by Allison Wade
Maybe because there were no more children.
For the first few years you didn’t notice, but then time passes and you realize that you are missing something, and the whole world loses its color, it becomes just a dead gray stone bouncing in the universe and you’re nothing but a parasite, a flu virus to which someone has finally found a cure.
You’re alive and healthy, but you know you’re dying, because you have nothing to leave behind and the finish line is approaching inexorably, day after day.
I was eighteen when it all began.
Now I’m thirty and I tried to do a calculation. Fifteen years have passed. I live in a city of forty thousand people, which is an average of four hundred deaths per year. It would be around six thousand people, if the data were correct. But actually, as I said before, people started to die much more than usual. Since the last census – now it’s done every year – we were twenty thousand. Half the number. Because nobody is born and we just die. And now the dead are so many that we do not know how and where to keep them, and they roam the streets. Creeping.
For five years I’ve been a member of the Volunteer Committee for Public Order. The dead catchers, we were called. It’s not a dangerous job, but it takes guts.
I had a colleague who shot himself.
Only that he pulled a bit on the left and failed to blow up his head. We found him in his mother’s room, wearing a flowered robe with his skull half ripped and one liquefied eye pouring down his cheek as if he wanted to cry; an abstract painting of clotted blood on the half of his face, while he did back and forth from wall to wall and seemed at peace with the world.
We caught him and brought him to the containment structure.
Now we keep them on the University campus. It’s been a couple of years since the classes were suspended, nobody wants to study anymore, no one has projects for the future. The most required jobs are those that allow the remaining population to have at least basic services. Food and energy. But in large cities some courses are still open and not just those of medicine. Somewhere there are still people who wants to study literature, although probably in eighty years there will be no one left to read books.
We will leave an abandoned planet full of useless things, as long as nature doesn’t claim them, deleting their traces forever. Who knows what will happen after us and which will become the new dominant species on the planet. The disease has also affected the primates, all those animals that are somehow related to us. There will not be a new evolution, not even in a million years. The human race has come to an end.
And in the meantime we are getting older and we look with concern to a future in which we’ll be weaker and weaker and we will just have to let ourselves die. There’s nothing we can do. The time is a straight line that goes in one direction, towards an inevitable chasm.
I can’t go on anymore. Writing all of this it just seems to me like a futile exercise.
To whom will I leave my words? No one will preserve them; these will be just painted pages, senseless, food for the mountain goats.
It’s been a few months since I left the city, I could not go on living every day on the edge of insanity, although after so long it has become almost like a habit.
What was the point on staying to patrol the streets? To collect those wandering and apathetic bodies? The citizens aren’t afraid anymore, they perceive them as an inevitable part of their lives and so you see things like two girls, among the new ones, those born soon after, those who came to the world when the world was already upset, walking on the street, chatting with each other, laughing. You are doing your duty, with your black uniform, the cross-shaped pin and your nametag. A dead man comes out from the corner, staggering, all gray, he has a short-sleeved shirt and you can clearly see the signs of the cuts on his forearms and the clotted blood that poured out. Another one that couldn’t take it anymore, you think, while the girls stop. They stare at him, make a comment in disgust and then burst out laughing again, passing over, as if everything were perfectly normal. And a knot squeezes your stomach, the ice freezes your veins. Is this the world we have become?
That day I realized it was really over, that my mind wasn’t going to accept it anymore.
I took off my uniform, I put on some comfortable clothes, and I calmly wrote my resignation letter. I packed my bags and supplies and I got in the car.
I love the peace and quiet of the mountains. I love the solitude. Many might think that in such a situation one wants to stay as much as possible in the company of the living, to give comfort to each another, help each other to forget our ungrateful destiny. No, thanks, I’ve seen enough of people; to me they are nothing more than dead still able to talk and eat. And I do not want them anymore.
I’d like that the last image I have of this land will already be what comes next: the solitude, the silence, the wild nature. It gives me a sense of peace; it gives me a glimmer of hope, because I know that even without us, life will still go on. This rock is still alive and throbbing; we were just a temporary illness.
I cut my leg while I was going for wood. It’s a bad wound, and I lost a lot of blood. Maybe I need stitches, but I’m too far away from any hospital and I cannot drive. Or maybe I do not want to. I cured myself with what I had at home, but the cut is infected.
I already feel the fever rising and the words on the page become confused. Maybe that’s why I decided to start writing, to leave a worthless piece of paper that nobody will read in a remote place where no one will ever come.
I know how these things end. My little show on this earth is about to close. Besides, it was inevitable.
I would like to have done more, to live more intensely, but I’m too tired. This new world makes us grow old quickly.
Now I’ll stop writing, I don’t feel so lucid, I’m going to lie down for a bit. Maybe I will go on tomorrow, if I’ll have something else to say.
If I won’t wake up blind and dumb and mindless and only able to wander aimlessly.
Creeping.
Folklore
Merry Christmas
When she saw the red drop leaking from the package, she knew that Santa Claus had granted her wish.
The Countess’ Collection
“This way, Claudette,” said the Countess of Saint Claire.
The anxious newly hired maid followed her into the dark room.
“And this is my favorite. You should dust once a day and pay attention not to break anything!”
The room was cluttered with shelves; on top of them were neatly placed several glass jars. Every jar was filled with a transparent liquid, and inside them were floating human fingers. A feast of indexes, middle fingers, pinkies, and ring fingers. Even some thumbs.
Claudette turned white.
“I had to fire the maid we had before you, because she was no longer able to hold the duster,” continued the Countess, casually.
“Was she too old?” guessed the girl with trembling voice.
“No, she ran out of fingers.”
Claudette gasped.
“But don’t worry, I won’t repeat the same mistake. I’ll leave you the right hand.”
Blue Ribbon, Pink Ribbon
Moss was pacing nervously in front of the bedroom door.
Back and forth. To and fro.
From the inside, came suffocated the screams of his wife. The time had come, after nine months of hopeful waiting.
A piercing scream, heartbreaking, and then the silence.
After a few seconds, the cry of a newborn.
The midwife came out, wiping her bloody hands with a rag. Moss went toward her.
“So? What ribbon should I hang?” his tone was anxious, impatient.
The woman, old, with silver hair and a wrinkled face, had a grave expression that made him turn pale. The death blow was given by her words, “She’s a girl.”
Moss stepped back, shocked, shaking his head, reaching out until he found a chair and collapsed on it. “It can’t be...”
On t
he table of the living room, there were two ribbons, one pink and one blue. The woman took the pink one and gave it to him. “You must hang this to the window. The inspector knows that your wife was near full term.”
“I can’t! I’ll put a blue ribbon. We will deceive him!” Moss had the eyes out of their sockets. He looked crazy.
“It’ll be useless. He would like to check...”
A tiny voice interrupted the dialogue, attracted by the noise. “Dad? My little brother is born?” The five-year-old girl crossed the hallway and went to hug her father’s legs. He looked at her with tears in his eyes, caressed her hair. “It’s not the time yet, honey, go back to your room.”
The little girl, though reluctant, nodded and left them by themselves, in silence.
Moss once again looked at the midwife, his gaze blank, defenseless.
“We could hide her. We’ll tell that she’s born dead,” hazarded the old woman.
“But how could we raise a child this way? Without anyone knowing? And, however, the inspector would like to see the body, he would feed it to the tiger anyway. There’s nothing we could do...”
Moss covered his face with his hands, sobbing slightly. He stood up, in cold blood, took the pink ribbon, headed to the front door.
“Don’t you want to see her first?” asked the midwife.
He shook his head. “What’s the point?”
He went outside, started to tie the ribbon to the window.
In the quiet of the village, resounded the roar of a tiger. The inspector was near; probably he would have visited before the end of the day.
None could avoid the royal law – no more than a female child for each family.
The Chewer
The shroud lies on my face like a cobweb, it tickles me, it bothers me. I try to move, but my body is cold and numb. Still, I feel the hunger devouring me from the inside; the craving clouds my mind, fills my every thought.
I open my eyes.
Darkness is complete.
I can smell the rotting flesh, it penetrates my nostrils, my hunger grows turning into pain... I must eat.
I make an effort to regain the control of my limbs; just the lower jaw seems to respond. It goes down, my mouth opens wide, I try to inhale a breath in my wrinkled and deflated lungs. The sheet that covers me is sucked in, I feel the cloth adhere to my tongue. For a moment it’s like suffocating, I gasp, longing for oxygen, but nothing comes inside my body, nothing comes out. I don’t need air. The hunger is the only thing I feel.
I shut my mouth, bite the cloth, I feel it between my teeth. I want to devour everything...
I start to chew inexorably, moistening the shroud with drops of saliva and acids coming from my body.
I bite, I tear, I chew.
* * *
The morning was gray, shreds of clouds looked like rain, yet a single drop of water hadn’t been seen for weeks. The month of August had been hot and merciless, but finally it had passed and September was bringing along its gloomy promises.
Anselmo looked hopefully from a chink of the window, waiting for a storm that would wash away the filth and the grief from the streets. He had the impression that the pestilential air was stagnating through the roads of the village, leaking in every corner, bringer of infirmity and death.
Death. He had been seeing it every day for a month.
All had started with the miller’s daughter. The most beautiful girls were the privileged victims. It looked like a simple fever, but then day by day it worsened, the swellings appeared, and within a few weeks, other cases showed throughout the village and the inhabitants started to drop like flies.
Anselmo put on his shoulders the black oilcloth, then took the mask with the long beak, stuffed with spices and aromatic herbs, he put it on his face and above it the glasses. He wore the gloves, then completed the figure with the round hat and the steak.
He went out in the courtyard, stroked his horse, that was already accustomed to seeing him in that outfit and didn’t bother anymore, and then he got on his cart for his daily tour.
The roads were calm and quiet; the whole town was in quarantine, just once in a while some lonely soul showed up to go to work in the fields or to confess at Saint Mary’s Chapel, to the Dominicans monks.
When someone met Anselmo, the only doctor left, he crossed himself in fear, moving away his look and running. He, otherwise, didn’t pay attention to these people, but just to the closed doors and barred windows, looking for a white rag informing of the presence of the sick ones. He brought ointments, garlic strings, talismans and some word of hope and sorrow.
He was still wondering if there was some way to dispel that obscure illness, he reasoned about the causes. Once completed his scouring, he promised himself to go back talking to father Guglielmo at the convent.
He was lost in his thoughts when a rag tied to a window drew his attention and made him stop.
He got down from his cart and approached the modest house. He knocked three times to the door.
“It’s the doctor,” he said hoping someone inside would hear him.
After a few moments, a woman came and opened. She was tiny, with gray hair combed in a bun and a sunken face, lined with wrinkles; she crossed herself and whispered, “My daughter… is sick,” then she made space for let him enter the house, addressing him to the bed where laid a young woman.
She was covered in sweat and mortally pale, her lips were livid and her breath labored. When she saw him come inside, looking like a crow, she opened her eyes wide in fear, bringing the covers to her chest, and she would have run away if she had the strength.
Anselmo approached slowly. “Don’t be afraid,” he said with his voice muffled by his grotesque mask.
The young woman’s dark hair was messy and stuck on her forehead. She must have had a very high fever and looked like she became delirious.
“She’s been this way since last night,” explained her mother with trembling voice, “since she came back from the prayer wake, after the sunset...”
Anselmo turned to observe the patient. Something grabbed his attention: a mark was showing under her shirt, on her neck. He removed the clothes to take a closer look, it seemed like a bite and it seemed recent. He turned toward the mother. “Is it possible that she was attacked by an animal? A stray dog maybe?”
The girl gasped and started to mumble confused words. “Him... the man... nach... dark man... rer... nach... rer...” then she rolled her eyes backward and lost consciousness.
Anselmo turned to the gray-haired woman, again. “Bring some cold water with vinegar and soak a rag in it, then put it on her forehead. Keep her checked for pustules or swellings, and if you find them, spread this ointment on them. Barr the door. That no one enters or leaves and that no one has contact with the girl. Each time you touch her, rinse your hands with vinegar. I will be back to check her; leave the rag at the window. And pray.”
The woman thanked him, making again the sign of the cross, murmuring a blessing, and Anselmo went back to his cart.
The sight of the girl had troubled him. The symptoms were similar to those of the plague, but there were no other visible signs, and that bite on her neck was a weird occurrence. He decided to immediately reach Father Guglielmo and dispel his doubts.
The convent was located on a hill, right outside the town. Surrounded by walls and isolated from the world, it occasionally welcomed beggars and pilgrims.
Anselmo stopped the cart tying the horse near the entrance. He took off his mask, his cape and the rest of his outfit and used the heavy iron knocker.
Father Guglielmo met him in the courtyard, welcoming him with a smile, gentle and sad at the same time. “What brings you here, in such dark days?”
“Father, I need to talk to you about a strange thing,” confessed Anselmo, and told him about his last visit.
“A bite mark, you say?” repeated the monk to himself. “And a mention to a dark-haired man and foreign words...”
Anselmo tortured his
hands impatiently. “Father, do you think it could be a plague spreader? Tell me, what could possibly have caused this plague? We are a small village; we do not trade with strangers...”
The monk seemed pondering. “Son, I think there are dark forces at work behind these unfortunate events. There are creatures that roam in the dark of night, feeding on the blood and energy of men, mainly attracted by young girls...”
“Like the miller’s daughter! She was the first!”
“These creatures... the bite is unequivocal,” said the monk as to convince himself. “Wherever they go, they bring pestilence and death, and who’s affected by their bite becomes one of them.”
Anselmo shuddered. “You mean that for that girl there is a fate worse than death itself?”
“Now, let’s not rush to conclusions. First we must make sure who that brown man was, chase him away, and catch him if possible, so we will know what we are facing.”
Anselmo nodded resolutely. “Good, I’m going to look for him this very night.”
The monk grabbed his arm: “But you cannot go alone. These creatures have unimaginable powers.”
“And who could I bring with me? The men of the village are scared and many are sick...”
The monk stroked his beard, thoughtfully at first, then more resolute. “Well, I’ll come with you. Now follow me, we’ll need the tools of the Lord to protect us.”
* * *
This is not enough for me; my hunger grows. Now that my shroud is consumed, my tongue wander around looking for something that satisfies it. I need to find more food.
It’s dark in here, I cannot see.
I feel something above me, a burden that weighs on my chest, something that crushes me.
My sense of smell intensified, I sense the stench of putrefaction, the scent of flesh and blood. There is something beside me, above me, if I lean just a bit... I force my tendons and the muscles of my neck, they seem to respond, I’m starting to move slowly.
