Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for Meghan O'Malley and her extended family and history. Nick Andros, The Stand, and all related characters are the exclusive property of Stephen King. Bless him for his generosity in lending these fevered dreams to the world.
Intro: This could take the place of Chapter 41, falling directly after Nick's leave-taking from Shoyo. I don't mean to abridge canon here, just bump it a little bit.
She came north from Houston, weaving her way through a city that had been torn apart by riots and fires, some of which still burned. Tanks and jeeps lined the sidewalks. Army transport trucks and SWAT vehicles were located everywhere, all abandoned. They'd set up barricades to close off some of the more dysfunctional neighborhoods, but most of these had been broken through. Four days ago, on June 26, her pretty, very sick young aunt left Meg sitting in her chic uptown loft and ventured out onto those streets, which were still punctuated by sirens, crashes, gunfire, and the occasional scream.
"Missy, you're too sick to go," Meg pleaded, half-heartedly. She sat on her aunt's expensive couch holding a stiff pillow embroidered with sequins in the shape of a peacock. It was obviously meant to be decorative and not functional. It had been two days since her grandmother died in a private hospital suite where they stowed her with five other people, all of them in varying stages of the disease. The doctors weren't even treating anyone by then, and only the luckiest of patients were able to receive triage. This was largely a placebo meant to pacify privileged benefactors. Henrietta O'Malley had made some substantial contributions to St. Luke's since her husband's death from cirrhosis sixteen years ago, all of them tax-deductible.
"I want to check it out. If there's a way out of here, then my office will do it." Melissa O'Malley was thirty-one and had advanced to liaison for a large shipping magnate. Her company juggled open space on almost all commercial flights and ocean liners. Of course, the news reports indicated that all travel was down, but army planes and helicopters had been flying overhead on a daily basis. The city's garbage fleet had been appropriated by the military, which began trundling up and down the city streets as chaos broke loose. The two young women supposed that bodies were being transported in those trucks, probably to naval vessels which would dump them in open water beyond Galveston. The phones were all out. The entire Third Ward burned that afternoon in a frenzy of arson as sick and confused people took to the streets and the National Guard swept in to deal what a shaken reporter called "a grave and shocking military offensive on homeland soil." Blurred and silent footage depicted a hellish scene of destruction, smoke and carnage before there was an abrupt end to the broadcast, followed by the strident, lonely bleat of the Emergency Broadcast System.
Meg watched her aunt, a slender woman who normally appeared poised and confident in even the most daunting situation, struggle to pull a svelte bolero jacket over her satin chemise. Her eyes were sunken and black, her neck swelled with what the locals were calling tubeneck and the wetbacks called La Peste Negra. "You're not well enough," Meg repeated dully. She felt blank and astonished and had a hard time feeling the plush beige sofa beneath her as anything substantial. She felt like she was falling. But a sudden flash of anger seethed. She threw the pillow at a plate glass wall where the flat Texas skyline was punctured by a series of rectangular gray towers. "You're going to get killed out there!"
The other woman located her keys, tied a chiffon scarf around normally tawny hair which hung limp from sweat and sickness, and tucked paperwork including her passport and contact lists into her purse. She had the names of some high profile men who had taken a goodly chunk of her late mother's fortune over the years. More than one had direct influence with that scarecrow in the White House. Henny had stumped for him and every other Republican candidate since 1952, and she was nothing if not a grand and generous hostess. If there was ever a time to call out family debts, it was now. Missy shut the clasp. "I'm dying," she said blandly. She'd swallowed two valium with a glass of Chardonnay an hour ago. The fever she bucked all night long had finally abated. She was clear headed. "I'm going to see if I can get you home. Don't go outside. Don't answer the door."
She left with her shoulders squared. Meg never saw her again. Later that night, the sounds of breaking glass and the pummeling of ammunition exploded on the street beneath Missy's 10th floor brownstone.
So it was that June 27, while Larry Underwood was busy balling Rita Blakemoor, Meghan O'Malley spent all day hiding behind the beveled mirror doors of a spacious closet in a mostly strange city. She cried quietly and slept fitfully. As the lonely hours stretched into June 28, she ventured out briefly. Those sounds from down below had mostly faded to silence. Meg crouched near the bedroom windows, watching great chunks of light disappear into darkness. Lights were going out all over the city. She got a drink of water and numbly located a box of Special K, which she clutched as she stumbled back to her makeshift fortress. It tasted like dried leaves and she wished Missy had Golden Crisp.
After another day, she knew she had to leave. Whether she was sick or not—and she fully expected to come down with it herself later if not sooner—she couldn't stay in this. She crawled out in the pre-dawn stillness of June 30 and packed a single large knapsack, the same one she'd carried on the flight from Syracuse. She was glad she thought to grab all her most personal belongings when they left the ranch outside Victoria. She thought of her suitcases with all the other clothes and books she'd brought for the summer. They would stay in her part-time room there in the sprawling two-story house her great-great grandfather built up. She imagined it would sit now until its wide balconies and veranda finally began to collapse from neglect and disuse during the wettest wet and driest dry seasons southeast Texas had to offer. She was going home.
For the first time she regretted not learning to drive. Weaving in and out of the cityscape, Meg saw only the shadows of several people who quickly faded down alleys or behind buildings. Often as not, she veered just as swiftly in the opposite direction. She was not prepared to meet others in this wreckage. They were like rats now, shying from the light, scavenging refuse. Once a neat and trendy city, Houston now struck her with all the charm of an oily and bloated whore, riddled with the humid fever blisters of a STD. As she wove out from an underpass, one older man sat disconsolately outside a 7-11. He raised his gray head to show reddened eyes, a week's worth of stubble on his tired face, watching her go without a word. This would be the face she would remember. By evening, it was clear from the blisters on her tired feet that she'd need a bicycle if she intended to make any distance at all. She found a Kmart store a few miles out on Route 59. The store had already been broken into, its front windows completely smashed in. She was alarmed, but not discouraged. She climbed gingerly through the broken doors, thinking whoever had looted wouldn't likely stick around. Neither would she. Working swiftly, she found a light-weight ten-speed already assembled, complete with a small rack fit for a sleeping roll and pad.
She made quick work outfitting this and left it in front while she returned with a flashlight to find food and necessities. She wanted road maps, extra batteries ... a shuffling noise startled her so badly, she backed into a display of sporting goods, sending them to the floor with a crash. She flinched as a number of baseball bats clunked, rolling away from her feet.
"Is someone there?" she called. Her voice sounded terribly strident. The store was dark except for the flashlight in her shaking hand, sending a pitifully small beam of light skittering across the ceiling and down nearby aisles. Meg was still terrified of confronting those who were delirious or dying. Worse, she had no way of knowing how many might have survived.
As her unexpected company stirred from the shadows, Meg found herself staring directly at a pasty young man in army fatigues. His hair was buzzed, making his sharp features appear even more angular. He'd stripped off his jacket and created a make-shift sling, from which his right arm hung limply. Meg couldn't tell for certain in the dark, but it looked like there was quite a bit of dried blood on him.
"You wasn't stealing was you?" He hoisted the assault rifle hanging at his left side. "Because we was directed to enforce THE LAW no matter what!"
Meg shook her head, setting down her pack. "N-no. I just ... There's no place open. I just walked all the way from downtown and there was barely anybody left on the streets."
"All sons o' whores have been summarily dealt with," he clipped, robotically. "Those who have not given their life for their country have been called upon to uphold honor. Act smart gal! Now kick that flashlight over here!"
Meghan could not believe this. This kid was barely older than she was. She'd imagined death more than once in her life, but never had she thought it might end being held hostage in a deserted Kmart someplace in Texas while the whole world went bust. Yeah, she thought, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper. She did as she was told; lowering her flashlight gently to the floor, she kicked it across the linoleum until it rolled to a stop beneath Biloxi Blues' boot.
"Good gal." Something hard glittered in his eyes. He did not appear to be sick. Oh man, not good. This was so not cool. A wave of pure self-interest cut through the numbness she'd been wrapped in since leaving the green, familiar acres of the I-O. Biloxi smirked and lowered his weapon slightly. As he stepped forward, a wash of adrenaline seized her.
Without conscious thought, she reached down and grabbed the nearest bat. At the same moment, her antagonist sent his weapon off in a series of bright orange fire-bursts which scalded and smoked in the darkness. Meg felt one zing near her right elbow as she lifted the bat, but it missed her. Apparently, firing an M16 was harder with just one arm to steady it. Lucky for her. She brought the bat swinging round hard as she could, gathering momentum, managing to strike him on the left shoulder, which forced him to drop the rifle. It clattered to the floor and Meg flinched, thinking it would go off again. She tried to kick it away, but now he was enraged.
He shoved into her like a bull. Her nose met his collar bone and smarted. She clawed at him fiercely as his wiry arm went round her neck, forcing her head down in a choke hold. The abandoned flashlight came underneath their feet during this horrible dance, spinning wildly. With stars blinding her eyes, she used her one free arm—the one not pressed tightly against his sweaty, smelly chest—to reach blindly in the darkness. Her small hand made purchase with his crotch, grasping and twisting with sharp fingers till she felt his balls roll and squish together like ripe plums beneath the loose army khakis. To her amazement, she found herself free, gasping for breath and stumbling to find the bat, which had rolled away when he grabbed her. Biloxi had doubled over and was making soft woofing sounds like a terrier with laryngitis. This would have struck her as hilarious if the circumstances had not been so dire. She got the bat—she never was sure if it was the same one—and hesitated for a bare second. What if she was wrong? What if the guy hadn't been going to hurt her at all?
"You beetch!" he huffed. He had begun to straighten himself up again, and what's more, he had looped his foot around the shoulder strap of his rifle and was pulling it back.
She had backed up a good six feet or so behind him. Now she hoisted the bat resolutely and came running. This time, she struck firmly on the back of his skull, which produced a terrible meaty-sounding crack. Meg thought of pounding a pork chop with a mallet and hitting the bone. He stumbled and hunkered down on all fours, but did not go straight out. Meg grabbed the rifle from under his foot and he attempted weakly to kick her, but she was backing up steadily.
"Don't move," she croaked, her voice a hoarse whisper. He was crawling, his head bobbing like a sick dog's. Meg continued to back up till she found the knapsack she'd dropped. She managed to grab it while still holding the rifle trained in his general direction. He was trying to get to his feet, she saw, but having a hard time raising his head. She was shaking. She had no idea how to shoot the rifle, but she found her legs could work. The blisters on her feet completely forgotten, she turned and ran as fast as she could out the front of the store. Now she leaped through the broken glass without a thought. With her heart pounding, she couldn't hear if he was following her or not. He didn't call out, and she didn't look back.
The air greeted her clammy nose with cool clamps, and she realized it was bleeding. But the sky was an expanse of Mediterranean blue arching in every direction, the horizon an aqua-tinted shoreline. She'd left her appropriated bike against the brick wall, sleeping roll strapped on already. The sight struck her with simultaneous relief and horrible irony. She could get away, but what if he pursued? What if there were others? But she jumped on without hesitation, the M16 slung over one shoulder and her pack over the other, and she rode. She pumped madly, trying to shrug her knapsack back as it shifted, listening for an engine or some sound that the madman was behind her. She kept expecting him to come around a corner, heading her off. But there was only the dry ticking of her wheels.
She turned several corners, weaving her way off the main highway and into suburbs. She stuck to backstreets, not stopping till she had put one town and then another behind her. Toward dawn, she finally began to relax. Dragging the heels of her sweaty LA Gear high tops over the loamy pavement, her eyes goggled at the night. Crickets and peepers chirped. Something skittered in the underbrush, but even in this fuzzy state of numbness, Meg realized it was nothing human. Perhaps a coyote. If so, there was plenty to scavenge without bothering her. She was shocked to discover that this thought struck her indifferently. Exhausted and dehydrated, she chugged most of a bottle of Gatorade she'd strapped to the bike's top tube.
She was in the proverbial middle of nowhere. If Biloxi didn't lay dead or dying, he surely wasn't following her either. Nevertheless, she didn't sleep till dawn, and that was when she found a lone barn standing far back from the road. She crawled up in the hay loft and went to sleep sitting in a corner under the eaves, the M16 conveniently nestled beneath her hand.
She woke around noon to the sultry air that wound up from the Gulf Stream current, undercut with the smell of cow manure and raw earth. Her body was so tired and she felt grimy and awful, but sheer will drove her to keep going. She filled out her meager supplies at a tiny gas station down the road. More Gatorade, water, packs of stale peanuts and granola bars. There was a surplus of packaged jerky and Slim Jims, and she tore into the salty meat greedily. She strapped the M16 on the bike again, but within an hour it was causing her more anxiety than it's worth. She had no idea even how to unload the clip or engage the safety if there was one. Now that the shock had worn off from her encounter, she was terrified of killing herself accidently. Also, it was distasteful to her, a reminder of the societal symptom she had acquired it from. She finally discarded it as she crossed a narrow river near Lufkin. She simply unhooked it from the rack and dangled the malignant thing by its strap. When she let go, there was a brief splash as it disappeared in the sloughy brown water, but she thought she'd breathe easier without it.
It was late in the afternoon of July 3. Meg was taking shelter from the sweltering heat of the day. She had pedaled as far as her weary, aching legs could push; now the deep, shaded porch of a vibrant farmhouse proved irresistible. Like many late Victorians, it featured gingerbread trim and jaunty stripes painted on its carved posts. Still, she was bristling with foreboding as she climbed creaky steps. She knew, even as she raised her fist to the door, that she was knocking at a house of the dead. This was the first time she had ventured this close to a human habitation since her encounter.
What drew her to this house particularly, beside the pretty trim and inviting shade, was the conspicuous red water pump located in the side yard. Water was something she needed desperately. The bottles she was carrying in her knapsack and on her bike were nearly depleted. More than that, she sorely wanted to be clean. So she swallowed her fear and pounded thrice on the door. The sound reverberated hollowly. The windows were dark. As her stomach began to settle somewhat, alleviating the lump of tension in her throat, Meg knew that the occupants were gone. In some sense of the word. She tried the door but it was locked. So she went down and began the process of refilling her water. After capping off the last bottle she took a glance at the sun, now dipping into the west. She decided here was as good a place to camp as any. She felt she'd made far more headway in the past few days than she expected to. Having finally gotten out of Texas, she was breathing somewhat easier and desired a short period to recoup before making a decision as to where she would go. When she first left Houston, her mind racing, the adrenaline coursing through her, striated by fear and plagued by nightmares, she thought she desired nothing more than to see her home, the familiar greens of the Ithaca campus where her parents taught so many years ago, the little houses on her aunt's shady street. Was it possible there was still someone there? Was it possible she'd ever see Aunt Miriam or Ben again? That was where she was supposed to be, not in this foreign south, this hot and stagnant land, entombed here with the dead.
She sighed and knew in order to stay she'd have to find a way inside. There was no way she was going to invite herself for a slumber party with corpses. So unless the unfortunate inhabitants had managed to die in a hospital, or more likely tried to evacuate ahead of the plague, she would have to trek on. Placing her knapsack on the back of her ten-speed, which was now parked on the side of the house by the pump, Meg began walking round the building. She took note of the garage in back, actually a converted old shed or wagon house. There were no cars or trucks in the drive or inside, so that was a good sign. There was a screened porch back here, connected by a breezeway. Miraculously, she found the back door unlocked and was able to enter without smashing a window, which was plan B. The back door opened on the kitchen, which was dim. There were still some dishes piled in the sink, but otherwise it was clean. There was a large farm table with an unfinished top, rubbed smooth by many years. A wallpaper border of roosters went round the top of the room and checked curtains hung neatly at the window over the sink. Meg wandered through the rest of the downstairs rooms, finding them each empty in turn. Finally, she steeled herself to climb the stairs and explore the bedrooms. To her relief, she found them deserted. She discovered that the downstairs bathroom near the kitchen, likely converted from a pantry when plumbing was added, was the only one in the house. There were three bedrooms. One looked to have been an adolescent girl's; one obviously belonged to two young boys with bunks. The parents' room was large, cozy, littered with laundry. If anything was amiss, it was the unmade beds, the haphazard spread of Kleenex and juice bottles, some Nyquil on the dressing table. The superflu had not spared this family, but they had not stayed at home to die.
Meg shut the doors to each room respectfully and walked thoughtfully back downstairs. She avoided looking too long at the family portraits which graced the walls here and there. She went back through the living room, which featured a comfortable blue sectional, a matching Lazyboy, a gliding rocker with a wicker basket of knitting beside it. There were lamps which would never be lit again and one of those bulky old wood tv consoles that would remain blank forever more. She thought perhaps she would sleep on their couch tonight, this poor family whose neat home still stood in mourning. Wandering numbly back toward the kitchen, she blindly opened cupboards, noting cereal and crackers and cans, but didn't bother with the silenced refrigerator. She had no desire to smell rotten things. This house, emptied by the plague, was one of the few clean-smelling buildings Meg had passed, and now she wondered if it was not some sensitivity to this very absence of inhibiting odors which had attracted her inside. Perhaps it was. The very many other places she had passed had been so rank here and there with corruption (It is decay, her mind railed, bodies decaying slowly in the summer heat) that she had a hard time breathing and had more than once been sick to her stomach.
Suddenly finding the house caging, Meg went back outside, this time unlocking the front door, which did make her feel somewhat more in control, as if that simple action gave her at least temporary stewardship of the house she was infiltrating.
Nick pedaled to a stop. The sun was hanging low. He was about ten miles west of Shoyo on a rather desolate country stretch. One house stood up ahead on his left while fields stretched out in every other direction. His sore leg was burning irritably and he knew it was not smart to tax his endurance on this first day of exercise. He'd check out the house. If nothing else, it offered an expansive veranda with plenty of shade. He'd had plenty of nights thankful for as much sanctuary, and he could press on in the morning. A bit wearily, he climbed off the bike and began walking it the rest of the way, which was slightly uphill.
Meg was ensconced comfortably on the front porch glider, a book in her hand, when she heard the small but distinct ticking of wheels. At first she had the terrible suspicion that Biloxi had single-mindedly found her. He would appear maniacally on the horizon, weaving all over the road as he tried to steer with one hand, only this time there would be a grenade clutched between his teeth, determined to finish her off any way. But it was another young man who rode into view, slowing down maybe 100 yards from the house. He seemed to be in thought. She wondered if he saw her, but she was lost in the deep shadows of the porch. She folded her book, placed it down, holding her breath. She thought about bolting, even hiding in another closet, but she felt paralyzed. Now he was climbing off the bike and walking. He's gotta see me, she thought. She shrank back, but still did not run. His hair was dark, sleekly black, his skin very tan. He was wearing a white t-shirt and broken down jeans. He sported a black eye patch, like a pirate. That was weird. Suspicious maybe. She didn't know if he'd pose as serious a threat as those soldiers, like her erstwhile friend—but hey baby it takes two to tango—who occupied and finally helped obliterate Houston during the city's siege. The fact that he was riding a ten-speed like her, rather than powering down the road on a Harley or in some kind of Road Warrior truck did place him more favorably in her sympathy.
Nick clocked his bike to a stop in front of the walkway and looked up at the house. He was contemplating whether he should just go on up inside or check out the rear when he was taken aback by movement. A young woman stood up, a bit shakily. She had been watching him, he realized, and she was fearful. He raised his hand in salutation and smiled, his lips tightly covering his gapped teeth, the ones Ray Booth had taken.
Meg was no longer startled, but she was cautious. If he was a soldier … maybe a deserted one … She bit her lip and wondered if there were weapons inside. Knives in the kitchen. She could make a run for it if she had to. Finally, she raised her hand shyly and found her rusty voice creaking, "Hello, I'm not from around here."
Nick couldn't read her lips from that far, but he could tell when she spoke. She seemed to be thinking about high-tailing it back in the house, which he was assuming must be hers. Not once did he consider that she might be hostile, but as he pictured climbing the steps to hand her a note, he suddenly realized that he might appear threatening under these circumstances. Conscious of his eye patch and the sweat dripping down the back of his shirt and his armpits, he again raised his hand in signal: Just a moment. With his other hand, he reached behind him, realizing that the gun he'd packed in his knapsack would further alarm her. He fished carefully and pulled out paper and pen. Now he wrote quickly and held his note out with a gesture of benevolence.
Meg watched this little scenario with a dry mouth, cocking her head. Suddenly she felt a lot lighter. She walked forward, down the porch steps, close enough now so that she could see his features. He wasn't very tall, but he was still at least half a head taller than Meg's humble 5'3". The eye not shaded by his patch was the cool gray of a dawn expecting rain. He had several facial scars, just healing, but his features were intelligent and sensitive. His hair flopped haphazardly across his forehead, damp with sweat from pedaling. A few hours ago, Meg herself had been wet with perspiration, till she stripped out of her stale clothes and thoroughly splashed herself with soap and cold water from the pump. Now she was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a clean shirt from her bag. The shirt was an old and somewhat threadbare one, but it gave her comfort, and that helped ease the loneliness.
She was petite and looked to have been recently sun burnt. She was wearing a blue shirt with Han Solo and a Return of the Jedi logo emblazoned on the front. Nick noticed it was a little tight across her chest as she reached for his note. The swell of her bosom rose and fell gently as she read. She reached one willowy hand and brushed tendrils of copper-colored hair back behind her ears.
"Hi. My name is Nick Andros. I'm not dangerous. I am deaf mute but I can read lips. I was staying in the little town of Shoyo, but I left there this afternoon as nobody was left alive. I think I might be going to see Nebraska."
She read quickly and her mouth dropped open, revealing even white teeth. Suddenly, she smiled brightly with dimples in her cheeks, giving Nick the first pleasant surprise he had felt since this whole world began collapsing around them.
"I am glad to meet you," she said, speaking as she signed. "I was afraid, but this is a strange coincidence. My name is Meghan O'Malley. I was raised with my cousin Ben. He's also deaf."
Nick nodded, flabbergasted. He hadn't practiced sign language in many years, since his teacher Rudy Sparks left the orphanage, but this girl knew basic ASL. Then a strange thought crossed his mind and he waved toward the house. "Is he here?" he asked, piecing the signs together from the back of his memory.
Meg shook her head. "No. This isn't my house. I'm like you. I was on a bike …" she waved off to the side of the porch, where her ten-speed was barely hidden behind a rose bush. "I was down in Texas with my Granma when she fell sick." A shadow crossed her face and she frowned, recalling. "We went up to Houston, so she could get treatment, but the hospitals were overflowing by the time we got there and the army was occupying the city. I'm actually from New York State. That's where I grew up."
Nick watched her acutely, with thoughts flying through his head. He proceeded slowly, trying to process this information. "Do you think maybe our … immunity … could be genetic?"
Meg shook her head slowly, realizing what he was thinking. "I don't know. I don't want to think that Ben is gone, and I have no way of knowing for sure right now. But his handicap wasn't congenital. He developed meningitis as a baby and was left mostly deaf, though he did learn to speak a little."
Nick nodded with grim understanding. Whatever had kept both of them alive was not likely linked to his own deafness. Their meeting was coincidental, something he should take as happy proof of synchronicity in an otherwise confusing maelstrom. He looked back up at the house and around the yard, observing the pump nearby. He indicated this, "I could use water. I was thinking about checking the house out and spending the night here, but it looks like you beat me to it."
Meg smiled. "Yeah, I've been biking all day, since break of dawn. I'm not even sure where I came from. I think I passed over a corner of Louisiana yesterday, circling to avoid Texarkana. I spent last night in the back of a pick-up truck out near a field, but I couldn't sleep well. I've been trying to avoid the cities, even towns. Houston got … really crazy there at the end." That shadow passed again, darkening her eyes, hardening her dimples stubbornly. Having lived through his encounter with Ray Booth and observed evidence of military presence outside even tiny Shoyo, Nick could imagine what kind of terrors the girl might have been witness to in a large urban area. She continued, "Like I said, the house isn't mine. I checked it out because I had a hunch it was empty, which it is. I don't care if you want to stay here. I might be glad to have somebody to talk to, finally."
Nick couldn't have agreed more.
Meg made herself scarce while the young man got water, splashing himself as she had done. While he attended to his needs, which included cleaning and bandaging his healing wound, Meg went back to the kitchen, checking for staples. She was tired of eating bags of trail mix and jerky while on the road. They offered quick protein and wouldn't spoil, but she was craving something cooked. Probably, she would not have gone to the trouble for herself, but with company she thought a meal was in order. There were lots of noodles and jars of vegetables and sauces, but the electric stove wouldn't work, of course. Thinking that most everybody kept supplies in their garage, Meg decided to investigate the building in back. Sure enough, there was a small propane stove and some Coleman lanterns in a cardboard box. Trying one out, she found that two of them had working batteries. There was a tank of propane for the stove. All neat and organized, she thought. By the time Nick had come around from the front, his hair wet and his old shirt slung over his shoulder, Meg had already set up her little camp and was boiling water. Down on her hands and knees, she looked up sheepishly, then stood and brushed off her knees. "I thought we might as well take advantage of any amenities we could find. I hope you don't mind pasta and peas alfredo. It's from cans, of course, but I've been eating gas station pickings, mostly, and my stomach is suffering."
Nick grinned. "I'm not a picky eater. That sounds great."
"Good." She smiled back. "Come on, help me get the rest of the stuff from inside."
After a hearty meal which they ate on the screened back porch, Nick and Meg took the working lanterns inside. They had no desire to explore the personal areas upstairs any further. Both reclined on the comfortable couch as it grew dark outside. The lanterns cast a small but familiar and reassuring electric light on the walls of the room.
"Tell me about yourself, where you come from." Meg was the one to start the inevitable process of getting to know one another.
Nick found his jaw tensing, remembering the lengthy history he had so recently written out for Sheriff Baker. As he thought about it, he took a few deep breaths. Suddenly it was nothing but natural to begin the outpouring which would so eloquently explain those events in gestures. It was repetitious but cathartic for him in a way that the writing was not. This was a dramatic and sensitive dance of words, his arms and hands rapidly casting shadows on the lamp-lit walls. Meg watched him raptly, finding herself amazed by the reality of this self-effacing but intelligent young man. He finished his tale with an abbreviated description of Ray Booth's attack, pointing to his patch and explaining that this was the source of his injuries. He debated briefly about withholding his murder of the man, but found the words spilling, "I killed him. I had to. He took my eye and he was going to choke the life out of me. I shot myself in the process. The bullet burned and grazed my leg. I got sick, blood poisoning, I think. I spent the last few days in a delirium on the Sherriff's cot. It was only luck that I chose the right antibiotics and the right dose to knock it back."
"Oh man, they really worked you over, huh, Nick?" she finally said, shaking her head and taking a sip from the glass of warm lemonade she clutched. Her forehead was knotted and her eyes looked dark again. "But that man was no better than a rabid dog. I'm glad you're all right. I'm glad of that."
He nodded, grimly.
She shivered and reached for the afghan draped on this stranger's couch. She fingered it, drawing it over her knees. "I don't blame you at all. It's possible we have more in common than you know."
Nick raised his chin in query. But she would not tell him about her hasty altercation with soldier boy. Not that night. It was still too soon. "We're both orphans. You lost your mom, and your dad before you knew him. I lost my Dad when I was eight. He had prostate cancer; it was eating him, but he took the easy way out." She saw the flash of understanding in his eyes. "Yes. He shot himself. My mother, she mourned even though they hadn't been together for years. They loved each other but couldn't live together."
Nick nodded again, and somehow the assent from him released something in her that had been festering, things that therapists had prodded her to talk about even while her surviving family neatly averted their eyes.
It seemed like a testament was necessary, something survivors must do to validate the past, and perhaps this flow would allow some closure in the process. "She was an assistant professor of linguistics at Cornell. He was head of the communications department, a film buff, and about fifteen years older than her. It was a case of student falling for teach when they met. He would've married her because she got pregnant, but she didn't want it that way. They stuck it out for a few years, but after she finished her degree and found her own place, I guess there was more tension than attraction. I think my brother, Jake, took it harder than me. He was my twin, but the older one. He always reminded me of that, wouldn't let me forget. He was closer to our Dad. I guess I wasn't close to anyone, except Jake. Mom never dated anyone else. I used to wish she would, afterwards. I used to think maybe we'd get better. I … there was an accident, then. It was six years ago. We were 12—I'm 18 now, 19 in another month. My mother was driving and there was rain. We … I blamed myself after I woke up, because we were fighting. I was bickering with Jake and Mom kept telling us to shut up, but I just kept baiting him and I knew I was doing it. I was sitting in the front by Mom, and he was leaning in between the seats. He wasn't wearing his seat belt because he kept trying to flick spitballs in my ear." She smiled half-heartedly. "I went to smack him and that was when Mom looked away from the road and it happened so fast. She was just merging and there was a truck. It slammed into her side and pushed our car. The car flew out onto the side and flipped down the embankment. Our Mom was killed on impact, but they had to tell me that later. Jake was thrown clear of the car. My last memory was of a hard pain slamming into me and the realization that it was Jake, and then the windshield was shattered and I'll never forget that. I remember we went up to Letchworth State Park hiking; the end of winter you hear sounds like that. It's the ice cracking in the gully, huge chunks as the waterfall breaks loose. Then everything went black."
Meg inhaled, her breath stuttering with the difficulty of her memories. Nick was leaning forward, reading her lips as she'd lapsed from signing many times during this emotional recollection. He patted her hand, which was twisting and turning around the corner of the afghan, knotting it in her lap. "I was on life support for almost a month. They were telling my family it would be better to turn it off, let it go, but I came back around. It was a concussion, pretty bad. I had some internal bleeding, a brain hemorrhage, but they'd been able to stop that. My shoulder was dislocated, but they popped that back in. There was pain, of course. Some busted ribs, scratches, lots of bruises. But I could get around just fine. I made a choice then. Granma wanted to take me back with her. I loved the horses, always did, every summer, but she and my mother never got along. It was over my father. David Kesselbaum. My Granma hated that. She didn't hate Jewish people per se. After World War II, she would have said Anti-Semitism isn't the American way. But it wasn't good enough for her daughter. Her father and her father's father were both good Irish Catholics. So was her husband, and she couldn't stand that her Sharon had chosen a curly-haired Jewish boy from New York. I wanted to live with my father's sister Miriam. She was divorced, but she had Ben. He was seven years older than me; I guess I always kind of idolized him. There was some fight over custody, but I was still in the hospital. I had to go to court one day, and the judge asked me where I wanted to be, and I told him I wanted to stay in New York. I wanted to be with my Aunt Myra and Ben. So that was where I stayed."
Her words petered off and she found herself staring at her tightly clenched fists in her lap. Then she released them and dropped the blanket she'd wound up. Able to look Nick more directly in the eye, now that the painful memories were relived, she went on explaining, "I got used to speaking ASL around the house with Aunt Myra and Ben, as long as he lived with us. But then he started graduate school, and that included field work. He got a job with the University research department. The alumni like their families. I started my freshman year last fall, and was only staying with my Granma for the summer, which I've always done. Ben is supposed to be overseas. He specialized in underwater archaeology, and he was with a team doing diving in the Mediterranean. There was funding from National Geographic, and the promise that they'd be published ..."
Nick watched her raptly. At first, he felt only polite as he digested her share of troubles. He noticed that she spoke only of the distant past. Obviously she didn't want to think about how the world had changed again for her. For him. For everyone left alive. When she talked about her cousin, his interest was piqued. He wondered if he would ever have found such a place in life, had he gotten into college, made a career. The possibilities astounded him, but their loss was enough to blow his mind.
Meg was tapping the coffee table with her toes. Now that she'd faced the immediate past, she was ready to broach the unknown. "I spoke to Aunt Myra on the phone, just as Granma fell sick. That was before the phone became a constant busy signal. She reassured me everything would be fine, said a lot of people had colds. It's just … oh God, I know she's probably gone, but I keep hoping that somehow … maybe the disease only hit America. Do you think that's so? At least, do you think there might be other areas, maybe places … especially at sea …" Nick shrugged helpfully, but she trailed off, because the tears were coming in the face of her futile reasoning. She knew it wasn't hopeful, because before all the tv stations turned to patterned gray snow, she'd seen news reports of outbreaks in China and Europe. The chances that anyone in her family was still alive were pretty much nil.
Nick's hand found hers, and he held both her small hands in his larger brown ones. His own hands were tanned and tough from much outdoor work, grimy work. Hers were soft, pink from the sun, her nails neat and manicured.