Convulsive Box Set

by Marcus Martin

  When Lucy’s stop came, Dan was waiting for her.

  “How come you’re here?” she said, embracing him fiercely as she stepped across the slushy, trampled seed carpet of the sidewalk.

  Dan clung to her just as intensely.

  “I checked the apartment and you weren’t there, so I figured I’d come wait for you. I guess I was anxious. And –” He hesitated. “I guess you saw on the bus back. The walk isn’t gonna be the nicest.”

  Lucy nodded, taking his hand as they set off homeward in the fading light. When they arrived, dotted along their street were three bodies, spread at large intervals. They weren’t sprawled like the old man’s had been; rather, they had been neatly placed parallel to the edge of the sidewalk. Fresh spores were already settling on top of them.

  “Let’s get in,” said Lucy, picking the pace up. They reached their darkened building as a family of three were leaving. They were in a state of distress, carrying a smaller, fourth body between them.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dan, casting his eyes downward as he held the main door open for the group. Lucy stepped to the side, unsure what to do with her hands as the mourners passed. Once the group was clear, she and Dan furiously wiped their shoes on the building mat, removing any traces of seeds.

  Dan took out his flashlight as they began to climb the unilluminated stairwell. Lucy’s footsteps echoed with his, falling in and out of time with each other, until Dan suddenly froze mid-stride, throwing out a hand behind him to stop Lucy from advancing any further. He faced straight ahead. They’d reached the sixth floor, where a hacking cough above them was growing louder and louder.

  “Can you see who it is?” whispered Lucy, trying to project from behind her mask without being detected by the floor above.

  Dan shook his head, still rooted to the spot with his arm outstretched, dipping their flashlight. Looking up ahead, Lucy watched as streaks of light from the unseen stranger jerked around erratically. The coughing continued, escalating into almost barking. Lucy shuddered at the victim’s pain, palpable as it was in the sound of delicate lung tissue deteriorating amid bronchial spasms. Cries of pain and gasps for air punctuated the disturbing overture as it reverberated around the hallway. Finally, the crumpling thud of a body hitting the ground signaled it was over.

  “I think they’re dead,” whispered Dan, the whites of his eyes flashing as they darted between Lucy and the ascending spiral of stairs. “Christ.”

  “We have to get past, we can’t stay here forever,” she whispered back. “And if they’re still alive, then we need to call an ambulance.”

  He looked back at her and hesitated.

  “Dan,” she hissed, urgently.

  “Alright!” he whispered back harshly, before turning and slowly continuing upwards. As they rounded the lip of the seventh floor, he froze again. Lucy gasped as she too saw Manuela’s outstretched body. Bloodshot eyes protruded from her skull, goggling from the exertion of death. The rest of her body was twisted and contorted, lasting evidence of the pain endured. The door to her apartment stood closed behind her, unmoved, the key still clasped in its owner’s mottled hand. Around Manuela’s other hand was the ribbon attached to her flashlight, which sent a now-steady beam of light across the far wall.

  “She looks dead,” said Dan, reaching out then recoiling – clearly too afraid of contamination to risk taking a pulse.

  “Manuela?” asked Lucy, tentatively, afraid the corpse might spring back to life with renewed spluttering and rasping. But Manuela just lay there, gone.

  “We can’t leave her like this,” said Lucy. “We need to move her.”

  “Agreed,” Dan replied, not moving.

  His eyes were fixed on the victim’s face, and Lucy couldn’t help but copy. Both of their brains stalled, as if forcing them to process the level of anguish contained within each burst capillary, each fraction of an inch that the woman’s eyes had edged forth from their sockets. Lucy and Dan had now directly witnessed two people being killed by the disease, and Lucy could only assume the bodies she’d seen from the bus had all suffered the same violent death.

  “Move her,” said Dan, snapping out of the trance. “We need to get her onto the street immediately. The contagion’s still in her body. If it was affecting her lungs, then it’s in the air here too.”

  “Yes. Right,” replied Lucy, startled by the callousness of her own subconscious as it wandered through the closed apartment door and to the glass Manuela had never returned. She hadn’t had to confront death like this in a long time. She’d forgotten what it did to the mind.

  The two of them carefully stepped over the body and continued up to their dark apartment, where they immediately lit the kitchen candle. Putting on vinyl gloves, they picked up a small stack of trash bags to wrap the body in, and Dan swapped his regular flashlight for his head lamp.

  Lucy wrote a note with Manuela’s first name, address, date, and her approximate time of death on it – as well as the suspected cause of death, which she simply put as virus. They returned to the body, which was exactly as they’d left it, and Lucy taped the note to Manuela’s blouse. She was about to close the lady’s eyelids, but Dan stayed her hand.

  “Don’t,” he said, grabbing her wrist in time. “The contagion could be in her fluids, like the guy said on the bus. It’ll be on her eyes.”

  Lucy nodded, and the two of them began negotiating the body into the first trash bag.

  “What should we do with her flashlight?” said Lucy, carefully unravelling it from Manuela’s wrist.

  “I don’t know,” said Dan. “Could it be infected?”

  “We could bleach it? I’ll leave it next to her door,” decided Lucy, switching it off, “in case we need it in an emergency.”

  They continued to package the body, first getting the legs into one bag, then the top half into another, before taping both bags together where they overlapped in the middle.

  “I’ll go first,” said Dan, swiveling the body round so the head was just protruding over a lower step. They carried her body as carefully and respectfully as they could down all seven flights of stairs, but it was hard going. They had to stop on multiple levels just to catch their breath and wipe the sweat from their brows. Lucy couldn’t believe how heavy the corpse was. In the back of her mind she wondered what a stranger would say if they happened to find them like this, but her question was answered when they got outside. Coming out from almost every house on the street were groups, mostly twos and threes, all accepting the same terrible task that had befallen them – bringing the dead out on to the street.

  Some bodies were wrapped in makeshift shrouds of bed sheets and blankets. Others were completely unchanged, simply being carried in the clothes they’d died in. The one thing all the bodies had in common was the same contorted signs, the same tell-tale cause of death writ across their twisted, violent final postures: their deaths had been sudden and brutal.

  Many of those carrying the bodies were heartbroken, their cries muffled by the masks over which tears now streamed, rolling down onto each mourner’s chin and off into nowhere. Lucy’s mind flashed to southern Louisiana, to Clinton, her childhood community. Were they suffering in the same way? Were her friends from Wisconsin U, now scattered across the country, all caught up in the same awful predicaments? She wondered how many of them were carrying bodies now, who of them was crying, who would be putting on a brave face, who might be the first to die.

  Unsure what else to do, they lay Manuela’s body out on the sidewalk as others had done, parallel to the road.

  “Feet,” said Lucy as they returned to the building. She stopped in the entrance and scraped the spores off the soles of her shoes with repeated, heavy drags across the rough mat. Dan did the same.

  A lone man overtook them as they reached the stairs, hurrying up to his second-floor home, locking the door behind him loudly as if doing so might offer better protection against the invisible disease.

  As they reached the eighth floor, the main lights
came back on. Neither of them said anything.

  ***

  The curfew alarm sounded as Dan re-entered the bedroom, holding one towel around his waist while pressing another into his dripping hair. They’d both seized upon the narrow window of electricity that had opened up shortly after they’d returned home. Lucy had gone first and was now enjoying the luxury of a hairdryer, its warmth gradually offsetting the bracing cold of the shower water. Dan said something unintelligible through his mask, so she paused the dryer.

  “You sure you’re OK?” he repeated.

  “Yeah … it’s just … bad memories, that’s all,” she replied.

  “Your dad?”

  Lucy nodded. “Not been that close to a dead body until today, which is a good thing, I guess. Well, yesterday if you count the old man.”

  Dan gave her a sympathetic shoulder-squeeze as she resumed her drying by the window. She peered out at the street below, at the lame cars partially illuminated by the light spilling out of the lower-floor apartments. This was the first time the power had been on after curfew, and the city authorities had cut the street lights. Perhaps they were seeking to avoid any conflicts of interest, thought Lucy, or perhaps they wanted to hide what was happening.

  “Dan,” she said, calling him over.

  He came over to the window, and the two of them watched as a pair of masked soldiers climbed out of a truck and began retrieving the bodies lining the street. The pair struggled under the weight. One soldier tripped against the sidewalk and dropped his half, fumbling immediate attempts to re-lift it as his partner continued dragging the body.

  There was no ceremony about it; the soldiers were rushing. Lucy quickly counted the number of bodies left on the darkened street and extrapolated an average death toll for their block: thirty, at least.

  As the truck pulled away, it joined a convoy of similar trucks passing down the adjacent main road. She considered how many streets there were in San Francisco, and how many people might be dying on each one that very moment.

  They took advantage of the power to tune into KGO 810 again. A different presenter’s voice filled the airwaves, her soft tone at odds with the chilling confirmation that the pathogen or toxin – no one knew quite what it was yet – was airborne. The presenter stated that people were linking the deaths to the newly appeared spores, although this had not been scientifically verified. However, the report did confirm that the spores were originating from the yellow scum covering the beachfront.

  “Symptoms of infection include prickly skin, fever, dizziness, seeing bright spots, blurry vision, and sweating,” said the anchor, dispassionately. “If you think you’re developing symptoms, quarantine yourself immediately. Stay away from people and pets until twenty-four hours have passed. If you’re still alive after twenty-four hours, then you’re likely to be OK,” she added, an unmistakable tone of doubt creeping into her voice. “If you do have the virus,” continued the presenter, “it will likely kill you within three hours.”

  “That’s not especially encouraging,” remarked Dan, busily counting the rations again.

  Lucy listened until the news was finished, then turned the radio off.

  “You hear that last bit?” she asked Dan. “We have to report to City Hall again – for reassignment.”

  “What I don’t get,” said Dan, ticking off a stack of tins, “is why you have to quarantine yourself for twenty-four hours, if the disease kills you within three?”

  Lucy considered. “Maybe symptoms come on slower in some people? Or it could be the incubation period?” she mused. “Like, you could end up accidentally killing someone within the first twenty-one hours if they don’t have the same natural resistance as you. That’s almost certainly why they’ve closed the schools.”

  “I remember when I was growing up,” ruminated Dan. “If one kid got sick, everyone had it within a week.”

  “Maybe that’s why we’re being reassigned – that’s gotta be thousands of parents who now have to stay home and look after their kids. Quite a hit to the workforce.”

  “Maybe,” replied Dan. “Or maybe it’s because the workers have started dying. We’ve had people dying on my job – I guess it’s the same at yours? Maybe the State knows where this is headed?”

  As she lay in bed next to Dan later that evening, staring up at the ceiling, she repeatedly resisted the urge to adjust the mask on her face, hyper-aware of the elastic digging into the skin beneath her ears. The goggles covering her eyes were no better; Dan had insisted they wear them too now that they knew the disease was airborne, but each new layer of protection only made her feel less secure.

  Her eyes eventually grew heavy. Her mind wandered to an old childhood memory of her parents arguing. She was in her small bed, clutching her favorite teddy bear, and singing to it to try to block out the shouting. She couldn’t see either of her parents, they weren’t in the room, but the walls of the house were like paper, and her father’s voice carried. She couldn’t remember what they were arguing about, so her mind invented nonsense conversations instead. Angry, muffled syllables invaded the four small walls. Footsteps approached in a hurry. Her bedroom door flew open, setting the bells on the handle jingling.

  Her mother ran to Lucy’s bedside and scooped her up, carrying her out into the corridor. Lucy squinted, remembering how bright the hall lights had felt. Her father’s voice continued to yell incoherently, closer now, as her mum carried her through the house and out to the car. “She’s coming with me!” cried her mother, as she lowered Lucy into the passenger seat. Lucy pressed a hand to her cheek then pulled it away; it was wet and black with her mother’s running mascara.

  Her mom turned on the ignition, but the car wouldn’t start. She tried again, and again, to no avail. She turned to Lucy. “Mommy’ll be back in one minute, my baby,” she said, and got out of the car, closing the door behind her.

  Lucy blinked and opened her eyes. Her heart was racing. The room was darker now. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep for, but the dream had been vivid. The argument in it had been real enough – such fall-outs had been daily, right up until her mother left.

  But her mom had never tried to take Lucy with her. And in that moment, in the darkness, after twenty years of living without the woman, it hurt like hell.

  Dan lay stretched out next to her, a million miles away, lost in his own thoughts and fears. Lucy moved her hand over to meet his and squeezed it, hard, holding on with no intention of letting up. He reciprocated, sleepily, and rolled over towards her.

  “Are you OK?” he mumbled.

  “Yeah,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath, stemming the tears that were pooling in her goggles. She quickly flipped both lenses up a couple of millimeters, allowing the salty water to drain away down her cheeks.

  He gently raised his hand to her face. “You’re crying,” he said, softly, and scooped her up in his arms, his mask resting on her shoulder.

  She clung to him, scared that her present was slipping away from her, scared that her past was catching up with her, and terrified that she was experiencing every symptom of the disease at once.

  She focused on regulating her breathing as waves of anxiety smothered her. The radio report began to play over and over in her mind. She searched for solace, trying mindfulness, distraction, anything and everything she could to lower her pulse and alleviate the crushing sensation across her chest. Finally, a single thought allowed her sleep: if either of them was infected, they’d both be dead by morning, and the fear would be over.

  SIX

  Containment

  ____________________________________________________

  Lucy glanced across the breakfast table at Dan, who wasn’t eating either. Like her, he was hesitating to remove the protective mask. She stared out of the window, transfixed. The sky rippled with mustard-yellow spores drifting in the wind. Lucy’s larynx twitched in aversion.

  “We need to make this apartment airtight,” declared Dan from behind his m
ask and goggles. “Otherwise we’ll starve trying to avoid infection.”

  She considered their building’s composition: it was about thirty years old, so built to a pretty decent standard. The balcony, on their one external wall, was covered in around half a foot of fluffy seeds. Those could be swept off, she figured. It would be a matter of sealing all the windows and doorways, and meticulously checking for cracks in the floors or walls.

  “We’ll need a vent, though, with a filter, right?” She cast her eyes around the rest of the kitchen. “And we’d need to block the sink – all the drains, really. Which means no more showers or toilet flushes when the power’s on.”

  Dan nodded, following her gaze. “We can find workarounds. Wash up in a bucket and empty it on the street, stuff like that.”

  “You mean shit in a bucket, don’t you?”

  “Hey, I’m fully open to alternatives, but yeah, it’s looking that way. Blocking the drains should be doable. We’ve got some silicon sealant in that cupboard. Reckon that’d be enough to hold the plugs in place?”

  “Maybe. What about the overflow holes? Could we get away with just taping over them?”

  They set to work, starting with the drains, sealing them up one by one – even sealing off the faucets too after turning off their water supply entirely. It was all or nothing, she told herself: either you eliminated every possible risk of airborne contamination – including the small amount of air pumped through with every turn of a faucet – or you threw it all away. One weakness in your whole plan, and that would be the flaw that killed you. Besides, for the time being they still had Dan’s largely untouched stockpile of water, which they’d been able to replenish during sporadic bouts of power.