Halfway to Scarborough, the McAllisters drove past in their ancient truck, heading south. Tansy waved. They did not wave back. She dropped the wagon's handle and stood at the side of the road, dumbfounded.

Something was wrong.

Back when she had first arrived and decided to settle down in Scarborough for a time, the McAllisters put her up while she looked for a home. She had babysat their young children and helped a very pregnant Ann McAllister keep up with her small garden. They were the closest thing to family Tansy had, and even though she didn't keep in touch like she should, for them to ignore her like that?

Tansy fought back a growing sense of alarm. Near the Matilda Creek bridge, a horse picked its way along the broken road, a two-wheeled cart bouncing comically behind it. Tansy took her sweet time making eye contact with the rider, who pulled a mask over her mouth and nose before stopping.

Sarah Guernsey. Tansy's "favorite" person in the whole wide world.

"Co-op?" Sarah asked, eyebrows raised.

Tansy nodded. "You?"

Sarah gave her a hard look. "Co-op's closed."

"Closed? Really?" She couldn't remember the co-op ever being closed on a trade day. It was a co-op. Even when Carmen and Jeremy were away, there were always members free to keep things running smoothly.

Sarah shook her head slowly. "Closed, Tansy. All closed. Where have you been? Not catching the news, I guess."

"No, not catching the news. Can you maybe be a little less cryptic?" Tansy said, not even trying to hide her annoyance.

"Uh huh," Sarah said, looking Tansy up and down again. "If you really don't know, you'll know soon enough," she said, and rode off south of town.

Tansy watched Sarah's cart bounce up the hill and disappear down the other side. She turned toward Scarborough. The streets were eerily empty. No bustling crowds. No cars or carts or wagons. No buskers hawking the same things to the same folks they'd grown up with and married. Nobody trading for goods the co-op didn't accept: metals and medicines, clothing and coin. On the main trade day, on a beautiful late summer day, Scarborough was a ghost town.

Tansy pulled the wagon up the landing ramp and parked it near the co-op's front window, shoving a brick behind a wheel as a makeshift brake. She peered in through the window, hoping against hope to see Carmen running business as usual.

Nothing. Nobody.

She went around back. A long table, laid out with days-old produce and stale bread, buzzed with flies in the unrelenting sun. She shielded her eyes and scanned the community garden and hills beyond. Nothing.

"Weird," she whispered. Back at the wagon, she nearly un-bricked it and prepared to go home. Instead, she decided to pay a quick visit to Lydia, who had the rest of the strange Factor's mystery lanolin. Tansy grabbed her water flask, nested the amber jars in her sling bag, and started down the ramp.

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With the exception of the co-op, a diner offering a seasonal menu based on co-op leftovers, the old theater building turned clinic, and the town hall, Scarborough's downtown was empty and poorly maintained. Of the remaining buildings, a decaying four-story office complex served as a sort of tenement, where displaced singles and the occasional transient family shared bathrooms and the building's sole kitchen.

Lydia was a long-time resident and the tenement's unofficial steward. She also headed the co-op's community garden. Tansy and Lydia had a lot in common. They were even the same age, and might have been friends if not for one jarring detail: Lydia was a talkative people person. Able to tolerate her aggressive friendliness only in small doses, Tansy kept a comfortable distance between them.

Walking the two blocks to Lydia's, Tansy kept looking over her shoulder, half expecting someone to jump out from behind a building and yell April Fools! Except for the flag—at half mast for 19 years—clanking in the meager breeze, Tansy heard only the echoes of her own footfalls.

The tenement’s glass facade stood empty inside and out, with none of the usual bustling activity behind the window walls. She peered in and saw the empty community room, toys and craft supplies scattered about.

"Hello," she called. She rapped on the glass, then tried the door. Locked. She knocked again.

The wind picked up and sent the old flag flapping wildly. Tansy tipped the mail slot inward and put her mouth to it.

"Hello? Anybody home? Lydia?"

She stood and let the slot clink back into place. She turned and looked both ways down the street. So weird.

"Tansy?" Lydia's voice was muffled. Tansy turned around and saw a still-empty community room.

"Yeah." Tansy put her hands to the glass and looked inside. "Where are you?"

Lydia cracked the door to the stairwell and stood in the doorway, holding it open with her hip. "You shouldn't be here!" she yelled. "Go home, Tansy!"

"What? Why? What in the world is going on?"

"You don't know?"

Tansy let her hands fall to her sides and shook her head. Lydia looked around fearfully and walked halfway into the community room. Tansy crouched down to the mail slot again and said, "Will you please tell me what the hell is happening?"

"You have to go. Okay? Just go,” Lydia said. “Some folks are getting sick, Tansy. Really sick."

Tansy felt everything go still. "Sick how?"

Lydia shook her head. Was she crying? She tugged her sleeves down over her hands. And just like that, Tansy knew.

"Please just go," Lydia pleaded. "Go home. Lock your doors. They—oh my god." They both turned toward the unfamiliar, low rumbling sound. "They're here! They're—"

Tansy stood up, stuck between fight and flight. She cupped her hands to the glass and looked inside again. Lydia was gone. She heard her mother's voice, clear as if the electrode were still stuck to her head. Run, Tansy! Run!

Tansy turned too late. Three Strategic Defense trucks rounded the corner. An officer dressed head-to-toe in protective gear jumped out and ran toward her.

He drew his weapon. "You! Stand down!"

Stand down? What did that mean? Get down? Stand differently, somehow? In a panic, she threw her hands up beside her head. "I—I'm standing! I don't know what you want!"

The officer reached out and grabbed her shoulder with one gloved hand. With the other, he pressed a barrel to her forehead.

Tansy closed her eyes and thought of Ma.