This is a fictional story. All names, places, and viruses are used fictitiously. Resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, past or present, are intentional.
If you haven’t read from the beginning, please start at Chapter 1 here.
***
Due Date: 74 days away
My prediction was right. Morning was miserable.
“Ben? Ben, are you awake?”
Of course, I wasn’t.
“Yeah, yeah. What’s—?”
My eyes still groggy, I squinted around the tent at both boys sitting up.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Shepherd wants mama,” Kenneth said.
“Oh, it’s okay,” I said, hugging Shepherd. “What time is it?”
I tried my watch first. The moonlight filtering through the mesh around us wasn’t strong enough. I fumbled for my phone.
3:21am.
No wonder I felt rough.
No new texts from Liz. That was good.
I shivered.
“Yeah, it’s freezing,” Kenneth said. I could see his shoulders shaking too, even in the dim light.
“Let’s get warmed up.”
I gathered some of the folded blankets near the entrance and spread them over us, tucking Shepherd back into his sleeping bag in the process.
He started crying.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” I said. “What’s the matter?”
He didn’t say anything. He kept crying.
I tried to snuggle up with him better, but our combined body heat didn’t combat the cold well.
“Come on. Let’s go in,” I said.
“What about mama,” Kenneth said.
“We’ll stay out in the living room. Right, Shepherd? Don’t wake mama up, okay?”
He stopped crying and nodded his head with a frown on his face.
We made our way inside, opening the back door slowly so it didn’t creak. It still did.
Shepherd took off for the bedroom as soon as I set him down.
“Shepherd. Shepherd, no! Come here.” I was raising my voice in a whisper before scooping him back up.
He cried again.
“Shh, what did I say? We need to let mama sleep.”
We didn’t have any blankets left in the closet, so when he calmed down, I left Shepherd with Kenneth and retrieved a pile from our tent. They still seemed okay when I got back. Kenneth took one couch, the shorter one. Shepherd and I took the other. Shepherd wasn’t happy about the situation, but he’d stopped crying.
I must have conked out fast, my eyes still heavy from only a few hours of sleep.
When they opened again, the boys were asleep, but it felt like it had only been a split second. My phone had buzzed.
It was Liz.
“Are you inside?” she texted.
“Yes.”
She buzzed again.
“It sounded like someone came in. The light is on.”
I looked across to the kitchen. It was.
Before I could answer, she texted again.
“I’m having trouble breathing.”
I put the phone down and rolled Shepherd’s arm off of me. He moved his neck but settled back to sleep. I tiptoed to our bedroom and opened the door.
Liz was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands on her knees.
“Hey, you okay?” I kept my voice down. “What do you mean you’re having trouble breathing?”
“I mean, when I breath, I’m having trouble.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I am telling you.”
I sat beside her, resisting the tendency to put my hand on her back.
“Do you think we should go to the hospital?” she asked.
The answer to that question, according to YouTube and every CDC article I’d read, was yes.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“Miserable.”
