She flew back and landed, her dress hiked up, exposing her pale, smooth thighs.

The kids cowered behind Patrick. Rocky sobbed. JoJo clutched Bunny and didn’t make a sound, just stared at the woman’s legs.

Patrick’s shoulders rose and fell. Sweat glossed his neck. Though I was standing, I felt like I was falling, my foundation tumbling away. Seeing Mrs. McCafferty get tangled in the auger had been horrifying. This was worse. Standing there beneath the water tower over the corpses of our neighbors was one of those nothing-will-ever-be-the-same moments. In the space of an hour, Patrick and I had killed three grown-ups. And the stream of pollen just kept pouring out of Hank McCafferty overhead. I couldn’t help but think it had something to do with what was going on.

That whatever we’d run into hadn’t even gotten started.

I walked over and straightened out Mrs. Franklin’s dress so it covered her legs. I don’t know why it mattered to me. But it did.

Then I leaned over and threw up. Patrick eased to my side, put a hand on my shoulder. I wiped my mouth.

“Sorry,” I said. “Sorry.”

I turned back to the kids. JoJo hugged Bunny to her chest, shivering violently despite her thick sweater. “Did you find our dad?”

Patrick nodded. He didn’t say anything, but it was enough. The kids’ eyes were glazed over with shock.

I thought about my mom’s clutch purse spilling bloodstained pebbles of windshield glass. How Patrick had slept on the floor next to my bed those first days after the car crash because I kept waking up screaming.

I crouched, bringing myself to eye level with JoJo, and rested my hands on her shoulders. “Why don’t you stay with us now?” I said.

This was no time to linger on loss. We had to get safely home and start figuring out just what in the hell was going on.

She managed a nod.

Bracing myself, I tightened my grip on the baling hooks and turned for the cornfields. Something caught my eye, a dark stream against the stars.

The river of pollen was blowing directly over our house.

Entry 7

ENTRY 7

We moved silently through the stalks and across pastures until the distant lights of our porch were yellow blurs in the darkness. Again Patrick and I were leading the way ahead of the kids. We followed the particles floating overhead.

They looked almost like fireflies in the moonlight. I felt something twist inside my chest.

“That pollen stuff,” Patrick said. “What do you think it is?”

“Some kind of airborne … blood mist?” I shook my head. “It all sounds friggin’ nuts.”

“Maybe we’re overthinking it,” Patrick said. “It could just be how people decompose when they’re infected with whatever it is. Instead of rotting away, I mean.”