Authors: Alex Adams
“What do you use for accelerant?”
“Gasoline,” she says between outbursts. “It’s free now. We just take what we need.”
—gasoline, going up in flames, is hilarious.
“I thought you quit smoking.” “I did, until the plague got me and I died. I figured I got nothing to lose now.”
It’s like July Fourth, with real baby-back ribs—and grownup ribs, too. And I can’t stop. The volcano is erupting and my laughter flows down its sides in great fiery rivers. Burning people. In the community pool.
We laugh until we’re doubled over. And then something changes and the horror comes back and we start to cry.
“This is fucking bullshit,” she says, “I’m a soldier. Soldiers don’t cry, especially if they’ve got tits. It’s hard enough as it is.”
“The other two types?” When she squints, trying to figure out what I’m talking about, I remind her she said we were down to three types of people, and the dead ones were just the first.
“Two more types, right. You and me, the living. The ones who aren’t sick. For whatever reason, we’re the lucky ones who seem to be immune to this thing. Or unlucky, maybe. I haven’t decided yet.” She sits up straight, stares at the TV. The president is giving a press conference with what’s left of the press. “And the others.”
“‘The others’?”
“Come on, you have to have seen them. The ones who got sick but didn’t die. At least, not straightaway.”
I think about Mike Schultz eating the mice. One day he was sick, the next he was supplementing his diet with test subjects. I think about my father and his Mr. Hyde routine. There’s no way I can twist that to make it sound normal.
“I’ve seen some. How bad is it?”
She nods at the TV, reaches for the remote.
“Human beings are no longer compatible with life.”
These words are heard around the nation. Heads turn like sun-flowers to the sun. A split second after the gasping chorus sweeps the crowd, the president of the United States realizes his microphone is not turned off.
We watch his eyes widen, his mouth sag, as he takes in the truth, and now everybody left knows our leader has no faith in any of us.
He clutches his face. He is Edvard Munch’s
Scream
.
Sergeant Morris buries her face in her hands—that’s how bad it is. “I always thought I was a survivor, but now I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. I wish I knew …”
“Knew what?”
“How this shit all went down. How it began. The war, the disease, everything. I wish I had a neck to crush. Maybe that’d make me feel better about all this. Barring that, I wish we had the things we need. First sign of trouble, everything got looted. Drugstores first.”
“And electronics.”
“I know, right? World turns to shit and people steal big-screen TVs. Like that’s gonna save them.”
The world is broken, its contents smithereens. Therapy won’t change anything. I don’t want to sit around and talk about how I feel about losing everyone. I don’t want to shred my psyche to pulled pork, then pick through the strands looking for that moment when I began to fail everyone I loved. I don’t want to lie here on this couch and wait for the end of all things. And it’s coming, the end; the president knows it, the woman next to me knows it, and I know it. The end is coming. I don’t know if this is Armageddon, because there’s a
distinct lack of religious people shaking their fists and yelling, “We were right! We told you so!” There’s no leader stepping forward to pull us together and stamp bar codes on our foreheads. If there’s a beast, we’re it. My religious studies have fallen far from the wayside, but I’m sure that possibility wasn’t accounted for: man as his own Antichrist.
A thin stream of air seeps from my lungs. “I’m not going to see your shrink.”
“I can compel you.” No conviction in her voice—just deep-boned weariness.
“You can try, but you’re overtaxed. I’m not going to do it. If you make me, I’ll just sit there and say nothing.” I take a deep breath, try not to think about losing everyone. “That sounds like a bullshit reason for coming here, anyway.”
“You’re right,” she says. “It’s partly bullshit. Truth is we could use more uninfected heads and hands. You’ve got both.”
I like that idea. I want to be more than a part of my couch. And I tell her so.
“I can get drugs,” I say. “Medication.”
“Legal?”
“More or less.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Maybe,” I say. “But does it even matter anymore? I can’t sit here and do nothing.”
She shakes her head. “You’re stubborn as hell. Nick’s gonna love you.”
My heart stops. “Nick?”
“Our therapist. Good guy. Delicious. Makes me wish I was interested.”
Heart starts. “My best friend James was gay, too. I miss him like crazy.”
She smiles, tight and small. “No, I’m not gay. My husband was one of the first casualties of this fucking war. And for what? We’re all gonna die anyway. As much as I know it was his job, I think he died for nothing. He could have been here with me.”
I reach across the couch, take her hand. We sit there like that,
still, watching the struggling Secret Service men try to rush the president to safety. But their hearts aren’t in it. The president is just a symbol of something that no longer exists, of dignity we no longer possess.
Pope Pharmaceuticals is a sterile
tomb. My footsteps echo on the lobby floor before the high ceiling whisks them away.
The pharaoh greets me.
Pope Pharmaceuticals considers you part of the family
. It’s the devil inside me that makes me flip him off on the way past as I hoist my knapsack higher. I’m here with a shopping list that begins with George P. Pope.
I ride the elevator to the top floor. When the doors part, I am in the ivory tower, staring into the face of the sanest madman I have ever seen. He sits behind his vast marble desk, hands flat on the blotter. To his left sits a fountain pen in an ebony holder. To his right is a cell phone that’s as impotent as the men for which Pope Pharmaceuticals develops drugs. These are the tools of the modern villain in this new Wild West.
“We’ve got a problem,” George P. Pope says.
He looks like he wants to tell me, so I wait.
“We’re like the mice. All of us. People. Including you. What do you think? Why are you still alive?”
“Really?”
His nod is an almighty blessing. The great and terrible George P. Pope wants to hear my opinion. I can hardly contain myself.
“I know I should be grateful, but when everyone around you is dead or dying, it’s hard to find comfort in being alive.”
“I don’t give a shit about your personal feelings. I asked for your thoughts. That means I want you to tell me why you think you’re special. What’s different about you?”
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “I don’t even take a multivitamin.”
“We could cut you up and find out. You’re company property. And it’s a new world. Laws are gone. Pope Pharmaceuticals owns you.
I
own you.” His fingers slowly tap out a steady beat on the blotter. “I want to show you something.” He gets up from behind the desk. There’s an
odd lurch to his steps, like a woman trying to walk in too-high heels. “Follow me.”
Commanding.
Inside the elevator, he pokes the keypad with a trembling finger.
“Your family?”
“They’re all dead. At least, I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
And it’s the strangest thing, because suddenly I’m standing there, telling about the day we found out Mark died and the incident at my parents’ house the last time I heard from them. I start talking and I can’t shut up. He just stands there and listens, no polite noises, no grunts or nods in the socially appropriate places.
When I’m done, I take a long breath. We’ve stopped and the doors have opened down on what has to be a subterranean level. There’s no illumination but that which comes from tubes of gas. A white, harsh light with no life in its glow.
Pope pushes past me. “I don’t care about your family. I didn’t ask for their life stories.”
“What do you care about?”
He turns, sweeps me with his ice chips. “My business. The board. Shareholders. No one else ever mattered.”
“What about your own family and your wife?”
“I don’t have family. I no longer have a wife. I have—
had
—employees. You can only trust the person who relies on you to eat. Have you ever been fucked in the ass?”
“None of your business.”
“That’s what family does—and friends. But employees think about their next meal, their benefits, their professional reputations, so they keep their cocks in their pants.”
After that, there’s nothing else to say. We’re in a long white hall broken periodically with doors. They have numbered plaques instead of names. The only other splash of color comes from the red of fire alarms and emergency axes. Orderly blood spatter on a maxi pad. Pope lurches left. With each step, the right side of his jacket swings as though there’s a counterweight concealed in the pocket. I keep distance between us just in case—
He’s a rat-eating monster
.
—he stops in a hurry. But he doesn’t show any signs of stopping until we reach a door labeled TC-12.
“TC? Torture chamber?”
“Yes.”
I cannot read him. His face is a foreign language. The expression is there in his eyes, but I can’t grasp the truth. A torture chamber—really? What is this, this company where I’ve worked for two years? What is George P. Pope that he needs such a place?
“Do you know what I am?”
It takes me a moment to formulate an answer that doesn’t involve a stifled scream.
“A businessman?”
He nods slowly, as though his neck hurts. “A businessman, but also a scientist. I enjoy experiments. Throw a cat into a flock of pigeons and what happens? Don’t answer—we both know what happens. I like large experiments with potentially extreme results. Not this small-scale …
stuff
where I inject a rat and wait to see if it’s more or less likely to lose weight. My passion is the big stage.”
He lifts his hands: God displaying His grand works. “Life. Sometimes the only way to test a drug is to put it out there and see what transpires. The mice only tell us what happens to a mouse. But I make medicine for people. To know what happens to people, you must use people.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “For years, I have sought other ways. Our prison system, for one. All those forfeit lives could be put to use. Testing on real people—that’s how you get real results, solid data. Good employees—that’s what a businessman needs. Good employees—that’s what visionaries need. Give an employee enough money and he will do anything you ask of him. Particularly if he can kill two birds with one shiny coin. Jorge was such an employee. He had no morals, enough debt to crush that truck of his, and a serious grudge against you for reasons he never shared with me.”
Every muscle that makes up
me
tenses until I am as stone as he.
“He wanted my job for his cousin.”
“Ah. A male minority pissed off because a middle-class white woman took a job he felt belonged to his blue collar. Yes, I can see that. Entitlement is just as powerful as jealousy, although not, perhaps, as all-encompassing as lust. Interesting. Although I don’t care why he did it, only that he did. You were a wild card. I never expected that you’d hold on to the container as long as you did. And to be immune as well? A double curse. You were supposed to be exposed and spread my work like a good little incubator. Instead you sat on the thing and went to therapy.” He waves a hand when my lip twitches. “Yes, I know about all that. One of my employees farts and I know about it. Pardon me: passes gas. But my creation found a way to leap into a host body. Perhaps Jorge didn’t seal the container as tight as he should have in his eagerness to see your
employment
was terminated. Perhaps he touched it with contaminated fingers. Perhaps the virus grew legs and climbed out.” His laugh is chillingly sane. “Survival of the fittest.”
“You created a weapon.”
“You say weapon, I say medicine. You may not believe this, and what you believe is unimportant to me, but we started with the best of intentions. Like everyone else, we sought to cure cancer. You wouldn’t understand the science—I barely do—but sometimes it’s possible to hit an On switch when you’re aiming to turn it off. Did you ever walk into a room and flick the light switch the wrong way? That’s what we did. And the result turned out to be potentially more profitable than our original idea. Although, of course, we continued to develop that, too. More product, more money. More money, more power.”
“Is there a cure?” Hope creeps.
“No. I’m a businessman, not Jesus. I can’t even bring myself back from the brink of extinction.” He shoves his left jacket arm high. The skin underneath is a pincushion plucked of its metal quills. The injection sites are strawberry red with infection. “I am a dead man walking, a Dr. Frankenstein who has become his own monster.”
He pushes the door to Room TC-12 wide: bold, confident befitting his status between these walls. “Good employees will do anything for a sum of money slightly larger than what they feel they’re truly worth.”
The white blinds me with its cleanliness. Willy Wonka’s Wonkavision room.
“Get in.”
I hesitate.
“That wasn’t an invitation.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a gun, points it at me like he means it.
“What’s inside?”
“An old friend. Of yours, of course. I don’t have friends.”
I see it now, the blood. I’ve seen too much of it, but I don’t think there’s a quota these days. I scan through the mess until I find remnants of a face I knew. The splayed body still wears its puffy coat, the one I knew from the train.
“It was easy to lure him here. All I had to do was offer him a glimpse at his big story.”
Not Jesse. No, no, no. He was just a kid trying to prove his worth
.
“You’re a fucking monster.”
“I suppose I am.”
“Why? Because he wanted to expose you for what you are?”
He grabs me by the throat, but though his heart might be in it, his fingers tell the tale of a body weak with disease.