I can feel my blood pressure rising again, along with the heat in my face, as the fear comes back with the doctor’s words. I must listen. I can’t be ignorant. I can’t let my inner demons win.
Radio Host: It took years to get approval to run clinical trials on the vaccine for the Ebola virus, how much time until we can cure it?
Doctor Yalho: Obviously, development of this vaccine will take a detour from the usual rigorous scientific process, Robert. In the meantime, prevention can be successful. Listen, you people out there. Basic hygiene. Your pets are a hazard to your health. Put them outside—
Ugh. He’s repeating himself. I switch off the radio and feel relief. Now I can focus on being pragmatic.
Bang. A gunshot. I look out the window and see nothing. It’s been weeks since moms wielding iPhones were strutting down the street in their too-tight fitness gear, pushing their ugly children secured firmly in tri-wheeled prams. To them, a child is just a tick on their generic things-to-do-in-life checklist. It sits right above the don’t-get-fat-and-out-of-shape-or-your-husband-won’t-fuck-you item. Hannah had the right idea—no kids, no worries, and I always wanted to fuck her because of her pre- not post-baby body.
Focus, Bill, I tell myself, wishing the Xanax would hurry up. A dulled brain makes for a happy me.
I also miss the anachronistic elderly couples smiling with their top hats, sun umbrellas, and perfectly fitted false teeth. No, not anachronistic. They were in the right time; it was the world around them that was wrong. I’m wrong too.
No planes fly overhead.
As usual, cars sit in driveways. They’re gathering dust and bird shit. Bird shit that’s probably infected with pathogens.
Stylish curtains are drawn across windows boarded by ugly solid timber. Homes turned into prisons. Children’s multi-colored playsets sit lonely on the inch-too-high front lawns. No one is at work. Even work isn’t at work.
A V of ducks flies overhead and my stomach ties itself in knots. One of the houses has a chimney. Bird poops, poop ends up in fireplace, child touches poop with hands. Presto. Infection. Everything I once loved about the world seems hostile now.
I obsess over the ducks. Could they have migrated from Europe? Can cockroaches pass on the disease?
Much of the internet has been shut down to try to prevent the spread of fear. There’s one propaganda website that’s maintained by all major governments. It started as mocking memes until the virus spread to tens of thousands. Those memes became graphic images that tore rips in the fabric of people’s sanity. A feedback loop of grammatically inferior posts in ALL CAPS.
THE END IS HERE. WERE ALL GONNA DIE.
A dog barks in the distance.
Bang! Another gunshot, but this time I see a duck tumbling out of the sky. It lands in the leafy park behind the opulent homes across the road. Curtains are brushed aside, wide eyes peering out. Dickhead! What if it’s a carrier?
“Act sane, be sane,” Mother used to whisper to herself while staring up at the corners of the ceiling. She’d pick at her skin, fidget about; she had an IQ in the top 2.5%, which only sought to make her illness more dynamic.
“I can’t eat until it’s right,” she’d often say during her starving states, fork in hand, nudging food morsels into their assorted colors. Her beans were sliced evenly into quarters. Those of inadequate length were cast aside. She was in and out of the hospital like a morphine addict.
“Act sane, feel sane,” I say out loud, remembering my mother’s love and how she defended me from my father, often taking a beating as a result.
The Xanax finally kicks in and I can focus. I throw back the covers, swing my hairy, wrinkly legs over the side of the bed, and tuck my feet into old-man slippers. Immediately, my spine twinges, but the pain doesn’t come. Thank God for analgesics.
I manage to shuffle to the bathroom, noting the cool morning temperatures. Any time spent showering was done with Hannah. It was our ‘together time.’ We put in double sinks and two showerheads. Watching her shower made me a religious pervert, and I prayed to the god of quality bathroom plumbing, Lord Pipeman—disclaimer: may not be a real god—while watching the water drip from my wife’s beautiful breasts.
In that watery, steamy bubble of time, she saved the best of herself for me, and I for her.
I take out my aging toothbrush and smile at the familiar bent bristles. The tube of toothpaste is folded over. I squeeze some out and, after a thorough brush, throw the toothbrush back into its glass with a clink and suck in a breath of fresh, minty air. “Ahhh.”
Wake up, meds, radio, clean teeth. See? Not forgetful, no Memo virus. Still sane.
In the mirror looking back at me is an old man.
“You look like Richard Gere,” Hannah used to say, and she’d give me that sly smile. Now, that old man in the mirror has too much stubble. The skin beneath my eyes is stained livid gray and sagging in the shape of bagpipes.
Once, about two years back, a thirty-something filly flirted with me at a local bar. Upon returning with drinks to Hannah, she laughed at me like the idea of a younger woman wanting me was some kind of self-delusion I’d made up to impress her. For weeks, I moped, unable to look at myself in the mirror.
Hair had sprouted from uncommon places—and my belly skin hung in small folds. Imagine all that sagging, fatty flesh jiggling up and down on that beautiful young specimen. To dampen the irreconcilable shame, I bought Hannah a diamond necklace to make myself feel better. A man who buys his wife a diamond necklace isn’t ridiculous; he’s a kind gentleman with means, and thus worthy of respect.
I smack the side of my head and bring myself back into the present. Pity is the enemy of action.
After neatly making the bed, pressing out every crease, tucking every corner, and carefully folding my pajamas back on the pillow, I dress myself in my daily slacks and a button-up shirt. The same ones I wore to work three months ago. Before I was fired, before the virus—images of overrun hospitals and terrified faces from the television flash before my eyes. Seeing those scenes on television ruined everything.
Up until then, I’d had another routine. Wake up, think of Hannah, take meds, think of Hannah, brush my teeth, think of Hannah. And the memories were so clear, happy, and now they were being overrun by news replays depicting Europe’s demise. Now I have to listen to the radio or I’ll be driven mad by anxious thoughts.
I axed—as in chopped it with an actual axe—my television into pieces. It felt so good to get revenge for what it’d done to my mind. As the axe hit the screen, there was an almighty crack and a spray of glass. It covered the living room in a beautiful crystal mess. I wasn’t going to let fear win.
Thump. Thump. Thump. I clutch my chest. Take a breath. The room flexes and sways. “Act sane, be sane,” I cry out.
Calm. My fingers are soft and flexible like dandelion stalks, the warm air gently flowing through my nostrils.
I’m standing in my bedroom, shrugging up my slacks and then putting a belt through the loops. I grin as I go down one notch. Ten pounds gone in a week. Thirty to go. Worry is the enemy of fat.
Planning can save your life. When I first heard that millions of people had contracted a virus, I went straight to Wal-mart and bought ten thousand dollars’ worth of supplies to ride out the virus’s outbreak period.
Squeak, squeak.
What’s that? I think. Shit. My skin crawls. Mouse trap!
I leap to the wardrobe and pull on a hazmat suit. The army, cops, dicks with guns—whatever—they gave out containment boxes weeks ago, before the street quarantine. One size fits all: an American large.
The fat wriggle and squeeze into it. The slim swim.
All living things have become the enemy. I go downstairs to the kitchen where the traps are set as a perimeter by the back door. The captured rodent thrashes about like it’s having a seizure.
The mouse stops and stares at me; the threat of infection flashes as smugness in its eyes.
I tried not to kill Garfield, my
cat, but the thought of him walking around the house licking insects and rats, then coming to me for affection…he had to go.
Death equals life.
My hazmat suit rustles loudly in my ears as I replace my slippers with hiking boots. I stomp on the little creature, and it makes me feel sad. Really sad. But thanks to my medication, the sadness won’t send me to bed, hopeless, ready to die.
The tiny animal’s corpse is bloody and gross, so I pick it up with BBQ tongs, undo all the back door locks, and fling it onto the grass while holding my breath. The microbes in the air might infect me.
I soak my rubber boots in bleach, and then I use that same bottle of bleach to wipe down everything the mouse touched. I boil a pot of water and take care to wash my hands five times over in it, adding bleach before each submersion. The burning is almost unbearable.
Hazmat off, slippers back on, back on schedule. Coffee time.
Wake up, meds, radio, clean teeth, coffee, then breakfast.
The damaged television stands still in the living room. It’s empty without its screen, unable to spew forth its fear-giving images. The house feels bigger when my brain is more reasonable, less suffocating. Knowing is the enemy. Mass fear, social abandonment—it’s in these moments our humaneness matters most. At least on my radio station, the academics don’t use phrases like ‘mass destruction’ or ‘the end of the world.’
Exhaustion washes over me and weakens my legs. I am not helpless. I am in control. Food. Low blood sugar.
I finish making my coffee and throw back the espresso shot before sucking on the spoon of cream and thinking of Hannah’s funny pink apron. It tied under her breasts and finished at a bow perfectly at the dip in her back.
A perfect fleshy present, just for me. I will carry on our legacy. Bill and Hannah forever.
A notch down in my belt deserves a hefty breakfast. Eggs, sunny-side up. Sausages, herb and garlic. Ketchup. All things sweet and yummy and sane. And bacon, of course. The sanest food for the worst of sinners.
My stomach teases itself by dwelling on the smells of spicy garlic and sizzling eggs and everything awful slips away. I assemble the ingredients on my plate with tongs and sit down to eat.
It’s a precious moment, so full and satisfying that I cling tightly to it until a pin pricks my bubble of ignorance. The sausage hits my tongue, and I pause. The tongs. I inhale. Sharply. My lungs yank the sausage deep down my throat until it lodges. I can’t breathe. I stand, bringing my hand in front of myself and punch myself in the gut. The piece of assassin sausage flies out of the airway, bounces along the table, and sits there, mocking me.
I used the tongs to pick up the mouse.
Highly contagious.
Air rushes down into my lungs, and on the exhale, acid climbs up my oesophagus. You fucking idiot! I drop onto all fours, throwing up on the floorboards with large bleach stains.
I get to my feet and turn my gaze on the sinister tongs hanging casually over the edge of the countertop. The sausages on my plate are no longer life-sustaining protein, but death-inducing traitors.
“I cooked the meat. I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe,” I say as I grab the tongs with a glove and snap the instrument in half.
What’s wrong with me? I must have the virus. The forgetfulness could be a sign I’m infected. A listlessness creeps through my veins and I’m rubbing my perspiring forehead with shaking hands. My brow is feverish. I pick up the broken tongs and undo the locks on the back door and pitch them across the backyard.
“Fuck you!” I scream at the beautiful blue sky.
The thoughts are like a hive of angry wasps living inside a beehive of angry bees. The virus is in me, eating my brain, misfiring my neurons, increasing my gray matter. Gray hair. Old mind. Alzheimer’s is for the old.
I stagger through blurred vision to my piano. At first, my fingers slide off the keys. Then they flit, rhythmically; the order is certain, the mistakes impossible. Chopin’s Raindrops chimes without words or worry and provides the perfect sequential harmony that my haunted mind needs to breathe again.
And I breathe deeply once more, feeling the calm rush to my extremities as a healing warmth. My schedule is fucked for the day. I need to bleach the house again and then finish one of Hannah’s jigsaw puzzles.
Four hours into my piano session and I feel a little better. I decide I didn’t need the Xanax after all.
Day 2
Thursday, April 28th
A siren blares outside. It’s another day. The room is awash in golden light as I jump out of bed. In the street below, men in hazmat suits exit army-assigned Humvees. They’re marching to each house. Terrified faces peer out between drawn curtains.
The fine hairs on my arms prickle with fear.
What do they want?
I’m paralyzed by the sight of the semiautomatics slung across their shoulders, and they’re clutching red clipboards. Five more vehicles roll up the road and park at specific, symmetrical intervals. They’ve planned this drill; they know things I don’t.
A loud speakerphone screeches before winding back into a clear male voice.
“Attention, residents of Crystal Summit. Stay calm, this is a routine check of all members of all households. Please stay inside your homes. Do not come out. We will approach your doors. We will call out a name. That person will answer our questions through the door. Please stay calm. This is a routine check.”
Army men scatter through the neighbourhood.
No time for meds. No time for radio.
The men are at my door, their boots scuffing and beating on my porch below my bedroom window. They knock. “Mr. Fowler!”
My heart bangs under my ribs. No symptoms since the tongs incident. They won’t take me away. They won’t kill me because I’m not infected.
But there’s that voice that whispers, You might be infected. They’ll take you away from your home, from Hannah.
“Hold your horses, I’m coming!” I shout back as irritably as possible, trying to buy myself time.
Wake up, meds, radio, clean teeth. Scratch that. I can’t believe I have to answer the door in my pajamas. Ridiculous.
“I’m here,” I say loudly as I reach the front door, take the knob, and begin to twist.
“Do not open the door, sir.”
I freeze, then slowly let go of the knob.
“I’m Captain Hay,” the soldier outside says. “I’m leaving a parcel on your front doorstep. Please take fifteen minutes to follow the instructions, then replace the parcel in the exact position you found it.”
“All right,” I say.
I hear a thump, the distant shuffling of boots, and someone says in a softer voice, “Clear. Mr. Fowler, you may now open the door.”
I do as they say, and stare down at the red box imprinted with a long barcode. There are no other markings or descriptions. My eyes move up to their faces, but they’re wearing masks; I can’t even see their eyes.
“Has anyone been infected?” I ask.
One jabs a finger at me. “Pick up the box and go back inside.”
Their helmets reflect my image. I’m a scruffy civilian who looks ready to die. Their enemy. There’s something wrong with the box they gave me. Why can’t I bring myself to pick it up? If the virus is going to fuck us all up, why not just kill us?
“Mr. Fowler, did you hear me?”
The panic is rising. “Act sane, be sane,” I whisper to myself.
“What’s he saying?” one soldier says. He takes a small step back and his hand flinches in the direction of his rifle. “Are you feeling okay, Mr. Fowler?”
One of them puts a radio to his mouth and mumbles something.
Panic is a wraith thrashing wildly within. Tension increases in the few feet between me and the men. Why did the government even send them? Maybe they saw me with the mouse. They have that satellite surveillance now that can see the freckles on your face from outer space. Are all my neighbors sick?
“Yes, I heard you,” I said, wading through th
e torrent of rapid thoughts and force myself to behave normally. My jaw is clenched so hard that pain shoots up into my ears. “What’s in this box?” I step forward, seeing if they’re threatened by me. What am I doing?
They swing their rifles around, confirming my suspicions. I’m definitely a threat. “Testing kit. Please take it back inside, sir.”
The soldiers across the street are shoving my neighbor Leonard up against his front door and patting him down. He glances over his shoulder and meets my eye. “Fight back,” I call out. “They can’t treat us this way!”
Emma, Leonard’s wife, is watching out the window, crying. “Do something!” I shout again, but she lets the curtain drop.
“Mr. Fowler. Take the box and move inside. Now.”
I pick up the testing kit, glare at them, and stomp back inside, kicking the door shut behind me. Fuck them.
The frustration and anger drains away when I spot the beautiful landscape water painting that Hannah finished last year. Okay, I’m calm.
I rub my forehead and notice the elevation in my skin’s temperature. The medic kit is under my kitchen sink, and I go to it and take out a thermometer. I shove it under my tongue and give it a minute. The reading shows what I fear. A slight rise in temperature. It’s the first symptom of the virus.
Dates. When is Hannah’s birthday? It’s in the first half of the year. 18th of February? No, the month is January. I’m sure of it, but I’m not sure.
This can’t be happening. I’ve been so careful.
The red box in my hand rattles, and for a moment I’m startled, until I realize my hands are trembling. I’ve never been more afraid in my life. In a week, I’ll be a vegetable. Disoriented, everything unfamiliar. It can’t happen this way.
The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 21
