by Rob Heinze
“Hi, mom,” Paul said.
“Everything okay?”
“Still okay. Just waiting, I guess. No news from anyone on the cause.”
“How’s Dawn?”
“Okay.”
“I’m worried about you guys. Can’t they just let you off the island?”
“They’re going to let us off the island just because you want it?”
“I know,” she said. “Okay, well, call us if you hear anything. I hope you’re okay.”
She had seen the news-coverage where they reported a man with HIV that had been part of The Swarm had shot himself.
“I am,” Paul said.
So far no information had been released on where to get tested for STDs, or how to go about getting tested. He had no idea that his mother was referencing that.
“Love you, Paul.”
“You too.”
He hung up. Dawn was sleeping on the bed. She had not bled again, and the fear of miscarriage had someone receded in their minds. The doctor’s appointment, which had been scheduled last week for tomorrow, had been canceled. The doctors did not live on the island and could not get onboard. He had told the secretary that his wife had a positive pregnancy test from before all this, and was there anything they should do? The secretary had told him the doctor would call, but he still hadn’t heard from them.
If this pregnancy survives this stress, it will be a miracle.
He continued his browsing on the internet, hoping to find something in terms of Swarm theories that made the most sense.
He didn’t find any.
###
The government contractors and representatives started their rounds on the fifth day after The Swarm. People who lived and worked on the Island had not gone back to work yet, and vacationers sat restless and anxious in condo units that were not their own. Many owners of the condo units began to list their properties for sale, while others believed their investments would increase in value with all the attention Bay Isle was getting. The Swarm was doing to Bay Isle what that reality show Jersey Shore was doing for Seaside Heights.
The government representatives went house by house to take inventory of the people on the island. They handed out free pregnancy test kits and a packet of pills, which they assured the women with whom they spoke were “abortion” pills. They told each person that they had to first confirm a positive pregnancy test.
When they came to Dawn’s house, she was there with Paul to see them hand him the pills.
“We know we’re pregnant, though,” Dawn said. “We were pregnant before The Swarm.”
“Then you should be fine. These are just in case,” the government reps said.
“In case of what?”
“In case you need or decide to use them,” the government rep said.
Paul mostly ignored the comment. He said: “My wife should be getting medical attention, but our doctor can’t get on the island.”
“We have doctors available, free of charge, at the warehouse on Grand Avenue.”
The woman asked them some more questions. Were they alone? Was anyone staying with them? How long did they live on the island? What were their dietary habits? How long was their current pregnancy? Were you pregnant before? What happened? How long did it take you to conceive? What were you doing on the morning of The Swarm? What was your last thought before you awoke on the beach?
Dawn and Paul answered every question diligently. The woman rep thanked them, punched some information onto an tablet computer she had brought with her, and started to leave.
Paul asked her: “Any idea what caused it?”
“No,” the woman said. “I’m sorry. I hope we’ll have some answers soon.”
Paul put the “abortion” pills on the counter. He looked at them for a long time. Dawn stood by his side. It was perhaps a little strange that the government was just handing out pills for abortions. He wondered what the pro-life people would think about this? Could they even argue, considering the awfulness of The Swarm? And why should they give one to Paul and Dawn Thompson? Unless…unless they thought something could be wrong? With the pregnancy?
Don’t think it Paul, don’t. Dawn will sense it. You know she’s thinking it, and if she believes you’re thinking it too, then she’ll panic.
On the counter were white pills and those pills, small and discrete, could stop life and the insanity of The Swarm. Pills were a strange thing, weren’t they? In their engineering, they were perfectly round or oval or concave: sanity compacted into a miniature device. Pills gave humanity their security, their metaphorical control in a world that drifted towards entropy. For people in the throes of madness, a pill banished it and brought them, clamoring, back to reality. For people in the chaos heart disease, a pill stopped (or slowed) the chaos. A pill was the greatest of human inventions, for within the tightly designed curves there was a contained, powerful representation of humanity’s struggle against the disorder of the universe, drifting ever apart from what its core had been. Dawn felt a wild urge to slam her fist onto the pills.
To Dawn Thompson, the pills on the counter represented a suggestion that something was wrong with her baby.
“I think we should flush these,” Paul said suddenly.
She looked at him, blinking, and in his eyes was sincerity.
“We won’t need them,” he said. “And we should go see those doctors she mentioned.”
“Okay,” Dawn said.
Paul took the pills into the bathroom and dropped them in the toilet. Dawn did not follow him. He flushed the mechanism, watched them swirl around, and soon they were gone. He went back inside and saw Dawn sitting on the couch. Tears were on her cheeks. He went to her.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “They’re just doing their job.”
“What if they know something’s wrong? With the air or water on the Island?”
“They haven’t even started studying this thing yet,” Paul said. “They can’t know anything.”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t,” Paul admitted. “But I know that The Swarm happened for a reason, and I know you got pregnant just before it for a reason.”
Dawn didn’t cry too hard, and Paul held her on the couch. He wished that the island could return to normality, work shifts, business, daily life in full swing. Even the TV stations were displaying news and only news. He left the TV off and sat close to Dawn, praying that there was indeed a reason for it all and in his heart he hoped they found it soon.
###
Rachel Doe Smith had brought nine babies to the world through the fecundity of her womb. It was a factory, her womb, created to conceive, gestate, and expel tiny creatures of God. She was thirty-five and hadn’t been pregnant since they’d moved to Bay Isle, New Jersey two years ago. She had been part of The Swarm. She and her husband, Joe Bill Smith, were devout Christians who believed that birth control was a sin. Regarding masturbation…there wasn’t a stroke of it in them. Joe Bill had started masturbating when he was twelve, unsure of what was happening to him and thinking it felt pretty darn good. One day before Church, he had masturbated in the shower and in church when he touched the holy water his finger began to burn, the sensation growing more powerful until he knew that he would combust. No amount of wiping the finger would make that sensation go away, and when the pain reached its apex and then began to fall, Joe Bill had beheld a red sore on his finger. He had spent that whole time in Church trying to determine what had happened, and when he thought about the shower and his five-knuckle shuffle, he had found his answer. After that, he never masturbated again willingly. He had an extraordinary amount of sex dreams from which he awoke to damp, sticky sheets and the sensation that he had felt upon masturbation. But that was okay, albeit shameful, so long as he had not actively created it.
He met Rachel Doe Smith when he was fourteen. They didn’t kiss until they had been married, six years later, and the first intercourse for Joe Bill lasted 70 seconds, while Rachel grimaced in pain. Six
weeks later, Rachel Doe was pregnant with their first child. Rachel Doe had never masturbated, unlike Joe Bill, and anyone who didn’t believe that…well, then they just didn’t know Rachel Doe.
The government representative who came to their house was greeted with smiles. There were smiles in abundance. Rachel Doe, smiling, asked if she’d like a drink, some food. Joe Bill chuckled about how strange the island was, now blocked off and all (he smiled). The ten children, ranging from ages 2 to 13, cast smiles of varying intensity at the woman, who found herself in a very strange place indeed.
She went through the standard speal of questions, asking how long they lived here (2 years: smile), how many children (10 gifts of God: smile), was she pregnant now (no, but that is the will of God: smile), were they part of The Swarm (yes: both smiling), et cetera. Finally, the woman talked about the government’s support of pro-choice and she offered a packet of the “abortion” pills to the Smiths, who looked at the packet as if the woman were handing them burning tinder.
“We can’t have that in our house,” Rachel Doe said.
“I’m sorry?” The woman asked.
“We believe in God, and God’s will alone. If we were to meant to conceive during The Swarm, then we will bring the child into the world as God wills. We can’t have those pills in our house, around our children, who would ask many questions about them.”
Now the children were playing outside, and the government representative glanced to them beyond the sliding glass doors.
“Besides,” Joe Bill added, “Rachel’s not been pregnant since we moved out here for my work.”
He didn’t want to admit that perhaps God had finally decided their duty of bringing children into the world was completed. Certainly he wouldn’t say that to Rachel Doe; it would crumble her already weakening spirits. After all, women were meant by God to bare children; it as a fortitude around which they both built their lives.
“Well, please take the pregnancy test kits, and if they’re positive, do you have a doctor on the island?”
“No, our doctor is off the island.”
“Then we have doctors available in the warehouse on Grand Avenue.”
“Thank you, we will be sure to see them if we’re pregnant. But please give the test kits to other women and girls who’ll need them. We have plenty. I use them regularly.”
The woman shrugged, thanked them for their time, gave them some brochures on grief, dealing with rape, and information about STDS, signs, symptoms and testing. Then she left amidst a sea of smiling faces, God Blessing her and praying for her and Bay Isle.
They had been very nice people, but the woman rep was happy to get out of there all the same...
###
The doorbell rang at Reagan’s house. His wife, Kelly, was laying in the bed while their son, Abe, was playing with toys in the living room. Reagan was in the kitchen, staring out the backdoor to the wetlands and bay beyond. He had not slept since The Swarm, not more than a couple hours; he had been waiting for his first test. Now it had come.
He came out of the kitchen quickly, ushering Abe into the bedroom with his mother.
“Who is it?” She asked, sitting up.
He didn’t know, but something told him to hide Kelly. She was staring blankly at him as he hesitated in the bedroom. The doorbell rang again.
“Upstairs,” he said finally.
“Why?” Kelly asked. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” Reagan said, “But I have a feeling that our first trial has come. I don’t want anyone to know you’re here. Take Abe too. Abe, go with mommy and be very quiet, okay?”
Abe nodded his huge head and then the two hustled up to the attic. Reagan shut the closet door behind them, unsure how “secret” the secret door was as he looked for flaws in its construction.
Never mind, not now! He told himself.
Then he went to the front door and pulled it open. It was a man, explaining he was with the government and performing door-to-door surveys, providing information, pregnancy test kits and pills to support Pro-Choice. Reagan did not allow the man inside. The man asked questions on the front stoop. When it came to the question of did he live alone, Reagan answered yes. The man made notes on his handheld computer. Reagan was sweating, but thought it was going fine. He was in control of himself, despite the dampness of the shirt touching his lower back.
“Sir?”
“Huh?” Reagan blinked.
“Were you part of The Swarm?” The man asked again.
Fuck, Reagan, get yourself together! You can’t fail on your first trial, lest you too be consumed in the Flames to come.
Reagan thought about the Hispanic woman he had murdered, then decided a lie would be more appropriate in this situation
“Yes, I was.”
The man made some more notes, asked him questions to which Reagan dutifully paid attention, and then wished him well. He also suggested that Reagan visit the clinic on Grand Avenue to be tested for STDS. It wasn’t mandatory, the man said, but he suspected they—the government—would make it mandatory soon.
Reagan watched the man walk to the next house, and then vanish inside. He shut the door, locked it, and found himself paranoid that, in the neighbor’s house, the man would say, boy, that neighbor of yours is a bit off, no wonder he lives alone…and his neighbor would say…alone? He has a wife and a little boy. And the man would say, really? Reagan waited at the front window for a long time—upstairs he heard footsteps, his son restless—and when the man came out of the house next door, Reagan’s stomach tightened. The man did not come back to Reagan’s house; he went up the street to the next house.
Reagan breathed out. He came away from the window and went towards the bedroom and the attic door. He opened the hidden door and went up to the attic. Kelly was sitting on the mattress they had brought up, reading a magazine. Abe was walking around along the edge of the attic, where the roof slanted down, his finger touching the protruding nails laced with the tetanus bacteria. Kelly looked up at Reagan as he ascended.
“Gone,” he said.
“Who was it?”
“Government, taking inventory of each house and handing out test kits.”
“Test kits for what?”
“Pregnancy.”
“Did you take one?”
“Why would I take one? I told the guy I was alone. If I took one, he’d have known I was lying.”
Kelly had forgotten that. But Reagan had forgotten that she, Kelly, had been raped along with the thousands of other women in the island…Reagan had conceived a huge, lumbering concept in his mind that they were to be the parents of Jesus and that they would bring him forth just as he had come the first time, hiding and in rough conditions. Kelly wasn’t sure about it. She believed that the Apocalypse was near and watched every show on Nostradamus, Mayan Prophecies (and also recorded them on the DirecTV receiver) and had even marked December 21, 2012 as “End of Days!” with an exclamation point; her husband’s passion was easily absorbed. She was no Virgin Mary, though; she had once blown a guy while another guy banged her doggystyle after dropping ecstasy. She was no Virgin Mary.
If a lot of people get pregnant from The Swarm, how can we be the sole parents of Christ? She had wondered.
Reagan’s passion and fiery nature was contagious, and Kelly held to his belief that The Swarm was an Act of God. What else could it have been? And allowing that thought to ferment, it was easier to perhaps tentatively hold to the concept of what Reagan believed.
“Lo,” Reagan said, standing in the attic, tears blurring his vision as he took the scene in. “The Blessed Mother lay in a meager attic, fearful, whilst her only child loiters in Danger’s path…and outside the Non-Believers are left rank and vile to destroy each other.”
Reagan was imagining a new addition to the Bible. It would be called The Book of Reagan.
###
Quentin was severely drunk when the doorbell rang. He startled awake and tried to reach the door. He tripped over the cockta
il table, landing in a heap, and then lay there for a moment. In happy times, he might have laughed at his drunkenness. But when you were responsible for raping an entire island, he found that it was hard to laugh.
The doorbell rang again.
“Coming, you mother-of-a-whore.”
He sort of pushed himself up like a teeter-totter, his legs straight and off-the-ground but not getting any higher. He grunted and bent his stomach in. It was a tremendously difficult task, as his head felt about as heavy as a boat. Finally he got up, legs splayed and hands out like someone just learning to ski, and he looked up. The door (two, there’s two doors…fuck am I drunk) was about five feet away. If he threw himself at it, and grasped the handled just as he hit, he might keep from falling down.
You can do it, you ass-licking nimrod!
“I can do it,” he said.
Doorbell again. It threw his concentration, and when he leapt, he had gone for the wrong door—the trick door that the alcohol had conjured in his brain. He slammed loudly into the door, grunting, grappling wildly at the open space where the door-handle should have been (about a foot to the left of the actual handle) and then he found his face smashed against the door and his torso twisted painfully. He wondered what Damiano would think about Quentin now, inebriated and mashed against the door. Damiano “Cash” Richardelli with his damn hair-cut that made him look like the head of a fucking penis, and his diamond stud earring and spaghetti-belly. Hey, Cash old buddy! Remember that girl, Crystal? Yeah, yeah, the blonde whore who ended up OD-ing on Heroine…this one time she let me ram her right in the ass, crazy bitch telling me harder, harder…I scrubbed my dick for four days after that! Ha ha, ho ho! Hey, what did you give these girls that they let me do that, Cash? Chocolate? Spiritual guidance? Fucking-A, Cash, just give me some more bodies…let’s Junk-Em-All…and FEED…THE…EARTH!