The Swarm

by Rob Heinze

  “Why would you help?” Paul asked.

  “I think the government’s jumping at shadows, and I think seeing the difference between Swarm pregnancies and normal pregnancies should be easy. I think they’re just afraid of missing something and getting blamed for some mutation to be born.”

  The noise of the patrols was growing closer in the street. The beating thud of the helicopters grew heavier with bass.

  “You’ll need to decide now,” the Chief said. “I can’t be lingering long anyplace.”

  The Chief only had to wait another two minutes, then he left the house with Dawn and Paul Thompson.

  Chapter 9

  This was how the Chief was able to help Dawn and Paul Thompson, and it had started with the convenience store manager, Reagan. He had made the discovery a few days before the government started their patrols, and by then the Chief knew it would come to that.

  He had tried to slip away from me, the Chief knew. That had provided the catalyst by which he began to suspect that maybe Reagan’s wife was not gone, and maybe she was hiding out in Reagan’s house.

  One night, sometime in the early hours, the Chief parked his patrol car behind the convenience store and killed the lights. He stayed in darkness for a while, watching the back of the store. What had caused him to decide to watch the place was the idling car behind the building. It was Reagan’s car; an old, beat-up Pontiac from the 1990s. He sat for a long time, waiting for Reagan to emerge from the back door of the store. He did eventually, lugging a huge black bag over his shoulders. He looked like Santa’s doppelganger, struggling to load the bulk into the back seat of his car.

  The Chief sat forward, his chest pressed to the steering wheel. He hadn’t believed Reagan when the young man had told him about his wife. No, he hadn’t believed him at all. He had to watch him.

  You have enough going on, he told himself, but it was no use. The persistent pin-prick was at his neck, poking, and serving him with the same task: watch that guy, watch him. So he had watched him, entering the convenience store more than usual, trying to have small talk with him. Occasionally he would add, “Hear from your wife?” to which Regan would shake his head, looking down. Then tonight he had come past the front of the store to find that Reagan’s car had not been there. Yet the Chief knew that he was on duty. He had swung around the rectangular building, using a side-street, and there he saw the car idling.

  Now he had something, something to push the game further.

  Reagan was stealing from the store. The Chief watched as Reagan shut the metal door behind the building and got into his car. Then he pulled out the opposite side of the parking lot, going onto the other side street. The Chief turned the engine on and followed him. He stayed a good distance back, and in fact—when he was certain that Reagan was going home—he turned down the side-street and decided to come up on Reagan from the opposite end.

  Reagan was trying to tug the bag out of the car when the Chief pulled up next to him.

  Reagan turned, saw the car, and found his mind go blank.

  “What you got there, Reagan?”

  The Chief did not turn his lights on, but he used a flashlight on the bag and on Reagan’s face to off-set him.

  Reagan, numb, spoke: “Supplies.”

  “From the store?”

  “Yes.”

  Reagan remembered the woman whom he had killed months ago, during The Swarm. He hadn’t minded killing—not as a Chosen One—but he wasn’t sure the Chief would be so easy. He thought about his wife, secreted away in the attic, growing stranger as her stomach grew. Once, during intercourse, something had passed through the shaft of his penis to his testicles and pelvis, causing him to fly off her. It had been a shock, a loose charge: not painful but scary. Then she had fallen into one of her strange trances and moved in tiny, Parkinson-like shakes. A thought then occurred to him: I shall not wantonly invade her womb again. Not while she carries God’s Son. He took it at that, and felt sorry that he had succumbed to his weakness.

  “Stealing?”

  “Yes,” Reagan said.

  The Chief saw Reagan as Reagan wanted to be seen: a young man, scared and uncertain, trying to protect his family.

  “Your wife is home?”

  “Yes,” Reagan said, “In the attic.”

  “The patrols came by?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t find her?”

  “No,” Reagan said. “They won’t find the attic, without destroying the ceiling. My brother’s a carpenter and built it secretly.”

  “Okay,” the Chief said.

  He looked to the unassuming ranch house, the roof deceptively small. He thought about his time as a young man, newly married and newly a father, and he remembered the concern and fear that came with it. With that had come an overpowering need to protect them at all cost. So that was what he was doing here.

  “Is she pregnant?” The Chief asked.

  Reagan gave his same answer. “Yes.” But this time he looked up and on his face were eyes, deep and strange, and they looked to the Chief’s eyes and held there, hovering, their eyes like bees floating near each other but not touching. “But she was pregnant before The Swarm. We were trying to a long time, and she was pregnant before The Swarm.”

  If I had one of my guns, I would shoot him now, Reagan thought. Right between the eyes. Then I would take his car and leave it underground in one of those condo buildings. I would leave his body there too.

  He did not have a gun with him. In his muffled mind, he cursed himself for not carrying one, which he should have been doing since the patrols started. He supposed that he didn’t want to get caught with it outside of the home, thought it would get him into trouble and take him away from his wife and son.

  The Chief swallowed. He had seen several woman forced from their houses, while the men begged and pleaded. The Chief made a decision: if she was pregnant from The Swarm, he would take Reagan in. If she was pregnant before The Swarm, he would let Reagan go with a condition.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “I believe you.”

  Reagan did not move his eyes from the Chief. He was not sure what this meant, what would happen.

  “May I see her? Make sure she’s okay?”

  Reagan thought for a moment, then he too came to a decision. It was a good decision. It was a protective decision. He knew that his wife would be gibbering and whimpering, a maddening manikin, and when the Chief saw that, it would be all over for them. So he couldn’t let it get that far.

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll be fast,” the Chief said. “Don’t want the neighbors to have any strong memories of my car sitting out here.”

  He parked the cruiser across the street, got out, and walked across. Lights were on in a lot of houses, but no one was outside. He walked across the street. Reagan was still standing in the same position, facing the Chief with his right hand clamped onto the black bag.

  “Let me help you,” the Chief said. “I’ll push from the other side.”

  Reagan, bewildered, was certain this was some setup. His heart was thudding loudly in his chest. The Chief opened the other door in the back, and then started to push on the button of the bulky bag. Reagan heaved, and the bag popped out of the car.

  Reagan hoisted the bag and walked towards his house. The Chief followed him. It was dark inside, and Reagan’s entire mind was bent towards the pistol that was sitting on his night-table. He would go to it immediately. He would take it. Then he would shoot the Chief. That was his decision.

  In the dark house, Reagan plopped the bag in the middle of the room. Then he went lumbering towards the back, leaving the Chief in the dark.

  “No lights in here?” The Chief asked.

  “On the wall!” Reagan called back. “To your right!”

  In the attic something stirred. The Chief could hear the floor boards creaking above him. He flipped the light switch on. The room filled with the soft light from a ceiling lamp. Reagan was back in the room. In his hand was a g
un and he was pointing the gun at the Chief.

  “Reagan,” the Chief said. “I’m on your side.”

  “I’m sorry,” Reagan said.

  Reagan was about to pull the trigger, when he heard a voice. It had come from the back bedroom.

  “Reagan?”

  His eyes widened. It was Kelly’s voice. The Chief, poised, waited for the next action in the story. His breathing was slow and steady, but his heart was a deep, drum-beat.

  “Yes?” Reagan asked.

  For a moment he didn’t allow himself hope, because she had been so detracted in the past few weeks. He wouldn’t allow hope that she was in control of herself now.

  “Abe’s sick,” she said.

  “Abe?” Reagan asked.

  The woman came out from the bedroom now, saw the Chief, and froze. She didn’t come any closer to Reagan. The Chief could see she was a small woman, but her belly was certainly round. Her face was flushed. She had heard Reagan talking, but hadn’t realized someone else had come with him; he talked to himself often lately, mostly in obscure biblical prose.

  “What’s wrong with him?” The Chief asked.

  Kelly didn’t reply.

  “How are you feeling?” The Chief asked.

  Kelly didn’t reply. Reagan prodded her. “Tell him, honey. Tell him how you’re feeling now.”

  He tried to emphasize the word now without overdoing it. She seemed to get it, having awoken from the near-constant dreams that had been plaguing her—dreams of flying through stars and being crunched and smashed inside a damp, hard place—visions of Other Worlds and how, standing on some ground, she was able to reach up, dip a finger into a galaxy, and swirl it around like some primordial drink. She was back now, temporarily, and her mental facilities were sharp.

  “Fine. Just pregnant and miserable.” Then, for added effect, she said: “And scared.”

  “You should be,” the Chief said.

  Reagan stepped forward, gun aimed. “What does that mean?”

  “I mean you’re smart to hide out. Other folks, people pregnant just before The Swarm, they’ve almost all been found. If you wait it out long enough, which should be soon, you’ll be able to keep your baby.”

  A hand fell on Reagan’s shoulder. It was Kelly’s.

  “Why should we be scared?” Kelly asked.

  The Chief nodded. “I believe they’ll start aborting all the babies in the same gestation period of The Swarm. They’ve seen something they didn’t like in one of The Swarm pregnancies. Suppose they won’t take any chances.”

  Yes, there can be only One, Reagan thought.

  “What’s wrong with your boy?” The Chief tried again.

  “I don’t know,” Kelly said, “he has a high fever.”

  “He needs a doctor,” the Chief said. He saw his chance. “Look, I don’t like what’s happening on my island. Not one bit. I know the government’s lying, withholding information, and I like that less. People are dying. People are being killed. I don’t know if women…women like you who were pregnant before The Swarm are a risk, to yourself or others, but it doesn’t feel right. My gut tells me it’s wrong. It’s not true. I don’t know how many people are pregnant like you, but there are some left. It’s only a matter of time before they’re found. We’re on an island; there’s nowhere to go.”

  Here he paused and looked at them. “I’ll take your boy to the doctors. I’ll get him some help, say I found him wandering the streets. They’ll have no record of him. He’s a minor with no identification. Once he’s better, I’ll bring him back. He’ll be safe there, anyway, until this is over.”

  “There’s no hospital on the island, and Medi-Merge has been demolished” Reagan said. He still hadn’t lowered the gun.

  “The warehouse on Grand Avenue has great doctors.”

  “How do we know you won’t send them back to us?” Reagan asked.

  “I’m an older father now, but I was a younger father once. The dynamic changes, but the love doesn’t. We have to be built like that, I guess, or the world would be a more fucked up place than it is.”

  He paused. They watched him.

  “I think the government’s going to pull the trigger on ending all the pregnancies on our island soon…at least the one’s from around the time of The Swarm. I don’t think that’s right. They’re jumpy, scared, and when you’re jumpy and scared, you make bad decisions. I think the normal babies—the healthy babies—should be borne. Maybe they would even provide some much needed guidance to the government trying to figure The Swarm out.”

  Kelly answered before Reagan. She had a terrible fear that soon she would slip into one of those trances and not awake. While she was in the trances, there was nothing but overflowing triumph and joy: but her motherly part wanted to make sure Abe was protected. She knew that Reagan had become too consumed in his passion to act as a parent now beyond his protective duties.

  “Yes, it can,” she said.

  She forced Reagan’s arm down and he turned to her. There was glow—a fucking glow that only he could see—coming off her now. She was alabaster, pure: a Saint-in-the-making. He smiled, and cried quietly. His love of God, of her, was infinite.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s good. We need to let these babies come normally. Now can I see the space, what you have, what you might need? Then I’ll take your boy to the doctors.”

  With that, Reagan led Chief Ruggeiro into the attic.

  Chief Ruggiero had no idea of the source of Kelly’s pregnancy, and he never would know.

  ###

  Later that night, while the two lay on their sleeping bags in the attic—stifling in the early spring heat—Kelly awoke from a fevered trance and sat up. It was dark in the attic, lightless, and alone and scared she felt the bubbling in her stomach. She was shirt-less, lying with her moist torso exposed. She could feel a strange, abnormal tingle at her nipples. She took one breast in her hand and held it up. There was fluid—a small tiny pin-prick of liquid glowing (and it was glowing) just in the center of her nipple.

  Oh, God, I’m bleeding.

  She gave it a little squeeze, and the fluid oozed out. It was not blood, nor milk, nor colostrum: it was a substance she had never seen with her eyes, yet felt as if she had experience with. It was a brilliant pink, glowing, seeming to stain the air around it with radiation. It over-spilled and ran down her breast. She let the breast fall and checked the other one. A slight squeeze and the fluid came out. It ran down her breast and stomach, warm, alien and in her mind was a thought and that thought was this:

  I’m dying.

  The bubbling continued in her stomach. She glanced down. She could see pinkish lights glowing from within her womb: bright but not wholly shining, their full potential restrained by the container that held them. They were moving, and she was certain that this was causing the bubbling in her stomach. She sat for a long time in the dark, her breasts leaking radioactive liquid, her stomach alive with lights—Holy God lights—but from what? She didn’t know. She thought briefly of suicide, taking one of the guns and putting it to her head. Reagan would awake from his sweaty, fitful slumber after the shot. He would turn the light on and see her dead body on the floor. Would there be pink phosphorescent liquid pooling below the open hole of her neck?

  Yet there was importance here. Something not-from-now and ancient was happening to her. There were no records in the history books about it; she knew that. There was no human experience of this, and for her to still be alive with it—moving and growing in her—there was some majesty to that—some ever-swinging sense of purpose and importance. She was dimly aware of the dampness on her panties. She lay back down, covering herself despite the heat. She shook Reagan awake. He came awake in a frenzy, grappling at the pistol on the floor beside him. The attic had not yet become populated with other people.

  “It’s okay, Reagan. It’s just me. It’s okay.”

  In the humid darkness, he saw the strange, illuminating drops and streaks of liquid running down her torso. The
re were spots of it on the sheets. It looked like she had bitten into one of those glow sticks and let the fluid drip down her unheeded. Outside of the body, though, the glow was diminishing even as Reagan stared at them.

  “You’re leaking,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. Then, very clearly, she said: “I need sand.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sand. I need sand.”

  “Why?”

  “To stop the flow,” she said, as if from experience.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “In those trances…I was…I was packing the sand into me…inside of me.”

  Reagan was horrified, but it was not his duty to ask questions: his duty was to serve his woman until the Christ Child came forth.

  Oh, Reagan, you still believe that, don’t you?

  Yes, of course he did. He had to. How could he maintain a barely functioning sanity without that thought?

  “Okay,” he said, standing. “How much?”

  “A bucket full,” she said. “For now.”

  Reagan decided he would take his gun this time, just in case. He left the attic stairs and went out into the night. He grabbed a bucket filled with Abe’s water toys from the garage, dumped them out, and then walked towards the bay. Though they lived on the wetlands, there was no clean and dry sand for a few blocks. So he had to walk.

  He was not accosted during his night venture. He got access to the bay through a mini-golf course which had not opened since The Swarm. It was built right into the bay, and he pushed his way through the tall grasses bordering it as if pushing through a stage curtain. On the other side was a sandy swath of land. The bay water lapped onto it. The dim night forced him to walk softly, slowly. When he found dry sand, he hunkered down, scooped it up, and then started back home.

  He hadn’t noticed the four eyes watching him from the dark bench on the mini-golf course.

  In the house he hoisted the bucket up the steep attic stairs. It was dark, as if had been when he’d left, though he could see Kelly by the glow of the fluids running from her.

  “Quick,” she breathed. “Quick!”