by Ryan Casey
IV: SPREAD
— Dressed in the lion’s skin,
The ass spread terror far and wide.
— Jean de La Fontaine
32.
Sarah Appleton was very rarely afraid of anyone or anything.
Standing here outside the Quarantine rooms, beside Mr. Belmont, who was growing twitchier and cursing more under his breath every minute, she felt something akin to fear. Perhaps not fear, in its purest form—she wasn’t willing to admit that yet. But a nervousness. A tension. A knowledge of what was really going on here—the scale of this “Turnstone” crap—and her role in it all.
“What the fuck do you mean you’ve lost him?” Mr. Belmont barked into his phone. Sweat dripped down his forehead. His cheeks were going puffy and red.
All she could do was stare. Stare into the room with Donna Carter. Stare at Doctor Ermenstein, still sitting beside her, shaking his head. He clearly knew Mr. Belmont better than anybody. So well that he wasn’t even putting up a fight. He was staying in that room and keeping an eye on Donna Carter whether he liked it or not.
“Well, as long as you bring him in, it’s fine,” Mr. Belmont said. “Just make it quick. You know just as well as I do how urgent this situation is. I do not want to have to come out there and get him myself.” He slammed the “cancel” button and stuffed his phone into his pocket. He sighed, his eyes not meeting Sarah’s.
“Any news?” she asked, after a few moments of silence.
His eyes finally twitched in her direction. “Yes. Well. Mr. Ainsthwaite is coming in. The man we had sent out, he dealt with the situation.” His eyes wandered away again, as if he was lost in his own thoughts.
“So that’s a good thing, right?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “It is. Very good. But the emergency folk are panicking because their man’s gone missing. Has one of these tracker things on his arm that tracks his location, and if he doesn’t hit it once an hour, something’s wrong. So, yeah. His last recorded location was the subject’s house—or some trap or another he set. When he didn’t report back, some other team went on down there and found Ainsthwaite sedated. But their man… Yeah. He’s gone. And he left behind a lot a blood.”
Sarah gulped. She knew what Mr. Belmont was implying. The man who had been tasked with tracking down Jonny Ainsthwaite had been bitten. Turnstone was spreading, and it was spreading fast. First, news of the two runaways at the pond—who knew where they were? Now, this. Although the time for the infection seemed to vary in its duration before taking control in each individual, chances were that somebody out there had passed it on even further.
And then that someone would pass it on to someone else. And on. And on. And on.
“Is now not a good time to… to think about reporting the severity of this to our staff? To—to the news? I mean, surely there must be a way to contain this spread. We can’t just sit back and—”
“Miss Appleton,” Mr. Belmont interrupted, with a tone of authority returning to his voice. “Who do you think it is that I have taking control of this matter? Do you not think that they know what’s best? Tell the news.” He puffed out his lips. “You’ve a lot to learn. An epidemic in silence is just a myth. A myth, until it steps on up to your door and takes you by the throat. An epidemic on the news is whatever the media wants it to be. And believe me—the media will want this to be something.”
Sarah looked back at the glass window where Doctor Ermenstein was monitoring Donna Carter’s heart rate and all other kinds of things. Strangely, although Mr. Belmont did seem agitated, his panic was more over Jonny Ainsthwaite’s safe retrieval than anything else. He seemed to have resigned himself to the fact that Turnstone was spreading, and there was nothing they could do about it. Already his eyes were on the next step. The nourishment. Then, eventually, the cure. A financial victory that far superseded any old HIV cure.
She’d made a mistake coming back to TCorps. Fuck—she’d made a mistake giving Jonny Ainsthwaite the formula in the first place. She was just trying to do the right thing, though. She was just trying to—to save people. Yes. That was it. It wasn’t about her—it was about the others. The others she wanted to save. To help.
The applause she’d get for doing so.
No. It wasn’t about that. Not at all.
“I’m not sure what I can do about this,” Sarah said. “I mean, sure, bring Jonny Ainsthwaite in, and I’ll try to do something about his CD4 and CD8 levels. I’ll try to extract the pure form of the… of Turnstone from him and work on some kind of antidote. But I can’t promise anything. And that’s what I’m worried about. What if I can’t do this? What’s our plan B?”
Mr. Belmont stared at Sarah for a few seconds. Unlike earlier, his eyes were completely focused now. There was a vibrancy about them that she’d never seen before. A strange kind of, well, life about them. Which was strange considering the circumstances.
“We need a plan B,” Sarah said. “I need to know we have one—”
“This is no time for a plan B,” Mr. Belmont said. He stepped closer to her, so close that she could smell his gassy breath as he breathed in her face. “I’ll put this simply for you. You started this. You gave Mr. Ainsthwaite Turnstone for whatever selfish reasons of yours. And now people are dying and this… this infection is spreading. And it will continue to spread and spread and spread and there’s nothing we can do about that. Not now. You following?”
Sarah nodded. It was all she could do. Because he was right. She had done this. She’d screwed up. Daddy would not be proud. Not one bit.
“So we’re going to bring Mr. Ainsthwaite in and we’re going to work on a means of nourishment, with a long-term view towards a cure. And we’re going to stay in this building until we find one. We let the government deal with the sanctions and the quarantines. But right here, right now, is what matters to us. There is no plan B, Miss Appleton. There is only a plan sort-this-the-fuck-out.”
His phone rang. Instinctively, he threw his hand into his pocket and pulled the phone right to his ear. “Yes?” A pause. A twinkle in his eyes. “Good. Okay. Okay. Bring him up. Keep him strapped down, yes. I don’t want to have to keep anybody else in Quarantine. Good. Thank you. No, don’t inform the police. I’ll handle that. Yes. Bye.”
He lowered the phone back into his pocket and smiled at Sarah. “Mr. Ainsthwaite will be joining us very shortly. I hope you’re ready to get to work.”
33.
The first thing Victor noticed was the searing, burning pain in his upper right arm.
After that, the same pain in his left leg.
And his stomach.
And his neck.
He’d managed to drag himself out of the water—the pool where he lay. He wasn’t sure why he was there, or even how. All memory was gone, replaced only with the pain in his arm, and his leg, and his stomach and his neck and chest and feet and everywhere.
But mostly, overriding everything, the… Oh, he couldn’t describe it. Some kind of void inside him, around his stomach. Like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle was missing, and he didn’t know where.
The closest word he could find to accurately describe it was a kind of “hunger.”
He fell down beside a tree. He could barely see ahead of him. His eyes were completely clouded over. He couldn’t tell whether it was day or night or where he was or why, only the pain across his body, and the hunger.
But yes—the tree. The trees, actually. He knew he was somewhere with trees now. A forest? Why would he be in a forest? What had brought him here?
It was as he realised what was causing the pain across his body that he remembered.
Peter. He’d gone running down towards the… Yes, the pond. The pond that the Cub Scouts were at. A clear-up of some sort. He was in too much pain to ponder the details. Peter, all the excitement in his voice as he jogged in the direction of the pond.
Then the blonde girl.
Then the slip.
Then…
Yes. He remembered now. He remember
ed clearly.
And he had the bite wounds on his neck, on his right arm, on his left leg, and across his torso to prove it.
He touched his stomach, right where he could feel the pain, and he clenched his teeth together hard and yanked his hand right away. The pain jolted through him like an electric shock. As he brought his fingers close to his eyes, he saw they were covered with blood. Too much blood. So much blood that he should be dead. Gone.
And yet here he was.
“Hel…” He attempted to shout out for somebody, as he leaned back against the tree, all the strength in his body completely diminished. His attempt at a shout was pitiful. He could smell something, too, and judging by the warm dampness under his jeans, he’d shat himself. He started to cry, but then realised crying took too much effort. He had to get to an ambulance. He had to see somebody about his gaping stomach; his neck, half-attached; his ravished arm and leg. They could fix him. He’d survived the initial attack, so they could fix him, right?
In the distance, somewhere beyond the trees—which he still couldn’t properly make out but for a series of brown blurs—Victor heard two laughs. Voices. But they were far away. Signs of life. But too far away for him to do anything about.
Or maybe they were closer than he thought. Maybe the intense ringing in his ears and the muffling of every sound was distorting his senses somehow.
He tried to push himself up against the tree, but he knew he didn’t have the strength.
He didn’t have the strength, but something else did.
It was that weird feeling again. That hunger. The void, way more intense than any other pain in his body. He knew he wanted something. He knew he needed something. He just didn’t know what.
But he figured he’d know exactly what he wanted when he saw it.
He staggered forward. Gripping his torso, hardly acknowledging the fact that he was holding his intestines in place like a woman carrying a child—the shock did funny things—he moved in the direction of the rustling, of the voices. They weren’t too far away after all. Yes—they were close. They could help him. They could fix him up. Put him back together again.
Fuck. He should never have come out tonight in the first place. He’d told himself he’d limit himself. Gradual re-exposure was perfect for social anxiety, his therapist told him. Sophia, she was called. Soft skin, but not soft enough, the slight wear of age taking a hold. She was in her twenties, maybe.
Late twenties.
Like he said, wear of age.
He got closer to the noises, bumping into trees on his way. They must’ve been just metres away now. Were they coming from the park? The playground? Yes. That’s where he was. Back at the park. Back at the playground. The place he’d promised he’d stop visiting. The place he swore he’d stay away from—swore to himself. He’d done well. He’d stayed away.
But now he was here again. Not by choice, but by a cruel twist of fate. Why did you have to bring me back here? Why are you doing this to me?
He staggered further forward and soon he realised he wasn’t surrounded by trees anymore. No, he was outside. He was out in the open. Frosty grass was under his feet. The stars beamed down from the sky.
And in front of him, on the playground, he saw two girls drinking bottles of cider.
His stomach sank. Not literally, not yet. That would come later. But when he saw the two high school girls drinking cider and laughing, a tidal wave of dread even more intense than the pain, but not quite as intense as the hunger, bashed into him. It was just like he’d imagined. Just like he’d fantasised about, so many times. Blonde. Brunette. Soft skin. Smooth, shiny hair. Sixteen, they were.
Yes. They were sixteen in his mind. As long as he believed that, he’d be okay.
Really.
He staggered further towards them. They didn’t seem to have seen him yet. He wanted them to see him. He wanted them to run up to him and cuddle him and snuggle up to him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
When the blonde girl saw him, her mouth dropped, her eyes widened, and she screamed.
He didn’t like this. Not one bit. Fucking insulting, that’s what it was. Fucking terrible behaviour. Monstrous. Because he needed help. That’s all he needed—help. And there she was, and now her slut dark-haired friend, screaming, stepping backwards, horror on their faces.
His cheeks flared with heat. The pain in his body was completely replaced with red-hot embarrassment.
And then, his vision cleared.
He was focused. They were running away from him, but he was running too. His heart pounded. His throat swelled up. Because it didn’t matter that they were running—it didn’t matter that his intestines had slipped out of his hands and were trailing out underneath his feet, squelching under his steps—because he was running too, and he was going to feel better, they were going to help him with that.
They ran and they screamed and he ran and he got closer and closer and there was nothing they or he could do about it.
They kept on running until he pounced on the first one and tore the flesh from her neck, stuffing it all in his hungry, thirsty mouth.
After he’d finished with her, he caught up with the brunette—his favourite, in retrospect—and he feasted on her too.
The pain diminished.
The hunger diminished.
Thank you for helping me, he thought, as blood dribbled down his chin. Thank you.
34.
His head stung. His throat was killing. He could barely swallow.
Where the fuck was he?
Jonny Ainsthwaite opened his eyes. As he did, he immediately snapped them shut again. Bright light seared through them, burning its way right to the back of his skull. He wondered for a moment if this was it. He was dead. He was about to face up to some bullshit afterlife. Yes, Lord, I’ve been a prick lately. I’ve done some prickish things. Please forgive me for eating those people. Amen.
He opened his eyes, slower this time, so that the light just peeked through. As his pupils adjusted, he realised he was in a room, on a bed of some sort. The closest comparison he had was a hospital bed, but he’d never actually been in a hospital bed so it could be one for all he knew. He looked around the white-light-drenched room. At the end of the room, there was a mirror, but he was too low down to see himself. To his right, a machine that was plugged into his forearm monitored his heartbeat.
And wrapped around his forearm, he noticed a leather belt.
He pulled it upwards, instinctively pulling his other arm in unison, but that was strapped down too. His heart started to pound. He had been caught. He was a high security patient, or something like that. They were going to lock him up. Diagnose him as a schizo psychopath, or something. He was fucked. Totally fucked.
A door beside the mirror opened up. It was a door that he hadn’t even noticed before. He squinted. His eyes were a little fuzzy. He saw a woman leading the way. She was young—late twenties, early thirties. Dark brown hair was tied back behind her head. She was quite tall. At least five eight.
And she was looking at him with a pained expression, and bloodshot, baggy eyes.
It took him a moment to realise he recognised her. Maybe it was the effect of whatever that bald man who he’d torn the fuck out of at Brad’s house had fired at him. But he recognised her. He’d seen her recently. Very recently.
It was Sarah. The girl his dad used to work with.
“Hello, Jonny,” Sarah said, as the door closed behind her. Her eyes scanned his body, everywhere but his eyes. “How are you… How are you feeling?”
Jonny’s jaw tensed. She was giving off a heat. A heat that he wanted to explore. A heat that… Yes. There was no point even denying it anymore. He wanted to eat her. Devour her. And he wouldn’t be completely satisfied until he’d licked every last scrap off her bones.
No. Don’t think like that. Contain it. The hunger isn’t you…
She tapped on the heart rate monitor and ticked off another few readings that Jonny didn’t understan
d. He didn’t understand a lot of things. Like where he was. Why Sarah was with him. And why any of this had happened in the first place.
“I want to assure you, before we start, that you aren’t going to be arrested,” Sarah said. Her eyes finally met Jonny’s for a brief second. They were void of the sexy confidence that radiated from them the other day. Something had changed in her entire demeanour. “I want to assure you that you aren’t in trouble. You… Well, you are. But we’re here because we know the truth. We know what’s… what’s happened to you. And we want to help.”
Jonny smiled. He wasn’t sure why. Usually, in this sort of situation, he’d be terrified. Hospital beds were one of his biggest phobias, hence he’d avoided them all his life. But he knew that something else was taking care of his fear. Something was numbing him. That’s what the hunger had done—it had numbed his emotions. Numbed them to the point that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill everybody in his sights and eat every last one of them.
He didn’t want that. Jonny Ainsthwaite didn’t want that.
But Jonny Ainsthwaite was not in control of Jonny Ainsthwaite anymore.
“Where am I?” he asked.
Sarah looked over her shoulder at the mirror. The way her eyes fixed on it… reflective glass. Like he’d seen in the films. It had to be. He had an audience. A live audience.
A warm, delicious, live audience.
“You’re at TCorps Pharmaceutical Labs,” Sarah said. “In the Quarantine section. I don’t know how much you know about TCorps, but—”
“You did something to me, didn’t you? That morning. With my… my dad. I knew something was wrong right away. I… What have you done to me?”
Sarah’s eyes welled up with tears. She sniffed, then wiped them with her sleeves. “Jonny, I’m sorry about your parents. I promise you I had nothing to do with that at all. It… But you… Yes.” Her voice wobbled and broke. “I… When I met you. And your dad. I gave you something. Something… something to help you. Something to help the HIV. I did it to help—I promise, I did it to help because I’d lost my job and I… I just needed to know if it worked. But this something… It… It—”