Project Pallid

by Christopher Hoskins

  His cooling skin pulls from his body with each of my tugs, and it’s gut wrenching to the point that I actually do throw up, spitting a little on my arm as I shoot for the side of the stairs.

  His head bobs back, thumps each of the first steps, and fights to crest the third as I pull hard to get it up and over. His hips barely lift off the ground and with the steps and steps I’ve got left to go, I know it’s pointless, and I concede defeat. I’m not strong enough.

  His body slouches to the bottom with the release of my grip.

  My dad is dead.

  He’s really dead.

  It finally registers that he’ll never just stand up and be okay again. And that he’ll never be there to talk with me, or to watch a game with me again. That the world I’d hoped to reclaim is now one essential person less.

  The thought makes me scream. So loudly and for so long that I know I’ve made a mistake—that I’ve sounded an alarm. A dinner bell.

  I need a new plan, and I need one fast.

  Survival instinct takes hold and I grab my dad’s waistband and unhook his belt: a durable, leather one that he’s worn for as long as I can remember. Quick up the stairs, I can’t help but pause to savor the warmth of sunlight on my skin as I look around the kitchen and remember it as it was. I try to separate those good memories and to preserve them from what I see now. It’s unfathomable to think that my mom and sister were standing at the stove only a month before, prepping another uneventful, family dinner—one of our under-appreciated lasts.

  I want to scream out to their apparitions and warn them about what’s coming. I want to tell them to seal the house and to get on a plane—to leave Platsville and to get far, far away from Madison. But I can’t. It’s too late now.

  Lost in their images, time passes.

  Enough that I could have been easily whited out without ever having seen it coming. Somehow though, by the graces of whatever God is left, I’m able to pull myself away, and I crawl back to my tomb.

  I know my dad’s gone—that’s a given now—but I still don’t know about Catee, Mom, Nicole, or anyone else. And if nothing else, I’ve got to do whatever I can to make sure I’m still here, if they’re still alive, somewhere out there. We have to survive for each other, and I’m not doing that by hanging in the open like some sitting duck.

  With the door pulled shut, I thread my dad’s belt through its handle, loop its end around the banister, and adjust it snug. Tragically, it’s the solution I’ve been after all along.

  But now there’s the rest of him to consider.

  He’s looking up at me through his remaining, bleached-out eye while my pocketknife tugs the other one sideways—I still haven’t found the stomach to remove it. The pantry, darkened with the closing of the door, has become even more uninviting than it was before.

  And instead of acting, I sit in silence on the upper steps, to hover over the translucent body that glows in wisps of sunlight below. Knees pulled tight and arms cradling my head, I rock back and forth, and I try to make sense of life … or whatever this is now.

  It’s been three weeks since the hospital blowout and when the news first braced us for the worst. But the worst can never be measured when it’s always yet to come, and nobody had the insight of today to make experienced decisions back then. Nobody knew what to do when neighbor turned on neighbor or when families turned on each other. There was no stopping the infection once it started its spread.

  From the hospital, it jumped to staff and visitors. People who were otherwise going about their daily business became suddenly exposed. Days later, like clockwork, each of the afflicted began to exhibit what would become trademark symptoms of infection. Incidents of outbreak popped up all over Madison as unsuspecting hosts brought The Whitening home to families and friends.

  In the beginning, people tried to treat and help each another. The hospitals did what they could, too. But after the first couple days, it became all too clear that there wasn’t any help available—those who were infected would stay infected, until they paled-out and infected everyone around them.

  It became epidemic in under a week.

  My mom, who’d kept her cool about it at first, grew more and more excited as reports began to show increasing footage of the grim and gore. Her morbid, enthusiastic responses to the updates were alarming. Frightening. They were reactions I’d have never expected from her. They were the reactions of someone else—someone far more sinister and sadistic than I could’ve ever fathomed her becoming. And yet, there they were, spilling unfiltered from her mouth.

  “Serves them right,” she said. “That’s what they get for what I heard. You see, Damian,” she turned on the couch to face me in the doorway, “that’s Him sending his message. Saying he doesn’t approve. You heard about that Officer Stallon, didn’t you? You heard how he was running around with that teller from the bank? Serves him right. Serves his family right, too.” She continued uninterrupted as I gawked with mystified awe from across the living room. “As I heard it, his wife was extorting her ex-husband for thousands, too, claiming alimony she didn’t have any right getting. From what I hear, they were both just bad people, Damian. And He probably saw that and decided they weren’t living the lives they were meant to be. That’s what Mr. Laverdier says, at least.” She finished and turned back to the TV.

  “What?!” I shouted. “What are you talking about??? THAT’S fair!!! I pointed to the newscasters and yelled at the side of her head. “THAT’S what you think’s OK? Because of THAT!!! You’re CRAZY!!!”

  “Damian,” she calmly turned and said. “Go to your room.”

  “But—

  “Damian. Go. To. Your. Room. Now.” Her words were non-negotiable. “This conversation’s over. You can come back down when you’re ready to see the world for what it truly is. THIS is a time of judgment, Damian. And YOU need to decide whose side you’re on.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She was giving me an ultimatum in a time of desperation. At a time when the world was crashing and burning around us, the only support she could give was to tell me to choose. Choose what? Choose between rational thought and Mr. Laverdier’s manic brainwashing? Choose between sense and insanity? I’d been trying for weeks, and I’d already learned there was no chipping through to her. My fighting only fueled her convictions, and it separated her more and more from me, while her allegiance to Mr. Laverdier created a divide that twenty-six years couldn’t between her and my dad.

  “You’ve completely lost it! You’re psycho!” I hurled my words and flew up the stairs to the sanctuary of my bedroom and away from the bipolarity that’d become my house.

  My parents had been fighting on and off ever since Mom first went to one of Mr. Laverdier’s “Gatherings”. The word came out harmonious when she said it, but his get-togethers were anything but. I’d seen what went on at them once before, weeks earlier, when Mom started attending and Catee and I took our bikes out to their Damariscotta encampment. Her dad was gone, of course. My mom was gone, too, but in an entirely different sense of the word. My dad was home, but slipping away was as easy as telling him I was staying at a friend’s house. Consumed with worry over my distancing mom, he barely heard me ask to stay out for the night. He agreed without question, and it saved me from having to lie about where I was really headed.

  It was a ways—maybe twenty miles from Catee’s place in Madison—but we had the whole night to make the trip, and we started as soon as school got out, one Friday afternoon. With a couple stops, we made it there by 7:30.

  Catee had been to their new place a few times before—soon after her dad’s revelation at our dinner table—and she remembered the few, simple turns it took to get back. The house he described during family dinner was true to form: a small, single-storied place with a connecting dock to an adjacent pond. The property was littered with pine trees, and the ground underfoot, saturated with April showers, squished with each of our steps as we moved closer and closer to a trailer that nestled under overa
rching limbs at the property’s far edge.

  We stopped and hunkered behind a grove of trees, beyond reach of the trailer’s lights that reached out and dissipated to darkness only yards from us.

  “Now what?” I asked, and looked to our bikes at the side of the road, then to the dozen or so, older model cars that lined the driveway, and finally, to the trailer that boomed with a single, electrified voice.

  It was Mr. Laverdier—Pastor Dave, as his followers had begun to call him—and his voice was interrupted only by the screams of worshippers who reveled in his words. My mom’s was the most dominant one—to me at least—because hers was the most familiar and the most surprising to hear. I still haven’t come to terms with it, even now. How could she cave so easily to his senseless ramblings? She’d always been stronger-spirited and more self-guided than that; it was almost impossible to wrap my head around the fanatic she’d become.

  “So, what now?” Catee asked.

  “I just asked you the same thing, dough-head.”

  “Don’t call me dough-head, meat for brains,” she said, with a jab to my arm.

  It was one of few playful exchanges we’d had in a long time, and it came at an odd moment—a perilous one that commanded greater seriousness than our bantering afforded. Still, our words were light and organic. Unaffected by the stimuli around us, they cast a glow all their own in the shadowy recesses of the property.

  “So, what now?” Catee asked again.

  “I think we need to get closer.”

  “Closer how?”

  “Closer as in, one of us needs to get to one of those windows.” I pointed to the side of the building.

  “Who’s going?”

  “Who wants to?”

  The cold air hung silent and heavy between us.

  “I’ll go,” she said.

  “You sure?” My response was as much surprised as it was relieved.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll go,” she confirmed.

  “OK. Five minutes. You listen, and then come right back. After five minutes, I’m coming in after you,” I warned. “And watch for my texts,” I waved my phone and added.

  “Don’t worry, Damian. It’s covered,” she shot me a wink, crawled forward to a stance, and moved to a run that stopped at the side of the building.

  Crouched low and with arms stretched to full wingspan, she pressed her back against the building and craned her ear skyward. Totally playing up the spy element, she hung there to wait and listen.

  I had no choice but to do the same. On guard and at a distance, I watched the inside of the trailer for any signs of movement toward its door—anything that might warrant Catee having to get out of there. I could see the tops of what must’ve been 15-20 heads—some big, some small—and empty spaces between them that I could only assume were the seats of the congregation’s children.

  Mr. Laverdier stood at one end of the trailer, totally visible from where Catee and I had stationed ourselves, and I only lost intermittent sight of him as he moved up and down the length of the trailer. He wove in and out of the group and pounded his fist into his palm with each word of emphasis: “Sinners!” “Ungrateful!” “Abomination!”

  It was pretty predictable stuff. I’d seen enough documentaries and read enough about cults to understand the trademark words of brainwashing. People like him fed off the weak, and they used them to make themselves stronger. Mr. Laverdier’s god-complex was out there, on display, and even Catee had to accept it for what we were seeing and hearing. She couldn’t hold onto the slim hope that our suspicions were untrue any longer. We went to Damariscotta expecting the worst, and that’s just what we found.

  My mom stood. Heads, seated in folding chairs, completely surrounded her, and her voice rang out—the first clear and complete self-expression I’d heard from her since taking up position in the shadows.

  “Thank you, Pastor Dave! Thank you for your mercy! For protecting us from The Whitening! For helping us to see through the despair, and to find our own, protective light!” Her arms shot up to the sky and cheers surrounded her, coming together to form a chant:

  “Fight the White … Find the Light.”

  “Fight the White … Find the Light.”

  “FIGHT THE WHITE … FIND THE LIGHT.”

  “FIGHT THE WHITE! … FIND THE LIGHT!”

  “FIGHT THE WHITE!! … FIND THE LIGHT!!”

  Its steady, pounding, rhythm grew. It rattled the trailer on its foundation, and it slunk Catee lower and lower against it, further from the window, and closer and closer to the ground.

  Mr. Laverdier approached my mom, whose arms extended out. Palms up and head back, she looked to the sky.

  “NOOOOOO!!!” My yell caught Catee’s attention, and her look followed me as I sprinted toward the door of the building.

  Her body hurled at mine when I reached the bottom of its three, metal steps, and she knocked me to the ground. I fought to get up, but she pinned me there and muffled my screams with a tight hand, clasped over my mouth.

  “Shhhhh!!!! What are you doing! You’re going to get us caught!”

  Her hand slipped enough that I was able to get out what I’d tried to get there in time to stop.

  “He just stuck a needle in my mom!!!

  February 13th:

  Catee returned to school that Monday, following our families’ dinner convergence. When I stepped into the front lobby, there she was, waiting for me. She’d already scored us a library pass by telling the secretaries we needed to finish a project for class. Finally, we’d have some alone time to process everything that’d happened since we broke into her dad’s office. It had all happened so fast and without warning that it was almost impossible to explain.

  “So why’s he looking at some place in Damariscotta?” I led with a whisper after we’d settled, hands clasped across the table, and with books and papers spread around us to give the illusion, but nothing else, of work.

  “I don’t know. Just the timing of everything, I guess. Him, losing his job. Us, going through his things. Maybe he’s feeling attacked and this is his way of retreating or something.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, has he said anything else to you about it? Did you guys even talk about it?”

  “Of course. We talked about it at great length, Damian. He told me he valued my insight and that he wanted my opinion before he made any decisions.” The sarcasm of her words landed like a lead weight on the table.

  “Point made. I get it,” I said, and backed down some. “Well, did he say anything about it?”

  “He certainly didn’t explain anything to me, if that’s what you’re hoping to hear. He told me it wasn’t up for discussion. That he was taking a look at the place this week and that if he liked it, he was putting an offer on it. He said he’s putting our house on the market, too, and that as soon as it sells, we’re moving. And that if I handle myself properly, he’ll wait until the end of the school year, but if not, we’ll move before our place even sells. He said he’d rather it sit empty than keep me here, where I can’t be trusted.”

  “Wow. WOW.” I repeated for emphasis. “So what do we do now?”

  “Do now? There’s not a whole lot we can do, Damian. I can’t stand it. I hate him.”

  “I hate him, too, Catee.”

  “But, on a more surprising note, he did say that you’re welcome to come over anytime you want.”

  “What!?” I was more confused and alarmed by that, than anything she’d disclosed until then. “What do you mean, I can come over anytime I want? What’s that about? Why the sudden change of heart?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it ever since he said it. Maybe it’s about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, or something like that. Maybe he just wants us there, now that he’s there, so he can keep an eye on us.”

  “Maybe he just wants to give us the chance to slip-up so he can pull you away from me and move you from Madison, forever.” With my addition, we’d theorized two
possible explanations for his quick turn-around; either was equally plausible.

  “Maybe. But we’re not going to give him that satisfaction. We’re going to keep things calm. Keep things quiet. And we’re going to keep to ourselves. I don’t trust him, Damian. I’ve seen him for four days straight now, and I’ve seen how crazy he’s been acting. I can hear him talking to himself from my room, rambling on and on about not being appreciated. About not getting the credit he deserves. How it’s not right. That it’s unfair. That God’s never given a shit about him.”

  “You actually heard him say that?”

  “Those exact words.”

  “WOW.” I said it again because all others evaded me. “Like, more than once?”

  “Like, all weekend. He’s been rambling on and on to himself and packing his office.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where’s he taking it?”

  “I don’t know. The new place, maybe?”

  “But, why his office?”

  “Because he’s crazy.” Her flat response came with helpless duress. “Because he’s lost his mind, and he’s not right anymore.”

  Catee admitted an honest truth. And as much as it must’ve pained her to say it, she couldn’t brush it off as theory any longer. She’d read what I’d read. She’d seen what I’d seen. And she’d witnessed his unraveling—first-hand. And, trapped together for four, straight days—since his release from Madison General—to ignore the writing on the wall would’ve made her just as unstable as him.

  And I agreed to reenter the lion’s den. Not so much because I wanted to investigate him anymore. I’d learned enough already. I accepted the invitation because she needed me there, and there was no way I’d allow the girl I loved to be left high, dry, and alone with a madman—even if my consent meant giving him exactly what he wanted.

  February 14th:

  Having met and instantly liked Mr. Laverdier, my mom supported the union of Catee and me more than ever, and she was more than happy to resume regular trips to Madison, just so the two of us could have our time together. And though much of our time would be spent on school grounds or neighboring crash-spots, it always ended with an hour back at her place for dinner with her dad, who’d taken up cooking and caretaking in the absence of time spent at the hospital.