Apocalypse of the Dead. Joe Mckinney

      She put her hand over his.

      “The world is so big,” she said. “I don’t know if I can make you understand that, Uncle Reggie. I don’t know if I can make you understand how much it terrifies me.”

      “It has nothing to do with being blind. You know that, right?” he said. “Everybody feels that way. If the world doesn’t seem absurd to you, then you’re not alive. At least you’re not living a life worth living.”

      She smiled faintly. Those were pretty words, but they didn’t make her feel any better. She thought of telling him so and then reined herself back. It was pointless.

      She dropped her hand back down to her side.

      “I’m scared,” she said.

      “I know you are.”

      “But you’re not scared, Reggie?”

      He hesitated. She knew he was deep in thought. He always thought before he spoke, and it made her wonder what his face looked like at those moments.

      “I lost a lot of people during the first outbreak,” he said finally. “A lot of friends. Yeah, it scares me to think of what might happen. I hear this stuff going on in Florida now and all the people who are still inside the quarantine zone trying to bust out and it scares me.”

      “Will it spread?”

      “I don’t know,” he said. “I hope not.”

      “The man on the Abilene station said they’ve already had twenty reported cases.”

      “Abilene’s a good, long way away, Kyra.”

      “Yeah but, are we…okay here?”

      “I think so.”

      “The radio said we should get some supplies. Bottled water, extra gas, stuff like that.”

      “We’re gonna be okay, Kyra.”

      “Uncle Reggie, please.”

      She heard him sigh.

      “What do you want me to do, Kyra? You want me to go over to the Walmart in Fort Stockton and get some supplies?”

      She nodded.

      He sighed again.

      “You gonna be okay here while I’m gone?”

      “I’ll be okay.”

      “You’re not gonna let that radio scare you, are you?”

      “No, I promise.”

      She heard his boots scuffing across the floor as he moved to the door. His keys jangled as he took them down from the hook on the wall next to the light switch.

      “You sure you’re gonna be okay?”

      “I’m sure,” she said.

      “Okay. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

      Kyra nodded. She listened as he fired up his truck and pulled out of the drive and accelerated up 6th Street. A moment later, she was alone again, with the sounds of the newsman on the radio and the sound of dust blowing against the windows and the weight of her fears pushing down on her, making it hard to breathe.

      Inside her shell of blindness, she wondered why the world had to be this way.