Escape the Virus

by Ryan Westfield

  The man stepped into the dim light of the lantern.

  He had greasy hair. A disgusting face, in many ways.

  Damian almost started to say, “stay back,” and to threaten him with the shovel, but he found that he just didn't have the energy for it. He found that he just didn't care.

  Imminent death had taken it all away from him. Motivation. Everything.

  “You're from the house, aren't you?” said the man, his face scrunching up in a strange way when he spoke.

  “Yeah,” said Damian. “Was that your friend there on the steps?”

  “Yeah. Did you shoot him?”

  “No. My friend did. And before you get upset, there's no point in killing me. I'm already infected.”

  “Infected? You don't believe in all that, do you?”

  “What's there not to believe in? It's a virus. It's killing people. Look at my hands.”

  “The veins? So what? I've got that too.”

  The man held up his wrists. In the darkness, it was clear that he was infected too.

  “You've got it too. Don't you realize that? You're going to die.”

  “Die?” The man laughed. “They're always going on about some virus... Every year it seems... and when does it happen? When does it kill everyone? We're going to be fine. Come on. The veins don't mean anything... Why are you out here anyway? Why aren't you inside?”

  “They kicked me out. They're worried I'm going to infect them all. My own mother. She kicked me out.”

  “Your own mother? That's cold, man. Real cold. Ice cold. She can't do that to you.”

  “I guess she has her reasons. They say I'm going to kill them all. I didn't tell them I was infected, you see.”

  More laughter. “But there's no such thing as this being infected. It's all some ruse. Some trick. Just more garbage from the media. It's all the same. And now they've kicked you out of what's got to be your own house. How is that cool? It's not.”

  “How can you be so sure it's not real? The virus, I mean?”

  Damian found himself interested in the possibility. After all, if it wasn't real, he wouldn't die. That reasoning in and of itself was a pretty strong pull. It carried a lot of weight.

  Damian knew that people could convince themselves of just about anything, so long as it sounded appealing to them.

  But that didn't mean that he wasn't prey to the same thing himself.

  As he listened to this stranger talking, and even ranting, he found himself believing every word of it.

  “Yeah,” said Damian. “I bet you're right. You know what? This is all a big scam. All that stuff in the news? They just put that there to get us all riled up. What? I'm going to die because my veins are a little bigger? That just doesn't make sense. Maybe I've got something. Maybe a little cold. Maybe it is a virus from China.”

  “But that doesn't mean that you're going to die, right?” said the stranger enthusiastically.

  “No!” cried Damian, throwing his fist with the lantern clutched in it into the air. “No way!”

  “Of course,” said the man, somewhat more soberly. “This doesn't mean that you're not going to get hurt out here.”

  “Hurt out here?” said Damian, his joy and excitement instantly draining from him. “What are you talking about?”

  “The media has gotten everyone riled up. That makes this all very dangerous. Bandits and crazy people are going to be roving the streets... look at what happened in your own front yard. Right?”

  “Huh, I guess, yeah...”

  “They've sentenced you to death,” he said. “By throwing you out in the street... you're as good as dead... why don't they just put a bullet in your head themselves?”

  “Shit... I never thought about it that way.”

  Damian felt shaken up.

  He was completely convinced that this man was right.

  His own mother had sentenced him to death! It was all worse than he'd thought. Much worse.

  “What should I do?”

  “You've got to get back in that house. Any way you can. No matter what. That's the only way you're going to be safe.”

  “Get back in the house?”

  “Yeah. Do whatever you have to do. You're going to get killed by some criminals out here... it's just not safe.”

  Damian felt confused. It felt as if he still had a fever.

  But it was good to know that he had a chance.

  All he had to do was get back into his mother's house.

  Muttering to himself, he turned around and started marching down the darkened street, towards the house.

  For a while, it sounded like the man was following him. He could hear footsteps on the pavement.

  But when he turned around, there was no one there.

  Whatever. It wasn't Damian's problem.

  He was going to do whatever it took.

  Even if it meant hurting his friends.

  They'd betrayed him.

  They'd bought into all this bullshit.

  So he'd betray them. If he had to.

  Why was it so hot?

  There was a funny taste in his mouth.

  He wiped the back of his sleeve against his forehead. It came back drenched. Completely drenched in sweat.

  Probably just because he was nervous.

  21

  Chaz

  Chaz wasn't dumb enough to pass up an opportunity. Not when it was staring him in the face.

  He'd been dumb enough to find himself in jail for the last ten years. But that hadn't really been his fault. The only thing he'd done wrong was trust the wrong woman.

  She'd turned him in. Something that he'd never forget. It had changed his life.

  He'd been a successful small-time drug dealer. He hadn't made a killing, but he hadn't necessarily wanted to. After all, those were the guys who took the hits. The guys who made the big bucks were the guys who went to jail.

  And Chaz had wanted to stay out of jail.

  He'd made a comfortable living. Enough to buy a house. A car. A regular car, nothing super fancy.

  He'd made enough to support his woman. He'd bought her a car. Clothes. Jewelry. Nothing too crazy. Just enough to keep her happy. Just enough to keep her at his side.

  She was a looker. She knew it. Chaz knew it.

  Everything had been going great. Better than great. Chaz had managed to avoid doing the thing that he'd hated in this world above all else, which was work.

  Chaz considered work to be the greatest evil of all.

  The way he saw it, his small-time drug dealing wasn't really work. It was mostly hanging out with friends. Slinging a few pills here and there. Nothing crazy. Nothing too demanding. Nothing that required him to break a sweat.

  So when his woman had betrayed him, it had been a huge hit.

  He'd stood no chance during the trial. She'd even testified against him.

  He'd gone to jail, where he'd stayed for ten years.

  He'd spent the first year moping around, wondering how his woman could have screwed him over like that.

  Then he'd gotten a hold of himself and started to come back from it. He'd built up his body. He'd filled pillowcases with heavy things and lifted them over his head thousands of times. He'd figured out how to do every type of push-up imaginable. He'd done pull-ups on the bunk bed.

  Contrary to popular belief, every type of substance and drug was usually freely available in prison. For a price.

  He'd found a good supplier of steroids and loaded up. He'd be shooting himself up with testosterone before breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  He'd gotten huge. Lean. And muscular.

  He'd started commanding respect. A lot of respect.

  It had been gradual. And it had been a struggle.

  But he'd made a name for himself. He was known as a fair man. But a man that took what he needed and didn't hesitate to exact his revenge.

  He was respected and feared in the prison. Which is just how it should have been. It's what he deserved.

  He'd spent
years finding his place. He'd spent years taking what he deserved.

  So when the virus had come, and when he'd understood what was happening, he almost lamented it all.

  After all, he recognized that the virus meant the end of his prison life. It meant the end of the power that he'd earned there.

  At first, he'd resisted.

  He'd watched the news on TV in the rec room with the other inmates. He'd understood how serious this all was.

  He'd watched as a guard had gotten sick out on the yard. He'd seen how his veins had been big. Huge, even. He'd watched from a safe distance as the guard had started hemorrhaging, blood spewing everywhere as he spasmed on the concrete like an epileptic.

  Chaz had known then and there that his life in prison was over. He'd been absolutely sure.

  And soon enough, there were prisoners sick. It wasn't just the guard. Ten men. Then twenty men. All with enlarged veins. Then two more guards.

  The end of it all had actually been anticlimatic. Boring. Even trivial.

  Many of the guards had simply not come into work.

  The security in the prison had always been suspect. The inmates had long known the weak points.

  It hadn't been hard for them to break out.

  It was a mass breakout. The first in a long, long time. Chaz didn't know of one before.

  It had been then that he'd decided he wasn't going out in the world, which was in many ways totally new to him, without a gang of strong dependable men around him.

  He wasn't going to go back to being the little guy. He didn't want to once again be in the position that he'd been in when he'd been just small-time. Back then, his woman had been able to betray him, completely without consequences.

  In prison, he'd gotten himself to where that simply wasn't possible. No one could betray him on the inside without consequence.

  And now?

  Now he needed men.

  Fortunately, his reputation served him well. As did the fear that the men felt.

  There were many who'd been locked up since they were teenagers. Kids, even.

  Some of them had been in and out of juvie, and then in and out of prison. The same pattern over and over until the convictions had piled up enough to put them away for decades.

  There were men who were terrified of life on the outside of the prison walls.

  But they'd never admit it.

  They'd needed a leader.

  Chaz had understood them. He'd understood how to manipulate them.

  It hadn't taken that much. A couple rousing speeches. A few promises of women and riches. And that was about it.

  It had almost been too easy.

  And now?

  Now he found himself standing on a residential street in Albuquerque, surrounding by ten strong men, all of whom were dependable enough that they'd die for him. All of them looked up to him almost like a father figure. They'd do anything he wanted.

  They were strong men. They could accomplish a lot.

  But what Chaz relished was the feeling of control. The feeling of being the puppet master. The feeling of being the one who could take a man's life with nothing more than a word. Nothing more than a command.

  They had no guns.

  But they had other weapons.

  Baseball bats. Crowbars. Sticks.

  They could do a lot of damage with what they had.

  And more important than the weapons were the drugs.

  Everyone except Chaz was high on something. Or multiple things.

  Chaz knew about “not getting high on your own supply.” It was the cardinal rule for successful drug dealers, the rule that everyone invariably broke.

  Everyone except Chaz.

  He didn't get high at all. He despised drugs, seeing them only as a vehicle to gain money, respect, and power. He saw them as a tool. A tool of control.

  He'd “smoke them all up.” He'd given the ones who liked opiates their pills. He'd given others shots of morphine. He'd given the crankheads their fixes, freebase or otherwise.

  He'd had access to it all in prison and he'd distributed it freely now.

  “Hey, Chaz,” said one of them.

  Chaz could barely see him in the darkness. The streetlights had gone out minutes earlier.

  The hum of the city had died down.

  The power was out. Cut off.

  Chaz didn't know why. But it didn't matter that much whether or not he knew the specifics.

  He understood things in larger ways. Gross, crude ways.

  He understood that the city would be in turmoil. He understood that it offered him an opportunity.

  He didn't exactly know what the future held. How could he?

  But he knew where he wanted to be.

  Which was in power.

  “Chaz,” said the man again.

  “What is it?”

  “Dan-man is sick with something...”

  “What's he got?”

  “He looks kind of like those guards who went down in the yard... it's kind of freaky. His veins are huge... He's looking weird in the face... I mean I'm not trying to be a snitch or anything like that, but...”

  “No, don't worry. You did the right thing coming to me. Where is he?”

  “Over there. Away from the others.”

  “I'll take care of this. Here, give the guys another few joints. We're going to move on out soon.”

  The man took the joints greedily. Even in the darkness, the excitement was written pathetically all over his face.

  “Hey, Dan-man,” said Chaz, speaking in his low rumbly voice, the one that he'd perfected as his “leader voice” over the years. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  The other men parted, letting Chaz through.

  They liked Dan-man, who had always been popular and well liked, but Chaz knew that they wouldn't do anything to interfere. They were Chaz's men, not Dan-man's men.

  “What's up, boss?” said Dan-man, who was doubled over, his hands on his knees. He didn't sound good. He sounded sick.

  “Word is that you're sick.”

  “It's nothing. Just a cold. Hell, I've been locked up since I was twelve. Triple homicide, you know? Juvie couldn't contain me... my body's just not used to being on the outside...”

  “Too much fresh air, eh?” said Chaz, chuckling.

  “You know how it is,” said Dan-man, his own laughter punctuated with fits of coughing.

  “I'm going to have to let you go,” said Chaz, speaking quietly.

  Chaz knew that everyone was listening. And waiting. And watching.

  “Chaz... you can't!” Dan-man's voice was pathetic. Whining.

  “I can't let you infect the rest of us... you should have done this yourself... I thought you were one of us... but you're nothing but scum...”

  Chaz didn't hide his anger now. He let it shine through his voice.

  Chaz had his metal baseball bat in hand. He brought it back, as if he were on the mound.

  Then he swung.

  A good swing. Really drove his hips into it. His whole body working behind the bat.

  Dan-man didn't even bring his hands up. He was already too far gone. Too sick.

  The bat connected with Dan-man's face.

  Connected hard.

  The impact felt good. The shock to Chaz's hands felt good.

  Dan-man screamed. A pathetic scream.

  Chaz brought the bat back.

  Swung again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Dan-man was on the ground. Blood on his face. Blood and bone on the bat.

  Chaz turned around, bat hanging in one hand.

  “If anyone else is sick, I expect them to take care of it themselves. We don't have time for stragglers. Only the strong will survive.”

  No one said a word. No one made a noise.

  “Now,” continued Chaz. “The bitch who turned me in years ago to the cops... she was living in this house along with her sorority sisters... she might have moved on, but whoever is living the
re is bound to know their whereabouts...”

  Still silence.

  Pure silence. It sounded good. It sounded like absolute obedience.

  “After I take care of her, the world is ours,” said Chaz. “There are no limits now. We're out, and we're not going back in.”

  These final words were met with a cheer.

  Chaz raised his bloodied bat high into the air.

  And he knew that these men would do whatever for him.

  And he knew that he'd make that bitch who'd turned him in pay.

  22

  Froggy

  That guy he'd met in the darkness had been a sucker of the first class. And he'd played right into Froggy's hand.

  Sure, Froggy didn't believe in this virus garbage. So that part was true.

  But he'd told that sucker the rest of it all just so that he'd go cause a distraction. A distraction that Froggy could take advantage of.

  Froggy had followed that sucker back to his house. He'd watched as the sucker had started to cause a huge commotion at the window, shining his lantern into the house, making faces in the window, screaming and begging for his mommy.

  It had been perfect. Beyond perfect.

  There'd been some kind of sound in the street as Froggy crept silently around the side of the house. It had sounded like the crowd cheering at a baseball game.

  Whatever. It didn't matter. Froggy just ignored it.

  His plan was simple.

  While the sucker distracted his family from the front, Froggy would sneak around the back of the house. He'd break in through a window, then creep through the house executing everyone one by one.

  That's what they got for killing Mark.

  And that's the way Mark would have wanted it.

  “I'm doing it all for you, buddy,” whispered Froggy to himself and to the dark night.

  Froggy got around the back of the house.

  It was a little hard to search without a flashlight. After all, it was very dark.

  But his eyes were adjusting.

  And there was plenty of commotion from the front. He didn't have to worry about getting caught. He could poke around with impunity.

  By feeling around, he eventually discovered that there was a back door. But it was locked. And it was made of steel. And it seemed to have a study frame. Too hard to break down.