The Enoch Pill

by Matthew William

  “I don’t think so.”

  Kizzy nodded. It made her feel safer to hear that. “Do you think Andrea is deaf is because she was listening to city music?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My mother,” Kizzy said.

  “Gosh, I hope that’s not true.”

  Kizzy examined the album and studied track listing on the back cover. The artwork was really strange. Wispy smoke billowed up from a cigarette making strange shapes in the air. Looking closer she noticed the smoke resembled a map of some sort.

  “Where is this supposed to be?” Kizzy asked, biting into a sugar cookie.

  Laura leaned over to look. “He’s got a map like that on the other album too.”

  Kizzy studied the back of the blue album. There was a peninsula with a broken heart drawn on its western shore.

  ‘Where it all began. #ENOCH’ was written in red letters across the top.

  Kizzy opened the album and looked at the liner notes. There Banshee thanked all the people who had assisted in the making of the album. Producers, engineers, studio musicians and no thanks to Dr. Enoch.

  Kizzy listened to the words he sang.

  “The moon is fading away,

  Stilted memories begging me not to stay.

  Because my time won’t ever come, won’t ever come.

  If there’s a chance in a thousand, I’ll end what you started.

  I’d send you a love letter from my gun.”

  “Is he singing about Enoch?” Kizzy asked. “Yeah,” Laura said. “He has some sort of grudge against him.” “Why?” “I don’t know.” “Do you think this is where Enoch is?” Kizzy asked, pointing at the map on the back of the album.

  “I doubt it,” said Laura. “It doesn’t even look like a real place.”

  “It might be,” Kizzy said.

  Laura just shrugged.

  There was no reward for finding Dr. Enoch, although there should have been. Nobody had seen him for eighteen years. He saved mankind from the great plague with the pill that bore his name. And it was because of him that humans could now live forever. So every living person owed their life to Dr. Enoch and they were reminded of it everyday when they took their pill. He appeared for a moment, changed the course of history, then disappeared into the mist. Why Banshee would want to kill him was anybody’s guess.

  Kizzy had asked her teacher if Dr. Enoch was actually a mutant, because the way that he looked on that billboard out in the ghost town sure made him look a lot like the diagrams of the mutants that they showed them in school. Short hair, large jaw, a strong brow. But her teacher said that the mutants didn’t exist before the Enoch pill. They were a result of it and had to be walled within their city to prevent the plague from coming back. Maybe that was the reason for Banshee’s vendetta?

  As they sat there listening to the album one of the songs stuck out to Kizzy. It was called “Evelyn Where Are You?”. He sang about someone he cared for deeply but had died in the plague. It must have been nice to be so important to somebody. Kizzy kind of wished she was Evelyn.

  They listened to the first side of the album and then Laura awoke from her daze. She pulled her phone from her pocket. “Oh man, I’m late for dinner.” She stood up and with large eyes stared at the albums and the record player. “They could deafen 20 people for all this.”

  Kizzy smiled, but then she made her face deadly serious. “We have to make a pact Laura. We can never tell anyone about this.”

  “Of course,” Laura said. “You’re the one we have to worry about. I never do anything wrong.”

  They hid the record player and the albums under some blue plastic tarps.

  “Will they be ok here?” Laura asked.

  “Yeah,” Kizzy said. “My mom never comes out here.”

  They turned off the light and walked out to the yard. Kizzy noticed one of the crows laying lifeless on the ground. She must have missed it when she gathered the others. It was so still, as if it were in a photograph. It would never fly again, never eat again. Kizzy wondered if it had friends back before it died. It didn’t matter. He’d never see them again. It’s black eyes almost seemed to be looking straight through her. She trembled and walked back to the barn to grab another bag.

  “Hey, Kizzy,” Laura said.

  “Yeah?”

  “How were you able to get that new Banshee album?”

  “I sent a note and some money into the city inside a crate.”

  “That was pretty smart,” Laura said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you think you could do it again?” Laura asked.

  Kizzy froze as she reached down for the dead crow. “I’m not about it try it anytime soon.”

  “Kizzy, you do know that my family is in charge of all the farms around here right?” Laura said.

  “Yeah,” Kizzy answered.

  “Well, I’d just hate to see your family lose your farm. Last I checked your bean shipments have been pretty low.”

  Kizzy’s heart sank. Now she knew what Laura wanted. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Well, we’ll wait until the time is right Kizzy. We have all the time in the world, don’t we?”

  3

  When Kizzy awoke the next morning, the events of the night before seemed like a distant dream. But they had happened. And the world was different now. She hopped out of bed and stretched, reaching up towards the ceiling. There was a To-Do list on her desk.

  1. Pick up the crows and bury them in the woods – they’ll poison the plants!

  2. The city is calling for 2 crates of beans, please send them

  3. Clean your room, it looks like a zoo

  —Mother

  Kizzy got dressed and had some oats for breakfast. Preparing the bean crates would be the easiest job, she decided.

  As she left the house she kept a safe distance from the woods. Her eyes scanning every dark patch. In the barn she grabbed the scythe from the wall of tools and set it in the tractor’s cabin. Then she loaded two empty supply crates onto the tractor’s trailer. The tractor’s gas tank was nearly empty, so she grabbed one of the ethanol canisters and poured all the liquid into the tank. She had to remember to get the new canisters from inside the house at the end of the day.

  She hopped up into the tractor’s cabin and started the engine. It shook and smoked like crazy. The tractor was old and falling apart, but it started faithfully and it ran smoothly once it got going.

  After backing out of the barn she drove down the dirt road that led to the edge of their farm. The sun shined through the late summer leaves. The beans they had planted in spring had grown and were matured now.

  Kizzy passed Laura’s house. Her mother was home. She watched her absentmindedly doing the dishes in the kitchen window. Kizzy waved, but the woman remained in her own little world. Why was she always like that? Kizzy couldn’t remember ever seeing her smiling or happy. Just always staring off into space, cleaning what seemed to be the same damn dish over and over again. Kizzy promised herself never to become like that.

  She drove down the path next to the canal until it came to the field where she’d be harvesting that day. She parked the tractor and it vibrated to a halt. With the scythe in hand she hopped out, and stretched the muscles in her arms and neck and back. You’d cramp up pretty bad if you didn’t do that. From the edge of the field she began to swing at the beans, chopping them off at the stalks. The scythe was so sharp – it sliced through the plants like they were butter. It made her feel powerful – like some sort of Japanese samurai warrior, mowing down hundreds of peasant soldiers. Swing, swing, swing, swing, swing. The beans stalks fell, landing awkwardly, as if the peasant’s legs were being chopped out from under them. She wished she could experience a war like that. It must have made them feel alive to be so cl
ose to death.

  An hour of hard, hot work passed. Kizzy wiped the dust and sweat from her forehead. She looked back at the devastation she had wrecked. The field full of soldiers lay dead.

  Kizzy raked the beans into one huge pile and used a pitchfork to shovel them into the supply crates. The work was repetitive and boring. The sun beat down on her from above. How much longer would she always have to do this? All her life? Couldn’t she just switch jobs with somebody someday?

  She got good grades and was a hard worker, but farming the beans was the most important job there was. And she had experience. Any aptitude test she took would assign her right back here. You’re really smart, you should be a farmer. You’re really dumb, you should be a farmer. There was no escape. But if she could trade with someone, hopefully someone who worked in an office and ate cake all day, that would be the best.

  When the crates were full she climbed up and started the tractor. Now they had to be delivered. She drove to the canal and backed the trailer onto the unloading dock. She untied the crates and used her key to lock them up, so no one could steal their beans, then pushed them down the metal ramp into the water.

  There were a ton of crates were floating by that day, all headed towards the city. The hundreds of farms upstream had been harvesting their first crop of Enoch beans. And in the city the mutants would use their factories to process the beans into the Enoch pills. Then the pills would then be mailed back out to the farms in the supply crates. Each person received seven pills per week. The new circle of life. Kizzy and her mother would take the pills and live on to grow more beans and then send them into the city. Beans to pills and then back again, on and on forever and ever. Amen.

  It made Kizzy feel calm – the fact that eternity stretched out in front of her. Anything was possible. She could do whatever she wanted, eventually.

  There was so much to look forward to. She’d be able to watch animals adapt and change over the eons. See mountains rise and fall around her. Chart the stars as they carved their way across the night sky fading out and fading in. Witness supernovas exploding silently in space. Maybe even visit them someday. But nobody ever made plans like that. They all just seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

  She watched the crates float away. When would they reach the city? Who would open them? Would it be the same person who had mailed her the Banshee album? Their lives were connected, but they would never know each other. And that was just fine. The mutants would probably do terrible things to her if they caught her.

  Supposedly there was a young girl who had wandered too close to the city one night. The mutants captured her ate her alive and sent her bones back to her family in a supply crate. They had been picked clean.

  Kizzy knew the story was probably bull crap. It just seemed like too much work to mail the bones back out to the family. However she had no desire to find out firsthand whether it was true or not.

  On the drive home something caught her eye on the side of the road. A large white bird had gotten itself stuck in the wire fence and was flailing about trying to free itself. Who knows how long it had been there. Kizzy hated to see animals suffering so she stopped the tractor and hopped out. As she approached the bird it suddenly ceased its struggle. It looked at her. It’s breathing was raspy and heavy. Kizzy realized it was a crow, but it was as white as snow with small, red eyes. She had never, ever seen a white crow before. And she couldn’t recall ever seeing one by itself. They only flew in flocks. The look of it made her queasy. She shivered.

  Its wing was entwined in the steel wire. The bird’s struggle had plucked its feathers and cut into the skin of it’s wing. Kizzy tiptoed towards it. She knew that a trapped animal could give itself a heart attack if it became too stressed. She reached out and loosened the wire while she pulled at the bird’s wing. It squawked in pain and tried to fly away, but Kizzy moved swiftly and the bird popped free.

  It waddled away from her and stretched out its wings in the sunlight. It turned and hopped up onto the wire fence. It looked at her with one eye, small and red. It seemed to look right through her. The sight of all those tiny blood vessels made Kizzy’s skin crawl.

  Suddenly it lunged and tried to peck her in the eye. Kizzy raised a hand to block the beak and it pierced her palm and all down her forearm. Quickly the bird turned and flew away, disappearing over the horizon.

  “That little asshole,” said Kizzy, looking at the wounds on her arm. It had broken the skin and the blood came up to the surface. In the tractor she found a cloth to wrap around her hand and arm. She had better get back to the house to disinfect it.

  As she drove she noticed Laura walking home from school along the side of the road. Kizzy suddenly felt stressed. She had devised a plan to make her forget about the whole getting the album business. She just had to stay on her good side. Kizzy pulled up and opened the door, waving for her to climb up in. Laura smiled and glanced over each shoulder. She rocked out on an air guitar. Kizzy grinned. Good thing no one else saw that. It was really lame.

  “What happened to your hand?” Laura asked after she climbed in.

  “Eh, some crow did it. How was school?”

  “Same shit, different day.”

  “Too bad I missed it.”

  “Camilla’s nose still looks a little funny actually,” Laura said with a smile

  “Really?” Kizzy asked. She felt kind of guilty, albeit a little proud.

  “Yeah, she was saying how they should break yours if hers doesn’t grow back to normal.”

  That made Kizzy feel worried. She shrugged, it was still worth it.

  They pulled up towards the barn.

  “You ready to listen to some music?” Laura asked.

  “Oh yeah,” said Kizzy. “We still have the whole second album too.”

  Laura got out to open up the barn door and Kizzy pulled the tractor inside and killed the engine.

  “How about we just concentrate on getting this wor...” Kizzy stopped. She saw the record player was partially uncovered from under the blue tarp.

  “What?” asked Laura as she walked inside.

  “The record player - it’s uncovered.”

  “Did your mother find it?” Laura asked.

  “I can’t tell,” Kizzy answered. She climbed out from the tractor and crept towards the tarps. Had the wind blown them like that? Or had her mother done it?

  “If my mother had found it, she would have either hid the fact that she found it, or she would have taken it away. Right?” She turned and looked back at Laura. “Right?”

  Laura shook her head and put on her classic confused face.

  “Unless this is some sort of test,” Kizzy said. “She’s testing me to see what I’ll do.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about Kizzy,” Laura said, backing towards the door. She looked around for a hidden camera or a sound recorder. “You were supposed to destroy that thing. I told you to.”

  “What?” Kizzy asked.

  “I said, I told you to destroy it.”

  Kizzy shook her head. “Leave then,” she pointed to the door.

  Laura stood frozen.

  “Get out of here,” Kizzy shouted. She ran and grabbed Laura by the arm and marched her out the doorway.

  “Wait, you forgot your homework,” Laura said, struggling to take the assignments from her backpack. “I’ll see you tomorrow maybe?”

  “Whatever,” Kizzy said, grabbing the papers. She folded them and stuffed them in her back pocket.

  Kizzy couldn’t believe it. Laura had actually fallen for it. She covered the record player again. There was no point in leaving it open for her mother to really find.

  She looked out the window and saw the pile of white bags at the edge of the forest. They could wait until tomorrow.

  She went inside to the
bathroom to wash off her wound. As she let the water run down her hand she looked to the left and her mother was standing there.

  “I was out in the barn today,” she said.

  Kizzy was paralyzed.

  “Did you forget something?”

  “What?” She wasn’t about to admit to a crime she wasn’t yet accused of.

  “The ethanol? You’ve got only empty cans out there.”

  Kizzy tried to smile. “Oh yeah, I’ll take care of that.”

  “There’s another thing too, I think you know what it is.”

  Kizzy nodded.

  Her mother left.

  What did she mean? The crows or the record player? Numbly Kizzy walked outside.

  She spent the rest of the day watering the plants out in the fields to avoid her mother. She wouldn’t face her if she didn’t have to. All of a sudden she began to have a bizarre ache in her lower abdomen. It was a strange mix of pain and nausea. She pressed on the sore spot and that made it feel a little bit better.

  An electrical storm came rolling in that night. The first bolts of lighting flashed on the horizon as Kizzy drove the tractor back to the barn. The thunder came barreling over the fields in a low drum-like rumble. The smell of rain in the distance wafted over the landscape. In the barn she eyed the tarps that covered the record player. Had her mother really seen it? It made Kizzy nervous as hell, just leaving it there, but she had to. As she walked to the house the lightning cracked closer and the thunder rattled through her lungs.

  Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table painting the family tree again. Kizzy noticed that her own branch was still intact. That was a good sign wasn’t it? For some reason her mother seem anxious. That was not a good sign.

  “The flock of crows attacked me yesterday,” Kizzy said, hoping to garner some sympathy.

  “Really?”