The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“It was only a month after that first terrorist thing.” Carson sat on the end of her bed. Some runners wore stars and stripes singlets or racing shorts. Others carried small flags and waved them at the camera as they passed.

“I won’t be able to sleep,” she said.

He nodded. “Me either.”

Before he left, he pressed his hand to her forehead. She looked up briefly, the blanket still snug against her chin. A little fever and her breath sounded wheezy.

Later that night he made careful entries in his day book. A breeze through the open window freshened the room. He’d spotted a mountain plover, a long-billed curlew, a burrowing owl and a horned lark, plus the usual assortment of lark sparrows, yellow warblers, western meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, crows, black terns and mourning doves. Nothing unusual beside the strange bird in the starling flock. Idly he thumbed through his bird identification handbook. No help there. Could it actually be a new bird? Something to add to his life list?

Tomorrow he’d take the camera. Several major flocks roosted in the elms along the Platte River. He hadn’t done a riparian count in a couple months anyway. After visiting the distribution center, he’d go to the river. With an early enough start, he would still have ten hours of sun to work with.

He shut the book and turned off his desk light. Gradually his eyes adjusted as he looked out the window. A full moon illuminated the scene. From his chair he could see three houses bathed in the leaden glow, their windows black as basalt. His neighbor’s minivan rested on its rims, all four tires long gone flat. Carson tried to come up with the guy’s name, but it remained elusive. Generally he tried not to think about his neighbors or their empty houses.

He couldn’t hear anything other than the wind moving over the silent city. Not sleepy at all, he watched the shadows slide slowly across the lawn. Just after 2:00 a.m. a pair of coyotes trotted up the middle of the street. Their toenails clicked loudly against the asphalt. Carson finally rose, took two sleeping pills and went to bed.

“The woman who stays with me is sick,” said Carson. He rested his arm against his truck, supplies requisition list in hand.

The distribution center manager nodded dourly. “Oh, the sweet sorrow of parting.” He hooked his grimy thumbs in his overalls. Through the warehouse doors behind him Carson saw white plastic wrapped bales, four feet to a side, stacked five bales high and reaching to the warehouse’s far end. They contained bags of flour, corn, cloth, paper, a little bit of everything. Emergency stores.

Carson blanched. “It’s not that. She just has a cough and a bit of fever. If it’s bacterial, an antibiotic might knock it right out.”

“T.B. or not T.B. That is congestion, Carson,” he said, laughing through yellow teeth. Carson guessed he might be fifty-five or sixty.

Carson smiled. “You’re pretty sharp today.”

“Finest collection of video theater this side of hell. Watched Lawrence Olivier last night until 3:00 or 4:00.” The manager consulted his clipboard. “No new Pharmaceuticals in a couple months, and I haven’t seen antibiotics in over a year. I could have my assistant keep an eye open for you, but he hasn’t come in for a week. Lookin’ sickly his last day, you know?” The manager rubbed his fingers on his chest. “Could be that I’ve lost him. Have you tried a tablespoon of honey in a shot glass of bourbon? Works for me every time.”

A car pulled into the huge, empty parking lot behind Carson’s truck, but whoever was inside didn’t get out. Carson nodded in the car’s direction. Evidently they wanted to wait for Carson to finish his business.

He handed the manager the list. “Can you also give me cornmeal and sugar? A mix of canned vegetables would be nice too.”

“That I’ve got.” The manager hopped on a forklift. “Tomorrow may creep in a petty pace, but I shouldn’t be a minute.”

When he returned with the goods he said, “The quality of mercy is not strained here. I’m not doing anything this afternoon. I’ll dig some for you. Few months back I heard a pharmacy in an Albertson’s burned down. Looters overlooked it. Might be something there. I’ve got your address.” He waved the requisition list. “I could bring it by your house.”

Carson loaded boxes of canned soup and vegetables into the truck. “What about the warehouse?”

The manager shrugged. “Guess we’re on an honor system now. Only a dozen or so customers a day. Maybe a couple hundred total. I’ll bet there aren’t 50,000 people alive in the whole country. I’ll leave the doors open.” For a moment the manager stared into the distance, as if he’d lost his thought. Behind them, the waiting car rumbled. “You know how they say that if you put a jellybean in a jar every time you make love the first year that you’re married, and you take one out every time you make love after that, that the jar will never be empty? This warehouse is a little like that.”