Please Remain Calm (This Is Not a Test, #1.5)

by Courtney Summers

I glance at the dirty crowbar resting in the foot-well next to mine and wonder if I’m supposed to add this little girl to a list of people I’m afraid I’ll eventually lose count of.

She just stares at the girl like she’s looking for something that I don’t think can be there.

I keep my eyes fixed on those silhouettes in the distance and all I can think is how could we lose the world to something so still?

the longer I stare at it, how wrong it is, the more I panic. The kind of panic it’s too hard to work around. The kind that gets you killed.

I pull the keys out of the ignition and go after her and every single noise I make doing it startles me into the here and now.

There’s something so weary in the way she holds herself, slouched like one of those Cortege Elementary School kids I’d see walking home from school, carrying backpacks bigger than they were.

houses that look like the hearts were ripped right out of them.

I press hard on the gas and then Sloane says, “Rhys—” and it’s not my name, it’s a warning.

They swarm the car before I can do anything and all I see is what’s left of gray skin and black veins and every shade of red.

Can we risk it? Can we not?

I could’ve been drowning the way I choke awake. Suffocating on the silence. I hack it out of my lungs, clear my throat. I know I didn’t sleep myself into a different night, so this must be the same one. Got settled into it long enough for every muscle in my body to start working against me, though. My legs, my arms, my back, all screaming. I push my head into my pillow and try to block it out enough to get back to sleep but then I feel the space beside me. Times like these, you go so far out of your way to assure yourself you’re not alone. You memorize the person you’re with: the way they breathe, the way they move, the warmth of their body. All these things, you reach for every second of the day and when they’re gone, you don’t even have to open your eyes to know it. She’s gone.

I step into the kitchen, feeling her eyes on me as I go. I keep my back to her until she heads upstairs and then I start searching places I’ve already searched and I don’t know if any of this is what we should be doing or if it only feels like it’s what we should be doing.

She says, “Rhys,” and it feels like the only time she makes herself say my name now is when something’s wrong.

That’s it. These days it feels like alive is an accidental state of being.

One of them, a man in a ratty, shredded suit, stares up at the house. He (it?) reminds me of a dog that’s gone still in the middle of a hunt. Listening.

I lost my Spanish as I got older, living in a town that didn’t want to make room for my language.

Numbers heavy in my mind will be even heavier off my tongue. I don’t know what’s worse, holding their names, or turning them into a body count.

There’s someone in that tent. Listening for infected, your senses get a little sharper. Never sharp enough, though.

We walked until we started losing light faster than we were gaining ground

People turn into nothing and the way they do is so messy and wet and red. It will make you so sick. You’ll discover you weren’t strong, that however hard you brought the weight down wasn’t enough. You’ll look at your father’s wrecked face and his mouth will still be moving, hungry. You’ll think nothing could be worse than that, so when your mother shows the first signs of turning, you won’t wait for it to happen. And then you’ll find you were wrong. There is something worse. The last thing the monster with your dad’s face sees is a hero—at least that’s what you’ll tell yourself. But your mom, she’ll just look at you. Her only boy. She’ll cry with every blow until she doesn’t anymore.

god this made me sick for days i cannot get over the brilliance

He stares at her helplessly and everything that comes out of his mouth next is something he’s going to regret for not being meaningful enough later.

“Yeah,” I say. Christ. “I’ll do it.” But every step forward is me thinking how I can take every step back.

He’s found some kind of inner balance to keep him moving forward. I bet all his thoughts are lined up neat, one right after the other—get his kid to safety, get there alive—and any interruption could ruin him. If that happens, I won’t know how to pick up the pieces.

The people I want don’t come back. But past the smell of gunpowder is the smell of sweat and blood, another person. The blinds are drawn and the light in here is so weak, but I would know her silhouette anywhere. I memorized it. She’s here and every moment without her was a lie.

I hear a gunshot, so loud and close, I feel it in my mouth.