Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Just Another Wednesday
The pickup line was probably the bane of her day, if she was being honest. Well, it was usually the bane of her day. Today, however, was relatively painless. Usually, the line was long and slow. Parents arriving ridiculously early and clogging up the neighborhood streets. Who even thought of putting a school in a neighborhood?
Today, however, hardly anyone was here. The woman slowed instinctively as blue eyes looked at the other two streets as if she could find the missing cars waiting there. For a brief moment she wondered if she had gotten here late.
A few parents tapped away on their phones as they waited, but it was a veritable graveyard. She glanced at the clock, seeing the little red numbers flashing 3:14, almost exactly on time. A frown pulled at her lips as she picked up her phone even as the traffic guard ushered her forward. There were no school events written in her notes. River hoped she didn't miss anything.
Brrrrring.
The bell ringing made her look up from her phone, a trickle of students running out rather than the flood she came to expect during pickup. The anomaly of the missing students was pushed from her mind in favor of the tiny brunette, smaller than the rest of his peers but no less energetic, bounded from the school. He yanked the door of her dinky little hatchback open in his excitement.
“Momma!”
River felt her heart melt just a little, as it so often did when the boy was so excited to see her after a long day.
“Hey, Bubba...” she said, looking behind him but failing to find the little tagalong that he called his friend. “Matthew already get picked up?”
The boy shook his head, causing his hair to fall into his face. Maybe it was time for him to get another haircut. “Nope. He was sick. My teacher said it was becoming a real... epi-dentist... which means it's really bad.”
River quirked a thin red eyebrow as she looked at him with amusement over his mispronunciation. She had to take more than a couple of seconds to figure out what the word "epi-dentist" could possibly mean. On top of her job as an office manager, she was a professional "James translator." Her most challenging of her jobs.
“Epidemic?” she asked to clarify.
James let out a long sigh like he had been personally wronged. “Yes, Momma, that's what I said.”
She chuckled, fighting every urge to argue that no, that was in fact not what he said. “Oh? Are a lot of your friends sick? Since that is what an epidemic means. A lot of people getting sick.” A watered-down version of the definition, but good enough for his understanding. She didn't really feel the need to limit his inquisitive nature so long as it was explained in an age-appropriate way.
He nodded again, this time putting his whole body into it with enthusiasm. “Yeah, that's why we got to learn about frogs today instead of language. Mr. Donovan has a big fat frog in his classroom. I got to hold it today. It was really bumpy, and guess what... it peed on me.” The little boy raved about the frog as he showed her his hands, which she hoped to God he had washed.
“Gross...” she replied, deadpan. “Are you sure it wasn't a toad?” She questioned, only half paying attention as she maneuvered her car out of the school parking lot, which was about the size of a goldfish bowl.
“Yeah, Momma. His name is Fred the Frog.” The little boy exclaimed, pleased that he had known something his mother had seemingly not. But River couldn't help secretly thinking that Mr. Donovan was giving his pet a funny name.
“I see... I thought your teacher was Mrs. Taylor.”
“Yup, but not today. She was sick today...” He replied, dissolving into rambles about his day as he so often did. But the mother only gave it half her focus as the radio talk show hosts’ argument caught her attention.
The latest update on the riots in LA. After a homeless man was shot by the police, they are being raked over the coals.
I mean, I can't blame them. I saw that video yesterday. That man was clearly unhinged. I mean, charging down armed police officers after he bit someone's poor grandma.
But I really can't help asking... are police doing their best to de-escalate the situation, or are...
She reached over, turning the dial to a classic rock station that her son immediately started head-banging to.
LA was a faraway place. Was it sad some guy died? Sure. But it wasn't like she could do anything from here. Whatever problem was happening was a million miles away.
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The boy was more than ready to get out of the car when she pulled up to her uncle's house. The property was in a decent inner-city neighborhood. Nice yard. Nice neighbors. An older house with a detached garage and a shed that leaned just this side of uncomfortable.
The porch wrapped around the side of the house and was "guarded" by a wriggling Shepherd with dancy paws that was eager to rush out as soon as the car was turned off, and an older gentleman sitting near the excitable pooch.
Both boy and dog wasted no time greeting each other in full bounds halfway between the car and the porch. River laughed softly as she passed them to approach the porch.
Her uncle didn't immediately speak as he watched Gracie the dog knock James to the ground to lick his face. And he didn't have to. The redhead had known him long before the salt had come to color his pepper-black hair. The man looked exactly like he'd spent all fifty years of his life working. But those blue eyes that looked so much like her own hid little when he crinkled them like that.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, and no…Albert's down now. That just leaves me with the foreign boy." Benjamin Davis sighed as he rubbed his neck with a weariness that only a shop owner could have. "I can't make money like that, since the boy is still in training, so I gave them the rest of the week."
"Yeah... lots of kids are sick from school too," she said, looking at her son, who was laughing too hard to push off the dog. That radio clip she had changed earlier made its way back into her mind. “Think it's anything serious?”
"Couple'a people at the shop are saying that things...Got quite a few tune-ups from those hunters just outside of town." He paused. "A new flu virus is going around." He gave her a look she couldn't quite make out. She wasn’t always good at looks. "What do you think about nipping it in the bud and going away for a little while?"
Every instinct in her was at war.
"I don't know if he can miss school like that." She wavered, fully knowing that if James got sick, he would take the whole house with him. Because kids were gross and excellent at spreading germs. “I don’t think they excuse absences for fear of sickness.”
"Tell them my mother died. Not like we'd be jinxin’’ her. She is already dead. Just for the rest of the week."
“Ben…” She frowned at him. The red head knew that things were a bit weird but he was acting weirder. She wondered if he had heard one of his customers talking.
“Okay don’t tell them that. Tell them I’m sick and we didn’t want James spreading it around school.” He bargained. “Not like you have any work with me closing the shop.”
“Give a better reason than that.” She looked at him, those blue eyes searching her uncle’s darker shade. “Something’s got you spooked. What is it?”
He looked away as if her eyes burned him. “Just some stuff said. I don’t know if its anything but…can you do this for me? Even if it’s just to humor this old man. Kid’s young and there is no harm in a camping trip if this is all just alotta smoke for a little fire.” He patted her arm.
“You really aren’t gonna let this go are you?” she asked him with a fond but exasperated smile. “You know you keep fibbing like that and karma’s gonna make you catch whatever this is.” She gave a dramatized fake whine. "Fine. But you're packing the car."
He interrupted her with a stiff smile. "Actually, I was thinking about using the RV. It's pretty much renovated." He waved a hand as if to say so-so. "Well, except for pulling out the couch. And adding a dog pen... and..."
River threw her hands up to stop him.
"Alright, I get it. You kept putting off projects." She held out her hand. "Give me your card and I'll get groceries."
The older man didn't answer except to pull out his wallet and hand her his work card.
"Here is enough for the family. I'm gonna try to get your mother and grandparents to come down too. Get whatever you think we’ll need for the next week or so." He called to her, before remembering something and yelling as she started to move across the lawn. “And don’t forget that Community coffee that Suzanne drinks. I don’t wanna hear the fit she’d throw if we got anything else.”
The redhead snorted, confused by the bulk of the requests since it wasn't often they had the whole family over but obliged regardless. Her mother was a stickler for a specific brand of coffee. Just like River was a stickler for how much sugar should go into tea. She walked back to her car, pulling the hunting dog off her son and kissing his cheek, telling him to be good for Uncle Ben.
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River was not prepared for the stores and their slightly off energy. She didn't really see that much of a difference but something just felt off. Shelves were a bit emptier.
The people around her weren't rushing per se but loaded carts with a purpose. It made her chest tighten with anxiety.
Did she miss something? Her body moved almost in autopilot as she pushed that feeling down and moved to load three crates of water and those individual Kool aid packets. The hot dogs and ramen. The ingredients for a week and a half of big meals and snacks.
The whole time, this gnawing feeling ate at her and prickled up her spine. A pair of cops passed her their carts filled with enough water to last a month. She didn't think when she tossed a few ramen boxes into the cart out of anxiety. She knew something big was going down but she couldn't really put her finger on what yet.
She could see some things weren’t messed with. DVDs, flour, ice cream. But the coffee aisle was nearly picked clean. Not a single can of Community coffee in sight.
Hell, even the toilet paper was nearly gone. That was letting her know someone out there was feeling just like her Uncle. Not that she was super worried. The same thing happened at the turn of the century and everything turned out fine. This was probably one of those things older people just over reacted to. Yet even as she told herself that it was hard to justify when a portly man walked past her with what looked like the whole battery display shoved straight from shelf to cart.
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Her whole shopping trip took less than an hour and a half. No one bothered her too much, each person going about their day even though a few seemed off.
The woman pulled her hair into a low hanging ponytail. It would get in her way bringing stuff into the RV that Ben has pulled around to the front. She wiped her hands on her jeans before pushing up the sleeves of her outer flannel and exposing slightly more tanned freckled arms. Those ugly little dots got worse in the summer and made her look patchy which she hated. Other people could definitely pull it off and look like pretty speckled eggs but she didn't.
James was quick to rush to her aide wanting to show her how much he could carry while over burdening his little arms.
“I’ve got it.” He proclaimed even as the bags dug into his thin arms.
She grabbed as many bags as possible only really wanting to make one trip. Yeah, she knew her son learned his stubborn bull headed behavior from her. Ben was inside the RV putting suitcases under bunks when she made it up the stairs. His own stashed in the ‘master bedroom’ as he called it.
They looked at each other but they were about all the acknowledgement they needed as they worked in tandem to put away the groceries. “Did you buy the whole store?” He asked as he heaved the two 50lbs dog food bags into the under carriage of the RV. “I already put his remaining dog food in the cabinet.”
She shrugged. “I didn't know if we were taking that with us….not like it is gonna go bad. I figured we'd leave one bag here.” She stepped over the ‘potty patch’ he'd set up. “That's gross by the way.” She pointed to it.
“Gracie likes it. We might not be able to stop when she needs to go. Plus it means I don't have to get up in the night to let her out.” He smiled, still tired. His rough stained hands rubbing his neck. “Come pick out a few books to read with me.” He told her. She followed him out and into the house. The TV played the news of the LA riots and other states that were having similar problems. She passed it paying the device very little mind to go to the bookshelf and pull her favorite books off the shelf well loved and a few to read to James.
They would probably leave out tomorrow morning unless her uncle had a bug up his butt about it. River turned off the television a few seconds too soon.
She never heard the words that would have changed everything.
The CDC has advised citizens to remain calm as reports of a flu-like illness continue to spread across several states. Residents are encouraged to stay inside and limit exposure. The president has already issued mandatory quarantine zones in more heavily affected areas.