Chapter One #2
“For now, at least. Guess I’ll have to wait until this blows over to uncover all the secrets of my mother’s past.” I give him a rueful smile, though he’s pretending to look down the street instead.
“Well, you know I’ll help you with that any way I can, doll.”
I hold the folder up in salute. “Thanks, Frank. Get some rest, okay?”
He nods, and the heaving begins again. I hurry back to my building.
When I received the thick, padded envelope sent certified mail from the New York–based law firm Danielson & Rabinowitz two weeks ago, Frank was the first person I contacted.
After a few days of digging, he confirmed it—the letter claiming that my mother’s parents, the now-deceased Astrid and Elias Nilsson, had left me their entire estate was legit.
The keys in the envelope really did unlock their historic brownstone just off Central Park.
And if I chose to liquidate their holdings, I’d never need to work again.
To go from knowing literally nothing about my mother’s past to discovering she was the estranged daughter of wealthy Swedish immigrants has been disorienting, to say the least. But I contacted the law firm, set an appointment to review my grandparents’ estate, and bought my first-ever plane ticket.
I was finally going to learn something about the family I never knew. I was going to learn who I am.
But then GI-27 hit. The firm canceled my appointment yesterday, and the airline my flight a few hours later.
I’m disappointed, but relieved, too. So relieved.
For someone who didn’t leave her homestead until she was twenty years old, and did so only after losing the one person, the one life, the one world that she knew, the idea of leaving, of going, of arriving, is incredibly loaded.
Maybe next year.
As I walk down my hallway, the door to 2F opens suddenly, startling me back. I clutch the folder to my chest as my neighbor Tyler sways in the doorway, eyes bleary and bloodshot. His perpetually backward baseball hat lies slightly askew. I brace myself, but he stands there, frowning.
“Hey,” he mumbles. “Thought you were the delivery guy.”
I shake my head quickly.
He squints at me, eyeing my outfit up and down. “A jumpsuit? Pretty impractical for a shitting virus.”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, you won’t be for long, weirdo. Everyone’s getting it.” Grunting, the old frat bro disappears back into 2F, the door swinging not quite shut behind him, and I scurry down the hall.
I knew Tyler and Samson have the virus—I’ve heard nothing but moaning and flushing on repeat through the thin wall that separates our apartment bathrooms for the last twenty-four hours—but Tyler didn’t hit on me, then insult me, his usual one-two combo. He must be really sick.
Cold unease flares in my chest. Is everyone sick except me? Maybe I really should cancel.
I settle back at the radio, feeling unnerved, and press the talk button. “Frank didn’t find anything. Everett’s clean, Gramps.”
Gramps harrumphs into the microphone. “The best criminals always are, Maisie-girl.”
I sigh, hating how there’s no winning against a prepper’s anxiety. We produce mistrust as readily as carbon dioxide, and I can’t even be mad at Gramps about it because I’m just as bad. The fact is, this date is risky, a word I’ve avoided my whole life.
“Will this professor be able to take care of you when the shit hits the fan?” Gramps’s insistent voice warbles through the speakers. “That’s what you’ve gotta ask yourself, Maisie-girl. When doomsday arrives, who do you want by your side?”
“Gramps, I don’t need some man to take care of me.
” At least, not in the way Gramps is referring to.
I desperately need a man to take care of me in the more primal sense.
“And besides, I’m lonely. Did you know that people who are lonely have a thirty percent increased risk for early death?
Studies show that loneliness is as lethal as smoking fifteen cigarettes every day for your entire life. ”
“Don’t I know it. Which is why you should get in your rig right now and head to my bunker instead of going on a first date on the eve of the damn apocalypse!”
“For the hundredth time, it’s not the apocalypse, Gramps. It’s just a nasty GI virus, and finding someone to spend the lockdown with is worth a little diarrhea.” Little might be an understatement, though, based on next door’s marathon of flushing.
“What? Diarrhea? Your transmission broke up, girl—did you say you’re sick?”
I can practically hear Gramps’s blood pressure rising through the speakers.
“No, no, no. I’m perfectly healthy, and I know you’re worried, but we’re going to Gatherers. There hasn’t been a single outbreak of the virus connected to that chain.”
Gramps snorts into the mic, which is worse than clearing his throat. “Because it’s run by the evil vegans, that’s why.”
I roll my eyes. “Have you been on Reddit again?”
“Consider the facts, Maisie! An ultra-contagious GI virus hits the U.S. like a ton of bricks, with outbreaks connected to every major restaurant, poultry farm, processing plant, and ranch, and yet the vegans are fine? They’ve done something to the meat supply!”
“Then why are vegetarians getting sick, too?” My tone is gentle, though firm. Anxiety is the common denominator in the prepper community, the undercurrent fueling our collective determination to be ready, and for some, like Gramps, it’s easier to cope with the fear by assigning it to a boogeyman.
And in the case of the great gastrointestinal distress of 2027?
Evil vegan boogeymen.
“Animal products! Casein is in everything these days—that’s why the parakeets are sick! It’s in their bird food!” Gramps clucks his tongue. “What did those li’l birdies ever do to the vegans? It’s criminal!”
“Listen, Gramps, I’ve got to go.” I glance at the five episodes of Dreamsdate cued up on my laptop. “Got a lot to do. Did you take your meds today?”
The staticky air on the other side is telling.
“…yes?”
“Can’t have a heart attack in an underground bunker in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, and survive the evil vegan apocalypse, can you? Go take them now.”
“Fine. But you keep an eye on the news and be ready to skedaddle up here at the first sign of societal collapse, you hear?”
“Ten-four, Gramps.” I smile, even though he can’t see me.
“Oh, and Maisie? There ain’t nothing wrong with being a virgin.”
I hang my head, face flaming. I’m simultaneously annoyed that Gramps knows me so well and weirdly glad, too. At least one person in this giant, terrifying world does. “Well, now you’re just lying.”
Gramps chuckles. “Seventy-three, Maisie-girl. This is Gramps, signing off.”
I repeat the goodbye signal, feeling my usual mix of grateful and humbled that my only friend is an elderly reclusive prepper I met online.
Thanks to Mom, I never knew my real grandparents, and Gramps never had a real granddaughter.
But somewhere along the way, between chatting about our favorite water-purification systems and rigging electric vehicles to be off-grid, we fell into this routine of…
caring about each other. Checking in. Sharing our lives over the same ham radio frequency bit by bit, encouraged each time the other signed on and asked for more.
Then, one day, Gramps sent me a coded message taped to the bottom of my favorite strawberry jam.
Coordinates.
It’s a big deal, telling someone the location of your secret bunker.
The biggest deal, to a prepper. It’s throwing your lot in with someone else, the highest level of trust. We’ve been family officially unofficially ever since.
Gramps has been trying for ages to get me to move up there before a shit-hits-the-fan scenario, but of course, I haven’t.
I haven’t even visited. I can’t say why exactly, other than this feeling I have when someone gets too close.
That apprehension that lives in the space between spotting a bird on your windowsill and it flying away.
The question isn’t if you’ll scare it off, but when.
Just like every guy I’ve messaged on the dating apps, every co-worker, every friendly face at the gym. When people learn who I am, they always fly away.
But I can’t lose Gramps, so I’ve never wanted to risk it. That meddlesome, throat-clearing old man is all I have, and I love him.
After an afternoon spent watching reality television, grooming, and freaking out, it’s finally time to leave, and I’m proud of myself.
Despite several close calls, I haven’t canceled, and I’m not going to.
This is my last chance to find my Dream Date, to meet my goal and start living this life I’ve wasted for so long by spending it in fear.
My shaking fingers finally manage to slide a small golden hoop’s metal post through one ear, then I brush my short blond hair back and repeat on the other side.
There. Earrings say I’m a normal woman who has definitely made it past a first date, right?
My reflection stares back at me in my small handheld signaling mirror, the perpetual worry lines visible even in the three-inch stainless steel.
I tuck the mirror into one of my jumpsuit’s cargo pockets.
This is going to be fine. I am going to be fine.
I check each of my hidden stashes to ensure they’re ready if I decide to bring Everett home.
Switchblade under couch cushion. Taser in bathroom.
Pepper spray under my pillow. I may have grown up in isolation, but I’ve spent the last ten years being a woman in America, and some boogeymen are real.
After clicking a utility blade into my belt holster, I slide on my fleece while the local news plays on my laptop.
I’m only half listening as the attractive news anchors banter about the rise of the “tummy bug” across the United States.
“And if you have to go out, don’t forget your mask and nitrile gloves, Dave!”