Steadfast

What wasn’t yet clear was just how much faster Elizabeth had begun to work.

In front of La Catrina, Alejandro Perez took the clipboard from his supplier and started checking off the boxes. Then he frowned. “Hey, what’s this? We asked for three cases of tequila, and you only sent us one?”

“We didn’t get our own shipment in on time this week,” said the driver, an amiable guy he knew only as T. J. “Gave you what we had, changed the bill, and we’ll make it up the next time.”

“So much for the two-for-one margarita special,” Alejandro muttered. He’d been trying to think up various promotions to win diners back. Now that there was another victim of this mystery illness, someone who’d had the decency to collapse somewhere else, there was no more reason for people to assume the food at La Catrina could have anything to do with it. But all the same, it would take another few days for business to get back to normal. A margarita special might have made that two days instead of five. Even that much time made a difference to the bottom line.

Maybe a piña colada special? Not very Mexican—but in this town, authenticity didn’t go nearly as far as a two-for-one deal.

He signed off on the modified shipment order, nodded good-bye to T. J., and started hauling in boxes. Too bad Mateo wasn’t here, with his young knees and back; these boxes got heavier every year. But soon Mateo would go to college, get out of this stupid town, and be on his own. So Alejandro either had to get used to carrying boxes or start looking for someone else to hire.

That Gage Calloway is a good kid, he thought as T. J.’s huge eighteen-wheeler began lumbering onto the road. Is he a senior, too, or would he be around next—

The rest of the question died as he watched the eighteen-wheeler slowly begin to roll off the side of the road, brake lights never blinking once, until it plowed into the grocery-store parking lot. Metal screeched and glass broke as cars twisted, turned, and bent—finally slowing the truck to a stop.

Alejandro ran for the truck, a few other bystanders following close behind. His first thought was that T. J. must have had a heart attack. But when he reached the door and pulled it open, he realized the truth was far stranger than that. T. J. lay slumped over the steering wheel, feebly pawing at the dashboard while viscous black fluid flowed from his gaping mouth. His jeans had already burned away from the stuff, which was now eating into his skin. The smell made Alejandro want to gag.

“Everybody stay back!” he shouted. “Call an ambulance!” The various people now congregating around the truck mostly did as he said, though one girl insisted on coming close to help—that pretty girl Mateo used to be so close to, Elizabeth Pike. Of course she’d want to help—such a nice kid. But he couldn’t think about her for very long, or about anything other than the blank staring horror on T. J.’s face.

Like the Bender girl, he thought. It’s happening again.

Gage had gotten the hell out of school as quickly as he could; nobody was running around taking attendance while that was going down, and all the teachers insisted the students should clear out instead of trying to help. But as he walked across town, he felt more and more guilty for having ducked out.

What if you have Ebola? he asked himself. They’d shown a documentary about the Ebola virus in physics class (since Mrs. Purdhy wasn’t around to teach it), about which he was still completely freaked out. If you’ve been exposed to Ebola, then you’re exposing everybody else to it, too! You’d be what they call a Patient Zero.

Only then did it occur to him that if he could give other people Ebola, he would have to have it himself. That didn’t help.

Okay. I’m going to assume I don’t have Ebola yet. But it is past time to take some precautions.

He went to the drugstore downtown, where Mrs. Laimuns was Captive Sound’s only pharmacist outside the hospital. She waved at him as he started searching the aisles. “Are you here to pick up your aunt Lorraine’s blood-pressure medicine again?”

“Not this time, Mrs. Laimuns.” Latex gloves—check. And hey, paper face masks, like people wore to the airport in Asia. He ought to grab some of those, too. As he filled his plastic basket, he reconsidered his answer to the pharmacist; going outside meant exposure to Ebola or whatever it was, so he should save his aunt Lorraine the trouble. “Hey, actually, I’ll go ahead and pick up the—”

His voice trailed off as he realized Mrs. Laimuns was no longer standing behind the pharmacy counter. He couldn’t see her at all.

Tinny Muzak played on the pharmacy sound system as Gage slowly walked toward the counter. “Mrs. Laimuns?” No reply.

He got to the drop-off window and leaned over to look inside. There, between rows and rows of medicine, Mrs. Laimuns lay unconscious on the floor, strange, black tar thick on her smock, sizzling against the tile.

In Kendall’s opinion, it was like the doctors actually wanted this hospital room to be creepy. The overhead lights never seemed to be on, having three comatose people together made it feel less like a hospital room and more like a morgue, and the only proof she had that Riley still lived was the beeping of a half dozen machines.

Riley lay on the bed, motionless, with tubes taped into her nose and electrodes stuck to her forehead and chest. Nobody had washed her hair in days, and she didn’t have on any makeup. When she woke up and found out that Kendall just let her lie there for days looking like this, Riley was going to be so pissed.

Well, that was the one thing Kendall could fix.