The Jeep's tires screeched in protest as we rounded a corner—the same one for the third time—as I tried to pry my brain for any information left about Major Clemons's house and what the fuck it looked like. In the brief amount of time, I might have aged ten years older from stress, scared that we wouldn't be able to find it.

Keep it together, Bren, I thought; forgetting an address is not something to worry about than a literal monster eating your insides. That should scare you more than a little memory loss.

"Are you sure it's around here?" Logan asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," I said, "but he only moved here three years ago to work at West Point, and that was the time we last visited him. He used to live in Baltimore."

It was a little strange to find that half of the neighborhood still had their vehicles parked on the driveway. I did not see even a speck of trash littered around the street, except for the evacuation flyers.

Logan drove around the same neighborhood four times, and he was sure I had forgotten the address. Maybe he was right, and I felt a little bad that we wasted almost half an hour searching for it. We drove past signs that said ONE WAY ONLY and turning left from signs that said NO LEFT TURN. I was frustrated, beginning to lose hope that maybe Major Clemons's house was farther than I thought.

I was glad I was distracted. It kept me from thinking about Peter and how he could be a mile away from me. I had never known that he went to West Point. I gathered he'd join a military college somewhere far away, enjoying what little freedom he got from his strict and demanding family, but I never imagined him to choose this school. It had been more than a year since we last saw each other.

The universe had a strange way with comedy, and it took the end of the world to cross our paths.

Forget it, Bren. So what if Peter is here? You didn't stalk him. He happens to be in the same place as you. He can't accuse you of stalking him...again.

I did not want to hear him say those words, painful as they were to hear. Back then, I thought he would understand, thought that maybe all the gossip and whispers from school wouldn't get to him because he was strong and above all them petty fuckers. Oh, how wrong I was. It was a one-off thing. I wanted to see him so we could talk about everything that had happened since the video got circulated on social media, and when I couldn't find him, I stalked him for days.

I realized he did not want to see me--him and his parents. Some words were thrown; maybe he meant them, maybe he didn't, but I was too crushed to contemplate any of it. Maybe it was all true, and maybe they weren't.

Fuck Pete Gauthier. I tried to tell myself that I don't care about him any longer. If he's in West Point, so fucking what?

I didn't know how my mind suddenly cleared from my constant puttering and annoyance, maybe a little bout of nervousness from meeting Peter again. I asked Logan to turn right instead of left from the same corner for the fourth time, driving past a sign that read ROAD: DEAD END.

And there it was, splayed like a roasted pig on a raised hearth, a two-story colonial-style house, surrounded by close-trimmed grass, bushes of carnations and hyacinth, and the aura of an idyllic summer getaway in this secret corner of the suburbs. It was smaller than I remembered it, with two large windows on each side by the front door, a balcony hanging overhead, and five symmetrical windows hugging the second floor. The American flag gently flapped against the wind by the secured pole against the porch column.

No one was home from the looks of it, just like the rest of this ghost town. I climbed out of the Jeep, ears and eyes perked for any sudden change. Slowly, my distance from the house drew nearer, passing by the closed garage, and reached the door. I peered inside from the side windows and knocked. Titus or Sadie, the Clemons's two rottweilers, would have made noise by now, barking in excitement. I've known the two pups since the Clemons adopted them six years ago.

"No one's home," I said when no one answered.

I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I found the key taped at the bottom. When my dad and I stayed in his house for a week, Major Clemons told us about the spare key if we got locked out. I was glad I remembered where it was.

We carefully cleared out the entire house, and as I surmised, no one was home. The Clemons's dogs were not here either, which meant the major probably brought them with him. Strangely, the food in the cupboards hadn't been cleaned out, as if Major Clemons left with only his clothes and a few personal possessions. I guessed he wasn't worried about missing out on food when the military could supply it. He also didn't take his Ford Explorer out of the garage. 

We found a few empty boxes that we used to store as much food as possible from his house and put it inside the Jeep. We placed the perishable foods like frozen meat, chicken, and bacon inside a large cooler packed with ice. I left a sticky note on the refrigerator, telling him how sorry I was that I had to loot his home if he ever got back. I had to feed thirteen people, including me, and who knew how long our supplies would run out.

I spotted the Milevision CCTV camera tethered to the column out on the back porch out of the corner of my eye. It had a broad view of the backyard, the pool, and the gardens. I told Logan about it.

"What do you think we'll find?" He asked.

"Cameras like that can store a video feed for a week before they get deleted. I know that brand. My dad's security firm works with them for a few years now, and we have them installed all around our house. He might have recommended it to Clemons."

Logan's eyes widened. "We'll be able to find out what happened to the town."

"Yes. They might have evacuated two days ago or less. I also saw a camera looking out on the street, where half of the houses still have cars. Doesn't that strike you as strange that people would leave out a seventy thousand dollar Tesla sitting out in the open in the middle of an evacuation?"

"Someone must have provided transportation."

"And we'll know who they are. But I already have a good guess."

Narrowing down Major Clemons's password was easier than I thought. The computer gave me five tries to enter the correct password. I typed in Clemons's late wife's name, Stella, but that was wrong. I entered his birthday, but that was wrong too. By the third try, I entered his graduation date from a class photo in West Point by his desk: June 6th, 2004. The screen lit to life. He might have placed the picture frame there to remind him of his password.

I saw the folder named 'Video Feed' at the top right corner of the screen, double-clicked it, and found rows of video files labeled by their recorded date. Each video stored up to six hours of footage. As I hovered the cursor over a feed, it gave me a snippet of what was in the video. It took me a few minutes to find what I was looking for, dated April 14th, two days ago. I clicked the video and put it on full screen.

Military white buses were parked along the street, with the army ushering a line of residents toward the vehicles, carrying a few of their luggage. One soldier stood on top of the humvee, barking orders through the megaphone. Too bad there was no audio included in the feed. I fast forward the video until we reached the point that a helicopter touched down in the middle of the street. Two soldiers got out and jogged toward the house and disappeared from the camera's view, probably entering the premises.

A few minutes later, Major Clemons came into view with the two soldiers, carrying a couple of duffel bags and tailed by Titus and Sadie. All of them quickly boarded the helicopter and flew up. A few minutes later, the buses left with the people from the neighborhood to somewhere unknown.

"Damn. They were certainly in a hurry," Logan said.

"This happened two days ago," I said.

"If they evacuated a small village like this, they must have evacuated many towns and cities north from here."

"And left everything southeast of New England to fend for themselves."

"To die, you mean."

"It means they already decided to blow up the city two days before it actually happened. I thought it was out of desperation, but...they already gave up on us a long time ago."

"Maybe since the outbreak started."

It made me angry that our government already us as a lost cause without even trying. I felt a knot in my chest, remembering how sure I was that the army would stroll right through the city, rescuing us from the cathedral, and everything would be okay.

Clearly, that didn't happen.

I felt nauseous to think about how naive I was. Ever since this all started, we had been on our own. I was glad I had enough sense to smell a trap when presented with Central Park because I would be dead by now. The United States was on damage control, so how many traps were they willing to set up to kill this disease?

I hoped New York was the last one, but I highly doubted that.

Then, a thought occurred to me. "What if Albany is another trap?" I asked Logan.

Logan raised his eyebrows, looking at me funny. "That's...a possibility. Damn, I haven't thought of that. Fuck. You said it's a choke point, right?"

"I did. It's a perfect gathering place for everyone in the area. But like Central Park, the government asked the survivors to go to one place to wait for rescue; in turn, it drew more of the vectors into one area and then bombing it."

"You said Albany is safe. You suggested it."

"I didn't say that. It is the most likely city to be a safe zone due to its geography, and potentially, our way out. Now that I have time to think it further, what if they're doing the same thing in Central Park, but it's all over New England?"

"That's a lot of cities."

"Thirty-three, to be exact." I lifted the evacuation flyer with the list of towns and cities at the bottom of the page.

"And a lot of effort to cover it all up. There will be riots all over the country if this gets out. I mean, killing your own citizens? That's unconstitutional! Everyone here is still healthy. The infection hasn't reached this part of the country yet."

"I don't know, fuck, I'm having a bad feeling over this again. The cities are inside the quarantine zone. Why not put it outside?"

"If there's one thing I learn from all this, your gut is a lifesaver," Logan said. "What is your gut telling you now?"

"Right now, it's doing jumping jacks."

"Do you remember Mr. Morris?" Logan asked.

"Our third-grade PE Coach? Why?"

"There was one time where he needed to keep an eye on all of us, so he puts us in one area of the field to play and whatnot."

"I remember. That was an entire day of PE because of a teachers' strike."

"Yes. Mr. Morris says that we can stay out there as long as we want to remember the one rule: No one wanders away from the designated area. If one does, then everyone gets punished with extra homework. Get it? If the government wants to monitor the disease, what better way than to gather everyone into one place instead of spreading out all your resources?"

"Right. The larger the area, the harder it is to contain. One citizen gets infected; they can be isolated and treated real quick. And if it goes out of control, they can burn it all down without risking a spread since all the vectors are already in one place."

"If we go to Albany, we might never get out, Bren."

"A lot of the people who live here are military families. They won't like that."

"They might not know. We need to find out what the outside world says about New York to get the full picture. Our government could be lying to everyone. Who knows? This could be a virus that is grown in a lab!"

I didn't know at the time that the virus developed naturally. I believed for a long time that some government entities (or some private biotech company) created the virus, either deliberately releasing it to the public, and it got out of control, or it was an accident. Both scenarios were still scary. However, given what I've seen and what my government was capable of, it wasn't far-fetched to think that they were the ones who created the virus.

So, I told Logan, "You might be right."

"What now? Your guy may have gone to Albany, and he must be special to have a helicopter get him."

I didn't know what Major Clemons's real job was, aside from being assigned as part of the senior staff at West Point. That was when my dad brought me to the school and got the major to show me around, thinking that I would be attending there soon. Either here or at Annapolis, on what my dad would say as keeping all options open. Maybe that was all surface work, and he had deep roots within the bureaucracy of Washington.

If he could genuinely pull strings like that, he might be our best hope of getting out alive.

"Going to Albany just shot up on my shit list," I said, "but it is still our only safe bet. Clemons is the only guy we have that can get us out of the red zone. He must have deeper ties within the government."

"It's a risk."

"And one that I am willing to take."

Logan frowned. "I was hoping you'd say fuck all and just drive west and never stop."

"I thought about that. But how far will we go? We don't stand a chance even with a disguise two hundred miles to the nearest border, blockaded by the heavy military presence. Major Clemons can open those doors for us."

Logan shrugged. "We can go to the Canadians. They seem nice."

"Or they'll still shoot you if you come near or douse you with maple syrup," I said, grinning.

"Bah! Laugh it off, Bren. This is serious! Clemons better be the man you think he is."

I smiled. "If there's one thing I know, if he doesn't help us, my dad would never forgive him. They have a long history, Brother to brother, that is considered sacrilege. And if he forgets, I'll remind him."