Stories From VO1.2

Patricia

Patricia panicked a lot. It was her mother's fault. She raised her like this. Mona rushed Patricia to the doctor for every single fall, scrape, cut, ache, and pain.

Hot? A fever.

Headache? A tumor. Had to be.

Once Patricia broke her wrist and her mother worried a hole in the waiting room carpet sure as all hell Patricia was going to lose her arm. Patricia cried until a nurse came to settle the commotion. It was horrible and a complete overreaction.

The doctor put Patricia in a cast, passed around some candy, and moved them along post-haste. Two months of bathing with a plastic bag over her arm and she was right as rain.

As soon as Patricia heard about the shut down at the hospital she hired men to batten down her house. She wasn't having them nail plywood over the windows, she wasn't an idiot. She was having the men install aluminum louvered style shutters over all of the windows.

Matthew thought she was being paranoid but what did he know? There hadn't been a major VO1 scare in his life, he didn't understand. There had been a few scares in Patricia's lifetime. It had always been the one damn thing her mother refused to be worried about. A paper cut was an infection hazard but a virus that could degrade a person's mental state to the point where they would attack and eat people wasn't anything to be worried about. While everyone was stocking up on food and water Mona would sit on her couch and watch the news with a frown.

That reminded Patricia that she needed to send Matthew to the store.

"Are you actually being serious right now?"

Patricia hated this phase Matthew was in. He was rude and disrespectful. He questioned her authority all the time. Often with that snappish mouth of his. Patricia knew this started with her mother but she refused to explain herself to her kid, she was the one in charge here. Mona was her mother and Patricia made the decisions she thought was best for her. Matthew was a child.

"Yes, Matt."

She pushed the money and shopping bags into his hands. She should make him pay. He had his own job, made his own money, but she was encouraging him to save his money wisely. Mona made her move out on her own when she was twenty-one and while Patricia wouldn't force Matthew out of the house she was hoping he would save up and move out on his own eventually. Making him pay bills now would never encourage him.

"I will text the list to you. I have to oversee the shutters."

She wasn't saying that she didn't trust him but she could see he took it that way.

"You're crazy. I want you to know that. What the hell are shutters going to do? People are sick."

"Matt," she gave him her sternest look, "stop back-talking and just go."

"Whatever. It's your dumb decision to make."

Patricia waited for the door to slam, pretended not to hear it, and then got on the phone with the water company to advance her delivery. Between Spotlight and the hospital worry ate her stomach to pieces. The acid leaked into every part of her bones. She was not about to be the one running around like a chicken without a head when everything fell apart.

The construction team was laughing at her. Patricia didn't care. She signed the work order with a saccharine smile and let a minute tip. They had been listening to her and Matthew argue over the past two days. She could hear them snickering when she passed by to check on the work. The shutters looked good and were functional so she mostly left them alone. Her mother ridiculed her plenty when she prepared for past scares. At the worst Patricia didn't have to worry about groceries for the next few months. She fed Mona meals from the same stockpile she ridiculed her about.

"Enjoy, ma'am."

Patricia fought the urge to stick her tongue at their turned backs. Instead, she made her way back up the patio. 

The shutters were done, the groceries bought, water delivered. Today's task was to disinfect everything. Those men were up and down the house the past few days, trampling her carpet and touching who knows what. She was going to make every surface spotless.

Patricia was sweating and irritated by the time Matthew arrived from school so it was only natural they exploded into an argument when she told him that he couldn't have friends over or hang out with them after school any more.

"You'll thank me for this later, Matt."

"When? When this all blows over and you realise how stupid you look? Those construction guys were laughing at us! My friends are going to laugh at us!"

"Then sounds like you need some need friends, Matt."

Flyaways blew into her eyes but Patricia refused to blink. She showed one sign, anything that Matthew interpreted as a stand-down, and she was going to lose him. It was easy. She was heated from bleach fumes as much as his words and the spinning in her head lowered her inhibitions. She was tired of the insolence. She was tired of the attitude. She was the adult in this house, not him.

He reared and Patricia stood her ground. Then he thought better of it.

"Whatever."

He grabbed his pack and stormed out.

"Matthew Claridge Robinson!"

She received no answer. Patricia could see the threads that connected them snapping one by one but she wouldn't relent on this. She was right. This was right. He couldn't see it and he could hate her for it but she was going to keep them safe.

With a sigh she looked down. He had tracked prints into the kitchen. She sighed again.

It wasn't often Patricia missed her ex-husband. He was a slacker by trade and she couldn't get him to lift a finger around the house but he had always been more of a friend to Matthew. That was because he was more of a child himself but that friendship would have come in handy right now. Matthew was refusing to talk to her and took active steps to avoid coming across her in the house. She heard him downstairs eating dinner at midnight. It was childish. He could see his friends in school. It wasn't the end of the world. He would get over it.

And he did.

Basketball practice must have been cancelled because he came home earlier than earlier than usual and joined her on the couch. Patricia was enjoying a glass of wine and watching some emergency room doctors fight over who loves who instead of saving the critical patient and she didn't really want to hear it today.

"Just give me ten minutes. The episode's just about-"

"You should put on the news."

Patricia's heart knocked against her chest. Her wine spilled on its way to the coffee table. She pressed the wrong button three times but eventually she got it correct.

It was Spotlight.

"- currently the numbers coming in are astounding. Spotlight first reported suspected cases of VO1 a little over a week ago. At the time these reports were merely speculations. No healthcare professional would release any comment or confirmation. Now after a man reportedly bit into an attending physician's neck on the subway at Minport the United Healthcare Consortium has come forward. While we wait on the official report to be released we have footage from the subway, sent in from an onlooker. Please be advised that the footage is disturbing and can-"

Patricia hadn't noticed when Matthew took the remote from her hands. She couldn't breathe.

"You were right, mom. I'm sorry."

VO1 was back. Someone bit someone else's neck. Matthew was apologizing. Patricia laughed and almost cried.

"You weren't overreacting. I was being a brat."

"Yeah, right you were. Go close the damn shutters now."

He listened to her for once.

Patricia lowered her head into her hands and let out a shaky breath. The pantry was stuffed. They had at least three months of drinking water. She stocked up on all the prescription medicine she could find. The shutters would protect them if people lost their minds. They were overly prepared.

But Patricia couldn't stop shaking. Because she wasn't prepared at all.