Beyond the gates a trumpet rose out of the softer strings. It was a beautiful, golden sound. It had been so long since I’d heard live music that clear.
“Come on, take the leap.” I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face were stiff with fear. The edges of my mouth began to twitch and I gave it up.
Cortez folded his arms, shook his head. “I probably would take a leap. Off a water tower. It’s not for me. You all go ahead.”
“But what will you do?” Jeannie asked.
The trumpet bleated triumphant, soaring toward a crescendo. Cortez paused, waited for it to recede. The song was almost over. Funny how you can tell a song was ending, even if you’ve never heard it before.
“I’ll head home,” Cortez said. “Choose the sanest gangsters and join them. In these times there’s always work for warriors.” It made sense. Cortez was the only one of us who had the right resume now that civilization had collapsed.
One by one, we said goodbye to Cortez. When it was my turn, I hugged him fiercely and said, “You’ve been like a big brother to me, watching out for me, showing me how to get by. We’d all be dead if it wasn’t for you.”
He pressed his face against the side of mine. “Don’t get me crying,” he said into my ear. I handed him the pistol; he tucked it into his waistband.
We watched as Cortez hefted his belongings, turned, and slipped into the bamboo.
“He’ll make it,” I said to the others, fighting back tears. “Somehow he’ll make it.” Unable to put it off any longer, we turned toward the gate.
“I’m scared,” Phoebe said. Her hand was cold.
“Me too,” I said.
The music ended, leaving the valley quiet.
“We’re going to be at the start of something new—the year zero,” I said.
“And they’re good people, honest and kind,” Jeannie added.
“Hell, we’re going to get to eat in that food tent three times a day,” Colin said. “No more hunger, no more bugs.”
In my college psychology class I learned that bettors are more confident about the horses they pick after they place their bets. I knew that was what we were doing; if you’re going to drink the Kool-Aid you might as well throw your head back and chug.
As we approached the gate, I realized that some part of me had known for a while that this is how it would turn out. We were survivors, after all. If this was the only game in town, then we’d play.
Besides that, it felt good not to have the weight of that gun in my waistband.
We reached the gate and asked the guard to fetch Sebastian. I took a deep breath. Fine. Time to meet the future. Phoebe squeezed my hand; I squeezed hers back.
When Sebastian saw our expressions he hurried, wrapped his arms around each of us, whispered that we’d made the right decision. His eyes were bright, and just a little wild.
He led us through the gate, and this time I looked at the town through different eyes. This was going to be my home. It was such a strange notion.
“In here,” Sebastian said, sliding open a door made of yellow bamboo. We stepped into a big hall with long, narrow windows draped in wheat-colored fabric. The close end of the hall was squared, the far end rounded. Two people, a man and a woman, greeted us.
“These people are joining us today,” Sebastian said. “They’re friends of mine. We go back a long way.”
I thought of Cortez, pushing through the bamboo, and had a moment of panic. Couldn’t we do it, the six of us? Couldn’t we figure out a way to survive out there?
Maybe for a few weeks, but no more. I thought of Sophia and felt a terrible sadness. She should be here with us, safe. She was probably dead by now. I hoped she had died quickly. By gunfire, maybe.
“Ready?” The woman put her hand on my back and coaxed me toward a curtained cubicle. Inside there would be a little vial of blood and a sterile needle.
I paused. “We want to go together.” I looked back at Phoebe, who nodded.
Jeannie, who was also being led to a cubicle, paused as well. “We do, too.”
Her escort smiled. “Sure. We can fit two to a room. Or two and a half.” He touched Joel’s bald head.
The woman transferred a chair from one cubicle into another. They led Colin and Jeannie inside. The pungent, familiar odor of Colin’s unwashed self hit me as he passed. We must smell terrible to these people—it was amazing that their pleasant smiles never dropped, were never replaced by a wrinkled nose of disgust.
Phoebe and I stood at a respectful distance, waiting our turn. We heard murmuring in the cubicle, then a little cry of rage from Joel that tapered off after a few inbreaths.
Colin pushed back the curtain. He held up his arm, displaying a little round band-aid on the inside of his forearm. Jeannie followed, carrying Joel. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She didn’t show us her band-aid, or Joel’s.
“Next?” the woman called, poking her head out of the cubicle.
My bowels loosened. My heart was hammering like crazy. I looked at Phoebe; she took a quavering breath, tried to give me a brave smile. “Ready?”
“No,” I said.
“Me neither.”
We walked to the cubicle holding hands.
It was a tight fit; Phoebe’s thigh was pressed against mine. The man and woman, wearing yellow surgical gloves, sat facing us, their knees almost touching ours. It felt strangely intimate. I wondered if people in Athens shared a special bond with the person who infected them, the way Rumor seemed to think he and I shared a special bond because I squirted him in the eye with a water gun after he killed my friend’s dog.
The woman rubbed alcohol on the white underside of my forearm.
“Can you poke us at the same time?” I asked.
“Sure,” the man said.
“Relax,” the woman said, probably seeing the panic in our eyes as she unwrapped a needle from its packaging. “You’ll be so glad. I promise. You’re going to feel better than you’ve ever felt before.”
I hoped it was true. I so wanted this to be our happily ever after. We deserved a happily ever after, after all we’d been through.
They dipped the needles into vials of deep red blood. Was blood always that red? The neutral colors in the room probably created a contrast.
The woman held out her hand. I laid mine in it, palm up. Phoebe did the same.
The man and the woman looked at each other with bright, eccentric eyes. They weren’t crazy eyes, really. Eccentric was a better description. “Ready?” the woman said to the man, grinning. “One. Two…”
I looked into Phoebe’s lucid green eyes and willed myself to always love her in exactly the same way that I loved her at that moment.
“Three.”
She was very gentle; I barely felt the needle prick my skin.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thank you to my wife, Alison Scott, for her encouragement and love, and for reading and commenting on this novel, which is nothing like the Jane Austen novels she usually reads. I’m deeply grateful to Laura Valeri, Sara King, Joy Marchand, Tom Doyle, and David W. Goldman, my friends and fellow writers, for providing truly indispensable feedback. Also Walter John Williams, Kelly Link, and my fellow students at Taos Toolbox 2007.
Special thanks to my father, Brigadier General William F. McIntosh, for advice and information regarding how the military might react to a soft apocalypse.
Thanks to Andy Cox and the people at Interzone, who published the short story on which this novel is based. To the Clarion Science Fiction Writer’s Workshop, and my teachers Jim Kelly, Maureen McHugh, Scott Edelman, Nalo Hopkinson, Richard Paul Russo, Howard Waldrop, and Kelly Link. Thanks to my friends Colin Crothers, Doris Bazzini, and Angela Ogburn for inspiration.