Survivor Song(36)
The ambulance rumbles to the end of Neponset and turns right onto Canton’s version of Washington Street. On the corner, the 7–Eleven’s lights are extinguished and the front window is cracked down the middle, the glass intact for now but as doomed as the calving Antarctic ice shelf. Across from the convenience store, a row of local shops and businesses is dark. Farther down the street a funeral home and its parking lot is vacant. As terrifying as the panicked mob of humanity in and around Norwood Hospital was, the quiet desolation of Canton center—whether its populace has fled, is in hiding, or has suffered a catastrophic collapse—is more disturbing and feels like a permanent condition, one from which there will be no recovery.
Natalie says into her phone, “We’re almost to Cobb’s Corner. That means we’re really close to our house now, and getting closer.”
Cobb’s Corner is where the borders of three towns (Canton, Stoughton, Sharon) converge, meeting at the intersection of Washington Street and Route 27. Sprawling networks of strip malls layer both sides of the street with the largest to their left, a single-level labyrinth of chain restaurants, corporate retail stores, and a dwindling number of independent mom-and-pop shops and businesses. The supermarket demarcates the rear of the shopping area, set back four or five hundred yards from the road. Cars and military vehicles are amassed in the lots closest to the supermarket. From this distance it is impossible to determine if the market is still open. Ramola is careful to not stare in that direction too long, irrationally fearing the act of her looking will attract unwanted attention to the woman driving an emergency vehicle she is not meant to drive.
Natalie says, “I—I’m going to stop now, I think. We’ll talk again later. I promise. If I break the promise, please know I didn’t mean to. It sucks, but promises get broken all the time. Promises are like wishes. Yeah. They’re great as long as you know they won’t always help and won’t always come true.”
Ramola says, “Now you are Bummer Rabies Yoda. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. You can edit that part out, correct?”
“I told you Auntie Rams is the best. I love you. Sassafras and lullabies.” Natalie puts the phone on her lap, screen down. “She’s a girl, you know.”
“I thought you didn’t find out—”
“I didn’t. And I wasn’t getting any vibes until a few weeks ago. But now I know. She’s a girl.”
The traffic light at Cobb’s Corner is blinking red, which it isn’t normally. Ramola slows the ambulance to a crawl but does not come to a complete stop. She speeds through the intersection as soon as she’s confident there is no oncoming traffic. Washington Street morphs into Bay Road, a much less densely populated house-and-forest-lined border running between the towns of Stoughton and Sharon before leading into Ames. Cobb’s Corner fades away quickly in the rearview mirrors, replaced by a blur of trees with red and orange leaves. In approximately five miles are Ames’s infamous intersection Five Corners and their ultimate destination, Ames Medical Center.
Natalie says, “We’re so close to my house.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve gone a different way.”
“No, this is the quickest. I wonder if Paul is still there, but of course he’s still there. I know he’s not a fucking zombie. But—I don’t know. Did someone else show up? Try to help him? Move him? Take him away? Our neighbors must’ve heard me, heard us. No one came to help. I hope—I hope I killed that fucking guy. He better not be doing anything else to Paul.”
Natalie goes quiet and covers her eyes with her right forearm as they pass Woodlawn Street. As the crow flies, Natalie’s house is less than fifty meters away, close enough that someone standing on Bay Road might’ve heard Natalie and Paul’s yells and screams when they were attacked.
A gray squirrel darts in front of the ambulance but changes its mind and returns to the road’s shoulder and its blanket of red pine needles. It rubs its front paws together, a worrier wringing hands.
Natalie drops her arm, sighs, and twists and adjusts in her seat. “I might have to pee. I think I can make it though. If I don’t, sorry to the ambulance.” She lifts her left arm, bent at the elbow, and swears under her breath. “My arm hurts. Really hurts all of a sudden. Like a stabbing, and then burning, and a wave of numbness. Fucking ow. Back to the stabbing. Shooting up into my shoulder.”
“I’m sure you jostled it when you climbed into the cab—oh, right, I’m explaining again, aren’t I. I’m sorry, I know your arm doesn’t feel good, Natalie. How’s that?”
“Don’t patronize me. Actually, do patronize me. This feels like it did when the guy bit me. It’s kinda weird.” She tugs at the yellow sleeve of her sweatshirt.
Bite-wound pain returning is a classic symptom of rabies infection in humans. Of course, normally, it takes weeks for that symptom to appear in patients. There’s no way for Ramola to know if Natalie’s arm hurts because she was bitten two hours ago or if it’s a sign of infection.
They round a curve, and ahead on the right is the Crescent Ridge dairy farm and its locally famous ice-cream stand. During the summers, from noon to evening closing time, queues are fifteen-to-twenty people deep at any one of the eight service windows. Now there are no lines, no cars in the parking lot (the front of which is paved, the back lot is dirt), and no cows lazily grazing in the fenced-off fields and meadows.