He’d lied about the steaks. They were already mostly thawed, his freezer broken nearly three days now. Electricity was still on–how, he had no idea–but the appliance was unreliable even before the bad times had come and the city’s entire population of repair guys died.

He sniffed the meat before putting it out on the counter, deciding it was probably okay. He’d just refer to it as dry aged if asked. These were the last of them, though. No more beef or chicken, no more fresh vegetables. He’d be eating canned goods and dry stuff in boxes within a week.

Elliot leaned back against the wall of the kitchen and exhaled slowly. The harsh loneliness of his life came in waves and watching Evajean silently and stoically mourn over Henry, standing so small on the asphalt between his body and a Honda with broken windows… The image stuck, flashing now, the fresh memory intruding against dinner preparations.

Clarine had looked just like that back in July when the two of them, exhausted from the terror of days barely past, had taken their daughter across the lawn and laid her out in the street–what people were just then beginning to call the collection area. Callie was smaller than Henry, her tiny body sunken, her face warped from screaming, but the presence of her laying there while Clarine wept was every bit as large. How had they made it through? How had his wife kept it even modestly together into August, when her speech had first taken the lilting quality that indicated horribly that the infection had set in? How had he not snapped, not killed the both of them, when the lilting progressed to that weird and musical babbling and she’d just stared at him, without moving for days, eyes cold and hateful?

He’d been alone since the tenth of that month. Clarine had finally taken her own life, breaking the ropes binding her to her grandmother’s hand-me-down rocking chair and driving a broken off, crystal candlestick into the fleshy spot beneath her jaw. That’s how Elliot found her. He wondered then if she’d done it shut herself up, to stop the tongue gone mad in her mouth.

“Mr. Bishop?”

Elliot jumped. He’d left the house’s wooden door open, the entrance covered only by the screen door. Evajean was there now, calling into him. How long had he been standing against the red wallpaper of the kitchen–a floral design Clarine had insisted upon when they’d bought the place as newlyweds?

“Oh, Jesus, Evajean,” he said, jogging to the front of the house to let her in. “Please, you can– I mean, if you want, call me Elliot.”

She smiled at him as he undid the latch. “Elliot,” she said.

“Right.” He held the door for her and she stepped in, looking around at the small and dim foyer, with its large mirror and framed poster of a Paris martini ad from the 1920s. “Look, I got the steaks ready, I can fire up the grill–”

“I’ll have that drink if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, sure,” he said. He stepped back toward the living room, pointing. “Right over here. You want ice? There’s a little left in the back–”

“No,” she said. “Just straight. I need it straight.”

He nodded. The two large bottles of whiskey were on the tiny table they’d setup just for drinks in an effort to give the place a sophisticated air. The intent had always been to get a set of crystal decanters and fancy tumblers so they could offer guests drinks like the charming hosts in the movies. But Clarine and Elliot had never settled on a design and the years had gone by with the table holding only opened bottles and a couple extra glasses they didn’t have room for in the kitchen.

It was into these Elliot poured a huge rush of Jim Beam, handing the nearly full glass to Evajean. “Sorry,” he said. “If that’s too much–”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, taking it from him and sipping slowly, then faster. Without looking at him, she swallowed half the whiskey, then set the rest down next to the bottle. “Thank you.”

“Sure thing. Are you hungry?”