The Last Town on Earth

VIII

“You know what I heard?”

What’s that?”

“I heard that maybe the reason Mr. Worthy wanted us to close off the town is to stop workers from moving on to other jobs.”

“What other jobs?”

“I hear they got lotsa jobs on the coast, on account of the war. Hear they’ll pay fucking shipbuilders more than we’re making here.”

“Nobody’s making more than we’re making here. They give you your own goddamn house at the shipyards?”

“How do we know they don’t?”

“I’m just saying I heard—”

“And we heard you just fine. Hell, didn’t we all vote on this? I didn’t see you raising any ruckus that night.”

“Just ‘cause I voted for something doesn’t mean I can’t change my mind. Ain’t a man free to do that?”

“Ain’t much free right now.”

“That’s my point. We ain’t free to move around and look for—”

“Goddammit, enough. If that’s the way you’re thinking, then as soon as the fucking quarantine’s over, you can take your goddamn self out to those shipyards and see how much those military folk’ll pay you. I for one don’t buy any of that.”

“I wasn’t saying I’m buying it. I just said I heard.”

“Elton’s been coughin’ a lot lately.”

“Elton’s always been coughin’.”

“But how do we know it ain’t from the flu?”

“Because he was coughing last year and there wasn’t any flu, and the year before that, and the year before that.”

“But how come that—”

“It ain’t the flu. He’s just a sick bastard.”

“Hey, Yolen. You been by the gen’ral store this week?”

“No. Jeanine’s fixing to go today, though.”

“Well, get this—there ain’t no alcohol left.”

“What?”

“The store’s all out.”

“Hell Jesus. You sure?”

“Otto said they’d just bought as much food an’ supplies as they thought they could handle before the quarantine, but they mustn’t’ve ordered much hooch.”

“Shit, Leonard. I only got one fucking bottle left at home.”

“I got less’n that.”

“Shit. You really sure there’s none left?”

“You ever have the flu?”

“Yeah, when I was ten. Kept me in bed more ‘n a month.”

“Damn. It killed all four of my grandparents in the same winter.”

“Kills everybody’s grandparents, if they’re lucky. Better’n wasting away slow with something else.”

“Don’t think flu is lucky.”

“How do you think that girl a yours in Timber Falls is doing?”

“Wasn’t sick last time I saw her. But some of her friends were.”

“Sure she’ll be fine.”

“You’re a lucky man, with your girl already here in town. This quarantine lasts much longer, I’m gonna go outta my goddamn head.”

“Can’t last much longer.”

“What the hell kind of man does this make me look like to her, hiding away because I’m scared of getting sick?”

“Don’t worry about that. She ain’t thinking down on you—she’s probably worried enough trying to stay healthy herself.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“Sorry … She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah … I get tired of waiting sometimes, you know?”

IX

“I heard someone say it came in a black cloud over the Atlantic,” Laura said as she and Philip ate some of the cake she’d made. It was the evening after Philip’s visit to Graham and Amelia.

“A black cloud?”

“Like a mustard gas cloud, only dark. Something the Germans released from a battleship, and the wind brought it to Boston. That’s why it started there.”

“Do you really think the Germans made it?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Why not?”

“Then wouldn’t they all be sick, too?”

Laura shrugged. “Maybe they don’t get the flu.”

“Then I guess Elsie’s family has nothing to worry about.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just mean they’re German.”

“But they’re American now, Philip.” She paused. “You sure do bring her up a lot.”

That shut him up for a moment.

“Maybe it wasn’t from Germany,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s an idea, is all.”

Two weeks ago, just before the quarantine, they had journeyed to Timber Falls to see a moving picture at the new theater. Philip had been only a handful of times, and already he was anxious to get back to the theater and see whatever was playing. He loved the feel of the place, the plush carpets up the aisles and the sleepy usher not much older than he, wearing the funny hat and tearing their tickets as they walked in. The picture they had seen, The Phantom Operative, had been about the war, in a way. There were no soldiers in it, but plenty of spies: the plot centered on two American businessmen who had developed a secret serum that could counteract any disease within two hours of the patient’s ingesting it. But it turned out German operatives had developed the exact opposite—an odorless, colorless poison that could kill anyone who even came too close to it. The Germans had some crazy scheme to put the poison on the feet of houseflies and send the flies to the American heartland, where they would multiply and spread their lethal freight.

When the reels were changed, there was a message on the screen asking everyone to stay in their seats; a representative of the government was going to deliver an important message. Up on the stage jumped an older man, late forties or so, and before he even started, Philip realized he must be one of the so-called Four-Minute Men. The speaker looked snappy in his dark suit, and without introducing himself, he launched into his speech, starting out dark and sinister as he painted a picture of the Hun army and its senseless wrath. People say the war’s already swinging in our favor, he said, but that’s no reason for us to be letting our guard down. The German army is still a mighty force, and without all the efforts of the fine and hardworking American people, the Hun would have claimed Paris by now, would have pillaged all of France and would be aiming his Big Berthas at Big Ben.

Philip didn’t much mind these speeches, but he knew how Rebecca loathed them, so he viewed the man with a skeptical eye. Toward the end of the speech, the man reminded them of the importance of registration for all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, saying how it was a great honor to fight for their country and defend their women and children from the fierce Hun. Philip looked down at his missing foot, ashamed—even if the war continued until he turned eighteen, he would never be admitted. The Four-Minute Man closed by telling the crowd about the Fourth Liberty Loan and exhorted them to buy more Liberty Bonds, then walked off at a hurried pace, his footsteps chased by hearty applause.

Then the picture continued, and the virulent houseflies were let loose on the German operatives after a climactic fight scene, and all was right with the world.

“Where do you think the flu came from?” Laura asked Philip now. She almost never asked him questions like that, never wanted to defer to his opinion. Proud of her own intelligence and too acutely aware of the fact that he was older, she didn’t want him to start thinking that his age made him any brighter than she. It had stunned him a few months ago when she’d asked him to help her with some of the math problems, and soon they had developed a regular tutoring schedule. But for math only: it was understood that Laura was still smarter in other matters. Philip simply had the edge here thanks to his financial tutelage under Charles.

“I don’t know. Hadn’t really thought about it like that. It just is.”

“Have you ever had the flu?”

He thought. “Don’t think so. I was pretty healthy until the accident. My mom always said I had the constitution of a rhino.”

“A rhino?”

“I think she liked the way that sounded.”

“I think she was making fun of your nose.”

He touched his nose. “What?”

“I was kidding. Rhino.”

He smiled at her warily, hoping it really was a joke and that he hadn’t been walking around all this time, unbeknownst to himself, with a pointy nose. He couldn’t help looking at her nose more closely than usual, and at the rest of her face. This person is my sister now, he thought, yet we weren’t born of the same people. I don’t have her father’s nose, and she doesn’t have my mother’s eyes. Are related people more likely to catch the flu from each other? Would it come for both of us, or just one? How tightly connected are we? And I wish my hair was as blond as hers.

They sat there in silence, then Laura leaned forward a bit. She lowered her voice. “I wanted to ask you … if you would let me look at one of your books.”

“One of what books?” Philip too lowered his voice, though he wasn’t sure why.

“Your fighter-pilot books.”

A quizzical look. “I don’t have any fighter-pilot books.”

She rolled her eyes. “They’re in your closet. Under the box with your baseball glove.”

“… What were you doing in my closet?”

“Look, I could have just taken them and read them if I’d wanted to, but I’m being good enough to ask permission.”

“If Rebecca knew about them—”

“I know. I can keep secrets.”

“If she catches you, they’re yours.”

“Deal. But she won’t catch me.”

They left the table and walked to his bedroom, in the back corner of the house, directly below Laura’s room. He opened his closet door, reached down beneath a pile of extra blankets, and lifted out the box with his baseball glove and three baseballs, revealing the contraband beneath. The one on top was called Hunt for the Baron, and the cover bore an illustration of a plane with the German flag painted on its wings, firing its silver guns and leaving supernaturally blue and pink flames in its wake.

He handed them to her.

“Which one’s the best?” she asked.

He was surprised that she was interested in war stories—she was a girl, after all, and not one with a lot of tomboy traits. Philip himself had been somewhat embarrassed by reading them—wasn’t he too old for such stories? Somewhere in those European trenches, other sixteen-year-olds were fighting for their lives.

“I haven’t read them all yet,” he said. “I’ve read the bottom four so far. I liked Attack of the Flying Circus best, I think.”

He had bought a few of them in Timber Falls last month. They were in a stack by the front register of a general store, and the vivid covers had caught his attention, reminding him of the stories of cowboys and train robbers he had read when he was younger. He must have left dozens of those books behind in various boardinghouses during his childhood, as he and his mother always seemed to be moving unexpectedly, running from an angry landlord or a jealous boyfriend. He had reached for a couple of the war books, flipping through until the clerk politely suggested he be a good patriot and buy them.

As soon as Philip reached the Worthy home, he ferried them into his room, temporarily hiding them under his bed. Soldiers were not viewed as heroes in this household, he well knew.

Attack of the Flying Circus detailed the horrific exploits of the recently slain Manfred von Richthofen, the legendary Red Baron, whose so-called Flying Circus was still tearing holes through the skies above France, strafing Allied soldiers and civilians alike. It was a short book intended for somewhat younger readers, and it took Philip only forty minutes to reach the end, where brave American pilots shot down the baron and half of the Circus, chasing the dwindling armada back to German airways, from which it would surely regroup to terrify the skies another day. Philip didn’t know how much was true, but he knew the Baron had existed, knew there was real blood being spilled somewhere beyond these pages.

Another book, Spies in the Harbor, was about German spies who tried to blow up the Statue of Liberty. This one, too, though fiction, hewed closely to the truth: before the United States joined the war, German spies had set off a bomb in a New York harbor, blowing up a munitions facility with an explosion so great it scarred the Statue of Liberty and woke up people as far away as Philadelphia. Everyone in the country had been warned about spies by alarmed government announcements, excited newspapers, and the persistent Four-Minute Men. There were so many recent German immigrants, no one knew whom they could trust. According to the papers, spies were everywhere, keeping tabs on the soldiers at the camps and the workers in the shipyards, spreading wicked rumors of lost battles in France, hoping to discourage the lionhearted American people. Columnists wrote tips on how to spot a spy, on which behaviors were sure signs of the Hun, on what things not to talk about in public. There were even reports that Germany was sending spies to mill towns, hoping to sabotage one of the industries that was keeping American troops supplied for the war. But Charles had reassured Philip that such rumors were groundless fearmongering.

Still, Philip felt stupid for reading these kids’ books. “You can take all of them,” he said to Laura.

She looked at him strangely. “I don’t need all of them.” Besides, how would she sneak all of them to her room without risking being discovered by their mother?

He had offered because he didn’t feel like reading about soldiers anymore, or perhaps ever again. The mere thought of a soldier in the woods nauseated him.

“I’m going to go read it in bed,” Laura said. “I’ll put it back tomorrow.”

Holding the book in her right hand, she reached down through the waist of her skirt with her left. Then, in a motion so practiced Philip realized she must have done this before—and often—she passed the book from one hand to the other inside her dress. There she was, pinning the book there between her belly and the skirt.

“That’s disgusting,” Philip said.

“I’m wearing long johns.”

“Still.” He shook his head. “You can keep the book.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll put it back tomorrow.”

They said good night and she was gone, and he was alone again. He sat down on his bed, hoping she wouldn’t think less of him when she saw how childish the books were.

All the soldiers and pilots in those stories had girls back home, sweethearts. The doughboys wrote them letters and received perfume-scented stationery in return, and at night they’d talk among themselves about how after they beat the kaiser, they’d head back home and marry Susie or Mary Ann or Fanny.

Philip lay down and imagined himself as a soldier with Elsie as his sweetheart. Would she write him letters? She would miss him terribly and roll bandages with the other Red Cross ladies as a way of being close to him; she’d think of him constantly. And what would she write to him? Something about how she missed him the most at night, when she was alone in the dark and the bed felt so big and empty without him. But that would mean they’d already shared the bed, and so he imagined this, too, imagined the two of them lying together, and his imagination continued to work backward, seeing himself sitting atop the bed and watching her undress before joining him. He lingered on that image for a while. Then he let her back into the bed and his imagination raced forward again, stopping at those moments any sixteen-year-old boy would fixate on and skipping past those he didn’t yet understand.

X

Charles was standing at the foot of his bed, looking in a small and faded mirror above his dresser as he removed his tie, when he heard the murmuring voices of his children coming from downstairs.

“I’m glad he’s talking to Laura,” Charles said to Rebecca. “He’s barely said a word at the mill the last two days.”