The Enoch Plague (The Enoch Pill Book 2)
Page 2
Kizzy stared in disbelief. What went wrong? That’s when she noticed the battery sitting in the middle of a goddamn puddle. Of all the stupid things she had ever done, this may have taken the cake.
She had to do something about the smoke that was now floating up like a gray pillar into the sky. She knocked the windmill down onto its side, grabbed a nearby tarp, and threw it over the smoking mess. Within seconds the tarp had caught fire and now there was more smoke than ever. It was probably visible for miles. But there wasn’t a thing she could do about it now.
“Kizzy!” she heard Diego’s voice calling from down on the street below.
She growled to herself and went down the echoing stairs of the building.
Diego was coming down the sidewalk, looking disoriented, a big stick in his hands. He had dark bags under his eyes and his hair was a mess. He always looked somewhat like that, but now there was confusion added to the mix.
“What the heck is that?” he asked pointing to the smoke billowing up from the top of the building.
“Technical difficulties,” Kizzy answered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.
“I was trying to set up...”
“You did that?” he cut her off. “Now she’ll know we’re here.”
“There’s a chance she won’t even see the smoke.”
Diego laughed to himself.
Kizzy knew it was wishful thinking. The ghost that haunted all their dreams, that tracked them from town to town, was certain to find them now.
“Come on,” said Diego. “We have to pack.”
Kizzy walked behind him, ashamed. He normally wasn’t like this. Optimistic was the way Kizzy would have described him a few weeks ago. This situation had ground him down to the bone.
He sighed and tried to smile at Kizzy. “Wanna play interviewer again?”
“No thanks,” said Kizzy, continuing her march towards the old mill.
“I’ll give you an extra minute.”
“I’m really not in the mood,” Kizzy said.
It was getting dark when they arrived back at the mill. They climbed the stairs to the top floor and entered their hideout. The room was empty and open with large windows on every wall. The floor was wooden and old. It was too bad they had to leave, Kizzy would have enjoyed sweeping the place clean and making it feel like a home.
Then again, that was how she felt about their first hideout, and the one after that, and the one after that. Before they were inevitably tracked down. Before that woman came. Before they had to abandon what they had found and made. Perhaps it would be easier now that Kizzy didn’t have a chance to get attached to this place.
They packed up all their things. There was an uneasy feeling within Kizzy, and something told her to look to the opened window. A giant mutant crow, the size of a small child, sat there on the sill. There was a strange emotion inside Kizzy – like one you get upon seeing an old friend. The realization that she was having a feeling like that from a crow was especially disturbing. She grabbed a broom and swung at the bird, knocking it out the window. It fluttered in the air, flapped its wings, and flew away with a caw.
Kizzy watched it glide over the empty town. From her vantage point up on the 4th floor she could see for miles. Vacant lots and lost buildings melded into forest as far as the eye could see.
“Is that the same crow that used to come to the window at our other place?” Diego asked.
“No, it’s a different one.”
“You can tell?”
“You can’t?” Kizzy asked.
He shook his head.
Strange, Kizzy thought.
“We should wait until dark before we go,” Diego announced.
Kizzy went about covering up the windows with blankets she had found in the town below. Diego spread out his map on the kitchen table. “Where to?”
“Surprise me,” Kizzy said.
With the windows covered she lit a candle, took out her paints and brushes from her backpack, and sat across from Diego at the table. The nights were long and dark and she had taken up painting as a way to pass the time.
“You know what today is?” he asked, looking up from his calendar. “Day 60.”
“Is it really?” Kizzy asked. In some strange way it had all felt like one long day, a day with multiple mornings, noons and nights.
He nodded. “If I kept track correctly, and I think I did.”
Kizzy looked at the two-way radio that sat in the backpack at the end of the room. It blinked calmly. It was still connected to Yanloo City. Still connected to Josephine. The umbilical cord that linked them to the rest of humanity. “Do you think the new Enoch Pill worked?” she asked.
“I hope so,” Diego said. He looked at the receiver. “She would have called us by now if it didn’t. Although she never did say what to do if she never called.”
“How long do we have to wait?”
“I don’t know. As long as it takes,” Diego said.
“I just feel stuck here,” Kizzy said. “In limbo.”
“We got to stay though.”
“Do we really?” Kizzy asked. “I mean, the cure must’ve worked. Things must be under control by now. This isn’t fair.”
“She’ll let us know.”
“But what if she never does?” Kizzy stared at the receiver, wondering if it would ever ring. “What if she forgot?”
“Let’s just give it more time,” Diego said.
“How long? Another 60 days? We’re out here being chased by a ghost in the middle of nowhere, stuck in this tiny circle because we can’t lose the signal. You haven’t slept in days. I can’t eat a thing without throwing up. And we’re stuck here. All because they might need me. It’s not fair.”
“If we go farther out we lose the signal.”
“Well let’s lose the signal then,” Kizzy said.
“We can’t do that,” Diego said with his eyes closed.
“They don’t need me. It’s over.”
“Let’s just stay in range a couple more days, just in case. Please. Why are you so eager to leave?”
‘What had kept her waiting so long?’ was the better question. She should have left long ago. The anxiety she felt in her gut about her future was immense. And running away seemed like the only reasonable option.
“It’s not fair what she’s doing to us, I know,” Diego said. “But we can’t move on just yet. We can go anywhere in the whole wide world once this is over, but now…”
“Why are you so eager to stay?” Kizzy asked, suddenly suspicious in his change of heart.
“Do I even… why do you even ask me that? It’s been hard on me too.”
“It’s been hard on you?” Kizzy said. “I’m the one with the fate of the world on my shoulders. I might have to grow another person in my stomach if all this doesn’t work out. I don’t want to, but I have to. I owe it to mankind apparently.”
“Look, I’m sor...”
“Don’t give me this crap that it’s hard on you. You have the easy part. You just have to hang around.”
Diego shook his head and rolled up the map on the table. Kizzy watched the pain in his eyes as he tossed it into a garbage bin.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine what?”
“We’ll go tonight,” Diego said. “Out of range.”
“Are you serious?” Kizzy asked, sitting on the edge of her chair.
“Josephine should have called us by now,” he said.
“What if she needs me in the future?” Kizzy asked.
At that very moment the two-way radio began to ring. Josephine was calling, almost as if she had been listening to their conversation.
The two of them sat in a stupor, staring at the radio.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Diego asked.
“She gave it to you,” Kizzy said.
“Yeah, to give to you.”
Kizzy sighed and got up to answer the call. “Hello?” she said into the receiver.
“Yeah, I’m alright. What’s wrong?”
“We need you,” Josephine said, sounding as if she was trying to keep calm, like things had gone seriously off-course. “Make sure no one knows where you are. Keep hidden. We’ll come and get you. I can track you on the two-way.”
“What’s going on?” Kizzy asked.
“The cure, it’s… Just stay right where you are...” And with that she hung up.
“Hello? Hello?” Kizzy said into the radio. But there was no response.
“Looks like we’re staying then,” Diego said.
There was a twinge in Kizzy’s chest. Now that she had dreamed of going free, hearing she had to stay felt like a punch to the gut. The prospect of being a mother was closer now than ever. She sat back down at the table, her head spinning.
“That woman has been tracking us with the signal from the radio,” Diego said.
Kizzy nodded. It all seemed so inconsequential now. She was going to have another human growing inside her.
“I’ll run a check around the perimeter,” Diego said. “Then we have to get out of here.”
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Kizzy’s heart began to beat like a drum inside her chest.
“You don’t think it’s Josephine already do you?” Diego whispered.
Kizzy knew who it was.
The handle turned and the door creaked open, swinging on its rusty hinges.
The woman stood there, tall and taught, with a smooth, tanned face. Her body resembled a fiddle that was tuned so tight the strings were about to burst. She wore brown riding clothes, cradled a shotgun in her left arm, and a lantern in her right. When she hung the lantern by the door it cast an orange light over her face and the wall and floor straight to Kizzy’s feet.
“Kizzy Cartwright,” the woman said.
Kizzy glanced to Diego, he was staring wide eyed back at the woman. Kizzy grabbed a paintbrush and held it tightly beneath the table. She’d stab the woman if she had to.
“Yes?” she answered.
“You’re wanted for the death of the Palmer girl.”
Kizzy thought back to her friend. Laura’s body lifeless in her arms. Her empty eyes staring out into infinity, never to see again. The debt Kizzy had never paid, it looked as if the bill had finally come.
“I don’t think you understand the situation of what’s going on here,” Diego said to the woman. “We just got a call from Josephine Yanloo.”
The woman slowly marched across the wooden floor towards them, the shotgun a silent reminder of who was in charge in this situation.
“Who are you?” Diego asked.
“The county-appointed constable,” the woman said. In a flash she clamped a pair of handcuffs onto Kizzy’s wrist. “You’re coming with me.”
“Get those off her,” Diego said with a stern voice. He stood up between the two of them and put a hand on the constable’s shoulder. “Just hold on. You don’t understand.”
Kizzy brought the paintbrush up to the woman’s neck. In an instant he woman shoved Diego out of the way, grabbed Kizzy’s paintbrush-armed hand and, slammed it down onto the table. The brush rolled from her fingertips. Diego charged at the woman again, but was greeted by the butt of the rifle smacking across his face. He fell with a loud thud to the floor.
Kizzy went white with rage, but the woman had already handcuffed both her hands behind her back, and she was powerless. The woman grabbed her by the shoulder and marched her towards the door.
The woman spoke into her own two-way radio. “I’ve got her, Paige.”
“That’s good news,” came a woman’s voice.
The only Paige Kizzy knew was Laura’s mother. That made sense. She, of all people would have wanted Kizzy dead the most.
Kizzy was about to be pushed out the door when she remembered all the important things she had in her backpack.
“Please, can I have my bag,” Kizzy asked.
“Is this it?” the constable asked, picking up the backpack that sat beside the door.
Kizzy nodded and looked back at Diego laying unconscious on the floor. The last thing she saw before a bag was put over her head was the receiver of the two-way radio calmly flashing red.
3
Down in the earth, beneath mankind’s last living city, sat the Enoch Pill factory. Day and night it produced the miracle capsule that had brought mankind its longest-enduring dream, the ability to live forever. But alas, immortality had come with a catch.
Eighteen years prior, mankind was united in their celebration of their incredible accomplishment. They were all going to live forever. Then, only when mankind had reached full coverage, something snapped. No one can say for sure what caused the great plague, but the effect was cataclysmic. The leading theory was that a species without death had no need to procreate. And as an earthbound species with an exploding population and no death to counteract the growth they would, in a short time, consume all the planet’s resources. So mother nature struck back the only way it knew how, with deadly force.
To stop a species from over-breeding you simply make breeding deadly. The Enoch compound caused sexual arousal to result in a deadly brain aneurism. Millions died the first day of complete global coverage. Millions died again the next.
An embarrassed scientist, Josephine Yanloo, appeared on the nightly news. She announced to the world what she had learned much too late about the Enoch Pill and what was happening to people behind closed doors. Mankind, never one to accept such things laying down, responded by going off the pill en masse. Billions died as a result. The human genome had been changed so radically and permanently that losing the bridge that brought them there killed them within a few days. What was changed couldn’t be changed back. They said the death must have felt much like arousal, since the aneurism was just the same. One last pleasure bullet surging through the skull. Three days was all a human could survive without the pill. And it was 72 hours after the announcement on the nightly news that the lights went out.
It seemed mankind had engineered the perfect way to exterminate themselves.
The last survivors of this catastrophe clung to life above the factory that produced the pill, segregated into male and female of their species. Partly to protect themselves, partly to try and forget what they had lost. The males stayed in the city, working the factories and sending out the finished products. Females in the surrounding countryside, worked the land and gathered its resources. Over the years mankind had eased into the effects of the Enoch Pill. Men created less testosterone, women less estrogen, and both of the sexes remained sterile. And as segregated group mankind waited for the embarrassed scientist to make things right. They waited for the cure.
Suspended high above that underground factory was a sphere-shaped laboratory and inside that laboratory the scientist toiled night and day in search of a cure. For 18 years she worked, to no avail. There were too many variants, too many options, too many changes to the warped human genome to be altered any further.
But one fateful day the cure came walking into her lab. A young woman with altered DNA, a freak of nature among the freaks of nature, asking to have her condition cured. The Enoch Pill’s effects were impotent on her and as a result she was aging and would one day die. But because of this she would be able to safely have children. This girl was out of the loop, like those who were born back before the plague.
Using the girl’s DNA the scientist was able to work out a cure for the curse mankind had put on itself. A cure that only needed to be taken once. It was just in the nick of time as well, since the beans used to make the pills were running critically short.
The scientist would release the new pill to the masses up on the earth’s surface. Humankind could go back to the way things were, although she often wondered if that was even possible any longer.
As a precaution the scientist sent the girl out into the wilderness, to rem
ove her from the equation. If things went wrong, the girl would be mankind’s last hope, the only woman able to re-populate the earth, the mother of a new wave of mankind. The scientist sent a boy out after her, a friend to keep her safe and to bring her back if need be. She equipped him with a two-way radio and told him to stay within range.
The scientist was left alone again with her thoughts. This was too risky. This would lead to disaster. This would be all her fault again. Her gut told her this new cure was failsafe, but the last time she trusted her gut 99.9% of the world’s population died.
But what other choice did she have? Time was running out.
She tested the new compound on herself and found no side-effects. Still, she was hesitant, afraid to pull the trigger. She would have preferred more guinea pigs, but that was a bit of a problem, since guinea pigs were hard to come by in her situation. The girl was no good for it, she was out of the Enoch Pill loop. The boy had received a special compound, making him unsuitable as well. It was unknown what the effects would be on him. The rest of humankind was sealed off above ground. They would just have to wait and see what the new cure would do for them.
She entered the changes to the compound into the factory controls. It was time to update the Enoch Pill.
As she was about to press ENTER the alarm went off, there was an intruder in the facility. She checked the video feed. The man she had loved from afar, with meters and meters of concrete and dirt between them, had entered the trap door. She glanced down at her grubby clothes then sprang into her closet and 3D printed a new outfit for herself.
Soon he was at the lab’s entrance. Josephine gathered herself and opened the door. The man was a police officer up above ground and his name was Leo Cartwright. He was a simple man, sarcastic and kind. He had nice hands. That was the first thing she noticed about him when they first met and it was the first thing she noticed now.
“Hey,” he said, still as a statue. He must have been terrified of feeling what would kill him. The weight of all 18 years sat in between them like a ton of bricks. “I remembered the code. Obviously.”
Josephine shyly smiled, paralyzed at her desk, amidst her work and the mess her life had been for eighteen years. She was frozen with fear in her chair. She couldn’t believe this moment was here. This forbidden meeting between the sexes. Between her and her love.