The sound of hammering next door was what finally brought Noah out of his trance. When he went out to see what was going on, he found one of his neighbors boarding up all of his windows.
"Mr. Mills?" Noah asked, crossing the lawn. He squinted in the sunlight. Hours of staring at the data in his dad's lab had given him a massive headache.
"Oh, hey Noah, you startled me." Albert Mills was a pretty good neighbor. He was middle-aged, single, and quite a bit overweight. He kept to himself, but he was a nice guy who always waved and stopped to say hi. Noah was surprised to see him up on a ladder, hammering plywood over the upstairs windows.
"Getting ready for a hurricane?" Noah joked. Mr. Mills didn't seem to get it, and he looked at Noah like he was the dumbest kid on the block.
"I'm boarding things up and getting the hell out of here. And I'm not the only one with that same thought," he said, waving his hammer toward the street. "If you and your dad are smart, you'll do the same thing."
Noah followed Mr. Mills' gaze and saw that he was right. Several families on the street were already packing up their cars. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the bright morning sun. But where were they all going? No one on earth was safe from this virus. Couldn't they see that?
"Did you hear about Madelyn Sorrows?"
Noah spun around and stared back up at Albert Mills. His stomach twisted. "Parrish's mom?"
"Yeah."
Noah shook his head, an unpleasant fear growing in his stomach. "She's sick?"
Of course, he already knew she was sick. He'd seen it with his own eyes. He glanced over toward Parrish's house. He never should have let her go to the hospital alone. And why the hell hadn't he been over there to check on her? What if she'd been all alone over there for days?
"Dead," Mr. Mills said, taking another nail from his pocket and hammering it into the plywood. "From this flu or whatever it is. And there are more, you know. All around town, people are dropping like flies. The news this morning said they're burning bodies in mass graves at the hospital."
So the burning had started here, too. Noah had read the directives that all bodies were to be destroyed to help prevent the spread of further disease. Hearing it from his neighbor made it hit home, though. It suddenly seemed too real. He kicked at the grass with his shoe until a large clump came up, spraying soft brown dirt into the air.
"Where are you going to go?" Noah asked.
"West," Mills said, climbing down from the ladder. He almost lost his footing and Noah took a few steps forward, as if he could catch the guy. Luckily, Mills didn't fall on top of him. "I figure since the first cases of this virus were reported on the east coast, west is the best bet. I don't think it's as bad out there."
Noah opened his mouth to disagree, but then shut it again. Why not let the man have his hope, right?
Maybe it was better to die on the road with the hope that you could outrun this thing than to hole up in your house alone until the end came. Who was he to say?
Besides, he couldn't possibly explain everything he'd read over the past twelve hours. No one would believe him anyway. He still didn't want to believe it himself.
"Well, you take care, man." Noah said his goodbyes and headed back to his own house.
He glanced over at Parrish's house again and thought about going over to talk to her. He kind of understood what she was going through. He'd lost his mother a long time ago, and it wouldn't be long before his father was gone too. Maybe she needed someone to talk to just as much as he did.
But through the door, he could hear the sound of his father's coughs echoing through the house. He rushed inside to take care of his dad, knowing their days together were numbered.
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