Canni

by Daniel O'Connor

  Cash.

  He couldn’t decipher her words, but he knew it was her. Never before had relief, frustration, and anger assaulted him in unison. He put the buckets down and started quickly toward the sunlight. Cash’s laugh echoed through the tunnel.

  This stopped Rob, and he turned around and retrieved his pails of human waste. He carried them toward daylight at a snail’s pace. With each step, the voices of Cash and the others became louder and clearer. She giggled some more. Then, he heard her ask about his whereabouts.

  “His slacker ass is on bucket duty, supposubly,” replied one of the men.

  “FiveFourThreeTwoOne,” stuttered Cash. Rob knew she was now into her finger-counting, arm-rubbing, deep-breathing, ritual.

  “Da fuck?” came the man’s reply.

  As Rob moved toward the light, some more conversations were heard.

  “Where’d you get them wheels, Paul?”

  “Oh, it’s my bro’s car. Took the bike to my place and switched over to the Santa Fe.”

  “Your place? With Miss Brooklyn? Sweet, my playa!”

  Rob stopped.

  He lowered both buckets to the dusty ground. Then he turned and trudged deeper into the darkness.

  Rob sat on his bed, feet up. He stared at the thin streams of light that darted in from the city above. Dust particles danced within the rays, like leukocytes. He heard the footsteps, and knew the pace of her walk.

  “Hey,” said Cash.

  “Hey,” answered Rob, eyes remaining on the light.

  “I tried to call a few times,” offered Cash, “but your service . . . ”

  “You went to Paul’s apartment?”

  “He had to get a car, and I took a shower . . . ” she immediately realized her answer just made it worse.

  Rob turned his eyes to her.

  “You took a shower? Okay. Then why do you look filthy? You’ve obviously been rolling around in the dirt or something. Your hair is a mess too.”

  “Things like that happen when you’re hiding from someone who wants to kill you.”

  “Fuck. I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “I knew that if you left here without me you’d be in grave danger. What happened?”

  “We were getting things at a junkyard . . . ”

  “You and Paul?”

  “Yes. The gatekeeper of the yard turned canni. I had to hide under a truck. I got dirty, okay?”

  “What did Paul do?”

  “I couldn’t answer your calls because I was in hiding.”

  “Did Paul do anything to protect you, or did he just look out for himself?”

  “He was going to fight while I climbed from the truck and ran to safety, if it came to that.”

  “You said you were under a truck. You were in a truck?” he asked.

  “Both, for fuck’s sake! I’m lucky to be alive and all you can do is cross-examine me? You’re not even happy to see me? What, are you afraid that I had a little time to breathe? A little time to know what the world is like without you draped all over me?”

  “That’s just great. Sorry that my love is labeled as suffocation. You’re part of the choir. I’ve heard that song from Phaedra too—even from that insane Russo. I guess I’m the asshole.”

  “Well, sometimes you are.”

  “Maybe Paul is the guy for you. You guys can have an open relationship. Maybe you need a guy who doesn’t give a damn about you but just likes your ass or something.”

  “Typical Rob. There you go. He can’t possibly like my personality or my smile or eyes. Anyone who isn’t you just wants to get laid, I guess.”

  Rob sat up. He looked at Cash, standing there all soiled.

  “So he does like you?”

  “I didn’t say that. I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Fucking liar,” he growled.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You’re a fucking liar. I can’t stand liars.”

  “Okay, I’ll be honest,” she said, fixing her tussled hair. “I kissed him.”

  Rob felt it all at once. Fire in his face, ice in his body. His mouth turned to sand and his throat narrowed as if underfoot. He thought he might be flipping, as he had never felt this way before. He considered yelling “Run”.

  But he couldn’t speak.

  All he could see were imagined images of The Kiss. That, and worse. He realized that, if he was becoming a canni, it would have already happened. This pain, this metabolic change, was something different. It was a steaming brew of sadness, anger, fear, and the fiery death of trust. He stood, and walked to the far side of the tunnel, further from Cash. The streams of light were now between them, like prison bars.

  “He’s alone with you for an hour, and the first chance he gets, he kisses you.”

  “That’s not correct,” said Cash.

  “Really?”

  “I told you, I kissed him.”

  Cash sat on her bed, legs tightly together and arms folded.

  Traffic pounded the streets above them, rattling the manhole covers.

  Expecting a barrage of questions, Cash tried to prepare her answers before they were needed. It surprised her that Rob had but one singular question.

  “Where, exactly, did this happen?”

  Rob couldn’t recall the last time he’d ridden a bicycle. He had grabbed the sturdiest-looking of the bunch of tunnel bikes. It smelled of strawberry incense but felt like rust. He hadn’t said a word to Cash since he asked her for directions to the junkyard. She had no answer, but Phaedra knew exactly how to get there.

  He rode alone through the brisk night, wearing the black New York Mets jacket that Cash had given him long ago. He had never been much of a baseball fan, but if Cash loved that team, so did he. He knew that she was safe in her tunnel bed. Unless she took off with Paul again. It had been the most awkward of evenings. He had remained near her, but neither spoke. For his part, he didn’t know which questions to ask. But mostly he feared the answers.

  He had little money left, and he was feeling guilty over the fact that he’d just spent a chunk of it at Walmart. Plus, he gave ten bucks to a stranger to guard a bicycle worth half that while he shopped. Everything he’d purchased was stuffed inside the clearance-sale Ariana Grande knapsack strapped to his back. Hey, funds were low.

  The ride had been long and lonely, but at least he hadn’t seen any Cannis. At one point he’d heard the pounding of charging footsteps behind him. They were fast and he had to pedal like hell to distance himself, but he never looked back. So technically, he hadn’t seen anyone who wanted to kill him this night.

  Not yet, anyway.

  I can probably return the wire cutters for a cash refund.

  That was his first thought upon his arrival at the closed junkyard. A section of fence had already been pushed in. Might have happened in the dim and distant past, or earlier this night.

  He knew one thing was of the utmost importance before entering this or any enclosed area in which he was not welcome.

  First, you shake the gate.

  He rattled it a bit initially, then, hearing nothing, he gave it a great waggle.

  Again, dead air.

  Not a guard dog to be seen.

  I can probably return the chuck steak for a cash refund.

  With the bright colors of the Las Vegas Strip sparkling in the distance, in stark contrast to the near blackness of this industrial area, he slipped through the fence. He wondered if the junkyard dog had exited the same way and who, or what, had come through the chain link in the first place.

  He didn’t see any cut marks on the fencing. It looked to have been forced, as though a tank had crashed it, albeit the hole was too small for that.

  It was more the size of a human.

  His newly-purchased Maglite had found the guard dog. At least some of it. It was probably a great Doberman specimen as it lived. Its ears had been cropped and tail docked. Cruel procedures to Rob’s way of thinking, but nothing when compared to what some canni had done
to it. I can probably return the big flashlight for a cash refund.

  PARA SI HAY NIÑOS

  Rob thought briefly of the disemboweled dog as he stared at the bumper sticker of the ice cream truck. He sat atop an old, decommissioned police car; a Plymouth Fury from the 70s—just another dead thing, like every other piece of matter in the yard. From the roof of the vehicle where the cherry top once spun, Rob watched the truck—the wheeled den where Cash betrayed him—go up in flames like a Salem witch.

  Cash may have cheated on him and he could never undo that, but that didn’t mean that the location of the transgression had to stand forever. It could burn like the couch that took his father. The brown sofa, the location of so many childhood beatings, went up in flames along with the man responsible for them. Sometimes Rob wished that his mother—the one who walked out on his family, which led to his father’s drinking, which led to Dad falling asleep with a burning cigarette—could have been the parent on that microfiber monstrosity when it ignited.

  Now he imagined Mom in that ice cream truck. She was wrapped in every misery he could recall: the day she left and the one-sentence note she’d left behind, the way Dad transformed into a monster, the memory of walking in on his own prior girlfriend having phone sex with some stranger from Indiana, and now the image of Cash, the person he thought would be the antidote to all of the other miseries, sliding her tongue into the mouth of Paul Bhong.

  The same lighter that ignited the truck was now tickling the tip of a big, fat joint that Phaedra had given him. He sucked it in, legs folded, atop the erstwhile police vehicle, his cheap Ariana Grande knapsack beside him. The burgeoning fire brought some life to the cadaverous junkyard. Rob’s senses were aroused. The flames were brilliant and the crackling resonant. The spice of the burn raced up his nostrils as its torridity enveloped him like a womb.

  Moths came.

  They flittered about the outline of the blaze, twinkling like the stars above. Maybe they were just insects, but Rob was happy that they’d arrived.

  Because they were life.

  By the third hit of his spliff, Rob was feeling it.

  Phaedra has some quality shit.

  The start of his high arrived at the same time as the canni.

  It was a woman. Some nondescript lady who might be any soccer mom or middle school teacher. Normally Rob would not give this unremarkable organism a second glance, but she was the only other human around, and she was covered from chin to feet in blood. Probably the dog’s. A Michael Kors tote still dangled from her shoulder. Mocha.

  She, like the moths, was drawn to the flames.

  Rob thought about running, but he knew she’d catch him before he could get to his bicycle. Maybe it was the cannabis, but he wasn’t too scared. The monster hadn’t noticed him and was staring intently at the burning truck. He felt almost invisible in the darkness, though the glow of the flames would sometimes hit him like a strobe. He remained motionless and contemplated the cremation of his broken heart.

  Motionless, save for the elbow-bend that carried the herb to his lips.

  The truck had a death rattle of its own. Things within were popping and falling. Rob’s body was warm, inside and out. He enjoyed the absence of concern.

  Burn, motherfucker, burn.

  He considered the moths. He knew some of them undoubtedly flew directly into the flames and were turned to dust. Hell, they do it at any porch light. Yet, others appeared to continue circling the fire, avoiding direct contact. Were these the more intelligent ones? Were they just the lucky moths? Was it all a matter of chance? Would even the encircling moths eventually wind up in the fire?

  Rob evaluated all of this, inhaling smoke from both his arsonist creation and Phaedra’s fatty, when a vision of Cash, her eyes the warm color of that Kors bag, grinning in Paul’s tightening arms, bum-rushed his mellow.

  Just before his returning anger peaked, the canni caught fire.

  The arm of her light sweater went up. She spun in a circle, like one of the moths, screaming, teeth clattering. Rob watched for a couple of seconds before his hazy mind understood that this canni was a human being about to be burned to death, and that Rob the arsonist was about to become a murderer. He slipped down from the car roof just as the canni went to the ground, sweater flames spreading.

  The smoldering infectee spotted him and struggled to stand. It was then that Rob struck her across the head with his Maglite. He didn’t know quite how hard to hit a human head in order to cease consciousness but avoid death. Adding a human in this physical state to the equation just complicated matters.

  He hit her pretty fucking hard. As she went down, he could feel the flames. She began to get back up. He blasted her again. This time it was lights out.

  Except for the fire.

  The unconscious canni was ablaze and the truck beside her an inferno. He looked for anything to douse the flaming woman.

  It had to be his Mets jacket.

  He removed the garment that Cash had given him on one happy Christmas morning. Onto the canni it went, smothering the fire. The infected woman would have some serious burns, but she’d probably survive. He’d call an ambulance as soon as he could find a phone. He grabbed his knapsack and headed for the bike.

  As he walked away, the Mets jacket remained atop the canni, withering beside the pyre of the ice cream truck.

  VIRGINIA

  In the first minutes of her first day back at work deep beneath Dr. Robert’s Virginia barn, Dr. Anderson stood in the research center’s kitchen, pouring coffee with her good arm. To the side of the room by the snack and soda machines stood a helmeted guard.

  The doctor tried to inhale the scent of her brew, but she got perfume instead.

  The lovely Dr. Martinez had come up behind her.

  “How you feeling, V?”

  “Oh, pretty beat up, inside and out, but aren’t we all?” she smiled.

  The smile was genuine, but mostly because she was thinking of what her brother might have said about their attractive co-worker, and her aroma.

  “Well, I am glad to see you back,” said Martinez. “We need you.”

  Pouring some sweetener, V responded, “Any significant changes?”

  “Oh, yeah. Number twelve has died of an apparent stroke . . . ”

  “Twelve? Wasn’t he only in his twenties? Relatively healthy?”

  “That’s him. A bit of a papi too. Buff.”

  “Wow.”

  “That’s not the worst of it.”

  Dr. Anderson’s coffee stopped just short of her lips.

  “Nine and sixteen,” said Martinez, “have gone canni, and have not switched back.”

  “For how long?”

  “At least thirty-six hours by now.”

  “Crap,” said V as she put down the Styrofoam cup. “And we now call them Canni in here?”

  “Not officially. Not on paper.”

  Anderson ignored her coffee and headed toward the doors that led to the work area. She stopped to study the guard standing by the vending machines. Glancing down at his wrist she said, “Still rocking the wireless, eh?”

  He gave a shrug and a slight tilt of the head.

  Just as she stepped away, she noticed the soda machine. The Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, and Aquafina pushbuttons all shone green.

  The button beside the Diet Mountain Dew selector flashed red.

  EMPTY.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Vice President Montgomery carried four straight-backed chairs one-by-one from the side of the room and placed them in front of the Oval Office desk, facing President Collins.

  “You know we have people who do that, Owen,” smiled Collins.

  “Yeah, well, I got it.”

  “Is this a surprise party or something? Who’s coming?”

  The VP threw up a forefinger as if to say ‘give me a minute’. He turned to the two helmeted guards by the closed doors. “I’m sorry, but I’ll need to ask you fellows to wait just outside, please.”
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br />   The officers began to move, then stopped, looked at each other, and turned to the president.

  “That’s fine,” said the commander-in-chief. “We have our emergency buttons, and while I’m not speaking for the vice president, I can scream like an infant. Just remain by the doors but in the hallway.”

  As the guards headed out, Vice President Montgomery added, “Please let the gentlemen behind the door in as you exit.”

  The president raised an eyebrow as the men entered: CIA director Warren Hamburger, his boss—the Director of National Intelligence, Retired Admiral David R. Lamb—and the pink-scarred, dark-skinned, usually-blinking White House janitor.

  “Please be seated, gentlemen,” said the VP.

  President Collins adjusted his seating position. He studied the two department heads and one custodial employee who sat before him. The pair of directors greeted him with nods and a verbal “Mr. President”. The janitor grimaced and blinked.

  “Well,” offered the president, “this is certainly different.”

  “Yes, it is, sir,” answered the vice president.

  “Are you sure the Secret Service needs to remain outside?” asked Collins.

  “More so than ever, actually,” responded Montgomery.

  Collins pulled his executive chair right up to his desk. The vice president alone remained standing.

  “Mr. President, you are aware that Retired Admiral Lamb has led our naval forces, including the SEALs, for many years,” he began.

  “Of course.”

  “Admiral,” continued the VP, “what is your opinion of our SEALs?”

  “They are mammoth. They are selfless. They have no fear. I would walk through Hell with one SEAL beside me.”

  “My thoughts as well,” answered Montgomery. “All that being said, Admiral, would you have any suggestions with regard to any other unit that might be more successful in our quest to locate, and capture alive the men and/or women who created, implemented, and unleashed this demon upon our country so that we might gain information into a possible antidote or potential cure?”

  “I do. Mr. President, do you remember the coordinated bombs attacks on the Florida theme parks or the sarin gas release in the Vegas casinos?”