by M. L. Banner
“First, so you know, the ship has all of the fuel it needs and we’ve removed the island threat.” Normally Ted would have paused here to allow this good piece of news to sink in. But he moved directly into the first part of the secret he’d been carrying.
“Additionally, the threat of parasitics attacking on board is behind us... for now. It’s true, we have removed the parasitics from our ship, but the parasitic threat still dwells here. That’s because anyone who is infected with the Toxo parasite can become parasitic the moment their body temperature rises to ninety-nine degrees. Many of us have witnessed this firsthand, with a passenger seemingly okay one minute and then the next minute, they seem crazy, with murder on their minds.
“Today we will remove that threat from this ship for good. All of you in this room are currently staying in forward cabins, but your being invited to this specific place wasn’t for your convenience. It was for one simple reason: none of you are currently infected with the parasite.”
~~~
Jean Pierre paused to let it sink in.
“Yes, what I’m telling you is true. Everyone in this room is currently infected with the Toxo parasite. Many of you know this and have known this. But for some of you, this is the first time you’ve heard this, because you may not be symptomatic yet. Then again, a few of you are already symptomatic and you’ve noticed the tell-tale signs like the red eyes, pale skin, thoughts of violence, confusion and unreasonable anger.”
The room filled with murmurs and mumblings from almost everyone in the room.
Jean Pierre stopped and held up his hands. And when they didn’t immediately settle down he yelled, “Quiet! Listen. Every single one of you will, at some point in the future, experience some or all of these symptoms. And as someone who is infected, when your body temperature hits ninety-nine degrees, you may become parasitic. And if you do, you would be a threat to everyone on this ship who is not infected. And that means you are a threat to this ship.
“As the captain of the Intrepid, I cannot allow this threat to persist on my ship. Therefore, I have arranged for temporary shelters and supplies for each of you at a secure military base on the other side of this island. We will begin moving you there in a few minutes. Your personal belongings have already been packed up for you and are waiting on a tender, which will deliver you and your belongings to the island. And before you ask, this is not negotiable.” He took a deep breath. “If you do not comply or you resist leaving this ship, you will be shot. Please begin leaving now. You will be escorted by our security now.
At that moment, Flavio clicked open the door lock and hollered, “Follow this man right here, now.”
A security guard held up a sign that had a number 1 on it. Other guards had placards with other numbers on their signs.
~~~
Ted held up his hands to quiet the crowd.
“People... This is happening right now.”
The theater was filled with whispers, weeping and a few angry comments. Two people rose from their seats and started to march toward the entrance, but Wasano took a step in front of them and pointed his rifle. The intent was clear: you intend to interfere, you will be shot.
“Everyone, remain seated until this announcement is over. Security is now walking down the aisles, passing out lists of those people infected who are moving to the island. If you don’t find a name on the list, then that person is not infected. If a family member or a loved one is one of those who is infected and therefore going to the island and you are not infected, you will not be allowed to accompany them to the island. This is for your safety and the safety of those on the island. At some point in the future, we will set up a method of visitation to the island. Believe me when I say this was a hard decision which affects everyone.”
Ted was about to say, “My wife is there too.” But he didn’t want to blur the line. It was true, he’d suffered by being separated from her since she’d nearly died and become symptomatic. And he hadn’t seen her since she was on the island preparing it and planning to help those who were infected and forced to go there, so they could prepare for their life as an infected person.
But then Ted expected her to return to the ship, as the one exception to the captain’s rule, not only because she had proven herself multiple times, but because they still needed someone symptomatic to be able to periodically sniff-test each of their crew to make sure no one became infected, no matter how unlikely that might be.
119
New Life
51 Days Later
Flavio came home to find his wife Vicki standing just inside the door, wearing a giant smile and the short blue dress he loved.
“Ahh... Hello,” Flavio responded, his smile only crawling up one cheek. “Did I do something?”
She snickered, “Well yeah, I’d say you did.”
She held out her hands and he accepted them.
“Come here.” She led him into their cabin, body-blocking something she didn’t yet want him to see. When she moved to the side, she revealed their coffee table covered in a checkered tablecloth, with near formal settings, including nice silverware, two covered plates—he could see they were heated—and a Guinness beer, with beads of sweat rolling down its neck. He could smell the delightful Thai spices in the air.
“Did you do something?” he asked sure that something was wrong; otherwise she wouldn’t have gone to such trouble.
“Yes, I did!” she proclaimed, practically hopping. “What’s that at the edge of the table?” she asked playfully.
He looked at her and then at the table and now saw something there. He walked over and picked up the only foreign-looking object from her table setting.
Then it hit him. He snapped his head back to Vicki and now her entire face was enveloped with a smile. “Does this mean...”
She nodded, hopped twice and then leapt onto him. “We’re preggers.”
He spun her around, but then thought twice about it, letting her down easily. “Sorry. You must be careful now.”
She punched him in the arm. “You can be so daft sometimes. I’m fine. Ohh, and that’s not the only big news.”
Flavio was already feeling lightheaded about her pregnancy announcement. He wasn’t sure he could take any other big news.
“Come here.” She grabbed his paw and led him to the bathroom.
“What?”
“Take a peek, but don’t be too loud; you don’t want to wake them.”
He screwed his mug at her, like she was playing some sort of gotcha game and he was about to walk into it.
“Go on...” she insisted.
If it makes her happy, especially in her condition, he thought and pulled open the bathroom door.
In the corner, where they had been keeping Cat—she insisted on calling it Liz—was not only Cat, but five little kittens.
“Isn’t that cute? Liz had little babies.”
All Flavio could think of was how they were going to hide six cats now; one was hard enough.
“Can you put in a request for a family cabin now, or do we have to wait until little Flavio is born?”
He ignored her request. Of course he’d put in the request. But something struck him as odd.
He stepped into the bathroom and knelt down to closely examine Momma Cat and her kittens that were blindly suckling on her. Cat looked over to Flavio and meowed at him and he saw it again. It was one of her eyes: it had turned red.
~~~
The tender slashed at the surging sea and Ted tried not to feel nauseous, not usually getting seasick, especially after living on a ship for over two months. But he knew it was not just the rocking seas that jolted his sense of balance; it was the thought of seeing his wife after two months. But that wasn’t all.
It was the sense that this meeting, rather than being a joyous celebration, was instead a goodbye.
Ted was no idiot. He knew that they had no need for a symptomatic on their ship anymore: Chloe had fully developed a blood test for the Toxo infection. A simp
le prick of a finger and a little droplet of blood was all that was needed and already the captain had ordered mandatory testing once every two months for everyone on board. And those who tested positive would be escorted to the island.
So the only reason why TJ could return to them was eliminated by Chloe’s new test. But Ted still held out hope.
The captain had even agreed that she could come on board and stay for short visits. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it was a start. But only if he could convince her to come back.
Their last conversation on the radio told him she was thinking otherwise. She was cold and seemed unconvinced by his logic.
The boat came down hard off the crest of a large wave, rattling his bones in the process.
Ted looked up and saw the ring of the beach, past the breaker wall, almost completely covered in dots: no doubt the residents waiting to greet all of the visitors on their first visitation tender since the infecteds were relocated fifty-one days ago.
He glanced back and saw all the happy faces pointing at the beach, some even waving, as if they could see their spouses, loved ones or friends from this distance.
Ted returned his gaze, trying to do the same thing and sort out which one was his wife.
TJ always stood out in the crowd to him, even if she wasn’t the most glamorous or the most classically beautiful. Most would consider her a beautiful woman and many had made comments to him and to her about her features over the years. But to Ted, her beauty and presence was so much more than that. She had a radiance that shone brighter than any physical beauty could.
Pretty quickly, he could identify her, standing alone at the top of the beach’s littoral plain. She was covered in a hooded white robe that whipped around in the wind.
Ted found that his heart was racing, beating so hard it hurt for him to take breaths. He couldn’t wait to hold her, to gaze into her strange new eyes and see the love she’d always held for him.
The tender slid onto the beach and a crewman tossed a line to a waiting person, who tied it off on a pylon to the left of TJ. She stood there stoically, a pylon more unmovable looking than the inanimate post beside her.
Ted was the first off, hopping with both feet into the water, not caring about getting wet. He shuffled through the water, then ran up the beach, desiring to the embrace her. He dashed by others, as if they didn’t exist; his gazed was glued to her.
Still she remained, unmoving and seemingly unaffected by him.
When he was a countable number of steps away, a glint of light illuminated the darkness inside her hoodie that otherwise shrouded her head from him. He caught just a glimpse of her familiar smile creep up her unfamiliar face.
He halted only a few feet from her, because she still hadn’t moved. Was she unwilling or unable? His squinted to see more inside the covered murk of her hooded robe, for another glimmer of his wife, standing there in this foreign form.
Finally, she lifted her hands up to the hood’s edges and pulled it back to reveal her newly striking features. It was purposeful and it sucked his breath away.
Her hair was cut short, just over her ears and it was ghostly white-colored, like fine strands of silk; her eyelashes, thinned to the point of being hidden against her skin were also white; her skin’s pigment was completely bleached away; her lips, also almost invisible; both her eyes blazed like two blood moons cast against pools of white. And yet, they were the two most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.
A teardrop fell out of one of them. Then another. And another, until they both showered like a summer rainstorm.
“Oh, Ted,” she cried and in a single bound, she leapt onto him, wrapping her arms around him.
Not expecting this, he almost fell backwards, but he dug in and held tight to her slight frame, not wanting to let go. Her lips found his and they remained passionately locked for one all-consuming breath.
And then she released herself, exhaled and pushed away from him. He let go and she dropped into the sand and stepped back, breathing heavily while wiping at her eyes.
Normally tears would have streaked her makeup, but she wasn’t wearing any. Her face almost instantly returned to its natural state just before the tears, without any normal rosy flare in her cheeks or any of the other tell-tale signs that she had cried. It was like it didn’t happen, even though he could still taste the proof of their saltiness from that moment.
Her robe had opened some during their embrace and the wind whipped up again attempting to open it further. She immediately subdued it before more of her was exposed, palming her belly softly with one hand and tugging roughly with the other at it, where it criss-crossed her bust. Underneath the robe she was wearing a sleeveless olive T, rather than her usual—at least it was usual when he last saw her—sports bra. Most noticeably missing against her pale chest was her Orion necklace that he had given her over two months ago for their anniversary.
His eyes must have been hanging there too long, because she pulled with both hands now on the robe’s edges, covering herself to her neck. “I lost it,” she blurted. “The new chain you gave me broke.” She said this without emotion, as if she were speaking about something that was meaningless.
He really didn’t care about the necklace, not much anyway. But he couldn’t help but feel like it meant something, a metaphor for their relationship... Was it truly broken? Lost?
Almost in reply, barely loud enough to be heard over the excited chaos around them from loved ones and friends embracing, just like they had been too many moments ago, she said, “I’m not going back with you. I have to stay here.”
There it was, now stated in no uncertain terms. And as much as her words hit him like a punch to his solar plexus, he knew this was how it had to be.
Even if she agreed to come back with him, she’d never be allowed to stay. And it was foolish for even him to think this. She might still be his wife and it was obvious that she loved him, as evidenced by her tears and passionate embrace, but that didn’t change what she was now: a predator, who could no more occupy his cabin than a leopard.
Her delicate lips opened slightly, quivered, but then held firm. Then they quivered again before she said, “You know I’m still in love with you?”
He smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure of that.” He wanted to ask her something, but he wasn’t sure how to. “Are you... Okay? I mean, are you happy here?”
Now she smiled. And it was genuine.
“Yes, I’m fine. And for the first time since this whole thing started, I’m at peace.”
Ted couldn’t help but cast a questioning glance, because he really didn’t understand. But he desperately wanted to. He was trying to think how to ask it, when she volunteered to help him understand.
“I had thought it was some sort of inner evil—that I was evil and that part of me was trying to take over my humanity. It’s not. I’m not evil and it’s not an evil being: it’s just a disease that was making changes in me. And yes, these changes brought temptations of doing evil things. And at times, they were overwhelming and felt uncontrollable. But I always had a choice, just like I did before I was infected. I chose not to do evil things to others. I chose not to be a monster. Anyone afflicted with this can also make that choice.
“And Ted, I’m helping others here to make the right choice. Some have chosen the easiest way, and they often end up becoming monsters; others have chosen the harder path. It’s always their choice.
“The disease does change you in many ways, both physically and physiologically, as we both know. In a way, it’s just like say, cataracts changing your eyesight. Barring some sort of surgery, you’d have to just adjust to your new condition. In our case though, the condition offers some benefits too and we have to adjust to them all.” She hesitated, her eyes getting watery again.
“None of this changes my feelings for you. My heart will always belong to you and to you alone... But I also know we can’t be together, like we were.”
“I understand,” he said. “It’s not just us. Th
ere’s no possible union for infected and non-infected people... But it still hurts.”
“For me too... We can still visit, like this. I do want to see you again.”
“Okay.”
They held onto their silence for a while. It was not unlike so many of their times together in the past, when they’d talk for hours and just stop and enjoy their silence together.
But this too couldn’t last.
“I need to go. I’m working with Boris and Penny, who are having a difficult time coping with the changes she’s going through.”
“Until the next visit then,” Ted said, stepping into her with his lips pursed.
She reflexively scrunched up her nose, obviously attempting not to smell him. But she kissed him softly and then quickly turned and ran the other way, into the village.
He watched her disappear behind a stand of trees, then into the arms of Penny, who was standing with her husband on the stoop of one of the many buildings clustered around the beach.
Ted breathed out a long sigh. This wasn’t the life he wanted, but it was one he could accept. He would count the days until his next trip here.
Until then, he knew everything would be all right.
Epilogue
Four Years Later
Ted rubbed the gray beard carpeting his face, while keeping his other hand tightly on the tender’s wheel. The waves were extra choppy today so he had to keep a tight hold of the rudder. They’d lost one of their tenders a year ago, killing their pilot and another crew member, not to mention dumping their supplies into the ocean. The captain said the rudder probably got away from him in the cross current. Ted wasn’t about to be another one of the Intrepid’s many casualties.