INFECtIOUS (6 page)

Pulling
together, we dump him on his head in the middle of the road. Jumping back in
the passenger side back door, I check the back hatch area to be sure no one
else is hiding in our car. I see only our new clothes; the once neat piles
toppled over from
Aunty's
race car driving. I climb
up front and, in the rearview mirror on the passenger side, I see Aunty still
bending over the man in the street.

What is she
doing!

I open my door
to see if she needs me; but she is finally making her way back around to her
door. A second later, she climbs into the car and I lock the doors even before
she slams hers shut. She hits the lock button again for good measure and then
we peel out. I don't think Aunty meant to make so much noise as she hit the gas
pedal too hard, spinning the tires before they found purchase, lunging us
forward. I feel whiplashed in every sense of the word. I struggle with just
trying to breathe.
To focus.
To grasp what just
happened. My muscles are still tense with adrenaline and I'm shaking.

We are okay. I
try to convince myself.

The Decaying Monster
From
Sesame Street

Aunty is
glancing back and forth from road to rearview mirror; so I turn in my seat to
stare out the back window. So far no one is following us. It would be easy to
see them on this clear day. I realize Aunty is talking and I have been nodding.
Like my subconscious was listening and responding to her without me realizing
it. All of my senses are on overdrive—each working to take in every detail of
my surroundings without my cognitive intentional effort. It's the clarity of
adrenaline that I've only read about in books and it feels surreal.
 

"...they
were working together. One of them made the noise and the other one waited for
us to run to the car. It was all planned."

She is
processing each detail out loud. She always does this with me when we are
discussing something serious. She glances sideways at me while she pushes the
car to top speeds. She wants my opinion, my input. I am lost in my fear and I
can hardly hear her.

"They were
trying to take you," she says with quiet surety.

Her
matter-of-fact statement grips me and I think I might throw up. When I look at
her again, I can tell she is fighting back tears. I know from the look on her
face that she is trying to make a decision. Her lips are clamped tight between
her teeth, and when she glances over at me, I can see it in her watery blue
eyes. She is trying to decide whether or not to tell me something.

I've lived with
her for over 4 years now and I know her face well, her different expressions.
This face usually irritates me because I know she's hiding something from me,
and I always do what I can to pester it out of her. Right now though, that face
with its set jaw and pursed lips just scares the crap out of me. I don't know
if I want to know. I'm tempted to plug my ears and close my eyes like the
defiant little girl who came to live with Aunty at age twelve. Mad at mom and
dad for abandoning her.

They say trauma
at a young age keeps you from maturing. If that's true, I'm probably operating
with the emotions of a fifth grader because I've been through a lot of trauma
in the last six years. I look out the window to avoid looking at that face that
is full of some terrible news. Aunty reaches out and grabs for my hand. She's
preparing me, supporting me for something. She has something in her hand that
rests on top of mine. She's squeezing me so tight that whatever she's holding
starts to dig into my skin. I wince and, as she relaxes her hand and pulls away
from me, the "something" stays stuck on the top of my hand.
 

It's a
photograph.
 

Of
me.

"What is
this?" I ask, a cloud of fireworks threatening the edges of my vision
again. "Where did you get this?"

"It's an
old Polaroid Camera photo."

"What's a
Polaroid Camera?"

"It's a
camera that prints the photo right out of the bottom of the camera after you
take the picture. It's pretty old-fashioned. I haven't seen one in years."

"It's a
picture of me," I say with meek confusion.
 

I look closely
at the picture and another panic attack hits.

Hyperventilating.

Can't
breath
.

Can't think!

God help me!

In the photo,
I'm standing on the porch of the Inn.
Recently.
Maybe
this week even. I just wore that shirt a few days ago. This picture is from the
zombie! This is why she didn't get straight into the car!
 

"But——but!"
I'm stammering. "You found this picture? Where?
The
zombie?
Why—how could he——It's not—?"
 

"Calm down
Ivy. We have to think. We have to keep our heads."
  

But my head is
below water. I'm drowning in panic.
 

"And WHY?
",
I shriek. "They were actually after me! Why me?
How did they know we would be there? Are they from
Toccoa
?
Do they know someone in our community? Did somebody we know do this? Is that
even possible?" I'm at champagne-glass-shattering decibels now.

"Ivy,"
Aunty tries to bring me under control again but her calm voice finally breaks,
betraying her true emotional state. "I don't know what I would've done
honey."

I am sweating.
It's running down my neck. I wipe away the moisture with my hand and realize
it's not sweat. I'm bleeding. I just stare at the blood on the back of my hand,
turning my hand back and forth, hypnotized by the sight of it. The car is
suddenly thumping on the gravel off on the side of the road. Aunty gasps and
pulls hard to correct us and put us back on the paved highway.

"
Your
bleeding?" she asks, horrified. "I'm pulling
over."

"No! Don't!
I'm fine. He just scratched me, it's nothing."

I think it was
probably all the ridiculous necklaces I'm wearing, but I don't admit that.
"It doesn't
hurt,
I didn't even know I was
bleeding. I just felt it drip and I—
If
you stop, they
might catch us!"

I realize how
slow she's going, trying to lean over and look at me while driving.

"Aunty
go
! Go faster! I'm fine!"

She pushes the
SUV back up to 80 mph and stares straight ahead.

As we take the
exit onto the safer back roads, we are both in shock, sick with fear, near
tears—not sure what to do next. We are all each other
has
in the way of real family. I've already lost my parents, what would I do
without her?

I glance behind
and still no one is following us. The problem solver in me begins to surface
out of the panic and I start to process the situation with clarity. Maybe
because seeing her
fear-filled, teary eyes brings
out
the selfless, brave side of me. I feel my rational self start to take control
again. I push the terror down and turn on the part of me I like the best: calm,
cool, collected Ivy. Not some silly, fashion obsessed 16
year
old. Able to handle whatever life throws at me.
Intelligent.
Capable.
I can do this.

This all comes
over me like a blanket of strength. It's more a decision than a mental pep
talk. It's an instinct that has helped me to keep my sanity since the world
turned upside down. Maybe I'm taking too much personal credit for it, maybe
it's a gift. Whatever the case, I find myself filled with images and fresh
insights. Like my brain is taking a gasping breath after going too long without
air. My breathing is calmer and starting to regulate. I was all adrenaline and
feelings but now I'm thinking.

"Did you
see what he was wearing?" The images my brain cataloged without me even
realizing are clear and I want to think about them out loud to make sense of
them. "I think he was a scientist!"

He was in a
metallic silver, one-piece body suit with the symbol for man, a circle with an
arrow pointing up to the right, on both arms. That particular body suit is worn
by Pravda scientists, the worldwide organization of scientists and doctors who
are working to solve the problem of the disease. They are zombies trying to fix
zombies.
The blind leading the blind.
Their body suits
remind me of a diver in a wetsuit from Sea World. My dad took me there when I
was five to see the big whale,
Shamu
.

The zombie's
shimmery silver get-up completely covered him except for his hands, feet and
face. Of course shoes covered his feet and he was wearing that weird Oscar the
Grouch mask.
Kind of a goofy choice of mask for a scientist.
He had on a pair of their special satiny black gloves. Who knows how many of
the fingers inside were his, if any. The gloves are capable of simulating up to
ten bionic fingers.

Aunty starts to
recall her observations as well and we work to figure out what just happened.
To put the scary experience into the context of a puzzle makes it manageable.
Gives us back some control over it.

She says,
"By the smell of him, I'd guess just working for Pravda. Scientists bathe
and wear colognes to cover the smell of the disease. And the scientists use
every possible means to fight their own disease. That man was very
advanced,
he hasn't had the luxury of medical treatments.
It's the addicts who do the scientist's dirty work and get paid in drugs that
look and smell like that."
 

Work in exchange
for the drug that the Pravda Corporation got them all hooked on. Their
"miracle" drug,
Lucimer
, that
was supposed to cure the disease. Never mind that
their "miracle" had the side affect of being more addictive than
heroine. The relief that it gave at first still has Pravda insisting that
prolonged doses may help with the symptoms of the disease. So most of the
population of the planet is now wasting away in total dependency to the drug.
They get sick and suffer painful withdrawal when it leaves their system.
Junkies.
 

"Besides,
he wasn't armed and he wasn't quick," she continues. "They may have
put together a decent plan to capture you, but if this old lady could take them
out, then they weren't that bright. They had the advantage of surprise."
Still thinking out loud, she comes up with an even scarier realization,
"No weapon. He was supposed to take you alive."

We both shudder
at that thought. Take me where? Her assessments sound reasonable and likely.
They know me and they specifically want me. Why?

"He had
those special gloves on too," I add. "Maybe he stole the clothes.
Maybe he had nothing to do with Pravda."

I know
it's
wishful thinking. I need that hope right now. The
zombies are lawless, every man for himself, so it's hard to know anything for
sure.

"Speaking
of shoes, what are you wearing, Ivy?"

I blush
red.
 
Mortified of my girlie-girl moment
and shamefully aware that I left my brand new, perfectly fitting, Adidas
running shoes on the floor of Rue 21. I'm going home in scuffed pink platforms.

As If Mondays Weren't
Bad Enough Already

We ride the rest
of the way home lost in our own thoughts. Aunty will have the unpleasant job of
telling the Elders what happened. We'll have to tell them. It's not safe for
others to attempt the trip now. Aunty tells me the Elders had been against it
to begin with. She'd insisted that we'd safely done it several times over the
years. After a long meeting that I wasn't invited to, the Elders gave in and
let her have her way. Aunty carries herself with so much authority that I don't
know anyone who isn't a little intimidated by her.

We didn't used
to need permission for our outings. But things have been getting worse—I guess
the world is catching up with us. Several months ago, some of our men left the
community to hunt and didn't come back. And there have been other unexplainable
disappearances like Aunty Betty's. All the fear and unrest moved the community
to elect a Board of Elders to govern the Living and watch over us. Aunty and I
don't resent
them,
it is out of kindness and concern
for our safety that they limit us. It's less freedom though, and that's a
little hard to get used to.

As the disease
continues unchecked, eating away at the nerves and flesh of the infected, the
morale of humanity degrades with it. I was twelve years old when the curse
first hit, but I still remember those days with clarity. At first mankind
didn't even know they had contracted it. It can live in a person for months
before manifesting. Even when it started to present itself, it was worse in
some people than others. So in the beginning, the world didn't even realize
that
every
living person had it.

A wave of panic
swept humanity for the second time that year. The disappearances had already
irrevocably changed the world. When the plague hit, I thought that we wouldn't
be able to surmount another hurdle—that life might just fall apart and end
right then. There was rioting all over the world. The United States thought the
disease was terrorism in the form of biological warfare and the possibility
another World-War loomed over the planet.

Scientists
worked day and night in a frenzied attempt to find a cure.
Leprasimilis
got its name when they found that it resembled Hanson's Disease, more commonly
known as Leprosy. But none of the cures that had worked on Hanson's Disease had
any
affect
on this new worldwide
bane
.
Then the scientists had their breakthrough and the drug
Lucimer
was introduced globally. The first dose of
Lucimer
had to be administered as a shot, an injection close to the bone. You could
choose either the forehead or the back of the hand.

The shots were
given to anyone with symptoms and they were mandatory. About three days after
receiving the shot, the skin around the injection turned black and stayed that
way. The black spot became a validity test of whether or not you had been
inoculated. Anyone who tested positive but refused the injection was either
given the injection by force or killed. Then the inoculation became law,
symptoms or no symptoms. Every citizen of the U.S. had to have the shot.

Kids in every
public school in the nation were given the shot without warning and without
their parent's permission. It happened first thing in the morning, on a Monday,
about a week after the new law. It was a coordinated strike, the teams of
doctors and military men entered every school in the nation at the same time on
the same day.
 
Even the teachers didn't
know it was coming. Students were locked in their classes until it was their
turn.

A team of armed
men accompanied the doctors into each class and the doctors administered the
shot at gunpoint to everyone in the class who hadn't already gotten it.
Kindergartners were held down for the painful shot, without the comfort of a
parent by their side, under the terrifying gaze of camouflaged gunmen. Older
students rebelled and tried to run. The school hallways were painted crimson
with the blood of children.
Another despicable day in
history.

I wasn't at
school on Red Monday. My parents were paranoid
people,
they didn't want something that the government was forcing on them. None of us
had any symptoms. They had kept me home that day to help them pack our house.
We didn't even know what was happening at the school, only a mile from our
house. No one knew until the students came home traumatized and weeping as they
got off their buses. I watched my best friend, Kelly, get off the bus at our
stop—she was sobbing and stumbling up the street to her house right next to
mine. I tried to run out to her, but my parents wouldn't let me go outside. We
were moving but they wouldn't tell me where and I knew I'd never see her again.

That's when
Aunty Coe showed up, unannounced, at our house. She hadn't had the shot either;
and she told mom and dad that we shouldn't get it. She tried to tell them about
God.
About how all of this was in her Bible.
I
remember how scared they were that day. I don't know if they heard much of what
she said. Mom kept getting up to look out the window while Aunty pleaded with
them to listen. She invited all of us to come live with her in
Toccoa
. Dad said he already had a safe place stocked and
ready for us. They asked her to take me for a week or so while they got
everything settled at the new place. They said they'd come get me. Aunty told
them she'd keep me at the Inn and that I'd be safe there. I had only been
around Aunty Coe a few times in my life and I knew she wasn't a kid person. I
cried and begged my mom not to send me with her.

Mom slapped me.

I was 12. I
hadn't been spanked in years and I had never been slapped. My parents had
always been really easy on me. I was born when they were older and they spoiled
me. They loved me. I remember feeling so shocked and hurt as Aunty Coe shut me
into the back seat of her little, blue car.

I know that I'm
Alive today because of a plan that I couldn't see or understand. I know that
hard day was necessary. But every time I think of that day, the pain of that memory
still rips at my heart with claws that haven't dulled a bit in four years. The
last moments I had with my parents were fighting and crying. They were angry at
me and too nervous to even hug me goodbye. They never came like they said they
would. I never saw them again.
 

I blink tears
out of my eyes as I stare out the window. The fields and forests that fly by
have lost their enchantments. Everything just looks dead. Winter has invaded my
heart and there is no
Spring
on the horizon. There is
no hope left for this world. Aunty pushes the car as fast as possible back to
Toccoa
. She keeps patting my hand and glancing back and
forth between me and the bendy back roads. She probably thinks my wet cheeks
are because of today, but really they are for the past.
And
for my parents.
And for the wretchedness of existence
in general.

This stupid
disease has ruined the world and everything in it.
Especially
my life.
And I don't even have it. Well, I have it, but different. For
us, the Living, it's like a cold sore. You know how once you get a cold sore
it's always with you; but it only shows up when you are sick or too rundown?
Like your body is fighting it all the time without you knowing it. If you don't
take care of your body, the virus pops up on your face and yells
"Herpes!" to everyone who
see
it. The
disease is that way with us. Our new Life in the Spirit fights the disease
without us even knowing it. But if we slack off, like not staying in the Word
or letting anger, jealousy and pride live unchecked in our hearts—even
something as innocuous as skipping church too much—our strength in the Spirit
gets weak and the symptoms will start to break out again.
  

In the beginning
when we were all just learning how to walk in this new Life, many of us had the
symptoms right along with the rest of the world. As time went on though, we
realized we weren't getting worse like everyone else. Those of us who knew the
Truth were getting better. That's when the scientists first started
experimenting on the Living.
 
At first they
assumed that we were immune. But when they ran the tests, the same disease was
found in our blood too. Many of the Living have been kidnapped and tested and
dissected by Pravda, but science is no closer to the cure. And they wouldn't
find it if they searched for a hundred years.
At least not
through medical testing.
 

Conspiracy
theorists think we are hiding the cure to keep it for ourselves. Because we are
well, we are envied and hated and of course not believed. We have tried to
share the Cure with them. Early on we told anyone who would listen that it was
Him. He
is
the Cure, but they won't
hear it, won't believe. For a short while, we lived side by side with them and
told anyone who would listen. When
Lucimer
came out,
the Living had to go underground. They couldn't be part of society without
being captured and forced to take the shot or die. I was young and I didn't
believe yet. But Aunty and the others knew what the shot was and knew it was
imperative that the Living not take it, under any circumstances.

Pravda was sure
the shot would cure the disease and at first it brought about a massive
reduction of symptoms. The world rejoiced over the successful eradication of
LS. Then, weeks later, it suddenly came back, redoubled and even tripled, in
anyone who had gotten the shot.
Which was most everyone on
the planet except the Living.
 

From then on,
everyone thought we were healthier because we
hadn't
taken the shot. The law was revoked,
Lucimer
was no longer mandatory.
But too little too late.
Almost everyone had taken it, or died resisting it. It meant that the Living
could come out of hiding. But, they still wouldn't listen to us. After all, we
were found to have the same disease in our blood. They thought maybe if they
hadn't taken the shot they'd be just as healthy as we were. They refuse to see
Truth.

The scientists
continue to run secret tests on their captives. The government, who supposedly
still cares for our interests as equal citizens, does nothing to protect us
from Pravda.
And for obvious reasons.
The government
is entirely populated with zombies, as desperate for the cure as anyone else.

We aren't sure
how much longer we'll be safe living out in the open. People go missing and the
government looks the other way. We are wise enough to know what would happen if
we started to scream for our rights. It's like standing next to a Tyrannosaurus
Rex in one of those Jurassic Park movies. If you are very quiet and still, he
might not notice you. You have a good chance of making it. But if you make a
lot of noise, well, you don't make it to the end of the movie. We do our best
to lay low.

I've heard some
of the older Living ones say that the zombies have been blinded on purpose and
are
incapable of understanding. That confuses me. If the
Living who
say
that are right, to be honest, I find it
unfair. Why do I get Life when thousands of other 16 year old girls are walking
around with sparkly masks to hide the fact that their ears fell off?