Read Three Days in April for Free Online Page B

each other. The one who’s doing most of the blocking is a five-­hundred-­pounder, lying facedown with his arms at his sides.
    He’s not a person. He’s a beached, incontinent whale. I know the hostess, though. Her name is Kelly, or maybe Kiley. She graduated from my high school a year ahead of me. She was a cheerleader. She’s lying half in and half out of the door, propping it open. At least she’s letting some fresh air in.
    I pull off my shoes and tuck them into my bag. They’re strappy Roman sandals with four inch heels—­perfect for either a day at the office or a night on the town, but not so much for walking across a dead whale and a former cheerleader. I’d really rather not step on anything that’s oozing, so I hop up onto the whale’s back with both feet. He shifts underneath me and lets out a long, low moan. I wave my arms for balance. It’s like trying to stand on a beach ball. I jump forward onto the back of his neck, then onto Kelly’s back, lean into the door and vault out onto the sidewalk, stagger forward two steps and sprawl across the hood of a car parked at the curb. There’s a girl slumped over in the passenger seat. Her chin and chest are covered with blood. I slide down to the sidewalk, curl up into a ball, and scream. And scream. And scream.
    I ’m not sure how long it is before I think to try to call Tariq. Maybe a half hour? He’s in Baltimore today, playing for the tourists in the harbor. I need to tell him not to come home this afternoon.
    I need to tell him not to come home, ever.
    I’m up and moving again by then, and mostly back from Crazytown. My phone won’t link to any of the networks, though. It just sits there and beeps at me. At least I’m wearing shoes again. I’ve seen a ­couple of other still-­alive ­people—­one guy on a motorcycle flying up National Pike towards 68, and a woman looking out of a third-­story window on Locust. Neither of them seemed to want to talk. I’ve also seen a whole lot of not-­alive ­people—­­people in their cars, ­people on the sidewalks, ­people in stores, all of them with something awful seeping from their mouths and noses, none of them moving.
    I’ve been trying not to think about the restaurant, but I’m starting to feel like I need to understand what’s happening, and right now, I definitely don’t understand what’s happening. The only person I actually saw go down was my waitress. She’d just come by to refill my water glass. She took two steps away from my booth, then dropped the pitcher she was carrying, took one more staggering step, and fell. I was staring at her, wondering if she’d had a heart attack or something, wondering if I should be calling an ambulance, when . . .
    Okay, don’t think about that anymore. Keep moving forward.
    I don’t understand what’s happened, but it looks like whatever it was happened really quickly, and at the same time everywhere. I don’t see any more police cars around than usual, and no ambulances or fire trucks, either, so I’m guessing nobody even had time to call EMS. Like the waitress, like Kiley and the whale, it looks like everyone just dropped where they stood.
    I’m not an expert on crazy doomsday stuff, but I don’t know of anything that could just kill everyone in an entire city at once like that. I’ve read about black pox and dirty bombs and poison gas, the kinds of things that NatSec is always arresting and deporting and disappearing ­people for making, or trying to make, or thinking about making. But I’m pretty sure none of those things could do anything like this. Poison gas would be the closest, I guess, but if that’s what this is, then what about me?
    As I turn the corner onto North, I almost trip over a woman sitting on the sidewalk. She’s leaning against a lamppost, hugging her knees