“Yeah, well. We decided it was best for me to move up here. Join you guys.”

“Like hell you will,” Darla said and she took a step away from the table and toward the door.

Doctor Krause turned from the debate and stood up from her chair. She busied herself with Ethan in a calculated attempt to avoid confrontation with the man who had unceremoniously whisked her away—she checked his temperature again and wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his arm, squeezing the bulb in her hand and watching the dial spin and shudder.

“You’re not wanted. We’ve been doing great on our own,” Darla added.

“Totally looks that way,” Spencer said with a look around the room. Darla huffed, but stayed silent. “Look, chica. It doesn’t make sense anymore to stay at Pacific Lake. If you haven’t noticed we’re the only ones left. And I’m not gonna lie…the building is really starting to reek. But you’re in luck…I’ve got no ill-will. I’ll even bring my supplies with me.”

“Oh, how suddenly generous.”

“This is the way it’s going to be,” Spencer said to her and he turned to leave. “I’ve been eyeing that cute little tan house on the corner. Couple houses down from yours. Decorating style matches my taste already. Owners were probably at work when the virus hit…nary a bloater in sight.”

“You’ve been snooping around our neighborhood?”

“Shopping. Property is dirt-cheap right now. Surely you’ve noticed.”

“You’re disgusting,” Darla rapped her knuckles on the table and swore under her breath. She closed her eyes tight and let out a throaty growl. “There’s no room for your ego up here.”

“It seems a bit tactless to mention that without me you’d have no doctor. No Joey. Who’s been quite helpful…even you can admit that. Your problem, Darla, is you seem to think I’m the bad guy—”

“Only a bad guy would forget that without Ethan,” she pointed to his unconscious body, “you’d be dead. And for the record, I was against bringing you along. I don’t trust you and I don’t care for you, and I don’t care if you know it. Stay at Pacific Lake.”

Doctor Krause sighed. She opened her mouth like she had something to say, but then promptly shut it and returned to her chair.

“What was that Doc? You want to weigh-in?” Spencer asked and he took another sip.

Darla scoffed. “You don’t get to move into these homes and take over. Doctor Krause and Ainsley think you’ve made enough decisions for them, thank you very much. We make choices as a group here.”

“Come on, Doc?” Spencer pushed again and Doctor Krause rolled her head back and looked the ex-principal in the eye, a strand of curly brown hair falling into her face.

“It’s hardly the time to even start this conversation, since I’m clearly with a patient…Ethan is my entire focus. And I don’t care where anyone lives as long as we work together—”

Frustrated, Darla shot the doctor a look and then threw her hands up in the air, agitated and defeated.

“Then it’s settled. Say sayonara to your little self-imposed exile. It’s hard to hide when there are only a handful of us left alive,” Spencer replied swiftly and he turned to walk away. “I’m thinking of a housewarming party in a few days. Save the date,” he added with a smile, and then he walked back down the hallway and out of the house, leaving the doctor and Darla alone with Ethan’s broken, bloodied body.

CHAPTER THREE

Brixton, Nebraska

It was late afternoon when Lucy and Grant rolled into Brixton. Lucy’s heart nearly stopped when she saw the green population sign announcing their arrival: Welcome to Brixton. Population 26.  It appeared that the population used to read twenty-seven, but someone had drawn over the seven with a sharpie—broadcasting the loss in crude, broad stroke marks. Beyond the sign was another half a mile of nothingness, flat plains, knee high grass waving, dancing, and welcoming them into the city like a parade.

When they reached the first set of buildings, Grant rolled the car to a stop, threw open the door, and then swung his foot out on to the dirt, stretching his arms up to the sky.

Lucy followed behind him, exiting the car and looking around.

Brixton was a ghost town.

From their vantage spot, they could see most of the city: A church, a bar, a fire station, a schoolhouse, a general store, a post-office, and a library—beyond that a cluster of houses and a baseball field, and a red grain silo towered to the sky. The store and the bar stood side-by-side along the narrow Main Street.

That was it; that was the entire city. All of Brixton could fit inside of one-quarter of Lucy’s local mall back home—a sprawling expanse of department stores, pretzel shops, and makeup kiosks. And the dusty town wouldn’t even take up one quadrant of the area. She’d never visited a city this small; a city practically nonexistent. A city of nothingness.

Lucy couldn’t help but wonder about the people who chose to live their life in a place like this, so far away from civilization, removed from a decent shoe store or coffee shop. What did the people of Brixton do when they wanted to watch a new movie or go out for pizza? She started to feel sorry for the kids who lived here, but then she shook her head, frustrated with herself. It still took too long to realize that movies and shoe stores and nights eating pizza were relegated to the distant past.

Unless Brixton had been protected from the virus that killed the world, everyone here was gone.

“This doesn’t look promising, does it?” Lucy asked and she walked over to Grant and stood by him—they took in the flat landscape and the empty buildings. They had the appearance of a movie set facade. She wondered if they walked inside if there would be nothing there but exposed beams and open sky. “There’s no one here.”

Only the church looked somewhat substantial with its white roof and bell tower and stained glass windows adding color to the landscape.

“Hey now, don’t get discouraged yet. There’s only one way to find out,” Grant replied and he started to walk forward.

Lucy remained with one hand planted on the car, her eyes searching everywhere for movement. She hadn’t expected a welcome sign or an army of people waiting for her, but she had expected something—she had hoped for people, for life.

“You coming?” Grant called to her.

Without answering, Lucy jogged to catch up. She kept pace with Grant, matching his steps as they meandered down Main Street, where the road fluctuated between paved and unpaved in increments.

Their heads vacillated between the right side and the left side of the street—storefronts on one side, grass and a boarded up house, the church, and library on the other. When they reached the midway point, they both stopped.

“Maybe we got all the clues wrong,” Lucy said and she let out a long, slow exhale. “There’s nothing here to see.”

“Come on,” Grant waved her forward.

The bar on the main strip sported a huge neon sign out front that read: Carson’s Place. With the power out, the sign looked depressing in the afternoon sun; the fluorescent tubing winding around itself in forced cursive. In the front window, the blinds were drawn tight, but the door was left standing wide open. Grant walked straight to the open door and nudged it open further with his toe before peering inside.

Lucy, only steps behind him, sidled up to his elbow.

Without a word, Grant walked into the bar and made a beeline for the blinds. He yanked them upward; the sun spilled in through the streaky window and flooded the area with light, illuminating a swirl of dust particles that floated around their vision. Lucy coughed and waved her hand—the dust danced and swam and settled on the floor.