Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

“Nayima,” Karen said, memorizing her name, her eyes back on the notebook. “I’ll get it.”

With nothing left to argue about, Nayima was forced to remember the truth of Karen’s warning: the marshals would come. She’d driven back southwest to Malibu for the same reasons as everyone else—food, warmth, beauty. Making salt water potable wasn’t easy, but it was better than no water at all in the drought regions. She’d hoped she could stop running. She’d hoped maybe this apartment wouldn’t just be her latest stop, her best stop, but her last one.

And there were others—not many, but a few. They lived scattered among the beach houses and hillsides, but she had spotted at least ten other people at the pier or on the beach in the three weeks she’d been in Malibu, not counting Karen. She’d chronicled them all in the last page of her notebook, describing her neighbors: a father and two daughters about ten and twelve (she called him Mister Mom, his daughters Flopsy and Mopsy); The Old Man in the Sea who took his rowboat out to fish every day; three rough-looking guys who might be brothers (The Three Stooges) and the Brat Pack, one pimple-faced teenaged boy and two girls, maybe sixteen, who mostly stayed out of sight. There might be more, but on the beach sometimes even with binoculars she couldn’t tell if she had seen someone before or if they were new. Like Karen.

The father and daughters moved furtively across the sand in gas masks, always wearing bright blue gloves. They never got close to anyone, so they had survived. Nayima assumed they were not vaccinated—and no way the father and both daughters were immune, if they were related; in any family, maybe one would be immune—or one on any street, in any neighborhood. Maybe one or two in each town. A father and two daughters in one family must not have the virus yet.

Good for them. If their blood stayed clean, they might qualify to go to Sacramento. The city had declared itself a separate republic and had electricity, water, crops, livestock. Mr. Mom and his kiddos might rejoice if marshals came.

But not Nayima. Not Karen. Not the immune—though they could not be infected, they were carriers, and rumors said carriers who weren’t shot ended up in lab cages. Fuck that. If scientists didn’t have enough blood from carriers for the vaccines already, one or two more wouldn’t help.

Karen was right about the beach apartment they were in: it was in plain sight on the Pacific Coast Highway, so any vehicle driving by might see them without even trying.

Nayima’s breath hitched in her throat as her chest tightened, and she could exhale only when the waves crashed beneath her and seemed to knock the blockage free.

The back of her neck tingled. New anxieties, no matter how big or small, crumbled the wall she’d erected around her memories. The strongest memory charged through: Gram’s bloodied pillow case. A cop had shot Gram to force Nayima to evacuate, knowing she would not leave Gram behind. Nayima could still smell the gunpowder and the blood from his treacherous act of mercy.

Karen closed the notebook and said, “These are good.”

Nayima wiped her tears, turning her face away. She did not let herself cry often, or she’d never stop. She wasn’t ready to share tears with Karen. “What?”

“These jokes. Not all of them, definitely—but some of them are good.”

To prove it, Karen smiled. The sea crashed like cymbals to mark the occasion. Nayima had never see Karen smile. Gram’s blood-soaked pillowcase washed away with the tide.

“Really?” Karen’s smile sparked across Nayima’s lips too.

Karen read from Nayima’s notes in a deadpan: “‘I always wanted to move to Malibu, but I had to wait for the prices to drop.’”

“It’s the delivery,” Nayima said. “When you say it like that—”

“I’m not a comedian, but I’m just saying, I think it could be funny. To some people.”

Some people . That phrase sounded strange, dual plurals in the land of the singular. Nayima noticed faint freckles on Karen’s lips and traced them with her fingertip.

“Like… if I did a comedy show?” Nayima said, teasing her.

Karen’s lips moved closer. “You can do your show for me.”

Except for Nayima’s kiss from Darryn Stephens, who had surprised her with a declaration of his affection at a house party when she’d been Brandon Paul’s date, kissing mostly had felt like an obligatory activity before sex. But kissing Karen was a discovery each time, an exploration. Nayima could kiss Karen for an hour and lose track of time.

They opened the glass sliding door, and the sound of the ocean became a gale. They waded through the sound to the deck’s corner bed, which was covered in a thin blanket damp from saltwater spray. The bathrobe fell away. Nayima tasted the salt on Karen’s lips, on her neck, on her shoulders.

They were naked in the moonlight, sharp contrasts wherever their skin touched. When Nayima sang out her pleasure, the ocean answered her. Afterward, they lay together, hugging in the chilly breeze. Nayima thought of how warm it must be inland, where she and Gram had lived. She thought of the ghost cities west of them.

“That day on the beach?” Karen said.

They spent all their days on the beach, but only one day mattered. Nayima grinned.

Karen’s short-lived smile was gone. Her voice fell to a whisper, a tear creeping from the corner of her eye. “I didn’t know… I was immune.”

A cold ball knotted in Nayima’s stomach, but she kept her voice playful. “I was a test?” she said. “Cool. I don’t mind being your guinea pig.”

“No, not that,” Karen said. “I said to myself, I’m gonna get it from someone, so it might as well be her—the most beautiful woman left in the world.”

Only Gram had called her beautiful. She imagined Gram’s face—alive, bloodless.

“You could have killed me,” Nayima said. “You didn’t know anything about me.”

“I swear… I had no idea about me. I expected…”

“A kiss of death?”

“I thought so,” Karen said. In her voice, Nayima heard I hoped so .

Because it was too terrible, she didn’t tell Karen the irony: she had killed a man by kissing him. A year and three months ago, she’d met a man on State Road 46 outside of Lost Hills, only briefly. She’d fooled herself into imagining a future together. She hadn’t come across a survivor in so long that she’d been eager to latch onto him. And she was sure he was immune, like her.

But no. Only six hours later, he was already sick. Throwing up. Because of her.

Kyle. His name had been Kyle. Nayima didn’t think of him often, but she owed him remembering his name. She had leaned over him in the dark, giggling with mischief after he’d asked her, so politely, to stay away. She had kissed him—killed him—in his sleep.

Was Kyle the one standing between her and Karen? Who made her itch to flee? Karen and all of Malibu felt like nothing but a mirage.

The surf’s mighty hiss buried the rest of their unspoken words.

By morning, Nayima was using her neatest handwriting to write out her flyer, page after page of repetitive motion, all caps for clarity. Her sweaty hands were sticky inside her gloves, but she didn’t want the paper to spread the flu. Whatever she touched might turn to dust.

It was Wednesday, so people had two days to hear about the show. Maybe their seaside hamlet would be stable for two more days. Sleeping beside Karen, hearing her breathing between the swells, she’d had a premonition: they should grab their backpacks and leave Malibu. Too many people were coming, and the word would spread. Mister Mom might already have sent out an alarm. Then they would be invaded by marshals looking for carriers to punish for the end of the world.