Genesis Virus

by Pinto, Daniel

  David says. “See one night away, no big deal, right?” Ava wiggles her forefinger in the hole of her shirt like a worm on a hook. She says. “Easy peasy, my ass.”

  David waves his hand up and down Ava’s body as he approaches. “You’re still with us. So what happened?”

  A glowering Ava says. “It was a clusterfuck last night, a group of three attacked us, but one got a way. Lou claims to have seen him getting away in a small vehicle.”

  David says. “Is everyone whole?”

  Ava says. “Whole-ish, I was shot. Because you wanted us to stay here.”

  David makes prayer hands and bows. “You have my eternal gratitude.” She turns around and he hugs her from behind. “I’m sorry.” She squirms in his embrace. “Ew, you’re such a girl.”

  He lets her go, she says. “Anything happen to you?”

  David says. “It was boring, nothing happened.”

  Ava watches him limp towards the tent. “I bet it was.”

  David says. “How’s Delilah doing?”

  Ava jogs up to him. “I have to tell you something.”

  13

  David opens the flap to the tent, it startles Delilah from her painful slumber, her head is by the opening, she can’t see his face, only a dark outline. He says. “Ava told me what happened.”

  “David.” She looks at the other end of the tent and can hear him adjusting himself beside her head. Delilah tucks her chin, trying to conceal her gnarled throat. Don’t touch me.

  His voice sounds strain and distant. “The guilt inside me keeps stacking up, because of my parents, the bunker, my murders and…now this.” He clicks on his flashlight and rests it on the ground, limning her wriggling dirty socks. I’ve been waiting for this.

  Delilah tries to shrug her entire body away from his voice without looking guilty.

  He says. “Ava was right…I know what I have to do…I’ve done worst.”

  Delilah pushes the hot blankets off her chest. “Please, make it quick.” She finally turns her head to see his face. He’s reaching behind his back for something. She lays stiff and closes her eyes. She suddenly feels a heavy weight on her chest and is afraid to open her eyes.

  David says. “Why are you crying?” He never cared.

  Delilah finally opens her red swollen eyes, blood curdling, her forceful shaking scares David back and he gently lifts his head from her chest.

  He leans over her and kisses her teary cheeks. “Sorry…I’ll let you rest.” Delilah’s face is pale with cracked lips and dark circles under her eyes. The tent flaps fly open with a sense of urgency. David says in a rush, “you’ll be okay now,” then climbs out.

  “David I have to tell you something…David.” She’s no longer behaving insularly.

  She tried to tell him the truth a few days ago, waking him up in the middle of the night, but chickened out.

  It’s completely dark in the tent, Delilah doesn’t know if her eyes are opened or closed, she can hear two people talking just outside of her tent.

  David says. “If I can’t save her, how am I going to save Phillip and Abigail? I will save everyone I can, it’s why I’m here, it’s why I’m immune.” The voices taper off.

  Indeterminate amount of time later, Delilah wakes up in a car heading towards Concrete Colony, she places her hand gently on her chest. “David.”

  The unknown driver looks back and says. “What’s that? Queen sent me at the request of your doctor. She was more than happy for him to owe her a favor.” He checks the road, then looks at her in the rearview mirror. “Hey, between you and me. Are you two a thing?”

  Delilah tightly spins the blanket around her. “It’s complicated?”

  “Say no more. I can’t even get my wife to wash my clothes. You got a keeper, you’ll see him again soon.”

  I hope not.

  Chapter Eleven

  1

  Trust in distrust. Supposedly, the company GAI who built the bunkers and bikes that keep us safe also manufactured the End of Days. Theories are like assholes everyone has one and they’re full of shit. Our brains want simple answers to complicated events. And it’s easier if it’s the Devil’s fault or some conspiracy caused by some mysterious group like the Illuminati. Both choices represent the human tendency to not personally accept blame and to find the fantastical in mundane probability. A lot of factors are to blame, there’s never a few in disasters. The truth bears repeating because there’s far more lies in the world. All stories are simple, yet complicated by people. Nobody has the answers to the questions everyone has. Actually, everyone has an answer, the problem is that they’re not the same as the next person’s, and their logic is as bulletproof as a good conspiracy theory that gets truer the more someone denies it.

  I’ll add the Prophet to my hit-list. I don’t think I’ll tell David about Delilah’s treachery, besides she might be dead in a few days and I need David to focus on the task at hand. I’m the sum total of everyone I’ve ever met and I’ve met some fucked up people in my days. Ava signing off.

  2

  Phillip says. “Is this the part where I sign my soul away?”

  The Boss says. “Did you know, that idea is nowhere in the Bible. Somebody with imagination created that and now it’s taken as fact. Time makes liars into saints.”

  The Boss turns off the record player behind him in the back corner and sets his hands on the oak desk with appreciation like a carpenter. “When we first met Phillip, I brought the news up with contempt. It was because they were wrong about many details about the Genesis Virus. Certain people can be turned if bitten and the virus doesn’t have a 99% conversion rate. Which all means this world still has a chance if we can reunite all the groups in this country before it’s too late, the Age of the Undying is coming to an end. People are selfish and don’t want responsibility, so I will be the better man and lead my people from temptation to salvation…Choose.”

  From across the room, the Boss underhands a pair of keys to Phillip. “You can have the red Jeep, you’ll find enough supplies inside.”

  Phillip looks at the keys in his hand as if they can unlock the secrets of the universe.

  “I’m going to let to leave tomorrow with your daughter. I owe it to Diana and David, and if you ever want to come back you can.”

  Phillip says, “why,” looking behind himself for the catch.

  The Boss leans on his desk with both hands spread wide. “I don’t need another person here plotting to kill me.”

  Phillip says. “What about your image?”

  “It’ll hold.” The Boss says. “Tomorrow you will head with us like usual to the main road and from there you can find your way.”

  Phillip says. “Or you’ll execute me and my daughter.”

  The Boss sits sideways on the desk corner with hands in his lap and head turning towards Phillip. “Don’t be so melodramatic. I could right now if I open this drawer.” He taps it. “It would save me the hassle and the supplies, but like I said it has to be your choice to join us and you’ve lost enough.”

  Phillip says. “I keep expecting you to bring out a chessboard.”

  The Boss smiles then says. “The last guy broke it.” Looks away.

  Phillip shoves the keys in his front pocket. “Ok, tomorrow, then.” Rising to leave, like a man going through the motions in the stream of pointless work meetings.

  The Boss says. “Don’t you do anything rash to Paul, for those you lost.” A needless reminder.

  Phillip says. “It’s not worth it. It won’t bring them back.” A feel good catharsis is the goal of revenge, not happiness.

  The Boss shrugs his shoulders. “Say your goodbyes to Sora and it’s sayonara my friend. I will miss our little chats. I truly will. Who knows maybe we’ll meet in another life.”

  Phillip pauses in the doorway, the Boss looks at him for a second. “Wait. You forgot about Sora didn’t you or thought she could simply leave with you.” Phillip looks inward and sees her face, hating himself.

  Th
e Boss says. “My generosity has its limits, haven’t you been listening?”

  Phillip closes the door. “What do you want for her?”

  The Boss says. “I like this Phillip. How about this? You do something that will benefit us both, that’s fair.” The Boss faux bites his knuckle. “Take care of Paul and have it all or just leave tomorrow and it was nice knowing you, pal.”

  “Paul for Sora?”

  The Boss says. “He has radical ideas that threaten my life’s work and I need more time and I can’t deal with a power struggle on top of keeping hundreds of people alive. I don’t want to bore you with a history lesson.”

  Phillip sits back down in the warm seat.

  The Boss says. “I know you haven’t touched Sora, I’m not an idiot, sex isn’t everything.”

  Phillip says. “You should know.” He rubs his hands together as if he’s trying to start a fire.

  A long pause between the two men.

  Phillip says. “I noticed your tapping, you never go over five taps. It’s a POW code. You know how a cage feels. Let Sora go and everyone else, including yourself.”

  The Boss looks at the corner behind his desk. “Confront your demons or become them…I can’t.”

  Phillip says. “It must feel good to be the last guy on Earth to know everything and have it all.”

  “Everyone should be rich and have all the power they ever wanted, so they can realize that’s not the answer to happiness.” The Boss walks from behind his desk. “You can’t outrun your destiny.”

  Phillip says. “Don’t believe in it.”

  Boss says. “Me either, but it sounds so epic and weak-minded people eat it up.”

  Phillip rubs down on his knees avoiding eye contact with the Boss.

  The Boss says. “I know I sound like a broken record.” He opens his arms. “This whole operation you see was not my first attempt of rebuilding a better world, all it takes is getting it right one time. I tried in the past to merge with other groups and not all of us survived. With this way the least amount of people have to die. People lose freedom for a time, but they don’t die, it’s like prison with good intentions.”

  Phillip snuffs in the stuffy air. “Their crime is that they’re women.”

  The Boss holds a picture frame in his hands, seeing his salt and pepper colored hair in the reflection. “Have you ever look at a photo of yourself as a kid and said to yourself you know what that person is thinking. If you don’t know your own thoughts how can you be so sure about mine, I plan to change my system for survival as soon as I have a chance to do so, I just need some more time. I know this way won’t last forever. Men and women will fall in love and the men won’t like their daughters being subjugated and subjected to the same fate as their mothers. Reproduction and repetition is the meaning of our lives.”

  “Hypocrisy may be a saving grace and your downfall. There’s no love lost between me and Paul, I just don’t like being used.”

  The Boss rubs the scar on his arm that his wife gave him. “Who does? It’s a paying job. You don’t have to do it…What say you?”

  Phillip tosses the keys at the Boss. “I’ll help you to help myself.” And two women. Sora and Abigail.

  3

  It’s been long days of traveling since Delilah’s departure, no one has mentioned her, it’s as if she never existed.

  Coming upon a fork in the road, the group decides to detour off the path into the lush and picturesque farmland beneath the blue cloudless sky. It’s out of place like a grey hair on a baby. The group needs a beautiful reprieve.

  Ava’s coasting on her bike. “David, you look like day old shit.”

  David wanders past her and says. “Thanks, I know, I’ve become an insomniac on a extreme diet ever since this little fieldtrip started.” He has dark circles for eyes like a raccoon and his cheeks are sunken in.

  He hasn’t taken off his vest, I bet his ribs are broken. Ava says. “That’s not the reason.” He’s love sick, he’ll thank me one day for not giving him permission to kill her. I’ll let him live with the picture perfect image of her. That’s the real reason he liked her so much in the first place, because she wasn’t a real person, but a collection of charming traits. The bride of Frankenstein that needed him when he lost so much. I feel bad for David, but I did warn him. He can’t win, the lines on his face tells the burdens he bears.

  The group’s traveling down the bumpy gravel road; the grass is a balding scalp leading to the fainted red barn standing upright. One creaky door on one rickety hinge.

  Pillars of corn stretch on for miles around the stretch of dirt road leading up and through the barn. David is in the front of the travellers, guiding his motorcycle alongside the titan cornstalks, the long shadow cools him down. Lou is on his heels leading his horse.

  David bypasses the corn and feels on it. “Does anyone want any maze?”

  Lou says. “Prick.” He then feeds his horse an ear of corn after he tries it.

  Ava puts a hand to her forehead like a soldier and stands on her tippy-toes to see a house collapse within itself looming on the hill in the distance off to her right and past the corn fields

  She shouts from the back of the line on her idle bike. “Can’t sleep there tonight.” One horse looks at her with one eye then blows his nostrils, snorting at her. Ava says to the horse up onward. “Fuck you too.”

  After the track down the pathway, the entire group pauses and stands like a criminal lineup facing the barn, the entrance is wide enough for at least two tractors to pull in at the same time. Some of the rafters are dangling and are wrapped in spider webs like white cotton candy. David peeks his head in. “The building frame seems to have structural integrity.” And then pulls his head to face Lou, who retorts. “It’s too hot for you to be talking out of your ass.” David pats him on the chest twice and walks away.

  Ava climbs up the ladder on the edge of the exterior of the barn, Youngblood runs up and steadies it, she basks in the sunlight for a period as it recharges her. David and the senior gentlemen drop their bags and plop down in a circle. Ava at last climbs down the ladder, one foot-arch at a time, makes eye contact with Youngblood for a fleeting second, hits the ground heels first, claps the dust off her hands and says calmly as ever. “Well boys, I’m afraid the cig break is over.” Some of them look at her as she continues, she points over the field and says. “We have a herd making their way over here, pronto, like we’re meals on wheels.”

  She walks around the immobile Coop, David, and the Chief, sitting with their legs crossed. “Listen. It’s time to breakup this sewing circle and get ready.”

  Under a mile away and traveling on a haphazard route, the zombies with their desiccated leather faces, put one foot in front of the other like the army of the dead obeying a death trumpet, that only they can hear. An unseen gravitational force is pulling the herd and slingshotting the departed to their targets in a matter of minutes.

  Lou says. “They’re downwind and our smell is arousing them. We’re like cat-nip to those muthafuckers…let’s kill them all, I need a break.”

  David stands, arches his back with palms on his hips, and says. “Ugh…where are all these psychos headed, to Mecca? They need to start eating their fucking friends and give us a break. It’s not like they need to eat like us or anything.”

  Coop stands and straps his bags back onto the stallion. “How many?”

  Ava says. “Now everyone cares what I say…ah over two dozen, that I can see.”

  Lou says. “Oh, we have some time.”

  Ava wipes the sweat from her forehead and flings it into the dirt. “There’s always one dead man up front, it’s like they need a boss or a conductor of their meat train.” She takes the bike’s handlebars and guides it farther away. “Human herd mentality is evident even after death, maybe it’s just in each one of us to be sheep…baah.” Ava takes a sip of water and tosses the bottle to David. He catches the bottle and says. “So what does that make you, Little Bo Peep?”

&nb
sp; 4

  A legless zombie with no eyes is slouched against the barn enjoying the view, so Lou stoops over and pats the zombie down like the cop he used to be and says. “It’s safe, he’s not packing a weapon.” He smiles then springs back up and fans his nose. “Wow, this fucking asshole smells like shit soaked in gasoline.” Ava snickers as she parks her motorbike. “I never met one that smelt like roses, thanks for that lovely deduction, Sherlock.”

  Youngblood says. “I wonder how the undead view us, in black and white, in color, or in darkness?”

  Lou says. “Nobody gives a shit?” Kicks the zombie, a locust flies out of it’s mouth, causing Lou to hurriedly backpedal. “What the hell?” The half man zombie slides to the dirt with one last indignity. Salamanders flee.

  In unison, the group steps on the creaking boards in the door-less barn and into the beam of light. Surrounded by the internal duskiness. Only noise is the quick footsteps of rats up above scurrying away from the footsteps down below. Both groups have frightened each other; one stays in the light and the other in darkness. David waves his keychain flashlight like a wand, discovering puddles of hay in the corners of the barn, pieces of dry wood, and pitchforks leaning in the shadows. Outside of the barn, all the horses gather next to each other like siblings and peacefully nimble on the corn like starving children. The wind picks up and the cornstalks began to pull and scratch, creating a rustling sound.

  Lou turns around and walks the way he just came. “Before we go I need to take a leak, I’ll catch up if I have to.”

  Youngblood says. “I better go too, and I might as well try to get some chow for the road.”

  Ava looks at her feet. “What the hell, we have time. It’s only the slow ones…I’m going this way.” She steps outside through the backdoor and David trails her. “I need to talk to you and it can’t wait.” He makes prayer hands. Ava turns her head to the side and says. “Perv.”