Matt de la Peña - The Living

“Been watching that man watch you since back on the ship,” Shoeshine said. “I could sense something wasn’t right.” He turned to face Shy for the first time. “Felt the same way about this whole island, soon as we landed here. It ain’t done with yet, young fella.”

Shy nodded. He wasn’t sure what Shoeshine was talking about, but he knew he agreed. The man hadn’t been wrong yet. Shy stood up and moved closer to Bill’s limp body, studied the bloody bullet wound in his back.

Shoeshine pulled a clear spray bottle out of the green backpack and held it up to the sun, which was much lower in the sky. The bottle was filled with a yellow liquid. Shoeshine sprayed a little onto the back of his hand and smelled it. Then he tasted it and spit.

“What is it?” Shy asked.

Shoeshine shook his head and looked back toward the island.

“What is it, Shoe?”

Shoeshine turned suddenly and tossed Shy the duffel bag. “Make sure everything in there stays safe,” he said. “It’s very important, you hear? There’s something else I gotta see about.” He started hurrying down the hill.

“Where you going?” Shy called after him.

Shoeshine didn’t answer.

“Everyone in the penthouse is sick!” Shy shouted. “They have the disease, too!”

“Stay off that ship!” the man shouted over his shoulder. “Long as you can! You hear me?” Then he ducked around a corner, out of sight.

Shy started down the hill a few minutes later, obsessively running through everything he’d just learned from Bill and replaying the sound of the shot he thought had ended his life. When he heard two people talking in the distance he stopped cold and ducked out of sight. It was two of the researchers coming down from the other path, toward the Y.

Once they passed, he looked around, trying to figure out what to do with the duffel bag. He didn’t want to take any chances, since it was the one job Shoeshine had trusted him with. To be safe, he climbed partway up a tree and stashed the bag in the elbow of a high branch that was covered by a dense layer of leaves. He’d come back for it, he decided, just before he lined up to get on the ship.

Shy hurried down the rest of the path, past the gazebo and into the hotel lobby. A few passengers were leaving just as he got there. “Where you going?” Shy asked.

“A bunch of us are heading down early,” one of the women said. “We’re just so excited.”

“Come down when you can,” the guy next to her said. He held up a deck of cards. “Might play a little poker to pass the time.”

“I’ll be down there soon,” Shy told them, trying to maintain his smile. He didn’t understand why Shoeshine wanted him to stall getting on the ship. Everyone else was going early. And it wasn’t like Shy was gonna let the thing leave without Shoeshine. He owed the guy his life.

Shy watched the group leave, then started down the hall toward Addie’s room. He needed to ask her some serious questions about her dad, who was still alive.

He knocked and waited.

No answer.

“Addie!” he shouted. “Open the door, I need to talk to you!”

When there was no response again, he looked up and down the halls to make sure no one was around. Then he kicked at the door, hard as he could. It barely budged. He backed up and kicked again, right next to the doorknob. On the third try the door swung open and he went inside.

The room was empty.

The bed was made up perfectly, like nobody had ever been in it. Where was she? Down on the beach already? Shy sat on the couch in the corner to try and think. He was mad as hell. And he was scared. Addie’s family had killed his own. It made him hate her. But he’d looked into her eyes on the lifeboat. She wasn’t like her dad. Or maybe he’d read her wrong the whole time.

And then he remembered the helicopter leaving the island. He punched the wall. What if Addie had been on it with her dad? But that didn’t make sense either. She didn’t even know he was still alive.

Shy left Addie’s room and hurried down the hall. Another group of passengers was cutting through the lobby toward the exit. “We figured we might as well go line up now,” the woman in the Raiders jersey said.

One of the men looked at his watch. “Only about twenty-five minutes before we’re supposed to be down there. We’ll see you soon, I hope.”

Shy promised he’d hurry.

Carmen wasn’t in her room either, so Shy started looking for Marcus’s room. Since he didn’t know the room number, or even the floor, he wandered through every level, calling out their names.

“Carmen!”

“Marcus!”

Shy was almost at the end of the fourth floor when he heard a door open behind him. He turned around and saw Carmen standing there. She didn’t say anything, just waved him over.

He followed her inside the room, where he saw Marcus sitting at the end of the bed, working on the radio. Occasionally, there would be a burst of static, but nothing more.

Marcus looked up. “Shy,” he said, setting down the radio and hopping to his feet. They slapped each other’s hands and gave a quick dude hug. “I’m so happy you made it.”

“You too.”

“Tell Shy what you heard,” Carmen said, looking upset.

Marcus sat back down with his radio. “I got it coming in pretty clear for a couple minutes,” he said. “Just before Carm showed up.” Marcus glanced at Carmen and turned back to Shy. “I’m not positive, man, but it sounded like some British dude talking about America being in a state of emergency.”

Shy looked down at the radio. “What’s that even mean?”

Marcus shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Tell him the rest,” Carmen said.

“According to the man, they got people crowded in stadiums all over the West Coast. And because they were all so close together…” He paused and looked at Carmen again. “That disease spread through everyone.”

“Romero,” Carmen said, gripping Shy’s arm. “They all got it now, Shy. Everyone in there. And they’re not letting ’em leave the stadiums.”

“Jesus,” Shy said. It lined up exactly with what Bill had told him. What were they going back to?

Carmen reached out and banged the side of the radio. “Why won’t it come in clearer?”

“Don’t hit the thing,” Marcus said, holding the radio away from her. “You’re making it worse.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed, seething.

“At the meeting they tried to say things were okay,” Shy said. “I knew it didn’t sound right.”

“We were just talking about that,” Carmen said. “I guess they didn’t want us to worry about back home until after we got rescued.”

Marcus started playing with the tuner again. “Like I said, I’m not completely positive. It was sort of hard to make out.”

“You find the bag of medicine?” Carmen asked Shy. “I told Marcus all about the penthouse.”

“Sorry to hear about Rodney, man,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “He was a really good dude.”

Shy nodded. “Shoeshine gave me the duffel bag,” he said, looking back and forth between them. “But something else happened while I was out there.”

“What?” Carmen said.

“Come with me to get the bag,” Shy said. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

Carmen stood up. “But then we gotta hurry and get down to the beach. We can talk about all this shit deeper once we’re on that damn ship going home.”

Carmen covered her mouth after Shy finished telling her and Marcus everything Bill said about Romero Disease. “Do you believe this asshole?” she asked.

Shy shrugged. “Why would he make it up?”

“How can they even do that?” Marcus said. “Just invent a disease?”