The Dead Circle (17 page)

“Because they aren’t black and white documentaries in French?”

Sarah punched his arm softly and took his hand.

“Seriously, what’s the last movie you saw that had anything magical in it, or you know, anything fun?”

“Well-”

Chris put his hand on her lips. “Wait, let me clarify. What is the last movie you watched for actual fun, not for enlightenment or artistic pretention?

Sarah raises an eyebrow and grins. “Artistic pretention? You realize you’re a classical musician right?”

He laughed. “Answer the question woman.”

“The NeverEnding Story?”

“That was from like 1984! You haven’t seen anything for fun since the Reagan administration?”

“I saw Tom Hanks in ‘Philadelphia’?”

Chris stopped walking and looked at her incredulously.

She laughed. “OK fine. Not necessarily fun, but it was popular at least?”

He threw his hands into the air with mock frustration. “Oh I give up.”

They walked together quietly holding hands for a while.

“We should… uh… go back to my place.”

“You mean…uh.”

“Yes. I think we should have sex.”

He laughed. “Oh is that all?”

“Sorry, I kinda suck at subtext.”

Chris took her other hand and looked at her seriously. He brushed a snowflake off her forehead, while he debated what to say.

“Are you sure?”

This time Sarah looked him in the eyes. He could see tears starting to build, but she squeezed his hand.

“I’m completely terrified. But yes. I want this. Do you?”

Chris smiled at her. “Absolutely. Sarah I love you.”

A tear escaped out of the corner of her eye. “I love you too Chris.”

The sex was beautiful. It was slow and passionate, but also slightly silly. They giggled like teenagers and they connected physically and emotionally like adults. It was sexy and it was light. The passion was unmistakable to both of them. When they finished, holding each other in the darkness, Sarah’s tears started in earnest.

Chris didn’t know then, though he suspected, that despite the fact that she was twenty-four years old, that it had been her first time. She didn’t cry because she was sad, or because she had been saving herself—she hadn’t been. She cried because she had, almost accidentally, allowed herself to be happy. She allowed herself to be in the moment… even if it was just for that moment. She allowed herself to forget. 

She knew she was going to marry him that night. Somehow he understood what she was going through. He was able to soothe her enough to slow down. To stop running, even for the briefest of moments. The sensation was completely overwhelming. She hadn’t told him much about her past, and she wouldn’t for another six months, but he had already been able to diagnose her type of self-destruction as ‘self-distraction’. Perhaps this had been obvious to some people who came across Sarah at college, grad school and her internship. Perhaps she was the last person to know what she was doing to herself, but Chris was the first person who cared enough to tell her.

Sarah didn’t slow down right away. She finished her internship and worked her way from Assistant to the Associate Designer to Principal Designer in six years. They thought she was crazy when she quit her six-figure, corner office job to go back to school to learn how to paint. They thought she was having some sort of mental breakdown. Chris, now her husband, knew it was actually the end of her breakdown.

***

Chris stops playing for a moment. “Do you think they’re all there in that lot?”

“Who?”

“The people. The Fred and Gingers.”

Sarah looks up from the blueprints she’s laid out on the floor. “Well, we haven’t seen any of them anywhere else. It’s been a week since anyone has wandered by. I guess so?”

“It’s not like we’ve left the house in two weeks, since Costco. We wouldn’t really know if they’d moved unless they marched down our street.”

“Yeah.”

“I wish we knew what they wanted. Or why they gathered in the first place. It doesn’t make any sense. What would be the purpose of gathering the entire population of a city in some abandoned lot?”

“What makes you think there’s a purpose?

“I don’t know. Why would everyone go to the same place? How would they all know where to go? It’s like magic.”

“It’s not magic. It’s not uncommon in nature.”

“What are you talking about?

“Monarch butterflies.”

“Butterflies? More bug trivia?”

“Well, you know that Monarchs migrate every year right?”

“Sure. They have to go someplace warm. They’d die in the cold.” Chris shifts on the piano bench to face her.

“Well they don’t just go to the south. They go to a specific forest in a specific town in Mexico. Every single monarch butterfly in North America flies thousands of miles to congregate all together in the exact same spot every year. I think there’s another meeting place in California but I don’t remember where. The point is they all get together. They congregate. When they do there’s so many of them they literally cover every inch of the trees.”

“How the hell does a butterfly know where to go? Do they even have brains?”

“Even the scientists aren’t entirely sure. But it has something to do with magnetic poles and instinct I think.”

“So are you saying that the Fred and Gingers are acting like bugs?”

Sarah sighs. She feels like she knows just enough to be even more confused. “Honestly, I have no idea what I’m saying. It’s all speculation anyway.”

“We’re never really going to know what’s going on are we?”

“Probably not.”

“I wish we knew
why
this is happening.”

“I wish we knew a lot of things.”

Chris starts playing again, but softly. “I wish we could communicate with the outside world. So we could tell our folks we’re still alive.”

“What makes you think they’re still alive?” Sarah says grimly.

“Yeah.”

With nothing more to say or at least nothing more he wants to say, Chris returns to practicing. Sarah stares at the architectural designs of their library while absent-mindedly chewing on the cap of her pen.

She’s identified some important truths about their home. The basement is a lost cause. Because the foundation had never been truly weather-proofed, it is too consistently flooded to risk using, especially now that there was no power to run their sump pump. The roof is in decent shape, but they would need to invest some time in making sure that every crack, seal, hinge or joint is absolutely water tight. They had already put tarps over the entire surface of the roof, but she wanted to go over everything again with silicone.

They had considered sealing all of the windows too, but knew they would need some ventilation. So they ended up sealing most of them, with the exception of the large windows in the library proper because they were under eves. They did go through the trouble of extending the eves with two-by-fours and plywood covered with more tarps. Sarah had plans to design a more permanent solution, but it was good enough for now.

Their water supply would be sufficient for a while at least. They agreed on a strict rationing system because, while they had plenty to drink between the water tank and the bottled liquids they had acquired, they also needed water to cook, clean, shower and flush the toilet. They agreed on very short showers once a week. They save this soapy water for cleaning clothes and dishes. Their showers’ brevity is not difficult to maintain as they have lost access to their water heater which was stored in the basement and not worth risking using.  They still use the toilet, but flush as infrequently as possible using the water they had already used for showering and cleaning. It’s Spartan, but certainly better than using a bucket.

Trash and recycling is no longer being picked up of course, so whatever they can’t re-use they now put in bags and deposit into abandoned cars. They decided against putting it on the street because they hope to eventually have a better solution and don’t want it getting exposed to the rain and becoming untouchable. Chris points out that it a good idea not to leave it outdoors and attract rats. If rats survived that is. It ends up not being a major concern because they create a great deal less trash than they used to. There are no more takeout containers or junk mail. There are no more impulse buys or electronics to be thrown out when the latest upgrade comes on the market. Most of what they have to throw out is the packaging their food and drink comes in.

The biggest concern Sarah has is the impending approach of winter. She knows that winter in Detroit means snow, sleet and ice that without plows and salt, and a half million people shoveling their sidewalks, would probably cover every inch of the city until springtime. Rain they can avoid but snow-cover means they will be completely trapped until it melts. She figures that they only have a month, two if they are lucky, to prepare.

Sarah also knows they need a lot more supplies. They lost a good portion of their Costco loot off the truck when they were overwhelmed at the circle. They have to be prepared to be trapped for months and they don’t have nearly enough food. They will also need a source of heat. The library’s boiler, like its water heater, is in the now-inaccessible basement. There is a fireplace in the main library, but the risks of leaving the flu open to the weather are too great. Besides, they have nothing to burn. So, they are not only going to need a heat source to keep them warm, they are also going to need something to feed it. They need oil, gas or kerosene and they need a lot of it. She has no idea how they are going to find, transport and store thousands of gallons of fuel.

Perhaps the saddest thing that was destroyed on the way back from Costco, was the camping stove they found on Aisle 4. They might have been able to keep using their normal range if the building had been hooked up to the gas lines, but of course it never had been. They didn’t think it mattered very much to have an electric stove—at least until the power was permanently cut off—but now they have no way of heating food and water. Chris tried to make coffee one morning over a candle and just ended up singeing himself and his coffee pot and was rewarded with a beverage that was barely lukewarm.

It is inevitable that they are going to have to venture out again soon. But another of Sarah’s frequent trips to the window shows yet another cloudy day. The clouds that feel like a permanent fixture in Detroit during the winter seem to be gathering already. They are left with no choice but to sit through another day unable to leave the library because it might rain. Another day trapped.

After a half hour, Chris stops playing. He sits stretching his fingers, staring blankly into the distance. He knows he’s only practicing for himself, but decades of discipline make him continue.
Maybe I should start writing music?
He doesn’t voice the idea out loud. It’s too scary. Calling yourself a ‘composer’ comes with all sorts of pressure and judgment. But then again, there probably aren’t a lot of people out there to judge his writing.

Sarah breaks the silence. “We should have gotten a treadmill or something. I’m going to get so fat.”

“I dunno about that. You’ve never been fat a day in your life. Besides, once we finish off the jerky we’re pretty much vegetarians by default.”

“Well, the word vegetarian would imply that we were eating vegetables. Right now, we’re pretty much carb-itarians.”

“You know, if we cleared out all of the furniture, we could set up a great floor-hockey rink!”

“Oh sure, here you grab that end of the piano and I’ll get the other one. Should we take it up the ladder?”

Chris grins. “Fair point. Plus it would only be one-on-one. There’s only one sport that’s really good one-on-one.”

Sarah sniffs. “Well, that and tennis.”

“Oh right! Let’s get a ping pong table! And an air hockey table.”

“Great! I’ll put them on our list right after food, heat and other things we need to stay alive.”

They return to silence for a moment. Sarah stands up and starts to pace around the room aimlessly. There’s not much to do other than sit or walk around. “We need to find a way to contact the other survivors in the city.”

“What makes you so sure there are any?”

“Oh come on. If we survived, somebody else did. I mean it would be the height of arrogance to think we were the only people in the whole city smart enough to not get exposed.”

“I’m sure you’re right. But the phones are down, the internet is down, radio is off the air and the power is out. What’s left? Smoke signals?”

“Maybe? We could start a fire on the roof?”

“Sarah. That’s insane. Plus who would be out looking for smoke? I mean, if someone is smart enough not to be exposed, they’re not going to be walking around taking pictures of the skyline, they’re going to be hunkered down like we are.”     

“Yeah.”

“I know it sucks, but we have to be patient. There’s nothing we can do right now but wait.”

***

Nearly a month after it formed, the circle has finally stopped growing. Eventually all of the stragglers who could physically make their way to the lot joined the masses. In fact, the circle is ever so slightly getting smaller. Hundreds, thousands of the exposed have fallen, tripped up by a stray foot or hand or just literally broken down from a month of walking. The older tendons and joints started to wear down first. Each of the fallen were trampled and stomped into the bloody mud beneath them. The bodies are beginning to look less and less like people every day. They are dirty, emaciated and suffering from profound dehydration.

Not all of the infected even made it to the circle. Thousands more remain where they were exposed, trapped like Tom the Assistant Manager, mindlessly unable to escape their houses or cars or fenced areas. Yet, even a month after being exposed, they still try.