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  Refusing to give in, I stare back at him.

  "You're pissing me off," he continues, his whiskey-soaked breath filling my nose. "Let me put this another way. What if you're right? What if the whole world's fucked, and Dad's not coming back from Scottsville? Who do you think's gonna be in charge around here? You? No way. It'll be me, and there's nothing you can do to stop that, so maybe you should start thinking about your loyalties. Got it?" After a moment, he crunches his elbow even harder against my neck, and now I can't breathe at all. I reach up to push him away, but he's too strong and I start to wonder if maybe in his drunken state he might be more dangerous than usual. "Got it?" he shouts.

  "Yes!" I gasp, and he immediately lets go. As I catch my breath, he moves over to a nearby tree and sits staring at me.

  "Consider this a warning," he says darkly. "You're a good kid, Thomas, but I don't want you mouthing off at me. Do you understand? It doesn't have to be like this. As long as you show me some respect, we can work together just fine, but if you piss me off, I'll run you out of this place so fast, you won't know what's hit you. And if you try anything, I'll hit back at you twice as hard. Now why don't you go and get me some more whiskey, and then go and check on Lydia and tell her I'll be along in a while. Or even better, if she's feeling better, tell her to come out here and see me. I wouldn't mind some proper company".

  Getting to my feet, I brush dirt from my shirt and trousers. There's a part of me that wants to grab Joe and bounce his head off the nearest tree. I'm pretty sure I could hurt him, but there's no point; he'd just come back at me, and the end result wouldn't be much better than the situation I'm in at the moment. Joe's tougher, stronger and meaner than I could ever hope to be, and I guess I'll just have to be more subtle. Besides, he's just acting out while our father's away. As soon as the truck comes back from Scottsville and our father's back at home, Joe'll start to sober up and act normal again. He's had little blips like this before, but he always comes around eventually.

  "Fuck you," I say, turning and walking away.

  "What did you say?" he calls after me.

  I don't look back at him. I just keep walking, focusing on the house in the distance.

  "You little piece of crap!" he shouts. "You don't fucking talk to me like that, okay?"

  He can fuck off and die if he thinks I'm taking him a bottle of whiskey. The guy's wasted anyway, so the worst that can happen is that he'll pass out and sleep for most of the day, and then he'll have a hangover for at least twenty-four hours after that, so I figure Joe's out of the picture for a while. Hopefully, our father will be back before too long; as I reach the house, I glance around and realize that there's still no sign of the truck. Looking over at the horizon, I see nothing except for smoke from the plane crash still rising into the sky. Maybe Joe's right; maybe the truck blew a tire, and that's why it's not back yet. Still, as these coincidences keep piling up, I'm getting more and more worried about how things are gonna work out.

  ELIZABETH

  Manhattan

  "Have you seen my brother?" I ask, rushing into the office down in the foyer of the building. I assumed Bob would be down here, but instead I find that the only person is Albert Carling, the guy from the second floor. He's sitting behind the main desk, fiddling with the knobs on a small radio. Albert's the kind of slightly shifty-looking, slightly smelly guy you might pass in the elevator a hundred times without necessarily making eye contact. To be honest, I'd completely ignored him until all this stuff started to happen; suddenly, with his radio, he seems like one of the most important and useful people in the world.

  "Your brother?" he says, looking up.

  "Did you see him come down here?" I continue. "He's gone missing".

  He shakes his head.

  "What about the others? Where's Bob?"

  "Bob's out".

  "Out? Out where?"

  Albert sniffs, as if he's deeply unimpressed by my sense of panic. "Said he was going to walk around the block and see what's what. That was a couple of hours ago, so I guess he should be back soon. If he's coming back at all". As he speaks, the radio squeals into life and a semi-regular, hissing pattern starts to come over the speaker. "Hello?" Albert barks into the microphone. "Anyone there?"

  "If my brother comes back," I say, "you have to tell him to wait in our apartment. Okay? Tell him to just stay put and wait for -"

  "Hello?" Albert says again, apparently ignoring me. "This is New York. Is anyone out there? Over".

  "If my brother comes back -" I start to say again.

  "Is anyone there?" asks a crackly voice, coming directly from the speaker.

  "Hang on," Albert says, putting the microphone aside and grabbing another, smaller device. "This is New York," he says. "Repeat, this is New York. Identify yourself. Over".

  "Who's that?" I ask, my heart soaring at the prospect that we might have found other people who are still alive out there.

  "Wait!" Albert hisses at me.

  There's a rumble of static for a moment. "This is Jerry," says the other voice eventually. "I'm in Danbury, Connecticut. Something strange is happening here. There's no power, no water, no kind of emergency system in place. A lot of people are dead. Do you guys have any idea what the hell's going on? Over".

  "It's the same here," Albert replies. "I've used a hand-crank to get my radio working, but it won't last long. What are things like in Danbury? Over".

  "Everything's dead," the other voice says. "Power. Water. Phone lines. Even the emergency radio frequencies are shut off. I don't know what's happened, but people are dying. There are a couple of bodies out in the street, and I think something crashed a few miles out of town. We've got no information. There's no police, no anything. What about you? Over".

  "Negative on the information," Albert says. "Have you been in contact with anyone else? Anyone from the government? Over".

  "I spoke briefly to a woman in Rhode Island," Jerry says. "Picked her up on a low frequency. She said there were some sick people up there too. Real sick. Apart from that, she didn't have any information. It's hard making contact. It almost seems as if something's running deliberate interference. You get hold of a signal for a while, and then something comes and pushes you off, like there's a jammer being used. Are there sick people in New York too? Have you seen any sign of a relief effort? We've got nothing here. Over".

  "Negative on the sick people," Albert says, "and negative on the relief effort. The city seems to be deserted. There's just a handful of us here, but the streets are empty. We can see miles of cars in the distance, though. When you say that people are sick, what exactly do you mean? How sick are they? Over".

  "It's like a kind of fever," Jerry continues. "Like flu, but it affects different people differently. Some develop it over a few days, but with others, it seems to cut them down almost right away. A few people, like me, haven't been affected so far, but I don't know how long that's gonna last. I've never seen anything like it. It's almost as if it just swept through Danbury in a couple of hours, killing everyone around. One minute everything was fine, the next minute it was as if people were just dropping like flies all over the place. It's like something out of the apocalypse. Is it the same in New York?" There's a pause, before he remembers to add the sign-off. "Over".

  "I guess," Albert says, glancing at me. "It's more like the place is empty. We don't really know where the people went, but we're assuming they're inside. They -" As he speaks, there's a loud bang and the front of the radio falls off, with smoke billowing from inside. Albert leaps out of his chair and stares in shock as a small fire breaks out, burning up the interior of the radio unit with alarming speed and quickly spreading to a small pile of papers.

  "What happened?" I ask, backing away.

  "I must have overloaded the crank," he replies, clearly panicking a little as the radio continues to burn. He stares blankly at the flames, as if he expects them to just die down of their own accord.

  Grabbing a fire extinguisher from the other side of the r
oom, I spray white foam over the whole desk, quickly killing the fire. The force of the extinguisher is more extreme than I ever imagined, and I struggle to keep it under control. By the time I'm done, there's a real mess and my heart is racing, but at least the fire's out.

  "Did you hear what he said?" Albert continues after a moment. "He said there's people dead up in Connecticut. Dead in the streets. That's over a hundred miles away. This thing must be big. If it's spread as far as Connecticut, maybe it's gone across the whole country, maybe even the whole world".

  "I heard," I reply, putting the empty fire extinguisher on the floor. For some strange reason, I feel totally calm, as if my body is refusing to let me fall apart. All I can think about is my brother, and my parents, and how we're going to make sure we get through this. "But just 'cause they've got it in Connecticut," I say after a moment, "and just 'cause it's here, that doesn't mean it's everywhere, does it? It can't have struck everyone. There'll be people in bunkers working to sort things out. Maybe it'll take them a few days, but they'll get their stuff together. There'll be helicopters or something arriving soon, with aid and some kind of vaccine".

  "You don't know that," Albert replies.

  "I do," I say. "I can feel it. It has to happen. Even if a lot of people have died, there'll still be enough to get things back to normal".

  "And if there's not?" he asks. "What if there's some kind of virus that's killed everyone?"

  "And they all got sick at the same time?" I ask. "Are you seriously suggesting that all of this is possible? There was nothing on the news about this. I didn't hear one person complain about being sick".

  "Maybe there was a trigger," he continues. "Maybe people got infected over time, and the virus lay dormant until some kind of global event triggered its activation -"

  "That doesn't even make sense," I reply, interrupting him.

  "And then there's gonna be a second wave that'll pick off the survivors," he continues, getting more and more agitated. "It's the perfect sickness. It's just gonna pick us all off. Maybe it was designed like this. Maybe it's not some random virus that mutated on a pig farm in China. Maybe it's something from a laboratory".

  I step toward the table. "That sounds like -"

  "Stay back!" he yells, backing away from me until he's up against the wall. There's a look of absolute and total panic in his eyes.

  "What's wrong?" I ask, looking back across the room.

  "You might have it," he continues, clearly terrified. "For all I know, you've got it and you're gonna give it to me".

  "I'm not sick," I reply. "Look at me. Do I look like there's something wrong with me?" I take another step toward him.

  "No!" he shouts, grabbing a chair and holding it up to defend himself. "I swear to God, kid, if you come any closer I'll take you down. If it's me or you, I'll drop you before you can even blink".

  "I'm not sick," I say again.

  "You said it yourself. No-one seemed sick the other day, and then it just happened".

  "Exactly!" I reply. "It happened, and we didn't get sick, so there's -"

  "Get away from me!" he yells, jabbing the chair at me before he edges his way toward the door.

  "Where are you going?" I ask. "You can't just -"

  "If you come anywhere near me again," he says, fixing me with a demented stare, "I'll kill you. The same goes for your brother, and for anyone else in this building, do you hear me? Spread the word. I'm not gonna let you all infect me!" With that, he mutters something else that I can't quite make out, before dropping the chair and racing off across the foyer. Shocked, I stand and listen to him as he runs through the door to the stairwell. I wish I could dismiss his rambling fear as an overreaction, but there's a part of me that worries he might be right.

  THOMAS

  Oklahoma

  It's hot with the gas mask on, but I don't see that I've got any other option. If I'm right about Lydia, she's liable to be infectious, which means I need to take every possible precaution. Hell, it might even be too late already. When I was in the room with her yesterday, she was a total mess; she was coughing up blood, and there was something kind of desperate about the way she lunged at me. I've seen people with flu before, and this seemed like more than flu. It was almost as if she wasn't in control of herself, like she was getting totally desperate.

  "Thomas?" my mother calls out.

  Turning, I see her standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  "What are you doing?" she asks.

  "I'm going to check on her," I say, holding up the key in my hand. My voice sounds strange in the confines of the gas mask, and I have to speak a little louder so that I can be heard.

  "Let her sleep," she replies, with a worried look on her face.

  "I'm just going to make sure she's okay," I say. "I'm not going to actually go all the way inside".

  "Don't you think you should wait for your father to come home?" she continues. "I don't want you going in there, Thomas. You might catch whatever she's got. I don't want you coming down with the flu as well".

  "This isn't flu," I say.

  "Can't you get a ladder?" she continues. "Put a ladder up outside and look through the window. That way, you don't even have to go near her. Your father must have an old ladder in the barn".

  "I'll be quick," I tell her. "Stop worrying".

  As I slide the key into the lock, I realize there's a strange whispering noise nearby; it takes a moment before I realize it's coming from my mother, who has started quietly saying a prayer for my safety. I turn the key and push the door open just a couple of inches, half-expecting Lydia to come rushing at me. I wouldn't blame her if she'd decided to hide and keep quiet, hoping to lure one of us into the room so she could try to escape. Stepping back for a moment, I grab an old broom that has been propped near the top of the stairs; after all, it doesn't hurt to have something I can use for defense. However, as the door slowly swings a little further open, I see a pair of bare feet sticking out from the bottom of the bed.

  "Do you see anything?" my mother hisses.

  "Just her feet," I reply, before taking a step toward the door. "Lydia?" I call out, but there's no reply. In fact, the feet - which otherwise look completely normal - are totally still.

  "Don't go too close!" my mother calls out. "Thomas, you promised you wouldn't go all the way inside!"

  "It's okay," I say, using the tip of the broom to push the door open. Lydia is on the bed, rolled onto her side and facing away from me. There's a dressing gown covering most of her body, with just her feet sticking out at one end and her head at the other. The bedsheets have been thrown aside and are gathered in a crumpled heap on the floor, with a hint of yellow and brown bodily fluids staining the fabric. Despite this, and despite the stale smell of sweat and feces, the situation looks far more normal than I'd expected, although I can see some more spatters of blood on the floor and some dark liquid in the blue bucket.

  "Lydia?" I say again, starting to feel more and more certain that she's dead. The bowl of soup I brought up yesterday is still sitting untouched on the bedside table, and the air in the room seems undisturbed and stale. I take a couple of steps forward.

  "What do you see?" my mother calls up from the bottom of the stairs.

  "I don't know," I say. "She -" Suddenly I notice something moving; it's as if her body shifted just a fraction of a millimeter. It was such an imperceptible sight, I'm not even certain it actually happened.

  "Thomas?" my mother continues.

  "Hang on!" I call back to her. I'm watching the bedsheets intently, and I'm pretty sure there's an occasional hint of movement. Nothing much, but perhaps enough to show that Lydia's breathing.

  "Thomas?" my mother calls up again. "Will you please tell me what's happening?"

  "I think she's breathing," I say. Something about the shape of Lydia's body doesn't look quite right, although from this angle it might just be a result of her dressing gown being scrunched up.

  "Don't get too close!" my mother reminds me. She sound
s completely terrified.

  "I know!" I reply, though I'm already stepping carefully around the bed, making sure to keep close to the wall while holding the broom out in front of me. There's still a chance that she might leap at me, and I need to be ready. My heart is pounding, and I'm convinced that she's just faking being asleep so she can make a run for it. As I get around to the other side of the bed, I see that her eyes are closed but that, otherwise, she actually doesn't look too bad. Whereas her skin looked kind of yellow yesterday, it's a little more normal now, although she still looks pretty sick and there's dried blood and vomit on her chin. In a way, she looks totally peaceful, although I'm keenly aware that she could throw herself at me without any warning.

  "Thomas!" my mother shouts. "Thomas, don't get too close! Are you listening to me?"

  "Lydia?" I say, hoping that she might open her eyes. In the space of just a couple of minutes, I've gone from being convinced that she's dead, to wondering if she might be alive, to thinking she's dead again. Carefully, I hold the broom handle out and brush the tip against her feet. She doesn't wake up, but there definitely seems to be some kind of movement, as if her chest is rising and falling in a slow and irregular manner. After a moment, I make my way to the other side of the room and see that there's a strange shape around Lydia's belly. It looks, for all the world, as if she's pregnant, though I could swear she was thin as a rake when she arrived. Then again, perhaps she was wearing tight clothes that kept everything hidden. Something about her body shape just doesn't seem quite right.

  "Are you okay?" I ask, staring at her face. Leaning a little closer, I realize that one of her eyes is very slightly open; just a millimeter or so, but definitely open. "Can you hear me?" I say, still thinking that there's a chance she might be okay. Carefully, I hold out the tip of the broom and tap her shoulder, but she doesn't respond. "If you can hear me," I continue, "give me a sign. Anything. Just blink or cough or something". I tap her shoulder with the broom again, and this time I hear a strange rumbling, ripping sound coming from her belly. Whatever's going on in there, it doesn't sound right.