by Lucas Coon
"Oh well. Maybe when it's all back to normal, I'll go find Caroline and see if she'll pay me a reward." He brushed his hand through his hair. "If normal is still a thing." He smiled. He turned the chair and looked outside at the dark city. With everything that was going on outside the protective walls of the third floor, he was happy to be where he was, and to just be alive. He looked at the moon. No matter how devastating it was out there, no matter how many people died, the moon was a constant. Of course the sun was as well, but at this point he was just enamored with the bright glow of the satellite. It was a gorgeous sky that night. The clouds were scarce and the stars were twinkling just like they had for millions of nights before.
"Let's see if we can survive tomorrow..."
Chapter 7 – The Heat
The air grew colder as the night continued its enthusiastic strangle-hold on the city. The temperature began its descent as the sun went into hiding and it had continued dropping until only a couple of moments prior to what the clock currently read. The moon stared down at the planet that it was donating its light to. If it had eyes, it would see what had become of the streets it had always reflected on. It would probably have an opinion on the beings that have been reforming the planet on a constant basis since they came to be. Maybe it would judge everyone for their actions, or maybe it would just give us its light without care. Behind the moon, the stars all twinkled down on the city, albeit with not as much enthusiasm.
As the minutes ticked away, the cold air began to reveal its purpose. The clouds formed their shroud and covered the stars one by one. As they became more and more exuberant, they began to tinge the blackened sky with a hint of purple. It looked much prettier this way, almost like a painting. As was expected on a cloudy night, the moon gripped the purple covers and started to pull them over itself. They quickly gathered around their new target and encased the entire sky in their purple coating. Within a few moments of completing their mission, they began to deliver their content. The cold water fell out of the sky and smacked the ground with all its might. The ground slowly absorbed the moisture, as if to thank the heavens for the solution to its dehydration issues.
Mitchell sat in his chair and watched the water tumble down to its destination of empty streets, filled with empty cars, running through the empty city. The city looked like a carcass; an absolute husk of what it once was and what it could have been. Much like a cicada will leave its shell and fly away, mankind had ditched this city, save the handful of survivors that had yet to escape. Much unlike the husk of the cicada, however, the city had a new purpose. It was now being used as a nest for the amassed numbers of infected that were now living within the unused structures. As the numbers grew at the rapid pace that they did, the population of the city decreased as the first wave of infected went through and either killed them, or converted them as well. Mitchell went over what he knew about the infection and how it progressed.
He turned back to face the desk. He stared steadily at the notebook directly in front of him. He reread the list he had already written.
"Quick, not instant. Takes at least 24 hours between infection and change." He didn't like the word change, but it seemed to fit the situation best. While they looked the same, they were definitely changing. "Causes violent tendencies. Infected will attack almost anything that moves to eat it, this includes humans and other animals that they can get their hands on." He got to the next line. He had starred this note as important. "They will always attack the easiest target." This was less of an advantage, and more of a self-warning. With this he was basically writing to himself to not be the easiest target and to protect the easiest target. He leaned over and looked into the cubicle section of the room. 'In this case that would definitely be Lilly.' He frowned at the thought that she would be their first target. He went back to his list to clear his mind of that thought.
"Parasites are attached to the infected. Disabling the infected will kill the parasite." He looked this over a few times and thought about its accuracy. He added a question mark to the end of the statement and wrote an addendum. "Possibility of detaching and infecting a new host. No knowledge on certainty of this, nor what it would do to the original host." He thought that would suffice.
He leaned and glared at his information in an absent manner. He was looking in the direction of notebook, but wasn't looking at the words on the page. He blinked hard to clear his eyes.
"What time is it?" He grabbed his phone off the desk and unplugged it. It had been plugged in for quite a while, so he was certain that the battery was full. He pressed the button and looked at the glowing numbers on the screen. "Three twenty-nine AM.” He thought about the fact that he should get back to sleep. He laid down to sleep at about ten, and was sleeping just fine, until he had the same nightmare as the night prior. This time, though, it was a little different. He attempted to grab Aria, to embrace her in his arms. This was the point in his dream that she attacked him, so his mental imagery was definitely changing. After he woke up, he didn't want to go back to sleep in fear of having another dream like this. This is when he got up and started watching the rain. He had been awake for about forty-five minutes, staring at the city, at his list and just contemplating whether or not they would survive in the end. He'd determined that thinking about survival was both a blessing and a curse. He would always get his bouts of optimism, followed by the impending doom that had befallen everyone. It was a painful conflict within his mind.
He eventually decided to lay back down and watch the rain until he fell asleep. The water patted the glass wall in front of him. The sound was soothing and the visual of the water streaming down the slick surface was amusing. He laid and watched it until he couldn't bear his eyes being open any longer. He let his eye lids slowly fall shut and stared at the darkness in his head. Within a few moments he could feel his grip on reality slipping as his brain went into standby. His last thought before falling out of consciousness was one about hoping he wouldn't be awoken in such an abrupt manner as he was the previous morning.
Mitchell dreamed of nothing for the remainder of the night. He laid still until the suns warm hands communicated with his face. He pried his eyes open. For a few moments his heart started racing in confusion, but he eventually realized where he was. He wondered if it was going to be like that frequently. Would he suffer confusion for the first few moments of every morning? He always had this problem sleeping anywhere other than his bed. He looked out the window and saw that the rain had ceased. There were still clouds straggling in the crystal blue sky, but the sun had reclaimed the territory that the moon surrendered. He sat up and stared out the window to see if there was any change from the night prior. He knew nothing would have been different, but he wanted to look anyway.
"The only thing that wasn't there yesterday is that building that's on fire. That's not promising." He stared at the thick grey smoke billowing out from a building down the way. It was pretty far away, so any fears of it spreading to where he was were extinguished. The only concern he had was whether or not everybody had gotten out. He then thought about the probability of it being filled with infected instead of survivors, and realized that nothing of importance was probably lost. He reached over and opened up the drawer on the desk. He felt around for his breakfast and grabbed one of the last two bars that he had. He placed it on the ground next to him and reached over for a fresh bottle of water. 'This is the life,' he sarcastically thought to himself. He sat resting his back against the desk and situated the candy in front of him with the water next to it. He looked his breakfast over and his sarcastic grin bent slowly into a frown. He was beginning to feel the disappointment that came with frantic survival. He looked at his placement for breakfast; the floor. He looked up at the scene outside, the sun was bright and smoke was billowing in the background.
He looked at the glass intently and his focus switched from the bright morning skyline to his own reflection. His hair was dirty and ragged. His skin had an oily shine to it with the occasional dirt s
pot. His eyes were centered within dark patches of skin. His chin and neck were beginning to be covered in a beard. While Darren may have laughed about his beard growing and considered it a manly badge of honor, Mitchell preferred to be clean shaved. He touched the rough hair on his neck. It pricked his hand as he ran through it. He studied the face of the man in the reflection. It was a shock to his system to see himself, he hadn't looked in a mirror in a while now. He was upset to see himself like this. He looked down at his shirt. He noted to himself that he had been wearing the same clothing for several days now, and, once he thought about it, he became uncomfortable.
He started to think about the family in the next room. With all that had gone on he really didn't focus on how they looked. Darren was a bit rough to begin with, Kayla maintained her beauty, and there wasn't anything on the planet that could degrade Lilly's cuteness. It was interesting to him how little he focused on the state of everyone else's, and even his own, appearance during all this. His thoughts went back to his own image as he sat there staring at himself in the window and was quite unhappy with how he looked. He felt it was a dead horse, but he desperately wanted everything to go back to how it was. He realized how universal this feeling was. Maybe it was time to let it go? Maybe it was time to move on with life, if that's what he could call it. Maybe he should just leave and allow Darwinism to take its toll out on the streets. The human species had survived all this time, what made now different? If he got out there, he could probably make it to the subway station, or at least a quarantine station, and be protected by the military. Maybe he should be a drifter, and just keep going until he dies. How far would he have to go to get out of this hell anyway? It had only been five days since this all started.
"Wait, it's been five days and the military isn't sweeping the city? Or, hell, they aren't bombing the city? Why haven't they wiped us off the map?" He began to think about the reasons as to why they wouldn't have just burned the entire city to the ground to stop the outbreak. It was only a couple of cities that neighbored each other, it's not like it was a huge portion of the country. Or was it? "It couldn't have gotten out of the small area, the military acted pretty quickly. Though, why did they never call for evacuation when they were supposed to? Why is there an evacuation call on the radio three days later and why was the train going a hundred and fifty miles out of the area? Was the news wrong? Was this not an isolated outbreak? They started with saying it was only a problem for local area, that the parasites had only made their way into the local water supply, which is why bottled water was safe and even then it was only certain local plants that had the problem." He pondered this for a little bit. The media had talked about the parasites infecting water plants in the local area. This included water delivery systems to buildings, and bottling plants that were local to the city. It didn't mention anything about what was going on outside of the state or even the county.
"Maybe we weren't the only ones." He shifted his attention off the reflection, and back to the city sky line. He tilted his head towards the floor and resumed his examination of the feast before him. A chocolate bar with a caramel and nougat filling and a bottle of water labeled as being bottled in New Jersey. The label was fairly plain, it was white with blue wording that was outlined in black with a black drop shadow. The label read "Medical Technologies United, Inc." directly followed by "Uniting technology and Medicine". At least he now knew the name of the company that was supplying his housing for the time being. He didn't bother reading the name of the building when he was running for his life two days ago, but this was as good a way as any to find out where he was. He'd never heard of the company. Putting their name on the bottle was a good advertising ploy, it put the name in the head of the clients and if they took the bottle off campus, they'd still see it. He was amused at the simple things that marketing thinks of. Simple, yet effective.
He ripped open the wrapping to the candy bar and took a bite. It was sweet, as expected. Prior to this all, this was his favorite candy ever. Now that it's all he had eaten for two days, he hated it. He got out with five bars and this was number four. As he swallowed, he could feel the caramel traveling his throat and hitting his stomach. It hit hard, and made him cringe. He quickly took a drink of water to make the empty feeling tolerable. After a moment the disgusting feeling passed, but he knew that it was temporary. 'I really miss French cakes.' He finished his breakfast and stood up to collect himself for the day. He bent over at his back to touch his toes, and then bent backwards to stretch his back. As he bent backwards, he felt a rushing feeling to his head. He stood straight and tried to maintain balance as the room began to spin again.
"Oh, no. Not this time." He sat on the desk and took a deep breath in. He held it with his eyes closed for a few seconds, and exhaled. He slowly opened his eyes; the room stopped spinning. He stood back on his feet and the room remained stationary. He decided that he was safe for the moment. He looked around the room to remember what he was going to do.
His eyes met with his phone and he thought about what he could do. He picked it up and unlocked the screen. There were no new notifications, not that he was expecting any. He fingered through his home pages on the phone for a few moments to figure out what he wanted to do and tapped on an icon to load his gallery application. He tapped the folder of pictures on the top of the list and then the first photo in the folder. The screen was filled with a beautiful photo of Aria's face. He stared at her bright green eyes and her curly, flowing dark brown hair. She posed for this photo because he asked her to. He had made a comment about how he didn't have any good photos of her on his phone and he wanted to get a good one. She reluctantly agreed. While she was photogenic, she was shy with cameras. She smiled right at him with her glowing radiance, he became weak at the knees as he steadied his hand and snapped the photo. He didn’t know then that this photo would be the most important one on his device, nor that they would end up going their separate ways and he wouldn't be seeing her every day. He wished he knew then what he knew now, he would have made sure that they didn't split up. He would've either gone with her, or made sure she stayed. Things wouldn't have ended like they did. He felt himself getting emotional at the thought of her, so he closed the photo. He thought about what he could do for a few moments and decided to give it a shot.
He pressed the dialer option and held the two button. The screen populated with Aria's name and number and the phone began dialing. He pressed it to his ear and waited. One ring. Two rings. Three, then four. On the fifth ring the call went to her voice-mail message.
"Hello! You've reached Aria Swartz, I cannot get to your call at this time. I'm probably busy doing something else, but, I promise, if you leave a message with your information, I will get right back to you! Thanks!" Her voice was sweet as honey to Mitchell. He smiled just hearing her recording on the phone.
He hung up before the tone played for him to record. He wanted to hear it one more time. He pressed the two and redialed the number. It rang the five time and replayed her message. He smiled again. The tone beeped in Mitchell's ear and he sat for a moment in silence.
"Aria, sweetheart, it's Mitch. I'm still here. I'm still alive. Please...I need to know that you're still alive too. I need to know that you're safe Aria. I need to know that...I need to know that you are OK." He felt himself tearing up. 'Why did I do this to myself?' He continued. "I, uhh, I'm safe in an office building downtown. Some place called Medical Technologies United. You may know where it is because you were down here for work all the time, but you know me I have no idea where the hell I am." He started to laugh and cry at the same time. "If you get this...please call me back. I need to know you're still alive." He sniffed in and wiped his face. "I love you Aria." He sat in silence again. He couldn't think of anything more to say, so he hung up the call. He set the phone down and wiped his face with his shirt. If he was going to take charge, he couldn't look like he had been crying. He took a deep breath and focused in again on his mission. He had to get to the hospital in the near
future. For the time being though, he had to get with Darren and get food. He wasn't making any plans past the hospital, just in case. He grabbed his bag and put it on the chair placed under the desk. He stuffed several bottles of the water into it, and left the rest sitting on the floor for now. He didn't know how soon they'd be leaving for good, nor how long they'd remain in their current location.
He turned and put his hand on the door handle when he heard a noise. It was an odd, yet familiar noise, almost like a buzzing nearby. He turned around and looked at the desk. The screen of his phone was lit up, and the phone was vibrating furiously. His stomach twisted into a knot, and he rushed over to grab the phone. The screen read "Aria Calling...". He wiped his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating and pressed the button to answer the call.
"Aria? Aria honey it's me, it's Mitchell. Aria, are you OK?" The line was silent. He pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure the call was still live. It was. "Aria, come on, are you there? Tell me you're there. Tell me you're OK, please just tell me you're OK!" The line remained silent. Mitchell stopped talking for a moment to listen. He could hear breathing. "Aria? Hello?" He waited for a response.
The breathing grew louder, but slowed to a shallower pace.
"Hello?" This call was heartbreaking. He could hear a person breathing but had no idea if it was Aria. Why wasn't she responding? "Hello?" He tried one more time.
"Please, help me..." The voice replied in a whisper “Please! We need help!” There were a few more seconds of breathing followed by loud noises mixed with what he thought could be screaming. It was hard to tell who or what it was. The call ended within only seconds.
"Aria?" He pulled the phone away and looked at the screen. The call had ended. He stared with his eyes wide in disbelief. He was in a complete state of awe for several moments. The call had raised more questions than it answered, the only question it answered was whether or not her phone was still active and in one piece. Who was the person on the other end? Where were they? They needed help, but was it just in general, or were they bleeding out and about to die? Mitchell felt something like an anxiety attack hitting him. He had to calm down, or else he would suffer the same fate as yesterday. He took a deep breath in again, and calmed himself. He had to get to the hospital, this was now his top priority. That had to be where she still was. It just had to be.
