The Amoeba From The Ash

by Mercedes Prunty

  Ned shoulders slumped, “Pippa calm down, these people are not normal people anymore, they are sick”.

  Rosetta added, “Pippa you saw the train drivers autopsy, you saw that this is not just a bug that will go within in few days. You turn into something bad, something that wants to spread the infection… Then… Judging by how the normal Brain-Eating Amoeba acts the infected will probably all die within a few days once it had consumed all the brains tissue. The cure might be made but it will be too late to administer it, if your children get infected now Pippa, they will die on their own before a cure would get to them, if you get infected, you will die too”.

  “She is still wrong… She is a demon… She always does things to push the boundaries, she… she would have killed just for the thrill of it… To see what blood on her hands feels like”.

  Rosetta couldn’t believe how this woman was acting, Pippa had seen first-hand what the sickness could do, why was she still stuck in the old reality? Then a thought came to her, shock, denial, “Pippa, how are you feeling?”

  Pippa snapped her head to the doctor, “Fine”.

  “Is she sick?” Daniel’s worried voice cut through the air, stepping slowly down the stairs after hearing all the shouting, one of the new toys held tightly in his grasp.

  “Not by the amoeba, I think she is grieving for the old reality and it has come out as shock and denial”.

  “That’s rubbish”, Alicia hissed, “She has always had it in for me… She hates me, it’s nothing to do with what is happening now”.

  “Alicia she doesn’t hate you”, Ned tried to calm her down. “She is just not herself at the moment”.

  “No, go on mum, tell them what you really think of me huh”.

  “What I think of you?” Pippa mused, “Well let’s see, you’re a murderer now, a murderous little whore”.

  “What else?” Alicia pushed.

  “Well you’ve always been a force to be reckoned with, haven’t you? Going out clubbing before you are legally allowed, getting drunk, smoking, fighting, stealing… Sleeping around”.

  “I don’t sleep around and I don’t steal. Yes I have gotten drunk, gone clubbing but it’s just something… us teenagers do”.

  “Don’t you lie to me, I know you are sleeping around. I have seen your social media accounts, all those pretty, sexy poses you do. Showing off your body in tight fitting clothes and make up. I’ve seen all the guys liking and commenting on your posts… Leading them all on… Sleeping with them”.

  “Mum? I haven’t slept with any of them… The only person I have ever slept with is… Glenn…”

  Glenn stood a bit taller, prouder at her response and moved over to stand with Alicia, “That’s right”.

  “And how would you know sweetheart?” Pippa snapped, “You done it behind her back, she could easily have done it behind yours”.

  “Mum!”

  “Pippa that’s enough”, Ned warmed his wife.

  “Look at you… The world is falling apart but you still wear the pretty clothes, make up and do your hair to reel them in”.

  Rosetta looked Alicia over, she wasn’t even that overly dressed, she wore skinny jeans, a tight vest that did show off her ample cleavage but she also wore a pink hooded top over it which she could do up. Her hair was wrapped up in a messy damp bun out of her face and as far as Rosetta could tell the girl had no makeup on, her skin was clear, her lashes naturally dark.

  “You can talk”, Alicia hissed, “You’re the slapper not me… How many did you sleep with as a teenager when I have only been with one? What age did you fall pregnant with me mum? Fifteen? And the pictures I post are that… Pictures… You done it for real, stripping for money, reeling men in at such a young age, you are the whore, not me”

  Pippa looked shocked that her daughter had just aired her dirty laundry and past to total strangers, but Rosetta could see the teenager had finally had enough.

  “You can tell me that you think I’m disgusting all you like but I’m no worse than what you are!”

  “Alicia”, Pippa’s face and voice softened, “I’m… I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to make the same mistakes as me”.

  “Mistakes? You mean mistake, you mean me… I know for sure your precious little Daniel wasn’t a mistake”.

  “Look Alicia I mean it, sleeping around will ruin your life, you have a clever mind on those shoulders and to waste it on boys and then… Babies… I love you with my whole heart and Daniel too but if only I’d waited till my late twenties… So I could live a little, do things I will never get the chance to do again”.

  “Yeah so I’m a mistake, you regret having me. So why didn’t you just abort me then?”

  “I couldn’t, it’s inhumane to kill someone, even a tiny unborn soul but… I don’t regret you, just the choices and the attitude I had then”.

  “Well unlike you mum I do make good choices, I’m on the pill, so no babies any time soon for me. And you know that University you wanted me to go to that was close to home? Well I pulled that one and applied to one near Wales, the furthest away from you I could get that done my course!”

  Pippa ignored the University comment as she spoke, “The pill? When?”

  “Ellen’s mum booked me an appointment when she found out about me and Glenn. Said she wanted to keep me safe as she knew you wouldn’t condone the pill but would flip if I fell pregnant. She looked out for me, wanted to help my future… Not like you”.

  “Ellen’s mum took you? That stupid woman went behind my back? Telling you that sex is ok, that the pill is ok!”

  “Mum I’m seventeen, I can consent all I like. I’m not doing anything wrong and neither was she”.

  “But you and her went behind my back”.

  “Yeah so I didn’t end up a sour old cow like you”, Alicia snapped.

  SLAP!

  Pippa’s hand flew out and hit the girl around the face, Alicia didn’t falter in her stance, she took it with pride and just leered at her mother.

  “Pippa”, Ned cried out grabbing his wife’s wrists to stop her hitting her again.

  “It’s ok dad, I know how she truly feels now and its ok… Because I hate her too remember”. Alicia turned on the spot and snatched a face mask that Ned had put on the counter from his loot in the ambulance. She then went to the cupboards grabbing a kitchen knife to arm herself with and a bottle of wine from the wine rack that Pippa kept full. She opened the back door and vanished into the gloom outside, Glenn also snatching a facemask and following her out the door.

  Ned went for the door, “Alicia come back, you can’t go out alone”.

  “I won’t be, I have Glenn and mum’s bottle of red to keep me company”, she called out vanishing from his sight.

  Ned sighed turning to his wife, it was written all over her face, she knew she had gone too far with Alicia this time. He went to say something but was cut off by a wailing moan.

  “Ra-ah-ra”, Finch gasped from his bloodied corner, he had turned!

  4.47pm The Dawning Night

  Alicia stormed through the gloomy alleyway that ran behind her family’s home and would eventually lead out to where she wanted to go, Glenn was close behind and hot on her heels. She came out at the street adjacent to hers, crossed the road and came to a stop at a house that looked similar to her own but had an extension built on the side making it a four instead of a three bed. She went to the side gate opening it and waltzing through.

  “Alicia where are we going?” Glenn asked but he had an inkling, he had seen this house before, waited outside it with Alicia, waited for someone to come out to see them.

  Alicia said nothing and went for a flower pot with some Fuchsia’s in, lifting it up she revealed a key and then rushed to the back door. Unlocking it she opened it and entered, “Elizabeth?” she called out but there was no reply.

  “Alicia? Is this…”

  “Ellen’s house, yes, don’t you remember?”

  “What are we doing here?” he asked. “And yes I re
member”.

  She shrugged, “Guess I just want to be close to her, to say sorry somehow”.

  “Where’s her mum?”

  “Probably was at work, she probably never left there either… She will never know what happened to her daughter”. Her voice was deep with sadness and regret.

  Glenn wrapped his arms around her and kissed her wet cheek from the warm tears that now flowed down them, “She would understand, Ellen would. You know that right. She wouldn’t want you to die by her hand and she wouldn’t want to be one of those…Things”.

  “Maybe… But she was… So happy”, she wiped her tears with her hand, “But… she’s not the only one I let down”.

  “You haven’t let anyone down”.

  “I have, Tabitha. She went to class, I never went to warn her, I never went to tell her… She would have gone looking for us after class and found Ellen, dead”.

  “At least Ellen would be dead and not be able to harm her”.

  “Not Ellen no, but… Mr Goodyear… I didn’t know that the bites made people mad, turned them… He looked dead but he probably wasn’t. What if he attacked her? Because I didn’t warn her, because I didn’t kill him too”.

  Glenn was a little taken aback by her comment, “Alicia you didn’t know we had to kill people, it’s normally something we couldn’t do, even if we wanted to. Tabitha might have run before you did, maybe someone in her class turned as well?”

  She nodded, “Maybe”. But it didn’t sound like she believed him. She gripped the wine bottle and rummaged through Elizabeth’s draws until she found the bottle opener, she threw the cork to the floor, pulled her mask to the side and drank from the neck of the bottle. She paused for a moment offering Glenn some but he declined.

  “If we’re both drunk who will keep us safe”, he joked but Alicia didn’t care, she just drank more.

  She wanted that drunk feeling, the wave of alcohol in her veins to ease all the pain she was feeling, to ease the transition into this new, sick world. She knew alcohol worked, she had seen her mother use it plenty of times to blot things out and drink away her problems, like the growing debt of the unpaid council tax bill, the mammoth strain of keeping the house together when money was so tight.

  She lowered the bottle suddenly thinking of something, then she went to the door in the front room that led to the stairs and the first floor, she drank as she climbed them only stopping when she opened the door to Ellen’s bedroom. It was bright pink with a double bed and fluffy cushions, a fluffy rug and pink voile nets. Small fairy lights had been fashioned around the door frame and the bed frame casting the room in a magical glow. Ellen’s desk held a pink laptop, her phone charger and a photo album. Alicia lifted the album and took it to Ellen’s bed where she sat and flicked through it, gulping down more wine.

  “Hey Alicia what’s Ellen’s password?”

  She looked up to see Glenn had her laptop open, she hadn’t even noticed him follow her up, “Glenn that’s pretty disrespectful”.

  “I wanna check out the news channels and social media. See how bad this thing really is”, he looked determined.

  “ElandAl4eva”, she said then spelling it out for him. She didn’t care for what he was looking at, all she cared about was the person now missing from her life, her best friend. One photo the page fell on was at a barbeque one of their families held one year, they must have been fourteen, Ellen had her tongue out and her eyes crossed, Alicia was pouting. She took it from the album and cradled it in her arms, sobbing silently.

  “Crap”, Glenn said from the other side of the room.

  “What is it?” She asked, putting the picture in her jeans pocket and going over to the desk.

  “Look at this!” He exclaimed and showing her the screen, on it was a news report from around half an hour ago but not from a British online paper but from an American one.

  ‘The Daily USA Informant,

  All contact with the United Kingdom has been lost, no communications have been made within over an hour to their governments. The Whitehouse has declared the country to be lost. It is believed that a deadly infection has spread not only over the United Kingdom but over most of Europe and even going as far as Russia. All flights in and out of America have been cancelled, many planes being forced to turn around or land on remote islands to be quarantined and put in isolation until the extent of the infection is known. The last known contact with the UK stated that they believed a virus to be carried in the volcanic ash which erupted from a volcano in Laacher See Germany but it is not known what is causing the infection and why. More on this as news comes in…’

  She breathed in a deep breath and held it for a moment, so like they had worked out the ash was indeed causing all of this but why? How? What on Earth was in the ash to make people so sick, to turn them? Volcanos had erupted many times before and caused nothing like this, maybe some air transport chaos but not a sickness.

  “If they lost all contact how are you able to see this? Wouldn’t our communications be down?”

  He shrugged, “Maybe they just mean the countries officials like the government and the Queen, not the little people like us? The stir crazy and mostly infected citizens”.

  She nodded and bit her lip as she read on.

  ‘The Daily USA Informant,

  It has been found that a meteorite plummeted into Earth’s atmosphere a few days ago crashing in Germany. NASA have apparently sent teams to Germany to recover parts of the space rock for studies but due to the volcanic eruption disrupting communications they have not been able to communicate with them well. Is this the cause of the random eruption from the normally quiet volcano? Or is it just mere coincidence? Could this be where the monstrous outbreak derived from?...’

  “Do you think Rosetta knows about the space rock?” Glenn asked.

  Alicia shrugged, “I don’t think so, do you think it caused the illness?”

  “Have no idea but I think we should take this to her and show her”.

  “Agreed”, Alicia said sobering a little, the drunk feeling not feeling so good now.

  “HELP ME!”

  A scream rang out from the front of the house, both Alicia and Glenn ran out of Ellen’s room and burst into the front bedroom to look out over the gloom filled street. A woman was running away from them, the turned, a whole army of them running right towards the turn into her road. Her road where her family and Rosetta where, where Daniel was!

  “We have to stop them reaching my road”, Alicia said panicked.

  “What about the woman?” Glenn asked but as he spoke a new scream sounded out, a blood curdling cry of pain as hands pulled at her hair and clothes, shoving her to the ground just as teeth reached her body and bit down hard tearing out chunks of flesh and tendon.

  “Oh god”, Alicia gasped, “We have to hurry, if they find the others… Daniel”.

  “They won’t ok, we won’t let them”.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “I think so, come on”.

  5.01pm Home

  Ned held his back to the dining room door as the body who used to belong to Doctor Finch threw itself at it making it shake and shudder under his weight. “It won’t hold for long, it’s only an internal door”, He called out to Pippa and Rosetta.

  Daniel was crying in the corner being held by his mother, “We can’t kill him Ned, we can’t”, She pleaded with him, “It’s not right, he might still be in there somewhere. Wanting to be saved and Daniels already seen too much death”.

  He knew what she meant, that Finch might still be conscious in that body but he remembered what Finch had asked, that he didn’t want to be one of those things and hurt the people cared about, “We have to do something Pippa”.

  Rosetta stood forward and grabbed a large vase like ornament.

  “PUT THAT DOWN!” Pippa yelled standing away from Daniel, “That was my mother’s”.

  “I’m sure considering the circumstances she wouldn’t mind”, Rosetta said annoyed.

 
; Pippa snatched it from her grasp, “She would mind very much, she was highly religious and would turn in her grave to know her things were being used to murder people”.

  Rosetta grabbed Pippa’s shoulders shaking her a little and looking deep in her eyes, “Murder? I will murder you in a minute if you don’t stop the whining and let us deal with Finch the right way. He didn’t want to be turned, he wanted to go out peacefully and if we don’t deal with him now then we ‘ALL’ will end up the same way as him, infected and turned”.

  “Get out of my home”, she hissed, “How dare you threaten me”.

  “It’s not a threat”, Rosetta snapped.

  “Ladies please”, Ned called out, just as Finch threw his body at the door again causing it to splinter in places, “This isn’t going to hold much longer, we need to do something now”.

  “We could leave dad, climb out the window?” Daniel suggested.

  “They’re all locked”, Pippa said, “And the keys in the kitchen draw”.

  “Smash them?” Rosetta also suggested.

  “Over my dead body will you deface my home like that”, Pippa snarled.

  “That could be arranged”, Rosetta retorted, how could this woman be so dim and not see what needed to be done?

  BANG, CRUNCH, SNAP, “RAH-HA-AH”.

  “Smash the windows!” Ned commanded as the door splintered more, he could now see Finch’s hungry eyes peering at him through a long slit in the wood, “The insurance company will cover replacements”.

  “Why is it you think you can come into my home and judge me?” Pippa asked Rosetta completely ignoring what her husband was telling her.

  Rosetta sighed, “Look lady this is a life and death situation here, I’m judging you on your lack of skills to survive and your lack of family skills”.

  “What is that supposed to mean? My lack of family skills. Do you even have children?”

  “No but I know you’re doing it all wrong, like how you treat your daughter, you clearly have some issues there, fear of her growing up, jealousy perhaps but in no way do I think it’s because of you not wanting her to be like you”.