I'd partly expected someone to intercept me halfway to the door, but no one did. Security here wasn't that great, apparently. Or maybe they wanted people to walk up to their door and knock
.
That was exactly what I did. Walked up the path to the front door and beat on it.
Inside, fluorescent lights illuminated mundane linoleum floors and a front desk with a bouquet of fake flowers. Coby was somewhere in there. The thought sent my heart racing and hands shaking. Two days in quarantine separated me from my brother. I'd get out right in time for his birthday.
It took a while for someone to come to the door. They probably weren't expecting visitors. While I waited, I imagined cameras were tightening in on my face, trying to catch a glimpse of the beggar on the doorstep. I stared at my toes, knowing I looked pathetic and skinny and dirty.
A door on the far end of the hallway opened, revealing a tall man wearing army regs under a biohazard suit.
Why
did it have to be a soldier? Couldn't it have been anyone else? He raised his rifle as he walked closer.
“New arrival?” he shouted through the glass.
My throat constricted and I couldn't speak. I just nodded.
The soldier pressed a button on his side of the wall and there was a buzzing noise, then the door opened. He stepped outside, pointed his gun at me, and told me to put my hands on the wall. I planted my hands on the brick wall behind me and held my breath as he patted me down. He was quick. With my butchered clothes, it was probably obvious that I was hiding nothing.
The soldier ushered me inside. Our steps echoed off the linoleum floors and the locker-lined walls. Being inside the school was like stepping back in time. If I ignored the armed man in camo leading me down the hall, I could almost imagine that I was on my way to AP English class or maybe the library, where I always spent lunch. I trailed my fingers over the lockers as I walked.
The soldier stopped outside the door to the ladies' locker room. “Go inside,” he ordered, voice muffled from behind the plastic. “A nurse will be here shortly.”
I pushed the door open and walked in. The locker room was one-hundred-percent high school. Blue lockers stained by graffiti stood in rows with wooden benches between them. Through a glass door to my left, there were showers, sinks and bathroom stalls
.
I walked to one of the sinks, flicked the faucet up, and a clear stream of water poured out of it. I gasped and put my mouth under the faucet, drinking it in huge gulps.
Then I brought my head up and saw my reflection in the mirror. Only a quick look, maybe just for a second, but it was enough for reality to slap me across the face. Dark circles a purple so deep they looked like two black eyes. Washed-out skin caked with dirt. Red nose. Greased hair. I looked like a junkie.
The door to the locker room opened. Inside stepped two biohazard suits. One was the soldier who'd escorted me through the halls, and the other a middle-aged woman with a pinched face. She had the air of someone who might have been kind once, but right then she just looked sour.
“In the showers,” she barked. I did as she asked, went inside and closed the shower curtain behind me. It whipped back open. The woman stood there, holding a plastic basket full of shampoo, soap bottles and scrub brushes. “Go on,” she said, motioning for me to turn around.
Oh, no. No. “I can handle it on my own, I think.”
Her nostrils flared. “It's not up to you. Just close your eyes and it'll be over quickly enough. You look like you could use a good scrubbing.”
This was what I had to do â okay â I could do it. I turned my back on the woman and started stripping. A plastic bag rustled behind me.
“Put your clothes in here,” she said. I didn't look at her as I pulled off Brooks' shirt and jeans and my underwear and stuffed them into the bag. “Turn the shower on hot, all the way.”
The woman set her basket down. I yelped as the first trickles from the showerhead, freezing cold, hit my skin. I stood under the spray with my legs shaking, huddled into myself as if that could protect me from the woman's gaze. The water warmed, growing to a hot spray that scalded me.
“All right,” the woman said. “Just stand still.” She picked up a scrubber from her basket. I deepened my breath and closed my eyes, retreating into myself as the woman started washing me. It felt like she was using a Brillo pad, one with metal wires. I thought I might be bleeding.
“Tilt your head back.”
I tilted my head back.
“Close your mouth.”
I closed my mouth.
The shampoo smelled like strawberries. I felt the suds washing over me, and it got better eventually, when I could anticipate what she was going to order and do it before she told me. If she didn't speak, I could almost pretend she wasn't there.
The water was hard like bullets pelting my skin. The steam thickened the air, choking me.
“Just stand under the water for a while,” she said, sounding tired. As if she'd done this so many times it was just a chore for her, maybe an unpleasant one like taking out the trash. She left me alone.
Coby's here.
That's what I kept telling myself as I stood under the burning water. I let my eyes open. My arms were red and swollen with thin scratches. The water circling the drain was black and brown.
Coby's here, and that's why I'm doing this, and it's worth it, it's worth it, it's worth it.
It would all be worth it when I saw his face.
Then I'd get us out.
After I got out of the shower, the woman dried me off with a couple of small hand towels and dressed me in a hospital gown and little paper flip flops. The soldier stood in the background the whole time. I tried not to care that he watched.
I laced my fingers and stared at my toes. After nine months of not even seeing a shower, I wasn't used to being clean. The smell of the soap and shampoo made my eyes water and skin itch. Dirt felt more like home.
They led me back to the hallway and through a triple set of doors. For security, the woman said. Of course. Couldn't let the potentially infected loose in their nice clean school. Briggs had called us rats. That must have been how the nurse and the soldier saw me.
I'd rather be a rat than in a prison made of plastic and medicine.
We stopped in front of a classroom door that had a keypad on the wall beside it. The soldier grabbed me by the arm and turned me around so my back faced the door while the woman keyed in a code. Four beeps later, they led me inside and left me alone.
There weren't any desks or podiums in the classroom. Nothing reminiscent of the school it used to be. Just a cot in the corner, no pillow or blanket, and a bucket.
I curled up on the cot and waited. Brooks said I had two days in this place. Two days of being locked up, basic blood tests, psychological examinations, and plenty of observation. They wouldn't want to let a crazy person in their shelter.
Of course not.
My skin still burned from the shower, was still hot and tender to the touch. I should cry. Curse the world and the government and the virus. Feel something, anything, about what was happening, how the nurse had treated me like an animal or a criminal and scrubbed me till I bled. But I couldn't. I was just tired.
I must have slept. Because all of the sudden I opened my eyes and the door was swinging open. Another person wearing a bio suit. He walked to the cot and stood over me and I didn't bother getting up because what was the point?
“Good morning,” he said. Morning already? I'd slept that long? “My name's Mitchell and I'm going to be in charge of your evaluations.”
I just stared at him. Behind the bio suit, his hair was an unassuming brown and crows' feet stamped the corners of his eyes. He carried a clipboard and a pen. After a minute, I realized that he was probably waiting for an introduction. My psychological examination had begun.
I sat up straight and tried to make my mouth remember how to smile. “I'm Sarah.”
The pen scratched the clipboard as he wrote my fake name. “What's your last name, Sarah?”
“Flurry,” I said, feeling confident that Mitchell didn't share my love for the romance genre.
And on it went. The basics, first. What was my height, weight, birthday, etc⦠Those were easy lies. Then the questions got deeper, those creased brown eyes taking careful note of my smallest reactions.
Had I been feeling depressed lately? Hopeless? Helpless? Worthless?
How had I been feeling about the future?
Had I been feeling significantly guilty about anything that I'd done or not done?
I couldn't be asked these things. They set my teeth on edge. With every question he asked, something broke inside me.
“I don't understand why this is important,” I said.
He glanced at me over the top of his clipboard. “Sarah, a lot of people live at this shelter. We have to decide whether or not you're fit for general population.”
“And if I'm not?”
“If you're not, then other arrangements will be made.”
Not good. I needed to get in the shelter. I needed to smile at Mitchell. To thank him. To be so honey sweet he'd let me into general population without any hesitation. Instead, I could only give him one-word answers and try to keep from scowling.
After a few minutes of that, Mitchell's face locked in a frown. He sighed and reached up as if to readjust his glasses, but his fingers met the plastic covering his face. His dropped into his lap. “Okay Sarah. Why don't you tell me a little about your life?”
I thought for a moment. I couldn't tell him about the greenhouse, because the soldiers that raided my house definitely would've taken note of it. I couldn't tell him about him my brother. I settled on telling him about my parents, being sure to choose my words carefully.
“My parents are both dead.” That was true. They'd died years apart, one in childbirth and the other taken by the virus, but he didn't have to know that. “Mom's name was Tiffany, like I told you,” I said, gesturing to his clipboard. Her real name was Rachel Delaney.
“She was a teacher,” I said. “Everyone loved her. She'd bake the best pies. Blueberry, cherry, apple. The kitchen always smelled amazing, like a bakery and her perfume. It smelled like honeysuckle. I miss her so much,” I said. “Her and Dad.”
“Your father's name,” Mitchell glanced down at his clipboard, “was David?”
No. His name was Neil Delaney. “Yes.”
“Would you like to talk about him a little?”
What good would that do? Were they trying to find if I was handling my parents' losses well? Maybe if I could convince Mitchell that I was, he'd let me into general population. But what would be the appropriate reaction? Sobbing?
I conjured the images of what Dad's last moments must have been. His face soaked with blood and sweat, glasses broken and askew. Slumped at the wheel of his jeep, hands empty and pale in his lap. Dying alone.
Tears sprung to my eyes. When I spoke, I didn't have to fake my voice catching. “Dad spent almost all his time at the hospital, working.” My eyes flashed up to Mitchell. I hadn't meant to mention that Dad was a doctor, but Mitchell busily scribbled on clipboard, not seeming to take any special notice of Dad's profession. “But whenever he could get time off, he spent it with us.”
“Us?” Mitchell asked. “You and your mother?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, cursing myself. “That's right.”
He was quiet, waiting for me to continue.
I took a deep breath and tried to choose my words more carefully. “On Sundays, Dad would take us swimming. To Chatham Springs, have you ever been there?”
“Sure,” he said.
“That was my favorite. And after we went swimming, sometimes we would go to the bookshop and he'd let me pick out anything I wanted. Then we'd go home and he would make us dinner.”
“And when did he pass away?”
“About six months ago.”
“And your mother?”
“Right before him.”
Mitchell sat back. “Then why did it take you so long to find us, Sarah?”
“I didn't even know this was here, honestly, or I would've come sooner.” That, at least, was the truth.
“Well, we're glad you're here now,” Mitchell said, glancing up from his notes. His eyes were warmer now, his frown gone. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Okay, last thing,” Mitchell said. “I need to take a blood sample.” He pulled a syringe from a pocket of his bio suit and my mouth went dry.
“Why do you have to do that?”
Mitchell frowned. “Do you have a fear of needles or blood?”
“No.” I swallowed. More that I'm worried this will be the first medical procedure of many. “I'm just curious. What do you need it for?”
“You could say we're trying to fight the virus, but it's less of a fight and more of a race, really,” he said, looking pleased and slightly surprised at my interest. “If we can't contain the virus soon, the population will become unsustainable.”
Not surprising. “So how are you doing it?”
“We have a small sample of the virus here. We'll expose it to your blood and monitor the reaction.” He stopped for a moment, readying the syringe. I could tell he didn't get a chance to talk about his work very often, that he was weighing his words carefully. “Everyone's different. We learn a small bit with each experiment.”
Was that how Didgy did his research, too?
“So you think you can cure it?” I asked.
“We will certainly try.” He swabbed my shoulder with a small white cloth and brought the needle up. Before I could prepare myself, before I could do anything, he stuck me and pulled the plug on the syringe. It swirled with thick, dark blood.
“That's it, Sarah.” Mitchell gathered his belongings and started walking to the door. “We'll have your results in the morning. Get some rest if you can.”