Will McIntosh - Soft Apocalypse

“It’s probably not a nice thing to say, but she’s probably better off with the virus, though,” Ange said. “Not that I’m condoning what he did.”

I smiled, kicked my toe against the steel porch rail. Maybe she did, but I still felt a sick dread at the thought of what she was going through in there. It must be terrifying, thinking of that virus racing around in your brain changing the chemistry, changing your personality, the way you think about things.

There was no way we could travel with Deirdre in the state she was in, so we waited. Sebastian kept his distance, lounging on the porch two houses down, his feet propped on the rail, humming, sometimes bursting out laughing for no apparent reason.

I spent some time in my room, some exploring surrounding houses looking for salvage. After five or six hours, the living room had finally grown quiet, so I ventured in to see how Deirdre was doing.

Cortez was still with her; they were sitting on the hardwood floor, a couple of glasses of water beside them. Deirdre was staring at the floor, her eyes wide. Cortez nodded a greeting as I took a seat on the couch.

“How is she?” I asked.

Deirdre looked over at me. “Why are you asking him?” I felt a chill as I looked at her face—her new face. It was nothing like the old one. The belligerent eyes and the withering, sarcastic twist of her mouth had vanished. Instead she was a mix of wide-eyed amusement… and something else. It ran like a ripple just under her skin.

She threw her head back and laughed as if I’d just said something absolutely hilarious. She laughed and laughed, finally subsiding into keening gasps and the occasional giggle.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

Deirdre considered the question, running a hand through her hair. “I feel… just peachy. Like the cherry on top of the sundae. Like the apple of every boy’s eye.” Shepatted Cortez’s calf. “Thanks for being my designated driver.” She stood, twisted at the waist to the right, then the left, like a runner getting loose.

“I think I’ll take a walk,” she said. We watched her saunter out the door.

Cortez and I looked at each other. “Wow,” I said. “She didn’t say ‘fuck’ once.”

“I know. Eerie.”

I followed her out, wondering how one takes a walk when the world is clogged with bamboo. From the vantage point of the empty front stoop I scanned the block. The bamboo was thrashing halfway across the street. The disturbance continued in a crooked line. A giggle drifted on the breeze, just loud enough for me to hear.

It was hard to grasp the notion of a happy, carefree Deirdre. There would be nothing recognizable left of her.

Across the street I spotted her rising out of the bamboo, climbing the ladder on the water tower. She was moving fast, a huge smile frozen on her face, her little legs stretching to reach the rungs.

Cortez joined me on the stoop.

“Where the hell is she going?” I said, pointing.

Cortez spotted her and grunted surprise. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s gonna climb to the top and sing songs about lollipops.”

I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Deirdre! You won’t be able to get down.” I know she heard me, because she paused for a second, but she kept climbing. More tribe members came out, alerted by my shout.

“What is she doing?” Jeannie asked.

“I have no idea,” I said. “She said she was going for a walk. I didn’t understand the old Deirdre, let alone this new one.”

“Deirdre!” I called. “Please come on down.” She was up high now, thirty or forty feet. The top was at least fifty. It made me dizzy just seeing her up that high.

“Deirdre,” Ange shouted, “it’s too high! Come down!” She put her hand over her mouth.

Deirdre reached the top, a narrow catwalk that skirted the bottom of the tank. She reached up, pulled herself onto the catwalk and turned to face out. She was still laughing, her chest and shoulders heaving with the violence of it. At least I thought she was laughing; from this distance laughing and crying would look about the same.

She lifted her leg and swung it over the railing.

“No!” everyone screamed in unison. Everyone but me. My lungs were frozen; my heart had stopped. Deirdre swung her other leg over so that she was sitting on the narrow rail.

She pushed off into empty space.

She looked like a little doll, a doll a naughty little girl had hurled over a railing. Her clothes flapped in the wind as she fell.

I was the first to reach her. She’d landed in a dry drainage canal, on a bank covered with stones. I pulled her head into my arms and held it. The others broke through the bamboo in ones and twos, and cried, or cursed, or asked Deirdre’s lifeless body why.

Sebastian came last, his arm bandaged with white socks.

“Pack up your stuff and get out,” I said.

“She just needed to give it time,” Sebastian said.

“Go,” I screamed.

Sebastian shrugged, turned away. “I’m so sorry,” he said as he disappeared into the bamboo.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Ange. I put my hand over hers and squeezed. Another hand clapped my other shoulder. Cortez.

“Everyone?” It was Colin, shouting from the house. “I think the baby’s coming.”

“Go on,” Cortez said. “I’ll take care of Deirdre.” He gave my shoulder a hard squeeze, then nudged me toward the house.

I pulled myself up, my legs wobbly, and headed toward our temporary home.

Jeannie was on the couch in the living room with Colin kneeling beside her, holding her hand. Colin looked up. “Can you help me?”

I wanted to argue that I didn’t know anything about delivering a baby, but I could see in his expression that he wasn’t asking because he thought I’d be any better at it than anyone else. He just wanted me by his side.

I knelt beside the couch.

Ange grabbed Colin’s wrist, pulled him up, and repositioned him at Jeannie’s head. “Your job is to be up here with your wife. We’ll worry about this end.”

Ange looked at me. “Ready?”

“What do we do?” I asked. I was so disoriented; I needed time to deal with what had just happened.

Ange shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”

I turned. Sophia was kneeling behind us, her cheeks stained with tears. “Can you and Jean Paul build a fire and boil water?”

“Have you ever done this before?” Jean Paul asked.

“I’ll do it,” Cortez said, glaring at Jean Paul. I hadn’t seen Cortez return.

“Try to find some clean towels, too,” Ange suggested. “If there aren’t any, clean clothes.”

I think we were just lucky. The baby’s head was pointing straight down, and we didn’t have to do much except catch him when he came out.

Colin and Jeannie had a son. I both envied and pitied them. What would it be like, to be sick with worry every minute that something awful is going to happen to your child?

Ange rocked gently, one foot planted on the wood porch, the other tucked underneath her on the swing. We could see much of downtown Swainsboro from this vantage point—a dress shop, antique store, pawn shops huddled together in a row of red-brick buildings made this place feel deceptively small and old-fashioned.

There were people foraging in the music store across the street, their voices and the clatter of things drifting out of the broken store window. I considered going over and seeing if they had any news that we didn’t, but it wasn’t worth it. They wouldn’t know anything we didn’t.

People had been fleeing the country for the safety of the cities in droves for the past few years; now the cities weren’t safe either. But there was nothing out here to eat. There was nowhere to go.