She would receive none of it back.
An emphatic banging upon the front door, someone knocking, intent that those inside heard it well, stole Coal’s attention away, his head turning in the direction of the ruckus. The brief moment of distraction provided for the disease the opportunity to reclaim its decisive hold over his mind.
Eve could see the change in his eyes. There was nothing but pain left for her there. She knew she had to act quickly.
Skirting past Coal before he became aware of her intent, Eve charged back up the stairs and into their bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her, locking it. She knew it would not hold for long. It did not matter. She only needed a couple of minutes.
Eve made straight for the closet, choking on the smoke that continued to fill the room, even through her scarf. She pulled open the door, telling herself she was ready, that she could do what needed to be done. Now was the time to be brave―for Henry.
She reached up to the shelf spanning the upper half of the closet, her hands just barely able to reach. Standing nearly on the ends of her toes, her fingers stretched desperately into the dark back corner of the shelf. The doorknob to their bedroom shook and rattled forcefully behind her, followed by unnerving blasts against the door as Coal plowed the side of his shoulder madly into it with single-minded determination.
Eve took a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm herself; an impossible task she knew. But she could not allow herself to falter now―so close to finishing what her mind had settled upon as the right thing to do, no matter how unspeakable it was.
The tips of her fingers grazed the underside of a dusty brown shoebox―her aim. Eve’s heart was in her throat. How had it come to this? She flicked upward on the box to inch it forward along the shelf. As the box hung over the edge, she pushed up one last time, using the weight of what lay waiting inside to tip it the rest of the way into her expectant hands.
The door of the room started to give. More and more she could hear the sound of splintering wood with every strike. It would not be long before Coal stormed into the room, crazed and hungry for her destruction.
Eve lifted the lid off the box, revealing a dull silver pistol with a black grip, one Coal had acquired shortly after taking over as mayor, insisting in its necessity for both their sake, even against her most adamant protests. The sad irony of her desire for it now bit into her as she checked the chamber for bullets. It was fully loaded. She knew, however, if she did it right she would only need one.
She sunk herself into the closet, sitting scrunched beneath the hanging clothes, her feet pressed against the wall, closing the door, shutting herself in darkness. It wasn’t that she hoped to hide. There was nowhere left for her to do that. Not anymore. As the wood of the bedroom door cracked loudly under the duress of Coal’s relentless assault, she sought only one last moment of peace before her horrid act.
Clothes above grazed her head. Peering up into them, a stretch of Coal’s sweaters, she could smell that familiar scent, the one she had grown keenly aware of when she knew for the first time she was truly in love. She tugged at the bottom of one until it slipped free of its hanger and into her lap. Pulling down her scarf, she pressed the sweater against her cheek and cradled it beneath her nose. Eve closed her eyes, imagining Coal in her arms now.
At last, the bedroom door gave way with a final defeated crack of the wood, Coal collapsing into the room with it. Eve watched through slats in the closet door as he stalked about the room, searching. She clasped the pistol in her hand, affirming to herself in a sighed whisper, you can do this.
There were few places within the room to hide. Even in his afflicted state, Coal’s faculties had been cognizant enough to exhaust them all: beneath the bed, behind the bathroom door, in the shower―hot water continuing to pour into the tub, fuel to his Plague-driven system. There was only one place left to search.
His tall form darkened the view through the slats as Eve sat trembling, doubt running through her mind. She raised the pistol in her tremulous hand, taking aim, trying best to steady herself but failing. Coal reached out, an agitated groan, and tore open the closet door.
Her cue.
Eve pulled back on the trigger. A startling loud blast filled the cramped space. Coal stumbled away cowering, heart pounding, his hands and eyes running over his chest and extremities to assess what damage had been done. His body, however, remained unharmed.
Eve lay in the closet, limp, her head snapped back, the bullet having passed completely through her skull killing her instantly. Her final kindness. She would not kill the man she loved, she couldn’t, even now as he existed, his body an instrument of destruction―the Plague’s weapon. The man she loved, the man she knew Coal to be, would never have harmed her. Now he couldn’t. She would not allow the Plague to sever the bond she valued most. Their final parting would occur on her own terms. It was as much control as any ever had over the disease.
-11-
Coal gazed upon his dead wife. His eyes―the eyes of the Plague―beheld nothing more than a job completed. A pain, however, stung deep inside―an unyielding fragment of Coal’s former self―too deep for the disease to notice or care. His diseased mind’s only drive: extinguish that which threatened its existence. Outside was a city full of threats. The manipulating disease pulled at Coal’s strings, infesting his unhinged mind with crazed ideas, fashioning falsehoods to drive his killer instinct. His attention turned to the window, and as he looked upon the city, horrid screams of the infected filled his ears. He could hear each distinctive one as an individual cry for release―a Purging waiting to happen.
There was more work to be done. Much more.
Coal seized clothes from the closet, pulling a sweater stained with his wife’s blood over his head. He did not care. It was warmth he sought. Outside it was cold, the only true enemy of the Plague. His diseased body knew this, and took measures to defend itself. For Henry Coal, the act was familiar. They were the same measures he had long taken to prevent that which now thrived within his own blood.
Protected, Coal departed the room, leaving the empowering heat of fire and steam behind as he descended the stairs, tore down the barricading curtains around the front door and threw it open. A cold penetrating blast of wind gave him pause. Had it not, he may have disregarded what lay there waiting. On the stoop before him sat a brown cardboard box, the flaps of the lid folded over one another to keep it closed. Upon the front, painted in broad purple letters, were the words emblazoned on most all cardboard boxes that filtered throughout the city: Mama Ruth’s Down-Home Soup.
Coal lifted the box, the words meaningless to him now. Yet beyond the words, the box still held interest. There was heat inside. He could feel it. His body now attuned to find it, he could sense heat even in the most miniscule amounts―none too insignificant in such extreme cold.
He pulled open the flaps. Inside were the contents one came to expect from Mama Ruth: a lidded cup of soup and a hunk of bread. With this box however, Ruth had packed something extra―something special just for Coal.
His hand reached in by rote, withdrawing a white card set between the soup and bread. He turned it over. It was something both familiar and foreign to him. The disease did not give a damn whatsoever about the card, yet there was that lingering something deep down inside of Coal that did. He read the message scrawled in purple ink:
Henry, you were right. It’s time for another Purging.
Heedless of the words, Coal dropped the card to the ground, desirous only of the heat he had felt emanating through the cardboard box, now able to feel it in the tips of his fingers like the pulsing of a heart. As he peeled back the lid of the cup, he noticed a length of purple yarn fastened to the underside. It reached down into the soup and pulled taut. Steam caressed his fingers. His blood yearned for more, yet the self-preserving disease forced his hand to stop.
Purging. This was a word that struck chords with Coal. He recognized it. He loved it. The disease coursing through his veins craved it
. Destruction.
But now, at this moment, that very same disease feared it more than anything. Scanning the inner sanctum of Coal’s mind, piecing memory and present into a deadly equation, the Plague now viewed Mama Ruth’s message in a different light entirely. A threat―one it knew how to survive. Put down the cup and run. Yet he did not. Coal’s hands remained clutched around the cup and lid and his feet stayed planted to the ground.
Deep within a hijacked mind, Henry Coal’s crusade against the Plague declared its newest battlefront. Now he was the disease―that final lingering shred of a man forced to watch his own wife kill herself, helpless to intervene. This was his final struggle for control.
Do not let go!
Against every will of the Plague, his hands, trembling, resisting, lifted the lid higher. His fingers fought to release it, to drop the cup and run. Coal would not allow them. They raised the lid higher still. Tremors ran throughout his entire body as the disease waged its final assault. Soup spilled and scalded him. One by one, his fingers loosened their hold. Control was slipping away.
Coal felt as if he were caught back in the middle of the storm, a great force of wind pushing him backward in his every attempt for progress―the disease pushing him deeper within his own self. This was it. Everything hinged upon his ability to push back―to focus.
Think of Eve!
An image of Eve flashed through his consciousness, conjured from down deep. No matter how defiantly the disease comba
ted, the image could not be pushed away. Coal too could find strength in warmth, a kind different and more powerful than the Plague would ever know.
Coal felt himself suddenly pulled higher, a lifeline reeling him back to the fight. He concentrated all effort on keeping hold of the lid. It was all that mattered. He surrendered the opposing hand, giving the cup of soup back to the Plague’s control.
Now drop it you son of a bitch!
The Plague did just so, releasing the cup and watching as the threat it had perceived dropped away with it. Coal knew better though. He knew where the threat truly was. It was still in his hand―the lid with the length of yarn. Gravity did the rest.
As the cup fell away, there was a quick yank on the purple yarn, an object, heavy, pulling against it. Then a click, and a thud on the porch as the cup crash-landed. The yarn slackened and Coal saw before his eyes, dangling at the end of it, a metal pin. Just as he knew it would be.
For Eve.
A half moment later, Mama Ruth’s down-home grenade did its job. The explosion ripped through Coal’s Plague-harboring flesh, his diseased blood spread and boiling over the burning remains of what was once his only sanctuary in a city he could not escape.
The battle was over. Control, if only over himself, had finally been won.
In the waking hours of the new day, there was left only a pillar of black smoke rising in evidence from where the mayor’s home once stood.
The final Purging.
About the Author
Matthew Milson was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He currently lives in Orlando, Florida where he spends most of his time dreaming up ideas for stories, and sometimes actually writing them.
For the most up-to-date information about Matthew, visit his website at: www.MatthewMilson.com.
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Plague City Page 4