Was every country like this? Was this thing global? Dennis often asked himself these questions. Those were the first two things he asked the General. When he got the answer, Dennis’ mind was shattered. They had overtaken the planet. Those things had toppled every government and sent human beings into the shadows, cowering in high-rise buildings and underground bunkers . . . flying around endlessly in planes and congregating in areas so remote that it would be nearly impossible for human beings to survive even under the perfect circumstances. The creatures would dig up fresh graves in search of sustenance, worsening the outbreak. This Lynn drug that Doctor Miles and his team created was almost instantly contagious when spread through any bodily fluid. Especially saliva. If someone were to be infected with Lynn, the drug would coarse through their bodies and kill off brain cell activity within minutes, but the hyper-metabolizing agent inside the cell’s mitochondria would keep the body animated. People were essentially brain dead, walking around the face of the scorched and trashed earth searching for a way to stave off the incredible hunger that swelled inside of them. It was a beyond-starving hunger. A desperate one . . . and it never went away.
Dennis Jackson turned to face his co-survivors. Opening his mouth to speak, he collected himself and closed his eyes.
“Guys, you may want to sit down.”
IV
The morning of September 4th, 2016 was a busy one. With the small food supply they had officially depleted, they had branched out a bit to the immediate surrounding neighborhood. There was a cornfield less than a mile from where the base was. Soybeans were grown on the same property. Cows, sheep and pigs were still roaming around here and there on the property. Christian was in charge of the livestock. He studied them with an intensity that rivaled Dennis’ own fervor for obsession when it came to their safety. After taking a very careful examination of the animals, Christian Garner learned that the livestock on that particular property were unaffected. Water was not as hard to come by as one might think. Everyone on Earth had read the books about alien and zombie invasions . . . the classic sci-fi material about a defunct planet where human beings go back to hunter-gatherer mode to survive and they always make it out to be some kind of mystical thing. Movies and books always made getting H2O look like some kind of huge task. Water was the most abundant resource on the planet. Dennis was a very skilled survivalist. With him, they could live in the base indefinitely. On top of that, Ana found a grocery warehouse that had been virtually untouched. The place was out in the middle of absolutely nothing. The only people who probably knew about the place were people who lived in town and the trucks that stocked the place. With the probability of nearly all of those inside dead, the warehouse was a treasure trove to them. It was unwise to stay inside, though. Stray infected were all over that place. At least four or five had to be taken out or incapacitated every single time they needed to go there.
Now, the real fear was setting in. Winter was going to show up before they knew it. Dennis had called the General just that morning as he did every morning right when he got up. No sign of Doctor Miles yet. With every passing day, the fear inside him, Christian and Ana worsened. They should have found him by now. Either Darin Miles was dead, had given up his quest and succumbed to the devastation he created, or the General already had him. William Teel was that kind of a person, he gathered. A typical military man reaching retirement-age, but he seemed to be a dead-honest and straightforward man on the phone. He even let the three of them talk to the President a couple times. Dennis held onto the hope that they were not being lied to. If they were, there would come a time very soon to declare their collective search for Doctor Miles null and void and take a trip to West Virginia. The longer they waited, the shorter the days got. The colder the rain felt. The harder the soil became.
Ana walked past Dennis and placed a gentle hand on his back. She said nothing. Just smiled. Christian and her pretty much stayed away from each other now. Probably for the best. They hardly spoke at all and when they did, it was just a passing thing. They all slept in the same room together for obvious reasons. Dennis knew that Christian had not cooled down. He simply didn’t have the opportunity to hurt her. Ana walked to the edge of the property with a large wooden bucket and dumped the day’s used water into the tub-filter Dennis built. It wouldn’t be drinkable again for humans, but it would be just fine for the livestock. Taking water by bicycle to the farm was a pain in the fucking ass and Ana could not wait until Dennis finished building that irrigation-thingie-dealie that he said he was going to do. He was a smart man.
Ana stood up and arched her back. It popped somewhere above her tailbone. She uttered a small cry and raised her arms to stretch it out further. A couple bones somewhere protested to this action with their own little cracks and pops, but it felt good to dust out the ol’ spinal cord cobwebs. Christian was the cause of these little back spasms she’d been having. Dennis watched Christian like a hawk. He didn’t give the man an inch . . . but he wasn’t omnipotent. He couldn’t be everywhere at the same time. Christian walked past her on the way to the shower that Dennis and he built. Dennis was out at the back of the building, replacing the chains on the bikes. Christian walked past her and glanced out the window to look at Dennis, so intent on his work. Ana knew what her husband was going to do before he did it. He shoved her into the wall across from the windows as hard as he could. Her back instantly lit up as it connected with the corner of an open doorway. He stood over her with a grimace of absolute disgust and looked down at her like she was something he wanted to squash.
He didn’t say a word. The man she loved, the man she promised to be with forever casually resumed his walk, whistling happily as he went.
She didn’t tell Dennis anything. He would have killed Christian for that. Despite all, she still loved him and although she was deeply hurt at his distaste for her, she knew he was hurting. Somewhere deep inside of his soul, he was suffering. Something about him seemed utterly sad. Ana didn’t want to kid herself. She knew what it was. She couldn’t have children. Her body lacked the ability to make life . . . and in fear that he would leave her, Ana did not tell him until after they were married. He had expressed the yearning to have children on numerous occasions. She outright lied to him time and time again. And he hated her for it.
“Ooh . . .” she whispered, feeling the soon-to-be bruised area pop again. It travelled up her spine and made her feel dizzy for a moment. She willed herself out of passing out due to the sharp, split-second pain that went away almost as quickly as it came. Christian had to have cracked something in there. How much longer would it take before he really hurts her? What if he missteps one time out of rage and god forbid seriously injures or kills her? As she contemplated to herself, a low, droning hum emerged slowly overhead. Ana looked up into the sky toward the sound. It was coming closer now, something low and fast. When it broke the tree line, a shudder rocked her entire body. It was a plane. It flew out of sight for a moment and returned in the distance to the north of the base where their cornfield sat.
Two sets of frantic footsteps echoed behind her and stopped right at her side. She didn’t even notice. They stood for the longest time like that. Their minds were empty. All they were now were just three human beings sharing the same moment. If he didn’t already have a consciousness of it before, Dennis finally realized at that moment what the stakes truly were and why finding this doctor was so important. Dennis stood beside Ana, wide-eyed, yet smiling. Ana kept her eyes locked to the sky and reached for Dennis Jackson’s hand. He welcomed it warmly, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Ana . . . Christian . . . they’re here.”
CHAPTER 13
I
Darin Miles and his two companions had been shown the case. Ana thought he was a nice man, considering. The look in his eyes, even when he was smiling, told a different story. This was a man with the death of the world on his conscience. Even though his story proved that he was not the direct cause of the trouble the world had, he still blamed himself. Darin a
sked the General on the landline if the things had spread to other countries. He listened silently and intently, and then his smile dropped. The corners of his mouth sagged and his eyes welled up. Ever since then, he had been in one of the back offices. Alone.
“He should feel like shit. Pisses me off that he survived,” Christian said to the small group sitting at one of the cafeteria tables in the barracks.
Alvin French lit up a cigarette and rolled his eyes. “Real smart, Mister Garner. Wish that on probably the only guy that can create a cure for this crap . . . or at least help us fight it.”
“So, when did the General say he will arrive?” Christian said to quickly change the subject, turning his attention to Dennis.
“He said his team will be here by the end of the week. After what Darin showed me about that Archie plant, I don’t see any reason why we cannot do okay until then. That little flytrap-lookin’ thing is the key to all this.”
“Awesome. Trust my whole well-being on some moldy-ass prehistoric plant that will probably turn to dust when I touch it.”
“Christian,” Ana said in a soothing voice. She was always the one to attempt to calm the situation and make excuses for him. As of late, she felt safer around men. Especially Dennis. Christian usually kept her so close to him that she had almost forgotten what real men were supposed to be like. She wasn’t allowed to have any friends and if she so much as said hi to another male, she would get it. Here, he couldn’t do that to her. She wanted the same respect from her husband that the others had for her. After all, he was her husband after all.
“No one asked for your input, Ana.” Christian shot her a glance that made her lower her head. She shut her mouth and complied quickly. “What I said was between me and Dennis. It wasn’t your business to butt in.” Ana got up and walked away from the group to stand at a far window, where she stared at the night sky that had fallen too quickly.
“Did we forget our little conversation earlier, Garner?” Dennis said, standing up. “Go outside and cool off. Go put Archie in that planter out back. Make sure you don’t touch it too much. Don’t want it to turn to dust on ya.”
Christian stammered for a moment and slowly sat up, taking the potted plant with him and walking it out the door. He carefully placed Archie, pot and all, into the large wooden planter they had built at the back of the base. He could see Ana through one of the windows. She looked up at the sky like she always did. Her head always in the fucking clouds.
Bitch . . . he whispered.
II
“Whatcha lookin’ at, Ana? May I call you Ana?” She didn’t turn around. She didn’t want anyone to see her tears. She felt so weak and useless every time she cried because of him. Alvin was behind her, standing so close to her that she could hear him breathing. He was a man she would have found attractive once in her life. Even though she was still fairly young, she felt old with Christian.
“That’s fine.”
“Whatcha lookin’ at?”
“The pink elephant on top of the hill,” Ana said in a dreary monotone.
“Come on,” Alvin said with a light-hearted chuckle. “Seriously.”
“The moon.”
“The moon?”
“Yeah . . . when I was in school, just for fun, I studied lunar geography. I wanted to major in something like that, but I had to drop out after I got married. I always dreamt of working for NASA or on board the space station, taking photos and making maps of planets no one’s discovered yet. Always been fascinated by the moon. It’s stupid and a waste of time, I know.”
Alvin took a step forward and stood at the window beside her. He gazed up at the moon with her. The sounds of laughter and the night’s revelry echoed through the place. The others were back there with a couple bottles of Chardonnay that Dennis had found for special occasions. He went into town earlier that night and brought back a Twister mat and a Monopoly game. Even Doctor Miles came out of his funk and played with them. Her ears could pick up Christian’s voice as he bitched about the rent for a hotel on Park Place. Dennis told him to shut his mouth and pony up. Somewhere inside, she giggled.
“So, Ana, you remember a lot of it?”
“What . . . lunar geography?”
“Yeah.”
“Like the back of my hand.” When she said those words, Alvin’s heart broke for her. Here was a woman that had given up everything for a man she loved more than life itself, but did not love her back.
“Teach me.” Alvin turned to Ana and smiled.
“Huh?” She was flabbergasted at the question. For a second, she halfway expected him to ball up his fist and sock her one for doing something so pointless.
“Teach me. I have never known anyone that knew about lunar geography. Just a little bit of information so when this is all over, I can sound smart at parties.” They both had a quick and solemn laugh together. She loved his eyes. They were so kind. The way he talked so highly of Doctor Miles and Victoria made her want to get to know them all the more. She felt like she was an old friend to them. “Is it true that a lot of places on the moon were named as bodies of water? I never understood that.”
“Well . . .” Ana took a deep breath and held it for awhile . . . seemingly afraid to speak and be ridiculed. She couldn’t take that right now. “The craters and indentations on the moon’s face were called Maria, which are Latin for ‘seas.’ The singular for that word is Mare. You see that word a lot in lunar geography. Early astronomers mistook the craters for huge oceans, but their names stuck.”
Alvin pointed to a large, easily-visible dark spot near the edge of the moon. “What’s that place called? The one at the left edge? The big, dark one?”
“That’s Oceanus Procellarum. The Ocean of Storms. My favorite name out of all of them. Always thought Ocean of Storms sounded cool. The big blotch at the top of Procellarum is Mare Frigoris . . . the Sea of Cold.”
“Awesome names . . . those old-time nerds were cooler than I thought,” Alvin said. That at least managed to get a smile from her, albeit a small one.
“You don’t have to humor me, you know,” Ana said. “I’ll be okay in the morning.”
“No, I’m really interested . . . really. Teach me . . . please?”
“Okay.”
“Where is the Sea of Tranquility? Dennis was telling me about it. He said that after talking to you, it was his favorite.”
Ana pointed at an area with a smaller, circular inky blotch on the nearly full moon. “Right there.”
Alvin pointed with a smile on his face. “The oval one at the top right of it? The one that looks like a pancake?”
“No . . . here,” she gently took his hand and moved his finger. She quickly drew her hand away and put her head down again. “Sorry.”
“How else you gonna show this new student if you cannot correct him?” he said. “So, it’s that one right next to the one I was pointing at a second ago. Why did Dennis say that’s your guys’ favorite one?”
“Well . . . that particular part of the moon has a higher metal content in the soil and rocks for some reason than any other place up there. See how if you look just right, it looks blue? When NASA takes photos of it and they don’t filter any color, it looks blue because of the light that reflects off just that one patch. Every picture you see of the moon is actually airbrushed to get that blue tint out of the pictures. The song Blue Moon was written about it. Matter of fact, it is a belief that ‘feeling blue’ came from that spot.”
“That’s the reason?” Alvin said, raising a coy eyebrow to her. He was a very perceptive man.
“Well . . . most of it. See, Apollo 11 landed there. That’s the spot where human beings first walked on the surface of something that wasn’t our Earth. Neil Armstrong said it was the loneliest place any human being will ever be. Sometimes I wish I could go there whenever I wanted. It’s stupid . . .” she trailed off. Her cheeks blushed. She felt them get warm, allowing that familiar feeling to come back. That embarrassment. Here it comes . . . the forced chuck
le, the ridicule, the nice-sounding lecture about how much a waste of time this was. He stayed silent, though. He just continued looking into the heavens with her.
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