Contagion On The World

by J. B. Beatty

  “John,” she says to the gunman in the MSU hoody. “Please prepare the green shed for her. And tell Nathan to retrieve the cot that is in the front room of the main house. Immediately.” She looks to the driver and adds, “Help everyone out. Then conceal the truck promptly.”

  The gunmen get out and gesture for us to do so also. One reaches over the side of the pickup and cuts Justin’s rope. Justin pulls his arms forward and rubs his wrists. The guy snarls at Justin—literally—and adds, “This works like in the movies. Pull anything stupid, you get shot. And this isn’t the kind of movie where you’re the hero. You are the bad guy. Most definitely. Now you two carry her over to the green shed.”

  Justin grabs Carrie under her arms. I awkwardly try to lift her legs and collapse in searing pain from my shoulder.

  The gunmen come close: “Hey!”

  I moan. “Broken collarbone,” explains Justin. “I got her.”

  He picks up Carrie and takes her to the shed.

  I can feel the barrels of their guns aimed at me. I struggled to stand up. Eventually Justin comes back and helps me to my feet.

  The door is open, revealing one of the men standing next to the cot. A lone light bulb provides the only illumination. Justin kneels at Carrie’s side and checks her pulse. He looks up at the nearest guard, a guy with a large jaw and unfortunate hair. “We need some things. Ice packs. Clean towels, hot water, antiseptic.”

  “I think we might have ice,” the man slowly says. His gun is pointed at the floor now and without it in a threatening position, he merely looks old and a little lost.

  “I need all of that,” insists Justin. “Ice, towels, hot water, antiseptic… and a blood pressure cuff, if you have one here. You must. You’re all old.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got one of those,” says the man with the MSU sweatshirt, who is at the door. “You stay here,” he says to the confused one. “I’ll find that stuff.”

  He goes and I look at Justin. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s really hard to say. We would need to get to a hospital ER to find the equipment we would need to see how bad the damage is inside. If she’s bleeding inside the skull and there is swelling, we’re really powerless here. All we can hope is that it’s not as bad as it looks. I can clean her up, maybe do a few stitches, keep ice on her to help with any swelling and inflammation. Then it’s just a matter of waiting and praying that she wakes up.”

  “I wish we were home,” I say.

  Justin looks at me sharply.

  “Where’s home?” asks the guard.

  “Ohio,” I mutter. I don’t know why I said that, but it killed his curiosity.

  Justin takes off one of Carrie’s boots, and runs his finger along her foot. It twitches.

  “Is that good?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Way better than the alternative.” He does the same with her other foot, I guess just to be sure.

  I look up at the guard. “So, what’s the deal here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Justin looks sideways at me. He clears his throat. He is slowly shaking his head.

  “I mean…” Now I hesitate. Maybe I shouldn’t have approached this so directly. “Is this a religious community? I noticed your cross out there.”

  The man glares, almost as if I challenged him. And he says in a steely voice, “We are True Believers of the One Risen Lord and the Resurrection and the Revelation.”

  I nod slowly. The way he said it actually sounded like it had all those capital letters in it. Another person might just have added a period. After. Every. Word. But I think that effect was really overdone in the year before the world ended. If there is any God, I’d like to think that might be why He pulled the plug.

  Justin has lowered his head and closed his eyes in defeat. The guy’s jaw is still jutting out. I search for words to mollify him. “We’re Christians too,” I say.

  That takes a little bit of the fire out of his eyes, but his gun is pointed at me still so I don’t feel we’ve made a relationship breakthrough.

  Finally, the nicer (or smarter) guard brings ice and antiseptic and even the blood pressure cuff. Justin gets Carrie settled in. He asks for a blanket. This time, it’s the guard with the jaw who goes. He’s back shortly after, with an armload of blankets.

  “We’re going to step outside,” says the guard with the MSU hoodie. “The door will be locked. Do not open the windows. Keep the light on. Do not try to get out. If you need anything, knock on the door and ask.”

  “How about food?” says Justin. “And she’ll need soup.”

  “Probably. Later,” he says.

  The door shuts.

  44→IT WAS THE WORST BAD LUCK IN THE WORLD

  “O

  kay, what the fuck?” I ask Justin.

  He puts his finger to his lips and he leans in to whisper in my ear. “They’re nuts. They think this is the end of the world.”

  “It kind of is.”

  “No, they think it’s the real end of the world, like in the Book of Revelation. They believe in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and all that shit.”

  “Are we prisoners or something?” I whisper.

  “Most definitely something. We’re in a place that’s way worse than being a prisoner. You see, the head lady, she has them all believing that these flu victims are the armies of Satan.”

  “A case can be made for that…”

  Justin looks at me like I’m crazy. He leans in again and feverishly whispers, “The fact that we are the age we are—and that we haven’t turned into psycho beasts—means only one thing to her.”

  “A not good thing?” I ask quietly.

  “She believes we are Satan’s lieutenants. His henchmen. True fallen angels.”

  “Okay, yeah. The kind of thing that’s really more on the bad side.”

  “They’re trying to decide how to kill us,” whispers Justin.

  “That’s genuinely bad. Alarmingly so.”

  “Only they want to wait until Carrie is healthy before they kill us. Small blessings.”

  I lean back on my haunches. “That is awfully Christian of them.”

  “It buys us a little time,” he says. “We’ve got to be prepared to get the fuck out of here as soon as Carrie is safe enough to travel.”

  “Could you maybe have tried to steal a car from oh, I don’t know, maybe anyone else?”

  “Shut the fuck up, bike boy.”

  “If you don’t mind, my inclination is to wait until we’re actually burning at the stake before I apologize.”

  He glares at me and we stop talking. I stand and study the inside of the shack. It’s small. One corner looks like it might have been a kitchen at one point, the stove long ago ripped out. There is a back door. I gently test it, but it doesn’t give. The pattern of light and shadows at the crack tells me that it’s been boarded over on the outside.

  Besides the cot they brought in for Carrie, there is no furniture. There are two windows opposite each other. The glass is intact but so dirty I can’t make out anything besides leaves. It doesn’t look like the windows have been opened in years.

  I find myself looking at the floorboards. They creak like crazy and are probably rotten in places. Yet they’re not what I would call loose. We would need something to pry them up with. I start looking around. An escape route under the house might be the only way out, spiders be damned.

  A knock at the door. I perk up because I’m starving.

  The MSU guard swings the door open. He appears to have no food with him.

  “You really don’t have to knock,” I tell him. “You have a gun and all…”

  He looks stumped.

  “Though I thank you the politeness, and I’m sure my associates do too,” I add. “Whenever we encounter even the faintest veneer of civilization, we tend to appreciate it.”

  “Yeah,” he says, eying me carefully. “I need you to come with me. The Teacher will see you now.”

  “The Teacher?”

  “Miss Phoe
be. Come along now.” He gestures with his hand for me to get moving. My dad had the same gesture.

  I stand and when he points the way, step out of the shack ahead of him. He follows with his gun surely pointed at my back as another guard shuts the door and places a 2x4 into brackets to keep it shut.

  “Where am I going?” I say.

  “The main house.”

  “Gotcha.” I walk across the deserted yard toward the white house. I reconnoiter as much as I can, seeing at least four other armed men. One is standing next to the main house under the awning. The others are scattered beneath the trees on the edge of the woods. As I climb the steps the door is opened for me. I step into a foyer and his voice says, “To the right.”

  I enter what might have been the living room. Now it’s candles, chairs in a U-formation, with a stool in the center. That kind of room. I’m guessing the stool is my seat, since all the others are taken by people in white robes. I hesitate, and the Teacher—the woman with the librarian glasses—points and says, “Please sit.”

  I do so, and look around. There are eight people in addition to the Teacher. Three are men. All are gray and stern.

  “Hey,” I say, in a casual attempt at an icebreaker.

  That sternness thing continues.

  “Father God,” begins the Teacher, and they all reach out and hold each other’s hands. “Acts: 1:8 says, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’

  “We are gathered today to be your witnesses, Father God, and to seek your wisdom in the face of the evil that is what we have earned as part of your divine reckoning.

  “Father God, please help us ascertain the evil before us, and name him before we return him to your eternal judgement. Amen.”

  “Amen,” all of her robed friends say in unison.

  I mumble “Amen” also out of some sort of vestigial habit, but my mind is racing, my eyes checking for exits. Perhaps it was my upbringing, but something about people saying they want to return me to the Lord’s eternal judgement makes me feel anxious.

  Then, the Teacher leans her head back, and she starts making funny noises. Seriously, it’s like a howl, only she’s trilling her voice and it sounds like something from Baghdad. And she adds in some other twists, including one that sounds a lot like “caramel.” This might be what speaking in tongues is! She starts shaking, and instead of anyone grabbing her to make sure she doesn’t bite her tongue, they start shaking too. And right when I start looking over my shoulder to see if anyone’s guarding the door, she settles down and a soberness returns to the gathering of geriatric robed ones.

  The Teacher nods to her left. One of the men, the one closest to my right, pronounces the word, “Beelzeboul.” It hangs there in the air without response, almost as if he were challenging me.

  Then, the woman to his right says, “Ho Poneros.” She is doing her best to stare into my soul.

  The next voice, after waiting the appropriate amount of time for dramatic effect, says, “Ho Archon Tou Kosmou Toutou.”

  Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on. It’s all Greek to me.

  The fourth voice, another woman, says, “Ho Peirazon.”

  I never saw “The Exorcist,” but I’m starting to feel like my head is going to start spinning.

  Then the procession of voices starts on the other side of the U-formation. A man says, “Pseustes.” He hesitates a bit with it, and nearly comes to a full stop in the middle. There’s one in every crowd, I think. One word to memorize, and he still screws up. The Teacher looks annoyed.

  The next, a woman, says, “Belial.” She nails it, and I can see that she wants to lord it up over the guy next to her.

  The seventh voice says, “Ho Archaios.” And now I’m starting to figure it out. This is the puppy circle—when you get a new puppy and you can’t decide what to name it so you have all your kids just sit in a circle and shout out names until it answers to one! It’s hardly scientific process, but they’re trying to figure out exactly which of Satan’s demons I am! The trouble is, not since the one that sounded a little like “Beezlebub” have any of them sounded familiar.

  Finally, the man to my left utters the final choice: “Ho Drakon.” And to be honest, that one sounds the coolest, but maybe because I was a big “Game of Thrones” fan. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be the Dragon?

  Yet I coach myself to make no expression. Somehow, I think there might be a disadvantage to identifying myself as a demon in this crowd. If they find out I haven’t been to church since Easter in 5th grade, my chances of survival will probably drop even more.

  The robed ones all look to the Teacher in expectation. Oh God, she’s going to make a decision, and I’m thinking time off for good behavior is probably not in her sentencing guidelines.

  “Pseuestes,” she says firmly. A woman gasps. It’s the same word that fumble lips was trying to say, only the Teacher, Miss Phoebe or whatever, is all over that word. Her lip curls in disgust.

  “Father God,” she says, “the demon Pseuestes is among us. The dissembler, the liar, the teller of tales. Father God, make us strong against his words. Make us resolute, Father God, so that we may light the torch with the flame you give us. Make us Christians, Father God. Amen.”

  They all say “Amen” in unison again but I skip it this time. The fun part seems to be over.

  “Pseuestes, by the light of the moon we will return you to the savage fires of Hell, whence you came…”

  “Can I say something in my defense?”

  The Teacher recoils at my interruption and sneers. “We are shielded by Father God from your words. Do not waste your breath.”

  “Just for the record, I am not a devil. I’m technically a Presbyterian.” I hear one of the women, not impressed, click her tongue.

  The Teacher’s eyes burn into what little soul I apparently have left. “And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

  “This plague shall be led by Satan’s army, and while your tongue is not rotten, the words it spews are.”

  “You know, ma’am, we are actually trying to help. There are bad people out there, and we’re trying to stop them. There are orphans out there who are waiting for us to bring them help.”

  Lot of good that did. She answers with, “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.”

  I give up. I brace my legs to get ready to bolt, and just then I feel a hand at my shoulder and a cold piece of metal touching my neck. The Teacher jerks her head and I hear my MSU friend say, “Time to go.”

  45→WHEN A PRISONER OF STYLE ESCAPES, IT’S CALLED AN EVASION

  It is late in the day, almost dusk, when I am marched back to the shack. I look to what sky I can see above the trees but I don’t find the moon. I look at the shack—it is built on blocks with a crawlspace that’s about a foot tall underneath. God knows what sort of varmints live under there.

  I half expect to be thrown roughly back inside, but my guard is an old fellow and though I apparently have a working relationship with Satan, he acts as if I don’t quite deserve that kind of treatment. Instead, he just walks behind me, and when his buddy opens the door, he nods for me to go in. The door shuts gently behind me.

  Justin looks up. I nod for him to follow me to the back of the shack, farther away from our guard’s ears.

  “Well?” he whispers.

  “Have you been paying attention to the moon?” I ask.

  “No. They said that to you to, about returning you to the Lord’s judgement during a full moon?”

  “Yeah. Which devil did they say you are?”

  “I forget. It was Ho-something. I couldn’t get past the ‘
Ho.’ ”

  “So we have no idea when the full moon is.”

  Justin shrugs. “It’s just not something I pay attention to regularly. Sometimes, I notice a big full moon, and it’s like, ‘Hey, look at that full moon!’ Sometimes I’d even take a picture with my cell phone but those never turned out. Why is that?”

  I shrug. “I’m going to ask,” I say. “Not about the cell phone pictures…”

  I got to the door and knock. “Hey guard…”

  A hesitation, and then he says, “What do you want?”

  “We’re getting kind of hungry in here. Do you think we’re going to get fed?”

  “Yeah, actually, Larry’s getting it now.”

  “Sweet.” I return to Justin.

  “I thought you were going to ask about the moon.”

  “I am. I just came up with a smoother way to do it.” I look back at Carrie. “How is she doing?”

  Justin looks over at her and grabs me by the shoulder to bring me in closer. “News flash: she’s not in a coma. She’s awake now.”

  “She doesn’t look awake.”

  “She’s that good of an actress. Or she’s fallen asleep again.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “She keeps acting. We can’t let them know that she’s coming around. Otherwise we’re dead at the next full moon and we don’t even know when that is.”

  While we wait for our food to come, I sit on the floor next to Carrie’s cot. She doesn’t even move. She’s that good.

  Finally, the door clatters open and my MSU friend brings in a couple of plates. Carrie doesn’t budge. He’s brought us baked beans. Casually, I say, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know when the next full moon is?”

  He wrinkles his eyebrows, shrugs and says, “Got me.”

  I stare at my plate of beans and my plastic fork in disappointment. He doesn’t apologize for the food, just leaves and barricades the door again.

  I have the first bite in my mouth when Carrie yawns. Justin covers her mouth until she pushes his hand away. She turns on her side, looks at my plate and whispers, “Give me those.”