Survivor Song(63)
This initial firefight lasts only five minutes, but a standoff with the Norton police and eventually the National Guard will go on for five hours, further ensnaring lines of communication and consuming most of the local emergency resources. Nine members of the Patriot Percenters militia will die, along with four policemen, the driver of the gray bus, and one of its passengers, a woman who gave birth less than ten hours prior to having a bullet punch through a window and into her neck. Right-wing conspiracy devotees will insist the civilian and policemen deaths are fakes and the entire event a false-flag operation. Like the Tree, the Patriot Percenters believe the deep state is purposefully spreading their lab-created virus to push vaccination agendas, attempt a coup as America is distracted and succumbing to the health crisis, and then decree a permanent state of martial law. The Percenters are convinced Phase 2 has begun: exporting the virus to surrounding New England and Mid-Atlantic states via busloads of infectious patients and deep state–controlled medical personnel, most of whom are foreigners, as reported on the most notorious and popular hate-fueled conspiracy website.
Ramola counts the seconds as they tick. She measures the expanding distance from the attack. She smiles at every staff member and clinician who walks by to ensure they focus on her and not Natalie. She looks out the window, waiting for the next calamity to show itself. She watches and listens to Natalie, losing count when she thinks she sees a quiver and curl of her lip. She starts over at one and begins counting again. Five minutes pass in this manner.
As their bus powers down the quiet wooded road, no vehicles follow. Frenzied chatter within the cabin has receded in volume, but it remains an insistent murmur, waves lapping shores at low tide.
Natalie shudders into a coughing fit; a dry, throaty blast of three barks lasting four cycles. When she finishes, the bus goes quiet and still. Ramola can’t and won’t look into the aisle or at people in other seats, afraid of what she’ll see and afraid others will see a confession on her face.
Natalie wipes her mouth on the back of a sleeve. Is she shedding the virus now? Natalie mutters to herself, twists to more easily look out the window, her head tilted, eyes wide and blinking.
The new silence lingers, and Ramola has to break the spell, to make their presence on the bus seem normal and nonthreatening. She taps Natalie’s shoulder, whisper-repeats her name, and asks how she’s feeling, how she’s doing.
Natalie shrugs and she shakes her head. Her right hand spelunks into one of the yellow sweatshirt pockets and returns with her cell phone.
Nats
(muted, low voices and the hum of an engine)
“Excuse me, I haven’t had a chance to check in with you yet, Natalie. How are you feeling?”
Sassafras and lullabies.
“Oh, we’re doing quite well over here. Thank you.”
Rams
Natalie flips through app screens, presses a purple rounded square, a capital cursive V in its middle. A home screen opens with the script heading Voyager. Natalie thumbs through menu options until the screen is a blank purple color, red Record button at the bottom. She presses that, too, bringing up a horizontal, quivering white line. She leans left, her head and shoulder resting against the bus window.
Ramola twists, her back to the aisle and facing Natalie. Her view of the phone screen is blocked.
Natalie’s right hand alternates between tucking hair behind her ear and hovering over the phone, index finger extended. A trace of a smile on her face, though upon closer inspection, it’s not really a smile. There’s no upturn in her lips, no exposure of teeth, but instead a softening of expression, facial muscles relaxed, eyes half-lidded, almost sleepy, eyebrows slightly elevated, unguarded. It’s the ghost of a look of contentment.
Ramola has stopped counting, even though time stubbornly goes on without her marking it. She continues closely observing her friend, afraid of witnessing the point-of-no-return transformation, afraid she missed it already. In the tinted window glass, there is a near mirror-quality reflection of Natalie’s face. In this reflection there are no tear and dirt stains, no puffy circles under her eyes, no feverish red splotches on her cheeks. Trapped in the glass’s amber is Natalie’s younger face: Ramola sees the Natalie she first met in college and the one she shared an apartment with and the one from those nights sitting on the kitchen floor and the one she secretly cried over when she moved out and the one in that bachelorette-party photo, her favorite photo; the Natalie she’ll always remember until she cannot remember anything anymore. This reflection of younger selves rest their heads against the Natalie of now, the one who showed up bloodied at Ramola’s townhouse, the one who fought and is fighting valiantly, the one who is dying despite her defiance. The split images are representatives of the past and present, and together, the horrible future. Both sets of faces are only inches away from each other and they are in sync, staring and blinking at the phone screen, opening their mouths to say something, but they do not speak.
If Natalie looks up now, what will she see? What will Ramola see?
“Excuse me, I haven’t had a chance to check in with you yet, Natalie. How are you feeling?” asks Dr. Kolodny. She’s a sentinel in the aisle wearing rubber gloves (was she wearing them earlier?), and she only has eyes for Natalie. Her professional veneer, already haggard and worn at the edges, collapses.
Ramola jumps out of her seat and stands between Dr. Kolodny and Natalie. She turns forward and back, opens and closes her white coat, wipes her face, and glances at her watch, desperate to somehow keep the Natalie-is-healthy lie alive until they get to the hospital in another fifteen minutes. Is that all the time they will need? Is that all the time they have?