Breakers by Edward W. Robertson Read Free Book Online Page A

shit. He just wanted to get his stuff home, stick it in the freezer, and sleep a little easier knowing that if Mr. Choi took three weeks to get back to business instead of two, he and Mia would still have something to eat.
    Sirens roared. Sunlight struck his face, even brighter than the store fluorescents. Sweat glued his shirt to his back. Shoppers scattered across the parking lot, bound for their cars or homes. At the turn-in to the lot, a police cruiser skidded in hard; two officers sprinted for the looters, reaching for their batons.
    Raymond broke left for his white Altima. Soles slapping the asphalt, he weaved around a broken case of beer, glass shards bright amid the hoppy-smelling foam. He pulled up to his car, shopping cart clunking into his bumper. He popped the trunk and started dishing food inside.
    At the exit fifty feet from his Altima, two more cruisers screamed into the lot, one weaving toward the Ralph's while the other swung in to block the exit. An officer unloaded from the passenger side, unholstered his sleek black pistol, and sunk in behind the car door. He pointed his gun at Raymond.
    "Hands up!" he screamed.
    Raymond reached for his gun.

6
     
    Walt walked to the bed, pulled the comforter away from Vanessa, and shuddered, groaning. Half-dried blood weighed down the sheets, clinging to her cheeks and pooling around her neck, a stinking, chunky flow of red and phlegm and chunks like ground beef. He reached for her mucky chin. It was slick and room-temperature. Her mouth sagged open without resistance. Her bruised tongue oozed, sluglike, past her lips. Her glassy eyes stared through a question they couldn't form.
    He called 911, sat on the floor, and cried. They'd take her away this night, wouldn't they? Would his last sight of her be at her funeral? Would her parents even invite him? He struggled to his feet, lurched to the bed. Paled by sickness, crusted with blood and spittle, her beauty hadn't been completely masked and erased—the lines of her cheekbones were graceful as ever, her lips soft and wide, her nose small and straight and freckled. He would never see or touch or hold her again. Numbly, he reached forward, palmed her heavy left breast, and squeezed.
    He raced for the bathroom and heaved until the paramedics buzzed up.
    They asked him quiet questions and he gave them clipped answers, replying even when they asked if he'd tried to get her in to see a doctor.
    "Just like that," he said. "She was fine. I left. She died."
    The paramedic pressed his fist to his forehead. "She's not the first. Girlfriend?"
    "We'd turned things around. We had a future."
    "Hey, kid, you still got one. Hang on."
    Walt didn't see much point to that. He didn't see much point to anything. The paramedics left with her body. He got drunk and called her parents. He couldn't remember falling asleep.
    Time became strange. He spent his days glued to his computer, combing the news for NYC death toll updates: dozens, then hundreds, soon thousands. The trajectory was mirrored around the nation, the world. Governments advised people to stay indoors, wash their hands, and handle their own food. Wash their hands! Three-quarters of the country was sick and they were telling people Remember: soap exists . Face in his hands, Walt laughed. He was glad they were dying. They deserved it. This was what everyone deserved.
    Walt threw out the comforter. The sheets. Hauled the mattress to the curb and slept on the couch. He got a temporary debit card so he could drink Jim Beam straight from the bottle like the worst of cliches. He didn't care.
    His parents called to ask him to come back to Long Island. He said no. Unless they floated off in one of their balloons, there was nowhere they could go where people weren't barfing up blood.
    He'd never been religiou. Not past 7, anyway, when he'd asked God for a bike. A couple weeks later, at the Unitarian church his parents brought him to, Walt left Sunday School and saw the feathery pulp of a baby