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stood there in front of the mirror. I had died. I choked up, my throat clenching. It didn’t ease up, though—it stayed clenched. It was a strange feeling, as if a finger had wrapped around my vocal cords and was tugging. I gripped my throat, coughed, turned my head from side to side.
    Finally, it relaxed.
    I parted my hair to examine a cut. It wasn’t bad, not deep enough for stitches. Not that I’d be able to get anywhere near a doctor or a hospital right now.
    Maybe that’s where Annie was—at a hospital or a clinic. Though, wouldn’t she have her phone right by the bed? I just couldn’t believe she was mortally ill, or worse. Annie was the athlete, always covered with a sheen of sweat, jumping into the shower after a five-mile run when I went over to watch reruns of The Sopranos. Emotionally, she struggled mightily, but physically she was a rock. If only I had her parents’ number, to see if they’d heard from her. They lived in New York, so I couldn’t count on them to get to her and help her, assuming she needed help.
    That’s what I’d have to do, I realized. If I couldn’t get her on
the phone, I had to get to her. I couldn’t leave her stranded in her apartment. The first thing I had to do, though, was shower.
    As hot water pounded the back of my head I puzzled over my vision of Lyndsay in her apartment. I was sure I heard on her TV that the outbreak began in the subway. Either I had to chalk it up to coincidence, or believe, what, that my soul had left my body and witnessed what was happening?
    Maybe as you die your mind unleashes everything it’s got, to the point that you can pick up on things around you in an extra-sensory way. When the dust had settled I’d have to check the Internet for any mention of that happening in other people’s near-death experiences.
    I tried Annie again after my shower. No answer. She’d only been mildly sick when I talked to her last night; was it possible she could be so sick now she couldn’t reach the phone? I turned on the news, trying to get more information about how someone might walk through the worst-hit area without getting sick. The emergency personnel were wearing masks, gloves, and clothes that left no exposed skin. I could put together everything but the mask, and one of the shots on the news showed National Guard troops helping themselves to masks from a truly huge pile.
    From what the feds had pieced together so far (and were willing to share with the public), the terrorists had used light bulbs filled with “weaponized” anthrax. They’d dropped the bulbs from between moving MARTA cars onto the tracks at the Five Points station, where four separate lines use the same track. As trains flew by, the spores were drawn up into the cars, infecting the passengers. Those passengers got off at malls, bus stations, and the airport and spread the anthrax.
    The incubation period was twenty-four to forty-eight hours—time for hundreds of thousands of people to inhale the spores and carry them to other places on their shoes, fingertips, clothes before anyone knew what was happening.
    I dragged myself off the couch like an octogenarian and donned
heavy flannel sweats and brown leather gloves. The very last thing I wanted to do was march into the eye of the storm, but someone had to help Annie.

    I was momentarily confused by the absence of my Jetta in the gravel drive, then remembered it was at the bottom of the reservoir. I went back inside to retrieve the key to Lorena’s Toyota Avalon. It felt strange to drive Lorena’s car, especially while using her old flip cell phone after reactivating it to my number. Suddenly things I’d hidden away because I didn’t want to deal with them were useful again.
    I called Grandma. I didn’t tell her where I was headed, but I gave her a blow-by-blow account of my accident. We agreed this anthrax attack was scary, exchanged a few