Contaminated (23 page)

With a glance in the rearview mirror at Opal, Dillon clicks off the radio. As soon as the light turns green, a car hurtles through the intersection. Tires and brakes squeal. It doesn’t hit us, but it hits the car in front of us, which
had started to go. Both spin out of control, off to the side.

Dillon doesn’t panic. He swerves to the right and passes the crunched cars without even letting out a curse. Traffic’s snarled up, but we shoot past the wreck and pull over to the side of the road. All of us except my mom turn around to look out the back window.

“Wow,” Opal says. “That was close.”

“Yeah.” Dillon sounds a little tense, and no wonder. If the car had hit us, it would’ve smooshed him.

It takes us only a couple of seconds to see that this isn’t an ordinary car wreck when the driver’s-side door of the car that ran the light opens and a woman staggers out. She’s wearing a bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers. Her hair’s up in a bun, and when the bathrobe swings open, I catch a glimpse of pajamas with flowers on them. Her arms are already swinging, her mouth open with screams we have no trouble hearing from here.

“Oh, no,” Dillon says in a low, sick voice.

Opal hides her eyes, but I can’t look away. I can’t stop staring at the fuzzy slippers. They’re not right. She should be wearing them at home to make a cup of cocoa, sitting with them propped up on an ottoman, reading a book. Pink fuzzy slippers aren’t meant to scuff along through broken glass and bits of twisted metal; they’re not made for the street.

The driver of the other car isn’t getting out. The cars behind the wreck are stopped, but some are backing up,
turning around. A few people standing in the parking lot are on their phones, calling the police, I guess. Or just watching. Nobody’s running to help, that’s for sure, even though the driver in the car that got hit must be hurt.

The woman in the bathrobe screams louder. Then she rips open the door to the other car, reaches inside, and hauls out the driver. All I can see are flailing arms and kicking legs. The woman in the bathrobe is tossing the other person around like a rag doll.

“Drive away,” I hear myself say. “Dillon. Please. Drive away now.”

“Yeah.” Dillon puts the car in gear. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

We pass two cop cars and an ambulance coming the opposite way. The sirens wail, the lights flash. Dillon once again pulls over to let them pass, even though he’s on the other side of the street, and when he moves on, neither of us says anything for a few minutes.

I tense as we pass the field with the memorial, but my mom doesn’t get upset. In another minute after that, we’re pulling through the open gate at the entrance to the development. Dillon glances at me. He’s not smiling anymore.

“Tell me where to turn.”

“Just ahead here, take this first street.” I point.

By the time we get to the driveway, Opal’s started chattering in the back to our mom. She’s not really saying anything that makes sense, more of a running commentary on
the scenery and stuff outside. I think she’s just nervous, and I’m more glad than ever that Dillon doesn’t seem to need to talk when there’s really nothing to say.

As soon as Dillon stops at the bottom of the driveway, Opal gets out and then goes around to the other door to open it and help my mom get out. “C’mon, Mama. We’re home.”

My mom stands in the driveway and stares up at the house without expression, but when Opal takes her hand and pulls her along, she goes without protest. This leaves me and Dillon alone, standing by the truck, both of us not looking at the other.

Well, at least I think so until I risk a glance at him and see him looking at me. It doesn’t matter then how cold the winter air is; I feel warm inside. I haven’t felt that way for a really long time.

“Thanks for the ride, Dillon.”

“You’re welcome.” He tips his chin toward the house. “You guys gonna be okay?”

I think of the car crash and shiver, but nod. “Yeah. I think so. I just … everything … is so …”

Before I realize it, I’m not shivering from cold but with all the emotions I’ve been trying hard to hold in tight against me all day long. I put my hand on the hood of Dillon’s dad’s truck, not caring if the metal’s hot enough to burn my palm. I need to hold on to something solid now. I need to keep myself stuck to something so I don’t spin out of control.

“Hey, hey,” Dillon says softly. “It’s going to be okay. Right? You have your house and your mom back. Right?”

“Right.” I take a long, slow, and deep breath. “Do you want to come in? I mean, we don’t have much, and the place is a wreck, but you could if you want to.”

“Yeah, might save me from hitting a traffic jam on the way back.”

We both stare. I clear my throat. “Yeah. That was … weird.”

“The guy on the radio. Was he talking about what happened at the kennel? The guy they brought in? I saw a glimpse of him when I was helping your mom get ready.”

Together, we get the bike and cart from the back of the truck. “I think so. The cop said he went nuts in the grocery store. Broke some glass. Do you think …?”

But it’s too awful to say out loud. That the world as we know it is getting ready to change again, that no matter what the government and doctors have said, the Contamination isn’t gone. And this time it will somehow be worse because those who didn’t become Contaminated have lived for over a year thinking they’re safe.

Dillon doesn’t have a problem with honesty. “I don’t have to tell you what I think, I’ll tell you what I know. The number of Contaminated being brought into the kennel was slacking off for about six months. I mean, we were operating at full capacity, no real room for overflow, you know? Even when people knew they could start coming to claim their families … well, a lot of them didn’t.”

“Maybe some of them couldn’t. Or … you know, maybe some of them don’t have families left.” I don’t know why I’m defending strangers.

Dillon shrugs. “Maybe.”

There are lots of reasons why people wouldn’t claim their relatives. I can understand them all. “So then what happened? You said it was slacking off, and then what?”

Our breaths puff out between us, silver clouds. My fingers are cold, even when I tuck them under my armpits. The house will be a little warmer, especially if I light a fire, but I don’t want Opal overhearing this.

“Then we started getting more wild roundups. You know, people like your mom, they came from the research facilities.”

I nod. Will my heart ever stop hurting? Will this ever stop making my stomach twist and turn?

“Yeah. I know.” I sound bitter and expect Dillon to flinch, but he only nods like he understands, too.

“Well, in the past six months or so, we started getting more pickups from the wild. Sure, we still had the cops bringing in the ones they got from raids and stuff, but there were more random ones than there’d been in a long time.”

We’re both silent for half a minute, thinking of this. I’m not sure what’s worse: knowing my mom was picked up in the early days of her Contamination and kept in a research facility, where they did tests on her, trying to figure out the reason for the disease, or if I’d found out the police had
found her in someone’s basement, chained to the floor and used for something worse than experiments.

“So why all of a sudden, do you think?”

“More sweeps, maybe? Cleaning out neighborhoods.”

Dillon shrugs. “The point is, a few of them looked … newer.”

I know what he means by that. “Like the guy today. Like he’d just turned. Like the woman in the bathrobe.”

“Yeah.” Dillon blows into his closed fists and dances a little in place. “Like them.”

“Come in the house. I’ll light a fire and maybe I can find some hot tea or something.” He helps me push the bike and cart up the driveway.

Opal’s chattering away at Mom, telling some sort of story that involves a lot of hand gestures. Mom’s eyes follow her every move, and though her face is still neutral, I can see a glimmer of something in her gaze. Maybe it’s my imagination.

“Let me get a fire started. Then we can see what’s left in the pantry,” I tell Dillon.

“You’ve only been back here for a few days?” Dillon watches me settle the wood into the fireplace.

I shrug, and twist together some pages from an old magazine. I’m glad the match case that holds the long fireplace matches is waterproof. I can’t imagine trying to light a fire the old-fashioned way, like Boy Scouts do. I’d never be able to manage. The fire catches and glows, heat spreading out quickly, so I hold out my hands with a grateful sigh.

“Velvet, I’m hungry.” Opal’s left off her story. Now she dances in front of me.

“And apparently you have to pee,” I remark.

She looks at Dillon. “Well … yeah.”

“So, go! Jeez.” I look at him, too, but he’s just laughing.

“Hungry!” Opal cries.

“I’ll see what I can make. Go before you wet your pants.” I stand, my knees creaking. My neck hurts, too, I’ve just noticed. Actually, I’m not sure there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t ache or sting somehow. And even though I’m cold, my cheeks still feel hot. To Dillon, I say, “Want to help me in the kitchen?”

“Sure.” He follows me through the arched doorway into the kitchen.

The table’s still overturned in here.

“My mom,” I say over my shoulder as I lead him to the pantry, “was a huge fan of plastic bins. All the cereal, all the rice, stuff like that. Pasta. Some of it might still be okay.”

Lots of stuff isn’t—mice or squirrels have chewed through plastic bags and boxes, and stuff is spilled all over. But lots of the packages are still okay. Cans of soup and vegetables, even tuna and salmon. Bins with sealed lids of bulk rice and cereal. I don’t want to think about why it’s only slightly stale. There are even a few tall glass jars with sealed lids, filled with different kinds of beans, red, black, speckled, in layers. The tag on the front gives instructions for bean soup. I think Opal made these for my mom in school as a Christmas or
Mother’s Day present. I can’t remember my mom ever making bean soup, but my stomach rumbles at the thought of it.

“I’m hungry, too,” Dillon admits. “But I can just head home—”

“No.” I say it too fast and feel stupid. “I mean, no, you don’t have to go. I can make some macaroni and cheese. Opal loves that stuff, and look, the boxes haven’t even been touched.”

“And that stuff could last through a nuclear war, not just a Contamination,” Dillon says.

He says it so matter-of-factly, but it strikes me funny, and I laugh. Loud. The sound fills up the narrow pantry. After a second, he joins me. We laugh together, loud and long and goofy, until tears stream down my cheeks and I have to swipe them away. I never laughed with Tony that way, not ever.

“What are you guys doing?” Opal sounds disgusted.

I try to answer her, but the laughter won’t stop. Dillon’s watching me with bright eyes. He has a great laugh to go along with the great smile I already noticed. He runs a hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes. He has great eyes, too.

Blue. Bright, gleaming blue. And he’s looking right through me. And just like that, I’m on my way to serious Crushtown.

Opal looks back and forth from him to me, then frowns. “Hey, Velvet, c’mon. I’m still hungry. C’mon!”

“Right.” I wipe at my face and then reach for a plastic-sealed roll of paper towels. “Sorry, Opal. How’s mac and cheese sound?”

She gives me a narrow-eyed look. “What kind?”

I want to laugh again at her expression. I’m very aware of how close the walls are, how close Dillon’s standing. “Have you heard that saying about how beggars can’t be choosers?”

Opal crosses her arms and looks annoyed. “No.”

“It’s that beggars can’t be choosers,” I tell her. “Know what that means?”

“Does it mean you want me to close the door so you can kiss or something?” she says, exasperated.

“No!” I cry too loud. From behind me, Dillon laughs again. I can’t look at him. “It means you’ll have to eat whatever kind I make, because that’s all the kind there is!”

“Oh. Well, can you make it fast? I’m hungry!”

“Yeah. I’ll make it. Go watch Mama.”

Opal nods. I risk a glance at Dillon. He doesn’t seem embarrassed or annoyed at what Opal said. He’s busy turning the cans to read the labels. When he feels me looking at him, he looks up.

He smiles.

What Opal said doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

OF COURSE, I DON’T KISS DILLON. I DON’T really know him. No matter what Tony’s mom thought about me, I’m not like that. I can’t pretend the thought doesn’t get my heart pitter-pattering in a good way, which is a nice change from the stomach tumbling. From the way I keep catching him looking at me, I’m thinking maybe Dillon wouldn’t mind so much, either.

He doesn’t try, though. Not even when it gets dark and I walk him out to his truck. We’re full of macaroni and cheese and hot tea. Not the best meal I’ve ever had, but the company and atmosphere made up for it.

“So,” Dillon says, then stops.

I laugh a little bit. Dillon makes it easy to laugh. “So, what?”

“So … Velvet.”

I’ve heard lots of people say my name. Some of them make it sound sort of like a joke. Some stumble on it,
make it sound exotic or strange. But Dillon just says my name like it’s the most natural word in the world to slide off his tongue.

“Yes?”

“This was nice. Really nice, tonight.” I smile and laugh again, unable to help it. “Are you kidding me?”

“No.” Dillon smiles, too.

I look back at the house. We have some candles lit, and the fireplace light casts a warm orange glow, faint, from the front windows. The good smell of wood smoke tickles my nostrils. Even so, there’s really no pretending everything inside is normal. Or anything out here, for that matter.

“Do you think they’ll have cleared the traffic away?” I ask him.

“I think so. If not, I’ll find another way home.”

“Where do you live?” This conversation sounds so normal, so BC. Before Contamination.

“We used to live in Mount Gretna, on the lakeside. But we moved closer to my mom’s work when … you know.”

I know. “We were living in assisted housing behind the strip mall.”