PHOTO Â Camren Bicondova as Kaitlyn. Â Video: What would the earth look like with rings?
A/N Kindly put your playlist here.
(hey it worked for The Girl he never noticed, we're just interested to see what people put. We need new sounds people).
I walked into the living room to find a middle-aged man sitting watching football on our TV set. He had a crooked face, a faded baseball hat that covered hair that looked like cotton wool which had been teased out by a deranged pigeon. Just then mom came in.
"Invaders! Invaders! Where is my gun!!" Mom shouted. "Set Rover on him."
Rover was our cat. Mom had wanted an attack dog but came back from the store with a cat. She still called it Rover and had put the words 'Beware of Rover the attack cat' on the garden gate. She had been pleased so far, it had worked and we hadn't been burgled.
"Touch down!" said the man punching the air with his beer can. Mom hid behind the sofa. Getting a better look at him I recognized who it was.
"Mr. Smith you're in the wrong house again," I said. Mr. Smith was a neighbor from over the road. I checked out the game he was watching so enthusiastically. It was the New York Yankees against the Dolphins. Mr. Smith was a Dolphins fan. Ever since the virus hit-hard they kept running repeats of old matches. Weirdly no one had really noticed that the whole thing was an exercise in futility. The same people kept winning over and over again. Oddly most supporters didn't pay attention to this and people kept supporting their local team as dedicatedly as they did before. Perhaps TS-17 affected people's memories because no one seemed to be able to realize it was just the same set of matches over and over again. The same teams kept winning, same losers, same monumental crucial life or death matches, nothing would change, everything would be reset next year. I knew from experience this game would end up as 30 to 31.
"Help" shouted Mom "I'm being terrorized!"
There were regular TV news broadcasts about people being broken into by terrorist organizations like PI. Hence the attack cat. The news reports tended to repeat one channel reporting what another channel said. This would go around until the first channel would report on the reporting of the reporting of the reporting of the something, they had made up in the first place. The current round had grown out of reports of the wind knocking bins over. This had grown into a widespread fear which included links to the much feared 'PI' a secret organization of super terrorists which, I thought, was as likely to be real as Melania Trump's pout.
When the virus struck some scientists said we needed shots for the virus. So the government, taking it literally, had made the owning of firearms mandatory. All that really happened was that people just regularly shot each other or themselves by accident. Millions had died when the virus struck, the shootings (mostly self-inflicted ) had added millions more. The population of what was America was down to about 50 million but no one was sure because not enough people could count well enough to make an accurate tally.
"It's OK Mrs. Lewis I'll protect you," said Mr. Smith getting up, lifting his hands like a boxer while holding a beer can in one hand.
"Mom it's ok it's Mr. Smith," I said.
If your thinking poor girl what a terrible life, I haven't even got started yet, this was my normal.
Mom now looking terrified waved her gun around the room "Mr. Smith thank god you're here, someone is invading our house!"
"No possessed Pi fanatics will get you with me around," said Mr. Smith.
I pleaded with everyone to calm down. Eventually, after showing every room was empty, the two believed me. Rover the cat appeared at the sound of the noise to grand stand. Mom guessed the attack cat had driven the nonexistent terrorists away. At least someone earned their catnip tonight.
"Mr. Smith you live in number 19 this is number 18. You live on the opposite side of the street." I said. We had been through this a number of times. I had explained we were Lewis lefty.
"I am?" said Mr Smith in surprised, Looking around. "This is my place. It has to be. I've been watching a match. I'm going to miss my match."
The front door slammed and my older sister Eve coming in and stampeded to the backyard.
"An invader! An invader!" said Mom waving her gun around.
"No. it's Eve!" I said. Mom looked at me. "Eve, Your daughter!" I added and Mom relaxed. This wasn't one of Mom's best days. Eve like most people didn't have the genes to resist the virus. She thought she was at college. Some ungenerous soul with glasses, braces, and freckles ( mentioning no names here) might have said she was re-taking kindergarten but this time spending less time drooling and more time on her phone.
It sounded like she had a bad day. As the virus had taken effect it had shown up in the SATs scores dropping. The government had responded by 'raising standards'. This meant teachers who now had a hard time teaching even the basics had to try and teach things even they couldn't get their heads around. This resulted in the scores dropping, The Head of the Department for Education getting fired and a new one replacing the last one, this time promising to raise standards even more. The cycle had continued and the gap between what most kids could do and what was expected became more and more frustrating. Eve got the sharp end of this.
Then Mr. Smith remembered that he had come round deliberately. He had been sent a bill from the gas company saying if he didn't pay them one million dollars that they would take him to court. The gas and electric companies had just continued to work. Dad had said people could do quite well if they stuck to doing routine things, driving, cooking, watching the Jeramy Kyle show. If asked most people couldn't tell you the difference between a banana and an angora sweater, but the routine things kept going...mostly. The gas company billing department was one of them. Except now they just made up numbers that sounded convincing and sent them out to people hoping for the best. I pointed out to Mr. Smith (again) that he didn't have any gas piped to his building so he didn't owe them anything.
Now calm Mr. Smith announced he would leave.
"Hey Mary-Ann - how's the search for the cure going?" asked Mr. Smith conversationally while I walked to the backyard.
"Oh....errr" said Mom clearly things " well.. um... I don't think we have one yet, but if we do I'll be sure you know tell you about it."
"That's surely kind of you," said Mr. Smith.
Mom continued to work at a biotech company looking for a cure. They used to do science work but now they just poured one liquid from one test tube to another. Pressed buttons on a computer; gave each other bits of paper, had meetings about dress code, shared pictures of cats , it looked like work but no one actually did anything.
*****
With Mr. Smith dealt with, I crept up out back to my sister. She was on a garden hammock crying. I sat with her looking out at the desolation beyond the wire fence which marked the edge of the Spring Falls and our house. Before the infection, Spring Falls had been a Legoland resort which had been requisitioned for survivors by the government and renamed to something safe and comforting. Actually, it had been rebranded Division Evauation, Area, Temporary Housing camp five but D.E.A.T.H camp five hadn't survived first contact with a focus group. Being a former lego land resort explained why on occasion places build in a hurry like school were made out of lego and old Chinese take out boxes. Beyond the high wire fence was the wild lawless land full of killers and monsters which the locals called California.
After many attempts I got Eve to tell me what was wrong.
"I was at school all day and it was noisy, I really couldn't hear what the teachers were saying. I wrote down what they had written on the board, but when I looked at my notes I can't make any sense out of them" said Eve in tears. She had been quite smart like my mom and I think she felt the impact of the virus more than most.
I hugged her and Mom came up and joined us. Say what you like about the TS-17 virus people still cared for each other. People might be as dumb as a mud brick but we could still love each other, perhaps more so. The warmth of Mom helped Eve slow the torrent of tears to a trickle. I picked up the ring binder she methodically put notes into.
"Look why don't I read your notes and see if there is anything I can help you with?" I said trying to sound more happy than I actually was. "Then perhaps I can cook something."
"That sounds nice" both Mom and Eve agreed.
It didn't take me long to figure out Eve's problem.
"Eve - these notes are the prices of the Burger King menu in the local food court of the Mall" I said. This hadn't been the first time she had mixed up the tables and chairs of the food mall with school. I was just glad it hadn't taken a week like last time to notice.
"That's why all the teachers were wearing matching caps and tee shirts!" said Eve who then broke into tears again.
I left Mom and Eve watching movies of cats on the internet. If Youtube didn't work I'm not sure what I would have done to keep my mother and sister occupied while I cooked. Little did I know that this was about the last meal I would cook for them. Tomorrow I would meet the man who would change my life forever.
A/N Subliminal message - You want to click on next chapter... you want to click on next chapter.