Quarantine (9 page)

“C
ome on,” Paige said. “Let's sit someplace quiet.”

“After you.” I followed her out to an office, and she lit a candle on the table between us. We could still hear the hum of conversation outside but not the details.

“How's your head?” she asked.

“Fine, thanks.”

“Hand?”

“It's still there.”

She laughed.

“Thanks for helping me out with it.”

“That's cool. Thanks for speaking out back there.”

Paige asked if I wanted a drink of vodka and orange but I stuck to my Coke. On her second glass I could see she changed a bit; she sat differently, looked at me weirdly, started to touch my leg under the table.

“If we're going tomorrow,” I said, “I'll have to leave first thing to get a head start, to go collect Rachel and Felicity.

“Yeah . . .”

She rested her chin on her hands and looked out to nothing, a middle distance somewhere in the dark hallway.

“What is it?” I asked, pushing my glass to the side.

“What you said, about me being with my dad and Audrey.”

Oh, right. That.

“You still think I should stick with them, no matter what?”

“It's your decision to make.”

“But that's what you think?”

I bit my lip and she looked at me and I shrugged.

“That's what I think,” I admitted. “Besides, wouldn't they make you stay?”

“They can't make me,” she said, finishing her drink. “I can do—”

I put my finger to her lips, and she kind of melted into it.

“Think about it more in the morning,” I said. “Don't stress about it now. Wait and hear what Bob says when he comes back. Wait and see what your dad ends up deciding to do.”

She said, looking at the floor, “If we split up, I want to go with you, wherever you go.”

I was touched by the trust she placed in me. At the same time, my conscience told me I had to turn her offer down. I couldn't separate her from her parents. So was I now telling her to stay? The words came reluctantly.

“Look, I still think that if your parents aren't going, you should probably stay with them, otherwise—”

“Jesse, I want to be where you are.”

I swallowed hard.

“Paige—”

“I'd follow you, regardless. Understand?” She looked at me closely.

“You'd regret it, being separated from them. And it's safe in here, this place. I'm not worried for you here. Those infected people can't get at you here.”

“The uninfected could.”

Of course they could, we both knew it. It was a dumb thing for me to say, selling the safety of this place.

But that wasn't what was bugging me the most right now. Paige's devotion was great—what wouldn't I have given for one of the girls at school to say that kind of thing to me?—but it put an extra pressure on me that I hadn't had before. Sure, I had told myself that everything I was doing wasn't just for me, but for others too—the little communities I had managed to pull together—but was that really true? In the end, I always went off
alone
. From circumstances, but from choices, too.

If I took Paige with me, my goal would become even more crucial. But what if the end result wasn't good enough for her—or for me? I could promise to take her “home” but I couldn't guarantee what home would be like. All of a sudden, it seemed a weird and unfamiliar concept.

“Besides,” she said. “I'm sick of
safe
. We're all sick of
safe
.”

I leaned away from her a bit so that I could use my right hand to turn her face to mine. She had tears in her eyes. “Paige, I don't want you to—look, if you leave your parents, you're
leaving home,
yeah? You'd be losing something that you may not be able to ever get back.”

I was silent, hoping the words would make sense to her.

“And?” she challenged me.

“I don't want anything to happen to you,” I said. “That's what I'm scared of. You go out there, with forty people even, you have to be prepared to do whatever it takes to survive.”

“I can look after myself.”

“Can you?” I didn't want to dissuade her, but I had to make her look at the facts. “You come across even a small group of armed guys, they might kill you or worse.”

“Worse?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You're being stupid.”

“Paige, whatever your parents decide, stick with them,” I said. “They're the two people who'll stay with you, no matter what. They will never leave you behind, you got that?”

I knew then from her eyes that she got it, but also she wasn't sold. I hadn't even convinced myself—I mean, how could I? But Paige seemed to have made up her mind and be content with it. It really was what she wanted, and maybe it was the bravest choice anyone could make in this new earth: she'd been brave enough to find a new home. The problem was where she'd found that: in me.

I
couldn't sleep that night, and nor could most of the others. I helped them pack and it was apparent that they had enough food and gear to survive easily for a couple of weeks on the road, if it came to that.

With dawn approaching, I worried about Bob. Would he be back? I hadn't really considered before what we'd do if we had a day of... nothing. Of Bob failing to return.

I lay on my bed, next to Paige. We were silent but for the occasional whisper. We tried to sleep and maybe she eventually did. A couple of hours of staring at the dark ceiling and I was convinced:
This morning, Bob will make it back
. He had street smarts, was under no illusion about the dangers out there. Unlike so many survivors, he could take care of himself. I wished the same for my two friends waiting back at the Central Park Zoo, but with every second of sleepless thinking, my worry for them grew.

It didn't rate worrying about yet.
Deal with it when it comes
. Whatever Bob's news, I'd head back to them at first light.

 

Before sunrise I crept out to the food hall—the urns were already steaming and I could hear a generator humming on the terrace. I took a coffee and sat outside at a table where Bob often rested, before a box of photographic equipment: wires and memory sticks, batteries and video cameras. I flicked through the contents: he'd labeled the little memory cards with dates, and some had titles. I stopped at one marked: THE ATTACK.

I popped it into a little Sony cam and hit play but it took me a few battery changes to get the camera working.

The picture showed a dark space, then the big flare of a fire. It looked like—a church? There were sounds of sirens and screaming. Then the narration started, in Bob's urgent voice:

The camera panned to show a hole in the roof, then zoomed to the floor. It took a moment for the lens to focus. Sirens wailed in the background.

I felt sick in my stomach. There was a scream off camera, and I could tell he was hesitating, maybe checking into it, then resumed:

His hand reached out in front of the lens—towards the missile! He shifted a piece of broken timber, revealing the side of the long steel cylinder; it looked as if a panel had come free . . .

It was hard to make anything out, then there was a lot of movement on the screen and the picture was suddenly bright and clear—he'd switched on the camera's light.

They certainly did look like that. Bright red marbles, connected like a string of pearls.

There was a shrill scream off-screen and then the footage went blank.

I switched off the camera. I figured what those glass balls were:
They housed the contagion
. St. Patrick's Cathedral? That was right across Fifth Avenue from 30 Rock! All that time, it had been in there. The camera shook a little in my hands. There could be heaps of such unexploded missiles in the city—maybe the attack was meant that way—like they were on timers to detonate or something, and they'd keep going off . . .

“Ahh!”

Paige startled me—she'd put a hand on my shoulder.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, ejecting the memory card from the camera. “Yeah, sorry, you just spooked me.”

“Come on, I've got to show you something.”

She'd put on a big coat, motioned me to follow her. I took my FDNY coat, now heavy with the pistol in the pocket, from atop my bag in the hallway.

 

Paige and I stood on the cold rooftop. It was still dark, the faintest glow of a new dawn on the horizon. We were alone. Paige huddled close to me as she steered us to a telescope and pointed to a spot across the Hudson.

“Ha!” I said.

“What?”

“I've seen those lights come on once before,” I said, thinking about that section of New Jersey I'd seen all lit up. I'm glad that wasn't in my mind, like so much else had been back at 30 Rock.

“They came on last night,” she said. “Is that when you saw it?”

I shook my head. “Almost a week ago. That's why I was making for the 79th Street Boat Basin, to try and get across.”

“Think it's survivors, or automated?”

“No way to tell,” I answered. I did a full sweep of the area with the telescope: nothing seemed to be moving, nothing seemed to signify that there was life over there. “Not from here; have to get closer.”

I felt her pushing against me, an arm around me.

“I just want you closer,” she said, her head resting on my shoulder. By the little light of the dawning sky, I could see her watchful eyes twinkling up at me. I bent down and kissed her. I felt hot and hungry and—she smelled and tasted like strawberries. Had I imagined it? She kissed me back. I pulled away, touched my lips—she did have lip gloss on. It evoked so many memories.

“Strawberry,” she said. “It's what you like, isn't it?”

She leaned in again and I kissed her. I felt a tear roll down her cheek and into my hand. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think of Anna as I kissed her. That I'd wished that she was more like Anna, but an Anna in natural colors. Suddenly, all I saw was Paige's dyed hair. Her bright red mouth.

“I can't,” I said. I walked to the other side of the roof, looking down onto the street.

“What if you leave today and I never see you again?” she said, coming up behind me.

“Don't say that.”

“It's a possibility, though, isn't it?”

She came close and made to kiss me again.

“Paige—I can't.”

“Then think of her.”

“What?”

“Anna. That's what you want, isn't it? She's who you want.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked her.

She was silent.

“Anna's gone, Paige.”

“I'm here.”

“Are you?” I said. “Or are you so busy being something you're not, you're forgetting who you really are?”

She looked away from me. “I thought you'd like it.”

“I like you, Paige, for who you are.”

“Really?”

“Why wouldn't I?”

She chewed at her bottom lip. “I wanted to know how it would feel.”

“How what would feel?” I asked.

“To be loved so much—the way you loved Anna.”

“She's dead, Paige. I liked her, sure, but I talk about her like that because she's dead.” I gave her a hug. “Believe me . . . you got the better end of the deal.”

It was easier to understand Paige now; she wanted to feel something other than desperation and loneliness. She was hungry for love, to be cared for, to be wanted, to have someone to call her own. She was with this group and she felt lonely. She wanted a different future, but I couldn't offer her that.

I no longer had a sense of home. For as long as possible, I'd been thinking of my dad and friends in Melbourne, even my stepmother, waiting for me to come back. But that didn't feel like home anymore. My idea of home had shifted—from 30 Rock, to the zoo, maybe even to here . . . wherever my friends were. For all that I had arrived trying to persuade the others to leave, how ready was I? Two days could easily slide into three, into four, even longer . . .

“Jesse?”

“Yeah?”

“Look!” She pointed to the street. “Can you see that?”

Where we stood on the roof we could see the rising sun chasing away the shadows. I followed her pointed finger, searching for—

A lone figure, on the street, running towards us, fast.

“It's Bob!”

I ran downstairs. Ran through the receiving bay, to the front roller door, started to hoist it open before he even had to bang on it.

He waved, too exhausted to talk, doubled over with his hands on his knees.

I looked out the door, up and down the street: it seemed clear, quiet.

“Bob, you good?”

He stumbled through and heaved down on the chain to close the door.

“Bob?”

“Tell—the others—tell them,” he gasped for air, “we're going to be attacked!”