The Infection

It is not even a simple desire to find a better place to live. If he continues on with Ethan to Camp Immunity near Harrisburg, it will be as filthy, hungry and violent as Defiance. When they were leaving, the people were cheering and blowing whistles and shooting into the air. The rumors that the Army was coming had achieved a critical mass. But nobody cared about the convoy of vehicles leaving the camp, filled with troops ready to sacrifice everything to save them all.

If God can appear cruel and hypocritical and vindictive, well, we are all made in his image, he reminds himself. God should have told Job that he had no right to question him because as bad as God is, people are even worse. When the chips are down, the best and worse is on full display.

The funny thing about the story of Job is that Job never questioned Satan. In Hebrew, Satan has two meanings. One is the Adversary. The other is ha-Satan, the Accuser. In either case, he is an Angel of the Lord. Maybe Job did not question Satan because he did not have to do so. If God is everything, he is also Satan. The Adversary. The Accuser. Creator of Heaven and Earth.

The fact is Paul hated leaving only a little less than he hated staying. Perhaps that is why he is here. Anne had the right idea, he tells himself: Just keep moving. He feels like he finally understands her decision to abandon them.

If you keep moving, they can never get you. You might even outrun yourself.

Stay still, and curse the day you were born.

We try to live with as little pain and as much pleasure as possible. But pain makes us realize we are alive. We truly live one moment to the next when we live with pain. When pain stops, we become afraid. And we remember things we do not wish to remember that are themselves painful.

Long is the way and hard, right, Anne?

The Catholics believe there is Heaven and Hell and between them a place called Purgatory, in which souls are purified and made ready for Heaven through a period of punishment. Similarly, there is a state of existence between living and dying: survival.

These days, God has no use for charity and good works. God demands everything now. These days, the Lord only calls those who have been baptized in blood.

And that, he realizes, is why he has come. Not to be tested, but to put an end to these tests.

“I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave,” Job said upon hearing that his family died and all his earthly possessions were destroyed. “The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” Sara, I will be with you soon.

♦

Ethan remembers holding Carol’s hand while she pushed Mary out into the world, counting between pushes, trying to pour all of his strength into her by will alone. He had always wanted children but felt ambivalent about the amount of responsibility they entailed. He wanted kids to be like Blockbuster videos, rentable and returnable within a week. Something he could manage over time, not maintain every single hour of every single day. The idea of wiping shit and vomit and changing diapers for the next few years was overwhelming. Mostly, he was worried about his relationship with his wife. They had a good life and he did not want to see it spoiled.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor told him.

“It’s a girl,” he said to his wife, his heart bursting with pride.

Carol cried with relief and joy, still holding his hand.

Later, the nurse asked him if he wanted to hold his daughter for the first time.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

The woman handed him the tiny swaddled creature and his heart opened. A visceral, almost painful love surged through him, pouring out into the child in his arms.

Change diapers? He would eat this kid’s shit, he realized.

Anything, he pledged. Anything for you.

This person will die without me. But more than that: Everything I do to this child from now on will reverberate through the rest of its life. He never felt so needed. So responsible.

“Your name is Mary,” he told her in a singsong voice, not caring how it sounded.

From that point forward, nothing mattered except family.

They are going to the bridge to blow a hole in it and then he is going to travel two hundred miles to Camp Immunity near Harrisburg. He is going to have to get there on his own this time and it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to do it. Carol and Mary might as well be in Australia. And yet he has not felt so close to them since Infection started. There is a chance they exist.