Hot Zone (10 page)

Chapter 6: Sarah Richardson does a runner

Tucker left and within fifteen minutes there was the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. I thought for sure Tucker had just forgotten something and had returned. I put on a grin and went to the door, ready say something teasing like,
back already
? I froze when I saw an emerald green Mercedes. Who was this?

A woman got out of the car and looked at me. I said, surprised, “Sarah!”

She shrugged and nodded, looking embarrassed. There was at least one other person in the car, I noticed. She shut the door of the car and came to the front door. I ushered her inside, trying to figure out what she wanted. We had never really been friends, but since this town was so small, we had run into each other occasionally. She ran with a different crowd—the cheerleaders, mostly. I hadn’t really been interested in sports to the extent of even having to pretend to cheer them on, so I’d never been sorry that I wasn’t a cheerleader. Meri came out of the bedroom curiously and I gestured to Sarah. “You know Sarah Richardson?”

“Of course.” Meri smiled and came to hug Sarah. “What’s up girl? I’m glad to see you up and about.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said uncertainly. She looked at her feet, and I gave Meri a small shrug at her questioning look. I sure didn’t know why Sarah would come here.

Meri, always polite, said, “Come on in.”

“I really can’t,” Sarah mumbled. I noticed then her hair, usually so stylish, was dull and tangled. Sarah took a deep breath and pushed the blond hair out of her pixie-like face. “I have to go.”

We waited, but Sarah wasn’t saying anything else. She just looked at her feet. Finally Meri put her hand on Sarah’s shoulder and Sarah flinched back against the door. Sarah looked up, and her face was wet with tears. “I can’t stay in here, or anywhere,” she said quickly. “But I have my little sister, and I can’t just abandon her.” Sarah took a deep breath and continued, “so I want to leave her here. I don’t have anyone else.” She gasped as if she couldn’t get enough air. “Can we open the door?” she all but begged.

I nodded and opened the door. Phil glided in from another room, smiling. “Hello, Sarah.” Sarah lit up as she saw Phil, who knew her better than Meri or me. Phil had actually turned down a position as a cheerleader, which just wasn’t unusual, it was unheard of. Phil apparently felt that cheerleading was playing up women as sex symbols.

“Phil? Someone told me you died!” Sarah moved a little so she was standing outside. She calmed down slightly, and I wondered if it was seeing Phil or being outside that had helped.

“No, I’m okay,” Phil said softly, looking closely at Sarah. “You go now. I can see you need to go. We’ll take care of your sister.”

Sarah burst into tears. She covered her face with her hands and just sobbed. I stood uncomfortably and shifted my weight from one foot to another.

“Thanks Phil,” Sarah whispered, and she turned and went to the car.

“What the hell was that?” I asked Phil.

“I’ll explain what I can, but in the meantime, we’re about to have a guest.” I frowned, but followed Meri’s surprised gaze. Sarah had pulled a little girl wrapped in a blanket out of the car and hugged her. Then Sarah had thrown her hands up at the sky, almost howling with some strong emotion—joy? Sadness? And then she had run away. Just run off into the trees and disappeared.

I simply stood and stared, but Phil had gone out and gathered up the little girl, who was swaying dangerously. She brought her back in.

“But …” I couldn’t seem to get my mind working. “But … where did she go?”

Five minutes later I came out with clean blankets for the child who was shivering on the couch. She was dirty and hadn’t spoken. Meri was talking to her cheerfully, but Phil was just watching her, and I was simply waiting for someone to tell me what was happening.

Meri pulled me aside. “Okay, so this is her sister, right? Did anyone get a name?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t even know why Sarah ran off into the snow,” I said.

Meri said in a low voice, “Phil said that Sarah can’t be with people anymore.” When I looked at her she shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know what she means, but she does seem to have a handle on whatever was wrong with Sarah. Maybe she’ll be back?” This last was said hopefully.

I had a sick feeling. “Maybe. See if you can figure out what her name is, and put on some cartoons or something.” I put a hand to my head, which had started to ache. “I’m going to talk to Phil.”

I had to physically pull Phil away from watching the little blanket-wrapped girl. She seemed to come to herself a little and gave me a little smile. “Sorry, I get caught up,” she explained.

Caught up in what
? I wondered, but decided to stick to the problems at hand. “What is going on, Phil?”

“Sarah is sick, I think, or maybe just changed.” Phil shrugged as if the distinction wasn’t important. “She can’t live like us now. She needs to run and run.”

I sighed at this rather airy explanation. “Will she run on back here and pick up her little sister?”

“No. She can’t. She worked really hard to come here and talk to us,” Phil said, looking back at the child. I followed her gaze. The little girl looked to be around five years old, but I wasn’t positive about that. I didn’t hang out with kids much. Frankly, I thought most kids were obnoxious.

“Phil. What are we supposed to do with her?”

Phil looked at me. “Can’t she stay here?”

“She has a family of her own! We can’t just adopt her.” Even if we wanted to, I added to myself.

“The family isn’t here.” Phil looked at the little girl but didn’t sound so sure now. “I think she’s alone.”

I looked longingly out the windows at Sarah’s one-way path into the trees. “She can’t just stay out there forever. She has to come back. It’s winter,” I said rather stupidly.

Phil shook her head. “She is gone from us now. She won’t be back.” She added, almost to herself, “They run ahead of her and she runs to catch them.”

“But she’ll freeze!”

Phil shrugged.

I took a deep breath. Why did this have to happen right after Tucker left? I didn’t like to admit it, but it would have helped to have his take on this. No, he wasn’t here, so I guess I’d have to do something. Too bad I didn’t have a clue what that would be.

The first thing I needed to do was deal with the little girl. Phil would do whatever I asked with her, but when left to her own devices, went back to watching her from a corner of the room. I mentally crossed her off my list of would-be subby parents for this kid. I took Meri aside. “I need you to deal with this kid. You have little sisters, right?”

She nodded. Her parents had moved when she was in her senior year of high school, and Meri had chosen to stay here in Catfish. They were all safe and sound in San Diego, California.

“So that makes you the closest thing to a mother we have right now. I’m not asking you to adopt her,” I assured her, “but just see if you can get her talking and comfortable.” I looked over at the little girl, who hadn’t moved from where we’d put her. “I’ve seen deer in my headlights look more animated.”

Meri looked over at her, a look of compassion on her face. “I’ll do what I can.” She turned back to me. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going visiting,” I said flatly.

I was on my way fifteen minutes later, in the green Mercedes. I felt a pang of guilt for taking her car, but it was warm, and as I seated myself, I realized that the window sticker was still on the car. This Mercedes was brand new! I wondered if Sarah had bought it or stolen it, and then chided myself. I was sure our area, as stressed as it was, hadn’t fallen that far from civilization. As I drove out of the driveway, I looked bemusedly at the woods where Sarah had disappeared. No. We were still mostly civilized, right?

First, I went to our old apartment to see if anything was worth saving. That was a wasted trip, since unless I wanted to collect rubble there was nothing left. It wasn’t pretty, and the worst thing of all is that it seemed somehow permanent, as if no one cared enough to come and rebuild. But that was just temporary—it had to be.

Next I went to some of my friends’ houses. Cell phone coverage had become spotty at times, and I just needed to see them, somehow. I couldn’t really explain it, even to myself. I passed the bank, not far from our old apartment. It had closed during the first outbreaks, and as far as I knew, hadn’t reopened. None of the banks were open, which had been a federal issue since apparently banks were required to be open by law on most days. It was amazing what I had learned as a result of the bombing and aftermath. I hadn’t really been concerned since I never went there anyway, always preferring to get my cash from the ATM. Now I started to wonder if cash was available there. We hadn’t been hurting for cash. I mean, it wasn’t like I was out going to dinner and out to movies. And now that I thought about it, how long had it been since we’d received mail? Who did I even contact to tell them that my apartment was gone and to forward my mail to my parent’s house? I sighed and touched my head as it started to ache slightly.

Pushing the mail problem aside, I drove to the closest ATM, weaving through the cars that had just been left in the street. I saw a few other cars, but didn’t know who drove them.

The ATM was another disappointment. It was flashing an error message. No cash today. I didn’t really need it, but I felt a little anxious about not being able to get it. Would people still take my credit card? I felt mostly sure they would. Everyone else must be having the same problem, and when the quarantine was lifted, the mail would restart and in would flood the waiting bills. It had to work that way, right?

I drove by the grocery store, but it was dark and closed, the broken windows boarded up. I felt my stomach lurch uncomfortably. No groceries?

Everything was closed that I could see. I drove over to Tina’s little house. Tina was another high school friend. She had blond hair that fell in a shaggy mane down her back to her shoulder blades. She was curvy in a way that attracted the opposite sex like bees to honey. Surprisingly, under all those curves was a strong smart gal who could run most guys into the ground. We had been really close for a time, and had somehow given each other odd nicknames. She was Pewter and I was Lambchop. The story of these names is silly and ultimately boring, so I won’t go into it. Still, if I ever heard the word “Lambchop” I would turn around ready to hug Pewter. Tina was still alive, I knew, Meri having talked to her a couple of days ago. It was strange how suddenly I wanted to see her—see everyone around town I knew was alive.

I had a nice talk with her. She was going crazy in her house alone. Her mom had died last week, and her dad had never been a fixture in her life, having left them when she was a toddler. Her boyfriend was MIA, as we were calling those who had either run off or otherwise missing. She seemed to think he was dead, but wouldn’t talk much about it. I told her about Sarah and her odd dash into the woods. Tina asked about the kid, and I said she should come and see her. One thing led to another and before I really realized it, I was inviting her to come and stay with us. It was just temporary, of course, just until things “settled down.” She was immediately pleased with the idea, and I reflected I shouldn’t have let our friendship fade like it had. She wanted to pack just a few things, she said, and would come later to Mom and Dad’s place. As I left, I grabbed my cell to warn my roomies we had another person on the way.

I drove to a couple more places, really starting to realize the extent of the destruction of our town as I both saw it for myself and heard about it from other people. Fred had been a friend of my brother, but I heard he was struggling trying to care for both his elderly grandmother and his tiny baby brother, so I stopped by to see him. Fred was a little younger than my brother Dick, and that put him at the perfect age for a preteen girl to have a wild crush upon. I didn’t think he ever knew, and I certainly didn’t yearn for him anymore (yeah, I’d just keep telling myself that). He had to be thirty or thereabouts now.

I felt a little odd knocking on the door of his grandmother’s house where I’d heard he was staying. He answered the door a little warily, and smiled with genuine pleasure when he recognized me. “Madeline! It is so good to see you!” He ushered me inside. This was the fourth place I’d visited today, and was starting to wonder why I was doing this at all. What did I think I was, some kind of post-apocalypse welcome wagon?

“Hi Fred,” I said. Damn, he was still a cutie. Brown hair that fell over his forehead in the sexiest way, broad shoulders and that lithe, compact build that swimmers had. I hadn’t seen him in years, since he went off to live in New York City and be first a systems analyst, then a personal trainer. Yeah, don’t ask me why those two choices. Fred had always marched to his own drummer. Sadly for him, he had been visiting his grandmother when this all happened, so pow! Here he was part of our little horror story.

I sat on what was obviously an old woman’s couch—a green fabric that felt like steel wool under my hand. I didn’t waste a lot of time with pleasantries now that I’d done this a few times. I was starting to realize why I was doing this. “So, Fred, how are you handling things?”

He shook his head and sighed. “The lady next door has come over a couple of times and helped out with little Jacob—my brother.” I wondered about this—how could he have a brother thirty years younger? He must have seen the question on my face. “He’s actually my half-brother. My dad remarried.”

“Oh, I hadn’t heard that.” The curse of a small town was that most people knew of the break ups and remarriages. His dad (aka Dr. Erlington) had been my orthodontist, and I would still probably avoid him since I had never once put on my retainer after my braces came off and still felt guilty about that. Heaven forbid he see that one of my teeth wasn’t nearly as straight as it had been and chastise me.

“Dad isn’t actually living here in Catfish—he moved over to Lancing. At least until last week.” He shrugged. “My stepmother called me and asked me to come, and I did, of course. Flew out on the next flight. Apparently Dad had, uh, tried to … he had come unglued. She had to make him leave the house. I got there, and she was coherent for at least a day, but then she went wacko too.” He dipped his head for a minute and I wondered what had happened but didn’t want to pry. “So here I am with a one-month-old baby and a ninety-year-old woman who believes that the Nazis are attacking us.” He gave a wry shake of his head. “She watches a lot of
Hogan’s Heroes
.”