Free The Gemini Virus by Wil Mara Page B

opportunity to re-center ourselves. That’s what we’re doing right now—taking the path back to our center .
    “Do you have ice pops on the list?” Chelsea asked from the backseat. She had the headphones on, and Dennis was surprised she could overhear their conversation. Billy was reading a Richard Scarry book and paying no attention to them.
    “Sure do,” Andi said.
    “Cool.”
    They bumped over the railroad tracks, followed the curve by the butcher shop, and made a right into the parking lot. The strip mall that spread out like a sleeping monster at the other end was less than three years old. It featured a Baskin-Robbins, a Subway, a women’s gym, an Italian restaurant, a dollar store, and a one-hour dry cleaners that Dennis had scratched off his list after they lost two buttons on the first shirt he brought them. The anchor was a massive A&P supermarket.
    There were only six other vehicles in sight, all near the front door in a tight group. The lot’s full capacity was 420, and on any given Sunday it would be full. Dennis had even driven by in the dead of night and seen more cars than this; those that belonged to the stock boys, the inventory clerks, and the custodians who made up the graveyard shift.
    He turned to Andi, who was staring with her mouth slightly open. She’s scared, he thought. But she wouldn’t give in to it. She started forward again without a word, cutting a diagonal path across the empty spine-rows and pulling into a spot away from the group. Dennis was struck by the notion that she may have done this as an act of passive rebellion, as if parking next to one of the other cars was in some way an admission of defeat.
    “Okay, let’s go!” she said, cheerful as ever. The kids unstrapped themselves and jumped out.
    What Dennis and Andi noticed first when they stepped inside—and it turbocharged the fear that was now rising steadily in both of them—was the stillness. No squeaking of dry carriage wheels, no neighbors gossiping, no sale announcements over the PA system. Not even any Muzak. The silence was rigid and endless, as if they were on the moon. Dennis listened hard for any signs of human life, but there was nothing.
    “Where is everybody?” Chelsea asked, her little voice producing a faint echo. She was holding her mother’s hand and hadn’t yet noticed it was becoming warm and sweaty. “Mom? Where is—?”
    “I don’t know, sweetheart.”
    “I guess this is a slow shopping day,” Dennis said, hoping it would serve the dual purpose of amusing his wife and distracting his daughter. “It is a weekday, after all. But that’s good, though—no lines, right? So let’s get to it.” He went back into the foyer and noisily separated a cart from the others.
    The produce section came first, and the odor was nearly unbearable. Fruits and vegetables lay rotting in their cases as tiny flies buzzed about. Some had fallen to the floor and broken apart, leaving colorful stains in their wake. Still in defiance mode, Andi began casually sorting through the piles. She found two passable honeydew melons, a half-dozen apples, a bag of Red Bliss potatoes, and a prepackaged head of iceberg lettuce. Under normal circumstances, she would’ve passed over the iceberg without a second glance, but what little Romaine was left was rusted and, in the more advanced cases, goopy.
    None of the familiar figures were behind the meat counter in their white butcher’s coats. Andi was about to slap the bell anyway when she peered inside the refrigerated case. Instead of taut, robust cuts of meat resting proudly on black platter-plates wreathed in garnish, there were shriveled hunks of decaying flesh splotched with fuzz. A constellation of mold spots had begun forming on the interior of the case as well. Dennis felt his stomach roll.
    Chelsea, who had put a curious hand against the glass, said flatly, “That stuff doesn’t look good anymore.”
    “No,” her mother replied, “I don’t think so, either.