Infected-6
2038 Words
Nick followed her into the kitchen and paused by the door that led to the garage. “I know Carl and Sandy usually have plenty on hand. You guys going to be all right if things get hard?”
He was laid back about most things. Kennedy didn’t picture him as the type to get worked up over a potential outbreak. The fact that so many other people besides her father were taking this Nipah scare seriously was more worrisome than the news stories themselves.
“How hard do you expect it to get?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Most people are saying it’s going to get worse before it gets better. A shame, really. I don’t even want to know what this whole scare is going to do to worsen the refugee crisis.”
Kennedy had hardly thought through the medical ramifications of the disease. She wasn’t ready to jump straight to politics. “Are you going to be ok if they don’t have any food at the store?” she asked. “Do you want to take one of these casseroles with you in case the shelves are already empty?”
“No, I’ll be all right. If I get to Rory’s and can’t find anything, maybe I’ll take you up on it, but I think if I hurry now I’ll get there before they’re completely sold out.”
Woong was already out of the bathroom, so she was glad Nick didn’t say anything else about the epidemic.
“So the keys are hanging up in their usual spot?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, I’ll bring the car back as soon as I’m done.” He opened the door that led to the garage.
“No rush,” Kennedy called after him. Where did she and Woong have to go, anyway?
After Nick left, Kennedy served up two large bowls of soup.
“Want to play a game of cards while we eat?” Woong asked.
“Sure. That sounds like a fun idea.”
Woong jumped up and ran to the game closet, and Kennedy glanced at the text coming in from her dad.
Governor of New York declared a state of emergency.
Another beep.
Two deaths reported in New Hampshire. One a 10-year-old boy.
Kennedy put her phone on vibrate.
“You want to play Uno or Egyptian rat race?” Woong asked.
Kennedy had never heard of Egyptian rat race. “Let’s do Uno.” She couldn’t remember how long it been since she’d last played it. Probably at least a decade.
Her phone shook again, and she turned it face down so she didn’t have to see whatever depressing news her dad was sending her now.
“Bring the deck here,” she told Woong, “and I’ll deal while you start your lunch. Don’t want to let your mom’s soup get cold.”
CHAPTER 8Kennedy always assumed Uno was a game of pure chance, which was a statistic impossibility given how many games Woong won in a row. They had eaten up the entire pot of soup, and Woong had finished off the leftover lasagna, too. Carl and Sandy were due back in less than an hour. The house was disastrous, but at least the day with Woong had gone relatively smoothly.
“You got any other games you want to play instead?” she asked after Woong beat her for the sixth or seventh time at Uno.
“Hmm.” Woong pouted. “Maybe Battleship?”
“Sure. Why not?” At the very least, it was a nice way to procrastinate from having to work on that next load of dishes.
Woong had just put the cards away, and the two of them were setting up their battle stations when someone knocked on the front door.
“Is that Mr. Nick?” Woong’s eyes lit up.
“Might be,” Kennedy answered, although she couldn’t figure out why he’d go around to the front door after dropping the car off in the garage.
Woong followed her to the main entrance. Kennedy glanced through the window at the familiar face on the porch and threw open the door.
“Woah! Is that pink hair?” Woong shouted. “Inconceivable!”
Kennedy stepped aside to let her roommate into the Lindgrens’ home. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Well, if you’d been getting my messages, you would have known,” Willow answered. “Let me guess. You let your batteries die again?”
Kennedy rolled her eyes. “No, I just turned it on vibrate. My dad kept sending me his end-of-the-world texts.” She gave her roommate a hug. “What’s going on? I thought you’d be in New York by now.”
“Yeah, the trip got cancelled.” Willow flung her magenta-streaked hair behind her ear. “Nobody really wants to be in New York right now. It’s not just your dad who’s freaking out about this whole ...”
“Hey, Woong,” Kennedy interrupted, “can you do me a big favor and clear the dishes off the table?”
He pouted but left the two girls alone in the entryway.
“So I guess it’s getting pretty bad?” she asked Willow when he was out of earshot.
“I’ll say. You heard about that teacher from ... Oh, shhhhh ...” Willow stopped herself. “I mean, oh rats. That kid goes to that school doesn’t he? The one with the teacher. That’s why he’s home today. Geeze, I didn’t even think about that. Are you ok? Do you think either of you got exposed?”
Kennedy glanced down the hall, hoping Woong wasn’t listening. “I think we’re ok. I mean, the chances of infection are really low.”
“Yeah.” Willow ran her fingers through her hair. Kennedy wouldn’t be surprised if she came up with a quick excuse to leave, and she certainly wouldn’t blame her.
“Kennedy!” Woong shouted from the kitchen, drawing out each syllable. “What’re we having for a snack?”
“I swear that kid eats like an elephant,” she muttered.
“I have an idea!” Woong called. “Why don’t you get two cups of juice, and I’ll put poison in one of them and you’ll have to decide which one you want to drink?”
Willow raised her penciled eyebrows.
“He just watched The Princess Bride for the first time,” Kennedy explained.
Willow nodded. “Got it. Well, want some help with figuring out a snack?” she asked. “I’ve got my mom’s carrot-carob-zucchini drop recipe on my phone. Does your pastor keep any garbanzo bean flour on hand?”
“I don’t think so.” She glanced at the door. “Do you want to stay a while? I mean, you’re welcome to, but if you’re worried about getting sick ...”
“Pffft.” Willow tossed her hair. “You know me. I’d go absolutely crazy in my dorm room all day. If I’m not hanging out here, I’d probably be at the mall exposing myself to every pathogen known to humankind. I’ve been taking zinc droplets since I was two weeks old. I’ve got a wicked strong immune system. Besides, it’s not like either you or the kid are sick, right? I mean, this is all just precautions at this point, isn’t it?”
“Kennedy!” Woong shrieked again.
“What?” Kennedy ignored Willow’s bemused grin.
“Can you make some popcorn while we play Battleship?”
Kennedy glanced at her roommate. “So you want to hang out for a while?”
Willow shrugged. “Not like I’ve got anything better to do. You have no idea how bad it sucks. Oh wait, is sucks one of those words that’s gonna get me in trouble? I know this is a pastor’s house and all.”
Kennedy wished Willow hadn’t flaked out on their new-believer’s Bible study. They could actually talk about things like grace versus legalism. She was pretty sure Willow pictured the entire Christian life as a big list of dos and don’ts. No wonder she hadn’t kept up her original spiritual momentum.
“You’re fine,” she said. “Just be careful around Woong. I don’t think his parents let him use that word.”
“Ok, I’ll be good. I promise.” Willow shot her a dazzling smile, and the two girls walked into the dining room.
Woong was sitting in front of his Battleship display, shielding it from view. “What’s for snack?” He scrunched up his eyes and stared at Willow. “And why’s her hair that color? Were you born that way, or did you get it painted?”
“Dyed,” Kennedy corrected.
“Who died?” Woong’s eyes widened. “Someone died?”
“No, I was just talking about Willow’s hair.”
“Her hair’s dead? Do you mean all the way dead or just mostly dead? ’Cause there’s a difference, you know.”
“I just mean when you color your hair, you say that it’s dyed.”
“Dead.”
“What?”
“You can’t say that something is died. You say something is dead. That’s better grammar.”
“Ok.” Kennedy chose to drop the vocabulary lesson. “Hey, listen. Your mom and dad are coming home early, so you ...”
“They are?”
“Yeah, so you need to go get your room extra clean so it’s perfect by the time they get back, ok?”
Woong c****d his head to the side. “What do I get if I do a good enough job?”
Kennedy wasn’t in the habit of entering into negotiations with third-graders. “Popcorn?”
He frowned. “No. You need to ask me what I want.”
“Fine. What do you want?”
He put on his most serious facial expression. “I want my father back, you ...”
“All right,” she interrupted quickly. “That’s enough movie quotes for today. Go clean up.”
The excitement in his eyes clouded over, and he slumped away from the table with a half-hearted, “Ok.”
Kennedy started to clear the table, wondering how long it would take her to get the kitchen presentable again.
“Looks like we’re on the set of Titanic before everyone dies,” Willow stated helpfully.
Kennedy didn’t respond. She was busy glancing through the texts she’d missed from her dad. More casualties. More confirmed cases. More states. More cities. More lists of symptoms to look out for. Kennedy browsed through the list and figured anyone with a pulled hamstring, ear infection, or stubbed toe could find a way to convince themselves they were about to die.
She sighed.
Willow glanced up from the Battleship board she’d been looking over. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, just my dad.”
“Yeah, I bet he’s freaking out about this whole thing.”
“He’s been freaking out for the past three weeks.” Kennedy remembered the day the first Nipah case was confirmed in the States. Her dad wanted her to go to the nearest drugstore and buy a case of at least a hundred face masks, fully expecting her to wear one every time she went out in public. He told her not to eat anything cooked in the cafeteria but to buy canned things and heat them up in her dorm room after washing her hands with antibacterial soap and ideally a few additional squirts of Germ-X.
Kennedy tuned him out at that point, told herself he was overreacting. Was this like the boy who cried wolf? Had her dad freaked her out so many times in the past over inconsequential nothings that now, when her life really might be in danger, she’d chosen to all but completely ignore his instructions?
“Don’t let him get under your skin.” Willow gave her a reassuring rub on the shoulder. “He’s just trying to look out for you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
One more load of dishes later, Kennedy and Willow sat across from each other sharing some of Sandy’s raspberry tea. Woong’s battle sounds and impressively accurate impressions of Andre the Giant from the back room told Kennedy he was at least happy, even if he wasn’t cleaning.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t make it to New York,” Kennedy said. That’s all Willow had been talking about for weeks. “You must be really disappointed.”
Willow let out a melodramatic sigh. “Yes and no. I mean, it totally blows ... I mean, it totally stinks that I’m gonna miss all those shows, you know? I was really looking forward to that. But then there’s part of me that thinks I actually jinxed myself out of it. I don’t know. Does the Bible say anything about jinxes, or is that too hocus-pocus for Christians to believe in?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was gonna be hanging out with all my friends. I mean, it wasn’t only about Broadway, of course. And I’ve been trying to cut back on certain things now that I’m saved. I’m not saying I’m doing a perfect job, and you probably know that better than anyone else, but I swear to ... I mean, I can honestly say I’m trying really hard. But that’s just the thing. You made it sound like I ask Jesus into my heart, I ask him to forgive me of my sins, and then he gives me so much joy and happiness and hope it’s like I never look back on all the stuff I had to leave behind. I mean, can you believe I haven’t smoked a single joint in six weeks? I’m serious. I don’t think I’ve been this clean since before I started getting periods. I’m not joking.”
Kennedy glanced down the hall just to make sure Woong hadn’t popped out of his room to eavesdrop.
“And at first, it was sort of like that. That joy and stuff. A little bit.” She shrugged. “I mean, I felt something at least. And then that Bible study we were doing, it kept talking about all these things like those spiritual fruits and all that stuff, and I’m sure it’s great, but it just made me realize how far I’ve got to go to be like you. I mean, the vocabulary, everything. It was as bad as if I were to jump into your organic chemistry class mid-semester and even though you offered to be my study partner, you couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t keep up. I mean, I don’t even know the difference between an atom and a molecule without looking it up, but you’d be talking about chemical equations and blah blabetty blah blah stuff like that, and that’s kind of how it’s felt these past couple months. Like you’re so far ahead I’m bound to disappoint you. I mean, I’m already disappointed in myself.”
- Writer
