Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Acknowledgements
About the Author
For here we have no lasting city,
but we seek the city that is to come.
Hebrews 13:14 ESV
Once you catch the Nightmare Virus, you have 22 days until you die.
That’s fact #1.
Fact #2 is that there’s no cure . . . yet.
I stare at the piece of paper held up by a cracked Zelda magnet on the half fridge inside our tiny house on wheels. Equations and scribbles and questions fill the small, lined piece of paper.
Our attempts at a cure.
Nole expects me to figure them out while he sleeps, but I’m not him. My brain doesn’t work the same way as his. He has a whole extra year of college under his belt. I can pull the “I’m younger and dumber” card when he wakes up to find I’ve made little to no progress.
He lays on the couch behind me. Dreaming, maybe.
Infected.
We call it sleep, but that’s not quite right. He’s had the Nightmare Virus for 19 days now and says it’s like being sucked into another world of darkness and fear. He calls it The Tunnel. I don’t bother to use my imagination to try to picture it because it’ll come for me eventually.
It comes for everyone.
Nole and I may have shared everything else as brothers growing up, but we haven’t shared the virus . . . yet.
I consult the math scribbles again—the math of the virus. If there’s anything I hate more than the idea of being trapped in my own mind, it’s math. Day 1 of the virus forces you to sleep in the Tunnel for 1 hour. You’re awake for the next 23 hours. Day 2 of the virus, you’re in The Tunnel for 2 hours. Then awake for 22. And so on and so forth until suddenly you’re asleep for 22 hours and awake for only 2.
That’s when you say your goodbyes.
You never wake after that. The Nightmare takes you, and you’re stuck in it until your body deteriorates or starves or someone stabs you in your infected sleep.
Dark stuff. Sorry about that.
Nole shifts on the couch. I startle, looking between him and the paper on the fridge. I’ve calculated wrong—again. I thought he wouldn’t be waking up for another hour. At least I’ll have company one hour sooner than expected. But I haven’t prepped any food.
I pull a packet of gum from my pocket, unwrap a stick, and pop it in my mouth. Dinner for me.
Nole rubs his eyes. I snatch a cooked potato from the fridge and plop it into a bowl with a slab of butter and a slice of cheddar cheese that has the moldy bits carved away. Dinner for Nole.
He’ll be exhausted. But, knowing Nole, he’ll refuse to rest. I don’t blame him. His death date is set.
