Ebola day, p.1
Ebola Day, page 1
EBOLA DAY
FERAL AMERICA PREQUEL
GINGER BOOTH
Copyright © 2018 Ginger Booth
All rights reserved.
Cover design by www.rafidodigitalart.com
Runner images © golero (modified) | iStockPhoto.com
City backdrop and skeleton (modified) | shutterstock.com
Guy Fawkes mask © Enrique Dans | Creative Commons
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
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CHAPTER 1
September 9, E-Day minus 90.
A call rang out, then the rapidly approaching slap of sneakers on wet pavement.
Ava wheeled and clutched her karate gear bag. At 9:30 p.m. with a drizzle, West 23rd was light on pedestrians, but the two-way traffic was busy. Not as busy as it used to be – New York implemented rationing by tacking on a surcharge to quadruple the price of gas. As usual, people were intent on their phones, their companions, or otherwise hunched into their own worlds. No help there if someone was after her.
She backed into the doorway of a closed shop, practicing the ‘situational awareness’ Sensei drummed into them at the dojo. At only 5’1”, the fifteen-year-old couldn’t see the runner through the crowd.
The sneaker slaps slowed to a stop before her. “Didn’t you hear me calling?” the runner asked. He waited for an answer, face open.
Ava stared at the handsome boy, almost a man, laden with backpack and a gear bag similar to her own. His dark green suit, with a gold crest badge on the breast, screamed high school uniform. Bleach-blond hair, short at the sides and moussed high on top, grew spiky from the raindrops.
A light dawned. “You’re from the dojo!”
He grinned crookedly and hooked a thumb to point left up the street. “Yeah, we were just in class together for two hours.”
“Right,” Ava said, feeling like an idiot. She had no idea what to say next. “Um…”
“Cade Snowdon,” the boy supplied. “Sensei calls me Frosty. He said you live at Washington Square Apartments. Me, too. Walk you home?” He scratched his nose. “Sensei sent me.”
Ava’s eyes darted up the street, met his for a split second, then fell to her karate bag, flustered. If Sensei sent him, she didn’t have much choice, did she? “Um, OK.” They took turns kind of pointing toward the Flatiron Building at 5th Avenue. Cade looked amused.
Finally walking in the right direction together, he prompted, “Ava Panic, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Dammit, think of something intelligent to say, she beseeched herself.
“Welcome to the dojo. You’ll love Sensei,” Cade offered.
“I’m not new,” Ava said. “I joined in June. I thought you were new.”
“Must have just missed each other,” Cade said, pausing for a walk light to cross south. “Gary and I – the blond guy from my school I came in with – we leave the city. Summer vacation with our dads. July with his dad, August with mine. I don’t remember what happened in June. Finals, maybe. Oh, a Model Congress trip to D.C. You must have joined at the end of June, then.”
“Yeah.” Again with the ‘Yeah…’ Ava gulped. An attractive older boy offering to walk her home had simply never happened before. Not in the city, anyway. She’d been here three years, and hadn’t made a real friend yet. Manhattan kids seemed equipped with friends for life before the age of 12. Ava used to be friendly and social, back in Texas. Here, she’d gotten rusty. And unfortunately, this Cade Snowdon didn’t seem the slightest bit shy or awkward.
“I coach the middle-schoolers,” she finally said in a rush. “At the dojo. I’m a student instructor.” That wasn’t very smooth.
“Oh, cool!” Cade returned, with surprisingly convincing enthusiasm. “I had the middle schoolers my first two years of high school.” He laughed. “They’re a pain! I teach the tots again this year. Tumbling, break dancing, white belt karate.”
“You teach too?” Ava said stupidly. She was starting to feel claustrophobic. Her new dojo was so small and intimate. She got lots of individual attention from Sensei. It hadn’t occurred to her that was due to summer doldrums. Tonight’s black belt class was huge, though. As witness, with over thirty people in the room aged 15 to 40, she’d lurked with the older crowd while this suave blond and his laughing, shoving, huggy crew invaded her class and hijacked Sensei’s attention.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a skeleton crew in summer,” Cade said, echoing her thoughts, “with us regulars gone. Sensei takes it easy. But we’re back!”
A shiny new car honked and pulled beside them, back window rolled down. “Cade! Want a lift?”
Ava’s companion strode between parked cars and reached an arm in to shake with the back-seat rider, another in the green uniform suit. Cade glanced back at Ava with a quick grin. “I don’t know, man. I only just met her. And she’s like this karate black belt. I’d be scared to get in a car with her.”
Ava felt her face heat with the teasing, mercifully invisible in the rainy night. She tamped down a grin and shook her head.
The occupant leaned his head out to make a show of sizing her up. He was Cade’s buddy, Gary, with dark blond hair worn long. “Scary,” he agreed. “But two of us? I think we could take her, Frost man.”
A car behind leaned on its horn in protest. The driver waved his arms dramatically and swore in an indeterminate language. Ava guessed him to be a recent African arrival. The city had more foreign born than Americans.
“Effing immigrants,” Gary grumbled.
“Effing immigrants,” Cade agreed. He thumped Gary’s arm good-bye and retreated between the parked cars, with a cordial middle finger to the honking driver behind.
“You and Gary are close?” Ava asked as Cade rejoined her. “Probably went to pre-K together, huh?”
“New Yorkers are so cliquey,” Cade agreed. “No. I was lost until Gary adopted me. Met him at the dojo.”
“You’re not from Manhattan?” Ava asked, brightening.
“Jersey. My parents split in seventh grade,” Cade returned. “I moved to Greenwich Village with Mom. You?”
“Me, too!” Ava said. “I mean, my parents didn’t split. But I moved here from Texas, seventh grade. The city was so…alien.”
“Chock full of aliens,” Cade said. He clarified, “I’ve always known the city. I grew up across the George Washington Bridge. Dad works in Midtown. I just didn’t have friends here.”
“Oh,” Ava said, feeling deflated. Cade hated immigrants, and he was a real New Yorker, complete with clique. She felt the social doors shutting in her face again.
Maybe Cade noticed. “The dojo’s great for a social life,” he said. “We get to see girls there, like you. St. Ignatius is a boy’s school. Have you met Kat yet? She’s at St. Bernadette’s. We’re like the two dominant high schools at Sensei’s.”
Ava smiled. “Yeah, Kat showed me the ropes, teaching. She was here all summer. She’s nice.”
“You must be good,” Cade said, “if Sensei has you teaching already. Sorry, I didn’t catch your form during class. Too busy catching up with people from summer.”
Fair enough – Ava hadn’t noticed his moves, either. She’d taken for granted the new older teens wouldn’t want anything to do with her, and minded her own business. “I started karate when I was six,” she said. “My parents move around a lot. Well, until New York. That was my thing, state after state. I had karate.”
“Sounds lonely,” Cade said.
They reached Washington Square, chatting amiably, Cade drawing her out. At night, Ava would have veered left, to walk along the NYU buildings east of the park. Cade confidently headed straight through the giant triumphal arch, to cut through the middle, unfazed by the many homeless and addicts huddled around the fountain, and under the trees.
The number kept growing, three times as many as last year, and that was double the year before. But the kids hardly noticed.
“Why Frosty?” Ava asked. Cade said Sensei called him Frosty.
Cade flashed her a grin. “My fighting style, and my name. Snowdon. Frosty the Snowman. Cool and focused.”
Ava digested that. “You’re good, too.”
“A few of us compete for best in the dojo. Best guys. Can’t wait to see you in competition. We need another strong girl. Buzz off.” That last was to a panhandler.
“Gimme money to eat,” the bum crooned, swaying on his feet and crowding uncomfortably close to Ava. “You got money.”
The teens kept walking. Cade’s genial facade vanished into poised calm, just the way it was supposed to for a black belt. In Ava’s experience, most teens didn’t manage that zen readiness. But Cade did.
The bum reached out to touch Ava’s arm. “You got money, pretty girl…”
Ava pivoted. She karate chopped his arm and drew back into Cade. He side-stepped her, then front-kicked the bum away with a light foot to the sternum, not a full-power kick.
“Go,” Cade demanded.
“You hurt me, man! You shouldn’t have done that…” the bum whined.
Cade didn’t pause to listen. He set the pace out of the park, and Ava scurried to keep up. She glanced back to make sure no one was trailing.
“You can hear them,” Cade ad vised, cool as ice. “Don’t look back.”
“Why don’t you walk around the park?” Ava asked.
“Fun.” Once they were inserted back into the pedestrian throng on LaGuardia Place, he elaborated. “I like a chance to fight for real.”
In all her years of karate study, Ava had never once sought to fight for real. That karate chop in the park was her first blow in earnest.
“Where’s your door?” Cade asked, as they reached 3rd Street. Washington Square Apartments was huge, with twin buildings each spanning three short blocks. One fronted 3rd Street, and the second Bleeker Street, with a park sandwiched between.
“I’m on Bleeker,” Ava said. “You don’t need to walk me.”
Cade shrugged. He walked her to her entrance, but didn’t go in. He didn’t inquire her apartment number. She didn’t even know which building was his.
“See you,” he said, and vanished into the night.
Ava kicked herself on the elevator to the 16th floor. Cade had started out so friendly and cheerful. By the time they parted, he was cold as ice. What did she do wrong? Then she wondered which was the real boy, the affluent social Cade, or Frosty the Snowman.
“How was class?” her grandfather asked. The door had three locks. Ava unlocked the doorknob, and Deda was always there to throw the deadbolts before she could switch keys. “Home late for a school night,” he chided in his thick Serbian accent.
“Good,” she said, kissing his cheek as always. She dumped the karate gear bag and slipped off her shoes. “Crowded. Lots of new kids. An older boy walked me home.”
“Yes? Handsome?”
“Yeah…”
“Good! You need a boyfriend.”
“No one needs a boyfriend!” Tata called from the kitchen.
Ava rushed into the kitchen to kiss her father’s cheek, too. The slight man still wore his pink scrubs, festooned with Disney princess motifs. He must have worked pediatrics today. Her parents, both nurses, worked ungodly hours. Having Tata home and awake was a treat. She didn’t need to ask where Mama was.
“What, you want her to die a virgin?” Deda asked his son practically, trailing Ava into the kitchen.
“Deda!” Ava objected.
“You don’t want to die a virgin. Milan, she’s almost sixteen. Were you a virgin so long?”
Tata laughed. “I take the fourth.”
“Fifth,” Ava corrected him. She slipped into a chair at the table and filched a slice of apple from her father’s plate.
“Whatever,” Milan Panic said with an airy wave. “You like this boy? Deda, that’s what matters.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ava said pouting. “He won’t like me. Hates immigrants.”
“Good. I hate immigrants, too,” Deda said, preparing Ava her own plate. “Too many black and Jews in New York. And Muslims. I hate Muslims.”
“Deda, we’re immigrants,” Ava pointed out.
“No, we’re Serbian,” Deda insisted, with a wink. “Immigrants want to be American.”
Tata shrugged. “If he doesn’t like Serbians, he’s not good enough for you, Ava.”
“So nobody’s good enough to be my friend, Tata,” Ava complained. They’d distracted her from the chronic immigrant anxiety, though. As Serbians in an increasingly xenophobic America, they were unwanted. Yet they had no place to go. The planes were grounded, and the Navy blockaded the Atlantic. They were stuck here. And Ava barely remembered Europe. They brought her here when she was three.
Deda slapped a plate in front of her, with cheese and apple and knife. “I lost virgin at thirteen. Find someone you like later.”
Tata laughed. “You’re bad, Deda.”
Deda pointed at him. “You were fourteen. You think I wasn’t watching?”
“Girls are different,” Tata attempted.
“Girl was also fourteen,” Deda said. “If an older woman fucked you, I punch her face.”
“He’s a senior,” Ava said. Her parents were hazy on the American school system, so she clarified, “Twelfth grade, last year of high school.”
“That’s not so old,” Deda judged. “You can fuck him.”
Ava finally laughed out loud. “No one’s offering, Deda!”
“You need to offer,” Deda said. “We work on that.”
“We will not work on that!” Tata objected. “Ava, don’t listen to him!”
They made her feel better. She happily munched her apple and imagined Cade going home to a posh apartment and dignified greeting from a willowy blond mother, in place of the compact earthy ex-pats in her own kitchen.
Cade’s mother was thin and blond, but only average height. She was also passed out on the couch when he quietly let himself in.
The news played on the TV, and he paused to watch. The new Calm Act legislation was erecting ‘epidemic control borders’ around the New York metro area, as well as the new ‘migration control borders’ between states. The news still failed to provide maps showing where exactly these borders would go. A ticker tape news feed at the bottom confirmed a third hurricane hit Houston. The FEMA and CDC coffers were empty. The Federal government had no relief to offer Houston.
The talking heads of the moment were discussing how seriously New Yorkers should take that ‘epidemic’ part. Should they stock up on medication?
They should get out of New York, Cade thought, and clicked off the TV. Not exactly an option open to him before graduation. In June he’d be out of here like a bat out of hell.
His fingers itched to wake his mother and get her safe to bed. But he left it at gently brushing her hair out of her troubled face.
She’s not your responsibility, Cade, they told him. Besides, she’d survived all summer, and all day without him. He left 15 hours ago for school.
He retreated to his stark bedroom with his book bag. First he faked his mom’s signature on the sheaf of beginning-of-term paperwork. He snapped a picture of the tuition invoice and emailed the reminder to Dad. Then he dug into his first night’s homework for 3 AP courses this year – Advanced Placement. His first impression was that the teachers wanted to scare students away from the college-credit workload. As he dug in, he changed his mind. These assignments were teasers, a promise of fascinating material to come. The courses were right up his alley.
Between Statistics and Environmental Science, he spared a thought for the girl. Ava was shy, and seemed awfully young. Pretty, though. It would be nice to have a girlfriend who was into karate as much as he was. But it wasn’t as though he had time for that.
CHAPTER 2
September 26, E-Day minus 73.
“Thank you!” Ava said, bashfully accepting half of Cade’s calzone.
Does it count as letting a guy pay for your meal, if you eat half of his? Ava yet again mourned her lack of a social circle in the city. Surely by her age she should have learned the etiquette of the not-a-date by osmosis. Or is it a date?
Cade affably sat on Ava’s scrap of brick wall. He set down two bottles of fruit tea between them. “You pick,” he offered. “I like either.”
The pizzeria takeout window was a mob scene, so he’d left her to choose a place to sit in the street median park while he grabbed lunch.
I could ask him if it’s a date, Ava pondered. And decided…peach tea. “What’s a mikan?” she asked, studying the other bottle. She didn’t choose it because if she hated it, she’d have to drink it anyway or be mortified, and food was expensive. Too expensive to accept even if this is a date. Or is it OK? If he can afford it?
“Like a Japanese tangerine.”
Ava nodded faintly as though enlightened, though her brow crumpled. She’d heard the word tangerine before. My English sucks…
Cade’s smile grew crooked. “Wow, Ava. What did I do to offend you?” He took a swig of his mikan-flavored tea, looking more amused than concerned.
“I just, um, you buying me lunch…” Ava stammered.
“I bought me lunch,” he pointed out. He leaned closer to confide, “So we could avoid an awkward conversation. About whether this was a date.”
She grinned guiltily and covered it with a big bite of the steaming cheese-filled pizza roll, feeling her face flush.
