With a sigh, Josephine took a seat on the sand. I took a seat next to her. “You said you’ve been shifting for two years? If that’s true, what the heck have you been doing this whole time? I mean if the point is for us to stop this, why haven’t you?” I asked.
“Well, it’s really not that easy, son,” Randall replied. “As you know, we don’t get to exactly choose when and how often we shift. Over the past two years, we’ve really focused on gathering information.”
“What kind of information?” Josephine asked.
“For starters, we scoured old newspapers for articles on the illness in an attempt to learn more about it. We searched houses and dumpsters for them,” Randall continued.
“That’s actually pretty smart,” Josephine admitted.
“Yeah. Sorry, we didn’t have time to do that. I guess we were too busy running for our lives from a bunch of crazed men who wanted us dead,” I replied. Of course we would have thought of that. Eventually.
“He wasn’t trying to insult your intelligence, Einstein. He was just answering your question. So, why don’t you calm down,” Bentham snapped.
Had I gotten an attitude with Randall? I looked at Josephine for confirmation but she wasn’t paying me any mind. Her eyes were still on Bentham. I took a deep breath. “So, what did you find out?” I asked, hoping my voice sounded calmer.
“Seems it started in Norfolk. There were ships coming in and out of ports there everyday.”
“Not to mention Tidewater was one of the biggest military areas in the country,” Bentham added.
Their past tense verbs were driving me a little mad. This future wasn’t set in stone.
“The first case of the disease was at Norfolk General. A Norfolk Shipyard worker came in with a variety of flu-like symptoms. High fever. Sweats. Trouble keeping anything down. Even when the man passed away, the doctors didn’t think much of it. It was during flu season after all,” said Randall.
“It wasn’t till three more cases came in later that week that doctors started to look a little more closely at the symptoms. Added to the common flu symptoms were red eyes and hiccups,” Bentham added.
“Ebola?” Josephine asked.
“Not quite, but your knowledge of deadly diseases is quite impressive,” Bentham replied with a laugh.
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Josephine replied, a slight blush to her cheeks.
Were these two flirting? Amidst the talk of death hiccups and sickness no less? I stared at Josephine trying to decipher her. I watched as she set the gun down next to her. It was still close enough to grab in no time if she needed it, but she no longer seemed to feel threatened.
Josephine caught me staring. “What?” she asked, “I started studying up on illnesses last night.”
“Remind me to talk to you about getting a life.” I shook my head and turned back to Randall. “So, what was it?”
“They stared calling it the Grossman after the first man who died from it. The illness had many of the same symptoms as Ebola, but there were some striking differences. For starters, deep gashes started appearing on the skin of the victims,” Randall said.
I shuddered. I remembered the marks covering Jenna’s body.
“Around the gashes the skin became lose, weak. In some cases, near the end, the skin would literally pull away from the bone with a slight tug. Which, considering most victims complained of insanely itchy skin right before the end, most of the victims lost a lot of skin in the process of dying. Eventually, most died either from the insanely high fevers or the acceleration of the heart. The body just couldn’t take it.”
“You all right there, buddy?” Bentham asked Randall who was looking a little pale.
“It just never gets easier to talk about, Ben.”
“I know, Randall. Trust me, I know.”
I caught Josephine’s eye and she gave me a small, pained smile. Would we be comforting each other one day? What would two years of living in this world do to us? God, I hoped this didn’t go on for two years.
“Are you cold, dear?” Randall asked Josephine. I hadn’t noticed that she was shivering. The sun was almost completely down, and the wind sweeping off of the ocean caused the air to chill considerably. I hadn’t thought to see if she was cold. Was that the sort of thing shifting partners were supposed to worry about? Besides, she did have her hoodie. She always had her hoodie.
“I’m fine,” she replied, pulling her arms inside her sleeves. I wasn’t sure if this action was a result of being cold or the unwanted attention now forced on her.
“I got it,” said Bentham, He stood up, wiped the sand from his pants, and disappeared into the tent.