Bits & Pieces (Benny Imura 5)
Now she came toward him, ignoring his sword, ignoring the blood. She touched his face, his chest, his arms, his mouth.
“Tom? What is it?”
“Sherrie? Are you okay?”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t. There were news stories that made no sense. An outbreak in Pennsylvania. Then people getting sick in other places. Anywhere a plane from Philly landed. Anywhere near I-95 and I-76. Spreading out from bus terminals and train stations. The reporters put up numbers. Infected first, then casualties. In single digits. In triple. When Tom was racing back from the police academy, trying to get home, they were talking about blackout zones. Quarantine zones. There were helicopters in the air. Swarms of them. When he got home, the TV was on. Anderson Cooper was yelling—actually yelling—about fuel air bombs being deployed in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore. Other places.
London was about to go dark.
L.A. was on fire.
On fire.
That’s when he stopped watching TV. That’s when they all stopped. It was when Dad came in from the backyard with those bites on his neck.
And it all fell apart.
All sense. All meaning.
All answers.
“What is it?” asked Sherrie.
All Tom could do was shake his head.
“What is it?”
He looked at her. Looked for wounds. For bites.
“What is it?” she repeated. And repeated it again. “What is it?”
And Tom realized that the question was all Sherrie had left. She didn’t want an answer. Couldn’t really use one. She was like a machine left on after its usefulness was done. An organic recording device replaying a loop.
“What is it? What is it?” Varied only by the infrequent use of his name. “What is it, Tom?”
The only other changes were in the hysterical notes that ebbed and flowed.
The inflection, the stresses put on different words as something in her head misfired.
“What is it?”
“What is it?”
“What is it?”
Like that. Repeated over and over again. A litany for an apocalyptic service without a church.
It reminded Tom of that old song.
“What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”
REM. From an album called Monster.
Now there was irony.