What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) Read Online Free PDF Page B

inoculation that could prevent the transmission of the disease. And he thought he had. He couldn’t be certain but he believed he had. I won’t know if he was right for another year or two.
    He gave me an injection the very last time I saw him—the experimental vaccine.
    He hadn’t been home for over a week even though the research facility wasn’t far away. For months he had only been able to come home for a few hours at a time. School had closed. By then, the bank where my mother worked had also shut its doors and she was home with me. The bank’s customers had withdrawn as much money as they could but, she told me, their money was now as useless as old lottery tickets.
    One time my mother had driven over to see my father at his lab when he hadn’t been home for several days and he had become very angry. It wasn’t safe on the roads, he had said. Someone might attack her. Crazy people were on the loose.
    There was a babble of constant news broadcasts informing us of a breakdown of social order, martial law, curfews, government orders, empty food banks, power shortages, hospital closures, recovery centers. And where to take the dead. Then the television stopped working. Then the power went out for good. We had our generator but my mother was frantic to try to conserve fuel.
    On the day my father paid us his last visit, we heard the sound of a truck coming down the road and it scared us. My mother grabbed a rifle and watched the truck approach through a pair of binoculars. It didn’t take long before she relaxed and passed the binoculars to me. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s your father.”
    Once inside the house, he was jittery, couldn’t stop moving. He didn’t say much. His face was drained of color, his eyes red. He hadn’t slept for days. He went to the basement and checked our supplies. He inspected the car in the garage and noted how much propane we had left. He asked us if we needed anything, then laughed. “I don’t know why I said that. I couldn’t get you anything at this point even if I wanted to.”
    “Is it bad out there?” my mother asked.
    “It’s bad. It’s both a blessing and a curse that we live way out here, in the middle of nowhere. You’re probably safer for now. But later…” He held up his hands. “I had to promise them the moon to get them to let me out for a few hours. They’ll come looking for me if I’m not back soon. It’s all government people there now.”
    My mother had tried to make him something to eat, a sandwich and some soup, but he refused to eat any of our food. It took her a long time to finally stop offering him things. He washed his hands carefully before he touched us. He even wore latex gloves.
    At last my mother sighed and said, “So the plan is, we stay here while you go back to the lab and finish what you’re doing.”
    My father looked away, out the kitchen window. The three of us were leaning against the counters near the stove. The counters were littered with the cans and jars my mother had kept pulling out of the cupboards. My father looked so thin and weak, as if all of his strength was draining away. His hair kept getting grayer every time I saw him and his face more deeply lined, his cheeks sagging.
    “I’m afraid there is no plan,” he said. “No one could have predicted this. When I leave today, I won’t be back for who knows how long. They’re taking us to a larger complex in Raintree. The airport’s there, the river, all major highways. We’ll do what we can.”
    He had set his briefcase on the counter, the well-worn, brown leather bag my mother had got for him right after they were married, his initials in three silver letters mounted above the clasp. He picked the briefcase up, pulled the straps free and opened the flap.
    “I have to ask you something,” he said. He was searching our faces, making sure the importance of what he was about to say sunk in. There was no time to waste on anything that wasn’t important.
    He