Marcus
The feed store was different on a Saturday in mid-August.
Not dramatically different — no one was shouting, no one had a gun. But the shelves were picked over in spots that were usually fully stocked, and two men had a tense, clipped argument near the grain bags about something Marcus couldn't quite hear but could read in their shoulders and their hands. The clerk behind the counter was moving faster than usual, not making eye contact.
Marcus bought what he came for. Cash, as always. He didn't ask questions because he didn't want to put his face in people's memories that way. The two men arguing near the grain bags were someone else's problem. Whatever they were fighting over, it wasn't his. He noted them the way he noted things that weren't his business — filed, set aside. The clerk's anxiety was information, not something he felt obligated to address. He loaded his purchases and left.
He told Sam when he got home. Sam was already on the phone.
He finished the call, put the phone down, and looked at Marcus with the particular expression he used when he'd been right about something and wasn't happy about it. "Grocery distribution warehouse outside Macon had an incident last week. It wasn't reported on local news but it's on the freight company's incident log." He paused. "Three workers attacked by a man who walked in off the street. He was feverish, disoriented. One of the workers got bitten. Badly."
Marcus sat down. "What happened to him?"
"Worker? Hospital. After that I don't know." Sam picked up his notebook. "We need to do another round of medical supply runs. And I want to start marking the property line at night. Not fencing — just awareness."
"I'll start tonight," Marcus said.
* * *
Beth
She noticed it first in the way her father read the news.
Hershel had always been a newspaper man, had always read through breakfast without commentary, setting the paper aside when he was done with a kind of quiet solidity that meant the world was operating within the range of its usual problems. He would read and set it down and ask about the day's work and that was that.
In August he started pausing. Rereading things. Sometimes he folded the paper before he was finished and sat for a moment with his eyes on the window.
She asked him about it once. He told her not to worry. She heard the thing underneath that — not that everything was fine, but that he was handling it, which was different.
She prayed more that month. Not from fear, exactly. More from a feeling of standing at the edge of something she couldn't see the bottom of, and needing to put something down and let it be carried.
Sam came by the farm on a Tuesday that she wasn't expecting him. He was there to talk to Marcus about something, but he stopped in the yard where she was hanging laundry and helped without being asked, handing her the clothes from the basket while she pinned them.
"You don't have to do that," she said. "I know."
They worked side by side for a few minutes. She liked him — had since the barbecue, when he'd said that thing about music. He had a quality she couldn't quite categorize: attentive without being intrusive, calm without being cold.
"How's your father?" Sam asked.
She looked at him sideways. "Fine. Why?"
"No reason. He seemed like he had something on his mind last time I was over."
She was quiet a moment. "There's something going on, isn't there? In the world. Something more than the news is saying."
Sam stopped reaching for the next shirt. He looked at her directly — really at her, not around the question. "Yes," he said. "I think so."
She'd half expected him to say something reassuring and vague. The directness surprised her and also made her breathe easier than she had in several days. It was better to know the shape of a thing.
"How bad?" she said.
"I don't know yet. Bad enough that we've been preparing." He picked up the next shirt and handed it over. "You should talk to Maggie about it. And to your father."
"He's already worried."
"He should know what's actually available," Sam said. "What Marcus and I have put together. He doesn't have to carry it alone."
She thought about that all through the rest of the laundry and didn't arrive at a conclusion, but she felt less alone with the feeling.
* * *
Davina
The diner started cutting hours the third week of August. Not officially, but in the way Mrs. Landry said "you can go home early today, honey" every day that week instead of the usual twice a month.
Supplies were getting erratic. The produce delivery had been light three Tuesdays in a row. The bread supplier had called to say they'd be on reduced schedule. Mrs. Landry was keeping it together by the force of her personality alone, and Davina had worked here long enough to see the seams.
She mentioned it to Sam on the phone — they'd graduated to phone calls, mostly in the evenings after dinner. He listened without interrupting.
"How are your parents set at home?" he asked when she finished.
"Fine. Dad's got a big pantry. Mom always buys extra, she's funny about it."
"That's good." A pause. "I want to bring some things over. Not a lot — some extra canned goods, rice, that kind of thing. Would that be weird?"
She thought about how to answer that. It would've seemed weird a month ago. "No," she said. "I don't think so."
"I'll be subtle about it," he said. "I won't make it a thing."
And he wasn't, when he came by. He had two paper bags of groceries and said he'd overestimated what he needed at the store, which was almost certainly not true. Her mother thanked him warmly. Her father shook his hand.
Afterward, standing on the porch while he prepared to leave, Davina said, "You didn't overbuy." "No."
"You're worried."
He looked at her the way he'd looked at Beth over the laundry, she would later think — directly and honestly, without hiding the answer. "A little," he said. "Nothing is definitely wrong yet. But I'd rather have what we need before we need it."
She nodded slowly. "That's how you think." "Usually."
She looked at her hands. "Tell me if it gets worse?"
"I will," he said. And she believed him, which was the part that surprised her.
* * *
Marcus
The first incident that nobody could explain away happened on a Tuesday night.
Old Mr. Jenkins from down the road. He'd been found in his own field at two in the morning, his wife said, feverish and confused and not himself — not himself in a way she couldn't describe exactly, she'd told the deputy who came out, just not himself. The deputy's report called it heat exhaustion combined with disorientation, possible medication interaction.
Marcus had gone to look at the field the next morning. He didn't know Jenkins beyond a wave at the road. He had no particular feeling about the man. What he had was a need to know if this was relevant to his own situation, and the only way to assess that was to look directly at it. He didn't go on anyone's property, just stood at the fence line and looked at the grass where the footprints
were still visible. The pattern of them was strange. Circular, overlapping, the kind of movement you didn't do if you were walking with a purpose.
He stood there a long time.
That night he told Sam. Sam was quiet, and then he opened the laptop and started typing, and Marcus cleaned his rifle and didn't say anything else.
Three days later there was an incident at the gas station on Route 9. A man — out-of-state plates, the news said — had become suddenly aggressive inside the store. Had injured the clerk badly enough to require stitches. The police report said narcotics. The clerk, interviewed briefly on local radio, said he'd seen the man's eyes before it happened and they'd been wrong somehow. Flat. Like the lights were on but nothing was home.
Marcus heard that on the radio in the barn and stopped what he was doing and stood still for a long moment with his hand on the workbench.
Then he went to find Sam.