Embers

by Daniela Elana

  “No one cares what I have to say, I’m nobody important in the eyes of the world…”

  “Come on, Patricia. You can’t let insecurity of what others say stop your mission.” His words sent a chill down my spine as he uttered the word mission. How did he know? Or, perhaps he had just chosen the right words. “There’s a lot of people who will wish someone would’ve spoken up and told them the truth.”

  “Look, unlike you, I’m not devoted to a cause. The unbelieving dug their graves, thanks to their complacency,” I said. He didn’t say much afterward, and we ate in silence.

  Just as we were leaving the restaurant, a man slinking behind the building with his hands in the pockets of his trench coat caught my eyes as he brushed me with his broad shoulders. He ignored me and kept walking, I got in the car with Mason.

  My chest tightened as if my lungs were tangled around my heart as an ominous sensation overtook me.

  “Mason, hurry up and drive!” I hollered, closing the door behind me. He reversed out of the lot without bothering to question my sudden change in behavior and drove off.

  As we entered the road, from a distance, the entire restaurant lit up like fireworks. The bricks and glass flew into the street. I spotted the same man who had been lurking around, whistling while sashaying down the opposite side of the road.

  He glanced up, locking eyes with me—it was him again, the man who had started the virus outbreak. Mason was distracted by the orange flames dancing from the combusted restaurant. A thick pillar of smoke rose into the air.

  “How’d you know?” he asked.

  “God told me,” I said. As we sped down the highway, something in his eyes had changed.

  “Incredible,” he said, smiling. “You’re a prophet! More accurately, a prophetess!”

  “I never said I was anything.”

  “The foresight of when events occur are the markings of a prophet!”

  “That’s just one instance. Besides, what made you believe me?”

  “I had faith you were one. Tell me, do you have dreams that happen?” he said.

  “Yes, but it’s just trauma.”

  “Trauma from what?”

  “Nothing, I was mumbling nonsense again.”

  “No, you were opening up,” he said. “I’m here for you.” He patted my knee. I looked down at his hand, clasping my knee, wishing I could take back what I had said, not wanting him to uncover any more about me. He, like anyone else, couldn’t be trusted. The moment I confided in someone they always betray me or had marked their grave.

  * * *

  Reporters and camera-crews swarmed the bookstore. When the journalists saw Mason approaching the front, they gathered around him, asking him questions. Just as Mason had warned, a few public health officials were congregated outside interviewing each worker.

  “What’s going on?” I said to a fellow coworker leaned against a pickup truck, taking a smoke break.

  “Ten more people got the virus,” he said.

  “Did they travel to the occult section?”

  “No, they were on the other side of the store,” he said, taking another drag of his cigarette. One of the news hosts made her way over toward me. I fled, having no desire to appear on camera. Although I had once lived for the camera as an actress, I now feared it.

  “Where are you going?” Mason reached for my wrist. I yanked away, running to the other side of the lot.

  “I’m camera shy,” I said. Mason smirked.

  A man in a hazmat suit arrested me by the shoulders, his large hand caused me to double back.

  “I’m going to need you to come with me, Maricel.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Everyone that has been exposed to the disease is headed for a twenty-four-hour quarantine.”

  “Quarantine?”

  “We rolled the tapes the man vomited at your feet.”

  “Please, I haven’t experienced a single symptom in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m sorry.” The man gripped me. Mason stopped him.

  “I was in the building when it all happened,” Mason said. The man shrugged.

  “Dr. Richmond, you’ve been cleared.”

  “I know, but I’m requesting that she is as well since I’ve returned from lunch with her and have not witnessed any flare-ups.”

  “If you insist on joining her in quarantine, you can because she hasn’t been cleared.”

  * * *

  The van shook as it rolled over jagged potholes that sprinkled the road. The farther away from the shopping districts and suburbs we traveled, passing urban areas with abandoned homes and slums the streets were less treated. A camp of homeless people held out their signs. A few displayed empty cans to beg for money.

  “Can you believe these people, swarming every corner like roaches,” my coworker Janice said to me, in the van.

  “You know, I was homeless once. You don’t know what brought them to this point,” I said. Janice pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Some people are different, you see.”

  “Different?”

  “They don’t want to help themselves, they’d rather beg and get high than stop begging for a handout. It’s an illness!”

  “Not everyone on the streets is like that, I met a lot of ex-cons, vets, families that had to file bankruptcy because of a sick relative and young adults who never were taught life skills and dumped out of foster care when they hit eighteen.”

  “That’s really something,” Mason interrupted our exchange.

  “Sure is,” Janice said, turning away from me. I unclenched my fist.

  “Try to calm down, Maricel, some people are extremely ignorant of others circumstances,” Mason said.

  “Ignorant? More like bigoted,” I said.

  “I’d say myopic. In time, people like her will understand,” he said.

  “Yeah, we’re practically in a recession with all the fears about this government shutdown people are moving their money elsewhere. Then there have been cuts to most of the social programs, so no one’s spending as much. Pretty soon, it’ll be clear a recession has hit—she like every member of the ninety-nine percent will lose the crumbs they cling to consider themselves “middle class.” I’d like to see what she thinks then.”

  “That’s pretty harsh to say, Patricia.”

  “It might be harsh, but you reap what you sew, my friend.”

  * * *

  We arrived around nine at night after a long six-hour drive to a fenced-off, windowless facility in Amarillo, Texas. They herded us into the massive white building like cattle. Armed guards lined the mile-high barbed wire fence.

  “I can’t believe we’re in this mess. All because of some guy’s vomit,” I said to Mason as we sat across from one another in the dim cafeteria, eating brown processed mush that barely passed for sweet beans.

  “They’ll find him, in the meantime remember God has a plan,” he said. Although I had chosen to put my faith in God, I grew frustrated with why negative things continued to happen.

  After dinner, they gave each of us a change of clothes, which were white pants and a t-shirt.

  * * *

  I headed for bed curling up in a small barrack, closing my eyes. Just as I was starting to dream, a voice awakened me.

  “Maricel!” a male voice called out. I sprung up and slid on my glasses. My blurry eyes darted around the room. Everyone else was asleep. Then I heard the voice again. I followed the sound to see a slender cloaked figure standing at a distance. When it noticed me, it sprinted around the corner. The hem of its trench coat dragged the cold tile floor.

  When I came around the corner, the person froze, standing on the opposite end of the hall. With each step I took toward the figure, dizziness overcame me.

  The being neared me as I collapsed onto the ground. By the outline of the person’s frame, it was a man. With the way my vision wavered, his features were difficul
t to discern. He scooped me up, and I was too weak to resist. The man turned, checking his surroundings before running away with me.

  A guard shouted at him as he dashed down the hall. “What are you doing in here?” The man spun around with me in his arms, kicking the guard in his abdomen and the guard hit the wall—his glasses shattering with his collapse. He placed me on the floor beside the unconscious guard. I could faintly see him removing the guard’s clothing and slipping into his navy outfit and holster.

  As he got dressed, I tried to crawl away, but he ceased my shoulders and stuffed me in a body bag and carried me past security. Moments later, I felt myself being lifted—I passed out.

  * * *

  I awoke with the roar of a train’s horn on the cold floor to a pair of dark eyes. The eyes fixed on me belonged to the man who continued to turn up wherever I was. He sat with one leg pulled up to his chest and his other spread out with his hand tucked under his chin. When he noticed me stir, his gaze reverted to me. We both remained silent, leaving only the rumble of the train.

  “Maricel—” he said. I backed away from him.

  “How do you know my name?” I said. He got up, pacing around in circles.

  “I found you.”

  “Why were you looking for me?” I said. He didn’t answer. Instead, he sat running his fingers through his thick curls. Although whatever disease he had spread created lesions on those infected, there was no trace of sickness on him.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Why did you take me?”

  “I need to protect you from Azazel and discuss our mission.”

  “How do you know about Azazel?”

  “That’s for another time.”

  “Why should I trust you when you tried to kill me twice?”

  “Plans have changed, you’re no longer my enemy but friend.”

  “What plans? Nothing you’re saying makes any sense!” I said. He didn’t answer. “I don’t know who you are or who you work for, but we have no business together,” I said. His stare followed me as I stood, waiting until the train came to a stop, and I leaped off.

  He peeked out from the train car, watching me strut away. Distance grew between us while he rode off into the night.

  I headed home kicking a rock ahead of me with my head craned, and my hands tucked in my pockets for about an hour before a red Ford Fusion pulled up beside me.

  “Patricia, what are you doing out here alone this time a night?” a female voice said. I glanced up to see Caroline garbed in maroon scrubs, riding alongside me. By the way, she eyed my clothing, she probably thought I had left a psych ward.

  “It’s been a long day.”

  “Get in,” she said. I came around, opening the door, and got inside.

  “It’s not safe for you to be out this late alone. Some strange things have been happening.”

  “Such as?”

  “You didn’t hear?” she said. I shook my head. “A Thai Restaurant exploded! Authorities are saying it might be a terror attack despite heightened national security, which is more reason why Republicans are arguing for border security,” she said. I looked out the window, considering how the incidents involved the man who had taken me. “What’s happening reminds me of some of the stuff you talked about at the bible study.”

  “You really think?” I turned back to her.

  “Yes, these things are no coincidences.”

  “So what I was saying wasn’t sci-fi after all?”

  “No, you were onto something. You know, I was thinking that maybe these recent events are God’s way of getting our attention.”

  “I can’t argue with that assumption,” I said.

  “I was just leaving work, I work as a nurse, and we had some of the patients come in from the bookstore that was infected.”

  “I work there.”

  “So you and Mason work together?” she said. I nodded. “Whatever is going around is like nothing any of us have ever seen. It starts as boils, but the infected flesh rots away similar to a flesh-eating virus and then many of the people…”

  “What?”

  “Behave zombie-like in nature,” she said. I covered my mouth.

  “They lose control of their frontal lobe. The disease is caused by misfolded proteins resembling prions. These misfolded proteins distort the proteins in the brains of the infected. Since protein function is controlled by shape. You can imagine how much damage it causes.”

  “Like mad cow disease or Kuru?”

  “Yes and no. We’re not even sure if the misfolded proteins are actual prions since unlike other prion-related illnesses rather than the host becoming weaker and uncoordinated they don’t lose control of their motor function, in fact, their movement is more sophisticated as they are stronger and faster and act extremely violent,” she said.

  “Fascinating, and in what ways do the abnormal proteins modify the behavior of its host?” I asked, thinking back to sector 7A from Mu, and I wondered if this disease was linked to those brutal experiments I had witnessed three years prior.

  “Before the infection is known, the host becomes more social and intimate with those in their immediate surrounding to help spread the virus and after the virus is detected, after a period of breakouts on the skin the person possesses abnormal strength.”

  “When you say abnormal strength, what do you mean?”

  “One man who called in sick who worked at the bookstore was at home sick before his wife called an ambulance since he had broken out in boils. He awakened as he was being placed on the stretcher and he suddenly broke free and grabbed a hammer that was in the room and started swinging at paramedics.”

  “That’s awful!” How did you guys contain those infected once they changed?”

  “It wasn’t easy because of their change in speed, strength, and agility. “We’ve lost a few personnel. This is something I don’t want you leaking out to the public because it could cause mass hysteria, so promise not to say anything to anyone or post about this on social media.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “What scares me most is that some of the infected have displayed cannibalistic tendencies. One woman who was hospitalized for the disease mauled a nurse’s chest.”

  “Yikes!” I covered my mouth. “I was placed in quarantine with Mason.”

  “Oh, dear. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes. I underwent a medical examination. Doctors determined I was negative for the disease as over 24 hours had passed and I was released.”

  “Praise God, did the state release Mason too?” she asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m sure he’ll pass,” I said.

  “I hope Mason gets cleared too.”

  “I’m sure they’ll clear him, I mean he voluntarily went,” I said, staring at the starry sky.

  * * *

  A week had passed, and it was early September. The Dallas County Health and Human Services declared the bookstore risk free. They blamed the outbreak on cabbage that hadn’t been safely inspected due to the FDA being affected by the government shutdown. That same cabbage had been used in some of the meals served in the café at the restaurant and other local chains. It was recalled. What was odd was there was no mention of the original carrier who visited the bookstore. All the press surrounding the outbreak dissipated as they moved onto talks of the upcoming presidential election and the candidates making their bids. That was the beauty of this country, through the power of media, they could make the world feel like it was business as usual even if things were falling apart.

  Mason had covered for me when the department of public health found I was no longer in quarantine. He paid the health officials not to make mention of my escape and to monitor me at home until the duration of my expected symptoms of the virus passed.

  I owed him big time, for all he had done and we continued to talk daily, and I attended his weekly Wednesday night Bible studies. When the weekend came, Mason
invited me to hang out at the annual fall festival. After walking around the park, we waited in line to ride the Ferris wheel.

  “Try to relax.” He pinched my cheeks.

  “Sometimes I think we’re living in the last days.”

  “That’s what people have been saying for ages.” He handed the ride operator our tickets

  “This time feels different, think about the virus last month.”

  “It was a fluke they contained. You shouldn’t base reality off feelings. Facts and reason should always come first.”

  “God doesn’t always operate by man’s logic. After all, you think I’m a prophetess. By your line of reasoning, much of what I dream and hear from God is bound to happen, right?” I said as we got into our seats.

  “Not always. There’s the spirit of divination in which the devil gives a person dreams that appear prophetic as well as speaks to a person.”

  “So far, none of my futuristic dreams have been wrong, and I can hear God when he speaks to me, I know his voice.”

  “Maybe labeling you a prophetess so soon wasn’t the best idea. It only takes a prophet to be wrong once to prove they are false. Before you go around telling anyone, make sure you test the spirit and know it came from the Lord,” he said, snapping his seat belt shut. The Ferris wheel went upward.

  “True,” I said. The man didn’t answer. We sat in silence until the ride came to a stop and for the next twenty-minutes we said little to one another

  After the Ferris wheel, we ate ice cream together on a bench.

  “Whatever God’s plan is for you, Patricia; it’s special.” He pushed a strand of my thick black hair out of my face.

  “Perhaps, I’m a martyr.” I focused my attention on the children hopping in the bounce house several feet away.

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “It could be my fate.”

  “The end is near! Prepare for the apocalypse!” a man shouted. We turned to see a man with a shaved head and a white robe standing on a crate with a sign around his neck. “It’s only a matter of time people before they return. Don’t you see the earth is doomed? She’s crying with full force from all the pollution, violence and apathetic, greedy politicians. That’s why there are calamities and disease. She’s fighting back, they’re coming soon!” he turned to me and grinned. His eyes gleamed a yellow hue. A few people took pictures of him and recorded his tirade.