Chosen by Christine Pope (free children's ebooks pdf txt) 📕

The house had four bedrooms, one of which was an office. In there I found another pile of gray dust, which I guessed must be Eduardo Cruz, Elena’s father.

Her bedroom was on the opposite side of the upstairs hallway, two doors down. Truth be told, I’d always envied her that room, with its own bathroom and the little sitting area off the balcony. It felt like a room for a princess, compared to the boxy twelve-by-twelve space that had been mine all through childhood and high school. No wonder Elena had never been too worried about moving out. “I’ll go from here to my husband’s house,” she used to say with a laugh, and the rest of us had pretty much believed her. No one could really imagine Elena trying to scrape by in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, just for a spurious sense of independence.

And it was on the wrought-iron bed, with its filmy topping of mosquito net and matching white embroidered comforter, that I found the third pile of gray dust. For the longest moment, I just stood there, staring down at it, remembering my friend’s quick, flashing smile, the annoying way she absolutely could not get through a movie without offering her own running commentary on it. How she’d quietly slipped a wad of money into my hand one day during our senior year so I could get the prom dress I really wanted and not the bargain gown my mother was pushing me into, because “in five years you’re just not going to care what you wore.”

But I still did care…although mainly because of what Elena had done to help me out, and not the dress itself.

You see? the voice said, its tone quiet and sad. There’s no point in you doing this. You can’t save them. They’re already gone. Mourn them if you must, but your path lies northward.

I wished then that the voice were real, that it was attached to a real body, so I could grab it by the shoulders and shake it for being so thoughtless. “That’s not the point,” I said, my own voice trembling. “I need to know…and I need to say goodbye.”

It remained silent then…wisely so. I reached out and touched the twisted wrought iron of one of the bedposts, and whispered, “Sleep well.” Then I turned away and walked down the hall, descended the steps, and went out the front door, shutting it quietly behind me.

Dutchie’s tail thumped happily as I got back in the Cherokee, but I didn’t say anything, only reached out to pet her, to feel her silky fur beneath my cold, cold fingers. For a long moment, I just sat there, the key still in my hand, the gun digging uncomfortably into my waistband. Finally, I reached back and pulled it out, returning it to the glove compartment.

Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Susan next. Could I do it? Could I go to the house where I’d spent Thanksgiving and Christmas — Susan was my mother’s sister, and they traded holidays so no one family would have to do all the work — and walk in to see my uncle and aunt reduced to dust, and my cousins as well? Well, two of them, anyway. My cousin Shane was in college in California, at Stanford, to be exact, and so he wouldn’t be around. He would have died far away from his family.

If he died, I reminded myself fiercely. He could be immune, too. You don’t know.

No, I didn’t know. I just wasn’t sure how I would ever find out.

Even so, I put the key in the ignition, then turned it, pointing the vehicle north and east, toward Sandia Heights. It was a longer jog than the one from my house to Elena’s, but up here the streets didn’t feel quite as crammed with abandoned vehicles. There was plenty of evidence of unexpected death — cars crashed into walls, into trees, into one another. And as I gained some height, I could now see that the smoke I had smelled earlier seemed to be coming from the city center. Downtown itself, maybe, or the university. I couldn’t tell for sure from this distance, and it didn’t really matter. That was miles from where I was now, miles from my house. It might spread that far, but I had a feeling I’d be long gone by then.

As I drove along Academy Road, I passed a PetSmart and saw the strangest sight. All kinds of dogs were converging on the store, and right out in front I saw several of them tearing into big bags of dog food, then beginning to feast. More dogs came to join them, but there was no fighting over the food. In fact, I even saw a big pit bull mix move to one side to let a fluffy little dog — a Maltese, I guessed — come in next to him and start eating.

“What the — ” I said aloud, and Dutchie swiveled her head in my direction.

The animals will be taken care of, the voice told me.

I’d been so caught up in my own losses, and so relieved to have Dutchie by my side, that I hadn’t even stopped to think what would happen to all those thousands of ownerless pets left with no resources, no one to watch over them.

“They’ll be taken care of?” I demanded. “By whom?”

They will not suffer. They are innocents.

This whole situation was getting stranger by the minute. The way all the bodies of the dead had dissolved into dust seemed to tell me something greater than a single rampaging strain of microbe was at work here, and now, seeing the way the animals were all cooperating, hearing the voice reassure me they would be fine — well, I didn’t know what to think.

“Is this a judgment?” I asked. “Some sort of punishment?”

Silence.

“Who’s doing the punishing?” I demanded, voice shaking. “And why wasn’t I punished along with everyone else?”

Again no answer.

I drove on, knowing I would receive no reply to my questions.

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