The Before by Emily McKay Page B

Others don’t even see us at all. Like their humanity hasn’t equipped them with the light-fracturing prism that will let them see people different from themselves. And even people who see the rainbow don’t think about all the spectrums of light no ordinary human can see.
    I think of Dad now, reminded again of how right he is, because I get now what he meant. Yes, I’m different. I see and I understand better and faster than everyone else—even my twin, my match. My Lily can’t keep up with the way my mind works. My brain is wicked fast. Like Road Runner.
    And here’s the not better part: I see it. Almost immediately, I understand how bad this is. How bad it’s going to get. I see it.
    That’s how fast my Road Runner brain moves. But even though my brain can see the thousand rickety steps between here and there, my tongue can’t keep up. So fast I lose my words. I have no way to describe this slippery slope humanity will slide down.
    My Road Runner’s brain can only Meep, meep .

Chapter Three
     
    Lily
     
    A week later, I still didn’t really believe it was happening. It just seemed too bizarre. Too much like science fiction to be real. Besides, the drama at home kept me occupied.
    Mel hadn’t spoken in a full sentence since the first day. Uncle Rodney called three or four times a day. Though he always started with his request that we just get in the car and drive up to his place, he also included helpful tips about how to survive the coming apocalypse. Like I really needed to know how many drops of bleach it took to purify a gallon of water or how to make a candle out of a can of Crisco. But me not wanting to know this crap didn’t keep him from telling me.
    Maybe I could have handled Mel’s silence and Uncle Rodney’s weirdness if Mom had reacted differently. My mom. My tough, balls to the wall, cynical, smart mom. This was a woman who pushed us and fought for us and drove us crazy, but who never ever backed down from a fight. From the second she saw the news about the outbreak, she lost it. I don’t mean she lost her temper, I mean she lost herself. All that fire and determination got buried under an avalanche of fear and doubt. She spent hours in front of the TV. I guess we all did.
    Strangely, that freaked me out the most. Mom had always been fierce about limiting Mel’s “screen time.” No more than an hour a day. Ever. But after the outbreak of Microbe EN731, the news was on 24/7. No one left the house. I took over cooking. Mom didn’t even notice.
    Four days after we first heard the news, I stood in the kitchen pantry staring at the contents. Mel sat on the kitchen table, swinging her legs back and forth and chewing bubble gum, her head tilted at an odd angle as she watched me in the birdlike way she had. She didn’t say anything, but I knew she was hungry, just like I knew she was upset.
    I think her reversion to nursery rhymes freaked her out also, because she’d barely spoken since saying the British were coming. In the best of times, no one in our house was a great cook. I’d been making due with the pantry basics, but we were down to a can of pumpkin and a box of oatmeal, and Mel’s huge tub of Dubble Bubble.
    I shut the pantry and went to find Mom. I found her in her bedroom, sitting on the window seat, her cell phone pressed to her ear.
    I wasn’t above using her distraction against her. I gave a small wave and whispered, “I’m going to the store for food. I’ll be back soon.”
    She leapt to her feet. “You can’t go out there.”
    I stopped in the doorway. So much for the quiet getaway.
    She muttered something into the phone and then lowered it as she stalked across the room. “You can’t go out.”
    “Mom—”
    “You’ve seen the reports. Those things are targeting teenagers.”
    Of course I’d seen the reports. Once an hour for the past four days, I’d heard that. “Mom, the virus hasn’t spread this far north yet.”
    “There’ve been sightings in Waco and a