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"What is it, Cassie?" Sa the otherbrown eyes, the stuffed one I now have stowed in the botto?"

Seeing ot his started

I brushed past him, headed for the room of the sixteen-year-old human dinosaur, Cassiopeia Sullivanus extinctus Then I went back to hiotten pretty tight since Moht bad dreams chased him into ainst ot and called me Mo?"

"No, kiddo," I said, wiping away his tears "No one’s co"

Not yet

11

MOM DIED ON A TUESDAY

Dad buried her in the backyard, in the rose bed She had asked for that before she died At the height of the Pestilence, when hundreds were dying every day, most of the bodies were hauled to the outskirts and burned Dying toere ringed by the constantly s bonfires of the dead

He told one zo open or sucking his thuain, with this blankness in his teddy-bear eyes Just a fewhi with hi Now she rapped in a white sheet and riding on his daddy’s shoulder into the backyard

I saw Dad through the kitchenkneeling by the shallow grave His head was down Shoulders jerking I’d never seen hi worse, and just when you thought they couldn’t get any worse, they got even worse, but Dad never freaked Even when Mons of infection, he stayed calm, especially in front of her He didn’t talk about as happening outside the barricaded doors and s He laid wet cloths over her forehead He bathed her, changed her, fed her Not once did I see hi the handfuls of pills and juainst the darkness

He sang to her and repeated stupid jokes she’d heard a thousand tiood lie that helps you go to sleep

"Heard another plane today Sounded like a fighter Means soh"

"Your fever’s down a bit, and your eyes look clearer today Maybe this isn’t it Might just be your garden-variety flu"

In the final hours, wiping away her bloody tears

Holding her while she barfed up the black, viral stew her sto ood-bye

"It’s all right," she told Saht"

To me she said, "He needs you now, Cassie Take care of hioing to get better Soot sick, and then suddenly the virus let go Nobody understood why Maybe it decided it didn’t like the way you tasted And I didn’t say she was going to get better to ease her fear I really believed it I had to believe it

"You’re all they have," Mom said Her last words to o, washed away in the red waters of the Tsunami The virus took total control Some people went into a frenzy as it boiled their brains They punched, clawed, kicked, bit Like the virus that needed us also hated us and couldn’t wait to get rid of us

My mother looked at my dad and didn’t know hi to her There was this, like, perums, her teeth stained with blood Sounds came out of her mouth, but they weren’t words The place in her brain that made words was packed with virus, and the virus didn’t know language--it knew only how to make more of itself

And then led screa out of every orifice, because she was done, they’d used her up, tihts and find a new home

Dad bathed her one last time Combed her hair Scrubbed the dried blood froone, he was calm He didn’t lose it He held h the kitchenKneeling beside her in the rose bed, thinking no one could see hi to, loosened the line that had kept him steady all that time while everyone around him went into free fall

I made sure Sammy was okay and went outside I sat next to him Put my hand on his shoulder The last time I’d touched my father, it was a lot harder and with , and he didn’t, either, not for a long ti intoHe said she’d want , Cassie To"

I nodded I knew she was the only reason we hadn’t left yet The delicate ste ?"

"Away" He looked around, and his eyes ide and frightened "It isn’t safe anyht When was it ever?

"Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is just over a hundred ood, we can be there in five or six days"

"And then what?" The Others had conditioned us to think this way: Okay, this, and then what? I looked to my father to tell me He was the smartest man I knew If he didn’t have an answer, there was no one who did I sure didn’t And I sure wanted him to I needed him to