Red Queen by Honey Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

him?’
    ‘It was Rohan, and with a plate of food in front of him – we didn’t talk.’
    This relaxed me. I stood there a moment, composing, and slowly coming around to the fact that Denny was right inside my personal space and not budging.
    ‘You’re sunburnt,’ she said, and moved her gaze over my face. ‘You look better though.’ She put a hand to my chest. ‘And you sound better, too. You notice that? You breathe easier. With all that dust gone.’
    My heartbeat was too loud for any thought and my throat too closed for speech. There was no reason for her to stay so near to me. My hands had started to sweat and I was sure that she knew how her proximity was affecting me.
    ‘It’s a sunny day,’ she said. ‘I was wondering if you’d let me wash your bedding. I’d get it dry today.’
    ‘Sure,’ I managed.
    ‘Shannon?’
    I dragged my gaze round to meet hers.
    ‘You can touch me you know. You don’t have to be frightened of me.’
    ‘I’m not.’
    ‘I think it’s more normal if we occasionally touch. I don’t want to be like this. Cringing.’
    ‘I don’t cringe.’
    ‘Yes you do. Look at you. You’re about to eat the food I cooked but you won’t even stand near me. I’m not contagious. I’ve never had anything more than the common cold.’
    ‘The virus could well be a variation of the common cold.’
    She stepped back, shaking her head. ‘Okay.’
    ‘Rohan doesn’t touch you.’
    Denny took my breakfast from the oven, flipping the tea towel over her wrist.
    ‘Does he?’
    ‘I just thought we were more alike,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be closed off. I understand how some people only need themselves, but not me. I know you’re the same, and I think our type should stick together.’
    ‘We are. Sticking together.’
    She held the warm plate and looked over at the table. My height and size were more apparent to me as I walked and she followed. She was right: I was healthier, my breathing was clearer. Days of physical work in the sun sapped me at night, but had the cumulative effect of restoring me.
    ‘I could cut your hair,’ she said, and put the plate down in front of me. ‘I could massage your sore shoulder after a day of doing the sheep. I don’t think those things should be off limits and weird.’
    ‘Rohan wouldn’t like it.’
    My hunger sprung up with the smell of the food. She went for a knife and fork.
    ‘You’re just saying that,’ she said, ‘because you’re scared of me touching you.’
    ‘I’m not scared .’
    ‘All right, so you’ll let me rub your shoulder tonight, on the veranda.’
    ‘Sure.’
    She leant in to put the knife and fork down and bumped me with her hip.
    ‘Nervous already, aren’t you? Girl germs.’
    ‘All germs.’
    ‘But don’t you feel you’re conceding somehow if we all start jumping at human touch?’
    ‘No shame in surrendering to nature.’
    ‘What if it’s not nature, what if the virus was engineered, a population pill?’
    ‘Mmm, that’s what Rohan thinks.’
    ‘It would be interesting, don’t you think, to see what influential people survived. I can’t help thinking the Royal Family is off somewhere frolicking happily with the corgis, and Camp David is wall to wall with ex-presidents. If you can’t swell the world to fit the people, the only logical thing, really, is to shrink the people to fit the world. It’s all just a matter of justification – and tell me humans aren’t the masters of that. There are worse ways to die than in a delirium of fever and with lungs full of fluid.’
    ‘I heard the symptoms were worse than that.’
    ‘Did you see much of your parents’ symptoms? Oh … well, I guess not – you’re alive.’
    ‘I’ve only heard it starts out like the flu. I hope it was quick for Mum and Dad.’
    ‘Did they die in town?’
    ‘We were already out here and they had to go back into town to try to get more of my father’s medication – he was diabetic. I had a feeling they knew they