PODs Read online

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, tears clogging my throat—again.

  I’m crying over flippin’ batteries. Probably the last packages of batteries my dad will ever buy me.

  Memories of Christmas mornings and birthday parties flashed through my mind. My dad was always on battery patrol, making sure anything that needed them had batteries. Now a flashlight would be the end. The realization that there’d be no new memories to share made the tears fall faster and an ache form deep in my chest.

  That night the news showed the first wave of raffle winners leaving for their quarantine period. The newscaster babbled on and on about what was happening and what the raffle winners could expect when they arrived at the quarantine facility.

  “I wonder if they’re scared,” I whispered.

  My dad squeezed my shoulder. “I suppose they are.”

  “I’m not.”

  “No?” He angled his body on the couch to look at me.

  “No. I’m sad. I’m just sad. Maybe I’ll be scared when I have to leave.”

  I jumped when the newscast was interrupted. A man ran into the newsroom screaming, “The government did it! They caused Armageddon! It’s their fault! AIDS, Ebola, and now the virus. They made them all.”

  “Security!” a man off-camera yelled. “Get him outta here.”

  Dressed in tattered, dirt-smeared clothing, the man ran to the camera, his unshaven face dirtyI stood up so fast my chair adhe1 and his thinning gray hair hanging in greasy strings. Grabbing the camera with both hands, he shook it back and forth. “The raffle was fixed. It was fixed! We didn’t have a chance. Only the young ones. Only the young ones!” he screamed as security pulled him out of the room. “Save the books!” he yelled as the door closed.

  “Well,” the newscaster said, shuffling his papers. “I wonder what drug he was on,” he joked. No one thought it was funny. We were too busy watching the little box over the reporter’s right shoulder. It still played live footage of people climbing into the buses that would transport them to the quarantine facility.

  Where are the older people? Where are the mothers, the fathers? Everyone is my age. Did anyone any older even have a chance? “The raffle was fixed… only the young ones,” the lunatic had screamed. Maybe he wasn’t as crazy as he’d looked.

  Tuesday, eleven days to quarantine

  My cell phone rang and I immediately reached for it, but I didn’t press the talk button right away. I stared at the name illuminated on the screen. It was a call I’d been dreading, but I couldn’t ignore her forever.

  “Hey, Bridget.”

  “Hi. I’ve been trying to talk to you for days, but you never pick up. Why haven’t you been in school?” She’d been crying. Her nose was snotty; I could hear the tissues brush against the receiver of the phone.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just been so weird.” I felt bad that I hadn’t made more of an effort to talk with her, to make sure she was all right. “My parents said I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to. I can test out of my courses if things… well, if—”

  “I can’t believe it, Eva. We’re gonna die.” She started crying again. I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to someone who’s just been given a death sentence?

  “I know.”

  She cried harder, and I couldn’t understand what she said. I sat and listened and let her cry. What else could I do? I was her best friend. I cried with her, for her.

  “Why aren’t you more upset, Eva?” she asked when her sobs turned to hiccupped cries. She didn’t wait for an answer. “You’ve always been the strong one. The practical one.”

  I was glad she couldn’t see me. She’d have known right away. We’d been friends since grade school, there wasn’t much I didn’t tell her. There wasn’t much point; she always seemed to know when I was hiding something. And I was hiding something—I hadn’t told Bridget I’d been chosen. I don’t know why. I guess I didn’t want her to feel worse, or maybe it was because I’d feel worse. I was planning to tell her the night before I left, but I wasn’t sure I’d tell her at all. I knew that was the coward’s way out, but maybe I wasn’t as strong as she gave me credit for.

  Friday, eight days to quarantine

  In the week since the first wave of chosen had left for quarantine, people had started question by Michelle PickettV.ouing the validity of the raffle. Had it been fixed? If not, why didn’t the people leaving show more of a mixture of ages?

  Theories swarmed and scientists discussed the likelihood that a random drawing from such a large population pool would create a group formed entirely of teens and young adults.

  I tried not to listen. I had my own theory.

  “Convinced the government-sponsored raffle was rigged, citizens around the country are rioting, demanding a new raffle,” a live news correspondent reported in front of city hall.

  “We want one drawn in front of everyone. Not behind closed doors where Big Brother can manipulate the numbers,” a middle-aged man told the correspondent. The man wore horn-rimmed glasses and a stained t-shirt with the word “raffle” hand painted inside a circle with a red slash mark across it.

  The correspondent tipped the hand-held microphone back to speak into it. “Surely you must realize that even if another raffle was to take place the chances of getting a place in the POD system are astronomically against you. Your result would likely remain the same.”

  The man’s face hardened, his eyebrows forming a slash above his eyes. He leaned into the reporter’s face and muttered, “You were chosen. That’s why you don’t want another raffle.”

  “Actually, I wasn’t chosen.”

  “Chosen! Chosen!” the man chanted, drawing the attention of the other rioters.

  The mob converged on them, and the reporter stepped backward, bumping into her cameraman. The camera slipped and fell to the ground, filming hundreds of feet swarming the area where the reporter had stood.

  I sucked in a breath, covering my mouth with my fist. I hadn’t realized I was leaning toward the television until my mom pulled gently on my arm. I scooted back on the couch, my eyes still glued to the screen where the live feed had frozen on a distorted frame of chaos.

  “What did they do to the reporter?” I shrieked, pointing at the screen.

  “Eva—”

  “They hate us!”

  “They’re scared.”

  I slumped against the back of the couch.

  Of course they’re sca they’re going to die.

  I looked at my dad out of the corner of my eye and wondered how scared he was. I was scared for him.

  Seconds later the studio anchor’s face filled the screen. He picked up his report without hesitation, leaving everyone to worry and wonder about the fate of the correspondent and her cameraman.

  “As riots rage, looters are taking whatever they can carry. And, as seen in this footage, they don’t care who sees. Police have been unable to stop the looting, and store-owners are taking the law into their own hands. Gun-related deaths have soared, increasing by more than two hundred percent.

  “Hoarding is commonplace, and with it, price gouging. A gallon of milk that would have cost three dollars before the raffle is selling for seven, even eight dollars. The greatest markups are on canned goods and other non-perishables as people try to gather enough supplies to wait out the virus.”

  “Damn right I’m buying everything I can get my hands on. I’m gonna board up my house and wait out the virus our families, our friendsoran will . POD or no POD, I’m taking care of my own,” one man said as he and his family left a grocery store with four carts loaded full of canned vegetables, soups, and fruit. The camera stayed on the carts. “… can’t show our faces—if people know who we are, our neighbors might come steal our supplies.”

  “It’s getting bad,” my dad said. “I knew it would.” He shook his head. “Neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, families divided—all because of a little bug.”

  “In an attempt to quell the growing unrest, martial law is in effect as
of today. The Army…” The newscaster still droned on, but my dad turned the television off.

  “Eva Mae, I’ll be glad to get you out of this and tucked safely in your POD.” He patted me on the knee before standing and walking to the kitchen.

  “But what about you? How am I supposed to just leave you here with all this going on?” I flung my arm toward the television.

  “Don’t worry about us, Eva—”

  “Dad, remember our trips to Perch Lake? Remember the little cabin on the lake we rented from the old couple?”

  “Yes. It was wonderful there.”

  “Let’s go back. We could fish and hunt for food. The cabin is isolated. We’d be far from people—we could wait out the virus together. We’d be safe from the violence. Why are you shaking your head? We can pick berries and grow a garden… it’ll work, Dad! Stop shaking your head!”

  “Eva, you’re going into the PODs. It’s the only safe place there is and that’s where I want you.”

  “What about what I want? I want to stay with you.” I felt like stomping my foot, but forced it to stay still, reminding myself I wasn’t two anymore.

  “I know you do, but that isn’t how this works. You go into the PODs and we stay here. That’s the deal, Evangelina.”

  “Will you go to the lake? For me?” I held my breath as I watched my dad weighing the benefits of trying to survive holed up in a cabin in the woods for a year, fishing and hunting for food—neither of which he did well. At the jerky nod of his head the breath I was holding whooshed from my lungs and I threw myself into his arms, squeezing him. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  Thursday, forty-eight hours to quarantine

  We had pizza again for dinner. My dad said he was in the mood for a heartburn-inducing pizza. My mom, who hated to cook, jumped at the chance for a night off.

  I knew the truth. I was leaving the next day. Pizza was my favorite meal. It wasn’t hard to figure out. We sat at the table eating pizza and playing Scrabble. We didn’t turn the television on. It was nice not having to listen to the same news clips, the same stories, the conspiracy theories.

  I took a bite out of a slice of pepperoni and double-cheese pizza, some of the cheese plopping on the table with a splat. I snatched it before my mom could wipe it up with her napkin.

  “That’s still good!”

  “Evangelina, don’t talk with food in your mouth.”

  I took another bite of pizza, the sauce and c toward the bedroom.ed his he1heese oozing from the corners of my lips. “I’m really gonna miss this,” I said around the huge bite.

  Chapter 4:

  Leaving

  Friday, twenty-four hours to quarantine

  “We don’t need to leave yet,” I whispered, looking back through the front door at the home I’d never see again. “I think I’d better check my room one more time. I feel like there’s something I’ve forgotten.”

  “Get in the car, Eva, please,” my mom pleaded. “You haven’t forgotten anything.”

  “No, just listen… we could rent a houseboat and stay at sea for a year. It would give the virus time to die off. It’d be like we were all in a POD. We’d just be on the water instead of underground.”

  “Eva, we’ve been through this. The POD system is your best chance. We’d never get enough food and fuel on a boat to last an entire year. Supplies are already running low. Grocery store shelves are empty—too many people are hoarding. Besides, we don’t know the first thing about sailing. We’d sink the first day,” my dad chuckled. I didn’t think it was funny.

  “Dad—”

  “Evangelina.” He only used my full name when he was frustrated with me. “Other people have had the same idea. What happens if someone sails around for a year and is a carrier of the virus? When they came back from their little jaunt around the world, they’d infect anyone who was left.”

  “That could happen anyway. You just said people are leaving—”

  “No, I said people have the same idea. The government isn’t letting them leave. Everyone stI stood up so fast my chair adheG6heays on dry land to—”

  “Die,” I shouted. Why won’t they at least try? Then we could stay together.

  “No, contain the virus.”

  We’d been having the same conversations for days. My argument would change. Each day I’d try another scenario, another reason I shouldn’t go to the PODs, but the end result remained the same. My parents were set on me going. They were convinced it was the only way I’d be safe.

  “Get in the car, Eva Mae. I don’t want you to be late,” my dad told me.

  I slid in the backseat, the gray leather soft and silky under me, and the smell of my dad’s aftershave wafted over me. The Sonic cup I had promised to throw away still sat in the cup holder. Papers and textbooks filled the seat beside me, overflowing and littering the floor. My dad never was very organized. The backseat of his car served as his desk and filing cabinet, a mishmash of graded and ungraded papers swirling together.

  My mom sat in the front seat next to my dad, silent and folded in on herself. He patted her knee before taking her hand in his. They held hands while my dad maneuvered the car through the neighborhood, toward the high school where I’d catch the bus to the quarantine area.

  There has to be another way. Think, Eva, think… hurry. Make them let you stay.

  The closer we came to the school, the harder it was for me to breathe. It felt like my sweater was choking me. I pulled it away from my neck. My hands were clammy, my heart raced, and my mind spun trying to think of a way to convince my parents it was better for me to stay with them than spend the next year underground like a human mole.

  “Oh, my… damn.”

  My dad’s voice tore me away from my thoughts. I looked at the scene around me. I’d expected news crews, families gathered to say goodbye to their loved ones, even a protestor or two, but I never expected such complete and utter chaos.

  The National Guard had erected a makeshift fence around the school; it must have been twelve feet tall. Barbed wire curled around the top. Soldiers were stationed every few feet along the outside of the fence, rifles held across their chests, keeping news crews and protestors out.

  There were hundreds of protestors swarming the area. Police and National Guard members dressed in riot gear tried to hold back the angry crowd for our car to pass through, but several protestors broke through and rushed our car.

  They screamed and beat the car with homemade picket signs declaring the raffle a sham and demanding a new one. They yelled profanities at us, spitting at the car as we passed by. A mother in the crowed cried and held out her infant, begging me to take him with me.

  I put my palm on the cool glass of the window, fingers splayed, tears rolling down my checks as I watched the sweet face of the infant disappear as we drove past.

  More of the out-of-control crowd pushed through the police barriers. The cars in front of us inched forward, honking at the rioting people. Our car was forced to a stop. Rioters screamed at us as they climbed on the hood and trunk. Others pushed the car from the sides, rocking it back and forth.

  A man stood outside my window. He looked through the glass with hate in his eyes. “The raffle was fixed! It should be my family leaving, not you!” Spittle hit the window, spewing out of his mouth as he shouted. It dripped down his chin and on I wantedV.outo the front of his stained t-shirt.

  I looked into his bloodshot eyes through the glass, and fear slithered down my spine. It was like seeing a car accident. I knew I shouldn’t look, but I couldn’t pull my gaze away. That seemed to infuriate him even more. He started hitting the glass with the handle of his picket sign, trying to break through. Still I watched, frozen.

  “EVA!” my dad shouted. I jumped at his tone, looking away from the rioter as I glanced toward my dad. “Close your eyes!”

  Just as he yelled to me, glass flew through the car. My mom screamed. I felt chunks of glass hit me as I jerked away from the window. The man I’d been staring at laughed. He reach
ed in, his hand feeling back and forth for the door lock. Acting on impulse, I kicked his hand as hard as I could. Using the heel of my boot I smashed his hand over and over. My stomach churned as bright-red blood ran down his hand, dripping on the pile of my dad’s crisp white papers.

  I was still kicking his hand when I heard a pop… pop… pop. The man’s body jerked before sliding down the side of the car and hitting the ground with a thud.

  “Did they shoot him?” I screamed.

  “Yes, but they’re probably just rubber bullets. Police use them in riot situations,” my dad shouted over the noise of the rioters.

  I jumped, a small scream escaping my lips, when I heard more pops. Looking around, I saw police with riot shields and batons, forcing the people away from the waiting cars. Some officers used Tasers; others used huge cans of pepper spray. Slowly, the rioters were pushed back and the cars continued their trek to the high school. A trip that should have taken twenty minutes took nearly an hour.

  “Name?” a soldier asked when our car pulled up to the fence surrounding the school.

  “Evangelina Mae Evans,” my dad answered.

  “ID.” The soldier held out his hand. He looked at my identification papers and social security card, comparing the information with what he had on his list. Satisfied, he handed my papers to my dad and walked away. He signaled and the gate opened just wide enough for my dad to drive through; it closed again as soon as the car was past.

  “Seven thirty. Plenty of time for you to sign in and stow your things,” my dad told me as we got out in the parking lot.

  I nodded.

  “Evangelina,” my mother whispered. “Come here.”

  She held her arms out for me. I walked into them and she hugged me tight against her. I hadn’t realized I’d been crying until then. The hot tears stung my face. I pulled back and looked at her shirt. It was smeared with blood.

  “Let me clean you up, Eva,” she murmured. She wiped the blood from my cheeks, pulling a few small pieces of glass out of the cuts.