Jacqueline Druga - Immune

“Yeah, well, he didn’t want Stanton to go because Stanton did everything. You know it and I know it. He knows something, Bubby. I worked at the bank for years, I know when people are hiding things and are on the edge.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

He found Eugene and, under the guise of wanting to show him something, he took him to the east wing roof.

“Here.” Myron extended the vodka bottle to him.

“Oh, I’m not a drinker.”

“Have some. You’re kind of frazzled and it’ll help. Think of it as liquid Xanax.”

Eugene chuckled and took a sip. He wiped his mouth and stared out. “Holy shit.”

“Best vantage point would be the gym, but we can see things coming from here.”

“They’re relentless,” Eugene said and took another sip. “Thanks for all your help today.”

“Not a problem. Where were you headed?”

“Actually… here. We didn’t intend to stay, though. We stopped by to see if you had any information. Like will this last? Are there any safe areas?”

“Answers we don’t have,” Myron said. “Paul mans the radio and I am sure as soon as he hears of a safe area, we’ll be packing up. This is a great shelter, but if we get completely surrounded, even for us Immune, it can be a coffin.”

“The only safe place is one with few infected.”

“Small town maybe,” Myron shrugged. “If there were an end to this madness, we could hunker somewhere safe and high. Wait to see if these things will die off. But we don’t know.”

“I can’t see how they’ll last forever. They’re only people. Dead or alive, right?”

“Right.”

“Max wants to leave,” Eugene said. “He has a car packed, that’s where he was. He wants to take Grace and Candice and go. Back roads south of the city aren’t as bad as these. Shoot for the south, stay in houses at night. Only houses with an attached garage. Park in there, leave from there.”

“With him being immune, he can clean out a house.”

“Him and Grace.”

Myron whistled. “So you’re not thinking immediate, you’re thinking long term?”

“Yeah. I mean we just met Grace. She rescued us actually. She’s a good woman. I have no doubt she can’t make it on her own. She feels better having us around, I think.”

“For sure,” Myron said. “I want what’s best for my grandmother. She’s all I have in this world. Maybe… maybe, you know, we can come with you guys. I’m immune so I can be a help.”

“Absolutely, I’ll talk to Max and we’ll—”

“Unbelievable.” The voice carried to them across the roof.

Myron looked over his shoulder. It was Paul. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Is that why you’re up here? To plot and plan?”

Myron laughed at the ridiculous notion and didn’t even understand what Paul meant. “Plot and plan what?”

“To leave.”

Eugene cleared his throat. “Paul, it’s not like that and even if it was, why sneak? Myron’s not a prisoner here.”

“He made a commitment. When he arrived he committed to helping. Stanton is gone, I need you here. You can’t go. My god, Myron, you would still be in that apartment if I hadn’t opened this place. All of you would have nowhere to go, yet no one wants to help keep this place going. Unbelievable. This is the gratitude—”

“Dude, honestly, chill.” Myron held up his hand. “Way out of control.”

“Aren’t we all planning on leaving anyhow?” Eugene asked. “I mean, this is a temporary shelter. Eventually, people will have to find safe permanent shelter. Myron devised a way out. If we can move them—”

“You aren’t moving them anywhere. You and your little crew are self-focused and you know it. Myron isn’t. Besides, you won’t outrun them. Good luck out there, but I will advise against moving forty people to their deaths, because that’s what it is. There is nowhere to go.”

As abruptly as he entered, Paul left. Had he followed them to the roof? His behavior was odd but to Myron, not unexpected’ he was under a lot of stress.

“Wow,” Eugene said. “Sorry I got you in trouble.”

“In trouble? He’s not my dad. Although, he could be, I don’t remember him. That would be weird, wouldn’t it? If he were my long lost dad.”

Eugene laughed, took one more sip of the vodka and handed the bottle back to Myron. “Let's go thank your grandmother for this.”

“She has a spare. And for the record, I said I’d help here, but I am focused on my grandmother. She is first.”

“I understand.”

“If you go, we go.”

Eugene led the way to the roof ladder that would lead them to the staircase. At the bottom, Myron started mixing his Grandmother’s words with his encounter with Paul, and it worried him.

He saw the main office door was open and the principal’s office door slightly ajar. “Go on ahead,” Myron said. “I’m gonna go talk to Paul.”

“Yeah, guy is really on edge.”

“I know. Be right there.” Myron stepped into the main office. Oddly it was empty, usually one soldier stayed in there. “Paul?” he called out.

No answer.

He knocked on the principal’s door, Paul’s hideaway and radio room. “Paul?” When he received no answer, he pushed the door enough to peek his head in. Paul wasn’t in there. He inched back and he heard it. A nearly inaudible static, and then Tara’s voice.

“Paul, come in. Paul. Answer me. I’m worried about you guys. Answer. Over.”

It was no wonder she sounded frantic, she probably was calling out and with the volume so low, Paul didn’t hear. Just to ease her mind, even though it was Paul’s thing, Myron stepped into the office.

“Hey, this is Myron. Over.”

“Thank God. I was worried. I’ve been calling out for hours. I thought something happened.”

“No. We’re fine. Maybe he lost connection and he has the volume so low, he didn’t hear you. Want me to get him?”

“That won’t be necessary. I wanted to make sure you guys were intact. Please tell him to get back to me. We are planning our route. I know he was down about it. Since it’s been a few hours, he may want to hear what route we came up with.”

“Route?” Myron asked.

“To the safe zone.”

The safe zone? A few minutes earlier Paul was saying there was no place to go and mentioned nothing about a safe zone. Myron hoped it was an oversight, that Paul just had too much stress and too much on his mind. Myron decided before he brought it up to Paul, he’d wait to see if he mentioned it. In case he didn’t, Myron got all the information he could from Tara.

The room was large with an echo effect. There weren’t enough people to muffle the acoustics. As nightfall set in, every little noise seemed amplified. A turn of a page, a cough.

The forty or so shelter residents made the best of the space, creating little personal camp areas, their belongings perched next to their sleeping bag or blanket. The full moon cast a good bit of light into the gymnasium that, along with the small lanterns used by those not sleeping, kept the area from being a sea of blackness.

A few people were still awake, Grace was one of them. She’d opted not to sleep on the floor. Instead, she and Candice were using the bleachers. Eugene slept on the floor not far from them. Others were awake, reading or doing puzzles.

It had to be near two a.m. Grace wasn’t tired. Her mind was in nonstop mode and she was thinking of Macy, drowning in guilt. Macy was ill but Grace had just left her. Left her four year old child in the basement of a stranger’s home. No matter what Macy had become, she was still Grace’s child. And her husband, the guilt over that pummeled her as well.