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  "Where's Dad?" I ask after a moment.

  "Your father's on his way back from Scottsville".

  "How do you know?"

  "Because that's what he said he'd be doing this morning!"

  "But you don't know," I reply. "You hope he's coming back, but you don't know for certain".

  Sighing, she gets up and walks over to the sink, where she starts wiping a couple of dirty plates with a dry sponge. It seems like a futile kind of gesture, as if she's just doing the things that make her feel better. "You might feel compelled to assume the worst," she says after a moment, "but the rest of us have things to be doing. The world isn't going to stop just so you can talk about disasters. Whatever's happened, it's bad, but it's not as bad as you're trying to make out. Frankly, I wonder about your state of mind, since you seem so determined to cause trouble and make everyone panic. Do you want something bad to happen?" She pauses for a moment. "Your father isn't due back until the early afternoon. It takes time to travel back from Scottsville, you know. He can't just fly here in a couple of minutes".

  "He said he wouldn't be late," I point out. "He promised -"

  "Are you done here?" she snaps, turning to me with a look of real frustration in her eyes. "Are you planning to spend the whole morning just picking holes in everything and causing trouble? Is that really the best thing you can think to be doing right now? Or do you want to do something constructive like tidying the yard or bringing some wood in from the shed? We still have to attend to our normal lives, Thomas, in-between these fanciful ideas about the end of the world. Even if you can't stop yourself from thinking these things, I'd be grateful if you could keep from saying them out loud. We're all trying to get along as best we can. If you really want to be useful, you can go and find your brother. Tell him this is hardly the time to go wandering off".

  I stare at her, trying to work out if there's any way I can get her to see the truth. She seems to be sticking her head in the sand and just hoping that things work out. My mother's usually such a calm and quiet person, so this sudden display of anger is clearly a sign that she's worried.

  "I'd appreciate some help," she continues after a moment, before returning to her notebook. "Your father's taken off to Scottsville for however long, and your brother's no use. I'd really be grateful if you could at least stay on my side for a while, Thomas. A little help would go a very long way right now".

  Realizing that there's no point arguing with her, I turn and head back through to the hallway and up the stairs. Just as I'm about to go to my room, I stop and look over at the door to the guest room. The lack of any kind of noise is starting to worry me, since Lydia has spent most of the past twenty-four hours coughing her guts up and now she's stopped completely. It could be a trap, of course; she knows that we've locked the door, and she might be hoping to lure one of us inside so she can escape. In fact, she might have recovered completely. Then again, I can't shake the feeling that Lydia's illness is a sign of something darker and more dangerous. As I put my ear to the door, I decide that if there's no development by midday, I'll go in and check on her. I can't just ignore the fact that she's here, and hope that she'll suddenly pull through. I pause for a moment, hoping against hope that there'll be some signs of life from the other side of the door, but all I hear is silence.

  "Lydia?" I say.

  Nothing.

  "Lydia?"

  Still nothing.

  I don't want to believe the worst, but I saw how sick she was yesterday. If something bad has happened to her, it means there's a much more serious situation in the world in general. I keep telling myself that the idea of a virus is too over-the-top and too melodramatic, but at the same time it's starting more and more to seem like the only explanation that actually fits. And if there is a virus on the loose, it's starting to look as if Lydia has brought it straight into our house.

  ELIZABETH

  Manhattan

  I've been awake for a few hours, but I haven't moved. A cold wind is howling through the apartment, but I'm warm under a pile of old duvets. If I concentrate really hard, I can trick myself into thinking that everything's okay. My mother's in the kitchen making breakfast, and my father's getting ready to go to work, and my brother's watching some crappy cartoon on his laptop. It's just an ordinary day, full of all the annoyances that bug me every day. I might try to phone Carla later, or go for a wander through the streets of Manhattan, or get a smoothie in a cafe, or...

  It's no use.

  I can't keep it up.

  I know I can't do any of these things.

  For one thing, my parents have been missing for two days now, caught up in whatever natural disaster has struck the city. For another, the phone network is down so I can't phone Carla, and going for a wander through the streets of Manhattan would be far too dangerous. All I can do is stay right here and wait for everything to go back to normal. It could still happen. The lights could come on, and my parents could come home, and the city could come back to life. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate, because the longer this whole thing lasts, the less likely it becomes that things will get back to normal soon. Or ever. In fact, staring at the ceiling on the morning of the third day, I force myself to contemplate for the first time the possibility that this won't ever end. What if this is how things are going to be forever? What if the old world - with people and cars and phones and internet and planes and all those things - is gone for good?

  Forcing myself to get a grip, I remind myself that it's not going to be like that at all. It might take a few more days or weeks, but things are going to get back to normal eventually. Our parents will be back and the power will come back on. It's so tempting to assume the worst, and to give up, but things are going to get better. We just need to have some faith. And until then, I'm in charge. When our parents went away for a few days, they told me to keep an eye on Henry. The situation has changed, of course, but basically I'm still going to have to 'keep an eye' on him. If anything bad happens, it's my fault. I'm the older one, so I have to look after us both. Until this is over, the responsibility for keeping us safe is all mine.

  Sitting up, I take a deep breath and tell myself that I can't just stay in bed all day. Although it's tempting to just wait for someone to come and fix things, I know that I need to deal with situation; I need to make sure Henry's okay, and I need to work out what we're going to eat and drink today. In fact, now that it's looking like we're in this for the long-haul, I guess it might be time to start making proper plans. With the duvets wrapped around my body, I shuffle across the room and open the door. The force of the ice-cold wind hits me immediately, almost blowing me back to my bed; as well as the wind blowing through the apartment, there's a surprisingly thick cloud of small black particles blowing along from somewhere else in the house. Our apartment has always been so perfectly sealed off from the rest of the world, like a small isolated box perched high up on top of the building, that it seems really strange to now have the natural world invading the space. It's as if we've lost some kind of battle, and it's tempting to think that now the wind and cold has got inside, we'll never get it back out again.

  Forcing my way to the front room, I see that our DIY attempt to fix the broken window has come loose, and there's a new, fine layer of dust and black little particles all over the floor. There's a smattering of rain in the air, and the sky outside looks gray and threatening. The ash-like black particles, swirling in the air around me, most likely come from the wreckage of the plane that crashed a few blocks away, and which is still burning after more than a day. The fire is pushing charred wreckage and dust up into the air, spreading its fine mist far and wide before everything starts raining down again. All these tiny little black pieces, burned to a crisp; it's hard to believe they were once part of a plane. Well, maybe they weren't part of the plane; maybe they were part of the luggage, or the passengers. Reaching out, I move my hand slowly through the particles; they're so fine and delicate, I can barely feel them as they disintegrate against
my skin. A shiver passes through my body and I step back from the window.

  "Henry!" I call out, though I doubt my brother will be able to hear me over the noise of the wind. I head through to the kitchen, but there's no sign of him. Grabbing one of our few remaining bottles of water, I take a sip and stare at the food in our fridge. It's not much, but the situation could be worse: at least we have a load of cheese and bread, and basic stuff like butter and mayonnaise. The fridge isn't working, of course, but the apartment's cold enough to keep everything cool. Walking over to the cupboards, I find that we've got plenty of tins of beans and spaghetti. It's not the best food in the world, but it's something. At a conservative estimate, we can easily last for a couple of weeks, and that's without even bothering to cut down on our consumption. If we plan properly, and eliminate waste, I'm pretty sure we can keep going for at least a month. The thought of a month of living like this, though, sends a shiver through my body. It's just not possible. We can't be like this forever.

  "Henry!" I call out again. Part of me wants him to get up and help me, but another part of me is kind of glad that he's managing to sleep. Shuffling over to the far side of the kitchen, still wrapped in the duvets, I look down at our bottles of water. While we've got plenty of food, water is more of a concern. When this thing started, we had a dozen large bottles of mineral water and some cola; we've now drunk all the cola, and we're down to eight bottles of water. There's also some beer and wine in one of the cupboards, which I suppose counts as liquids. Still, we're gonna run dry much sooner than we starve, but I figure we can maybe collect rain water up on the roof. As long as we plan things in advance, it can't be too hard to find water.

  As I make my way back through to the front room, I realize that in some ways things don't look too bad. We have food and water, and we're not in any immediate danger. In fact, the biggest problem might be the temperature. With an icy wind blowing through the broken window, the temperate in the apartment is gone way down to zero or maybe even further. There's also the question of this little black particles in the air; although they look kind of pretty blowing through the white, dust-colored apartment, I'm not entirely sure that it's safe to be breathing this stuff into our lungs. We need to fix the window, and we need to do it properly this time, but I'm pretty sure we don't have anything suitable; I guess we'll have to go down to the basement and look in our parents' storage area. What we need is some kind of large piece of wood, or at least something that's solid enough to withstand the force of the wind.

  "Henry?" I call out, turning and wandering back across the front room. "Henry!" Making my way along the corridor, I stop outside his bedroom and knock loudly. "You need to get up," I call out. "I want to go up onto the roof and see if we can get some rainwater, and then we need to go to the basement and look for some stuff". I pause, waiting for him to groan or yell at me to leave him alone. "Henry," I continue, knocking again, "can you get up?"

  Nothing.

  "Okay," I say, "I'm gonna count to three and then I'm gonna come in. Fair warning. One. Two". I leave a little pause. "Three," I add eventually, before opening the door.

  He's not there.

  Stepping over to his bed, I see that the duvets have been pushed aside but Henry himself is nowhere to be found. I reach down and feel the bedsheets; they're cold, which suggests he's not been here for a while. Hurrying through to the bathroom, I double-check that there's no sign of him, and that's when the panic really sets in: I've repeatedly told Henry that we need to stay here and wait for help, but he's been arguing for us to go out and see what's happening. Is it possible that he decided to take matters into his own hand and just go out into the city? Running back through to my bedroom, I throw the duvets onto the bed before heading back to the front door. I slept in my clothes, so at least it doesn't take me too long to slip my shoes on and run out into the hallway. Wherever Henry's gone, I need to get to him before he blunders into danger. With no phones and no email, though, I have no way of tracking him down. If something happens to him while he's out of the building, I'll never be able to forgive myself.

  THOMAS

  Oklahoma

  It takes me a while to find Joe, since he's not in any of the usual places. By 'usual places', I mean the dirt patch behind the barn and the broken chicken coop over the crest of the hill. Usually, when he wants to hide away and not be found for a while, Joe goes to one of these places, but to my surprise he seems to have found somewhere else to go this time. I spend most of the morning wandering around the farm, looking into every nook and cranny that could conceivably give my brother some cover, and after a while I start to worry that maybe he's gone further than usual. Finally, however, I reach the old milking station and spot two legs sticking around from around the back.

  "Lydia's sick," I say, walking over to him. "She's -" As soon as I get around the corner, I see that Joe's sitting with his back to the wall, sipping from a half-empty bottle of whiskey. I stare at him for a moment. "Are you drunk?" I ask eventually.

  He turns to me, and it's clear that he can barely even focus properly.

  "You're drunk," I say.

  "And you're ugly," he replies. "At least I'll sober up eventually".

  Stepping over to him, I grab the bottle and toss it away. It doesn't break when it hits the dirt, but the last of the whiskey dribbles away.

  "What the fuck?" he says, staring at me with white-hot anger. He tries to get up, but the effort is clearly too much and he slumps back down. "Did you just do what I think you did, you little dick?"

  "You're drunk," I say again. "Of all the days, why the hell do you have to be drunk right now?"

  "I believe this is a free country -" he starts to reply.

  "Do you have any idea what's going on?" I shout. "Mom's going nuts at the kitchen table, and your precious new girlfriend's sick in the guest room!"

  "Is that right?" he asks. "Well, I guess there's not much for me to be doing. Be a good kid and fetch me another bottle of whiskey, yeah?"

  "Dad's not back yet," I say.

  "So what?"

  "He should be back right about now," I continue, "but there's no sign of him. He knows it's important to keep to time. If he's not back, it means something's wrong".

  "Or he got drunk last night and he's sleeping it off in a ditch".

  "He didn't get drunk," I reply. "You know that and I know that. Dad's not an irresponsible asshole. He would've set out to come back from Scottsville this morning at first light, and he'd have been back by now".

  "So he got a puncture," Joe says. "Big deal. He's got a spare, but it'll take him a while to get it changed. He's probably cursing by the side of the road right now, popping out another hernia as he tries to jack the damn truck up. Serves him right. He'll get it sorted in the end, but he'll be in a foul mood when he gets back". He stares at me. "What? What's your explanation? You think a fucking jet plane fell on his head?"

  "I think something's wrong at Scottsville," I say. "Maybe other places too".

  "Yeah?" He smiles. "And what are you gonna do about it? Grab a red cape and fly to the rescue?"

  "Lydia's really sick," I say, hoping to make him realize that we can't just sit around and wait for something to happen. "She was coughing her guts up all night, and then a few hours ago she just stopped".

  "And? Did you go in and check on her?"

  I shake my head.

  "Why the hell not?"

  "We had to lock her in the guest room".

  "You did what?" Scrabbling to his feet, he steps toward me and pushes me back. "You locked her away? What the hell did you do that for?"

  "There's something wrong with her," I say, my heart racing.

  "There's something wrong with you!" he shouts, pushing me again. "You can't go around locking people up just 'cause they're sick!" He stumbles toward me again, but this time I get out of his way. He's clearly wasted, and he can barely even stay upright. Steadying himself against a tree, he pauses for a moment. "Fuck," he mutters. "She's gonna think we're a bu
nch of fucking hillbillies. Do you have any idea how fucking dumb you are?"

  "Mom agreed," I say.

  "And you listened to that dumb bitch?" Suddenly he lurches toward me, swinging his fist at my face. I step back and he trips on a root, landing hard on the dirt. He immediately gets back up and turns to face me. "You know what you're gonna do?" he says, barely able to focus on me. "You're gonna go right back to the house, and you're gonna unlock the door and you're gonna go in and apologize to her. And then you're gonna make her some breakfast and then you're gonna pray to God that she doesn't call the cops and tell 'em you and that mad bitch kept her prisoner overnight, and then I'm gonna come and take her away, and neither of us is ever gonna come back to this pig-fucking shit-hole of a farm again. Do you understand?" He stares at me, swaying slightly as he tries to stay on his feet. "Do you understand?" he screams, his face turning red with anger.

  "You're drunk," I say quietly.

  Once again, he lurches at me. This time, I'm not quite able to get out of the way in time, and he manages to grab my arm and pull me down to the ground. Climbing on top of me, he jams his elbow into my throat before smashing his knee into my belly. The pain is intense, and for a moment I can't even breathe. Struggling to get him off me, I try kneeing him in the ass, but I can't quite reach. Instead, I grab his shoulders and try to push him away.

  "Listen to me, pig-fucker," he says firmly. "You're right. I'm fucked. But even when I'm fucked, I'm ten times the man you are, and I'm ten times smarter and more useful than that bitch we call Mom. So you're gonna listen to me, or I swear to God I'll break your fucking neck. Do you understand?" He leans closer, staring straight into my eyes, and then - as if to prove his point - he grinds his elbow deeper into my neck, making it hard for me to breathe. "I asked you a question," he says after a moment. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"