Disease X

by Garrett Williams

  “You little son of a bitch!! I knew you couldn’t be trusted! He was wrong!” He shouted deliriously in his face before he struck him again.

  “You don’t deserve to live!” He continued as he tried to force Alex off of the edge by the throat. Alex fought but gained nothing through his efforts. He spat and sputtered until he could get words out.

  “…I…I didn’t…do anything…!” Alex moaned and groaned through his struggle.

  “Don’t lie to me! I saw you kill her! Why should I believe you now?!” Danny retorted furiously.

  “If I wanted to kill him I would have absorbed him!!!” Alex finally got out through his effort.

  “Why would I have someone else do it if I were so powerful?! Why don’t I just kill all of you while I’m at it?!” Alex finally let out in a rage of the new life he had been leading. He was sick of it. He was exhausted of running, and he was exhausted of being a criminal. He looked back up at Danny whom, to his amazement, had let go of him. His hand stood static in Alex’s face whilst his other hand fully engulfed in flame rested at his side. The flame went out and returned to the structure most familiar to Alex.

  Danny slowly stood up and speared him with a look of disbelief. He knew that what he was saying was true. It truly wasn’t him. Danny turned and looked at the ground as he walked slowly away from Alex like molasses. Alex finally sat up, cautiously, and gasped greatly for air. He breathed heavily and slowly got to his feet with great unbalance as he stood on the edge. He stared at Danny while breathing through him mouth. He was ignoring him, and he was a ghost to him. He stood in awe of this new behavior and slowly raised his arm toward Danny as he stumbled in his direction

  “Hey…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said like that, I – “, Danny turned in rage at him and stared at him as though he had murdered his father. Alex stepped back, startled but concerned. He stared at the new person in front of him. His eyes were bloodshot and moist. He could see his sclera’s as they flushed red with a sentiment curious to Alex. His breathing was heavy and unstable. His hands were shaking. Alex tried again to give Danny his hand and Danny burst into flame and he could see pieces of his body disperse into flame and his whole being flew away in multitudes of directions as they followed a separate, yet common course. Alex watched the individual fires fly to one far away area that Alex never knew, as they left his vision into the sunset. He stood alone…in the middle of the roof.

  Alex stood still as water after a storm. He knew perfectly well who could be doing these things. As he thought back, he began to feel increasingly more betrayed, not just by what he did back at the raid, but by his act of continual assault on people who can’t even see him let alone hurt him. There was only one other person Alex knew that could get away that fast. He remembered Levi like a brother hates his other sibling.

  He was the one who taught him the basics of combat and to not trust others. He was a fool to trust him when he offered to help Levi. He began to feel more and more like he just used him to steal food and supplies. If it were not for Levi, however, he would not have gotten to see his dear friend, or rather his sister, Julie for the last time. He could only feel a concoction of sorrow and rage for having brought this upon them. Although a coward, this world had not taken his sense of empathy away yet. Alex looked off to the large behemoth of a base with its jaws wrapped around it. He then knew what he had to do in order to regain their brief trust again…He needed to finally find and kill Levi. His deeds mustn’t go unpunished any longer.

  Heather laid back in the clutches of slumber as her head rested on the yellowish white pillow. Through her subconscious she saw nothing but black, however, she listened to voices that beckoned her attention. She did nothing but rest and listen to the voices echoing through her brain as the voices of the ones she loved filled her mind and the audio of memories playing back like a record player through her mind’s eye. The voices grew louder and louder until she heard knocking upon the door, and again, and louder again until her eyes flew open. She had begun to gently and uneasily sit up in the bed and watch as her roommate walk over in callous curiosity. She opened the door and it unveiled a man in a black business suit with a red tie and grey slacks. Heather looked past him to find that Grey had been standing behind him.

  “I thought we don’t work today,” Cross Deity had stated.

  “He’s premium,” Grey said plainly but Heather noticed something changed in his voice; it was more imposing and commanding.

  “Very well,” Cross Deity exhaled and walked with them. Heather rose to her feet in curiosity and began to follow them down the hall, Grey stopped and raised and arm to her.

  “Stay in your room. She’ll be back.” Heather stood still and looked at this new character for a moment, then walked back in and shut the door. She leaned up against the door. She didn’t understand what had just played out before her eyes. But all she could tell was that Cross Deity and the man had left then entered another room not far from their current living quarters. She had walked back to her bed and sat down. She sat and wondered what kind of business had been planned for this man and her. She began to lean against the wall and felt reverbing pulses coming from the next room. It caught her attention as she began to press the side of her face to it.

  She could only here bumping and vibrations coming from the wall itself and the sound of a higher frequency stripping. She listening longer and even began to hear strange flapping, almost like wings. Heather pulled her head back as the noises reached her ear and she nearly fell off the bed. She could see the whole wall begin to throb. She watched as she began to hear noises and then began to step backward to the other side of the room. She did all that she could to escape the noises. She wrapped a pillow around her head but the noise tenaciously protruded her ears. She then sat in the corner, letting her imagination fill the blanks within her mind and wondering if her roommate was still alive.

  Dusk had finally fallen and began to descend into pitch darkness within the dimly lit street that Alex’s third home had rested on. He had been unintentionally adopted by a new life style. The people he was around had become his many reluctant relatives within a matter of a day. Tomorrow was the day he would go with a man he had never heard of named Delsin. He would learn field work and marshalling supplies. Alex swore to himself that no matter how sick it made him, he would have to diverge from them, and kill Levi. It needed to be done to assure his safety and the safety of the people who have threatened him since his arrival. Alex had been wandering the center of the base where every building orbited around him.

  Yet he was not the only person to wander the dark street. People began to crowd in a circle around a foreign object. Alex wandered through the people looking for some way to observe what had occurred. He walked for at least three minutes before he got a good view of what had been the source of the concentration. He then saw two other beings walk toward the center and as one of the beings arm was set ablaze, it became clear of the figures identities in the dark. It was Danny; he held an appearance of heavy and callous disdain. Ashley was the other figure, who held more of a sorrowful appearance. The moment Danny’s arm was consumed, the crowd silenced and watched intently. Alex watched with uncertain anticipation.

  “Thank all of you for coming. Although not many of you may have known them, they were freedom fighters none the less. No matter how long they were here,” Ashley said reverently.

  Danny continued to hold his sturdy expression as she spoke. Alex stared at him and knew he was not well, not after what he had witnessed on the roof. Ashley continued. “Lisa, she had a child, you know that? That child had her mother taken from her too soon. It happens far too often in this world. Our children are orphaned in this cold-war life that we live. So much so that killing them would be a kindness. They grow up cold, never truly knowing love.” Danny began to crumble as she continued. Alex began to notice such and stood amazed within the large crowd of at least one hundred people. “We stand as hope, a chance to hit the reset button on our lives a
nd our rights. The children are the future, we need them. More important though, they need us to raise them to lead if the killing continues. Children learn by example, how can we teach them good if we can’t do it as well?” Danny then began to give off a far more crushed appearance as his girlfriend continued. He knew well where she was about to go. “Merrick embodied this character every day of his life. We weren’t prepared to bury two of our family tonight,” Danny looked back at the still puppets that were his friends, lying underneath large bundles of news paper and wood scraps from the debris outside the wall. Merrick’s face was still unveiled as they didn’t gather enough in time. Danny looked back at the crowd with a single tear streaking down his face as he raised his burning arm in a ninety degree angle. Alex stood stunned as the person he once considered to be the devil showed his pain. It was a sign of weakness that he had not shown in years. “He left behind a life of comfort, of normality, all for the hope of peace because he saw a little boy. He wanted us to live with them, the healthy. He formed us together for that one common dream. We must remember that we can’t give up because he’s gone. Many of you didn’t even know who he was, but he made an effort to exploit the good in all of you. Some may complain that we run out of supplies to quick because he’s too kind. He wanted to prove to the world that we aren’t the supposed gods of destruction that the world had made us out to be. He died before he got to see that day. And he died at the hands of a coward behind a scope.”

  Ashley looked at Danny and noticed his moist face. She raised her hand to his back to console him. Her hand felt the glowing hand’s heat radiate onto her skin. Danny looked back at her with the same anguished look and stared back at the crowd of sick people. Ashley ended with these remarks. “He said that the only regret that he could have is…is that he wouldn’t be able to see that boy truly become a man one day. The day when he would be strong enough to protect the people he loved. He was a father to that boy who had lost everyone he loved in the disaster…and he was a father to the rest of us as well… including me,” Ashley said with each word becoming harder and harder to say as she continued, she was choking up more and more with sadness until her hand had fallen from Danny’s back. A hand came down and cupped hers. She looked to Danny with her own tears streaming from her blue eyes. They shared a moment and then both released their hands and turned to the infected. Alex felt astonished. He had completely misjudged who Daniel Levitz was. He was another human, not another self-proclaimed deity. “Some of us don’t know who either of them were; others loved them with their whole being. But one thing that makes us family…is our weakness. It’s the thing that could end murder, the thing that could end violence and invoke peace. It is our weaknesses as humans. They will both be thought of and prayed for. Farewell…family,” Ashley finally finished and Danny walked over to the two lifeless shells.

  He stared into Merrick’s closed eyes and cleaned wound. As Danny took his final glance at him, he looked up again and in his own mind, he saw him, and he uttered those last words to him with a smile. We have to be an example for them here. When they look at us, they can’t see the monsters or demons they were told to believe in. Danny stood in astonishment at these words and the image in his mind faded. His heart sank as he looked back at the body of his father figure. A tear fell from his face and hit the ground where Merrick laid. He shut his eyes tight and lit the papers with his hands.

  He opened his eyes as the fires began to consume him. He hoped that he would spring up and walk away from it. Nothing happened, it was true, and Merrick had left them. He walked over and lit the bundle hiding the whole body of Elizabeth’s mother. The crowd and Alex watched for hours until twilight had faded and gave way to the darkness. People began to walk around Alex like a sea of human as Alex stood, still in awe of the event. He never even got to talk to him and yet he felt like he knew Merrick like a friend from the display the couple had given. Danny knelt by the fires and began to silently weep. Ashley came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. The two stood static in that motion. Danny stared at the ground and through his blurred vision, saw his own tears stain the concrete. Alex stared until he felt a presence beside him. It was the man that they referred to as Delsin. Delsin stared at the two with him until he finally left the three of them alone in the dark. As he left, Alex watched him leave with one sentence to him. “Welcome to the Immortals.”

  VIII

  Corruption

  The Darkness crept in on Heather once again, but in sleep this time. The dingy sheets lay across her still body as the night had drawn deeper into the early morning. The vibrations in the wall just over her head never ceased. Heather, on the other hand, had grown accustomed to it and had finally fallen asleep. The room was a black that could only be levitated by the small switch that was the source of light on the wall. Heather awoke and ended her session of dreams through the cancellation of the banging.

  She awoke surprised and curious at what could have possibly ended the rough even in the room next door. She was still reclined in her bed as she leaned her head until her ear met the wall. She then heard a slight huffing as though someone had just battled and was dying of suffocation. A creaking could be heard moments later and heather quickly slammed her head back into the pillow she rested on. She heard footsteps move past her door and a sigh of relief came from her mouth as she began to sweat in fear. Her relief was hampered by the sound of approaching unsteady footsteps in the darkness outside of her room.

  Heather quickly leaped from her bed, eyes still weary from rest. She began feeling around the room for a place to position herself for her intruder. Her door slowly creaked open and her fear grew as she heard soft whimpering emitting from the deeper blackness of the outside halls. Her door had been fully opened and in stumbled a figure that had been hunched and stammering over its own feet. Heather, in fear, ran past the figure that had already fallen to the ground. She slashed the switch up and the room illuminated with a brilliant white that blinded the two residents. Heather’s vision returned and the figure was then revealed. Heather stood in worry and anguish over the hunched and whimpering Cross Deity. Her white dress that had gone to her knees had been scuffed with one of the sleeves completely destroyed. Her hair was mangled and frizzy. Heather noticed that both of her wrists and her neck had been circled in red and black marks.

  Heather rushed to her roommate and grabbed her by the side and staggered her over to her bed by the window. Cross Deity gave no leeway, she was still, she would not move a muscle, and Heather had to carry her to whole way. Heather quickly slung her heavy and limp body on her bed and stood over her concerned. “Cross, are you okay?” she got no reply, just dead crimson and sapphire eyes. Heather asked again and this time all she received were half conscious sobs from her friend. Her eyes filled with water as she lay face up on the bed, they streamed down the sides of her face and she harshly turned from Heather and continued to audibly sob. “What happened?” Heather asked as gently as she could. Cross Deity inhaled unsteadily, wiped both her eyes and replied harshly through her sorrow.

  “What do you think?”

  Heather stood and thought. She asked again. “What do you mean?”

  “Did he not tell you what we do?!” Cross deity turned her head back to her with fully alive eyes beaming hatefully at her naiveté.

  “Grey said that you work in production or some – “, Heather’s mind had cleared and she then understood Grey’s sense of peace, so much so that his agenda had been as simple as the alphabet. To him, peace meant cattle rustling. He was the rustler. They were cattle; made for nothing more than to be owned.

  “God…” Heather said to herself as her hand hovered over her mouth.

  “God? There is no God!” Cross Deity cried out in agony of her anguish. Heather put both of her hands on Cross’s shoulders and tried to calm her heart. Heather looked at her and noticed something on the back of her shoulder. It was a blackened burn that had been branded into her skin. It resembled simply a vertical sash with
a skirt-like object at the foot of it. Heather hadn’t noticed it before, she decided to say nothing and spoke to her roommate and more to herself.

  “We’re getting out of here.” Cross deity heard and immediately sat up in shock at her soft friends claim.

  “You…what?” She asked Heather meekly. “Do you see this?” She turned her shoulder to her to fully reveal the brand Heather had already witnessed. “This is the toga muliebris. It a symbol of the only thing that we are good for,” Cross deity gestured toward it with one finger.

  “We have to at least try,” Heather stated trying to sound optimistic for her weak friend. Cross Deity turned back to her and looked at her with pleading eyes.

  “Hey…Heather, right?” she asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you happen to have a knife on you?” Heather looked at her more sadly then before.

  “No.”

  Cross Deity then looked down with more anguish and curled her knees up to her face on the bed. “Pretty soon they’ll do what they did to me to you,” She said through her pale legs. Heather put her hand on her mouth as though thinking of an idea.

  “With or without you, I’m getting out. I’m leaving early morning, before people are up and about,” She confessed through her hand.

  Cross Deity buried her head in her knees and closed her eyes. She thought of her life here and how she was hardened to live like cattle. She had the brand for it and everything. She had never tried to escape because of the armed rustlers. If someone would try to get away, they would die in vain of escape. No one would miss them; all they were was property and resources. She had never truly been out in the sun. She never really met people other than the other rustlers. She had no life, and she didn’t have any one to truly love her or help her, not in the way Heather had in the brief moments they had been together. Cross Deity’s head rose from her coffin of sorrow and finally spoke.