Prologue: Room and Board
Grace Peters
In the hours she spent by herself, Grace could sometimes hear voices telling her to do things. She rarely agreed with the things they had to say, but she was thankful they were there. She didn't like to be alone. The voices were there to comfort her and to guide her. She knew it was silly to think that they were there. She knew that it was only her imagination trying to compensate for the overwhelming silence around her. She knows it's just pretend. But there has never a time when Grace was more scared than when she was alone.
She tore the seam off of a plastic bag and poured pellets of cereal into the bowl. It was morning, and she had neglected to wipe every bit of buildup out of her eye. The flowing brown hair that normally hung neatly at her shoulders flew astray in every direction, not aware that it was morning. She brought a spoonful to her mouth and spent every moment she could savoring the taste of the cereal. It tasted of strawberries. Grace loved strawberries.
The door behind her cracked open, and Ashley strode through, holding a glass of skim milk. That was the only kind she would ever drink. She never did know when to quit dieting. The woman was a flight attendant in the time she would spend at work. Every day she would fly off on some plane to the Great Plains, and then fly right back the same day. It was surprisingly rewarding work, lending her enough money to afford a cottage on a road in the middle of nowhere.
"Well, Grace, someone's up early." She joked.
"Shut up." Grace scoffed, wiping the side of her mouth with a napkin.
"Oh, Grace, you don't know me well enough. You really think you can get ME to shut up?" She asked jokingly. "You're already up. Might as well get ready and get out there. Daylight's burning."
"I think I'll finish my breakfast first." She laughed, turning around in her chair to face her life-long friend. "When I asked if I could come stay in your place while I was between jobs, I assumed you knew it would be a while before I found one. This is the second week, Ashley. Cut me some slack."
"Yeah?" Ashley said, pulling a chair out from under the kitchen table next to me and straddling it. "Well, I assumed you would at least be trying. I'm happy to rent my room out to my old roommate, but I'd still rather see you successful, with a job, providing for yourself, than here under my wing...no matter how many times you do the dishes."
"Yeah, but no one can quite get that sparkle like I can." She laughed and Grace couldn't help but manage a laugh too. Her friends' laughter was infectious.
"You were sleeptalking again last night." Ashley informed her, removing the light tone from the conversation.
The smile immediately disappeared from Grace's face. "Really?" She asked. "What about?"
"The same thing as all the other nights." Ashley spoke, not able to meet her eyes. "It was about Sam."
Grace leaned in toward her, grabbed her chin and looked her in the eyes. "This is the last time you will mention my brother's name. Ever since my parents died, I sheltered him. He was the only thing I cared about in the world. I took care of him. I provided for him. I was more of a parent to that boy than mom and dad ever were. And how did he repay me? By stabbing me in the back. He can sit there and rot in that jail for all I care."
Ashley broke away from Grace's firm grip, turning her gaze back down into her half-empty glass of milk. "Those weren't quite the words you used last night." She spoke softly.
The two of them sat in silence, eating their breakfasts. After ten or so minutes, Grace picked up the remote across the table from herself and turned on the television mounted on the wall. The channel that appeared on the screen was not number 103 like they expected, but a news bulletin. There was a man on the screen speaking in an urgent tone. "-and so the plague continues to sweep across Europe. The virus has infected over half the population in the eastern continents as well as other islands in the Atlantic and is gradually seeping westward. The death toll of the past two days has been overwhelming."
