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Part II: Slaughtered (Chapter 5)

Even after the shocking announcement of the new, supposedly incurable illness, despite the fact that an increased number of deaths were being reported with each passing day, the people in our little countryside town—and possibly everywhere else on the continent—carried on with their lives.

We had all begun to get used to a new routine. With Mother having shut Lia and me inside altogether, my ways of communication with Laura had become limited to letters. The fact that Lia was always hogging the house phone and refusing to hand it over didn't help, either.

Mother, like us, hardly ever went out. But like all of our citizens, she believed learning was important, especially since we had fallen once again into strange, unreliable times. To set that example she made trips back and forth from the Centrum each day, bringing back heavy armloads of books that seemed to increase in number each time. Every time she returned home, Mother would sit down to tell Lia and me about everyone she had encountered and everything that had happened on her way to and back from the Centrum. We were fascinated, captivated by even the stories Mother told us about the village. Only a week had passed, and already I had forgotten about the kind of life I'd lived before this so-called "contagious mental illness" began to spread: a life with restricted, though not nonexistent, freedom.

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"Ike Jenson," said Mother, "Pike Grant, Leo Cicaran, and Tanner, the grocer's son. Let me see . . . who else? Oh yes, there was Luella Zanders and Miss Nadine—they were shopping for fabric. And I think I passed by Mr. Thatcher too, but it's so hard to tell, that man keeps looking older every second."

I laughed. We'd lived in this village for so long that I could easily imagine all of these people going about their usual days, just by hearing their names.

It was another ordinary Foursday afternoon, and we were going through our daily routine of listening to Mother reel off the names of the people she'd met coming home from yet another visit to the village Centrum.

"Was there anyone else, Mother?" asked Lia eagerly.

Mother seemed to think for a moment. Then she said, "Sandra. We couldn't talk much, though. She had her grocery basket piled high—looked like she was planning to stock her family's cellar with a month's worth of rations."

"'Sandra'?" Lia repeated with a gasp, her face suddenly very still. "Mrs.—Mrs. Lansford, you mean?"

Mother stared at her, bemused. "Yes, Sandra Lansford. Carson and Carol's mother."

Lia let out a shriek.

"Lia? Lia, dear?" said Mother, looking slightly alarmed as her usually calm and collected eldest daughter jumped around in a wild, hysteric frenzy. "What's the matter?"

Her question was answered by the sound of our screen door opening. A familiar, grinning face poked into the gap.

"How're my favorite ladies doing?"

"Carson!" Lia cried joyfully, and got up from her seat at once. She went as fast as her limp would let her toward the door, where she threw her arms around her boyfriend. "You're home!"

"And it's about time, too," I said grumpily. "She's been waiting desperately for days."

The Lansfords had gone on vacation up north a week ago or so. Ever since then, Lia had been glued to the house telephone, awaiting a promised call from Carson that had never come. She had started to worry that something had happened to him, but here he was, looking unharmed and as cheerful as ever.

"Your trip went all right?" Mother said to Carson.

"Oh, there was no trouble. It was just difficult to get a hold of a telephone." He then seemed to remember something. "Right, I almost forgot. I brought back things for you all."