The Girl in Red

D.J. shifted a little in his chair and gave her a half-smile. “What you really wish to know is why I’m here and how long I’ve been here and what I know about the patrolling group so that you can avoid them. You want my whole story.”

“Well, yes,” Red admitted.

“And will you tell me your whole story in return?” D.J. asked. “It’s been some time since I had someone to share stories with.”

Red heard the many days of loneliness in his voice and knew how that felt, knew how the hours had loomed long and empty once Adam was gone. Even if he didn’t speak Adam had at least been there. And then he wasn’t, and she was just a girl in a red hood alone in the woods.

“I suppose my story is not unlike many since this strange event began,” D.J. said, and sighed. “I have two children, a son and a daughter. They each live on a different coast, in large cities far away from me. Of course I understand that they must go where the work is but it’s hard to have them so far away, especially since my wife passed on last year.

“My grandchildren, my son’s children, they come to stay with me every summer for four weeks and it is the highlight of my year, as you can imagine. I didn’t know that this summer would be the last time I saw them.”

He fell silent then, and Red waited. It wasn’t her place to say meaningless things in the face of his grief. She knew how much she hated sympathy of any kind, how stupid awkward words given only out of obligation made her feel worse.

“If I could have seen into the future I would have kept them here,” D.J. said. “Of course I would have, because it was safer here—fewer infected people to start with, and no riots and no traffic jams full of people trying desperately to leave their city. That was the last time I spoke to my son, you know. He and his wife and the children had packed what they could in their car and were sitting in traffic trying to get out. His cell phone battery was dying and he told me that they were coming here, that he hoped they would be here within a week. Naturally they never arrived, and now they never will.”

“Don’t say that,” Red said, and surprised both of them with the fierceness in her voice. “Don’t decide that they haven’t made it, that they’ll never get to you. I’m going to my own grandmother’s house. It’s taken me seven weeks to get this far, and I’ve probably got at least another twenty or thirty days to go, but unless someone stops me I’m going to make it there. So don’t give up on them yet. They might be out there, somewhere, moving very slowly but knowing that you’re waiting for them.”

D.J. blinked, and Red saw that his eyes were full and wet and she looked at the cabinets instead of his face because they didn’t really know one another well enough to share tears.

“You’re right, of course,” D.J. said, and then repeated it. “They might still be on their way. They could arrive any day. Though now with the patrols I worry that they would walk into a fate worse than the Cough.”

Like Mama and Dad, Red thought. If they had to die at all she would have much preferred them to get sick, even though the Cough itself was beyond terrible. But she didn’t say that, because it wasn’t time for her story yet.

“I never heard from my daughter at all. I can only assume that she became ill early on. They said, on the news, that people who became sick were largely incapacitated within twenty-four hours. And she lived alone . . .”

She lived alone so she probably died alone, Red thought. It was very likely D.J. was thinking the same thing, but she wouldn’t make him say it.

“At any rate, when everyone was told to head to the nearest quarantine camp I decided not to go. There was still a chance that my son and his family could arrive here and I wanted to be here if they did. And besides—I’m not the sort to be happy behind barbed wire, even if it is there to protect me.”

“Me neither,” Red said.

“I had the generator, and my water is drawn off a well instead of a municipal water system, so I thought I could stay here for quite some time, especially if I laid in supplies. And I did, very early on. I have always been cautious. Long before people started to panic I was stockpiling fuel and food.

“But I knew that remaining undetected was even more important than supplies. First, I closed and locked all the shutters in the front and then boarded all but one of the front windows. I wanted to make it difficult for anyone to try to break in, but wanted a way to see into the street if I needed it.

“Then on a day when I noticed several of my neighbors loading their cars to leave I packed a small bag with food and water, got into my car, waved to my neighbors and told them I was heading to the nearest camp. I drove about fifteen miles away and left the car in a fairly isolated parking lot near the state forest. I then walked back here and returned to my home under the cover of night, relatively certain that anyone I knew would assume I was gone for good.