“Hi,” the boy said. He couldn’t have been any older than thirteen, if not eleven or twelve.
“Hi,” Dakota replied. The boy turned his eyes down almost immediately. The oldest of the children—Jessiah, who looked to be around his own age—sought his eyes out and considered him for a moment, but turned his eyes toward the fire when Dakota’s gaze lingered for too long. “Sir,” he said, looking up at Kevin. “We don’t mean to intrude on your family.”
“You’re not intruding at all,” Kevin replied. “Eagle said you were lost.”
“Our map was wrong,” Jamie said. “We couldn’t find any of the roads that were marked on it.”
“You wouldn’t know the map was wrong unless you lived here,” Kevin said. He brushed up along Jamie to lock, bolt and chain the door, then to draw the curtains over the windows. “I’d hate to send you on your way in the dark.”
“We don’t have to bother you. We’re trying to catch up with friends.”
“It’s nice to know that people still care about each other in this day and age,” Kevin smiled. “Did you get separated?”
“Yes, back in South Dakota. We told each other that if anything ever happened, we’d meet up back home.”
“There’s no place like home,” Kevin smiled.
A tremble of unease snaked up Dakota’s spine.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
The oldest boy coughed. He reached for what appeared to be a pack of cigarettes sitting on an end table, but Eagle slapped his hand away and set a cup of tea before him. “Here.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Drink it anyway. You’re not going to get any better until you do.”
“I’m craving ‘em.”
“You can have a cigarette after you drink your tea,” Kevin said, accepting the carton as Eagle passed it over. “I don’t want you getting any sicker than you already are.”
Jessiah grumbled under his breath. Kevin stepped forward, then seemed to reconsider himself for a moment before turning to face the group again. “Would you like something to eat?”
“We have food,” Jamie said.
“We have extra. Right, Eagle?”
“We do,” Eagle agreed.
“We don’t want to take any of yours,” Dakota said.
“We can trade then. Not now though.” Kevin trained his eyes on his children. “Boys, could you make some room for our guests?”
The two younger children moved to the loveseat the oldest was seated upon. Jessiah raised his hand to cough into it as the group settled down on the expansive cough before the fireplace.
“Dinner will be ready in about a half-hour,” Kevin said. “Make yourselves comfortable. If you need something, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Kevin disappeared into the kitchen.
Dakota couldn’t help but feel nervous about the man’s generosity.
Are people supposed to be this kind, especially in situations like these?
He didn’t know. He couldn’t bother to question it though—not now, not in such a vulnerable state.
Taking his cue to relax, he leaned back into the sofa and closed his eyes.
He caught himself before he reached out to lace his and Jamie’s fingers together.
“Where are you guys from?” Jamie asked.
“Here, in a manner of speaking,” Kevin replied, slapping cans of freshly-warmed beans and peaches in front of them. “We left Minneapolis right as the shit was starting to hit the fan.”
“Before they started closing the city off,” Jessiah added. He raised his hand to cough, nodding thanks to his father as he passed the bowl over.
“They were still trying to quarantine cities?” Jamie frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why?”
“Because they declared New York a dead zone. That’s the whole reason they nuked it.”
A black cloud of doubt shadowed the room the moment Jamie stopped speaking. Dakota watched his boyfriend’s facial expression change from alert to concerned, then frowned when Jamie bowed his head to push his food around his bowl.
What? They what?
“Bombed it?” Kevin asked.
“No one told you?” Jamie asked.
“No.”
“They claimed it was an accident,” Dakota said, glancing around the table just in time to see each and every person’s expression change. “They said it was a nuclear reactor that destroyed the city.”
“You’re from the military,” Kevin said. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Jamie said. “I was.”
“Was?”
“I no longer consider myself a member of the United States Military. That title died after we left South Dakota.”
“So you know about this,” Kevin said, hand tightening around the chair he was clutching. “You know what’s been going on.”
“I only know some things, sir.”
“Tell us. I think we deserve to know.”
The boys mumbled amongst themselves. Eagle remained silent, while Desmond concentrated on the food before him in order to avoid wandering eyes. Dakota simply watched as the firestorm exploded across the room and began to make its course. Some of its victims were immediately affected, burned to a crisp in the face of reality, while others maintained third-degree burns that kept them from doing anything, their limbs melted together and their eyes sewn open. The few choice individuals that managed to suffer only the residual side effects watched from afar, safe in the iron reality of their current situation.
Flames couldn’t burn those submerged in water. Only those ignorant and slicked with oil could catch fire.
“They bombed the city on September thirty-first,” Jamie said, “in an attempt to quarantine the virus and to destroy what the FDA was calling ‘the infected.’ Beforehand, we—the military, National Guard and local police force—were instructed to maintain the border around the greater Manhattan area and terminate any infected host that tried to breach the perimeter. This involved pouring concrete over the tunnels leading out of the city, creating road blocks from debris caused by accidents in the roads, and keeping an active duty of twenty-plus soldiers wherever strategists deemed necessary.”
“So the military locked down the city,” Kevin said.
“Not the military—the health administration. We were initially instructed to evacuate citizens and to hold our fire unless absolute necessary. This was before we realized that it was spread by bites and direct contact with the infected.”
“You didn’t know what was going on?”
“How could we?” Jamie asked. “We were told that these people were suffering a violent form of psychosis and to treat them as mental patients. That’s why hospitals became a death trap—we were shuttling all those people for medical treatment. I can’t tell you how many we lost in my unit doing that kind of shit.”
“What happened after you were told to open fire?”
“We did. Then we fell back, sealed the tunnels, barricaded the roads and established the perimeter. We tried to organize search and rescue missions, and we did, for the most part, with helicopters, but we were eventually told that New York had become a no-man’s zone and that it was too dangerous to go in and try to rescue people.”
“So they bombed it,” Dakota said.
“Yeah,” Jamie said, draping an arm across his back. “In an attempt to contain the infection. I thought you guys knew that.”
“I wasn’t allowed to watch TV,” Dakota said. “I only heard New York and nuclear explosion before I was caught by my foster mother and told to turn the TV off.”
“I saw the same broadcast,” Kevin said. “It never said anything about a bomb being dropped.”
“What was it like?” the second-oldest boy, Arnold, asked.