2

You doubt Parker is home, since he works at the museum during the normal business day. Maybe he knows what's going on. You dial his number and get his voicemail. He usually picks up when he's home, so chances are he's not wandering around in the alley. Next you dial Fred, the neighbor on the other side of your house. He works at his auto body shop during the day, and sure enough, when you call his house line, no one answers. You don't know his shop's number, but you know the answer to your question—your neighbors weren't in your yard.

Your phone buzzes—Jaime again.

"Hey," you say and lean against the wall of the kitchen.

"Yo, you seeing this stuff on the news? Every channel is talking about this infection, people dying and coming back to life, zombies."

"Do you really believe in zombies?"

"I don't know what to believe, but I read about it all night at work." Jaime works security at Sober Lounge, a hip nightclub in the north end of Nightfall. At six-foot-ten and four hundred pounds, his presence bestows all the security the nightclub requires. "Check out NPR. Dozens of articles about this virus that's infecting remote parts of the world, shutting down villages, governments quarantining whole areas. They're closing airports in East Africa and Southern Australia. Parts of China are infected. This is serious."

"So should I be stockpiling water and guns? Time to board up the house?" you ask.

"Not sure I'd go that far yet. But I was reading this book on the Spanish Flu, and…"

"You just happen to read books on pandemics?"

"Well, I was reading one on the last months of World War I, and a historical scholar discussed the impact of influenza. Anyway, mortality rates of that virus reached twenty percent, affected up to five percent of the population…"