Thirty Days Before the Dead

CHAPTER 3: The Price of a Wife

 She screamed. She cried. She denied. She threw a glass against the wall, then admitted it, then accused him of being cold, boring, small and pathetic. The glass shattered against the wall, scattering sharp fragments across the floor, but Ryan barely flinched. He stood where he was, watching her unravel while the sound of breaking glass faded into the silence between them.

 “You can't do this to me, Ryan!” Vanessa snapped, her voice trembling with anger. “After nine years, you're just going to throw me away like I mean nothing to you?”

 Ryan said nothing. He packed her suitcases himself and set them by the door, three of them, because she owned a great deal of things she had bought with money he had earned. He folded her clothes carefully, placed her expensive accessories in their cases, and ignored the occasional sob or insult thrown in his direction. Every familiar item reminded him of how much he had given her, and how little of it had ever mattered.

 “You’ll regret this,” she said finally, mascara streaked to her chin. “You think you’re strong? You’re a warehouse manager. You’re nothing without me. Grant says…”

 “Tell Grant,” Ryan said, “I said hello.”

 Vanessa's lips parted, but no words came out immediately. She searched his face for the familiar hesitation, the guilt that usually followed whenever she pushed him too far. When she found neither, her expression tightened, and she turned away to wipe her cheeks with the heel of her hand.

 Ryan carried the last suitcase to the entrance and lined it up with the others. The wheels scraped against the floor, and the sound seemed unusually loud in the quiet house. He checked the time on his phone, already thinking about the work waiting for him, while Vanessa watched him as though she still expected him to change his mind.

 At 8:40 p.m., a black Range Rover pulled up at the curb. Ryan saw the headlights sweep across the living room wall before the engine settled into a low idle. Grant Whitlock climbed out, forty-one, tanned and golf-fit, wearing a quarter-zip that cost more than Ryan’s truck payment. He stood on the lawn, looking up at the house as if surveying a property he planned to buy.

 Same smug face, Ryan thought. Same hands that held my backpack.

 The memory came back so sharply that his fingers curled at his sides. For a moment, he could almost feel the weight of the supplies being dragged off his shoulders and remember the cold steel door slamming in his face. He forced his hands to relax before the old anger could take control. He had thirty days, and wasting them on a premature confrontation would accomplish nothing.

 “Calloway,” Grant said, strolling to the porch. “Rough night. I’m sorry it came out like this.”

 “You’re not sorry.”

 “No, I’m not.” Grant smiled. “Honestly? I’m surprised you lasted nine years. She’s too much woman for a man like you. Let’s keep this civil. I’ll have my lawyer draw up something fair.”

 “I’m sure he will.”

 Grant glanced at the suitcases beside the door, then back at Ryan. His smile widened slightly, as if he believed the situation had already turned in his favor. He had the easy confidence of a man accustomed to getting what he wanted, and Ryan recognized the expression from the old world. Grant had never needed to fight for anything when someone else could be pushed aside.

 “And look.” Grant leaned closer, voice low. “I heard you’re liquidating things. Taking loans. If you go bankrupt, call me. I’ll buy this place off the bank for pennies.”

 Ryan almost laughed.

 In thirty days, nobody in this world will remember what a bank is.

 The thought nearly brought a smile to his face, but he kept his expression neutral. Grant had no idea what was coming, and Ryan intended to keep it that way. The man standing on his porch believed he was looking at a defeated husband with a failing marriage and too many debts. He had no reason to suspect that Ryan was already preparing for a world where money, property and reputation would mean almost nothing.

 “I’ll keep it in mind,” Ryan said. “Goodbye, Grant.”

 He closed the door. He locked it. He slid the deadbolt across and stood with his back against the wood, listening to the Range Rover pull away. The engine faded down the street, leaving the house quiet again, but Ryan remained where he was for several seconds, staring at the door.

 His heart was pounding. It surprised him. He had expected to feel nothing.

 It’s the old me, he realized. The one who died. He’s furious. He wants to rip the door off its hinges and take that smile off Grant’s face.

 Ryan lowered his head and drew a slow breath through his nose. The anger was real, and so was the temptation to do something reckless with it. He could still remember the helplessness of his final moments, the way Grant had looked at him without a trace of guilt. But revenge would have to wait until he had secured his survival and protected the one person who had never betrayed him.

 Not yet, Ryan told him quietly. We have thirty days. We’ll do it properly.

 Over the next three days, he moved like a man possessed.

 Monday. He drove to the bank with the home equity line paperwork. The lobby smelled of polished wood and stale coffee, and the air-conditioning raised goosebumps on his forearms as he waited for his appointment. He kept his documents arranged neatly in a folder, answering each question without rushing and making sure his expression showed neither urgency nor fear.

 The loan officer, a pleasant woman named Debbie, smiled professionally. “Mr. Calloway, this is a very large draw. May I ask what it’s for?”

 “Business expansion,” Ryan said. “Wholesale distribution. I’ve found a very good deal.”

 She nodded, approved it and shook his hand. He walked out with $212,000 wired to his account. The cool air outside struck his face, and he paused on the steps to check his phone, watching the balance update on the screen. It was a staggering amount of money, but he knew how quickly it would disappear once he began purchasing supplies on the scale he needed.

 Tuesday. He sold the truck for cash to a dealership, thirty-one thousand dollars, and drove home in a rented sedan. He drew down the 401(k) loan, visited three more banks and walked into a currency exchange with nine credit cards.

 “Cash advances,” he told the clerk. “All of them.”

 The clerk stared. “That’s a lot of interest, sir.”

 “I’m aware.”

 I’ll be dead long before the interest, Ryan thought. Or the interest will.

 At the dealership, the sales manager counted thirty-one thousand dollars in cash twice, with the glazed look of a man in a dream. The crisp notes rustled beneath his fingers as he checked the total again, while Ryan waited beside the counter with his hands in his pockets.

 “Most guys want to trade up, Mr. Calloway. You’re the first who’s ever trading down to a rental.”

 “I’m minimizing,” Ryan said.

 The manager gave a short laugh, apparently deciding that Ryan's explanation was a private joke he didn't need to understand. Ryan accepted the receipt and left without offering anything else. Every transaction brought him closer to his target, but each one also made his situation more precarious. If the apocalypse did not arrive as he remembered, he would be left with enormous debts, no truck, and a future he had gambled away.

 His phone rang as he drove away. Diane Moretti.

 “Ryan Calloway, what in God’s name is going on? My daughter is in tears. She’s at a hotel. She says you threw her out like a stray cat.”

 Ryan tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Vanessa had already begun telling her version of the story, and he could imagine the performance: the tears, the wounded voice, and the carefully chosen details that made her look innocent. In the old life, he would have apologized to Diane, promised to work things out, and accepted the blame to keep the peace. This time, he had no intention of protecting Vanessa from the consequences of her own decisions.

 “She’s staying with Grant Whitlock, Diane. Ask her about him.”

 Silence. Then, much smaller: “I… what?”

 “Goodbye, Diane.”

 He hung up. He felt no triumph, only the click of one more lock turning behind him. Nine years, he thought. In the old world she let me die on a staircase. The old pain flared, hot and sharp. He swallowed it and kept driving.

 Wednesday. He walked into Tri-State Freight’s glass offices at 9 a.m. and set his resignation on his supervisor’s desk. The familiar sounds of the workplace carried through the open office: phones ringing, keyboards clicking, and distant forklifts beeping from the warehouse floor. Ryan had spent fifteen years building a career there, and for a brief moment, the ordinary scene made him hesitate.

 He knew the systems, the staff, the work, and the future he had once expected to have. Leaving meant giving up a position he had earned through years of effort, but staying would cost him the time he needed to prepare. He slid the resignation across the desk before doubt could persuade him to take it back.

 “You can’t be serious,” said Dale, red-faced behind a coffee. “Calloway, you’re up for director. Eight more months and…”

 “I’m moving on.”

 “What, to what?”

 Ryan almost said to survive. Instead, he smiled the polite smile of a man with a secret.

 “Something bigger.”

 Dale watched him go. Behind him, the warehouse floor was lit with the same fluorescent hum it had had for fifteen years. Forklifts beeped. Men laughed over coffee.

 None of them knew. Not one of them knew.

 He cleaned out his locker in four minutes. Fifteen years of work fit into one cardboard box: a stapler, a mug that read WORLD’S OKAYEST MANAGER, a photo of him and Vanessa on a beach in Cancún. He looked at the photo for a moment, his thumb resting on its edge, remembering how genuinely happy he had been when it was taken. Then he dropped it in the trash and carried the box out to the car.

 Standing in the parking lot, Ryan looked up at the ordinary blue sky. The sunlight warmed his face, and the breeze carried the faint smell of rain from somewhere beyond the industrial buildings. Everything looked exactly as it should, and that was what unsettled him most. The world was still going about its business, unaware that it had less than a month left.

 Twenty-six days.

 He opened the bank app. $545,380. The number glowed on the screen like something holy. He stared at the balance for a moment, already dividing it into food, water, fuel, medicine, weapons, and the materials needed to turn his house into a fortress. It was a fortune, but he knew that buying the wrong things or wasting even a few days could leave him dangerously exposed when the first infected began to run.

 His phone buzzed. It was a message from an unknown number, then a second, then a third.

 Marty Pell (Pell Wholesale Foods): You called me, Ryan. Seventy-eight tons of what, exactly? Call me back. I think you’ve lost your mind, and I want a piece of it.

 Ryan read the message twice. A small smile appeared on his face as he pictured the mountains of supplies he needed to buy and the limited time he had to move them. Seventy-eight tons was an absurd order by ordinary standards, and Marty was rig

ht to question it. But Ryan didn't need the order to make sense to the world before the world ended. He needed the supplies to arrive before it did.

 He was grinning when he called.