DAMASCUS
"So," Kerry says. "How long have you been out of touch?"
Marcus shrugs. They're sitting in a booth in the back of the Dairy King, which was empty but unlocked. The lights are off, and the building smells faintly of rotten milk.
"A month," he says. "Give or take."
"Ah," she says. "You weren't hiding, then. You missed the whole show."
Marcus takes a sip of his milkshake, which isn't really a milkshake at all—just a Dairy King to-go cup full of warm, vanilla-flavored goo.
"Yeah," Marcus says. "I'm definitely starting to feel like I'm missing something."
Kerry laughs.
"Nothing gets past you, huh? Hate to break it to you, friend—but while you were on your little vision quest, you missed out on the end of the world."
***
"You know," Kerry says. "You're taking this all pretty well. Don't you have people somewhere?"
Marcus looks at her. They're sitting on a couch in the common room of a hiker's hostel, watching an old VHS tape of The Princess Bride with the volume turned up to cover the steady rumble of a gas generator in the background.
"I had a sister," he says.
"Had?"
"Melanoma," he says. "Six weeks ago."
They watch in silence as Westley and Inigo fight their cliff-top duel.
"Best scene ever," Kerry says.
"Truth," says Marcus. He rubs absently at his still-swollen eye. A bowl of chips sits on the coffee table in front of them. Kerry leans forward, takes one, bites it in half and chews slowly. When she leans back, she's a little closer than before.
"So, this plague thing," Marcus says. "It really killed everybody in a month? I mean, what does that?"
