“But she still needs an education,” her mother said, her voice was almost a growl.
“You can take it up with the board,” Dr. Fuentes said. “But I doubt they’d go for it.”
Kizzy’s head began to swirl. Her future, once stretching out forever in front of her, was imploding in on itself. The music, the farm, the hope of one day being normal and happy, all those things that made life worth living, vanished before her eyes.
She jumped from the table and ran out into the parking lot. Just keep it together. It’s going to be alright. She tried to open the car door, but it was locked. The window was opened the tiniest bit and Kizzy stuck her arm inside to pull the lock. It sat there just out of reach. Her fingers shook as they came within an inch of it. She pulled her arm out and screamed up into the sky. She grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it at the window. The glass cracked but stayed in place. She picked up the rock again and threw it at the fractured glass. The window exploded into the car. Kizzy pulled the lock, opened the door and sat down on the edge of the seat with her feet down on the pavement. She put her face in her hands
It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. Her mind kept repeating. She tried to wrestle with the fact that she was going to die someday. The tears were almost coming, she held them back. It was stupid to cry over this, she wasn’t a little kid.
Her mother came out from the office sobbing and that was when Kizzy lost it. The weep was deep and came from the middle of her soul. Her heart felt like it was leaking.
Her mother didn’t say a word about the window. She just got into the car and started the engine. Kizzy closed the door and they rode back home in silence. Her mother handed her the paper with the test results. Kizzy kept reading the word IMMUNE again and again and again, hoping the pain would eventually dull. But it didn’t. It was like petting a cactus. Her mother reached over and held her hand. It was soft and warm. It was the first time in a long time that Kizzy could remember her mother touching her.
Finally when they pulled into the driveway, her mother began to speak. She didn’t look at Kizzy, she just stared out through the windshield.
“When you were little, you wanted to have this piece of cake that was on the counter. I told you, ‘No, you have to wait until after dinner.’ But you were just determined to get that cake. I’d look over and you’d be up on a chair trying to grab it. I took the chair away and the next thing I knew, you had this spoon that you were trying to reach the cake with. So I took the spoon and you tried climbing up the cabinets. Finally, I just had to hit you. I didn’t want to, but I did it. I had to drive the point home that you couldn’t have that cake. I felt really guilty for the longest time. But knowing what I know now, I should have just let you have it.”
Kizzy was quiet for a long moment, just living in the story. “What type of cake was it?” she asked finally.
“Chocolate.”
“I hate chocolate.”
“Probably because I hit you.”
Kizzy shrugged.
“I fought to get you back into school,” her mother said. “We even made the call to the headmaster but she said it’s too big of a risk for the other kids. They’re going to have the blood tests reexamined by other doctors, but it’s not looking good. Nobody has...”
“Can I go now?” Kizzy asked.
Her mother nodded.
Kizzy went to the barn, uncovered the record player and put on the Banshee album. She didn’t care if it was too loud and if her mother heard. The music carried her away, but not completely. Some fraction of her heart could still remember the catastrophe that her life had become. Had the music caused all of this?
For a long time she sat there listening, it could have been hours really, she had lost all track of time.
Suddenly in her peripheral vision she noticed the barn door creak open. Kizzy froze – her blood ran cold. She tried reaching for her knife but her arms were paralyzed. A figure came to the doorway, and stood very still for a moment. Quickly it marched towards Kizzy.
“Here’s the last of your homework,” said a voice. It was Laura’s.
Kizzy turned to her. She wore a surgical mask and was holding out a stack of pointless papers.
“You don’t have to bring it anymore,” Kizzy said. “I don’t need it.”
Laura stood awkwardly for a moment. Kizzy could feel the tears returning, so she looked down to the floor.
“They announced at school that you won’t be coming back,” Laura said. “And I talked to my mom about it. She said that I probably shouldn’t hang out with you anymore.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t want me wasting my brain space. You know that we only have so much room in our brains and if I’m going to live forever... “
“Then I’m a waste of space?” Kizzy snapped.
“Well, no. But when you’re gone...”
“When I’m dead you mean? When I’m dead. Why did you come here anyway?”
“I thought I should take my albums back.”
Kizzy laughed bitterly. She looked down at the albums. “You can have them back.” She grabbed the spinning record from the player, stood up and snapped it over her knee. She threw the pieces at Laura.
“No!” cried Laura, as if she was in physical pain. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you save your brain space,” Kizzy said. She snatched the other album.
“Please stop,” Laura said. She ran and grabbed Kizzy’s arm. Her forehead was all furrowed. The hanging light bulb made dark shadows dance on her face.
“No,” Kizzy said, wrestling away.
Laura tried to grab the album and tears were coming to her eyes.
“I think the music did this to me,” said Kizzy. “It made me immune to the pill.”
“That’s not possible,” said Laura.
“I didn’t think it was possible either, but it happened.”
“Please don’t do this,” said Laura, wiping away her tears. “When you go, I won’t have any friends and the music will be all I have left.”
Suddenly Kizzy felt hollow and defenseless. She stared at the album in her hands, ready to be smashed.
“Don’t do this to me,” Laura said.
Kizzy looked at her. She didn’t want to cause her any more pain. She handed her the album. “Take it and go.”
“But..”
“Just leave me alone,” Kizzy said as she sat down on the floor.
Laura scurried out of the barn, holding the last album tight against her chest. Kizzy stared at the record player as it spun without an album. It used to be so powerful, but now it was worthless.
Kizzy walked to the tools hanging on the wall. She grabbed a rusty old shovel. She raised it up over her head and smashed it down into the record player. Red plastic debris flew into the air. The deck broke through and the plastic ripped. Still it continued to spin. Kizzy dropped the shovel and picked up the player and threw it into the wall. More pieces exploded onto the floor. The player bounced off the wall and smashed into her right shin. It shot with pain and broke through the skin under her jeans. The pain made her furious and her ears and neck went red with rage. She grabbed the player and threw it across the room. It bounced violently on the hard floor, spraying more broken pieces from itself. Finally it slid to a halt. Half of its red shell was missing and the circuits and wiring were exposed. It was dead.
Kizzy walked back to the house, keeping as far away as possible from the woods. She slept the rest of the day, avoiding thoughts of her future.
That night she sat in her room and tried writing down her feelings. Fifty years, fifty years, fifty years. That was all her brain could muster. Probably because it was all she’d ever have. She was like a flower that had been plucked and now there was only fifty years until she withered.
As she sat at her desk she sensed that someone watched her. Her mother was in living room reading a magazine on the couch. Kizzy looked to the right and saw a face outside the window. She screamed and jumped from her chair and ran into the other room. When her mother came back to inspect, the face was gone.
Needless to say Kizzy had a hard time sleeping that night.
When she woke up the next day there was this sweet brief moment where she didn’t remember anything about her condition. But slowly it all came back to her.
Her mother had buried the crows for her and ordered Kizzy to take three bean crates down to the canal. It suddenly all seemed so pointless, like she was setting up for a party that she wasn’t even invited to.
She pushed a crate down the ramp into the water. It floated towards the city. Now it was certain, she would never know that world.
On the way back to the house Kizzy saw Laura walking along the side of the road. Laura looked back over her shoulder and stopped. Kizzy thought for a moment about running her over, but decided against it. Instead she stepped on the breaks. Laura stood still, holding her school books. She reached for her surgical mask in her bag, but then stopped and left it there. She walked to the tractor and climbed up inside. They rode in silence back home.
As they drove, Kizzy began to hear the distinct high-pitched buzzing of the radio coming to life. They must have been passing through another unjammed area. There was a twinge of anxiety in her chest. Deep down she hoped it was a Banshee song, but at the same time she really hoped it wasn’t. It would be too painful. She looked at Laura, who looked back at her with anticipation in her eyes. Was she feeling the same thing?
It was the ending of Banshee’s song “Fly” - the one where the guitars grow deep and dissonant at the end. Kizzy couldn’t stand to hear what came next. She went to turn off the radio.
“Tonight it is!” shouted the announcer. Laura grabbed Kizzy’s hand short. “And it couldn’t have come soon enough. Banshee in concert tonight at the forum in Yanloo City. Tickets are still available. He’s only performing one night, so don’t miss this opportunity. Run down to the box office and get yourself a ticket while they still got ‘em!”
The next song began to play and the tractor lost the signal.
“You should go,” Laura said.
“Funny,” Kizzy answered, sarcastically.
“No, I mean it. You should go.”
Kizzy just laughed. “Are you stupid? The mutants would kill me.”
“You could sneak in.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, just sneak in.”
Kizzy shook her head and thought about it secretly. To actually be there at the concert would be too amazing for words. But like everything else in her life – it was dangling just out of reach, slowly torturing her.
“You might as well,” Laura said. “What have you got to lose?”
“Fifty years,” Kizzy said. “I’m not going to throw that away.”
Laura nodded. “But, what if Banshee really knows where Dr. Enoch is? What if you could find him, and he could help you?
“I would be gambling fifty years on a stupid theory we had while listening to records,” said Kizzy.
“I’d do it if I were you.”
“Well you’re not me and I’m not going to do it.”
“You’re just giving up. You think your situation is hopeless.”
“That’s cause it is hopeless,”
“All the more reason to go then,” Laura said.
“You’re stupid,” said Kizzy. “The mutants would kill me on sight. The way we would kill them on sight. And even if I wanted to, I could never get into the concert. And I would never find Banshee and ask him about Enoch. And even if I did all that, there’d be no coming back. It’s suicide. I’ll take my fifty years.”
Kizzy pulled into the barn and hopped out. Without a word she walked towards the house. She put her hands in her pockets and noticed Laura’s shadow on the grass beside hers.
“What are you doing?” Kizzy asked.
“My mom’s been drinking again,” Laura said. “Is it ok if I hang out here for a while?”
Kizzy shrugged. She was still pissed at her, but really didn’t feel like being alone. She slowed down for her to catch up and together they entered the kitchen.
The first thing Kizzy noticed was the family tree painting stuffed into the garbage bin. Her mother was sitting at the table with a big glass of whiskey in her hands. She lifted her surgical mask to take a sip and then put her face down in her arms.
“What’s wrong?” Kizzy asked.
“A massive flock is coming,” her mother said. “It’s the biggest one on record. It’s going to wipe all us out. Where’s your mask Laura?”
“I figure I would’ve caught it already,” Laura said. “Whatever it is.”
“Don’t be stupid, put it on.”
“What are we going to do about the crows?” Kizzy asked.
“There’s nothing we can do,” her mother said. “It’s going to consume the entire farm, and we’re not going to make our quota, and we’re going to lose everything.”
“Aren’t we going to try and stop it?” Kizzy asked.
“There’s no point,” her mother said. She took another sip. “We can’t.”
“We have to try,” Kizzy said.
“It’s point-less,” her mother said, exaggerating every syllable.
“I don’t care,” Kizzy answered. “I’m going to try.”
“Go ahead,” her mother said. “But Laura, you stay inside.”
Kizzy looked to Laura to see what she would do. Laura still hadn’t put her mask on. She cracked a little smile and sprinted out the door. Instinctively Kizzy ran after her, giggling at the blatant disobedience.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Kizzy said as she caught up to her.
“Why? She’s not my mom.”
They laughed and ran towards the barn. Then they heard a deep rumbling from the woods and their laughter faded out. Then came the caws, thousands of them, echoing through the forest. The heavy swoosh of countless wings flapped through the air. The great black swarm gushed from over the tree tops. It grew into a massive black cloud that filled the sky. Kizzy’s heart sank and a dark moan fill her chest. This was the biggest thing she had ever seen.
5
A thousand caws echoed off each other and around the trees and through the barnyard. Kizzy could smell the feathers. The crows swept out over the field and crashed down onto the crops. The beans wouldn’t last long. But Kizzy could save some, she just needed to buy some time.
She shook herself awake, grabbed Laura by the shirt and ran to the barn. The large, blue plastic tarps she shoved into Laura’s arms.
“Spread these out over the beans,” said Kizzy.
“Will they be enough?”
“No. But we can use sheets and blankets.”
Kizzy ran to the house and went into the laundry room. From the closet she grabbed as many quilts and sheets as she could. Her mother caught her by the wrist.
“She doesn’t know how to deal with the crows,” she said. Her eyes looked serious and worried. Kizzy could smell the whiskey on her breath. “Make her come back inside.”
“I can’t make her do anything.” Kizzy yanked her arm away. She ran out the door with arms full of blankets.
“Don’t let anything happen to her!” her mother yelled.
Kizzy felt a burst of anger in her throat. Don’t let anything happen to her? Didn’t she care what happened to her own daughter? Kizzy may only have fifty years, but she was still a human being with feelings. If only her mother knew the truth about Laura.
Laura stood still in the field amidst the blue tarps, staring up at the impending doom.
“Come on,” yelled Kizzy. “We need to get these spread out.”
They grabbed the two ends of a blue tarp and ran with it out into the field, jumping over each row of Enoch beans. Above them the crows circled like a spinning hurricane, slowly descending.
Their deafening caws echoed into infinity.
They hadn’t even unraveled the first tarp when the crows reached them. Kizzy felt dozens of sharp beaks pecking her from all angles – her hair, her arms, her neck. She swatted them away, and looked at Laura. She was down on her knees, surrounded.
Kizzy covered her head and ran to her friend. With one arm over her eyes she pulled Laura up to her feet and they sprinted towards the barn, tripping over the bean plants. Crows were on every side of them. It was impossible to see where they were going. The claws and beaks scratched from all sides. Where was the barn? They should have been there already. Had they run in the wrong direction?
Kizzy reached out and blindly felt for the rough wood of the barn’s exterior. The crows hit her from behind, pushing her forward and smashing her into the wooden siding. Kizzy regained her balance and scurried along the wall until she came to the door, she pulled herself and Laura into safety and slammed it shut behind them.
They fell to the ground gasping for air. Laura’s arms were bleeding and her hair was devastated. Kizzy felt the blood running down the back of her neck. They had pulled some hair from her scalp and her right ear was cut and bleeding. Outside the crows were scratching and pecking like crazy at the door and every wall.
“Are you ok?” Kizzy asked between gasps for air.
Laura shrugged. “Typical Friday night, you know.”
Kizzy tried to laugh but it came out as more of a cough. She pushed herself up, staggered over to the EMP and pulled the rope to start it. It belched a cloud of smoke and began to run. In her left hand she noticed that she was still clutching one of the blankets. She tossed to the corner and rolled the EMP towards the door.
The Enoch Pill Page 5