Chapter 2

I end the chat to call my parents in Buffalo, Wisconsin. At 22 years old, this seems like a big enough problem to let my mommy decide what to do. Besides, I still need to have the dreaded rent conversation. She answers on the 2nd ring, having also seen the news this morning and how it’s changed so completely from the semi-sensible stories from the day before. Buffalo was not one of the ones marked with a big red X. We talk about the variant and what to do if Minneapolis gets quarantined the way some of the cities in Canada are right now. She puts me on speakerphone while dad tells me to grab enough groceries to last the 2-week lockdown just in case. They assure me that everything is fine, and that this is what the media does – overhypes things.

“There’s one more problem,” I add, once they talked me out of fleeing back home. “They cut my hours at work because of the lockdown. I won’t be able to make the rent.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem baby. I’ll call and pay it tomorrow,” my mom assures me. “Pay for your groceries on the credit card, too, okay? And be safe.”

“Ok, I will. Love you,” I respond with a nod and a smile, relieved for having at least solved one problem for now.

“Love you, too,” they sing in unison before hanging up the call.

Leaving Minneapolis is prohibited unless on a designated transport into what they are calling a “clear zone.” Anyone who wants to leave the city must go to the clear zone first, where they will be tested for the disease and then given instructions on what to do next. The information is repeated on the ticker while the news anchors go on about unrelated subjects. I quickly follow the provided links to sign myself up, just in case it ends up being necessary, but it’s booked until next week. I click on the first available day: Monday, May 12th, then skim over the rules and what I am allowed to bring. It’s not long or complex, but is specific and strict.

• No passenger will be allowed to board who exhibits any symptom of Variant TRIM71. Please cancel your reservation and allow a 36-hour self-quarantine if you are experiencing fever, bloody stool, bloody nose or eyes, or a persistent cough. Nobody will be allowed to board who appears sick, regardless of cause of illness. Please be patient as we are working to get everyone to safety as quickly as possible.

• Families are encouraged to book same-day departure, as not all trains or busses will be arriving at the same Clear Zone.

• No pets. No exceptions.

• Anyone who wants to board must submit themselves for a volunteer strip search. You may choose an officer of your preferred gender.

• One carryon bag will be allowed per person. Please bring only necessities.

I vow to sneak Stuart on if I have to. Where I go, he goes. It’s how it’s been for the half a decade he has been alive, and I don’t plan to change that now. I copy/paste the sign-up link into the group chat, since I know that nobody else will have searched it on their own. We all have a role in the group, much like a family. Mine is the researcher and homework assistant. Becca is the mom. She is consistently caring and nurturing in a way that’s rare for people in their early twenties, but I have never seen Becca think of herself before someone else. It’s just who she is.

April and Kat share the right to choose where we go during any group outing. They are bossy and confident, and have all the best stories after a night out on the town. Isaac is Becca’s puppy - not literally, but honestly, he may as well be. It’s not that he doesn’t have a personality of his own, it’s just that we almost never get to see it because his head is so far up his girlfriend’s butt. It’s usually cute, but sometimes a little much.

Brody is the one with the answers. Always ... except for now. I am studious and hardworking in a way that he isn’t and doesn’t have to be. Brody just has a natural intelligence combined with good looks that might make people hate him if he wasn’t also a kind, honest person to boot. April likes to remind me when I complain about their laziness, or lack of willingness to take care of themselves, that we all have different strengths, and that’s what makes us such good friends. My strength is not decision making. Her strength isn’t homework, or taking anything in life seriously, and I am the exact opposite. That must be why we are the best of friends.

Going out alone makes me feel uneasy, so I call April and Becca to invite them along with me to the Lunds & Byerlys. Becca already went, and took Isaac and Rayne with her to make sure they have everything they need. April agreed to join me, though. She lives in the same apartment building, so we do most of our shopping together anyways. We meet outside of her apartment in light jackets to combat the chilly, but beautiful and sunny, day. She’s wearing sheer leggings under jean shorts, paired with her shiny pink jacket. I just know her legs are freezing, but she will choose fashion over comfort any day of the week. Ultimately, we make it out with hand sanitizer and a box of gloves. Elliot Park was the sweet spot we had been looking for. It granted us a 12 pack of ice cream bars, 2 boxes of swiss rolls, 1 bag each of Vitner’s triple cheese, several boxes of macaroni and cheese, and some dark coffee for each of us – not a favorite for either one of us, but it’s better than having no caffeine for finals week and the soda and tea were completely wiped out. The store’s small. There’s barely any room to walk with even 6 other customers inside, so it likely wasn’t anyone’s first choice, which is probably what gave us a little more time to take what we needed before everything was gone.

April and I contributed to the bare shelves it displayed by the end of the day’s business hours, but neither of us have a weeks’ worth of food for one person, let alone two. We venture out to Cub foods, the largest store in the area, which is why it’s the one we originally wanted to avoid. When we arrive, we know it’s a long shot that we’d leave with anything, but we slather our hands with the newly acquired hand sanitizer and grab a cart anyways. Much like the previous experiences, bread, milk, and lunch meat were nowhere to be seen. Exhausted stockers are darting back and forth trying to keep up with the loss of inventory, but everything’s flying off the shelves the minute it’s restocked. This time, we join in the fray because it doesn’t seem like there’s any other way we will leave with anything for ourselves. In the canned foods isle, there’s a mob waiting for the shelf that the manager had just promised would “soon” have more soups restocked. Most people were standing patiently, but a few sweaty men and women with wild-looking, desperate eyes are getting rowdy. April nudges me and signals that we should leave, but after going through the inventory we have in the car, I whisper that we really need more food. Instead, we shuffle away from the louder, more violent looking people, and keep our heads down while we wait in line. When the tall man with a cart full of fresh supplies appears, the line becomes more of a mob resembling a mosh pit. The people can’t control themselves anymore. Most lunge for the cart without bothering to wait for the guy to put the contents on the shelf. After a couple of attempts to persuade them to be patient, the high school aged boy gives up and walks away, leaving the cart there to be picked apart. One lady with a bob haircut elbows me in the side and pushes me to the ground in a rush to the goods. This is madness. April pulls me to my feet just as an elderly lady shoves into her back and yells for us to “get our behinds out of the way.” April steadies me on my feet, and turns to the woman who elbowed me in the first place, but the old lady yells and pushes yet again.

“Calm the fuck down, lady,” April berates her. The woman, whose frail body looks barely capable of keeping her upright, turns to face April, but instead of firing back verbally, she spits up into April’s eye.

“Gross,” April squeals while rushing to wipe the thick mucus from her face.

“That’s assault,” I declare to the old woman incredulously, but she’s already turned and pushed her way through the crowd of people, ignoring me. I finally heed April’s warnings and back away, resigning myself to the fact that we are going to have to look elsewhere, or come back early in the am if we’re going to stock up enough to go two full weeks without leaving home. She leads me to the opposite side of the store and grabs toothpaste and toiletries to last the week (although no toilet paper, that’s long gone), and we head home. In the same parking space near the apartment that I pulled into the night before, we divvy up the pathetic pile of goods between us and vow to try again tomorrow. I spend the night watching more and videos that are popping up worldwide, in a state of disbelief.

April is banging on my door at 4:30am, imploring me to ‘wake the hell up’. We decided last night to get an earlier start than yesterday’s 11am ventures. I regret that now. I am not an early riser, and when I reluctantly open one eye to glare out the window, the sun is nowhere to be seen. I groan in protest, loud enough for her to hear that I know she’s there, but in a tone that says “go away.”

“Alana, get the fuck up – achoo – it’s cold out here!”

I debate rolling back over and letting her yell until she gives up and goes home, but then I remember that I have less than weeks’ worth of food to last the entire lockdown, so I angrily roll out of bed and pull on a pair of black jeans and a plain teal t-shirt. My clothes are almost all unicolor, usually in the darker variety. I open the door to find April in her signature black boots, jean shorts, and blindingly bright off the shoulder halter top ensemble. Her clothes are a perfect reflection of who she is: An attention seeker. Lucky for her, she’s beautiful in an obvious way and captures the attention of anyone passing by, even if she doesn’t spend an hour ensuring every strand of hair is in its place. She pairs that natural beauty with a firey attitude that will take her anywhere her heart desires. I, on the other hand, prefer to keep to the friendships I have already made. I’ve been career orientated since adolescence, and so far, all of the hours spent studying, working, and volunteering have worked out for me. Sometimes, I listen to April and Kat go on about their adventures and think maybe I’m wasting too much of my life worried about grades, grad school applications, and my future. But, after thinking it over, I’m resolved in that I’m doing the right things in my life, and it will pay off, eventually.

“Your clothes are too loud for this hour,” I complain, squinting at her behind still-tired eyes. We decided to head to the Cub on Snelling to start the day. It’s a 24-hour grocery store, so it was perfect to start with. The shelter in place officially begins today, so anywhere deemed non-essential has been closed down with makeshift signs scattered on the doors explaining that they’ll “see you soon!”

This morning, like so many others, we stop at our favorite convenience store to grab our beverages of choice. We don’t deviate from the norm, ever. I beeline to the fountain sodas for the largest Cherry Pepsi they have available for myself, and pour a Sprite for April. We are terribly predictable in this way and the attendant rings us up before we even make it to the counter. April looked around for anything else we might want, but the shelves are as bare here as they were everywhere else yesterday. Not a great indication of how the rest of our day might go.

The thirty-something year old woman behind the counter looks flustered and at her wit’s end.

“Everything okay, Stacie?” I ask.

“I’ve been here for twelve hours, and both morning shift people called out sick. They’ve probably got that variant thing everyone is going on about, but at this point I’m just too tired to give a shit.” The aroma of cigarette smoke wafts through the air as she vents. “If someone doesn’t come in soon, I’m leaving,” she threatens.

“Well, I hope they do and you get some well-deserved rest.” April reaches over the counter and pets Stacie’s arm. Stacie nods dismissively, placated for the moment. I wave goodbye and pull open the door, back out into the cool morning air.

At Cub, we are not surprised to find that, while still mostly bare, some essentials have been restocked and there’s enough that she and I won’t have to spend too much of our morning wandering around in search of goods. We leave carrying two grocery bags each, all of them full of snacks, cups of coup, and easy to make boxed foods. The chance for getting anything like milk, coffee creamer, or meat has long passed, but if I don’t starve over the next couple weeks, I call the day a success.

Next, we head over to Walmart to fill our 5-gallon water containers with fresh filtered water, an installment from 2035 that most people ignore, but we use weekly due to the disgusting tap water in Minneapolis that I never got accustomed to. The sirens are still going back and forth today, and there’s far less traffic than usual, but so many roads are blocked off, that it still takes longer than normal to get home. When I pull back up into the parking space that isn’t officially mine, but I claim it every day, we repeat the ritual from yesterday. I e-pay April half the cost of the groceries from my parent’s account before heading back in to my apartment and enjoying the alone time cuddled up on the couch, eating an ice cream bar and reading my notes for the final exams for my two most difficult classes this semester: Neurobiology, and molecular genetics.

The whole group is online, sans Kat. Since it’s Sunday, conversations have turned to homework and upcoming exams. We haven’t forgotten about the things we saw yesterday, but there are policies in place to keep us safe. Also, It’s the first week of May and finals are approaching fast – and after that, graduation for everyone but Isaac, who is a year behind the rest of us. Most of the time I am alone on the study grind, but since it is finals week, everyone’s eyes are moving back and forth in their textbooks. Occasionally, someone stops to jot down a note, or complain that this or that class is ‘killing’ them, but otherwise the conversation is dead. At this point, it’s more of a habit to be on the group call, rather than there being any reason for it. For me, I think it’s a comfort thing. I like knowing that my friends are all still there, ready to chat if I want to.

April prepares her note cards last minute, as usual. Mine have been done for weeks – as usual, and I test myself a few times before I’m absolutely sure that I’m ready for exams. Then, I pull up a movie on the tv and mute my mic so the others can work in silence. Occasionally, I look over to see them all still working away – minus Brody who appears to be texting on his phone and completely neglecting his studies. It puts a bittersweet smile on my face. Next year it’ll just be me and Isaac left. I’ll be attending grad school, and he’ll be in his last year of undergrad. April is going to California for grad school, eager for the change in weather and generally too charming to rot away in frigid Minnesota. Brody is heading to Chisago City. Kat and Becca are both skipping grad school and going straight into the job market. We are all excited for our futures, but I am sad to see the group of friends I have had since freshman year split up and go our separate ways.

After a third peek at the muted study party, I notice that April is looking a little worn down, which is funny because I was the one who was struggling to get out of bed this morning. I tap my finger against the photograph of her lipsticked smile to pull up her profile and send a DM.

Look who’s tired now, I tease.

In that moment, my eyes sweep over to the grayed-out picture of Kat, who’s profile has read Offline for the second day in a row. I tap her photo, which features the laughing brown eyes and loose hair tumbling over her shoulders, with both her middle fingers raised toward the camera.

u ok? I type out, worried.

Kat is just as addicted to the internet as the rest of us, so it’s strange not to see or hear from her for two days in a row. Even while on vacation she at least posts pictures to social media. I click her profile again and then tap on the links to all of her social media pages, which have been inactive for 3 days now. I can’t do anything about it right this minute, but maybe I can run over to her house tomorrow. I won’t go in, for obvious reasons, but I can stand outside and make sure she’s safe. For now, I pull up my favorite news webcasts and look for an update of the situation on variant TRIM17 to find the same messages splayed across my screen, and the same arguments from the day before. It annoys me to no end that the men and women would rather put each other down than work together to get accurate information out there. I flip to yet another reporter who implores us to stay at home, and quarantine ourselves if we have been out of the US at any point in the last 2 weeks. This time I just roll my eyes and look up more information on the variant myself. Based on my admittedly limited knowledge on the subject, it’s not something that’s likely to cause the mayhem the world’s been facing over the last week or so. Which can only mean a couple of things – the media is hyping it, or something beyond my comprehension is happening.

There are three other variants that have been around for years that scientists are familiar with. The description goes on to say that infection usually occurs by eating undercooked contaminated meat, exposure from infected cat feces, or transmission during pregnancy. One thing I know about it is that it’s one of the most common parasites out there. The symptoms are mostly fever and inflammation, and some sources say it can make some infected people more aggressive. All sources say that animals who contract it are more aggressive, even if only a little bit. Also, probably the most important thing, It’s treatable. Maybe this variation of the parasite creates a stronger reaction from its hosts, but it’s something experts should have an idea on how to treat already. I can feel the stress leave my body as I tell myself that this will be easily manageable, and the infected victims will be back to normal soon enough.

Tuesday, its’s officially Day 20 since the variant took hold, but it’s only been relevant to my life for 4 days. Classes are remote, so I have taken 3 of my finals from the comfort of my bed. The last class of the day is at 1pm, and by 2:30 I sign off of the student portal feeling confident in my scores so far. There’s just one more final on Thursday, and then I have a whole summer to relax and do nothing but live until the fall. My whole life has been one year after another stressing about grades, taking summer classes, and doing community service to have the best possible application for the schools of my choice, but I already got into grad school. I have nothing to over work myself with this summer, except for how much fun I can fit into 3 months. April invited me to spend a month in Cali with her before classes start and at first, I hesitated, but with freedom so close I can taste it, all I can think about is how much I want to go. And all of the things I’d like to experience before I need to put my personal life on pause again.

After feeding, watering, and trying to make Stuart let me pet him before eventually giving up and leaving him to nap, I open social media. Immediately, I am flooded with panicked people urging each other to either go to the hospital or to avoid hospitals at all costs. According to a high school friend who is attending college in Milwaukee, they are overwhelmed. She goes on to explain that nobody, at least in the Milwaukee area, even has room for new patients. A few posts down, a family member of a quarantined boy quarantined took to the internet to warn his followers that they haven’t been allowed to see their loved one since he was carted away. A couple others suggest different hospitals, which are apparently still taking patients. A couple girls stream themselves at home, looking very much under the weather, claiming they have the variant and listing their symptoms.

Another conspiracy theory is already taking hold. It’s been three days since the shelter in place was ordered all throughout the US, but even in Minneapolis there have been people who ignored it. Those people who still took their children to the park, and jogged the same trails in the mornings with their friends. I still can’t believe it spread so quickly. The United States is not a small chunk of land, and yet reports of the disease are popping up everywhere only 4 days after it was reported in Canada. It seems so unreal; I almost don’t want to believe it.

I turn on the tv and flip the channel to the news again, where information on variant TRIM71 is now broadcasted constantly. There’s no estimate on number of infected available yet, but every state is on lockdown. The reporter is standing in front of University Hospital, where they are loading busses up with the overflow of sick people. Nobody is permitted inside because they are at capacity. There are armed men standing guard, and as one bus pulls away, another takes its place.

“The situation is looking desperate here at University Hospital,” the blonde news reporter is saying, gesturing to lines of people waiting to board the busses, and the soldiers surrounding the area. She talks some more about the ‘situation’ without really giving any more information. She passes the conversation back to another reporter, who is standing near a line of by-state busses and a passenger train, talking about where to go to sign up for evacuation, and what to do in the meantime – in other words, sign up online and do not go outside until your time comes. To the sick, she repeats the message of the other newscaster. “Please go to the University hospital to board the busses which can take you to get treatment. Go alone, and please do not stay home to be treated by loved ones.”

There’s a sudden shout outside, so I take to my balcony to see what the commotion is about, along with all of my neighbors who are north facing. A filthy, elderly man is chasing a middle-aged business man down the middle of the street while the business man yells for help and cups a bleeding forearm. Someone down the road opens a car door to let him in, but the older man is running impossibly fast for his age and before the door can be closed, he rips it back open and drags his prey out while the terrified victim pleads for mercy. The elderly man punches and bites the guy with an expression of pure rage – one that is so exaggerated and crazed it can be seen even from here. The driver of the car doesn’t even bother to close the passenger door. He just speeds away with the door agape. I shake my head in astonishment that someone would leave another person to suffer this fate, but I make no move to go down and help either. The biting, and scratching, and drooling continues for what feels like forever. I see heads popping up all around, but something is telling us all to stay where we are. At some point, the man on the ground stops fighting back, and stops pleading.

At once, seemingly for no reason at all, the attacker stops his assault and looks around at those of us viewing the scene, snarling at us and running back and forth beneath our feet, as if he is looking for a way up. The man on the ground sits up, confused. He stares at his hands as if he doesn’t understand what they are.

“Hey, are you okay?” I shout down to the bewildered looking guy, who is probably in a state of shock, but with his wounds, he should be dead. I start to stand in order to run down and check on him, but then he locks eyes with me. Even from this distance I can see that those eyes are devoid of any sign of the person who was behind them only seconds ago. Whoever’s husband or father once existed in that body, is no longer there. My breath catches in my throat, and I slowly crouch back down, clinging to the wooden posts on my balcony as if I could fall over the side and in to their arms at any moment.