The End Came With a Kiss (8 page)

"You know that gorgeous blonde receptionist on sixteen?" asks Kevin.

"Jackie?"

"Yeah. Laid a liplock on me just yesterday."

Clayon’s red blotchy face lights up. "DUDE!"

This produces a well deserved grin from Kevin.

"Dude! No way! She is like smokin’ hot!"

I feel myself slipping from the stream again. How do they not see this as bizarre? How did I not see it?

The room begins to blur in response to my interest, and I say it again in my mind.
How did I not see it?

I’m in the same exact spot, but not the same day. Kevin is on the far side of the room talking to two of the girls from the graphic design department.

"Hey, boss man," says a voice to my right. I turn, expecting to see Clayton’s blotchy face and heavyset jowls, but he has changed. He’s thinner, and the pimples that used to adorn his cheeks and nose are gone.

My hand reaches out and takes two envelopes from his outstretched hand. "Thanks, Clayton."

"Sure thing, Mr. Carter," he says, flashing a brilliant white smile.

I don’t remark on the fact that they were yellow three weeks ago. We are past this now. It is obvious to the whole world that something is going on. The company has been aware of it for just under a week, and we are in full scale damage control. Devon has hired six extra lawyers to work the angles. But fear hasn’t set in yet. The board of directors doesn't know that the specter of death is on the way. When they do it will be too late.

"You’re looking good," I say with my painted smile.

"I think so too," he says with a broad attractive smile, "but do you think I can get anyone to give me the time of day now?"

It’s true. All the girls were interested in him when he was imperfect, but the more handsome he gets, the less they want to kiss him. I feel the adrenaline hit me like a shock wave, as if I am experiencing this for the first time. The kiss! That’s how it’s spreading! How did we miss it? It couldn’t be more obvious. I have to warn someone. I have to warn Kate!

I tap my watch. "Call Kate." The phone in my pocket makes the call. Why am I doing this to myself? I know what she is going to say. Do I really want to put myself through this again?

"Hi, Ben," says Kate on the other side of the line.

"Honey. I need to know something." My voice sounds shaky.

"Are you okay?"

"This is going to sound strange, but I need a straight answer."

"Sure. What is it?"

"Has anyone kissed you? Even a quick peck on the lips."

There is silence.

"I’m not going to be mad. I just need to know."

"It was nothing," she says casually.

I feel my chest constrict.

"It was innocent. Some college kid, probably playing a prank."

"When did it happen?"

"Yesterday."

"Have you kissed Ella since that happened?"

"I don’t know, probably. Why? What’s going on?"

"You’re not going to understand this, but don’t kiss her. In fact, try to stay away from her until we can talk."

"Okay. That’s weird."

"Please, Kate. It’s a matter of life and death. I’ll explain when I get home."

"Life and death? All right. You’re officially scaring me."

"It’s probably nothing. It might even be wonderful. But I have a bad feeling about all this."

"About what?"

"Whether good or bad, Kate, the entire world is about to change, forever."

8

As I press my thumb on the cancel button, glowing red on my smartphone, I find myself locked in a numb stare. What am I doing? I intended to go back to the first recognizable sign of the spreading mutagen and work my way backwards. How is it I’m here, three weeks into the gestation? This dream world seems to be feeding off of whatever I’m thinking about. First it was my wife’s tear-stained face, now it’s the bizarre kissing fad that swept over the entire world with hardly a batted eyelash. How could they not notice? No, they did notice, eventually. They just didn’t care because they liked the lasciviousness of it, especially the least attractive. I can’t imagine how intoxicating it must have been for them. The farther the mutagen spread, the more beautiful people were becoming, and the harder it was to resist the kiss.

Another memory shimmers in around me, but I resist. I can’t follow my whims any longer, I have to stay focused. But as it solidifies, I find myself unable to resist. It is three days later, and the secret is spreading through the company like wildfire. But their reactions do not match the fear and dread I feel. Most seem excited, and why shouldn’t they? They’re getting thinner, stronger, younger. People who were suffering from chronic pain are coming in dancing. They don’t see that their productivity is down 40% or that their speech is sluggish.

I am in the boardroom with the CEO and all the head executives of the company. Devon Prescott has us watching a news report on the flat screen to his left. "Official word from the CDC is that this is not a virus," says the news anchor, sitting in front of a spectacular view of downtown New York. "However, they are cautioning people to stay in their houses and to refrain from physical contact until the danger can be assessed."

"Danger?" says the woman next to him. "My grandmother looks likes she’s in her 40s again and my sister, who has been confined to a wheelchair for the last sixteen years, is walking."

He laughs. "I think everyone has a story like that. Whatever this is, it’s going global. To discuss what this might mean for life on planet earth, we’ve brought together a panel of experts…"

Prescott interrupts. "I can tell you what it means for
this
company. We paid out three billion dollars for a product that went to market on its own. Somebody please tell me we’ve found a way to stop the spread of this thing."

"We haven’t found anything yet, sir."

Prescott looks back at the screen. "How did it spread so fast? You’d think it was an airborne pathogen." He swivels in his chair and scans each of us sitting around the long oak table. "Is there anyone left who isn’t infected?"

I raise my hand slowly, along with Coleen Buckler on the other side of the table.

"And how is it you two are immune?"

"No one’s tried to kiss me, I guess." Is my response.

"Me either," says Coleen.

Prescott lets out a cynical laugh. "No one?"

"Not even my husband," says Coleen with a shrug.

"I wonder if ugly people are safe from this? No offense," he says lifting his hand up.

Coleen and I look at each other. I imagine she is thinking the same thing I am. We’ve been called a lot of things, but ugly isn’t one of them. Before all this began, Coleen couldn’t beat the executives off with a stick. Her warm wavy chestnut hair, lush tropical skin and full curves easily broke through any defense. When she turned on the sex appeal, I never knew a man who was able to resist her. Why on earth would Prescott call her ugly?

As the question forms, I realize I already know the answer. This is how the mutagen spreads itself. It is looking for fertile soil. Since it causes people to be younger, healthier, and more beautiful, it must be designed to create a lust for people who are the contrast to this.

Of course it does! Why do I feel like I am discovering this for the first time?

I turn and look at Gerald sitting next to me. He looks to be in his mid 30s. Not bad for a man pushing sixty. But now he sits, unmoving, staring at a fixed point in front of him. Something has changed. He wasn’t this far gone before.

I look past him and slowly scan around the table. They’re all doing it, everyone except Coleen, she is no longer seated across from me. I scan to the right and the next face is Donald Banner. It slants to the side and one of his eyes is missing. Blood seeps from the wound and soaks his cheek.

I jolt backwards and fall through my chair to the ground. The time stream is sucking me back into the chair, but I crawl for the door. I know this memory. There is no
way
I’m going to experience this again!

A screech fills the room and I increase my crawl. Thumping and banging and more screaming follows. They’re losing it. They’re going insane. I have to get out of here! I scramble to my feet and open the door. Bodies kick and punch and bite each other as I slide through and pull the door shut.

There’s no lock, no way to keep them inside. I back away in terror. My eyes run from one end of the wall of windows to the other. There are already cracks and blood spatters where they have thrown each other. Even if they don’t use the door, they may come through one of the windows.

I am here, in this memory, but I’m not where I was when this happened. I can still sense the time stream pulling me in, drawing me to run down the hallway to the staircase, but I need to stay in control. I can’t allow it to keep dragging me from memory to memory.

It’s quiet. My head snaps around and I force myself to look back at the conference room. One of the windows is shattered, but I didn't hear it break. This doesn’t make sense. The tumult has ceased and I can see Devon seated back in his chair. How the…?

I inch toward the window. The room is no longer filled with crazed zombies hurling themselves at each other in a biting frenzy. It’s almost empty. Only four remain. Devon Prescot and three of his top executives. They look calm and mostly normal, save for the copious amounts of dried blood on their clothing.

Prescott’s mouth is moving and his hands are waving periodically. Is this a meeting? Are they looping now? Yes. My mind has shifted to a later snapshot, only this time I’m not in the stream. I look around, my heart still thudding in my chest.
Where am I supposed to be?

I sense it like a hollow silhouette just in front of me. I could easily let go and slide right in, but I refuse. I can’t take part in these memories any more. I have to stay outside of them or I might lose myself forever.

The hollow space—where I should be—strafes sideways, turns, and walks down the wide hallway. What happens when it goes? Will I jump to the next memory? Or will this memory freeze? I step in closer to the broken boardroom window. Prescott leans back and clasps his hands behind his head. This is a common gesture for him, it’s his way of saying, "I don’t like it. Show me something else."

The meeting continues and the longer I watch the more I wonder,
how is this possible?
If I wasn’t here to see this on the day it happened, how am I seeing it now?
I don’t have time for this.
Whatever is going on, it will have to wait. I need to find the original compound and get out of this dream state before I get lost in it. All this speculation isn’t helping, it only serves to drive me deeper into endless curiosities.

I force myself to turn away and, as I start to walk, I imagine I am moving backwards through time. The room around me dissolves, and I sense a network of glowing green dots appearing before me. No. Not dots. Memories. With millions of threads traveling between them like a giant web. Is this what my mind looks like? How interesting. I focus harder on the threads. What do they represent? Wait, I see it now. They’re all connected to locations and dates. My memories are compartmentalized based on their location in space and time.

When I think about the camp my parents used to take me to, a thousand threads blaze with a luminescent green fire, connecting all the memories associated with being at that camp: the taste of trout straight off the grill; a strong sensation of scratching my knee on a rock; kissing Katherine for the first time. When I think of Kate her threads increase in intensity and the threads for the cabin grow dim. There is hardly a memory that Katherine’s threads don't touch. There is no time in my life that I did not know her. We grew up next to each other, went to the same high school, attended Princeton together. That’s why everything reminds me of her. The connections go both ways.

I see a recent memory where I caught a whiff of diesel when I stopped at a local gas station. Diesel always reminds me of the beater truck dad used to use down at camp. When I follow the thread, I see the bright points of interest that are forever attached to that smell: the vibration of the engine; the stains of grease on my hands; the rushing smack of branches hitting the windshield as Kate and I take the truck off road to the sand pits.

Everything I have ever experienced with my senses is attached to locations or sections of time from my past. That’s why the shine of an apple reminds me of my grandmother’s kitchen, and why I am transported back to my middle school auditorium every time I hear the song "Little Deuce Coup" by the Beach Boys.

Okay. So what do I remember about the test tubes Cartwright brought in? Was there anything unique about them? Yes. The containers we use all have a red band at the top, but I see a flash of a memory where the band is black. My contemplation draws me in to the glowing point containing that memory. I feel someone run into me from the left.

"I'm sorry Mr. Carter. I didn't see you there," says the young lab assistant we brought on to speed up research and development. Slowly, he comes into focus, along with the details of the lab behind him. "I thought you were standing by the door," he says.