They become a couple, and on the day of his father’s funeral, Alice holds Bandit close, repeating a thought she heard long ago, about ordinary miracles and ordinary tragedies. Bandit looks into the face of the woman he loves. Those words, couched in that voice, wrapped around those arms, give him comfort when he didn’t believe comfort was possible. The saying resonates so much that he’ll repeat it later, during another pivotal moment of his life.

Alice and Bandit get married at a winery in Napa Valley. They promise to love each other to the depth and breadth and height their souls can reach, in this timeline and every other, with children or without.

Baby Hope is born, and the small family moves into the caves after the second wave of victims fall, stuffing all their belongings into one meager carved-out space…

This is it! The moment I’ve been waiting for!

With the precision of a professional diver, I plunge into the river of my life at that…exact…moment.

Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Archie looms on the holo-screen, larger than life. His hair is a wild bramble of brown strands, and the abnormally pale skin speaks to an existence of huddling inside a lab. He stands in the center of an unsheltered clearing, the sun beating down on him in his khaki shorts and T-shirt. He’s not wearing a single protective layer. No helmet or shield. No sun suit. He’s probably not even wearing sunscreen.

I stick my hand in my mouth and bite, hard. Bandit tugs at my wrist and manages to dislodge it, but not before my skin boasts a row of distinct teeth marks.

Along with a hundred other people, we’re watching the holo-screen from an underground bunker. We descended into the earth a week ago, three months after the initial outbreak, but the air already smells used and stale. Sweat and fear cling to the crumbling tunnel walls, and I can almost believe we’ve lived here since we were born.

Easier still to imagine that we’ll stay here until we die.

The first wave of victims dropped like murres on the beaches of Alaska. One moment, people were walking down the street, a child or two hoverboarding beside them, and the next, burns erupted on their bodies as though they had been set on fire. They clawed at their clothes, ripping them away to find open, gaping wounds spreading over their skin. In a single day, thousands of people broke out in burns—and died.

The government figured out right away that the victims became infected outside, so they sequestered everyone inside homes and emergency shelters. Society screeched to a halt, and half a million people perished before the scientists could discover the cause.