How High We Go in the Dark

Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of childhood illness and child death.

Two years after the viral outbreak, Skip struggles to make ends meet as a comedian, working odd jobs to sustain himself. His agent finds him a job at a euthanasia park—an amusement park designed to help terminally ill children die in a painless way. He tells his parents about the position, though he blurs the details in the hopes that they’ll be proud of him. Skip travels to the City of Laughter, where the park manager hands him a costume and briefs him about the expectations. A teenaged coworker gives him a tour before he’s shown to his camper.

Skip’s first charge is a boy named Danny. Their day at the park is equal parts merriment and mourning as the parents prepare to say goodbye to their son. Skip reflects on the first news of viral outbreaks from two years earlier. He takes Danny to the Chariot of Osiris, the park’s massive coaster, which travels fast enough to stop a patient’s heart.

Two months pass, and Skip settles into his work, finding routine. Drug trial patients arrive and stay in cottages constructed to host them. Skip helps Dorrie and her son, Fitch, move in.