Disease X

by Garrett Williams

  They stared at him with judging eyes until one of them finally exclaimed, “Well it’s about time.”

  “I had to get the kid fitted. We’re out the gate soon,” Delsin excused. Alex stood and wondered at the fact that because Delsin had been digging for the keys, it meant that they were locked in. He wondered if he did it on purpose; to keep them from deserting. Or rather, for a different reason all together? The lock finally snapped open with the turn of one of Delsin’s many keys.

  “There we go ladies and gents. We’re on our way out now,” Delsin stated and the many people then began to find seats both in and out of the vehicles, all except for one particular vehicle. It was a grey pickup truck that looked far more outdated than any of its companions. Everyone around it avoided it as though it were radioactive, as though if they touched it they would be in worse state than they are now, being infected that is. Delsin opened that door. It opened with a loud whine and they entered the lot through it. They walked for a little while, then Alex stopped short by a small, thin car and watched as Delsin walked over to two large gates and begun unlocking them. As the sound of running motors filled the air around him, he looked over to the drab grey truck. He stared with curious eyes and absent mindedly walked over to the automobile. Delsin slid both gates open and then turned in time to see Alex walk toward the truck.

  Delsin then felt a spark of bitter emotion and exclaimed, “What are you doing?!” Alex turned and made excuses, and looked with the face of that of a child who had been caught doing something wrong. “We’re not taking that, you’re riding with me. Get in,” Delsin said harshly and scolding him. Delsin had been pointing to a small beige car that had been sitting at the front of the two large gates. Alex walked over to him feeling wronged and unjustly punished. As he made it over to the vehicle, Delsin had gotten into the driver’s side and started the automobile. Alex opened his side and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the one he considered the devil himself when he first arrived. He sat in a small chair overlooking the foregoing runners and Alex with serious eyes. Alex sat in his seat and saw through the windshield the image of Danny. He couldn’t help but feel like he was the one to blame for the death of his friend. He was new and scared, and it made people skeptical of him.

  “Stay with me, that way you don’t get lost out there,” Delsin ordered stealing the boy’s attention from the bitter mourner.

  “Yes sir,” Alex replied more respectfully.

  “Good,” Delsin stated finally as they rolled out into the yard and through the main gates that had been left open for them by other resistors. They left the garden of safety and entered the warzone.

  Danny watched them leave with growing bitterness, not toward the boy, but toward the people who had done him wrong. The bullet that had pierced his guardian’s temple kept emanating the sound of shattering glass nonstop in his brain. He remembered how he had brutalized Alex in a surprise assault and had almost killed who he knew to be the wrong person. Ashley had left but Danny didn’t care at the moment. She asked him if would be okay if she left his side for a moment. He gave her no response and she left quietly. He remembered being told by the people doing the autopsy that they had found a small paper in the shell and they had tried to dig in. It took too long for him so he left to the watch tower, then an hour later Ashley appeared to him. He appreciates her more than she might know.

  She stayed with him through his worst and best and she consoled him kindly when he first appeared there. Quiet and nearby flapping caught his ear and he turned to find a small paper that had been protected from the wind by a small splinter that protruded from the surface of the wood. He quickly scrambled to it, knowing fully what it had been. Ashley had to have left it. He turned it over from the splinter and it read more will follow. Danny did not understand what it meant, and then he did. It had to have meant that there will be more death, more heartbreak. Danny’s heart filled with rage as he continued to comprehend what the note meant. He remembered one place where there would be justice. Without hesitation, he shifted to his cloud state and crawled to the outside of the wall from his post. He had begun to storm off into the concrete jungle with giants staring down at him. He shifted again, and was lost going into the direction of the rising sun.

  The sun now dominated the atmosphere with a bright and blue sky. The sun’s rays beaded down on the heads of Heather and Gabriela as they walked between the monolithic buildings that were still standing but in terrible shape. As they walked, Heather had still not forgotten what had happened. The event played never endingly in her mind as she thought of the man who had claimed to give her shelter.

  He did not lie to her. It truly was his idea of peace. It was an issue as large as the Civil War. He thought that if people would ignore the problem, they would live in blissfully ignorant tranquility. The sound of the gunshot and the image of the bullet entering into his gullet nagged at her for his pity. She remembered that his face and chest turned black with red iron and the sight of one of his people, Gabriela, becoming his executioner. She looked at her as she was still traveling in the lead. She stared at the back of her straight and long black hair as though she was looking at her in the face. Gabriela turned to look and see if she was keeping up and noticed her leer.

  “What? Are you thinking about what happened?” She asked callously. Heather regained her wits and opened her mouth.

  “Why did you kill him in that way? You just let him bleed out.”

  “Because he deserved it, sick bastard,” She spoke harshly about him. Heather rushed to match her speed and continued to ask, feeling more shocked at the heartlessness of her answer.

  “Didn’t you know that he was like you though? Not too long ago you were fine with staying,” Heather asked as she walked at her side.

  “That’s because there was nowhere else for me to go. Besides, if you hadn’t suggested this, I would have still been fed and even paid,” Gabriela spoke trying to hide her shame and hypocrisy through bravado.

  “What are saying? Do you want to go back? Because it’s a little late for that, considering the state it’s in now,” Heather remarked recalling the riddled walls that decorated the outside and the dismembered shells that littered the ground around it.

  “I remember how you were last night. You wanted me to kill you, or even allow you to take the easy way out. So if you’re grateful to me than just say it. Don’t make it look like I’ve kidnapped you.” Heather nagged at her until their gazes met and Gabriela’s pace abruptly stopped and Heather, unaware, walked ahead of her. She turned to face her static body and stare into her calm and blasé face.

  “Fine, the truth is, I am grateful to you. But where am I to go now? Where are YOU to go now? There’s no way the clean freaks in the healthy district will let us back in. Even if we go into hiding, they’d find out eventually.”

  “You don’t know that,” Heather said firmly. Gabriela looked her and then to the road ahead. She continued.

  “Alright princess, here’s the deal. We’re going to come up to the main gate out of the Yellow Zone before the days over at this rate. All we have is this rifle I’m carrying, the clothes we’re wearing, and a few things that we thought, by some miracle, might be useful. If this is a part of your brilliant plan, then how do you propose we get past them?” Gabriela stated as she gestured to the road ahead.

  Heather began to feel sweat bead down her forehead with the tension. She thought for a moment that they might be able to fly out on a large boulder from the ground. She made and egg out of it after all. She thought as they then continued walking, until she felt a warm sensation glide down her upper lip and down to her chin. Heather stopped and put her small fingers to her lips. She then looked at them with surprise and a twinge of embarrassment as red iron slid down her face and stained her fingerprints. She took her sleeve and wiped across her face and the blood stained her sleeved arm. Gabriela turned around again and looked at her.

  “You okay?” She asked her.

  “Swell,” Heather re
plied as she began to feel light headed and fuzzy. Life liquid had run down her face again, she wiped, then coughed into her hand. She looked into them in terror. Both of her hands had been stained in blood, along with both of her sleeves. She left traces of red streaks leading to blackened iron streaming out of her mouth and nose. Gabriela turned to her after her cough and instantly rushed to her side.

  “You don’t look okay!” She stated right before Heather started to fall to the ground onto her knees beside Gabriela and slide down to her side. She coughed blood onto the ground as it ran like a cataract to the earth. She laid on her side with her companion kneeling over her.

  “Heather? Heather!” Suddenly through her own blurred and half-conscious mind she saw a blurred figure that was drenched in a sea of black. The figure descended from the heavens with a loud thump and Gabriela turned to meet his gaze. The man gave off and air of danger and uncertainty through his blurred face.

  “Crap!” Gabriela shouted. “Come on wake up!” Heather heard her muffled pleas through her ear that had been deafened from the pain and confusion of blood loss.

  After a moment had passed, Gabriela stopped shaking her dying friend and the man then pursued them. Gabriela looked at him and then back to her and took her items from her body.

  “I’m sorry,” She stated finally as she ran away.

  The man stopped and his eerie gaze wandered to her retreating friend. Heather turned her head and moaned for assistance as she watched her friend travel farther and farther until her being had disappeared to blur. Heather laid there choking on her own crimson and watched the man close in on her. She watched with anticipation and she could remember everything that had happened up that very moment. She remembered her birthdays, her life with her parents, the friends that she had had. Until the very moment of her infection, her life at the ranch house, and finally, the moment that was her close. Her eyes had abandoned her and grew heavy as the man had abandoned his gaze on the living and turned to face the dying. She heard her own heartbeat in her ears, until finally it was over. She saw darkness creep in on her once again, and this time gave in.

  IX

  Fury

  The sun rose up high in the middle of the clear blue ocean of the sky. The November air was cool and with a kiss of warmth from the sun. Danny stood once again atop a large building, a giant. He stood tall with both hands hanging by his sides, one of his hands clenched tightly onto the soot spotted paper with the single threat on it. He stared straight down into the single encampment that was only a few measly hours from his own home. He stared with menacing, vengeful eyes down at the soldiers who scattered like ants around their hill. They carried rifles and manned machinery outside of entire buildings that they had reclaimed from the ill.

  Danny could see them wandering from bridge to bridge that they had constructed to bind the giants in shackles. He watched them, feeling seething hatred like none he had felt. In his heart he knew the truth. He hated the military, those that keep saying they wanted to protect them from themselves. He knew it was a lie, they hated all of them, and they wanted the ill to be dead. Then they would be free of the disease. He clenched the paper tighter as thoughts raced through his mind, until his single fist had ignited into a flurry of orange and disintegrated the threat. The fire spread from his fist and crawled up his arm to his shoulder. His jacket had finally shown the wear of its time used and had begun to disintegrate at the speed of molasses on his arm. Damn you all. My whole life I’ve known you to be tyrants, a dictator. Hitler was attacked by his enemies but took his own life. I wonder if you’ll do the same. You’ve killed the people I love; you killed my friend, no, my father John Merrick. More will come; more of US will come for your lives! Danny’s mental tirade went on as he then clenched his jaws together in rage. I’ll send you all to hell! Danny’s flames had spread across his chest and connected to his feet and to his other shoulder. I’ll kill you all with my bare hands! Tears of rage streamed down his face until he could restrain no longer and flew into the air above them in a brilliant shower of flame, catching every ones attention until he shouted as though they heard him before.

  “Burn in hell!!!”

  He rocketed to the ground, coated in vibrant flame, toward propane tanks that had been set up. The men and women fired rounds upon him to no avail. He resisted as the alloys impacted his surface. He rocketed toward the ground and finally, upon impact, collided with the tanks. A mighty boom was heard as men and woman near were knocked dead in their tracks as burning kindle. They stood in horror at the sight of the demon that confronted them, hidden by flame.

  To their eyes the flame had grown irregularly as though it were bended to another will. The flame and smoke had swirled into a colossal pillar, the fire from the many corpses seeped from their black and scaly flesh. The pillar stretched to the clear sky, cloaking it in nothing but ashen smoke, blotching out the sun. The soldiers shot through the fire but nothing could stop the raging beast within it. The column then shrunk back down and revealed the monstrosity within. The flame seeped into his skin like moisture. The fluids that fed the beast soaked into him and coated his skin like a fleece.

  Danny walked out into the grey to see the terrified faces of many new recruits and the stern faces of their officers giving them courage, but to failure. Danny stared at the faces with his evil, clouded blue eyes blinded by his rage and sorrow. He bared his teeth at them in anger as they continued to shoot at him, the ammunition falling to the ground as though they were shooting a wall. Danny had had enough! He turned to his fire phase and became the long serpent dragon of legends. The flaming serpent, fed by hatred and gases, was at least fifty feet long and no more than ten feet wide.

  He zigzagged around large gunners and liquid nitrogen and burned through men and woman like twigs in a bonfire. They burned and screamed in agony and the cold claw of fear grasped their hearts and tightened until they had exploded. Tears of fear and pain ran down the face of a burning woman on the ground slowly passing, men had fallen from whole giants where the serpent had crawled and constricted them to ash and rubble. Whole vehicles had combusted and blasted at least twenty soldiers. They ran frantically for shelter and were swallowed whole by the burning viper.

  “Oh God! Screw this!” Cried the frightened soldier as he had abandoned his weapon and fled, leaving his comrades to burn. He ran breathing heavily and suffocating in the anxiety that grasped his heart. He sprinted away closing in on the sea of giants ahead of him thinking, God does exist! This is Hell! A slash had run through his feet, knocking him to the ground in burning agony. His legs became a roaring blaze and he fell to the ground. He looked back, screaming in pain from his burning flesh, at the healthy that were running amuck. Men and women burning in the streets only to finally collapse from either exhaustion or failure of heart. They spasm on the ground in pain, screaming for death, but it fled from them. He stared at the burning giants that began to fall as the serpent streaked clean through them. Bridges collapsed, leaving soldiers, crushed and impaled by rubble, littered as remains.

  He screamed, grasping for his canteen and flooded his legs with it, soothing the angry flames. He had torn off whole pieces of his uniform with his desperate bare hands. He then saw his red and crisped flesh and had grown lightheaded, and the serpent stood before him with its fire coaxed eyes staring into him. He knew that all of his people were dead, the whole life he had chosen to lead crumbled before him as he helplessly watched. The viper reeled back…then struck forward.

  “Monster!!!” The viper stopped static in its tracks mere inches away from his face. The snake stared at the soldier as his eyes clenched like a child hiding under his sheets from the darkness. His face reeked of grief and horror. He then slowly opened his eyes after one moment had passed and stared into the face of the burning animal. The viper contracted and shrunk from its colossal size down to mortal levels. The great pillar had disintegrated down to a single man again. His eyes glared at him with a curious seriousness. The sleeve to his jacket was no m
ore. Danny began to walk to the disbelieving soldier with his ash stricken jeans and his red, soot covered face. His face was perspiring and he did not have long. He needed hydration before he passed out. He stood tall over the terrified soldier looking up at him in fearful wonder. The phoenix on his collar had been smudged and clouded in melted leather.

  “How dare you. You call us evil, but look at you, you put every sick person into a prison where they die.”

  “What do you care?!” The soldier screamed at him, eyes widened. “You enjoy killing us! It’s an act of mercy that we put you here! But apparently we should have just killed you!”

  “You kill people in the streets out of fear. You kill people before for doing justice.”

  “This is injustice! Do you think it’s my call?! Your nothing but animals!”

  “If I’m an animal,” Danny stated maliciously, grabbing both sides of his head and abruptly placing his thumbs softly over his eye sockets, “Then you’re the prey.” His fingers ignited and the soldier cried in agony, grasping Danny’s arms over his own head. The soldier kicked his charred legs at him to stop. He kicked and screamed until his eye sockets blackened, then he ceased and his hands fell to the ground at his sides, limp and numb. Danny held his face a few more seconds, and then let his burning eyes fall to the ground with his head. He laid face up with his fire slowly crawling to the rest of his being.