by Jason Davis
Her husband was too good of a doctor for that, and she didn’t really feel anything. She felt like there was a large stone where her heart had been. What should have been emotions was a vast nothingness. Her insides were cold, and what should have been heartache was only the pressure of a massive weight on her chest making it hard for her to breathe.
She felt like she was dead to the world. She held herself, fearing that if she did let go, the chill inside her would make her shake into convulsions. If she let go, the tears would finally come, but she didn't think she would ever be able to pull herself out of the helplessness that would envelope her.
“Hello?” the man in the nice clothes said as he neared her front porch.
“Hello.” Her voice was dry and flat. She didn’t care that there was none of the friendliness that usually always filled her. What did she have to be cheerful for?
“I’m looking for a Dr. Wilson. Can you help me find him?”
“You’re too late.”
“Too late? Has he passed away?”
She saw the confused look on his face, or was that an expression of alarm? In the harsh sunlight, it was hard to tell.
“No, but he closed up for the day.”
“Really? He called my office this morning. It sounded pretty urgent. Do you know where I can find him?”
Who was it that he called that morning? He hadn’t told her he was calling anyone. If he did, she guessed it was probably the Center for Disease Control, but she had never heard of them sending someone so quickly to an unproven case. Maybe her husband had called in a favor. He had that friend of his... God she couldn’t remember his name, but he worked for them, didn’t he?
If so, then this was getting as bad as she thought, or maybe even worse. What if she was also infected? She was glad she hadn’t gone anywhere.
“CDC?” He looked momentarily shocked, then nodded. “He’s in there.” She nodded in the direction of the office. “What do you know about it already?”
He looked at her for a moment. She guessed he was trying to size her up to figure out who she was. This wasn’t her husband’s friend, so she doubted he even knew what he looked like or how old he was.
“Who are you?” he finally asked.
“His wife. I run the office.”
“Oh, so were you there this morning when he called.”
“Yes. I locked up shop and canceled all his appointments for the day.”
“Well, we know very little about what is going on in there. I was hoping maybe you could tell me before I go in.”
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded toward the chair on her porch.
“I know you’re probably in a hurry, but I’m tired and feel like sitting down. I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I can.”
Chapter 4
Lucy felt like her head had become an anvil on top of her shoulders, and she had to fight just to keep it upright. Her neck was stiff and she just wanted to let her head fall forward and hang there. Her eyes felt hollow and she needed to close them, losing herself to sleep.
Sleep. Just the thought of it felt like it was what she needed. She just wanted to lay down. Even the hardwood of the gym floor beneath the bleachers seemed like it would be comforting. She just wanted to rest, but she couldn’t.
It felt like something wasn’t letting her. Some force kept her head up no matter how much she wanted to let it fall. Maybe it was her trying to fight her cold. She had lied to Tina about feeling better. She just really wanted to come to the game and see Bobby. She wanted to talk to him afterward, maybe hang out with him later.
She had even tried to convince herself that she felt better. Some part of her wanted to continue to keep from admitting it was there. She wasn’t sick. She could stay until the end of the game.
It wasn’t like she was watching the game. She had tried to watch as the boys ran up and down the court. She tried to watch that guy she liked… What was his name again? She didn’t know why, but she just couldn’t seem to remember it. It probably wasn’t important anymore. Some part of her now wanted all the boys. For what, she wasn’t sure, but she wanted to move closer to all of them.
To spread…
That was what the voice said, the whisper that tickled at the back of her mind. She didn’t know what that meant. She was tired. She just wanted to sleep, but the voice wouldn’t let her.
Then she watched as the first spider came out from under her skirt. She had been afraid and wanted to kill it. Her arms had fought against her, and she was just too tired. Instead, she watched as it had skittered under the bleachers, crawling down the black metal railings. The spider was nearly camouflaged against it. When it had touched the hardwood floor, it disappeared into the shadows.
She watched two more emerge from under her sleeve and crawl down her arms. One continued, while the other disappeared into the shorts of the little boy sitting next to her. He never noticed as it disappeared. He didn’t even seem to feel it. There had been a slight shiver when the spider first touched him, but after a quick glimpse at his shorts, he dismissed it and looked back at the game.
Eyes wide, she watched more spiders appear. Some came out from underneath her sleeve, others seemed to come from under her skin. They just appeared as gooseflesh, then a black spot would form and the spider would emerge. She watched as they all joined together and continued to climb down into the darkness beneath the bleachers.
She quickly looked over from her left sleeve to her right, seeing the same thing happening on her other side. A slight whimper escaped her lips, but it was lost in the roar of the crowd. Someone from the home team must have just stolen the ball, as the crowd around her was screaming. She wanted to scream with them, but all that escaped was that whimper. Instead, she felt her throat clamp shut and she could barely breathe.
Something was suffocating her. She felt it. She lurched forward, trying to gag, trying to cough it out, tears streaming from her eyes. She wanted to just cry it all away, but couldn’t.
When something slammed against her back, the black mass of spiders that had been clogging her throat were flung down into the bleachers. Air flooded back into her lungs. Gasping, she looked up to see the older gentleman sitting next to her had seen her suffocating and had slapped her back.
He watched her, his arm still on her back, a look of genuine concern on his face. She tried to smile at him, but as he looked down at her, she saw a spider climb up his arm and disappear beneath his skin. She watched in horror as the bump traveled under his skin and disappeared into the darkness beneath his sleeve.
He looked at where she had been staring, but not seeing anything, looked back to her, his frown deepening.
“Are you okay, miss? Is your mother here. Can I go get her for you?” he asked.
Lucy shook her head.
Her mother was hundreds of miles away, and all she had here was her know nothing aunt. If her mother were home, Lucy never would have been able to con her into letting her go to the game. Her mother would have made sure she saw the doctor, knowing something was seriously wrong.
Lucy realized the man was still looking at her. She shook her head.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you,” she finally said. Her voice was
course and came out gurgled. The man didn’t seem convinced, but he backed away, still looking at her cautiously.
“Well, if you need anything, just ask,” he said.
She knew she should be concerned that he may be some pervert, but she doubted it. It was a small town. People like that didn’t exist here. Not only that, she thought she recognized him. She thought he was Danny’s grandfather. Danny was another one of the boys on the team and was good friends with Bobby.
Bobby! That was his name! She had come to see Bobby! She tried to be excited that she remembered his name. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten it. How could she have forgotten his name?
She eased herself back into the game. She hadn't been paying much
attention, and hadn’t realized their school was up by ten points. That was awesome. Bobby was going to be so happy after the game.
Did she still want to try and see him? She wasn’t sure anymore. She still didn’t feel all that well. She didn’t want to take the chance and get him sick, too. It might be better if she went home.
Her mind came back to the spiders as she watched three more…she didn’t even know where they had come from…disappear beneath the bleachers. Another one emerged from beneath her skirt, and she felt her throat beginning to tighten again. The world around her felt like it was getting smaller, or she was getting bigger. Nothing felt right. The people around her felt like they were getting closer, like they were almost on top of her, nearly inside her. She had to get out of there. She suddenly felt like she needed to get away from all of them.
More spiders scurried down her arms. They were all over the place, swarming her. She wasn’t sure if she felt that way about the people or the spiders, but they all seemed to be too close.
She lifted her hand, and another wave of spiders rushed out from under her sleeve. They ran to the people along the bench. She let out a little whimper, but only the little boy turned to look at her. He seemed to be scared of her. Was she that scary? He made her feel like she was. He started to scoot closer to his mom sitting on the other side of him. Lucy didn’t blame him.
She stood. She needed to get out of there. She wanted to cry, to run away. Something was wrong. She wanted to be back with her own mommy. She…
Another spider crawled down her leg. Where were they all coming from? It looked like they were coming from…her.
Spread, she heard a voice inside her say.
She didn’t want to spread. She didn’t want anyone to catch whatever she had. They were all around her. They were crowding her. She wanted away from there.
Stay. Spread.
She hoped it was tears she felt on her cheeks, not spiders.
Why can’t anyone else see them? Why isn’t anyone else freaking out?
Lucy started to make her way past people. She saw spiders falling from her clothing as she hurried. Her tears streamed heavier. She needed to get out of there.
People cleared the way for her. They all look startled at the crying girl hurrying by them. Did they finally see the spiders? If so, they never reacted to them. Spiders fell on the people as much as they fell to the bleachers, but no one seemed to react.
Lucy finally made it to the end of the row and started to hurry down the steps. She was near the door of the gym when the buzzer sounded, and the place erupted into cheering. She knew it was too early for the game to be over, but she guessed that another period had ended. She didn’t look back to see the action. She just wanted to lay down. She just wanted to get home.
Chapter 5
Bryan didn’t like this. He hadn’t liked it from the beginning, but he had listened to his boss and had let him talk him into this. Now, after hearing what the doctor’s wife told him, he was sure he was the wrong man for the job. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. What were the protocols? How was he supposed to handle this?
He expected this to be a simple case of another doctor going overboard. He wasn’t so sure anymore. Denise had told him what had happened earlier, and he didn’t think the doctor sounded so much like a crackpot now. There might actually be something going on in there. He remembered the noises he had heard as he walked around the building. If it was like she had described, it may be much worse.
It sounded like it was something highly communicable, and the doctor was afraid he may have been infected. Most likely, it was airborne. That would explain the doctor getting it so quickly and why Denise seemed to be fine. If that was the case, the gestation was extremely fast, faster than anything he knew of that not bioweapon related.
So, how was he going to investigate this? He had no practical field experience. Should he call in his boss and have a team come out? Or should he go in himself with the little mask? The right call was for the team to come out. But what hard evidence did he have? What scientific evidence did he have to make his boss believe him? Had he seen anything or anyone? No, all he had was some noises he had heard as he had walked around the building and this woman telling him a convincing story.
All it took was for the team to come here and find nothing except some old-timer hell-bent on playing an elaborate hoax on him and he would never hear the end of it. He may not even have a job anymore. He really was not equipped to handle it out here on his own. He never should have agreed to come.
“You going in?” Denise asked. She still sat across from him.
Being a doctor's wife, he expected she would have been older, but she didn’t look like she was much more than forty. It made him wonder just how much older the doctor was.
“I’m not sure.”
That was partially true. He had already made up his mind, but just didn’t want to admit it to himself yet. He didn’t want to acknowledge that he had already convinced himself he had to go in. He was there. He was obligated to at least go in there and check it out. After all, it was probably nothing. Like he had thought, it would just be an old-timer playing pranks. Some old geezer on his last leg who wanted to get a good hoot over on someone before he kicked the bucket.
However, looking at the doctor’s wife, there was a good chance he wasn’t that old, so there was probably no joke involved. In fact, if the doctor were only in his forties, calling in a false report would seriously hurt his career.
Maybe he had just gone overboard. There are certain diseases that can make a person appear near death. He once had the pleasure of conversing with a researcher that had visited Haiti. There had been what was thought of as a zombie outbreak back in the late seventies. Real people, people who had been buried by the local customs, were actually getting up and digging their way out of their own graves.
While the researcher, a Dr. Jack Russell, wasn’t the one who figured out the cause and had tracked it down, he had done quite a bit of study on the phenomenon while he was down there. The Haitians were very protective, though, and he loved to tell the story with a lot of dramatic effect.
“I barely made it out alive,” or “They had me tied down, then I was buried alive.”
The man was full of the horrific tale. The results, though, had been fascinating…real-life zombies, though not undead. Real-life, brain dead, rising from the grave zombies had actually attacked the good doctor.
Of course, they weren’t real zombies. There was a powder used that made a person appear dead for a couple days. The person would have no way of moving and would show no signs of life; however, they were conscious the whole time they were under the effects of the drug. It was referred to as “zombie powder” because it was a white, chalky dust made from bones of the recently deceased, and the victims were often brain dead and referred to as “zombie-like”. The brain-dead state was thought to have been more the effects of the person having to dig their way out of their own grave and being deprived of oxygen rather than from the effects of the powder.
“Is the back door unlocked?” he said as he stood. He had made the decision. He was going to go in. He had to; otherwise, his report would be incomplete. And it was strange the doctor had not come out yet. That was something he needed to go in there and check out. He sure didn’t want to to.
D3/. This was so not his kind of job.
“Yeah, just go on in.” She looked up at him. There was something in her eyes. Maybe it was a pained or worried look. He wasn’t sure. He couldn't read people. “Please, make sure he’s okay. He hasn’t even called my cell or the house phone. I’m just worried about him.”
“I will,” he said, giving her a slight smile.
Chapter 6
Lucy didn’t remember falling off her bike. She didn’t remember going down the path or running into the bushes. She wasn’t even sure where she was. It somehow all looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember any of it.
&nbs
p; The front wheel on her bike was still spinning, the grating sound like nails on a chalkboard. A broken spoke kept scratching into the metal as it went around. The wheel was bent, but not too badly. The bike was broken, but it could be fixed.
Was it her bike? She couldn’t remember. She looked at it blankly, not knowing how she got there, her leg under it, a tree in front of her. Had she hit it? Had she hit the tree, then banged her head off of it? That would explain why she couldn’t remember things, wouldn’t it?
She looked around. Trees and bushes surrounded her, but they seemed to be spread apart, and there was an elongated indentation on the ground. Was it a path? Had she been on it? She wasn’t sure. It did look like a bike path, and she thought she saw where she had veered off it and into the bushes. She looked back at the bike that was on top of one of her legs. She couldn’t feel it. She could just see it, though it wasn’t clear. It was like there was a fog or a haze between her and the bike, but she could still see it. Should she try to get it off of her, or should she scream for help?
Was there anyone even close enough to hear her? She opened her mouth and tried to make a sound, but the only thing that came out was a gurgling sound as she tried to push air out of her lungs. It didn’t sound right to her. Had she had a voice before? Maybe she was mute, or maybe she had hurt her throat in the fall.
She looked back at the bike. She probably should try to push it away and get it off her. She bent over and grabbed the center bar and the handlebars. She used her weight to keep herself upright as she started to shift the metal contraption that she must have been riding. It momentarily caught on something, but with a hard tug, it finally shifted the last couple of feet. It came to rest on the small patch of grass at the bottom of the tree. The wheel still turned. The broken spoke kept scratching. That tat, tat, tat sound repeating itself. She turned away from the bike and looked back at her legs. They were moving, so they were okay, but she saw what the bike had gotten caught on. There was a long spoke sticking out of her left leg, and a gash from where it must have dug itself in.
