Wilhelmina nods, but only in understanding. Outside? That’s the one thing they’re sure no woman should do. Don’t go outside.
Beau sees this in her and gives her an understanding smile, but also keeps talking. “Don’t go to a farm or any place rural. They’ll expect that. They’ll expect any woman alive to hide someplace like that, thinking they’re out of the way. No. You need to go somewhere without infrastructure, a place where people don’t live, but close enough to get food. Someplace that’s always outside, with not much else to it. I’m thinking the mountains or the National Forest. It’s cold in the winter up there, but you’ve still got summer and fall to make plans. Honestly, even the park south of us would work. Plenty of mountains, good lakes, remote areas.”
Her lips part at the suggestion. “I’ve never been camping in my life.”
Beau lets go of her hand. He’s warming to the idea. She can see it. His eyes move around the room but he’s not seeing any of it. He’s seeing the logistics, the possibilities.
His eyes focus on her again and he says, “It’s a good time to learn. I’m going to tell the others, but I’d team up with them if I were you. I can leave the building, get supplies for you, and come back tonight to get you out the back of the building. I’ve got the building’s van, and I can use it to get you to the forest if you want me to. I’ll do everything I can to get you settled and safe.”
Wilhelmina thinks for a moment, worrying at her lip as she does. This is a big step, almost a step too far. If they’re cataloging the women now, they’ll be collecting them soon. She does not want to be collected.
“Yes,” she says, her tone decisive. “Yes, let’s do that. See if you can get the others to agree.”
Miranda
The first day of this new hell is a blur of snot and sickness and fever. At some point, she realizes that she must have passed out on her hall floor and urinated during the event. Her bones ache from the cold tile and her leg has fallen deeply asleep. It takes her a moment to understand why she’s even out of bed, but then she remembers and scrambles to the door.
Sharon’s body is gone, but one of her shoes is upside down on the stoop. It’s proof that what she remembers is true. Yet, no one came. No one questioned her. No police officers knocked on her door after taking the body away. Miranda pushes the door almost closed, crawls on her hands and knees to the lounge, then falls into a heap on the carpet.
She’s freezing, then baking hot again in a flash. She knows she’s very sick, too sick to stay home. She should be in a hospital. Is that what’s going on? Is there a plague? Is she a victim too, one taking a much longer and more tortuous route to death than Sharon?
Ambulances wail all day, the sound so consistent that she stops hearing it. Police sirens too. At some point, she detects the faint reverberations of the big sirens only recently installed and tested. Air raid sirens, or perhaps they’re like the tornado sirens she remembers from when she was a little girl.
A tornado. Yes. She should get to the basement. That’s what she should do.
Everything goes hazy and dark again. When she wakes next, it’s night beyond the windows, but the living room light is on. Someone is trying to lift her from the floor.
“Can you stand? Here, let me help you.”
It’s a man. A stranger. A surge of alarm goes through her, but her throat is too sore for more than a hoarse sound to come out.
“It’s okay. It’s me, the man from next door? I came over earlier to help…well, to help with your friend. Do you remember?”
Miranda does remember and now she recognizes him. He’s wearing different clothes. His face is freshly shaved and his precisely combed hair is damp, but she recognizes him. “Sharon,” she mumbles.
“I’m so sorry, but she’s gone. They’ll take care of her. I came back and saw your door standing wide open, so I came in. Terribly sorry about that, but I’m glad I did. You’re very ill and I need to help you now. Can you stand?”
She can’t. She absolutely can’t. Her legs move under her, but they feel like noodles. She begins to cry.
“There, there. Don’t cry. It’s alright. I’ll just carry you. It’s alright.” His voice is soothing, caring. It makes her want to rest her head in the crook of his arm and go back to sleep. “I’m going to put one arm under your legs and one around your back. That’s all. Okay?”
Again she mumbles, but he must understand her, because she’s lifted off the floor and up into his arms a moment later. The motion is too much. Vomit rolls out of her body and all over the front of them both, almost without any force at all. It simply spills out, no heaving required.
“Ah, my goodness. Don’t worry. We’ll get it sorted. We will.”
When she next wakes, she’s wearing a clean nightgown and the air smells of soap. Bright light is leaking in around the edges of the closed drapes, though her bedroom is still rather dim. The light is enough for her to see the man asleep in her bedroom chair, his body twisted awkwardly and his head resting on the upholstered arm in a way sure to give him a neckache. She does remember him though, so that’s okay.
“Hello,” she says. It comes out almost a baritone, entirely unlike her normal voice. Her throat crackles painfully.
The
