White Horse

“We don’t know that. We’re just guessing. If we follow that logic, I shouldn’t be sick.”

“You’re right. Shit. I can’t think. Jesus, Zoe. You can’t be sick. I—”

“Won’t allow it?”

“Yeah.” She picks up the clipboard pieces, tries to fit them back together, but they’re not cooperating. “I can’t lose any more people, Zoe. You, the others, you’re my family now. I thought we were all safe from that fucking disease. I was relying on it.”

“I’m sorry.”

She stomps over to her second-floor window, shoves the glass pane high in the sash.

“Fuck you, George Pope!” she screams into the empty streets. “I’m glad you’re fucking dead, you asshole. Burn in hell.” In stoic silence, the other buildings stand, reserving their judgment yet unwilling to yield to her hard words.

“Tara,” I say gently. “It really is okay. We all have to die somehow, right?”

“Wrong. We should be immortal.”

“That’s mature.”

“So is you stomping out of here because you think you’re sick.”

“Look at me. I’m sick. I just puked all over the library floor. Soon God knows what’s going to happen to me. This thing will flip my genes on and off and I’ll turn into something that isn’t me anymore. There’s no telling what that will be. Maybe I’ll survive as some kind of evolutionary freak, maybe I’ll die. I’m going to pack.”

“Don’t,” she says. “Please.”

“I have to.”

Morris sighs, hard and loud. She bends over, presses her elbows into her desk, bangs her head against the surface. After a few good thunks, she looks up at me.

“You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Fine. Do me a favor. Don’t go too far. Set up in one of the buildings across the street where I can keep an eye on you.”

I nod, turn away from my friend. What I don’t tell her is that death isn’t totally unwelcome. For the first time in my life, I’m flirting with The End and I don’t care. Let it slide its tongue into my mouth, taste the metal and take control.

Anything to stop my heart from hemorrhaging.

TWENTY

Eeny, meeny, miney, mo. The street is filled with choices, each as unappealing as the next. Oh, they’re all fine to look at: office buildings and businesses and apartments hewn in bricks and rough stones. The thing is, I’d feel like an intruder living in someone else’s home, even though they’re long gone.

Dead. You helped burn them, remember? They didn’t go on vacation.

Morris is a whippet bouncing at her office window. She’s pointing directly across the street at what used to be a Kinko’s. Technically it still is—they’re just no longer printing copies. Directly above that is a small office space once filled by a small accounting firm. No beds, but they have a decent sofa in the waiting room, Morris told me. That’s where she wants me.

My wave is limp and lacking, and hers is just as weak. I don’t want to do this. I have to do this. No choice. I turn to take another long hard look at my new home. It’s just me, the backpack digging into my shoulders, and this box in my arms. For a moment I balance the box on my knee and readjust the weight, and then let myself into the building. The previous tenants made it easy, or maybe Morris and her crew did; either way, the door opens freely. The door is made of both bars and glass. Anything coming through is going to make enough noise to wake the dying.

That would be me. I can’t help but laugh a little. Who knew death could be amusing?

It’s true, there’s a sofa in the bland waiting room, along with two generic armchairs and a cheap desk. In places, the laminate is warped and stained with rings from hot, wet cups. My knees bend; I touch my backside to the very edge of the chair that doesn’t have its back to the window and place the box between my feet.

What do I have?

A great view with a direct line of sight into Morris’s office; all the clothes I can carry; toiletries, food, water, and bedding; an extra-bad attitude that starts somewhere behind my eyes and reaches out so far even my toes feel wracked with ill will. I want to hurt something, break it, control it until destruction is inevitable.

The wall yields easily beneath the toe of my boot. Only about twenty good kicks before it punches right through the Sheetrock. A pile of crumbles amasses on the synthetic beige pile, like Pop Rocks half pulverized by a brick. Guilt is a serial killer, stabbing me for losing control of my anger, then choking me for being foolish enough to think: To whom do I send the check for the damage?

Nausea washes over me, using me like I’m the shore of a long-abandoned beach. Once again I’m on my knees, praying to the gods of cheap carpeting.

Please let death be swift.

DATE: NOW

Shadows stretch across the cobbled path, from east to west. The sun is still new in the sky and hasn’t yet gained her confidence. From room to room I wander without pausing to contemplate the relics of the dead. There’s a stillness in the air that tickles my intuition, telling me I’m alone, so I put it to the test and establish that my instincts are sharp and true: Irini, the Medusa of Delphi, isn’t here. There was a time when this wouldn’t have bothered me, but that was before. I’m calm. Honest. The museum’s expansive windows tell me so. The bouncing pulse in my throat is the lie. A fabrication concocted by my hormones and fears for the sole purpose of feeding my paranoia.

The steps are empty. So is the path as far as I can see. Only Esmeralda is there, and she’s busying herself with grasses and the other things donkeys deem important. Her calm state presses a cool hand on my forehead and tells me to chill. My ears listen. My brain processes the message. My pulse continues to thump, regardless.

We walked up there yesterday, Irini and I, just far enough for her to point out the areas of interest: the stadium, Apollo’s temple, the tholos—a circular structure with three of its original twenty Doric columns still standing—but we didn’t move close enough to do more than admire the passage of time from a distance.

I’m trapped in a deja vu loop. Only the scenery changes, but the dangers and the accompanying reactions are the same. Something is following me, someone disappears, and I chase after them, only to be too late to help. In truth, there’s nothing to suggest Irini is in trouble. There are no signs of a struggle, and if she’d called out, I’d have heard her. But my intuition whispers its brand of poison, and I listen.

The ruins are tall and proud and blond in the morning glare. A noise trickles between the rocks and spills into the sunshine. At first I think it’s Irini talking to herself, but it soon separates into two distinct voices: Irini’s hesitant lilt and another, thicker, harsher, struggling against itself.

Go. Stay. Go. Stay. I do my own internal dance. Then the decision is made for me.

“Come. I know you are there,” says the thickened tongue.

I move as if in a dream.

“Closer. I want to see you.”

Around a corner. Along the Sacred Way until I see the Polygonal Wall. Then I stop, because there’s a rock jutting up from the path and my mind is trying to make some kind of sense out of what it’s seeing. Yes, it’s a strange, pale rock, but with a human center. Arms and legs spring forth from the boulder’s core, hang there like laundry in the sun. These useless limbs are topped by a woman’s head, her hair piled high in a loose bun, her eyes keen as if she knows all. A vine creeps up to her middle, spreads itself around her like a thick green belt. She’s older than Irini, but their eyes are the same shade of nut brown and their noses hold the same curve.

Jenny lying inert on the sidewalk, a red circle marring her forehead. The hole in my soul widens another inch.

“It is true,” she says in hesitant English. “You are carrying a child.”