Disease X

by Garrett Williams

  “Don’t you think the title of this exercise is a little inappropriate considering I told you I AM an orphan?” Alex asked.

  “Then don’t you think that you should be trying to stab me for food you starving orphan?” Levi responded.

  Alex just sighed and got back into position. As they went through the exercise again, Alex asked, “Where is your home anyway?”

  “Huh?” Levi asked.

  “You said my home sucked. How is yours any better?” Levi gave him a time-out sign with his hands and responded. He opened his arms to the whole world, Alex became confused.

  “You’re looking at it.” Alex looked around and saw nothing but other rooftops around them and the city streets that they looked down upon.

  “I don’t follow,” Alex said at last.

  “The skies are my turf. There is nothing but freedom and safety up here.”

  “It seems so lonely though.”

  “Maybe, but at least no one can lie to you up here.”

  “What?”

  “You finally get isolation up here, and you see the truth for the first time because of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re invisible up here. And you can see through the hypocrisies. You see the true side of people.”

  “Oh.”

  “Remember the time square incident?”

  “What? Oh no… John. I hope he wasn’t hurt in it.”

  Whoever your friend was, you have bigger problems right now.”

  “But he’s only six!” Alex shouted with worry.

  “He…he’s the closes thing I’ve ever had to a baby brother,” Alex continued with his head down.

  “Sorry, but it’s like it was with me. As far as you know, your friend is dead. It’s best just to consider them that.”

  “How could you be so cold?!” Alex said looking up at him suddenly.

  “At least you had someone!” Levi said with frustration.

  “What?” Alex questioned. His expression changed from enraged and fuming to inquiring and interested.

  “Nothing, it’s nothing,” Levi said lifting his blade back up to Alex.

  Alex sighed and said, “Whatever.”

  “But about the rooftops, what’s it like? Never being lied to I mean,” Alex continued.

  “Not as glamorous as you may think. Sometimes I’d prefer it if people would lie. Now get back into position,” Levi demanded.

  Alex got back into position when he saw a flashing light in the corner of his eye. He looked around and could see that it was coming from the outskirts of the gate. He looked hard and could see that there was a figure on the other side of the fence. Levi looked over in his direction and saw nothing.

  “What do you see?” He asked.

  “Can you help me get over there?” Alex asked.

  “No,” Levi stated while shaking his head and having no expression on his face whatsoever.

  “Why not?” Alex asked feeling dejected.

  “There’s a ladder over there, go do it yourself,” Levi pointed to a ladder that resided behind Alex.

  “Well won’t you come with me?”

  “It’s not my business, if you want to go down there then so be it,” Levi said coldly.

  Alex looked at him with the frustration of dealing with a child and made his way over to the ladder. “I’m taking this,” Alex said holding up the car blade in his hand.

  The blade then flew from his hand and landed in Levi’s other hand. “No you’re not,” Levi stated callously. Alex gave him a dirty look and continued down the ladder. “Be back here when you’re done,” He said. Alex, who had already had his whole head under the edge of the building, raised his hand above the edge and flipped off Levi. Levi rolled his eyes as Alex then continued down the ladder. The kid’s not going to survive the raid tonight at this rate. Levi thought to himself.

  Danny was standing over the table he had flipped back over in the factory. Across from him was Delsin using his index finger to gesture to specific coordinates on a homemade latitude longitude map of their home. Danny had spent the majority of his life in the small city block of their home base. He couldn’t help but feel memories of his only home surge back into his mind. He could remember how many birthdays he had had here and when he first met Ashley. The first time he had ever set foot in his domicile and the first time he met his growing family was when it all started, when he was seven years old. He didn’t like admitting it, but he loved Delsin, no matter how much of a irk he was. It was the relationship of cousins, or rather, brothers. He heard a loud snapping in his ear and quickly gazed up to face Delsin.

  “Are you ignoring me again?” Delsin reprimanded. Danny just blinked twice and replied,

  “What?” Delsin just sighed and pointed at the map. Danny looked down to see the finger of Delsin drawn upon the gate shielding the base and wrapping around it, like a mother embracing a child.

  “I was saying that with the military’s advanced weapons, without proper maintenance of the gate, they’ll breach at any moment,” Delsin responded.

  “What about the underground tunnel?” Danny inquired.

  “Those are meant for evacuation. We could make openings for the guns to shut from below, but if we drill in the wrong spot or if someone shoots a structure weakness the whole place could crumble around us.”

  “They won’t shoot any weaknesses because it’s me that they want.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I could keep them busy while everyone gets behind them.”

  “Yeah, but what about air support? They know that were no joke now, or worse yet, a PU.”

  Danny cringed at the sound of the cursed letters, as does everyone else in the quarantine zones. The PUs, or by full definition the Purge Units, are specially trained soldiers designed specifically for eliminating infected. The military sends in the units when there are infected too powerful to take out or subdue. Purge Units are usually equipped with specialized tackle fit for eliminating, or cleansing as they call it, the most threatening kinds of infected. Their divisions range from specialized foot soldiers, to heavy demolitionists, to the ones the infected refer to as “cloud dancers”. The datum that Danny displayed the reasoning for his four star GDR may have contrived the attention of the military, and the colonel, and could cause them to take extreme action. Purgers go through racking training to be qualified to work the equipment, let alone to go out in the field. Danny began to ponder on the idea of PUs attacking. He thought silently for a moment and the looked back down at the base map. “What about that RPG you guys found yesterday?”

  “We only have one rocket for it, and I doubt that that will take out an entire unit.” Delsin corrected.

  “We could use it in combination with our gas and gunpowder,” Danny suggested.

  “You want us to siphon the gas from all of our vehicles AND take powder from our weapons? That’s the definition of a one hit wonder.”

  “I can use my fire on them though.”

  “They’ll probably have an anti-flame purger on you if they saw you do your thing.”

  “Well what do you suggest then?”

  “I don’t like the idea, but we might have to relocate. They already know where we live, and we can’t risk fighting. We’ll only put other lives in danger.”

  “But we teach them to handle themselves. They can fight with their powers just fine. I’ve seen it.”

  “They’re not powers Dan, they’re ailments. These people will trade the life they had before they die for this.”

  Danny looked up at Delsin and said, “They’re only ailments if you let them be.” Delsin looked back up at Danny with distaste in his eyes.

  “We’ll talk some more later. Right now go do something productive,” Delsin said as he grasped the crude map of their home and rolled it into a spiral.

  Danny grabbed the handgun that he had placed on the table a few hours earlier and slid it back down the back of his jeans with the handle facing
out. Danny removed the skull cap from his head to reveal the rest of his black, greasy hair. He brushed his hand through his hair and felt the cocktail of sweat and bodily fluids. His hand stroking through his long hair brought comfort to his scalp. He brought his hand back down, but still felt his hair sticking straight up from the grease emitted from his scalp. Delsin just gave a chuckle at the ridiculous appearance of Danny’s head. He flipped his hair back down and shrouded his hair with his cap again, but with some clumps of hair dangling on his forehead. “On second thought, take a bath first, then do something productive,” Delsin said with a smile.

  “Oh, ha-ha,” Danny said sarcastically. Delsin walked over to the exit, but before leaving, he ended with this statement.

  “You know,” he said in his southern accent, but in a much more serious tone, “G. K Chesterton once said, a soldier doesn’t fight because he hates what in front of him. He fights because he loves what’s behind. It’s true. Trust me, I was one.”

  Danny walked over to the door Delsin had stood in front of and left. On the way out he stated in a serious tone, “I’m no soldier.”

  Delsin sighed as he watched Danny walked out of view and said to himself, “Yeah. I know you aren’t.”

  It was in the late afternoon when Heather pulled into her usual parking spot at the library. She pulled the key from her car, and then lolled back into her seat. She sighed and shut her eyes. She then opened them once more and took hold of a coin she kept in the cup holder of her car. She stared at the coin with dull eyes until it started to move away from her hand. She grasped the coin with her other hand and took a deep, worried breath. Just remember not to think about it. I won’t think, so it won’t happen. She thought to herself as she dropped the piece of metal in her pocket and exited her vehicle. She entered through the back door like she always did and changed into her proper uniform. She entered into the main building, only to find that it had been overrun with military, and two purgers. The sight of the two purgers in the room nearly gave her a heart attack. It had been said that they are trained to be able to tell when someone was infected on the spot. Hopefully, this was nothing more than an allegation. Heather saw Hector over by some of the tables and asked, “what’s going on?’

  “The military heard that there was a fight between infected here and they wanted to search the area for clues” Hector replied, “They also wanted to ask you a few questions,” He continued. Heather immediately was terrified by what her coworker had told her. She walked off toward the back door whence she came. Before she could make it far, she heard a voice call her over. She turned to see that it was a tall black man wearing grey military clothing and a bullet proof vest that was also grey.

  Grey was the color of the PUs, he also wore gray camouflage pants with black combat boots. She walked over towards him and sat at the nearest table. The man calmly strolled over to her and placed his assault rifle between his knees where he sat. As soon as he sat, she could see a woman of slender frame make her way toward them both. She had a tan complexion upon her face and hands. Unlike the black man, she was extremely lightly armored, wearing nothing but a grey fabric jacket and grey, tight pants that stretched down to her small metallic shoes. She wore a grey camouflage shirt tucked into her marshaled black belts. She had long, brown hair that had been put into a pony tail and dark brown eyes. She carried only a small, machine pistol at her side and on each hip, jut out what had appeared to be handles.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” The black man asked Heather. She just cringed and refused to look at him.

  “My name is Joel Arlington,” He said. He held his hand up to the woman purger and said, “This is my friend, Marlene Blouse.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Marlene said with a comforting smile. It did nothing to still Heathers anxiety. Joel saw that Heather was scared and shifted from a firm expression to a soft one.

  “I know that you saw some terrible things yesterday. It seems that this is the norm for everyone these days. All I’m asking of you is to gather whatever courage you have, and try to tell us what happened. We know that Michael took you as a hostage, just tell us what went down.”

  “Michael?” Heather asked looking up with watery, frightened eyes.

  “He was the specter in that fight,” Marlene stated in a calm tone and with consoling eyes.

  Heather remembered what had happened to Michael. She could remember the touch of his blood upon her eye. “What we want to know is who the man that shot him was. That’s all,” Joel said. Heather began to clench at her black dress on her knees and slowly locked eyes with both of the purgers. She could see why everyone loved them. They were strong and gentle at the same time, their whole lives are dedicated to protecting the denizens of New York and every family from further heartbreak. Heather noticed that they thought she was still normal. I’m doing well, but I’m not done yet. She thought to herself.

  “He-he wore a trench coat down to his ankles.” Heather stated.

  “Okay, what else?” Marlene asked calmly and slowly.

  “He also had a bandana on his face,” Heather said starting to relax. “It was red, and it had what looked like black numbers on it, going vertically on it.”

  “Like code?” Joel asked.

  “Yeah” She replied, “I think he also had really blue eyes too.”

  “How blue?” Marlene asked.

  “Like a sky blue it looked like.”

  “Do you know what class of infected he was?” Marlene asked again.

  “I don’t know. Oh, he did make a lamp explode with his hand and he was so fast about it too,” Heather said quickly.

  “Droid…” Marlene whispered to Joel with sudden gravity.

  “Mercury too, perhaps?” Joel whispered back.

  Heather noticed the secretive conversing amongst the two. It only made her more worried. Had she been revealed? Joel stood up beside Marlene and picked up the assault rifle he was now carrying in one hand.

  “Thank you Heather, you’ve been a great help,” Marlene said with a trusting smile.

  “You’ll catch him right?” Heather asked out of anxiety.

  “Don’t worry, we always catch the SOB at the end of the day,” Joel stated with a reassuring grin. They both walked off toward the center of the room, where there had been tape used to mark the formation of which the body had fallen.

  Before Marlene got to the crime scene with Joel, she suddenly lit up in surprise. “Oh!” she said instinctively. She jogged over to Heather, who was still seated at the table. “He, I almost forgot,” She said looking embarrassed. She reached into her silver coat pocket and pulled out a small spherical, metallic orb with a button on top. She grabbed Heathers hands with both of her own and placed the orb in her hand. “If anything happens, push the button on the top, some purgers will be there to help. Probably Sasha and James…freaking idiots,” She said.

  This made Heather grin and relieved some of the tension. Marlene then made her way back to the crime scene with Joel. Heather sighed with relief that they didn’t notice she left the hostage part out. She didn’t like to admit it, but the people that one day may kill her were actually some of the kindest people she had met. Though they are serious about their job, they knew that what she went through was most likely the most frightening thing she will ever experience. They were very friendly with her, and they’ve most likely experienced the horrors of the infection, and how much they have lost as well. Why else would they have gone through the trouble of training for being a part of the PUs? Heather suddenly remembered the family that had been devastated, or at least Heather thought they were a family. There are nothing but criminals and psychopaths in the zones. Not to mention that terrorists group in the red zone.

  V

  Initiation

  It had taken Alex the entire day, but he finally managed locate the source of the glimmering. The light had brought him to the edge of the zone, with the fence directly in front of him. Around him lay destroyed vehicles and small craters in the earth, as wel
l as chunks of concrete and debris. He looked over to his left and found nothing. Then he gazed to his right and found the glimmer, now larger from distance decrease. In that moment, his jaw fell open. He saw a large whole in the fence. The hole was round and big enough to where only one person could fit into it at a time. Alex remembered the gap, as well as the entity standing next to it. The being held up a piece of glass to the sun, generating a faint light. Spotting him, she dropped the glass, smiled and adjusted her glasses.

  “Alex!” Julie shouted with animated elation. Alex, wearing a stare of disbelief, scuttled over to her. Julie then embraced him in a hug and spoke. “Thank God you’re still alive!” She said. Alex looked at her smiling face. He had only been locked up for one day, but he still missed her happy face. The more he looked at her though, the more he saw the scene of the lab play in his mind. His expression altered into indifferent eyes and a frown. “C’mon, let’s get out of here,” she said as she tugged at his hand. To her surprise, she looked back to see that he hadn’t budged even an inch. She had taken a closer look at Alex and saw the effects of one day in the red zone. All together he had black fluid dowsed all down his chest, as well as dried blood that she saw earlier from the lab. She saw that Alex had had his hood pulled down over his eyes, she didn’t want to believe it, but it was true: something’s changed. Alex pulled his hand out of hers and let it fall back to his side.