From the far side of the impromptu fire, the little black-haired girl sat up from beside her mother. Absently scratching her neck, she stood, her mother’s blistered hand steadying her. The woman’s eyes were red from crying, but her voice held love as she urged her daughter to go see.
“Is it something to eat?” the little girl said, her pure voice cutting deep into Trisk. Shit, she’s got it, Trisk thought when she saw the beginnings of a rash on the little girl’s neck.
Seeing it, too, Daniel forced his smile to brighten. “No.” He knelt, a glass figure in his hand. “Better.”
April’s eyes widened. “A horse!” she exclaimed, the knickknack looking huge in her tiny fingers. Shoving her gangly plastic doll under her arm, she took it.
“Close.” Daniel shifted, giving her something to lean against so she wouldn’t fall in the swaying car. “It’s a unicorn. A magical horse that only little girls can ride.”
She beamed up at him, and Trisk’s throat tightened. It was as if all the beauty from the years she would not have was suddenly condensed in her. “Thank you, Uncle Daniel,” she said, holding it close as she gave him a hug.
Daniel’s expression froze, her thin arm wrapped around his neck. For an instant, he held her, his grief open and honest. “Go show your mom,” he rasped, and April cheerfully ran to her.
Trisk unrolled a second unicorn and dropped it back in the box. The paper was more precious. “?‘Uncle Daniel’?” she kidded him, trying to get that awful look off his face. But behind the makeshift wall, a woman was crying softly as another unseen voice tried to convince her that they’d be in Detroit in the morning and everything would be okay. But Trisk knew nothing would help them if they had received a killing dose. There was no broad-spectrum cure for a toxin. It had to run its course. April, I’m so sorry.
“It wasn’t supposed to do this,” Daniel whispered, his motion to unwrap another figurine faltering. “I made this to prevent death, not cause it.”
A lump filled her throat as she gave him a sideways hug. “I know,” she said, turning to Kal with an evil glance. He was still standing at the door waiting for Orchid’s return. If this was his fault, she was going to strangle the man with his own intestines. “They’re going to be okay,” she lied. “I don’t think the boys have it.” She hesitated, watching them play with the fire and send their little paper balloons of trapped heat to the ceiling. “Have you told them that it was in the tomatoes?”
He shook his head. A haunted expression lurked at the back of his eyes. “I didn’t see the point,” he said, voice so low she almost missed it. “Maybe tomorrow, when we get into the city.”
She could almost hear his unspoken thought: If they’re still alive.
His frustration twisted his lips, and he kicked the box out through the open door, his arms pinwheeling. There was a crash of glass, and the kids turned. Seeing Daniel slowly sink to the floor, they went back to the fire, their bright mood broken for a moment.
“Daniel, I’m sorry,” she said as she sat beside him to tug him sideways into her, but he only shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as if to stave off any hint of emotion.
“Do you know how they got here?” he said, head still bowed. “Into this train car?”
She shook her head. A few feet away, the boys opened the second box, throwing the glass birds it contained out the door in a mimicry of flight.
Daniel looked up, his expression desolate. “Government trucks were slated to come through their neighborhood to relocate anyone who’d had a death in the house.”
“That’s awful,” she said, and Daniel pulled one of the boxes to him, clearly needing something to do even if it was only finding more paper to burn.
“If anyone died or was clearly sick, the entire household was forced onto a truck,” he said as he wrestled the box open. “They were only allowed to take what they could fit in a suitcase, made to go to a quarantine area to die.”
She remembered the angry, numb-looking expressions at the diner as good, everyday people were faced with the awful need to find a way to bury their neighbors that was both respectful and fast. It had to be better in the big cities. It had to be. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“April’s parents were already on the pickup list because their oldest daughter had died in the hospital the day before. They didn’t want anyone to know they were still alive and maybe try to follow and find them, so they dragged their dead neighbors into their own house so everyone would assume it was them. Soon as the truck left, they jumped the train. The other couple with the boys saw them and followed along with the husband’s brother.”
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “This isn’t your fault.”
“No?” he asked, then he laughed bitterly as he unwrapped a jar of hard candy, ready for the store shelves. “I killed them all, and all I can do is give them a jar of candy.”
“Daniel . . .” she pleaded, but he had turned away.