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door.

Up to the front I wander, and in comes Mrs. Corbier, Mable. I haven’t seen her in a long time. I wince for a second, remembering what we did to her husband Chester. For an old coot he put up a quite a fight. He was supposed to be out and she was hoping to join him. Not going to happen.

“Mable, how the hell are you dear?”

“Jacob, old bean. So good to see you. I feel such regret that as your neighbor I haven’t been by lately. So much to do you know. Did I tell you I got a card from Chester?”

“No you didn’t. How is he?”

She holds out a postcard, one I’ve seen many times before. Part of the octogenarian shoebox that we keep in PS1. Looks like Alphonso’s work. I flip over the picture of Maxine saying something crabby and rude. Yep, Alphonso. I’d recognize his writing anywhere. Never dots the eyes, and he has this strange looping capital D.

“That’s great, Mable. Sounds like he’s doing just fine. When are you getting out?”

“They’ve got me on the short list, Jacob. Any chance you can put in a good word for me?”

“Of course sweetheart. I always do.”

Mable beams back at me, her pale face filled with wrinkles under a badly attached dirty white wig. She raises her tiny fist and coughs discreetly. For a second I glance out the window at the calm day, the trees bending in the breeze, the occasional passerby on his way to some false destination, and I can almost believe it. I can almost believe the lies.

“Is there something I can do for you Mable?”

“Yes, please. I’m done with Koontz. I will not be disappointed again.”

“I hear you.”

“And I’ve worked my way through all of the King. As well as most of the F. Paul Wilson ‘Repairman Jack’ series. Good stuff. Always like my vigilantes.”

“Mable...” I whisper, “we aren’t supposed to talk about those.”

“Oh right. Sorry. Forget which ones are above board and which are clandestine,” she giggles.

I glance around the dusty room. For what, I don’t know. I know there are no cameras here. I’ve taken out the ones that were here, and X has promised me that he will take care of the rest. But with the recent telescope incident, I’m not so sure. As my mind races through that beatdown, and the subsequent return to a world where the telescope still sits quietly in my office closet, my breath grows short, and a wave of nausea washes over me.

“Jacob, you okay honey?”

“Yes. I’m okay. But please...Mable...”

A tight brow and pursed lips rush over her features.

“I know, Jacob. Truly, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You want something new. And I think you are ready to graduate. I’ve been waiting for this,” I say, pausing for a moment. “Think you can handle it? The next level?”

“Jacob, I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl. Bring it on.”

“Over here I’ve got a little section of my personal favorites. You ever see Fight Club, the movie?”

“Oh yes, that Brad Pitt. Hot.”

“Mable!”

“Oh I used to be young and pretty too, mister. I have six kids you know.”

“Right. So, that movie started out as a book. Written by one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk. I suggest another book he wrote, called Choke. It’s about a guy named Victor Mancini. He’s a con artist and med-school dropout who's taken a job playing a servant in a colonial-era theme park in order to help care for his Alzheimer's-afflicted mother. He’s also a sex addict.”

“Wow. Sounds good.”

“Oh and one more thing...Victor is a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.”

“Well sign me up. I need something to get the blood flowing and keep the old brainpan jumping.”

“When you’re done with that, come back, he’s got more. Then maybe you’ll be ready for Clevenger and Baer. Noir and psychotropic drugs. And in time, Stephen Graham Jones.”

I go to hand her the book and the front door swings open. A gust of wind pushes leaves and dirt into the store. Mable raises her first and coughs again, harder this time. When she pulls her fist away there are spots of blood on it.

“Oh dear,” she says.

I reach into my back pocket for a handkerchief when she coughs again, and this time her tiny fist is no match for the blood that shoots out of her mouth. She doubles over and vomits onto the floor, splashing my feet with her lunch and more blood. Bits of corn float in the sticky liquid. She looks up for a moment, fear in her eyes.

“Jacob?” she gasps. “It’s here.”

She falls to the ground and is still. He said it was coming but I didn’t believe him. We’re supposed to be immune. A shadow passes in front of the doorway. It’s Marcy. She has a sack in one hand, strange looking stalks pointing out of it, and a fistful of paper in the other.

“We have to hurry,” she says. “We don’t have much more time than the citizens do.” She glances down at Mable and back at me. “I love that book.”

2. MARCY

“We have to hurry,” I say. “Out back, the garden. I have some weird fruits and dried herbs that X gave me. He says to take everything we have and grind it into a paste.”

“The stuff I grew like the ginger and garlic, or the thorny, angry stuff that he created?”

“Everything.”

I glance down at Marge’s body.

“Did she get any blood on you?” I ask.

“I don’t think so.” He glances down his shirt at the tiny spots of blood. “Well, a little bit I guess. But not on my skin I don’t think.”

“We really better hurry then. You okay?”

“I guess. Not the first one I’ve seen drop. But she was a nice old broad. Go around back Marcy, I’ll meet you there.”

We head to the back of the store and stop at the tiny plot of a briar patch. Jacob’s tiny section is orderly and recognizable. The rest of it, that has been tended by X, is a mess. Vines curve up and down, strangling the other vegetation, and yet they still have these endearing little yellow flowers. There are tall skinny stalks with purple fluff at the top. There are orange bursts of bushy leaves huddled against the ground with tiny purple berries. And weeds, a lot of tall, wispy grass, and moss.

“Everything?” he asks.

“I guess. Maybe you should put a pot on the stove. Between the medicine we have back at his house and this poultice, we have to boogie. The second wave of the virus has hit. If it got 97%

of the people last time, and then gets about that much this time, then we’re in trouble.”

“And X thinks these things can help us? These plants and herbs?”

“He’s been traveling. He talked to some of his teachers. A woman named Bast told him that this was coming. She gave him some things. Will it work? I don’t know, but what choice do we have? I’m more hopeful about the vials he has. Stuff they were working on before we came here. They never did get an antidote, but this is what he has. Experimental no doubt. We’re going to have a little party on top of the hill. All of us. You, me, Roland, X, and he mentioned Jimmy.”

“Really? How’s he going to do that, pull him out of his ass?”

“Something like that. I’m not as worried about that as I am about Gordon.”

“Gordon?”

“He’s here. I didn’t recognize him either. He lost a lot of weight. He’s had work done. The angry man at the fire?”

“Oh...I hardly remember that.”

“I know. That’s Gordon. He’ll be there too.”

“How do you know?”

“Because X said he would be. Things are moving fast. Gordon will be there, because he couldn’t be anywhere else. He wants us dead. All of us. Especially X, but all of us.”

“What?”

The sun is setting over the back of the yard. Night is coming. I haven’t seen anybody since I came down from the house, but they are most likely dropping like flies. He tells me that we’ll be okay, that we aren’t as susceptible as the others, but I don’t know if I believe him.

“Go, Jacob. Put a pot on. A big one. I’ll start pulling up these plants.”

He takes one long look at me, down to the garden of mismatched hope, and back to me again. He’s deciding right now. I can tell. He doesn’t like me, I know that. He has good reasons to not like me. But we need him, don’t ask me why. We all have our place. A chain of events has been set in motion, and we need to play it out. One little nod and he heads off to the kitchen with the sack I brought. I drop to my knees and start pulling. Some come up easy, and some resist. Others slash and bite at my fingers but I chomp down on my lip and keep my mouth shut. In time there will be tears as the pain of my actions meet the fears in my head. We’re doomed.

3. JIMMY

Running as fast as I dare, I continue down the tunnel. They’re far ahead of me, so I don’t have time to be cautious. My gun is out and I expect them around every corner. It’s a bit of a death wish but I don’t care. If she’s hurt, or dead, it doesn’t really matter anyway. I know how ruthless they can be. They’ll skin her alive in front of me if they think it will get them anything in return, or hurt me that much more. I’ve taken down a lot of them, and Ming is especially vengeful. He worries me the most.

Up ahead there is a glimmer of light. I slow down. As I creep closer I can see that it is Madison. She is in the center of a large room, some sort of underground control center. The door to the spacious octagon lies on the floor, where it has been for some time, a layer of dust and boot prints on its back. All it says on the outside is ELECTRICITY: Caution. I can see her in the middle of the room, shaking her head, gagged and tied to some large metal structure, a filing cabinet or something. I move forward anyway, knowing it is a trap. But what else can I do?

She shakes her head even faster. I place a finger to my lips, and shake my head too. She stops. Her wide eyes scream out at me, but more frightening then that is the blood at her feet. Too much blood. There is a slice across her shirt, and I can see the gash on her belly. It looks superficial, but I can’t be sure.

As I’m about to enter the room I notice a drawing on the wall. Familiar. It’s a tall archway sketched in black. Charcoal or something. It hums on the wall, the black outline shifting ever so subtly every time I glance away. It’s faint, but it draws my attention anyway. This is important. My head swims and a voice floats to me. IT’S TIME. The whisper is a voice that I recognize but can’t quite place. The island. It’s happened again. Glancing back, the black outline of frame and symbol, arch and letters, doorway and numbers starts to pulse. A hint of blue at the edges. I have to hurry.

I put away my gun and enter. If her eyes were any wider they would pop out of her head.

“It’s okay Madison,” I say. “Calm down. You okay? The baby okay?”

She

nods.

Glancing around the room at the rusty metal desks and old subway maps on the walls, I count six tunnels sprouting off in every direction. No doubt they are just out of sight. A flashlight is duct taped to a desk so it shines on Madison. The rest of the room is dark. But I can smell them, the piss and shit. The general stink of bodies that haven’t seen water or soap in weeks. It’s pungent but it keeps me alert and angry.

I reach around to the back of her head and untie the gag. It comes off easy. Reaching down I untie her arms and legs, working my way to the back of the cabinet to set her free.

“They’ll be out any second,” I whisper in her ear. “Go back out the door I came in and wait for me. This will only take a second.”

“But...what...” she tries.

“Madison. Go. If it gets ugly, go through. Get X. I’ll stall them for as long as I can.”

“Who is X? What are you talking about?”

“It’s okay. He’s an old friend. I thought we’d have more time. Go through and get him.”

There is a shuffling of feet and a low, guttural laugh. Ming has no idea what is coming for him.

4. X

I heard him earlier today, but his voice had been drowned out by Bast. And now she is in trouble too. I have to choose. Or move really fast.

I sit down before the pyramid of rocks in the far south corner of the property again, but this time with Roland by my side. I’ve sent Marcy to Jacob. The virus is here. I’d suspected as much, and people have started to die. Mostly the elderly. There are no children to speak of. Roland is the youngest here and he is going to be fine.

“Roland, stay here. I don’t want you coming with me. I know you hear her and want to help, but when she’s hurt, she’s unpredictable.”

Roland kneels next to me as I cross my legs and place my elbows on my knees, palms turned upward. Towards God, some say. Not me.

“Keep an eye on that low brick wall over there. It runs the edge of the property all the way along that side. Originally it was built to keep people out. But over time it collapsed. There is a section about halfway down that still stands six feet high. That part. Madison will be coming soon, maybe before I get back. Calm her down and tell her I’ll be right back.”

“Okay...um, X. Do you want me to call you X?”

“If it feels right to you. You certainly don’t have to call me dad.”

His mouth opens and shuts and the world slips away as a grin creeps across my face. I thought he had figured it out by now. I guess not.

• • • • •

I can see she is hurt immediately. She licks at a hind quarter and her pink tongue is coated with streaks of red. The fire is raging and there are splashes of darkness all around it. Lying in front of her is a human leg, broken off at the hip, and chewed to the bone. The only part that is still vaguely human is the foot. The skin and muscle is still intact.

“I don’t have the patience for feet anymore,” she says. “Too much work for such meager results.”

“Are you okay?”

“It’s too late Exodus. They came again.”

“I know, Roland saw it as well. I came as soon as I could. Things are progressing and I have to get the poultice made as well as the vaccinations. I don’t know if any of them will work.”

“It’s all you can do. They’ll survive or they won’t and in the end it won’t change you all that much now will it?”

“That’s not true, nor fair Bast.”

Her eyes look up and for the first time I see the extent of the damage. Her hind legs lie limp, and are twisted at a strange angle. There are red dots all across her white pelt and huge gashes as well.

“You don’t look so good. Can you walk?”