale but smiling.
“That was beautiful.”
I nod in acknowledgment but don’t look up to see who spoke. Gently, carefully, I place my violin back in her case. When I put the case back in its corner, my fingers brush the bronze medal, and I take a deep breath—
I walk out. Past the onlookers. Through the east wing and toward the communal areas. It’s the same route I took the night Hunter demanded to see me, the night when everything changed.
What I’m about to do now will change everything again. At least for me.
I brush my fingers along the rough spots on my hands.
Past the open space between wings. Past the cafeteria.
I don’t stop until I get to the infirmary, and when I do, my heart is racing. My hands are shaking. I don’t even notice it until I knock.
When Casey opens the door, the first thing I hear is coughing on the other side. It sounds like someone is choking.
“Emerson.” Casey tilts his head. He has a torn shirt bound over his mouth and nose. Blood spatters stain his clothes, and his skin is gray. “What are you doing here? Are you sick? We’ve cleaned out rooms in—”
I shake my head to interrupt him. “No, it’s not that. It’s about Serenity.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Where is she?” I immediately correct myself: “I mean, where is her body?”
His face falls. “She’s here, still. I’ve talked to Grace about a way to—” He breathes in sharply. “We need to find a good way to deal with—with the victims, but we haven’t yet. I can’t carry her out on my own.”
“I’ll help,” I say.
Something in his expression crumbles. “I appreciate the thought, but you shouldn’t be here.”
“I want to.” I swallow and try to make him understand. “She shouldn’t have been here either. She deserves to have someone take care of her, at the end. You were there. And now I will be. She shouldn’t be alone.”
He frowns. “What are you saying?”
“There’s good earth outside of the fence. I know because I spent most of my day outside. I’ve been digging holes all day. I can dig a grave too.”
The words hang in the air between us.
“Emerson…” Casey hesitates.
“She deserves to have someone give her a proper goodbye.” I do the only thing that makes sense. I reach out to take his hand. “You’ve made this choice. Trust me to make mine.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve asked for anyone’s trust.
Casey nods. “Are you certain?”
“I’ll eat with you tomorrow.”
And in the end, it’s as simple as that. A choice. A decision. A seed in good earth. I follow Casey into the infirmary, and I try not to flinch at the sight of the sick teens. Leah is in the farthest bed, and she’s pale and quiet. Aleesha is coughing near constantly.
