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sick, with children the lone immuners. We should not, according to the report, even be together, unless we could refrain from speech, take a pact of silence.
    We urge you to travel alone. Consider this an allergy to people.
    I was as bad for Claire as Esther, or would be soon. Earlier today, when I found Claire after the report on LeBov and subjected her to my lengthy, defensive apology and watched her shrink into the bed while I spoke, it wasn’t only because she had grown sick of the sight of me. It was my language as well. It was that I had spoken at all.
    If we traveled together we had better hold our goddamn tongues.
    The radio report followed in robotic tones, with cautions, locations to avoid, roads that were closed. Rivers and bridges, the Sheldrake, Wickers Creek, the Menands Bridge. Something about the airspace of Elmira and a marine warning near the Mourner’s Sound. A different station was given for the full, updated list of closures, but I did not switch over. I could wait to hear the names of places I should not go.

At a stop sign I heard a sharp noise and something hit my car. A whimper floated up, perhaps from my own mouth. The streets were dark, boiling circles of light spreading from the streetlamps. A pack of children tore across a yard, fled from sight. I locked my doors. Then a soft thing fell into the car and the car lifted, as if someone were out there, trying to push the car over.
    I stepped on the gas, revved it hard, but the car was blocked by something. It whinnied forward, the engine straining, and seemed to elevate in the back.
    One of them pressed his little face into the driver’s side window, so close. He smiled, his lips moving, as if he were singing. With his finger he tapped on the glass, made a twirling motion for me to roll down the window. His hands formed a posture of prayer under his chin and I believe he mimed the word please.
    He wanted to talk.
    I hammered down on the gas again and the car whined, lifted, then released with a squeal over whatever had been blocking it and I sped away.
    In my rearview mirror a few of them crouched over something, not even looking my way. They formed a circle, went to their knees, and that was all I saw.