Containment: The Death of Earth

by Charlee Jacob

  “What’s wrong?” her mother asked her.

  “The dark ship is here.” Asali could neither scream nor whisper. She only thought it, words stuck in her throat.

  Her mother heard, with that special maternal telepathy some mothers possessed. Suddenly she looked old and sad. Zeros rolled down her cheeks as she replied, “Asali, go outside. Hurry…kokara. Thank God, it isn’t too late for you.”

  ««—»»

  Asali kissed Ubani’s face. “I loved that! Thank you!”

  She couldn’t see her in the night so she accidentally poked Ubani in the eye with her nose. The two burst out laughing.

  “It seems I have two daughters now,” Louise said.

  “And I have two beautiful granddaughters,” Aziza added.

  “Does that mean Ubani is my sister?” Asali wanted to know.

  “We want her to be. She is if she wants to be,” Louise told her.

  “Ubani, will you be my sister, my mother’s daughter, and grandmother’s granddaughter?” Asali asked, breathless.

  Ubani paused, overwhelmed. She had no family, no friends since her mother had taken her own life, 11 years ago. Ubani had been shuttled off to a refugee camp. She was an orphan in every meaning of the word.

  “Please, kipenzi, join our family,” Louise said.

  “Yes, kipenzi. We have known you but short days,” Aziza told her sincerely, “but we love you.”

  Ubani felt a joy such as she’d never felt before, the four feet square allotted her by the world cracked and Ubani was freed.

  “I want that very much,” she answered.

  “Hurray!” cried Asali.

  Despite the closeness of dangerous creatures, the little family cheered.

  ««—»»

  “Ubani? Are you awake?”

  Ubani didn’t answer. She and Asali had fallen asleep in one another’s arms. But she’d awakened. Ubani had never slept well, nightmares forever waiting for her.

  The two older ladies…my new mother…my new grandmother…spoke together in low tones.

  Why did Ubani pretend to still be asleep, even to the point of modulating her breathing?

  “Aziza, when you asked her about her grandmother, her mother—and she told us their names—and you wept as I’ve never seen you weep… When I was four years old and asked you if you killed Kifo in the Adango War…”

  “And I said I had. You have a long memory.”

  “Is she…?”

  “I had just seen my three children killed. Yes, my husband had taken them to the Ncemas’ farm. But I saw my babies die and went insane. I didn’t know then who had started it and my heart didn’t ask. I killed Kudhumani with my bare hands. I scarred poor little Nyota for life.”

  Aziza’s voice, whispering though she was, cracked.

  “Oh, Aziza. I ache for both of you.”

  “Not for me, Louise. What kind of woman—one who’d given birth to children herself—could do such a horrible thing?”

  “Those were horrible times.”

  “Have you ever known times to be anything but? How is it that the world continues to forgive itself when these crimes should never be forgiven? When I die, if Hell opens its gates to me, I shall fall and give thanks, for only such a place could accept one who deserves no refuge.”

  “She is our family now, we will do everything we can to make it up to her with love.”

  “The world is over. There is no love left. Or, at least, no time left in this world to give love.”

  Louise and Aziza stopped talking. Soon they fell asleep.

  Ubani moved then, gently unwinding Asali from around her. She stood, stepping lightly across the tears that made up the circle’s Boundary. She expected to be seized by the nearest predator (which she brushed against, electrified by its shocking body heat), yet it shuffled aside.

  It disappointed her. How Ubani wished to be killed.

  Would no other beast take her?

  “Come, get me,” she barely exhaled. No! Little sister mustn’t see or hear…

  She knew why she was not attacked when she saw the mango woman in the distance, standing between trees. A glow outlined her jigsaw shape without illuminating anything else.

  Ubani didn’t think she’d ever seen such a dark night. No lights shone from Kimbilio and the terrible great shout had hushed.

  Agony brought only silence.

  Why? Why did they have to ask her to be part of their family, when she had already made up her mind to leave them? It would have hurt to part from them then, yet she would have survived it.

  Not now.

  Nothing lay in her path.

  An intense headache struck her so abruptly she reeled and projectile vomited across that sea of grass. The lining of her brain swelled against the skull.

  Heavy sweats and stomach cramps hit Ubani as her guts turned to pure liquid. She began coughing up mucous, and bloody balls of worms, long as new vines. They dropped to the ground, tangled into knots. These rapidly dried up or she stepped on them as she stumbled to her goal. Some snarls were coughed up only to be swallowed back down.

  Dehydration. Her tongue swelled up to fill her mouth like a stone. This stone had fallen from the sky and was on fire. Cul-de-sacs of larvae oozed from her nose. Her eyes burned as they were eaten, visual cortex being digested. The stars hurt her eyes; the stars were alive in her eyes. They were faceted, cut sharp as blood diamonds.

  In and out of consciousness.

  Ubani sat on a cushion opposite the mango woman. She sensed another figure.

  It spoke to her.

  “Your mother was saved only that you would be born. You were born only to fulfill your role as their protector for these critical few days. And so you would awaken Aziza to responsibility and redemption. But you could never belong. It was not my choice. Limitations are a part of all things natural and supernatural. I am sorry.”

  “Then why is she here with me now?” Ubani asked, gesturing to the mango woman. On her hand and arm, skin ulcers sucked as they widened and deepened. Spots rotted, loosed a gas of sour-sweetness born of fermented gangrene wine.

  “She is here as a beacon to your self-destruction,” said…said? “I am Azzael. As a Watcher sent to protect and teach humans, my specialty was witchcraft.”

  Parts, as if she’d received severe second-degree burns, formed thick blisters, blooming to exquisitely excruciating pressure. Finally, the surface couldn’t hold any more fluid. Each blister burst, not with a pop but with a snap snap, of gunshots erupting in serene-less soundlessness.

  She had slowed down, one half of her body so heavy. Too dark for her to see, she touched her left arm and left leg. Thick, tough as leather.

  Huge and covered with nodules, furrows.

  Her dress, Louise’s silken finery, hung in tatters from dragging herself through the woods.

  The dress was long gone. Her skin, first in a rash—then poxed—now draped her like contagion’s flag, flying in quarantine.

  Another figure appeared, seated next to her on the cushion. Azzael was speaking again, to this figure, this man with white skin, long blond hair and a beard.

  “Dream travel is a manipulation of the quantum brain,” said Azzael. “Astral projection is a conscious separation of the soul from its body—not as a result of death. In astral projection, the conscious soul returns of its own volition, the same way it left. In dream travel the consciousness sends out a manifestation of itself—not the soul, just a spectral twin drawn upon wish-fulfilling imagination, and given solid form by its owner. This ‘doppelgänger’ has consciousness yet is unconscious of its origins. Unless control is lost, it is incapable of full sentience and total self-determination…”

  Ubani finally reached Lake Mojonsi. She couldn’t see it; her eyes were gone. The water stank but she couldn’t smell it. Nor did she feel the dead fish bumping against her.

  She had just enough of her brain left to wade in until the water was over her head.

  Part Seven

  The Myt
h of Beholding. A Pale Horse

  (Turpitude and Tribulations:

  The Day of the Lord

  Comes like a Thief,

  Taking Back

  Under His Thunderbolt

  All Revelations of Resurrection)

  ————

  “…it was sent by some blast of the stars…”

  – Dr. Thomas Willis,

  On Influenza in 17th Century England

  ————

  “…such a scent I draw

  Of carnage, prey innumerable, and taste

  The Savior of Death from all things there that live.”

  – John Milton, Paradise Lost

  ————

  Narrator

  Spatial restrictions to non-spatial ideas is an oxymoron of existence, tied to mortality but committing one’s life adventure and, thus, the collective fortunes of the world as if chronologies could be colonized and the intrigues or subsistences of mundanity could be dictated as desired.

  By your very natures, humanity defies Time’s containment, yet believes you may confine Time to a prison for inconvenient dimensions of reality.

  To insist that you have a manifest destiny to overcome the laws of natural physics may be arrogant, but it is an arrogance most archaic. Time/Space switch from being the ultimate elements that guide and hold each individual, without either bias or favoritism, to become objectified so they may be exploited.

  Of course, the most frustrating conceptualization of religion, manifested by faith yet remaining generally non-vocalized out of fear of social rejection, is the recognition of the Godhead—without the ability to personally attain it.

  Humans live their lives in such a manner as to trivialize creation and the places in it for all other things—save their own. You have re-fashioned God into your image, making Him angry, jealous, narcissistic, and petty. The cultural stereotype of God is superficial, Here and Now at polar extremes, yet maintained as an icon in psychic limbo until some fool has apparently run out of options and methods. Then shallow prayer—however urgent it may seem—is employed as the contrivance to convince the Most Supreme of Beings to intercede on some pinhead’s ungrateful behalf. (Limbo!)

  The world’s religious leaders, intended by their lofty positions to maintain the purity of His spiritual worship, have long been the watch guards of His limbo.

  (Limbo lower now!)

  (How low can you go?)

  Limbo

  Lower

  NOW!

  God should never be forced to His knees.

  He takes off running, turning His head as He slides under at Creation’s lowest point, entering where Time/Space has neither width nor breadth.

  He vanishes.

  You never see Him again.

  In truth, you have never seen Him.

  Why would He flee from you? Mankind was His interpretation of the mortal testament of Himself.

  Humanity was an abstraction, a narrative of evolution turned back on itself.

  The equation is coming, like the ghost of creation past and the ghost of end times. When it arrives, the only solution will be simple subtraction.

  QADOSCH, QADOSCH, QADOSCH, ADONAI ELOHIM TZABAOTH.

  Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of Thy Glory.

  Chapter 14

  ————

  “…The intolerable shirt of flame

  Which human power cannot remove.

  We only live, only suspire

  Consumed by either fire or fire.”

  – T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets

  ————

  Laura stopped, feeling a cramp in her belly. Was she well enough to drive? I have to. None of the taxi or shuttle companies nor any of Atlanta’s mass transit system answered their phones. Surely, she’d be fine if she didn’t overdo.

  Overdo? Why, all she planned was to rescue Adam, not that she really had a plan. I’ll find him. He’s out there, I know it.

  Still, she put her wheelchair in the back of the van. Adam installed a lift device after the first difficult miscarriage. It had been helpful, following all three of her six-month tragedies. A crazed numerologist might see a connection.

  What was it Laura read in the journals?

  Lucifer’s Rebellion.

  The Fall.

  The Number of Angels Loyal to God.

  She thought upon these things, her brain scrambling for connections as she readied the car. What had the total had been before The Fall? Numbers in calculation containing series of three identical numerals: 333,666, and 000, wasn’t it? Three babies, all lost at six months, leaving her with zero children. Oh, there was also 999. How did that fit in? It happened to be 666 upside-down? Or the nine being full gestation. (Gestation for what?)

  A complete circle had 360°.

  3+6+0=9

  Why did she know this?

  Oh, she’d read it in Adam’s notebooks.

  Every road and highway was blocked. Cars were crashed with the faces of death or critically ill occupants pressed to whole and shattered glass. In varying shades of red to black and blue to purple, expressions contorted. Windows of some cars were rolled down, jaws frozen over, showing Laura how they gasped for breath in their final minutes or simply screamed. Many stumbled out, lying too weak to rise from where they fell. Many more had already expired.

  God, how many? she thought. Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? All human? What of the animals? They’re perishing, too?

  “This time of year,” she said aloud, “I ought to hear the steady buzz of cicadas. Maybe I don’t because it’s been so dry. Maybe it’s too hot for the birds.”

  Laura slowly passed a park, filled with apparitions, placed in rows upon the now-bare earth, skins of yellow wax, lying in a Time-looped memory in their own waste, consumed by secret microbes and simmering misery. Had these once been victims of yellow fever or malaria, or the H1/N1 influenza that killed 50 million worldwide during World War I?

  The ghosts only carried (and passed on to whoever they walked through) the original diseases they had perished from, right? They couldn’t actually catch the new bugs.

  Could they?

  Passing those along also.

  Passages from those journals of her husband’s returned to her in snippets.

  “‘Vector’ : an intermediate vehicle…carrier of an infectious disease…” ; “We are the germs here… Our drive to harm and kill…” “You have become the Intercessor.” ; “Gotterdammerung…” ; “mortalega grande” ; “what if your catastrophe has resulted from everything that has ever happened…” ; “Glut, soaked red from feet to eyebrows…” ; “If you accept that sin… does exist, then you have been granted the knowledge that the earth had a beginning in violence and will suffer its end in terror.” ; “You have become the Intercessor.” ; “…there is death in the pot.” ; “The spook du jour has run you through…” ; “a plague age/a death age of humanity and all.” ; “Illusion of Existence, i.e. Being, is the very state of destruction, on a doomsday prefigured and adored by all who sinned that they may be damned.” ; “…prophets with one fistful of blood and the other full of bacteria.” ; “The plagues are now at the top of the food chain.” ; “You have become the Intercessor.”

  He’d written before the poisoned hosts arose. But had he written it before acquiring the blister in his palm? He must have. He didn’t have the blister until after he escaped from Italy’s bubble. He’d been too sick to move, his journal not with him on Level 5, otherwise Paul couldn’t have permitted Laura to take it.

  Adam knew about the revenants and the viruses beforehand.

  The scene in the park was virulent, a grand scope, reminding her of a scene out of the old motion picture Gone with the Wind, as Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops burned Atlanta to the ground. She even heard the sweeping soundtrack, nagging her until she supposed it would be stuck in her head for a week.

  As for that negative sparkle, almost as tangible as the snow
y white fluff from seeding cottonwood trees, floating murder on the air. It settled on everything, like the ash and debris dust had after Pacifica, killing whatever and whomever it touched within hours—if not sooner.

  Traffic had stopped. Before her loomed a massive jack-knife pyramidic pile-up of broken steel, involving at least four 18-wheelers, several buses, and an uncomfortable number of automobiles. She’d never get to the CDC. Laura leaned her forehead against the steering wheel, thinking of Adam. Her only hope for Adam’s safety was that he was being kept in the strictest bio-containment in the world. She doubted that even Russia had anything as sophisticated as #5. Russia’s top disease lab was apparently—last she heard—at a place they called ‘Vector’.

  “What now?” she wailed aloud. “I wish I’d pretended to be a lot sicker when you announced last week that you were going to Italy. I could’ve gone into the bathroom and torn out the stitches with my bare hands. You would’ve stayed with me then, wouldn’t you?”

  She heard the screech of tires, shriek of metal.

  Laura jumped, watching another collision happening to her left. She wrenched open her door, managing to get out just before her own van was broadsided by two other cars, welded bumper to bumper in a mangled waltz. She limped, the pain in her abdomen kicking in again, to check on the drivers. The first’s face was scooped out from some flesh-eating bacteria. That was a fast one, taking only a minute or so in its mutated form. The driver had probably been fine when he got in his car. The other coughed, spraying pints of what resembled ink against the windshield.

  Laura stared at the van. The front, including the driver’s seat, was smashed. She had her purse in the back, with the wheelchair. The rear door had popped open, the chair lift jammed. It took her 20 minutes to get her wheelchair out. She rolled it to the sidewalk in front of a long line of little businesses. They were all closed. Weary and hurting, she sat down on the chair’s petit point cushion, hand stitched with violets and roses.