Sedulity 2: Aftershock (Sedulity Saga)

by David Forsyth

  ****

  The flight to Paris was unpleasant, although the view of the Alps was magnificent. I was down to my last inhaler by then and only used it once on that plane. However, the flight attendant was rude, so I coughed on him. Same with the businessman seated next to me. And that’s another thing. On all the flights I took over the past two weeks I must have sat next to thirty or forty people. I know I killed them all, along the rest of the people on those planes, but I only think about the ones I didn’t like. Do you think that is some sort of psychological defense mechanism?

  The French were also rude to me and I didn’t mind killing them at all. As soon as I opened my mouth and revealed that I was not a French speaker their heads tilted up and they were talking down their noses to me – even the short ones. Whereas the people in Italy and even Greece had seemed eager to be able to practice their English, albeit ignorant that the conversation was their death sentence, the French appeared put out by our encounters. To be fair, they were not as overtly prickish as the South Africans, but I couldn’t help thinking that Paris would be a better place without so many French people. It was certainly a beautiful city. I saw as much of it as I could in the day I was there. They have a great Metro system. I used my inhaler on every train and in every station I passed through.

  ****

  I took a late night train from Paris to London, through the Chunnel, releasing a puff in every rail car during the trip. I wish I could have seen the French countryside, but we passed through it at night. The Chunnel was a bit unnerving, knowing the whole English Channel was above us. It was dawn when the train came out of the tunnel and I got a good look at a lot of England during the rest of the trip to London. Those were the last open fields, little forests, picturesque farms and quaint villages that I will ever see up close. The train was not an express on the English side of the channel, so it made numerous stops on the way to London. Dozens of passengers got off at each stop, taking the virus with them, while others boarded to acquire it. I pictured the virus spreading from person to person, town to town, and I must say the weight of the world fell upon me. I actually shed some tears. Not that you would care, nor God for that matter. What’s done is done and I did it.

  Upon arrival in London I walked around the train station using my inhaler frequently until it was time to catch the Tube to Heathrow, then used it on the Tube too, so I wasn’t really repentant. By then I just wanted to get it over with, all of it – my life and all of yours too. And I was almost there. I had come more than halfway around the world on a zig-zag loop, sowing death, and now I was about to do the same thing twice over in little more than a day. My final flight was actually two flights and I was morbidly pleased that they would both be on United Airlines. It would be my first American flagged carrier since I flew Alaskan from Seattle to Los Cabos for a connecting flight to Mexico City. Better yet, the one stop between London and Sydney on my final journey would actually be in my home town of Los Angles with a lengthy layover. Yes, I was going home one more time and I was bringing the apocalypse with me. When I sat down on the plane I saw a world map on the back of the inflight magazine. I pulled out my red pen and drew a continuous line of my two week flight plan – starting in Seattle and ending in Australia. At first it looked like a giant cursive “O” until I realized it was closer to a distended version of the Greek letter Omega.

  ****

  United Flight 935 departed Heathrow on schedule at 10:25 on the morning of March 29th. In less than twelve hours I would be home. I was excited and terrified, remorseful and exultant, empowered, yet helpless to alter the course of events. Suffice it to say that my feelings were quite conflicted. I almost decided not to use the inhaler at all on that flight, knowing my fellow passengers would deplane in LA. Then I started thinking about all the polluted air in the LA Basin, the contaminants that flowed from the city into the ocean, and the millions of people who made driving on the freeways a nightmare. I thought about all the people I knew there and tried to think of one that meant more to me than completing my diabolical mission. There were some that I liked. A few that I loved. But they were vastly outnumbered by those I despised.

  I thought back to the first few months after my diagnosis of cancer and couldn’t think of more than a handful of people who really gave a damn. My boss seemed to care, but I think he was more worried about paying off my life insurance policy and finding someone else to sell more of them. A couple of ex-girlfriends had returned my calls, or emailed their mushy condolences, but if they really cared they wouldn’t be exes. One of them could have at least pretended to love me again for a few months. None of them did that. Even my buddies seemed to shy away from me when they learned of my terminal condition. Maybe they thought it was contagious. Or they simply didn’t want to let me kill their buzz. So be it. But now I am contagious and I’m going kill a lot more than their buzz. After stewing on it for an hour or two, I got up from my first class sleeper seat to go to the lavatory and I took my inhaler with me.

  Our flight took the Great Circle polar route, so we came down over Canada to reach the USA. Viewing the world from 30,000 feet was much different than my train ride through England. I looked out the window and saw millions of acres of unspoiled land, dotted with signs of human habitation, disturbance and destruction. The occasional town, city, or industrial site stood out like a tumor on an X-ray, marring the beauty of the landscape. I felt none of the sympathy for those below that I had for the people whose faces I saw through the window on the train. The people beneath the airplane were smaller than ants and less significant, except for their impact on the planet. They were the virus and I was the cure.

  I was clear headed and calm when the Boeing 777 began its approach to LAX, gateway to the city of angels. I’m glad I had a window seaton that flight. Looking down through the smog as the plane descended over the San Bernardino Mountains, I took in the magnitude of urban sprawl. It was malignant growth, no different than the tumor growing in my brain. And just like my own cancer, it was incurable and terminal. The only solution was death. It was a bitter realization, but one I had been operating on subconsciously all along. I had finally moved past denial, past anger, and into full acceptance of my fate and that of humanity. The landing was uneventful, but momentous.

  I had an 8 hour layover and plane change in Los Angeles before the final 15 hour leg of my flight to Australia. That was plenty of time to leave the airport, rent a car, and go to see some of my favorite places one more time. I could even stop by my apartment a few miles away in Redondo Beach, check my messages and pick up my mail. And I was seriously thinking of visiting a few close friends to say goodbye, knowing that I would be killing them if we met in person, but wondering if it wouldn’t be easier for them to join the first wave of infected than battle against them for unlikely survival. I was daydreaming about these plans on my way out of the terminal and taking a puff off the inhaler when a tap on the shoulder almost made me piss my pants. I spun around and there was Linda.

  ****

  “Welcome back, killer,” she said with only a hint of animosity to belie her smile. She leaned forward and kissed me passionately on the lips. I was stunned, alarmed, and excited.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurted when the kiss ended.

  “Meeting you, of course,” she said. “Let’s get out of here and catch up. I already have a rental car in the parking lot. We don’t want to waste any time.”

  “You can say that again,” I agreed readily. I wasn’t sure if she planned to fuck me or kill me, but didn’t see how it made much difference. We walked hand in hand to a Ford Mustang convertible. “Nice ride.”

  “Only the best for the walking dead,” she replied sarcastically. “You can drive, since you know your way around this town a lot better than I do. So, how was your big adventure?”

  “It was amazing, but I’m glad it’s almost over. Everything went according to plan. My second inhaler is almost used up, right on schedule. But what about you? How were your last two weeks
?” I regretted my choice of words immediately as her smile melted. I really hadn’t meant it to come out quite like that, but was curious to know what she had done since I killed her. My apologetic expression must have worked because she proceeded to tell me.

  “After you drafted me into the legion of walking dead I was a wreck. I wanted to kill you. I almost killed myself. I came close to going back to the Tabula Rasa base without telling them and hoping it would force them discover or disclose an antidote. They say they don’t have one, but they could be lying. Infecting them might have been the only way to force their hand. But in the end I decided that would make me a traitor to the cause. So I called and told them what happened instead.”

  “How did they react?” I asked as I drove out onto Sepulveda Boulevard and turned south towards home.

  “They were shocked at first, then very grateful that I hadn’t returned to infect the base. They gave me a choice between going off to spend my final weeks however I wanted, or I could take an inhaler like yours. I thought about it overnight and decided that I’d rather further the cause than wallow in my own sorrows. I thought about you a lot too. At first I hated you with a passion. Then I realized that I was suddenly in the same position as you were when we met. I hadn’t fully appreciated the fear and desperation you must have been feeling until I felt it too.”

  I glanced over towards her as we drove through the tunnel under the LAX runways and saw sincerity reflected in her eyes by the lights flashing past on the walls of the tunnel. Nodding slightly and wanting to change the subject I asked, “What did they tell you to do?”

  “They sent me an inhaler along with a prepaid Visa card and cleared all my debt. They told me I could go wherever I wanted, do whatever I liked, and that they trusted me to make the most of my time to promote the cause.”

  “So, were did you go?” I asked as we drove through El Segundo.

  “I spent another day in Seattle, then I flew to Portland for a day. After that I flew to San Francisco and spent a few days there. Then I jumped on a flight to Las Vegas and lived it up for the better part of a week. I went to almost every casino and club. I slept with a lot of men. They were all from out of town, so I can assure you what happened in Vegas didn’t stay there.” She laughed when she said that and I had to chuckle myself. I wasn’t bothered at all that she had been sleeping with other men. I’m sure she didn’t have to pay for sex the way I had and catching an STD was the least of our worries. We both had a sick sense of humor, but I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.

  “How long have you been in LA?” I asked to change the subject.

  “This is the third day,” she replied. “I went to a lot of tourist attractions and spent the rest of my time shopping in malls and going to clubs. The trunk of this car is full of shoes and dresses I’ll never get a chance to wear.” She giggled before saying, “I thought about leaving today, but decided I wanted to see you one more time. I want to bury the hatchet and be able to talk to someone about all of this before it ends.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. It was hard to keep this kind of secret. What we were doing could drive you crazy with inner turmoil between pride and shame, determination and disgust, not to mention guilt. At least that’s how it was for me. I felt the same vibes coming from Linda. Talking to someone in the same position should help both of us resolve those inner conflicts. Of course I wanted to do more than talk. I turned right on Redondo Beach Boulevard and was only a few blocks from home.

  ****

  We spent a glorious two hours in my bed, the details of which will thankfully be fresh in my mind when time runs out. I checked my mail, but didn’t see anything worth opening. I only listened to a few messages on the answering machine. Just enough to know that nobody really missed me too much and decided I didn’t want to listen to the rest in case someone did. I still had a few hours to kill, a term I use repeatedly and loosely of late, so I took Linda to a popular restaurant on the beach. While there I asked her what she planned to do for the last day and if she wanted to join me on the flight to Australia.

  “No thanks,” she answered sadly. “I think I’ll hang out around here for now. I haven’t decided how to kill myself yet.”

  “Really?” I asked with more than a little shock. “Are you really thinking of checking out?”

  “Of course I am,” she replied. “Aren’t you? Don’t you know what we will turn into if we don’t?”

  “Zombies?” I asked in a mocking tone of voice.

  “Exactly, and it’s no joke,” she replied seriously. “Mindless man-eating monsters.”

  I choked on my crab salad.

  “Seriously?” I managed to mutter. “As bad as all that?”

  “Maybe worse,” she replied. “If it happens the way they described it to me, we will only have a few minutes of pain before we turn. And they say that once we turn we won’t feel or think anything at all. They say we will be brain dead by the time we start biting and eating other people. But my greatest fear is that I will still be in here somewhere, watching and feeling it all, but totally out of control. Do you know what I mean?”

  God help me, I did. I hadn’t thought about it like that before, but now it hit me full force. I was speechless as I pondered the idea of not only losing total control of my actions, but the slight possibility that I would be forced to experience whatever atrocities my body chose to perform thereafter. It terrified me to the core. Finally I nodded and said, “Fuck me.”

  She took me literally and we returned to my apartment for a final round of sex, but my mind and body were no longer into it. I performed like a robot, or a zombie, and completed the act without true satisfaction. I could tell she knew it too. She didn’t need to ask what was wrong either.

  “Do you want a gun?” I asked as we lay together in bed.

  “Yes, do you have one?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed and rose to fetch it from the top shelf of my closet. “I won’t be able to take it with me on the plane. So you might as well use it on yourself. Unless you want to shoot me first.” I almost wish she had taken me up on that offer. For a moment, when she checked to make sure it was loaded, I thought she might. But she just smiled sadly and placed it in her handbag with her inhaler.

  “What will you do?” she asked as we prepared to leave for the airport.

  “O.D.,” I replied. “I just grabbed the rest of my sleeping pills and I have a bunch of pain killers. I’ll either do it on the plane, or as soon as I get to a hotel in Australia. Probably safer in the hotel. They might revive me and make me puke on the plane or something.”

  “Good plan,” she agreed. “You should have just enough time to do that when you get there.”

  I nodded, then asked something that had bothered me. “How will there be enough time to spread the virus in Australia anyway?”

  “You and the people on your flight are just a failsafe for the Australian plan,” she explained. “Same with your stop here in LA. Other carriers should have already spread the virus before you arrived, like I did here. But if they failed, or were stopped, the people on your flight will spread out and trigger a pandemic soon enough.” It all made perfect sense and removed a little of my burden of guilt to know that I was not the only person responsible for triggering the zombie apocalypse.

  We drove back to the airport in silence with the top down and the wind whipping our hair. I wish that last drive had lasted longer. As it was we pulled up to the departure terminal far too soon. I grabbed my well used carryon, kissed her goodbye with urgent passion, and walked away into a crowd of strangers.

  ****

  That is the true end of this story, but I’ll make some final notes and confessions. My departure from LA on United Flight 839 was delayed by over an hour, so I am not sure if I will have time to die of an overdose in Australia before turning into a zombie. Maybe I will find a way to hang myself, or jump off the roof of a tall building, or leap in front of a bus or train. I’m still trying to figure that out. In the meantime I u
sed up my last inhaler on board this Boeing 747-400 that seems to be almost full of people, at least down in coach. The First Class sleeper section is only half full and everyone except me has long since fallen asleep without a care in the world. By the time we land in Australia it will already be late in the day of April 1st – April Fool’s Day. Isn’t that a hoot? Probably a good day for me to die.

  I decided to write this account of my deeds for selfish reasons – eternal infamy – but hope that it will also be seen by those with an interest in learning the truth behind the end of the world as we knew it. It was me. I did it. I have gone too far, much too far, to repent or seek any sort of peace, let alone forgiveness. If there is a Hell, it must include either a throne or a pit of eternal fire with my name on it. I can only hope that I can get there before the virus traps me in this body indefinitely. In a few moments I will use the in-flight wi-fi to upload my confession and suicide note to the internet with mass email distribution set for two days from now. By then it will be far too late to matter, except to set the record straight. Without further ado:

  I, Alistair Dane Lukan, hereby confess to international crimes against humanity on a scale unparalleled in the history of mankind. I admit my guilt, accept my fate, condemn you to join me, and welcome your hatred and loathing of me now and in perpetuity.

  Sincerely,

  A.D. Lukan

  PS: There’s a reason I introduced myself with my full name: Alistair Dane Lukan. It might not be as catchy as John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald, but all the true villains seem to be known by their full names. Except for the truly monstrous ones who kill millions, such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. They only need one name. My actions will certainly meet and exceed the combined level of death and misery that all three of them dished out. So perhaps you will simply know me as Lukan.

  The End