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She ate it all. She ate like a wolf.
Mary grabbed the Ben & Jerry’s, and now she was beginning to cry again as she put it into the microwave and softened it for twenty seconds. She wanted it runny, she wanted it to be like cold chocolate soup. She wanted to slurp it down.
The microwave dinged.
She grabbed a spoon, a big one, a soup spoon. She pried the lid from the ice cream and half spooned, half poured the pint of rich chocolate down her throat, barely tasting it in her eagerness.
She was weeping and eating, licking her hands, shaking the spoon.
She licked the lid.
Enough, she told herself.
She pulled out two large plastic garbage bags, the big black ones. Systematically she filled one with anything she could feed to the children: saltines, peanut butter, honey, Rice Chex, Nutri-Grain bars, cashews.
The second bag she carried upstairs. She piled in pillowcases and sheets, toilet paper, towels—especially towels because they could be substituted for diapers.
She found the bottle of Prozac. She opened it and tipped it into her hand. The pills were green and orange, oblong. She popped one and swallowed it by cupping water from the faucet with her hand.
There were only two pills left.
She dragged the two bags to the front door.
Then she went back upstairs to her bathroom. She carefully locked the door behind her.
She knelt in front of the toilet, raised the lid, and stuck her finger down her throat until the gag reflex forced the food from her stomach.
When she was done she brushed her teeth. She went back downstairs. Took hold of the bags and began dragging them to the day care.
“I’m guessing Little Pete can’t balance on bike handlebars,” Sam said to Astrid.
“No, he can’t,” Astrid confirmed.
“Okay, then, we’ll be on foot. It’s what, like, four o’clock? Maybe we better stay here the night, start out in the morning.” Self-conscious about Quinn’s earlier complaints, Sam said, “What do you think, Quinn? Stay or go for it?”
Quinn shrugged. “I’m beat. Besides, they have a candy machine.”
The plant manager’s office had a couch, which Astrid could share with Little Pete. She offered a still-stiff Edilio the back cushions.
Sam and Quinn searched the facility until they happened upon the infirmary. There were gurneys there, hospital beds on wheels.
Quinn laughed. “Surf’s up, brah.”
Sam hesitated. But then Quinn took off running, got the gurney up to speed, jumped aboard, and even managed to stand up before slamming into a wall.
“Okay,” Sam said. “I can do that.”
They had a few minutes of gurney surfing through the abandoned hallways. And Sam discovered he could still laugh. It seemed like a million years since Sam had surfed with Quinn. A million years.
Sam and Quinn parked their gurneys in the control room. None of them really understood any of the controls, but it felt like the place to be.
They found that Edilio had rounded up five radiation suits, almost like space suits, each with a hood, a gas mask, and a small oxygen bottle.
“Nice, Edilio,” Quinn said. “Just in case?”
Edilio looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, just in case.”
When Quinn smirked, Edilio said, “You don’t think all that has happened is because of this place? Look at that map, man. Red bull’s-eye that just happens to go right where the barrier goes? Maybe that Howard guy had it right, you know? Fallout Alley Youth Zone? It’s a pretty big coincidence.”
