Contaminated (25 page)

“You ready?” Opal sounds triumphant, like she’s already won.

“Yeah. Go!”

Both of us fly into our rooms. It’s cold in here, but at least the windows aren’t broken. The mattress on my bed was flipped on its side and dragged off the bed, the sheets and blankets thrown into a pile. I start there, pulling new sheets from my drawer and making the bed. I check the blankets for stains or mold or anything gross, but they seem okay for now, until we can get them into town to the Laundromat or something. My pillow’s still downstairs, but it’s amazing that once the bed’s made, how much cleaner the rest of the room seems.

Books go on shelves, pens and pencils back in the cup on top of my desk. My CD collection is missing, though I can’t imagine what anyone wanted with it, especially when I find my iPod still in the case where I kept it in my drawer. The battery’s dead, but I clutch it to me like I found a million dollars.

The same as with the pillow, it’s another of those small things. A framed picture of me and my best friend from junior high—I haven’t seen Denise since the Contamination. I like to think that she and her family moved away instead of something worse happening. My yearbooks. A picture of me and Tony at homecoming, right before everything started happening.

I look at that the longest, not caring that I’m taking too
much time, that Opal’s going to beat me. I touch my face. I look so young in that picture. I touch Tony’s face, too. He looks mostly the same. Grinning, his arm around me. I remember how we slow-danced to some song I know I have on my iPod in the playlist named Tony, but I couldn’t tell you what song it was even if you threatened to pour a bottle of ThinPro down my throat. I put that picture away and get back to work on cleaning the rest of my room. Opal ends up finishing hers first.

WE SPEND THE DAY CLEANING AND THEN IN the afternoon, we play board games while our mom watches. Opal sets up a place for her at the Monopoly board and gives Mom her favorite piece—the top hat. She rolls for Mom, too, and organizes her money and properties into piles, but it’s Mom who tells Opal which she wants to buy and sell. I’m not really sure how she does it, with blinks or winks or something, but Opal understands and that’s what matters.

Or maybe we’re fooling ourselves that Mom is able to communicate. Part of me thinks she’s still just on some sort of autopilot—some residual motherly instinct that keeps her going. I can’t decide which is really better, believing she’s coming back to us and yet knowing it’s unlikely she’ll ever be the same, or knowing she’s never going to be the same and believing she might come back.

Before it gets dark, I pull the generator out of the shed and try to carefully follow the directions my dad printed
out and laminated, then nailed to the inside of the shed doors so he wouldn’t lose them. My dad lost lots of things all the time—keys, glasses, his wallet. He was always asking us where we’d put his stuff, even though we all knew it was really him being absentminded and setting something down without paying attention, then forgetting where he’d left it.

His directions seem so easy, but they assume the reader knows about stuff like how to mix gasoline and oil in the right combination for the generator and where all the switches are inside. Stuff I never bothered to know because my parents took care of things when the ice coated the electric wires, or trees knocked them down, and we lost power.

“Get it right, Velvet,” I say aloud into the quiet night. “You don’t have Mom and Dad to do stuff for you anymore.”

In the next few minutes, when I start the generator, the night’s not so quiet. Usually when the power went out, we’d hear the neighbors’ generators running, too, but at least in this part of the neighborhood, we’re the only ones in any of the houses. A cloud of stinking smoke pours out, making me choke and cough. Waving my hand in front of my face, I tense, waiting for the whole thing to explode.

It doesn’t, and the smoke clears. The generator sounds different from what I remember, skipping and jumping a little, but after another minute or so, even that smooths out. Now the only thing to do is see if it’ll power up the house. I run the superlong extension cord all the way around to the
special outlet and plug it in. There’s only one more thing to do—inside the house. Flip the switch that disconnects the house from the grid and onto the generator.

“It’s so loud,” Opal says. “Is it working?”

“We’ll see.” I click on the flashlight, since it took me longer than I thought to get it working, and now it’s fully dark. The basement will be pitch-black, and we haven’t been down there yet, so I have no idea what sort of mess it’s in. “You and Mama stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Halfway down the basement stairs I remember that when the power went out, my mom would have us go around and turn off or unplug everything we could so that when it came back on, we wouldn’t have any surges. I can’t possibly remember far enough back to think about what we’d left on when the army took us away. I can’t even remember which lights are hooked up to the generator, but I don’t really think it matters too much. The power’s not coming back on in this house, not for a long time.

There’s something gritty on the carpet at the foot of the stairs. When I shine my flashlight, all I can see is the glitter of glass and dirt. A picture’s fallen off the wall, the frame bent, the glass crushed, maybe by a foot. I bend and pick up the photo. It’s of the four of us at Disney World. We’re standing with Mickey and Minnie, and we all look happy. I smooth the wrinkled paper and tuck it into my shirt. I want to keep this close.

I shine the light around. Overstuffed furniture makes
looming shadows, but from what I can see, it’s all in its place. The old TV doesn’t look broken, either, not that it will do us any good. The bookcases stacked high with books, board games, puzzles, and DVDs are all in place, too. It’s nice to see that whoever messed around upstairs didn’t bother down here. It’s nice to feel like there’s something in our house that strangers didn’t try to ruin.

There’s a bathroom down here, and the accordion door leading to it has fallen off the track. So has the one to the tiny utility closet under the stairs. The one leading to my dad’s workbench area is closed, though. The little magnet that helps keep it shut lets free with a small
click
when I pull it.

My light swings, making bright the deep, dark room that still smells of wood shavings and paint. There’s a window in here, set into the garden on this side of the house, with a metal window well full of leaves the light from my flashlight shows off. At least it’s not broken, and though I know there’ve been leaks from it in the past, everything seems dry now.

The electric box is straight ahead. There is a set of emergency lights that is supposed to go on when the power goes out so that you can see to turn on the generator, but the batteries would long ago have lost their charge. My flashlight’s not really doing so great, either. I shake it, then tap it on my palm, like that will help.

My dad’s put another list of instructions here, too, taped to the inside of the circuit box. He handwrote these instead
of printing them from the computer. Suddenly I’m remembering birthday cards and funny poems he’d leave us in the mornings before we went to school. They were never any good and his rhymes were always a stretch, but they were all written in this same messy, looping handwriting that I will never, ever see anything new written in again.

Will this ever stop feeling so awful? Will I ever stop missing my dad, missing my mom, even though she’s right here with us? When will all of this become my life, the one I live, instead of some bad dream? How long will it take for me to stop thinking of the past and wishing so desperately to go back there?

Maybe never. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe … maybe just never, I think, and have to rest my head in my hand for a moment because the basement floor feels suddenly slippery and tilted. Like I’m moving, even though I’m standing still.

I don’t cry, though. I’m never sure what’s going to trigger tears anymore. Sometimes I feel like I’ve cried so much, I don’t have anything left inside me to make more. Other days … well, other times I’m surprised I don’t melt away into a saltwater puddle from all the crying. But I don’t cry now because it’s getting late and if I can figure out how to get the generator working, I can have a hot shower. I can make a meal on the stove instead of trying to be a pioneer woman and make stuff in the fireplace. All it’s going to take is me getting myself under control and making this work.

“C’mon,” I mutter and shine the light on my dad’s
instructions. “You did all this so far, you can figure out this part. It’s the easy part. One, two, three.”

Following my dad’s instructions should be the easy part. I have to flip the switches in the right order, that’s all. But my dad’s handwriting is not only notoriously messy, but at some point, this piece of paper’s gotten wet. The letters have run. My flashlight’s getting dimmer and I’m squinting, trying hard to read the directions.

One thing I do remember—if you don’t flip the switches right, something could happen with electricity and back surging or something like that. I can’t recall exactly what, just that it could be bad. Not sure if it could shock me or start a fire or what, but it’s enough to make me cautious and want to be extra sure I do this right.

I hear footsteps directly above me, in the kitchen, and wonder what Opal and my mom are doing up there. Probably complaining about how long it’s taking me. Probably digging around in the pantry for something to eat.

I take a deep breath. Read the instructions one more time. I think I have this figured out, but I won’t really know, will I, until I try?

So, okay, here goes.

One. Two. Three …

There are sparks and the scent of something burning, but nothing shocks me, and the emergency lights come to life behind me. They’re too bright and I cover my eyes with a yelp that turns into a triumphant flurry of giggles. I did
it! I did it! From upstairs I hear squeals of delight and I’m turning to leave the workshop and go upstairs when my eyes adjust to the light.

There, in the back by the table saw, is a man.

I scream before I can stop myself. I leap back, hands up. My head connects with the edge of the circuit panel door and sharp pain doubles my vision for a minute. I’m panicking, stumbling … until I realize that man isn’t going anywhere.

He’s slumped against the wall. He’s wearing what looks like pajamas, though the cloth is rotted in most places. So is most of him. Only the size, really, tells me it was a man.

He’s been dead for quite some time.

I’m breathing so fast, I see sparks in front of my eyes. I’ve passed out a few times in my life, and I know enough to sit with my head between my knees. Yet I can’t stop myself from looking up every other second to make sure he’s not moving, not creepy-crawling toward me like something out of a horror movie. That he hasn’t turned into a real-life zombie.

My heart’s pounding so loud in my ears, I can’t hear anything but it and the sound of my sharp breaths. I dig my fingernails into my palms to force myself to calm down, and eventually, I do. I’m covered in clammy sweat even though I feel too hot.

He’s dead. He can’t hurt me. He’s dead. He can’t hurt me.

Oh my God, there’s a dead man in our basement! I want to scream again, but clap my hands over my mouth like I’m holding back some puke. Actually, I sort of feel like I might vomit. There’s a decomposing corpse not six feet from me, after all.

At least there’s no smell, whether it’s too cold now for it, or he’s been down here so long that he’s more dried up than drippy. My stomach turns over as I think that, but I don’t gag. If anything, I’m calming even further. This guy’s not going to hurt us. Yeah, it’s supergross and it scared me sick, but … he’s dead. He’s gone. He’s not going to lurch back to life and try to eat my brains. At least, I don’t think so.

I know who it is, too. I can tell by the watch that’s slipped most of the way off his wrist. It’s big and silver, with lots of dials. It’s Craig’s watch, the neighbor from next door who’d crashed his way through our sliding glass door. When or why he came back here, and what he’d done to himself that killed him, I’ll never know, but somehow knowing that it was Craig makes this a little easier. It’s not some stranger, and even though my last sight of him had been terrifying, Craig had always been a good neighbor before that.

Except what am I supposed to do now? I can’t just leave him down here. I don’t know enough about how bodies decompose to tell if the lack of smell is because of the cold or because of how long he’s been dead, but in a few months
it’s going to get a lot warmer. Besides that, I can’t imagine living in a house with a dead body in the basement.

I stand on shaky legs. I take deep, slow breaths, trying not to think too much about the fact I’m breathing in dead-guy germs. “Think, Velvet,” I murmur. “Think. Think.”

The problem is, I’m tired of thinking. All I’ve done lately is think and think and think. Figure things out. Solve problems. Right now it feels like the problem-solving part of my brain’s flat-out broken. The gears are spinning but nothing’s catching.

I think again of a hot shower and how much I want it. I got the lights working. The hot-water heater will be working. I can have a shower, I can shampoo myself clean. I can put on clean clothes I haven’t worn in over a year and probably be glad the waistband of my jeans isn’t as tight as it used to be. I can make something to eat in the oven, maybe baked spaghetti, maybe tuna casserole, but something better than what we’ve been eating for the past week. I can have all those things, if I can just. Figure. This. Out.

I groan, tired. There really is no solution. I can’t lift him by myself. I can’t drag him up the stairs and outside. He’s likely to fall into pieces if I do that.… My eyes light on the shelves of paint supplies. There are a couple of blue tarps there. Some rope’s coiled on my dad’s peg board. And there, too, are his tools. Hammer. Screwdrivers.

Handsaw.

This is awful, or it’s funny, my brain won’t let me figure
out which. All I know is I’m laughing. Even with my hands clapped over my mouth, I’m laughing so hard, my stomach muscles hurt. I hear more footsteps upstairs and I don’t want to bring Opal down here—she might be too scared to come into the basement without enough light on the stairs to see by. But she might come down, anyway; she’s sometimes surprisingly brave like that.