The First Year Read online

  “Hannah Barton,” Mrs. Hamsworth called. The teacher was blonde, chubby, maybe Mom’s age. I raised my hand. The coven of girls on the other side of the room chittered. I knew their type. Taylor Page had led the McKinley Elementary chapter of their species back in Flint. Stuck-up snobs who were packaged together like they’d been sewn up that way, pointing and laughing at everything around them. That was disappointing. I’d hoped that seventh grade would’ve polished off some of that crud.

  Mrs. Hamsworth continued taking attendance. The three girls who were part of the huddle were named Angie Myers, Becca Wayne and Danielle Leonard. Not that I gave a shit.

  I spent most of the first morning of seventh grade with my books pressed tight against my chest. Books would protect me. The hallways were full of rambunctious boys and tightly-huddled girls. With my hand-me-down clothes and thrift store shoes, I felt like I’d shown up naked to Cinderella’s ball. I ate lunch alone in the corner of the cafeteria, a single piece of bologna on plain white bread, reading a library copy ofThe Hobbitwith a chunk of its cover missing. Gabe was at the elementary school around the corner from our house. We couldn’t afford deaf school, so the elementary school had to figure out how to accommodate him. Grace was across town at the high school. Not that she’d have been much company if wewere in the same school. Grace would’ve been leading the charge in making fun of me. As it stood, I made it a full two weeks flying under the radar.

  Angie and her coven caught up with me in the girls’ bathroom on the third floor right after lunch. I made it my mission not to poop at school. The whole idea was just distasteful. I employed the crouch-and-stoop method for peeing. Pooping, unfortunately, was a full contact sport.

  That day wasn’t my lucky day in every way. I knew I wasn’t going to make it until three o’clock, and definitely not the walk home. I chose the bathroom farthest away from the cafeteria. Whatever evil force that had made me need to use the bathroom in the first place left my body with an explosion. I flushed the toilet and shuffled my book bag across the grimy floor to the row of leaky sinks. I was washing my hands when the girls walked in.

  “Oh mygawd, is that what white trash shit smells like?” Angie Myers asked. The others laughed, that biting, cold laughter these particular kinds of girls were so good at creating. I shot them a hateful glare and turned off the tap. I pulled out a handful of rough brown paper towels and dried my hands.

  “What, don’t you speak English?” Becca Wayne asked. Her Invisalign braces gave her a slight lisp, turning ‘English’ into ‘Englith’.

  “Just leave me alone,” I told them. I tried to sound tough, but it came out like a nervous whisper. I could feel Grace cringing somewhere.

  “Baby gonna’ cry?” Danielle Leonard asked. She was the tallest of the girls, with long skinny legs and bigger boobs than Grace. I considered punching Danielle in her oversized bosom. Yeah, likethat was gonna’ happen.

  “Look, I don’t want any—” I tried to say but Becca Wayne was took quick. She kicked my legs out from under me. I landed face-down on the filthy bathroom floor.

  The girls’ laughter abruptly cut off as more girls came in. They were eighth graders, two black girls and a Latina. Angie’s group seemed to grow even more pale than they already were.

  “Bitch, what I tell you about comin’ in here?” the tallest black girl said. She wore a long leather jacket and tight patterned pants. I scrambled to my knees and grabbed my book bag.

  “The Big Lots Barbies bothering you?” the Latina girl asked. I shrugged. All I wanted to do was get out of there. Not just out of the bathroom, but all the way back to Flint. Detroit was a horrible place to be.

  “Thanks,” was all I could say. The Latina girl shook her head and laughed. She turned her attention back to her friends as I skidded out of the bathroom.

  I kept to myself for another week before the Barbies caught up with me. They surrounded me on my way to the bus at the end of the day. By then the first news stories had started to circulate about General Tsao’s comeback. Detroit had been spared the worst of the first wave and nobody gave much thought to the second wave. Aside from a few people with fall colds and run on Tamiflu, the city seemed to be ignoring it.

  Angie Myers and Becca Wayne cut me off at the bottom of the side staircase I used to sneak out of school. Danielle Leonard stood behind them. Danielle’s heart didn’t seem to be in it, not with the same zest as the others.

  “You look like something I’d scrape off my shoes,” Angie said. Her face was so close to me that I could smell her sour breath.

  “What’ve you got in your bag, crybaby?” Angie asked. She reached out to pull my bag off my shoulder. I pushed the girls away, but Angie outweighed me and tossed me down so hard on the concrete steps that I saw stars. Angie pulled my bag away from me and dumped its contents on the ground.

  “What the hell?” I screamed at her. Angie had a maniacal look in her big, blue eyes. If I could have, I would’ve beaten Angie to a pulp. Broken whatever I could in her face so her perfect cheekbones would never be perfect again. I had never really had a violent thought in my life. Not really, not even toward Grace. In fact, Grace described me as a wimp with a side of chicken.

  “Ang, c’mon, I don’t feel good,” Danielle whined. Her pale skin had taken on a decidedly green tint.

  “Shut it, Dani,” Angie replied. “I’ve got a bug to squash.”

  Danielle’s mouth opened and expelled a stream of sloshing, dark vomit. It sprayed into Angie’s blonde hair, sliding down her shoulders and over her big, blue eyes. Angie stood in place for a full ten seconds, unable to process what had just happened to her. I wanted to stay and watch this play out, see what dominoes fell, but I saw my opportunity and made a break for the door. As I ran I heard screams and shouts of revulsion and outrage. I left my bookbag behind as a casualty of war, but it was a sacrifice I could live with. Besides, I’ve already readThe Hobbit.

  That turned out to be the last day of school. The next day, the National Guard commandeered the gymnasiums to provide a place for the sick. It happened just like that. One day things were normal. The next, it was hell. I guess we should have known better, since we’d all just been through it a few months earlier. But that’s how people were. Never learned, even if they’d seen it with their own eyes.

  “I can’t stay here,” Grace cried. “Darren Mackelroi was gonna’ ask me out tomorrow!”

  “It’s not my decision,” Mom replied. She was trying hard to maintain her calm, but I was familiar with the ebb and flow of their arguments. Mom never lasted long against Grace’s spiraling hysteria. Something in Mom’s expression told me it would be even less than usual. I decided I didn’t need to see this episode ofThe Grace Show. I slipped out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Gabe was sitting on his bed. He was in one of his trances. He did that sometimes. Grace called it one of his “freaky deaf things”, but I wasn’t so sure. Gabe could be one of the most rambunctious humans on the planet when he wanted to be. When he didn’t, he became almost ancient in his seriousness. I stepped into his room, careful to ensure that he could see me if he chose to. Old habit. I’d once unintentionally snuck up on him and his stupid flailing arms gave me a black eye. He’d gotten a lot better at sensing footsteps.

  “Hi,” Gabe signed. He still held the same distant look but he was more coherent inside that expression than normal.

  “Whatcha’ doin’?” I signed. Gabe shrugged. I sat down beside him on his lumpy bed.

  “They closed school,” Gabe signed.

  “I know.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You know why,” I replied.

  “The sickness,” Gabe said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it gonna’ be the same as before?” Gabe asked. “Dead people?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I hope not.”

  From the kitchen downstairs I could hear the war beginning to heat up. Grace’s voice had become higher pitched than normal. That drove Mo
m nuts.

  “What are they fighting about?” Gabe asked.

  “Same shit, different day,” I said, and winked. Gabe loved it when I swore at him in sign language. I got up to close the door but Gabe grabbed my arm.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Listen,” he said. It took me a few moments but eventually I heard the vibrations that Gabe had felt. Helicopters. Big ones. And low.

  “Come on,” Gabe said, pulling me down the stairs. Grace and Mom’s screaming match had become thermonuclear. By then I wasn’t paying attention. Gabe and I ran past Grace and Mom and out the front door.

  It was that weird time of day between sunset and full darkness, when the dark blue of night was still fighting with the day. The streetlights in our neighborhood didn’t work. The nearest light was a dull glow that settled beyond the distant rooftops. I followed Gabe out into the street, scanning the twilight sky for the source of the sound. It was frustrating. By now I could feel the vibration of the heavy rotors down to my toes.

  I saw them suddenly, red and green and white lights at first but with enough half-light left to silhouette them against the sunset. There were eight of them, huge and black against the sky. I’d seen enough pictures on the news to recognize that they were military. The helicopters flew so low that the wind from their blades blew grit and dust from the road into our eyes. By the time we wiped our eyes clear, the helicopters had flown down to the far end of our block. The heavy THUMP-THUMP-THUMP lasted for several minutes after they’d become distant specks in the sky.

  Gabe’s face was flushed with excitement when we finally went back inside. Grace had by then stormed off to her room. Mom stood alone in the kitchen, staring out the window. Gabe, ever oblivious, tugged on her shirt.

  “What is it, Gabe?” Mom asked.

  “Army, Mom, Army,” he signed vigorously.

  “Slow down,” Mom said. “Say it again.”

  “A bunch of Army helicopters just flew by overhead,” I said.

  “I can tell her!” Gabe signed.

  “Army helicopters?” Mom asked. I couldn’t tell if the expression on her face was left over from her fight with Grace or was caused by the helicopters.

  “Big ones, Mom,” Gabe said. “They came right over the street like they were going to land.”

  Dad’s new job, no longer removing bodies but now involved in the cleanup, was almost all the way across the city, nearly into the suburbs. It was more money than he’d been able to make in a long time, so he sacrificed the two hours it took by bus to get there and back each day. Gabe and I had been sent to bed before he got home. Grace was moping behind her closed bedroom door. I couldn’t sleep. Something in Mom’s expression had left me feeling uneasy.

  I heard Dad come in. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the hallway to sit on the landing. I had a partial view into the family room, but most importantly the sound carried well. It was something I’d done since I was little. In our house in Flint, I used to sit at the edge of the bedroom hallway listening to my parents talk. Most of the time I couldn’t follow their conversations. I was too little. I just liked the sound. Their words held a different cadence when it was just the two of them. It felt like a secret, as if I was peeking from behind a curtain.

  “Even if wecould run, how far would we get?” Dad asked.

  “Somewhere,” Mom said. “Anywhere.”

  “And then what?”

  “What do you mean, and then what?” Mom asked. “Not get sick. Go somewhere where we won’t get sick.”

  “Where exactly is that?” Dad snapped. I hadn’t heard that tone in his voice before. It wasn’t anger, not the same sharp bite I was used to hearing from Grace or Mom. It was something else, vacant and sad at the same time. It scared me.

  “There’s gotta’ be somewhere to go,” Mom said. “Even if it’s just a frickin’ refugee camp, we can’t stay here.”

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Dad said. His tone had become matter-of-fact. “Those helicopters? The Army’s everywhere. I passed at least two dozens convoys on my way home. They’re quarantining us, or trying to. Even if wecould find somewhere else to go, we could never make it out of the city. I was lucky to even make it home, Melly. The whole place is closing down.”

  For a while it was called the Second Wave. During the late fall and into winter, there was nothing else to talk about. Every few days, a convoy of military trucks drove down our street. The rumble could be felt for blocks. Gabe always heard them first. The trucks brought food and water and medicine and not much else. They were handed out by soldiers in masks and respirators and body suits. The soldiers behind the masks didn’t look much older than Grace. At the end of each convoy there was one and then two and eventually three large trucks with green canvas side panels. It took me a few of those trips to figure out what those trucks were for.

  “Body trucks, nerd,” Grace sneered and shrugged. “Dropping off and picking up.”

  The internet was free, so that was a perk. The internet and cable TV. I guess nobody really cared whether or not the bills got paid. So the internet became how I marked the progress of General Tsao’s second visit. At first it was the memes—maps of the US with large “VACANCY” signs, pictures of cemeteries with the phrase “BUT IT’S JUST THE FLU”—and then it was the conspiracy theories. A terrorist attack, an alien invasion, Atlantis rising from the ocean and spreading ancient germs. And then slowly the internet just stopped. I don’t know precisely when that happened. By then my family was dying. I didn’t have much use for memes anymore.

  We all remained healthy for a long time. We even outlasted the military supply trucks, which just stopped coming one week. It started with Gabe and it spread like a flamethrower through our house. One by one, everyone else got sick. Except for me. None of us talked about that. Even during their brief moments of lucidity, when the raging fevers mercifully relented, no one said a word. Not even Grace. But I saw it in their eyes. Each set of them stared back at me from their deepening sockets, desperate to know why. Why you, Hannah? Why are you still healthy? Why not me?

  Gabe was unconscious when he died. I thought that might have been better. Well, better for him. I didn’t know that the last time I looked into his eyes would be the last time. I thought there’d be more time. That’s been one of the big lessons I’ve learned. There’s never more time.

  They died in quick succession. Time became a resource that was at once so plentiful and so terribly finite. I read that someplace. I don’t remember where. I have time. That resource is the most plentiful one. The problem is, I’m the only one who has time.

  Detroit

  For a long time I’ve been cautious. A few daylight scavenging trips to the empty houses in my neighborhood. Whether it was General Tsao or Bank of America that had removed the people who’d once lived there, I couldn’t always tell. Most of the houses had been empty for a long time. Sometimes I found cans of food on the shelves. Most often the houses were just big and full of silence. I’m not eating much. What I’ve found so far has been able to stretch.

  Luckily it was winter when it happened. I mean, if it wasn’t, I’d probably be dead now, too. Death doesn’t have to come from General Tsao. My death will probably come from the thousands and thousands of rotting bodies in the streets around me. The stench is unimaginable. Even frozen solid the smell is like the worst episode ofHoarders ever. Several heavy snowfalls have obliterated the roads. The buildings are buried in hollow snowdrifts. The silence is ridiculous and absolute. I once read the phrase, “the silence echoed”. I never knew what the hell it meant. Standing in the middle of the snow’s new kingdom, with the emptiness pulling the air out of my ears like a vacuum, I do understand now. Seems like I’m understanding a whole lot of these kinds of things.

  The snow makes it nearly impossible to move. And the cold means I need to bundle everything up. It’s taken me a half dozen combinations of scavenged clothes to find the right combination to wear. I outgrew my old snowsuit last year. Mom and I would’v
e gone to Goodwill or Salvation Army in the fall and picked out something I could wear. I scavenged boots and gloves and a parka that’s too big for me and a pair of neon green snow pants, and I trudge through the snowdrifts as far as I can manage. The first few trips out I expected to see other footprints. If not another person then a dog or even a moose, for God’s sake. Nothing moves and nothing breathes and absolutely nothing else is alive. That’s taken some time to accept. I say “accept” because it’s a different process than, say, agreeing with it. I don’t agree with it in any way. It isn’t something that I can say yes or no to. As Dad always liked to say, it is what it is. And it most definitely is.

  So, winter. I can’t believe I used to love putting on my coat and go outside to play in the drifts. What a putz. Snow is hard work. First of all, it makes everything as quiet as death. And yeah, I know a few things about how that sounds. The second thing is that it is really damn hard to walk. I mean, like, I can only trudge a dozen steps before I have to take a break. There’s nothing like sweating in snow pants and a parka, especially if you’ve got no way to take a shower afterwards. Day after day, layer of funk on top of layer of funk.

  I’ve tried a lot of things to make myself laugh. Telling myself some of Dad’s bad jokes. How do you make a Kleenex dance? Put a little boogie in it. Reciting lines from movies. I’m a big fan ofAirplane. Don’t call me Shirley. Cracks me up every time. Which is all well and good until I laugh out loud. Then it stops being funny. The minute your laugh echoes back at you from a neighborhood of dark, empty houses, you can go from laughing to screaming pretty fast. I don’t have to tell you that, though, do I? You’ve laughed yourself terrified, too, I’ll bet. I wish you were here. Whoever you are. Funny, isn’t it? We’ve never met but we’re deep down in the muck of this together.

  Yeah, you. That’s a whole other thing. You. Whoever you might be. I can turn you into anything I want. Maybe you’re someone’s daughter, too. Maybe someone’s mom. Or maybe you’re not a someone at all. Just a figment of some lonely girl’s memory. But I don’t think so. I believe in you. I wonder if you believe in me, too.