Convulsive Box Set

by Marcus Martin

  “I know,” he interrupted, grabbing the box of wipes.

  “Good. Right,” said Lucy. “I mean, I know how horrible that was for you. I’m trying to say … Thank you – for saving me.”

  Dan paused, his cheeks pressed upward by the cleansing towels in his hands.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before. You know that?” he said, dropping his hands to his sides and staring somewhere beyond the wall. “Five years of service, never had to do it. Always counted myself lucky.” He turned to face her at last. “Are we kidding ourselves? All these bullshit systems we’ve put in place – waiting three hours, living in plastic suits, relying on dead people’s pets to keep us alive – when all it takes is one psycho with a knife – a friend, for Christ’s sake! – and that’s it, game over?”

  “Don’t talk like that,” urged Lucy. “Your systems have kept us alive.” She picked up the wipes, offering him a fresh one. “We can make it through this. We’ve got each other, and we’re going to make it through, you hear me?”

  Dan snatched the pack from her and held it by his side.

  “We both know we’re living on luck as much as anything,” said Lucy, resuming her cleansing. “But if we stay careful, if we keep our systems, maybe we’ll make enough luck to see this thing through.”

  “Uh-huh,” grunted Dan, nodding and shifting his weight. “Yup.” He nodded more vigorously, his face screwing up with anger until he hurled the pack of cleaning wipes to the floor. “And what exactly is ‘this thing’, Lucy?” he snarled. “What exactly is that oily crap that washed up on the beach? And those spores that turned literally the entire city yellow? Then killed everyone? Hey? What is that, huh?”

  He thumped his fist against the dressing table as he began to pace, jolting the antiquated jewelry, make-up, and redundant lamps from their resting places.

  “And how about the weird-assed stuff that’s growing everywhere? Huh?” He gestured widely with his arms as he paced. “How about the plants sprouting up in all the streets? Do they look normal to you? Lucy, do they look normal?”

  Lucy continued her change-over, trying not to cry in front of him.

  “We both act like we’ve not seen them,” he fumed, “because it’s just one more bullshit thing to deal with, but the truth is, we’re both stuck here, guessing, and being ‘lucky’, while everyone else dies, and we don’t mention the fact that there are brambles growing out of drains, or mold covering the bus stops, or the fact that everything looks wet now. What is that, Lucy? Hey?”

  He slapped both hands out against the wall again and leaned in, exhaling heavily with his eyes closed, muttering incoherently.

  Lucy calmed herself, pulling her hazmat suit back on over her legs and arms, so that just her head was exposed. Dan’s heaving breaths began to subside. Lucy moved next to him, hovering under one of his outstretched arms.

  “You finished?” she said, forcing him to look her in the eye.

  “Yeah. Finished,” he replied, blushing and flitting his eyes back to the ground.

  “Good. I’ll make us some dinner. Get clean and suit up. We need to eat quickly then get our masks back on.”

  EIGHT

  The List

  _____________________________________

  “Dan!” said Lucy, shaking him hard. “Dan, do you hear that?”

  He jerked and sat up, disoriented. It was dawn.

  “It’s the signal,” she cried. “We have to go!”

  “The signal … Are you sure?” he said, groggily.

  “Yes,” insisted Lucy, already out of bed. “Let’s go!”

  They grabbed their backpacks and rushed to their bikes in the lock-up downstairs. Both of them had memorized the route to their muster point at Ashurst High School from Dan’s offline map of the city. It was eight hilly miles away – a grueling distance to cycle in a hazmat suit with fifty kilograms strapped to your back.

  “Wait,” said Dan as they climbed onto the bikes. “We can take these off now, right? That’s what Dad’s letter said – that the signal would only sound once the virus had died out?”

  “You really wanna risk it? At this stage?” protested Lucy.

  He considered for a moment, staring at the bike with trepidation. “You’re right, not worth it. Let’s go.”

  Lucy nodded and pushed off, with Dan following, and the two began their journey against the clock.

  Marco tooted the garbage-truck horn from the opposite lane, waving cheerily as he passed by, another AC/DC classic blaring out. The man seemed completely unconcerned that his oddly dressed co-workers were cycling directly away from their pick-up point.

  They passed two separate military trucks along the way, neither of which stopped or questioned them. As they got closer to the school, the route became dotted with individuals converging on the same direction by foot, all with backpacks or suitcases, some in pairs, some alone, a few with children.

  As Lucy approached the school driveway, the level of fortification became apparent. Razor wire extended outward either side of the gates, while armed sentries barred the way through.

  A handful of abandoned cars lined the driveway leading up to the barrier. Dozens of bicycles lay strewn across the grassy verges either side of the sidewalk.

  “Watch out,” said Lucy, as Dan’s foot hovered above a cluster of dripping toadstools. He wobbled forward and dumped his bike in some clear grass.

  Lucy followed suit, and they approached the unmasked sentries by foot.

  “Name and papers?” snapped the first guard, his gritted teeth plainly visible.

  Dan reached into his pocket and retrieved the letter from his father, along with their passports.

  “Daniel Jeffries,” stated Dan, handing the bundle over to the guard, who took the items but didn’t look at them, instead consulting a printed list in his hand, flicking through its many pages and scanning each row as he went, lightly dragging a pen down the side in a tracking motion as he trawled the names.

  “You’re not on the list,” said the guard firmly, after an uncomfortably long search, flipping back to page one and looking at them with deep suspicion. Behind him the other sentries pricked up, raising their guns slightly.

  “We are, sir – please, check the letter,” pressed Dan, striking a respectful tone. “We might be under my father’s name?”

  “Oh. You’re on the freeloader list,” spat the soldier. Well, bully for you, son. Goldberg!” he shouted, summoning a colleague over his shoulder. “Bring me the freeloader list.”

  This time he literally spat on the ground.

  The guard consulted Dan’s letter then scanned the new, significantly shorter list. “Whaddya know,” he said, making no effort to conceal his contempt, “here you are.”

  He flipped open their passports and his cynical eyes switched between the photographs and the hazmat-suit-clad individuals before him until eventually he was satisfied. “You used to serve?” said the guard, glaring at Dan.

  “Yes sir,” confirmed Dan.

  “Get tired of protecting your country, did you?” He crossed their names off and held out their papers, dropping the lot before Dan could reach them. “You’ll need these too,” he said, chucking a couple of wristbands onto the pile as Dan scrabbled to pick it all up off the ground.

  “Have a safe trip, one and all,” hissed the guard, waving them through the gates.

  “Fuckin’ freeloaders,” chimed one of the other soldiers.

  A row of cones led them to the sports hall, which was guarded by more unmasked soldiers. Lucy began to feel increasingly uncomfortable in the hazmat suit.

  “List A or list B?” enquired the new clerk as they arrived at the school hall.

  “Um,” hesitated Dan, “the guy out front said we were on the freeloader li–”

  “List B,” interjected the clerk, cutting him off. “This way,” he instructed, opening the door and pointing to a line directly opposite.

  The set-up resembled airport security. There were checkpoints, and peopl
e were removing their belts and shoes and other items, and their luggage and belongings were being passed through scanners. Soldiers patrolled the inner perimeter of the hall, using gymnastic benches as vantage points. Their expressionless, helmet-clad heads protruded about a foot above the crowd.

  There were dozens of Line As, but only one Line B. A floating clerk approached Dan and Lucy, and handed them each a pen and clipboard with a questionnaire attached. “Fill out this health form and hand it to the officer when you reach the end of the line. Oh, and you can take those off now,” he said, pointing at their headgear. “The virus is no longer airborne.”

  Lucy surveyed the room as the clerk departed; a handful of individuals still wore face masks, but the vast majority had their airways exposed.

  “I guess a few hundred humans will have to be our new canaries,” said Lucy, lifting off her visor.

  With extreme care, Dan cut away the duct tape from Lucy’s gloves using a knife from his bag. She pulled the thick rubber protectives off and took the knife from Dan, delicately reciprocating.

  “This is gonna get confiscated,” she commented.

  Once Dan’s hands were liberated, Lucy resumed her de-kitting. She pulled off her mask, goggles, and hood, and loosened the chest zip on the suit. The skin around her face and chest tingled in the fresh air, and she took in several deep, unrestricted lungfuls.

  She looked at Dan, whose eyes were closed, his head tilted backwards as he basked in the neon strip lights of the hall. Lucy drank in every aspect of his face.

  As Line B shuffled forwards, the pair turned their attention to the health forms they’d been handed. The first few questions were standard enough – allergies, current medication, etc. – but the subsequent questions grew obscure.

  “Do you have these questions too?” she asked Dan, noticing the puzzled expression on his face as he studied his form.

  “About the bleeding?” he replied. “Yeah, it’s weird.”

  Lucy surveyed the questions. Are you a hemophiliac? Do you have any open cuts or wounds on your person? Do you suffer from nosebleeds? When was the last time you bled? If you are female, when is your next period due?

  She postponed her bewilderment and hastily filled out the form as they nudged forward again. They were next in line.

  “Thank you,” buzzed the seated clerk at the head of their line, snatching the clipboards from their hands. “Men to the right, women to the left.” She extended a hand towards the two parallel gazebos ahead.

  Dan gave Lucy’s hand a fleeting squeeze – precious skin-on-skin contact – before their paths diverged.

  Lucy entered her tent and the scuttling of plastic on metal signaled the curtain being pulled shut behind her. A haggard female medic stood in the center of the tent, examining a clipboard. The woman’s hair was light brown and wiry. The short curls were infused with flecks of white and extended only an inch below her ears. Dark bags hung under each eye, adding color to her otherwise pale, wrinkly white skin.

  Lucy realized the woman was wearing a protective face mask and began to panic. Desperately, she fumbled for her own face mask, while simultaneously trying to wrestle the hood back over her head.

  “You don’t need that,” the doctor informed her.

  “But you’re wearing a –”

  “It’s for something else, a general precaution,” dismissed the woman, “nothing you need to worry about. The virus is gone if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s no longer airborne.”

  “So … I don’t need …” hesitated Lucy, wondering why this seismic change in the city’s fortunes hadn’t been broadcast from the rooftops.

  “No, you don’t,” asserted the doctor, less patiently.

  Lucy lowered her visor to the floor where it rocked, the bundle of gloves, mask, and goggles inside it protruding out over the edges.

  The masked doctor skimmed through Lucy’s form, murmuring to herself. “Fine, fine. Take off your clothes, please,” she said, glancing up.

  Lucy looked around the tent, awkwardly; they were the only ones there. She unzipped the hazmat suit and slipped it down to her heels where it flopped over her rubber boots. She blushed, furiously, and pulled each boot off with a great deal of imbalance, before hastily removing the rest of the suit and her grimy ‘base layer’ top.

  “I’ll need you to remove your underwear too in a minute, but you can keep it on for now,” stated the doctor, placing down the clipboard and putting on a pair of latex gloves.

  Lucy’s cheeks burned; she was acutely aware of her unshaven legs and the smell emanating from her freshly shed plastic skin.

  “Arms out,” sighed the doctor, stepping behind Lucy with a small light. She arranged Lucy’s arms in a ‘T’-shape before scrutinizing the tops and undersides. Lucy cringed as the doctor studied her armpit hair.

  “Fine,” muttered the doctor, abandoning Lucy’s arms and studying the rest of her torso. Lucy kept her arms outstretched until she could support them no longer, by which time the doctor was at her ankles.

  The woman returned to Lucy’s head and meticulously examined her scalp, prizing strands of hair apart and probing the skin beneath. “I need you to take off your bra and underwear now,” she said, making another note on her clipboard.

  Lucy obliged, slipping off her underwear. She stared straight ahead, willing the examination to be over.

  “Yes, yes,” mumbled the doctor before facing Lucy once again. “Last bit, sorry. I need you to lie on the bench and open your legs.”

  Lucy did a cartwheel of embarrassment in her head. She tried to act casual as she lay on her back, staring at the tent ceiling, while the woman shone a flashlight directly onto her vagina.

  “Alright, you can put your underwear on again, but I need you to keep your midriff exposed and lie back down on the bed when you’re ready.”

  Lucy turned her back to the doctor and quickly pulled her underwear back on, before lying down on the bench as instructed. The doctor approached wearing a pair of protective goggles and handed Lucy a pair too.

  “Put these on for me and look straight up at the ceiling. This will only take a moment.”

  Lucy put the goggles on as the doctor wheeled over a trolley. The device on top resembled a lamp, but in place of the bulb there was a thin silver rod about the length of a pen.

  “Just lean back and relax for me,” instructed the doctor. “Count aloud to ten. You’ll feel a slight pinch, but the vaccination won’t take long.”

  Lucy leant back and opened her mouth. “One, two,” she counted, nervously, as a warm sensation spread across her abdomen.

  By the time she got to eight, the heat was intense and starting to burn painfully.

  “Nine,” she said, choking back the tears and gagging with disbelief. “Ten!” she cried with a gasp, clenching her teeth as the excruciating sensation continued for several more seconds.

  “OK, you’re all done,” stated the doctor, reaching down and passing Lucy her top.

  Lucy pulled the garment over her head and down to her burning abdomen, cradling the area with her hands.

  “The burning will pass within an hour or so,” commented the doctor, handing Lucy her backpack. The woman slid back the exit curtain to reveal the rear of the sports hall where Dan stood waiting.

  “You’ll need to finish dressing out there I’m afraid, we’re on a very tight schedule,” clipped the doctor.

  “My suit,” said Lucy, pointing to the crumpled mass.

  “You don’t need that anymore,” sighed the woman, “and we can’t permit it on the train I’m afraid.”

  Lucy shuffled towards the exit, her weighty backpack slung over one shoulder, a hand still nursing her abdomen. The gazebo curtain closed behind her. A soldier stepped forward and affixed a green band to Lucy’s wrist.

  “Luce, are you OK?” said Dan, quickly crossing over to her, also wearing a green wristband. He gently lifted the backpack from her shoulder and set it on the floor, rummaging through the contents and pulling out a
pair of jeans. He held each leg open for her to dazedly step into. “Luce?” he asked again, guiding her hands to the waist button. Muscle memory kicked in and she absently fastened the jeans while Dan negotiated sneakers onto her feet.

  “I think I’ve just been sterilized,” she uttered, hearing the words coming out of her mouth as if they were said by a stranger, her eyes falling down on Dan, who looked up from one knee, aghast.

  “You two, hurry up!” barked a soldier. “Get your asses onto the transport if you wanna make that train!”

  A commotion broke out a few rows along from them.

  “Help! Somebody, please! Please help!” cried a distraught woman, imploring her neighboring civilians who continued to back away.

  “Ma’am, please,” said a soldier, trying to contain the situation, but the lady was having none of it.

  “Go to hell!” yelled the woman. “Scott! Scott!” she called out, reaching out to a man not far from her who was being separately restrained.

  A set of troops encircled the woman, some facing her, others facing the rest of the hall to ensure there was no further dissent. A terrified young child clung to the woman’s leg, burying his infant face in her thigh.

  “Listen to them, honey, it’s gonna be OK,” pleaded the man, presumably her husband, while trying to shrug off the firm grips of the soldiers either side of him. “Jonah, Jonah buddy, it’s gonna be alright, OK? Daddy’s gonna be fine,” he insisted, addressing the young boy, who continued to hide.

  Lucy’s eyes tracked down to the man’s left leg, where his pant leg had been rolled up to the knee, revealing a bloodied bandage around his shin.

  “Ma’am, please,” interjected a soldier. “I’m going to order my troops to stand down so you can say goodbye, but I need you to remain calm, do you understand?”

  “I am not leaving him here!” cried the woman, channeling her distress and anger directly at the officer.

  “Then none of you will be able to travel,” replied the officer, patience waning as the evacuation deadline loomed closer. “Those are your options. It’s you and the child or none of you. I ain’t going on the train, so it makes no difference to me. It’s your life. But you gotta decide right now.”