All the Devils Here

by Astor Penn

  “Not much, I think. They’re still working on formulating different vaccines, anything that will provide some kind of relief from symptoms,” he says, shaking the newest blood sample he’s taken.

  “Can I?” I reach for it, not intending to fight him for it, but something about holding my own blood fascinates me.

  “Of course. It’s technically yours.” He hands it to me. I can feel the warmth through the glass sides. I smile, my chapped lips pulling and splitting.

  “But it’s not mine. Not any longer.” I shove it back in his gloved hand. “Barlett never got sick from me, did she?” I never noticed an absence from her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She took off her glove one day. Touched my skin with hers. I must have been infected at that point.”

  Even with the glare of light over the plastic mask, I see his frown. “I didn’t know. But no, she was never ill that I was aware of. And if she did get sick, trust me, we’d find out about it.”

  My faded smile returns. “I wish she had gotten sick.” I laugh. Jackson doesn’t say anything in response, but he grips the tube of blood, as if he never thought I could wish ill of any of them. But I do. I hope they all become infected one day, because he’s not my friend. He keeps me here the same as the rest. None of them are my friends.

  When he leaves Jackson doesn’t come back for a while. It’s mostly Barlett who sees to me anyway, but I wonder if he’s angry with me. Checks are changing—they are no longer frequent, and except from Jackson, who liked to buy time with me, they involve less reflex or well-being testing. Now they come for my blood like mythical creatures of the night, and they keep an eye on my vitals projected on the wall. They give me a healthy dose of fruits and veggies, giving me meat when they have it. The chicken they provide tastes porous, like the kind they put into microwavable meals. Traveling countryside, I saw how little farm life was left. Fresh meat must be almost impossible to come by, so I try to time how often they get a shipment in.

  It matters little. I have no appetite, and I’d rather sleep, except sleep begins to elude me once more. Dreams of Raven plague me; most of them begin with ordinary tasks—sitting in my dorm room or ordering sugary coffee drinks to steal off each other—but they almost always end in destruction. It’s not always even the illness; it’s sometimes Raven walking out in front of a car or a random mugger following us off a subway stop.

  Sometimes they aren’t nightmares. Sometimes they are what life could have been, had we met under different circumstances. These are the worst. These are the reason why I hate closing my eyes, memories I can never have of a world gone and soon forgotten. There are dreams of my parents too, and the scenarios they might be in, or manipulations of past memories. It’s torture, because I have little strength to do anything but lie down; then when I want to sleep, I force myself to keep my eyes open for so long in dread that suddenly I can’t.

  Fatigue consumes me, and the days blur into each other worse than ever. There are no sunrises or sunsets, and in these rooms they never turn off the lights. The air is hard to breathe, so stale and static. Over time, I begin to smell the faint use of chemicals, and I could be getting more sensitive to it, or they could be using more—or I can just smell my own death creeping up on me.

  Then comes the day when I can barely move at all; my breathing is shallow, my tongue feels swollen between my lips. My head pounds. Chest aches. Hazmats gather outside my little cell and watch me like an animal in the zoo. Living in captivity. They glance up at their screen on the wall where I know it says my heart still beats, but then they look back at me like I’m roadkill. All their hard work put into keeping me alive, but I won’t let them. Not when the time comes.

  Barlett sits by my side. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong. We’ll get you something cooked up to help with the symptoms.”

  Everything, I wish I could tell her. Everything is wrong. But it doesn’t matter; no medication they dope me up on will relieve these symptoms.

  She leaves with no answers, after which they station someone to watch me every moment. They come and go in shifts. I miss some coming, others leaving. Always awake, but hardly coherent. It’s difficult to remember that I’m awake sometimes, when sleep comes so infrequently, and I’m always looking up at blinding white lights. I can pretend to sleep. I forget the difference. Isn’t this good enough?

  There are loads of things I never got to do. I never kissed a lot of people. I didn’t kiss Raven again, like I wanted to. I didn’t grow up to have a profession. Never owned a home. Never could have my parents for the holidays. Never owned the dog I wanted or took the trip to Paris I always dreamed of. Never—

  “Miss Hall? Miss Hall, can you hear me?”

  Barely, I think. Everything sounds muffled, like there’s cotton stuffed in my ears. There’s a strange echo to certain sounds too, and so the ends and beginnings of words all mix together. Permanent hearing damage, maybe.

  “It’s clear that you can hear me just fine, Miss Hall.”

  What am I, in school again? I wish I could stuff my pillow over my head, but I don’t move.

  “Miss Brianna Hall of Fort Scott, Missouri, formerly attending Rollins Academy in New York City. Average student. Participated in the equestrian team. Only child to Henry and Margaret Hall.”

  The permanent chill in the room drops further. Ice in my veins. My sluggish heart tries to jump, and it succeeds to little force. I turn my head to see him, and the vision disquiets me more than his steady, smooth and sweet as honey voice does. It’s the voice of the vans—one of them, anyway, the one who offered a false message of hope if travelers came out of hiding.

  There is a man sitting just inside my room in a standard folding chair, a new man, and although I don’t know all the suits working in this area, I feel certain this one has never stepped foot around me until now. It’s like feeling the presence of a god walk through the room—even if it is a fallen god, a misplaced god. He could be Satan himself.

  He’s not wearing a hazmat suit. He’s wearing a plain black suit with some worn areas, matching black tie. Shoes that were once polished but now have the lightest of scuffs. Dingy cuff links. Dressed for a funeral, it seems.

  “Our record on you is almost complete. Still, I would love to hear how you managed to escape the city by yourself. How you survived this long on your own.” He smiles at me. It’s not flattering or warming.

  I try to sit up and properly face the man, take in the important details. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Evan Wyles. I’m the CEO of Invo Corporations.” He crosses his legs. Folds his hands over his knee.

  “Invo Corporations?” I’ve never heard of it. “I don’t understand. Why are you here?”

  “Because this is our headquarters.” He smiles at me with mock patience, as if I’m a cute five-year-old child. “Where do you think you are?”

  “Government facility?” My voice rasps already.

  “This is a privately owned and operated biomedical facility, and although you may have never heard of Invo before, I assure you we’re quite well-known worldwide.”

  I stare at him; although there are no signs of outward malice, he makes me uneasy. To others, he may just appear influential. The signs of wealth are there even if they’re fraying at the edges. Most people outside these walls are starving and dying, and he’s sitting in a full suit, his hair slicked back. His smile looks perfectly polite; his body language exudes confidence.

  He talks in the present tense, as if the world still cares anything about his corporation.

  “But the hazmats outside this building. There are so many.” I’m fumbling to find the right words. “Too many for just any one company.”

  “Well, there, you are right. Not all those men and women are strictly employed by my company, and some do work for the remainders of the governmental influence. However, when these men and women round people up, there are different task forces. There’s one just to eliminate the bodies, of course, but then t
here are the ones who find the living and separate those who can be helped from those who can’t.”

  “And those who can be helped?” I whisper. Maybe Raven is somewhere alive. She might not have been infected. She might have just been mislabeled briefly.

  “They have to be screened vigorously for infection, but if they pass, they’re released from isolation and go to refugee camps.”

  “Liar.” I should keep my mouth shut. This man holds all the keys. Still, I don’t believe that in a crisis like this, they let anyone just walk free to a refugee camp. Once freedom is taken, it has to be won back.

  “Who are all those people out there? This building is full of screaming people.”

  “They obviously didn’t pass the test.” Wyles shrugs. “The infection is more widespread than you perhaps realize. Most people can’t be helped. The ones who are infected, if meeting criteria, are sometimes brought here.”

  “To be used like lab rats.”

  “To make a difference.” He smiles. “If they can’t help themselves, then at least they can help make a difference for others in the future.”

  He stops smiling and stands abruptly. When he paces in front of me, it is the first time he looks out of control. Nervous. It makes him look human, and weak. He turns to me.

  “I am truly sorry for the pain that we’ve caused you, but unfortunately most of it began before you came here.”

  “I was infected,” I whisper. That’s what they think I believe.

  “Yes. They gave you steroids right away to suppress the infection.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we let the infection have you. We couldn’t stop it, after all.”

  “You mean you encouraged it. The injections you gave me. They weren’t for my well-being.”

  “You presented a peculiar case even before we suspected. We know the timeline of the virus, and you defied it. In this, you are not alone. Occasionally there are people who suffer the virus much longer than others. Here, we see this as a unique opportunity, but for you, it ended up being much more than that.”

  I’m done listening. Rolling onto my back, I close my eyes. Anything would be preferable to listening to this madman. I would rather watch myself die again in a dream than wake up to find myself still a prisoner. In death there is at least freedom. I think about the grip on Bryant’s gun; I wasn’t strong enough to do what needed to be done back then when I still had the methods to do it.

  “I know it’s hard for you. So hard.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to hear how hard he thinks it is. He doesn’t know.

  “My wife died from the virus. My children too. My son was only ten. My daughter six. It’s—” He hesitates. “Difficult to see young people come here. But I wish you could see.” His voice picks up in excitement again. “We are making such progress now, and in large part it’s thanks to you and a few others. Your blood samples have given us the ideal host to test new vaccines with. The patterns that are emerging are extraordinary, and we are so much closer to finding a cure—”

  “There is no cure.” I may not have a doctorate, but I know enough of what I’ve seen to understand there’s no going back once infected. One day maybe a mutation or natural selection or something will save a few people. Maybe. One day. Not now. Not like this.

  “Well, cure is perhaps the wrong word, but what we have will inoculate future populations, the same as polio or the flu.” He stops pacing. “Why don’t we take a stroll outside the room, hm? Give your legs something to do.”

  “Maybe if I could come and go as I pleased, you would find physical tests unnecessary.”

  “Tell me, Miss Hall, did you ever actually try the door?” he asks, leaning in the doorway. Trying to look large or anything other than average. “It was never locked.”

  We stare at each other; perhaps he believes he sees consternation on my part, but all I’m attempting to do is gather my strength—will myself to get up out of bed and walk out that door. It’s near impossible, but I do it—barely. My legs shake; I haven’t really stood up in days and haven’t walked for a longer period than that. Moving is living, breathing. But I’m hardly living anymore.

  Although I’ve walked in the atrium before, it feels much different moving outside of my little room into the main one of my own free will, without an escort dragging me out. Wyles offers me the chair he was previously sitting in—just a folding metal chair, hardly suitable for a man of fortune. I wish I could kick it out of his hands. Instead I sit in it humbly when I tire.

  “I need you to understand how important your sufferings have been, my dear girl. They have enabled the knowledge we need, not just for us, but for the future. Do you know how much of the population is now gone? Over half in the States alone, and that’s not even up-to-date. Worldwide it varies, but most countries are similar or worse. But what we’re working on may change everything and help people around the world.”

  “But what will happen to me?” It’s the most selfish thing I could ask, but helping the world at the age of seventeen isn’t something I planned for. The edges of my mind tickle, trying to hold onto a thought—the date. What day is it? I think I must be eighteen now. Happy birthday to me. A legal adult, but I haven’t been a child in so long.

  “What happens to you? Well that depends.” He pauses—I automatically begin filling in the blanks. It depends on how well I cooperate or how long they need me. Depends on if I want to save the world. “You have to get better first. Your caretakers have told me you’ve stopped eating and sleeping.”

  I snort at the word caretakers.

  “If you want to leave, you have to get stronger first.” The way he hovers around me is almost humorous—I still don’t trust him, but I’m not as afraid of him as when I first saw him. I’m not sure it’s a good thing; no matter what, he can be dangerous to me. Seeing him as anything less than a threat could be the last thing I do.

  “And you’ll just let me leave?” A lesser man might flinch at my tone. To his credit, he looks me steadfastly in the eye.

  “Yes. You’ll be transported to a camp, which is supervised for the people’s protection, of course, but you’re free to go when you’re feeling better.” He tries to look earnest. Instead he just looks like he ate the wrong thing.

  “I don’t believe you.” Do I? I’m not sure.

  “There’s a camp not too terribly far from here. We will place you there, and if needed again, we can come to you for blood samples, but otherwise—” He shrugs. “You could live your life there. Things are in place now—they have their own medical center, a learning center, rec center. It’s all quite civilized again.”

  He puts a hand on my shoulder. I would shrug it off if I could. “Besides,” he goes on. All he does is talk. “There’s someone waiting for you there.”

  The room begins to spin faster and faster. It was hard to concentrate before, but now I feel like my stomach and heart are churning together, like acid has been poured over my skin. Everything withers away, and all that’s left is the blinding white quality of the room.

  There’s really only one person he can be referring to.

  “Raven.” It’s a whisper not meant for him to hear. My hands fumble to find the edge of my seat, the cool metal, and I squeeze at it, hoping it will anchor my hope from drowning me. “It’s not possible. She’s dead. I asked about her—I asked for so long. They told me. She’s dead.”

  “I can only guess which of the staff you’ve been speaking to”—from his tone I can tell he knows exactly who—“but I assure you, the girl who was brought in with you is still alive. Well, one of the two. The little girl was part of your group too, wasn’t she?”

  Again, I can tell he knows the answers to all his questions already, but I nod anyway. He couldn’t be more hurtful if he tried; no doubt, this is the worst lie anyone’s ever tried to feed me.

  “Unfortunately she was out of our hands by the time they found you.” He’s trying to spin this as if I should be grateful to the
m for plucking us out of the wilderness. I would have rather died out there. “Your other friend was still within our means to help, though, just like you.”

  Just like me. There’s something wrong with that phrase. My brain is struggling to keep up with all this new information—Raven may be alive. It’s what I’ve been telling myself on the good days, but the good days are long past, and the dark ones have settled in. It’s too hard to believe, but what else can I have faith in if not Raven? She’s the most stubborn, fierce person I’ve ever met. Is it so foolish to believe him for a moment?

  Then it clicks why in the back of my mind why I’m so suspicious. “Was she infected when you found her?” Just like me—they say I was infected, but they pushed and developed the infection themselves. Raven may or may not have been infected, but something tells me no matter which case, they did little to help her avoid it.

  “Of course she was. She was traveling with the both of you who were infected.” Poor girl never had a chance. That’s what he’s trying to say, and he’s trying to guilt-trip me into something. I wish I could call him out on the lie; Raven wasn’t with us when Poppy was infected, and I’m not sure if I was infectious when I kissed her. Regardless, it’s not worth calling his bluff at present.

  Because my heart is telling me she wasn’t infected when captured. They must have brought her back here and infected her, just like—

  “We don’t expose perfectly healthy people to the virus,” he says incredulously. All those people in all those hallways suffering; if most of the population has been infected, then he probably has no shortage of victims to use. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe Raven’s so far gone or dead already, this is all to drive me mad. There’s no way to know for sure; there’s not a soul among them who can or would tell me the truth.

  “I want to see her.” It’s my only demand, but I have nothing to barter with.

  “I know.” He smiles. If I had the strength, I’d stand and smack it off his face, despite all his gentlemanly demeanor. “And you will, but first you need to get your strength back. We’re not carrying you out of here, you know. In the camp, you’ll be expected to find a suitable trade and carry your weight. It’s how the place functions.”