The Infection

After the Screaming, the city had filled up with crazies. People deranged by what they had seen, wandering about in shock and anger. Others convinced the world was ending and flailing at their neighbors in panic. Criminal types looking for easy pickings. They were everywhere; some of them inevitably wandered through Anne’s neighborhood. People had been scared, staying in their homes, but Anne had toughened them up. They banded together and chased the crazies out.

And this, too, shall pass, she thought. Fear is the real enemy. They just had to stay tough.

“Well, what are we going to do?”

Everybody in the neighborhood knew who Anne Leary was and looked to her to take the lead in a crisis. People didn’t just call her to tell her things. They expected her to do something. She was treasurer for the local PTA and produced a monthly newsletter for the local homeowners association. After the Screaming, she not only organized the drive to eject the crazies, she also enlisted the other homeowners in her community to get their fallen neighbors to the clinics, take care of their children, and tend their yards and anything else that needed doing. It was hard work but the people who lived here were more than happy to have something they could do to help. Anne believed that a major crisis could bring out the best in people, if you only asked them to step up.

The dog ran into the kitchen and began marching back and forth in front of the glass sliding door connecting the kitchen to the backyard, whining and barking and scrabbling at the glass.

“Hang on,” Anne said. “I can barely hear you. The dog’s going crazy.”

She opened the door and watched Acer take off like an arrow and disappear through a gap in the fence that her husband always threatened to repair, but never did.

“I’m back,” she added, scooping up her pie and tossing it into the oven. “We can’t have the crazies running amok in our park. Our children play there, Shana. If the cops are too busy to help, we’re going to have to do this ourselves. Just like last time.”

“Oh Anne, don’t go vigilante again.”

“Me? I’m not doing anything. Big Tom’s going, not me.”

Her kids tramped by scowling and she followed them with her eyes, monitoring her little ducklings for signs of conspiracy.

“I got to go, Shan,” she added. “I have to go vigilante on my kids.”

“Tell Big Tom to be careful if he’s going out today.”

Anne frowned and laughed. “Sure thing. Bye, Shan.” Hanging up, she turned on the hot water tap, squirted in some dishwashing liquid, and began filling the sink. “Children, come here!”

Peter tramped back into the kitchen, followed by Alice and Little Tom. They gazed sullenly at their mother.

“Well?” she said, hands on hips. “What’s wrong?”

“Dad says we can’t go outside today and we’re bored out of our minds.”

Anne turned off the tap and dumped a stack of dirty breakfast dishes into the foamy water.

“Did he now?” she said. “TOM!”

Big Tom was in the living room, sitting on the couch watching the news, already an hour late for work. After a few moments, he entered the kitchen scratching the back of his head and looking worried. Her husband was a large man—not muscular, not fat, just big. His smile lit up his entire face. People thought he was a natural comedian but they also respected him when he was serious. He was the kind of guy who finished but did not start fights.

“The authorities are saying it’s some sort of plague,” he muttered. “Things are getting pretty hairy out there.”

“Tom. Tom. We can’t keep the kids locked up like this.”

“They’re telling everybody to stay indoors, dear.”

“It’s just more of the crazies. Kids hopped up on drugs.”

“It’s the screamers, they say. The screamers all woke up, and they’re like maniacs.”

Anne snorted. “Give me a break. In any case, all that stuff is going on downtown, not here. The only thing we got going on here is two crazies hanging around the park that I want you to give a good talking to. Go kick them out of there so our kids can go play outside.”

“They can play in the backyard,” he offered.

“Tom. If you were here each day with these little darlings since the Screaming like I have been, you would know that they are wild animals and need space to roam. You cannot keep children bottled up on a beautiful day like this. They will tear the house apart. I am speaking from experience.”

Anne suppressed a smile, enjoying their game. She knew he would obey her. He always did. The truth was he loved her more than anything and after a good deal of token hemming and hawing he always did as she said. Anne was the type of person who mouthed off to strangers about their driving, their parking, how they treated their kids in public. She had actually gotten her husband into a fistfight once over her editorializing about a man taking two parking spaces at the supermarket with his oversized truck. Big Tom had apologized after knocking him to the ground.

“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying,” her husband said with a massive frown.