The Cabin at the End of the World(62)
Andrew says, “Who even wears a watch anymore? You all just check your phones. Especially people your age. You’re telling us you four all show up and just happen to be wearing watches? No. You knew you were coming out to this cabin and there’d be no cell reception and you had to be able to tell time.”
“That’s not it at all, I swear . . .”
“Listen to him, Eric. Can’t you tell he’s lying? They knew this bird flu show was on today at this time just like they knew the Alaskan earthquake and the tsunami warnings had already happened before they showed up to the cabin . . .”
“I know. You’re right.” The buzzing is all around Eric. He thinks he knows what Leonard meant when he said he felt the time coming, like it was a physical thing made of presence and purpose. He remembers the figure made of light and maybe what he was saw was time made manifest, and that’s not right but it feels closer to the truth, and he wants to tell Andrew about it. Instead, he says, “But there was another quake after the Alaskan one. That was the one that killed all those people. Leonard and the others didn’t hear about that one before they showed up. That one happened live, while we watched.” Eric silently prays that he’s wrong and that they will be allowed to leave.
“And?”
“That was the one they predicted, and Adriane said she saw it happening at the beach with the giant rock.”
“She didn’t see anything but The Goonies. That quake was triggered by the first one, the one they knew about, and they got lucky—why are we even talking about this, Eric?”
“Now this bird flu outbreak. And in Hong Kong, our special place, our city, Andrew. Remember when we were there and we called it our city?” The trip to China was Eric’s first time out of North America. Eric was so anxious and excited on the plane he couldn’t sleep and watched five in-flight movies in a row. During the four days spent in Hong Kong, they crammed in as much as they could see and do, a rapturous final fling of their old lives before the adventure of their new one with Wen began. “It means something that it’s there, that it’s happening there.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. I already told you; China has been dealing with this outbreak for months. I’m not going to argue about this with you. It’s what he wants. So let’s go. You and me and—and Wen.” His voice breaks and his indignation and anger evaporate. His eyes tear up. “If you’re ready, then let’s go. I can’t—we can’t stay here.”
Sabrina’s voice billows into the cabin from below. “Hey, it’s me, Sabrina. I’m coming up the basement stairs, now, okay? I’m not going to hurt anyone, so please don’t hurt me.”
No one answers her. Her footfalls echo on the wooden stairs, a slow, uneven dirge that changes in pitch and tone the closer she gets to the main cabin floor. She has her curled shovel blade–tipped weapon with her, but she does not hold it threateningly. She carries it more like a scarlet letter, a final judgment she cannot escape.
She says, “I’ve been down there for a while. Listening to you and the TV. So I know—so I know we didn’t stop it.” She looks at Andrew and Eric and sidesteps away from the basement stairs. Her face is streaked with dirt, her hair dark with sweat. Her off-white shirt is a crusted map of yesterday’s blood. “I don’t know what—I don’t know how it happened, but I’m truly sorry about Wen. I don’t know what to say.”
Andrew says, “Then fucking don’t say anything. And don’t come near us.”
“Yeah, okay.” Sabrina leans against the wall separating the bedroom doors and cranes her head toward the screen slider. “I’m sorry about Adriane, too. But she shouldn’t have been threatening you. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Turn out your pockets,” Andrew says to Sabrina, and motions at her with the sledgehammer.
“Why?”
“Keys. Keys to your car that has to be parked somewhere near here.”
Sabrina pulls out her empty pockets. The white cloth sticks out from her hips like mocking tongues. She rotates and runs hands over her smooth back pockets.
The news report rattles on in the background with a narrated video of dead birds bulldozed into piles and incinerated.
Andrew says, “Eric, can you shut that off, please?”
Eric goes to the TV and with the vivid, flashing images close to his throbbing head he squints and looks away. He fumbles about the side control panel pressing buttons until he hears the commentator cut out while discussing the most recent administration’s ill-advised and crippling funding cuts to the Centers for Disease Control’s pandemic preparedness programs. Eric only mutes the audio, however, and the video continues to broadcast.
A spinning bout of vertigo strikes and Eric sinks into the couch, sitting next to Wen and with the flies. Eric knows they are eager to crawl on him, too. He lifts Wen’s body and slides her across his lap. She is rolled up like an ancient map to a lost place.
Andrew says, “Eric? Are you okay? We should go now, don’t you think?”
“I can’t—not yet.”
“Are you sure? I think we really should go.”
Eric says, “I don’t feel right—I need a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Then we’ll go. Together, I promise.” He prays he will be able to keep that promise.