âWhatâre you doing?!â
âGoing to work,â Lolly calls back. âBossâll dock me if I donât.â
âThereâs a storm! Storeâll be closed!â
Lolly keeps on walking down the drive. She hears her mother running, rubber sandals slapping on the packed dirt. âLolly!â
âForecastâs usually wrong anyway. Havenât had a storm for years. Bossâll expect me to be there.â
âJust stay home today, Lolly. Please. If the storm does come, if it does you wonât want to be out in it. I donât want you out in it. Couldnât bear that.â
Lolly doesnât feel anxious, for herself or her mother or the storm. She knows staying home will give her a stomachache, because sheâll sit around smelling Granny Maâs rotting flesh and rotting ointment and the house will creak and squeak with every breath of air. But when her motherâs face and shoulders are covered in smears of burn cream that havenât been rubbed in properly, Lolly knows sheâll cave to the smallest request, because her mother doesnât even take the time to check and see if the creamâs rubbed in, and Lolly wonât bother to tell her it isnât.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The storm hits while theyâre upstairs, watching from the window. It comes in bits first, stragglers, slogging in sloppy strides down the road. Then the wave hits, and Lollyâs motherâs back goes rigid and she steps away from the window, prompting Lolly to do the same.
The storm is of hundreds this time around, all dressed in ragged, ripped clothing, crusted with dirt and mud and soot and blood and Lolly doesnât know what else. Their skin isnât the right color and itâs falling off, like most of them, like every part of them if you look too closely. But even if they were at her doorstep, Lolly wouldnât look too closely. She wouldnât look at all.
âThe storm spreads the disease,â Lollyâs kindergarten teacher told them, five eager, chubby faces whoâd never seen a storm. âThey spread the disease sometimes just by breathing the same air. And when you catch it, all youâll want to do is spread the disease too, and youâll become a part of the storm.â
Lollyâs grade three teacher told those same five faces, starting to grow leaner, but not an ounce meaner, âThere was a cure for the disease, a long, long time ago. But what it did, it cured some, and it made others all the more sick, and it made them into a part of the storm. It was the cure of the old scientists who created the storm.â
âSome, not many, are immune,â Lollyâs grade six teacher told two haunted faces, eight months after the first storm in a decade. âThe storm doesnât like the immune, and if you donât catch the disease fast enough, something in their dead brains will click to life long enough to say âthis one isnât getting sickâ and then the storm will overtake you, because if it canât have you, it wonât leave you breathing.â
The storm continues, wave after wave, trudging down the road, never the drive. The day fades, and for a while the sky is bloody and the road is quiet. Then, as night falls, another wave hits and Granny Ma announces: âI forgot my notebook.â
Lolly and her mother try to ignore her, but she persists: âI need it. I need to check and see if Froggieâs unfollowed me after I deleted her comment on my post.â
âNot now, Ma.â
âI need to check. I need to know. I need to talk to Froggie!â
âThe wifiâs down,â Lolly says, attempting to dissuade Granny Ma. But the old woman ignores her, talks over her, voice going shrill.
âJust go get it then, Ma. Go get it.â
Granny Ma clamps her mouth shut and shuffles into the hall. Lolly stares at her mother, who wonât look away from the