Excerpt from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Jeevan, where are you?" She sounded slightly accusatory. He handed over his credit card.

"Are you watching the news?"

"Should I be?"

"There's a flu epidemic, Laura. It's serious."

"That thing in Russia or wherever? I knew about that."

"It's here now. It's worse than we'd thought. I've just been talking to Hua. You have to leave the city." He glanced up in time to see the look the checkout girl gave him.

"Have to? What? Where are you, Jeevan?" He was signing his name on the slip, struggling with the cart toward the exit, where the order of the store ended and the frenzy of the storm began. It was difficult to steer the cart with one hand. There were already five carts parked haphazardly between benches and planters, dusted now with snow.

"Just turn on the news, Laura."

"You know I don't like to watch the news before bed. Are you having an anxiety attack?"

"What? No. I'm going to my brother's place to make sure he's okay."

"Why wouldn't he be?"

"You're not even listening. You never listen to me." Jeevan knew this was probably a petty thing to say in the face of a probable flu pandemic, but couldn't resist. He plowed the cart into the others and dashed back into the store. "I can't believe you left me at the theatre," he said. "You just left me at the theatre performing CPR on a dead actor."

"Jeevan, tell me where you are."

"I'm in a grocery store." It was eleven fifty-five. This last cart was all grace items: vegetables, fruit, bags of oranges and lemons, tea, coffee, crackers, salt, preserved cakes. "Look, Laura, I don't want to argue. This flu's serious, and it's fast."

"What's fast?"

"This flu, Laura. It's really fast. Hua told me. It's spreading so quickly. I think you should get out of the city." At the last moment, he added a bouquet of daffodils.

Excerpted from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Copyright © 2014 by Emily St. John Mandel. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.