Tainted Mind

by T J Christian

  Cowboy says no. Bob nods towards the town before them, “You think they’re already here?”

  “Not sure?” Cowboy asks, unable to hide the note of panic in his voice.

  Cowboy kicks Gage and the horse bolts down the hill, leaving Bob on the crest.

  “Hey…why the hurry?” But Cowboy is already too far away so Bob kicks his own horse and follows. It doesn’t take long to catch up and as they enter the first street leading through a neighborhood, he repeats the question.

  Cowboy can’t hide the note of concern in his voice. “I just have a bad feeling. We need to hide the horses and go in on foot.”

  “You think they’re already here.” It wasn’t a question. Bob’s head swivels around, trying to look every direction at once.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t feel good about it though.” They dismount and tie the horses inside a fenced yard. “You remember where this grandfather lives?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cowboy makes a sweeping gesture up the street. “Lead the way.”

  Chapter Seven

  Chris holds the brittle magazine, staring in wonder at the image of him and his father. “That’s really me?”

  Quincy nods, “I’d bet a million dollars on it.” Snickering at his own joke.

  Chris hears him but doesn’t acknowledge the joke. He knows money has long since become moot. At present, if you wanted something particular, you either bartered with someone you know, steal it from someone you don’t, or just take it because it’s just lying there unused. However, with only a fraction of a percentage of living people around, most of the stealing is from the Tainted—and they don’t give two shits about possessions. They just want to eat.

  He sets the magazine down on a stack of newspapers and thumbs through the pages, searching for more images of him, his family, or his father. On page ten, he stops, stares, and catches his breath.

  There, staring out at him is his father. He’s dressed in a white coat. There’s a pocket over his left breast and several pens poke out of it. In this picture, his father is beaming—proud.

  The article is long— comprising three columns of small type arranged across ten pages. The author sprinkled pictures throughout the article. They break up the text and offer just enough visual curiosity to draw the reader onward. Chris can read, but only enough to get by. There’s no way he can make it through that article—much less pronounce some of the words he noticed on his first scan through the pages.

  Without looking up at the older man, he asks, “Can you give me the short version?”

  Quincy looks at him curiously but doesn’t press him about reading it for himself.

  “Just as long as you understand…much of this article is just speculation. There’s no way to know exactly what happened.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  Quincy nods, “I will…but not before we eat. I’m starving.”

  * * *

  Karen set a table with three place settings. The plates and utensils looked the worse for wear, but they were clean. Her grandfather pulls a chair out for Chris and he takes it without a word. His eyes are far away and she wonders what the two of them had been discussing. The look on his face is a mixture of puzzlement and disbelief. He holds a tightly rolled magazine.

  She eyes the magazine curiously but doesn’t voice her own questions. If her grandfather has taught her one thing, it’s all her questions are usually answered if she’d just be patient.

  Carrying a heavy cook-pot around the table, she ladles healthy portions of vegetable stew into each bowl. She’d already filled cups with water and once she places the pot back on the stove and takes her own seat, her grandfather finally breaks the silence.

  “Dig in, Chris…I’m sure you’re hungry.” His shoulders straighten slightly and he says, with just an ounce of pride, “Karen is the best cook for a thousand miles.”

  “Pa-paw,” she says, feeling her face flush red.

  “It’s the truth,” he said, cocking a half-smile in her direction.

  The familial banter goes unnoticed by Chris. His hands cup the bowl and raise the steaming stew to his lips. He sips the tasty broth but does not taste it—he’s still fixed on the magazine cover and the moment in time captured by the photographer. Much of his past remains a mystery, especially where his family is concerned, but because of this, some things about his youth are making more sense. Such as their living conditions. His father didn’t pick that particular spot along the Snake River because there was less of a chance to encounter the tainted—no, he picked it because there was less of a chance to encounter the living. The living that new him, new the truth.

  But what was the truth? What was he hiding?

  He discovered something of the truth on his own: the red plastic box buried beneath the tree, the family that he, at first, thought to be buried deep in their own graveyard within the forest were in face the very bodies had been grotesquely impaled and used as a barricade to protecting them against any Tainted.

  His eyebrows rise in curious recognition. The graveyard! He’d completely forgotten about it. If his family wasn’t buried there, then what was? Did Homestead hold more secrets?

  Quincy notices Chris’s change in demeanor, “Looks like someone just had a revelation?”

  “What?” Chris asks, shaking his head. “Oh, no…yes…” He shakes his head again and sets his bowl to the table before he drops it. His hands begin shaking. “…I mean, maybe.”

  “Well tell us,” Karen says.

  “Yes, please,” says Quincy, wiping his mouth with a tattered dish towel.

  Chris shakes his head. “I can’t…it’s…it’s…too horrible.”

  “Son,” Quincy says, leaning over and placing his hand reassuringly on Chris’s arm. “I’m old enough to realize that when you keep things bottled up inside they fester and you may not realize it, but after some time, it changes you. You’ve gone on too long on your own to realize that the more you keep things to yourself, the deeper your inner turmoil will become.”

  He removes his hand and grabs the magazine, holds it up before him, and points at Chris’s father. “Apparently this man had many, many secrets…now you tell me, what was he like at the end?”

  Chris takes a moment to reflect. Yes, Quincy was right. His father had been a different man than what he remembered when he was younger—when his mother and sister were around. In the end, Chris couldn’t really say that he recognized the man that had once been his loving, caring father—in that end, he’d been more afraid of him.

  He takes the magazine, placing it back on the table next to his bowl where he can look down on his father’s image. He doesn’t look up, but begins to speak, telling them both about Homestead and how his father had used his family. The horror of it all when he found out that the Tainted that protected their home was, in fact, his entire family.

  What he left out was everything to do with Remy and Austin. No, he was not ready to reveal that horror. When he finished his retelling, he voiced what he had been thinking only minutes before. “I was thinking about the truth and how my father had hidden it from me. For so many years it was just my father and I and I’d forgotten that there was a graveyard out in the forest…the place where father said he’d buried our family. I remember visiting it. There were mounds of dirt and wooden crosses. Other than that, the graves were unmarked and completely the same…there was no way to distinguish which graves were my mother’s, my sister’s, or another family member.”

  “Wait,” Karen says, a note of confusion on her voice. “I thought you said your father impaled your family along the fence? If they weren’t buried, then what did he put in the graves? Why dig graves at all?”

  Chris shrugs, “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He looks to Quincy for inspiration. “What do you think?”

  Quincy thinks for a minute. Instead of answering, he poses another seemingly unrelated question, “What was Homestead like? Describe it for me.”

  “When I left, it was ju
st a single room built of wood and poles, lashed together with nylon cord, rope, and a few screws or nails in some places.”

  “No, I’m talking about your belongings…what were your possessions like?”

  “Survival gear mostly.”

  “Nothing ornamental…no family heirlooms or pictures of before?”

  Chris’s eyes widen and Quincy smiles.

  Looking back and forth between the two men, Karen asks, “What?”

  “Their belongings,” Chris says. “He buried all their stuff.”

  Quincy nods. “I bet if you think hard enough too, you’ll realize that at some point, Homestead consisted of more structures…maybe even a multi-room habitat?”

  “You’re right,” Chris says, remembering it just the way Quincy described. “With just the two of us, we no longer needed the extra rooms and used that wood for fires during winter.”

  Karen sits back and crosses her arms. “So? I’m glad you’re remembering some of this, but why is it important?”

  “Karen, darling,” Quincy begins. “As individuals, it’s difficult to maintain our existence if we have no origin. It’s our past that shapes us into the people we are now, and what happens now will mold us into the people we will become. Without that, there is no meaning to life.” He turns to Chris. “Until now, this young man’s past has been a mystery. Now he has a cause worth living for…a past just waiting for discovery.”

  “You talk as if Chris was about ready to give up.” She looks between the two of them again and when neither of them denies her observation she gasps quietly. “You’re kidding?” she asks, looking deep into Chris’s eyes.

  He turns away. It was a hard realization to face. Until now, even he hadn’t realized just how close he’d been to giving up. But now, no matter how horrible his father’s secrets might be, he had a starting point in finding out the who, what, and where to his existence.

  “Come on,” Quincy says, breaking the silence. “Let’s all finish our dinner and while we do, I’ll give you the condensed version of the magazine article.”

  Happy for the distraction, Chris turns his gaze back to the bowl of stew. He lifts it and takes a long, noisy slurp. To that point, it’s definitely the best meal he’s ever had.

  * * *

  “Word of your father’s accomplishments, as evidenced by this magazine, spread across the world. As a part of a privately funded lab, he was one of the leading scientists using stem cells and viral genetics that was, supposedly, going to cure everything from the common cold to cancer.”

  Chris brought the bowl of stew back to his mouth. He didn’t understand stem cells or viral genetics but would wait until Quincy was through before asking questions.

  As if reading his mind, Quincy explains, “Our bodies are filled will tiny cells that carry on different functions. For example, our blood is a concentration of cells whose main purpose is to carry oxygen to all the organs of the body. Stem cells are unique in that they can be introduced into the body and will transform into other cells…they are used to repair damage within the body.

  “Viral genetics is almost the polar opposite of stem cell therapy. Many of the colds and illnesses we get are the result of a virus. They spread through the body, causing us to cough, have a fever, or any of the other symptoms I’m sure you’ve experienced.”

  Chris and Karen nod in unison.

  “Somehow, George Cartwright was using the good traits of a virus and mixing those genes with stem cells…apparently, the rapidly spreading characteristic found in most viruses, when mixed with stem cells, helped the body eliminate diseased cells in record fashion.”

  “But that sounds like a good thing, right?”

  “Yes…it was a good thing. But there were drawbacks to the viral genetic experimentation.” Quincy turned his focus back to Chris and pointed to the next page in the magazine. “The investigative author of this article uncovered some horrific details. If they are true, which I believe they are considering our current circumstances, it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose.

  “You see…the government, at that time, was watching your father with great interest. As you know, most virus infections are beneficial to the human body. They make us sick, sure…but as a response to that infection, the body creates immunity against that same virus so that in the future, there are little to no symptoms. It’s this effect that Cartwright was abstracting from the virus and then combining those traits with stem cells.”

  Chris couldn’t help himself, he had to ask: “So, if my father was removing the good parts, what happened to all the bad…uh…genes?”

  Quincy nods. “That’s the tragic part…apparently,” he touches the magazine again, indicating that what he’s about to say is not his assumptions, but those of the writer of the article. “Apparently, Cartwright was also (secretly, I might add), working with the government on biological weapons research. Those bad genes…they too were being combined with stem cells. Genetically altered to help enhance disease. He was creating a super-disease.”

  Karen’s eyes widen in horror. “Is that what is happening now? The Tainted…is that what’s wrong with them?”

  Quincy shrugs. “At the time this article was written, it was unknown.”

  “And now?” Chris asks.

  “What do you think?”

  Chris looks down at his father’s image again. “I think that’s right. Whatever he created got out. But how?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question…no one knows. And it really doesn’t matter…whether it was on purpose or some accident, the result was the same. In a matter of a few short months, the infection had spread across the globe.” He pauses, letting the silence stretch as Karen and Chris take in all this new information.

  He continues, “There were only a few cases reported when your father disappeared. Apparently, he knew just how bad it was going to be and took you and your family into hiding. Until you showed up here, it was believed that the disease, or whatever it is, had taken him and all of you with it too.”

  “So my father got the blame for all this?”

  Quincy nods, “Seems like it. The powers that be needed to blame someone and his actions gave them the perfect scapegoat. In my opinion, he was just looking out for you and the family…trying to protect you against the imminent threat. Everyone else saw it as cowardice.”

  Chris winces at the last word. He shakes his head. No, he knew his father. He couldn’t count the number of times his father saved him from the Tainted—there was anything but cowardice where he was concerned.

  “My father was no coward.”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  Chris cuts him off, “No…It’s okay…I know what you meant.” He pushes away from the table. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

  Standing, he turns and makes his way for the front door. Karen stands too, her chair squeaking as it scoots across the warped linoleum tile. Quincy grabs her by the arm, “Karen…leave him be. He has to absorb this in his own way.”

  She jerks her arm free and turns a glaring stare toward him. There’s a fire behind her eyes he’s never seen before. “I don’t think you know what he needs.”

  “And you do?” He immediately regrets the bite in his voice.

  “No, I don’t…but it would be a nice gesture to at least ask.”

  She follows Chris outside and Quincy sits alone, wondering how this all got so out of control so quickly. All he did was give the boy just what he asked for: answers. He and Karen had never so much as had a cross word with one another and he didn’t want to start driving a wedge between their relationship now—especially when his end was drawing so near.

  And his end was near—even now, he could feel the cancer churning within him like some demon, clawing its way through his bowels, ripping and shredding him from the inside out.

  Quincy closes his eyes and lets his mind drift for just a minute before mustering what strength he has left to stand. He stumbles into the kitchen and wrenches
open a drawer containing a variety of pills. There’s a blister package of old Fentanyl that’s lost almost all of its potency, but he’s beyond caring about dosages these days. He punches four of the pills out into his palm and tosses them under his tongue to dissolve. They’ve lost most of their potency and won’t take all the pain away, but they would take some edge off.

  Leaning against the counter, he lets out a long sigh: getting old sucks.

  That’s the last thought that goes through his mind before his eyes roll up toward the ceiling and his body collapses to the floor.

  Chapter Eight

  When he left the table, he didn’t go far. He wasn’t really that upset either—he just had a lot to take in and sort out in his head. The biggest revelation was the thought of the graveyard just a few hundred yards from Homestead. What else could be there but empty graves? But what if they are not empty? What if there are more clues to his past buried there? Clues like the red box he found buried below the tree—the one with the old photographs.

  “Are you okay?”

  The screen door squeaks and shuts quietly behind him.

  Karen. He’s glad the darkness hides his smile. He hasn’t even known her a full day, and he’s already taken by her natural beauty. His smile broadens, thinking back to when he caught her watching him through the bathroom window: eyes dreamy and far away, her hand caressing her tiny breast—he couldn’t stop thinking about her, even with all the new discoveries of the last hour.

  “Something funny?” she asks, taking a seat next to him on the steps.

  “You were pretty embarrassed earlier.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I was not,” she says, automatically taking the defensive.

  Chris chuckles quietly, “I think you were. Your face was as red as a sunburn.”

  She lets the conversation die, and he’s fine with that—the sounds of night are always welcome.

  “I take it my grandfather didn’t really upset you?”

  “No. It was just a lot to take in. Believe me, there’s enough going on in this world to get more upset about than my father’s past mistakes.”