Todd (17 page)

He watches for the moss as they
go, but he doesn't see it in their
cul-de-sac.
Then again, if it were
growing under the sea of waving grass that used to be their front yard, he's
not sure he'd notice it. What he does notice is a nip in the air: the first
taste of fall.

"Do you know what month it
is?" he asks.

Todd shakes his head. "I
stopped keeping track." He gives another hug. Alan can feel the fear in
his grip.
One of these times,
it says,
you'll be gone again when I
hug you.
Todd doesn't trust this new, comforting Dad. Why should he?

Alan squeezes his hand, answering
the fear with a message of his own:
I'm here.
"It's getting
cold," he says. "Must be September, or October even."

Todd's jaw drops. "We missed
your birthday!"

Alan summons a weak smile.
"Yeah, probably. It's okay."

Todd doesn't get this. "You
can't just
skip
a
birthday!
"

"It's all right, Todd. It's
not a big deal."

"I'm going to get you a
present."

Alan opens his mouth to shut him
down, then stops. When he looks at his son from outside, he sees a trapped
child. He sees delusion and naiveté and the teenager he'll be in five years,
who will realize how hopeless the world is.

But Todd sees none of this. For
him, there is meaning everywhere: in his markers, in his notebooks, in the
defunct idea of a birthday celebration. All he sees are possibilities.

It's an unstoppable force.
Eventually, it will burn out on its own, but it's no use fighting it today.
"All right."

They reach the neighbor's driveway
and start toward the door.

"Are we still gonna go trick
or treating?" Todd asks.

Alan's annoyance slips past before
he can stop it. "Todd," he snaps. "There's no
people
."

He flinches, and Alan instantly
regrets his tone—but for fuck's sake, there are limits to how much denial he
can handle.

"I know," the boy says,
abashed. His hand tightens on Alan's:
I'm sorry. Don't throw me away.
"But
I just thought we could maybe dress up still or maybe go get some candy or
something like that." He won't meet his dad's eyes. "Or Christmas?
Are we still going to do Christmas?"

Alan takes a deep breath. These
questions are poking the bear. "I don't know, okay? Let's take one thing
at a time." Hell, they might not even be alive by then.

This thought sobers him. If it's
really October, it could start snowing any time. His mind paints everything
white: the street filling with snow, the grass drowning beneath it, the houses
fading into vague, white lumps.

How will they keep warm? They have
a gas fireplace, but the gas line went dead months ago. If they take off the
glass, maybe they can use the flue for burning wood, but is that safe? Will the
generator run out in the cold? Could they use a space heater, or would it
overload the generator?

Winter is coming at him like a
freight train, and he's bewildered, stuck staring at the oncoming light.

Don't pretend you know what to
do,
the scholar says.
That'll get you killed. You need to drive south.
Go as far as you can. If you leave now, you should still have time.

But there's no guarantee the
streets are passable: the highways, for certain, will not be. What if they get
trapped in a snowstorm on the road? It'll bury them.

The couch is calling now. Oh, is
it calling.
Shut down,
it whispers.
Close your eyes. Wait. You can't
do this.

Todd opens the neighbor's door,
then draws up short. "What is
that?
"

The foyer wall is covered in blue
moss.

62

Alan snatches his reaching hand.
"Don't touch it."

"What
is
it?"

"It's just moss."
Yesterday, this wall was empty. Today, it's almost completely covered. He
wonders about spores and air quality in the contained space; imagines some
alien organism floating into their lungs as they speak. "Come on. Let's
use the next house."

Todd wants to argue—Alan can see
it in his eyes—but he's still too grateful to have his dad back. As Alan closes
the door, he thinks:
If it can appear overnight in this house, it can appear
overnight in ours.

"That was weird."

"Yeah. I saw—" Alan
hesitates, then plows ahead. "I saw a ton of it at Crown, last time I
went. All along the wall, in the sidewalk cracks, hanging off the carts... I
don't know what it is."

"Do you think the Blurs made
it?"

Alan looks at him. "Why do
you say that?"

"It looks just like them. And
I've never seen anything like that before."

He's had the same thought, of
course, but the truth is it could be anything. Just because it's
blue
doesn't
mean—

"Is it dangerous?"

"I don't know."

"Then why did you grab my
hand?"

"Because, better safe than
sorry."

They're at the next house. The
front door is locked, so Alan breaks out a window and carefully clears out the
glass.

"Wait here. I'll climb in and
open the front door."
And check for moss.

Todd grabs his hand. "I want
to go with you!"

"I don't want you cutting
yourself on the glass, Todd. Go wait at the front, I'll be right there."

"I won't cut myself! I'll be
extra careful!"

"Todd." Alan takes his
shoulders. "It'll be okay. I promise."

When the boy finally turns away,
Alan climbs through the window frame and opens the curtains behind him, letting
some light into the living room. There's no moss there, but he keeps his eyes
peeled as he circles to the front door.

All clear.

Today.

63

Brenda—

I
know it's stupid to write you. I know you can't read it. Maybe it's a sign that
I'm losing my mind, writing notes to my dead wife. But I have to talk to
someone or go crazy, so I guess I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

I
had another episode. A bad one. I'll tell you about it later, but basically, it
freaked Todd out bad. He's really clingy now, following me everywhere. I'm
trying to reassure him, but I suck at it. It's never been easy for me. You
know. I do love him, you know that, but it's just really hard. He deserves to
have you here. I feel terrible for him.

I
miss you too. I need you really bad right now.

I
checked our freezer today and Todd was right—the food has turned. The moss is
in there. I don't know how it got in there, but it's on our food. I don't know
if it will hurt us to eat it. I wish there was a way to test, like an animal or
something we could feed it to. I suppose if there was an animal, we could just
eat that. We still have a bunch of canned vegetables and stuff, Spam, and I
haven't found any moss in that yet. Hopefully it can't get in there. I was
hoping the winter would kill the stuff that's grown so far around here, but if
it grew in the freezer, I suppose it won't.

I'm
thinking about leaving before winter comes. It seems stupid to risk staying
when I know for sure there are warmer places to go. I don't know what to do.
Traveling won't be easy and I think Todd takes some comfort from being in our
house. But I won't lie. It is gross here. When the wind is right you can smell
all the shit from the other houses. And we have no running water, no nothing
here. If it wasn't the wrong direction I'd take Todd up to your mom's cabin. At
least they have well water and a propane tank. But I don't think going north is
a good idea.

We
are going to the library tomorrow. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it
earlier. But I want some survival books before I make my final decision about
what to do. Looks like you were right about relying on the internet too much :)

I
miss you. If you come to me tonight, please hold me.

64

"We're
leaving?
"

Alan is throwing supplies into a
suitcase: clothes, food, batteries. Todd watches, disbelieving.

"We can't stay. It's getting
too cold. I told you." This morning dawned brisk; Alan's breath plumes as
he talks, even in the house. He's put this off too long.

"I thought you said we were
gonna tough it out."

"I said we
might.
If I
could find some good books." Yesterday's trip to the library did uncover a
few useful titles on winter survival, but all they did was drive home the
dangers while convincing Alan he wasn't up to handling them.

"I thought you did find some
books."

"Yeah." He considers a
ratty pair of socks, then tosses them aside. "They weren't good enough.
Listen." He stops, takes a breath. "You need to get packed, too. Go
down and pretend you're going to Grandma's, but instead of just for the
weekend, it's for a whole month. All right? Pack lots of clothes.
All
your clothes."

"But why? Just 'cause of
winter?"

"Yes, Todd, because of
winter."

"We've had winter tons of
times! We never had to
move.
"

Alan opens his mouth to retort,
but bites it back. "When it snows, Todd, what normally happens?"

Todd thinks. "They close
school?"

That pulls a reluctant chuckle out
of Alan.
Ever the optimist.
"No, actually, they usually don't.
Usually
didn't.
Because the snow was no big deal. We had snowplows that
would come through and push it all away so we could drive on the roads, but if
that didn't happen, if the snow just piled up all winter..." A visual
comes to him. "You know the 'snow mountains' that you and Allie climb? On
the side of the driveway?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think we could drive
our car through that?"

"No way."

"Okay, so now imagine that
everywhere, on all the streets and all the driveways. That's what happens
without the snowplows. And there are no snowplows now, because there are no
people."

Todd shrugs. "So we stay
home."

"Sure. Okay. And eat what? We
can't get to the grocery store. The food we have here is already growing
moss."

"We go to the grocery store
and get more."

"And if moss grows on
that?"

His brows furrow.

"We're trapped here. If we
run out of food, if the snow grows up over the house, if the generator
dies—we're trapped. And on top of that, we'll need the generator for heat. We
can't burn wood in the house—it'll suffocate us. If we run out of gas, we can't
get more. It's too dangerous to stay here." Talking through it burns away
the lingering doubts. Alan turn back to the suitcase. "We can't."

"But what if it doesn't snow?
Last year it barely even snowed."

Alan throws in a calendar, then a
tube of toothpaste. His last clean t-shirt from the dresser. "Then we'll
get lucky. But I'm not trusting our lives to climate change."

"But this is our
home
!
We've always lived here!"

"I know, Todd, but we can't
stay." Underwear. Socks.

"But what if Mommy and Allie
come back?"

That trips him up. Todd flinches
away from his sudden glare. "They're gone, Todd."

"I know, but what if they
somehow—"

"We had a funeral.
Remember?"

"I know, but
what if?
"

He closes his eyes, trying to
catch his temper. He doesn't want to yell again.

"Todd, this is my decision,
and I've made it. Now go pack."

65

On his last trip back in, just before
they leave, Alan sees a note on the kitchen counter.

Dear Mommy and Allie,

We went South. Come find us.

Love, Todd

A surge of irritation almost makes
him tear it up; a simultaneous feeling of pity for his son stays his hand. He grabs
what he came in for—Brenda's cell phone, charged last night on a whim—and heads
back outside.

They've got an Expedition, freshly
stolen from a neighbor down the road, loaded to the gills. It was even big
enough to hold the generator. Alan feels like he's piloting a tank as he rolls
it down the driveway. It's a gas guzzler, but they've got the siphon and a
bunch of extra gas cans, and they really need the cargo space. There is no home
base, now. They've only got what they bring with them.

Todd cranes his head backward as
they drive away. Alan steals a glance in the rearview just in time to see a
lifetime of dreams—the house, the family,
THE
GAME
—vanish.

66

Highway 35 shoots south all the
way to Texas,
but based on what he saw on 610, he expects it to be a disaster in the metro
area. There are usually barriers on both sides of the highway there, and
constant congestion. The crashed cars would have just piled up, making the
route impassable.

South of the cities, though,
traffic was normally thinner and there were no walls on the highway. His plan
is to get clear of the metro, making their way south however they can, and meet
up with 35 where it will hopefully be more passable. Side roads are strictly
plan B: they need to make the best time they can, and 35 will have the fewest
turns.

They haven't gone south since that
first day, when they had to get out of the car and walk past 115th to Grandma's
house. The fires have long since gone out, but 115th is still a tangled mess of
plastic and steel. It diverts them east for nearly half a mile before Alan
finds a spot clear enough to cut the Expedition through. From there, they're
able to wend south through the city, meandering with the roads.

Todd's face is glued to his window
as they drive. The house has kept them insulated for the past few months, but
now the nightmare's onslaught is constant: miles of empty cars, empty houses,
empty shoes. A pair of grocery carts have inexplicably wandered across the
street and are now tangled like lovers outside an abandoned apartment building;
a mass of fluttering clothes is piled like a snowdrift against the post
office's back wall. Alan tries to avert his eyes, but the sights are impossible
to avoid.
What are we doing here?
he wonders again.
How were we
spared?
Then, as they pick their way south on