Steven and I ride in silence. I am driving even though Steven usually says I drive like a grandma. He doesn't complain at all today. I don't know what to say, and he doesn't seem to want to talk. The streets of Mount Airy are deserted. It looks literally like the end of days and like everyone who didn't want to participate in all the fun left town. Before, at least when you walked through town and didn't see someone, you would hear something that made you think of civilization. A person coughing, a child playing. Something. Now dead silence. Not so much as a curtain pulls back as we pass by. There is not a wave from a porch. Everyone is gone or hiding quite effectively. It is creepy in a way it has not been until today.
Despair. Utter despair engulfs my town.
The stench is not helping. We know what it is because people have been dying since the EMP. They ran out of oxygen or insulin or alcohol or hope and died. At first the city tried to keep up with daily pickups of the dead, but soon it became - bring your dead to the curb, and we'll pick them up like garbage. Then, there were no more garbage pickups, and people without family or friends were left to rot in their homes. The smell was horrific at first, but we became used to it. Just another annoyance of the end times. Steven and I adapted. The smell was a clue to which houses might be deserted by all but the dead, and those were the ones we raided for supplies.
It is not just isolated homes today. The whole city smells like death. It is eerie. Cue the scary music.
Steven is freaked out too because he says in a half whisper, "Where is everybody?"
I shrug. I don't think we need to whisper because there is no one left to hear us.
When we get to The Mount Airy Daily News office, it is as deserted as the rest of the town. We walk through the office and step over broken pieces of machinery and strewn papers. I am guessing that our editor has packed up and left. He's gone to look for his wife.
Just as we get ready to leave, I hear a faint, "Help me."
It's Editor Ned. He is lying back behind a desk all curled up in a bloody ball of hurt. I am not sure I would know him in another setting because his face is beaten so badly that he looks like he is bleeding even from his eyes. He is breathing with short choppy breaths that sound painful to take.
Steven and I sit him up and try to make him more comfortable. "I am going to get some water and a rag," says Steven. "See if I can find a first aid kit."
Steven looks at me. He knows no first aid kit is going to fix this.
"First aid kit," I repeat.
"Right," he says to me and then to Ned, "We are going to fix you right up. I had some CNA training in school. No worries." He pats Ned's arm and goes to find the supplies.
"Can I have some water? Thirsty, been here awhile," says Ned.
I offer him some water. "What happened? I thought you were leaving. Going to find your wife."
"I had to get the word out. Like Adam and Leia said. About the prince. Let people know we needed help. And I did, but then they came."
"Who?"
"A woman and three men in a jeep. A red jeep. One man stayed outside like he was guarding the door. At first they tried to trick me. One of them asked a lot of questions. The other man kept smacking me, and then punching me when I didn't give him the answers they wanted. They acted like they knew the prince. I figured it out. The mean one was too clean, too well fed. It was a trick."
"Knew the prince?"
"Tried to get me to tell. What I know, but I didn't tell."
"Who were they? Tell what?" I ask.
"The girl was trying to get them to go look somewhere else. Said I didn't know anything. She found the poster with the prince's picture on it, but she didn't show it to the men. She went outside, said she was getting some water. When she didn't come back, and the other guy went to find her and got gone too, the guy got mad. He hit me with a club he had, but I didn't tell."
"Tell what?"
"I didn't tell him where the prince is. I didn't tell him that I got the word out. Help is coming. From our guys. Towns all around. They are headed here. Coming to help. Help you Eliot. Save your prince."
He coughs and blood comes out his nose and mouth.
"One problem," he says. "Big problem."
"What?"
"They are coming too. They might be closer. One Nation is coming. He is coming too. One is coming. Coming. He is coming for your prince."
I am suddenly very scared. The man who started all of this is personally making it his mission to capture Torin. I want to know more. I want to know why. I do not understand any of this. "Who is this guy? Who is this guy they call One?" I ask a dying man.
"His name is One. His real name is Kerry Nation. His middle name is One. Get it? Kerry One Nation. Sounds like Carry One Nation. His followers believe it is a sign." Ned coughs more blood. "Bunch of crazy assholes."
I cannot believe what I am hearing, although finally things with my mother make sense. "He's a professor. Professor Kerry Nation," I say.
"You're right. How did you know? You would make a good reporter, Eliot."
"I know him. I met him once. My mother knows him from college. He was her professor and my dad's." I can barely admit this even to myself. "He's her boss now. She works for him."
All of it, all of it makes sense now. What a fool I was. I have been a blind fool. Is my mother a part of this. Did she know? I want to scream in fury. That is why she had Mr. Thomas watching out for me. She knew this was coming. Did my dad know too? Surely, he did. I am shaking with the horror of it all when Steven comes back. He has a first aid kit that is not going to help Ned, but he tries. Steven wipes some blood from his face with a cotton swab.
Ned coughs more blood. "You can't blame yourself," he says to me.
"Blame yourself for what?" asks Steven.
I look at Ned, then Steven. I think of Nana. I think of the Milk Massacre. The execution. The school shootings. The abandoned children. Ned's pregnant wife. Myrtle and her bloody baby dolls. Babies off bridges. The millions who have died. I can't tell Steven. I feel the tears well up in my eyes. I am a crybaby, just like Cindy said Myrtle was. A big 'ol crybaby. Ned starts to cry too.
"It's ok, it's ok," says Steven trying to comfort us, but he is crying too. "Shhh, it is ok, it is ok." He wipes Ned's forehead with a wet rag.
Ned begins again to tell what happened. "He saw the poster too. The bad guy saw the prince too. He was really mad when he saw it. He ran to the window and yelled for his friends. They didn't come. He was so mad. He kept hitting me, but I didn't tell."
"Never reveal your sources," said Steven.
"Exactly," says Ned and then asks a question, "Did you know my wife is having a baby boy?"
"I heard that. You'll be a great dad," I say in between my tears.
"A great dad," he says and then coughs one last time and dies. Just that quick, right when we were still talking, and Steven was still trying to clean his face up.
I tell Steven it all in between my sobs. When I tell him about my mom helping Carli and not even letting me know she is alive, he asks, "So, Carli is in on it too? I love her. She cannot be in on it too. She is too beautiful and kind to be.." He pauses here and then says, "evil."
We exchange looks. Steven asks, "Do you think she was the one at the library that Clay heard? He said there was a woman. Do you think she did all this?" Steven points to Ned.
I nod, "Maybe?" I don't know. "She did that internship last summer with my mom. But, I don't know? New York was wiped out. Her parents were there. I can't see it. But, I can't believe any of this. Though, some of it makes sense now."
"You know when you went to bed last night?" Steven asks.
"I couldn't stand watching them together anymore."
"Well, I didn't want to tell you this, but Adam got his harmonica out and played some."
"I thought I heard music, thought I was dreaming."
"There was dancing," Steven says like he is confessing. "Some of us danced a little." He pauses like what he has to say is painful, and then he blurts it out, "Carli danced with your prince. She danced with Torin."
Carli danced with my prince at the ball. That boyfriend-stealing bitch. Oh my gosh, I just called my cousin, who I love like a sister, the 'B' word. I am terrible, I know, but somehow I don't feel too bad about it.
My cousin Carli might be a member of The One Nation Army, and she is with the prince. The army is looking for the prince. "We have got to go," I say even as we are running to the car.
"I'm driving," says Steven. "We need to hurry."