“What’s in the syringe?” Josh asks.
“It would seem that the syringe contains an anti-virus or a cure.”
“You have vaccines?” Josh blurts out. Black shit spatters everywhere as he flings out his skinny arms. “I almost died!” he yells. “Infection rate is over ninety percent! I. . . I’ve been wearing this mask the entire time!”
Markus shrugs. “I’m sorry, son. If you get infected like Rice, I will share with you. You are a part of us, too.” He looks at Isabella. “I don’t know why I got three. Maybe I’d touched someone’s heart. I had a big congregation. I reached my audience through a prime-time spot on Sunday morning television. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t always successful. After an eye-opening trip to Tunisia, I found my followers and returned to New York to rebuild my church.”
“You’re a liar,” Isabella scowls. She had never trusted Markus, and never knew why. Maybe it’s because he claims to talk to God. She takes her rifle off her back and points it at him. “Somethin’ not right about you.”
Markus holds his hands up. He doesn’t look scared. Maybe because he’s fuckin’ crazy.
Josh reaches out. “Can I have the dose? I don’t want to wait until those worms crawl into my skin or the virus sneaks into my body.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t give it to you,” Markus says. “You’re not infected yet.”
Hana comes down the ladder. “What’s going on with Rice?” Our resident cop is similarly splashed with guts. She pauses. Isabella can tell she’s feeling the tension in the air like lack of oxygen.
“Markus has three doses of the vaccine. Never said a word.” Josh is so angry Isabella expects steam to burst from his ears any second. “I get a dose. I need it!”
Tanis and Ian come down the ladder and shuffle into the space. “What the hell?” Ian asks.
Hana says, “Markus had three vaccines in red syringes and just dosed Rice with one.”
Ian raises his hands. “No one gets the anti-virus. Not until you show signs of infection. That’s the way it should be.”
“But!” Josh yelps. “I want to know why he’s got three vaccines! It doesn’t make any sense. If. . . if there was a cure out there then why did everyone die? Where was the CDC? The government? We can reproduce the vaccine somehow so we can all get it.”
Isabella’s gun is still pointed at Markus. “You got that right, Josh. This is some fucked up shit here. That red syringe is inside stuff. You got to be close to Zilla to get one of those. Maybe you were really good friends with the boogie man himself to get three.”
“Zilla?” Josh says, his head cocking like a dumbfounded puppy.
“Oh, you know the name, too?” Isabella’s finger tightens on the cold, thin trigger. “Ben, get the Bible.” Ben returns with Markus’s Bible. “I wasn’t sure before, but now I am. I watched Markus writing a few days back. It reminded me of something. Ben, flip the book open to any page with notes in the margins and show it to Ian.”
Ian inspects Markus’s writing. “Hmm.”
“Fucking familiar, isn’t it?”
Tanis takes the Bible. Hana looks over his shoulder, and so does Ben. Ian folds his arms across his chest. “So, you’re Zilla?” he asks Markus.
Josh snatches the book and inspects the writing. He looks up, his jaw hanging to the floor.
Markus laughs and wipes black crap off his cheek. He takes a turn looking at everyone on board. “I am God’s humble servant.” Isabella bashes the butt of her rifle on his head, a glancing blow that splits his skin. He falls to his knees.
Tanis leaps at Isabella and grabs her shirt. “Stop, Isa!”
Isabella takes ahold of Tanis’s neck and kick at his knee. Tanis falls, yelping.
Ben comes at Isabella, but when her eyes fix on him, he stops. She turns and points her gun at Markus. “You’re dead, old man!”
Hana kicks the gun and Isabella loses grip. The gun clatters and slides in the slick black muck that pools on the galley floor. Isabella turns, but Hana is fast. Her elbow bashes Isabella’s head. She pulls back and bring up her hands. Ian yells for the women to stop, but they don’t. She steps twice toward Hana and fakes a kick, then punches. Her fist cracks Hana’s nose. As Isabella punches again Hana grabs her wrist and twists her arm around her back, holding Isabella in a lock. Isabella knows the move and slips out, easily.
“Hana! Isabella!” Ian stands in between the two. He tries to grab Isabella, but she slips past, spins, and sink her fist into Hana’s stomach. Ian falls on Isabella bending her over the countertop. Isabella’s head snaps back and butts his nose. She steps into the center of the galley, fists up. “Fucking get me off this boat!” she screams. She slips on the black blood but maintains her stance.
Hana lifts her gun. “I will shoot you, Isabella.”
Great, the fucking cop is on her throne. “You’re gonna have to.”
Ian approaches again with his hands up. Blood spills from his nose and slides down his black-splattered forearm, turning purple. He looks at Hana. “Markus needs the end of your gun.” Hana nods. Ian turns back to Isabella. “Markus is at gunpoint. He’s not going anywhere. If you would calm the fuck down for a minute, we can figure this out.”
Isabella’s blood pumps hot. She can throw off all these assholes and take this boat to Cuba by herself. She should. Then she sees Tanis sitting on his knees, crying and holding his neck. A wave of guilt rushes over her, and Isabella feels sorry. She doesn’t make it a habit of hurting kids.
“We have to survive ourselves,” Ian says. He gets closer, within range of Isabella’s fury, but she’s cooled without even knowing it. Ian puts his hands on her shoulders, gently. “This has always been about surviving.”
“Markus is Zilla. I know it.” Isabella lowers her fists and feels like crying again, but she holds it in. “He deserves to die.”
“I agree.” Ian turns to Markus. “Now that we know you’re Zilla.”
Markus stands tall and points. “And who art thou? To cast the first stone? You, Isabella, fired off the EMP for money!” He points to Ian. “How about the virus you spread? It wasn’t a coincidence that the police and the Guard got sick first? Tanis? I love how you installed the virus on your father’s computer. You see? We are all Zilla. We are but humble servants of God.”
Isabella turns to Ian. “You got control back?” Ian asks.
Isabella nods and grabs Markus, pushing him to the ladder. “Up top,” she orders.
Markus climbs up followed by everyone else. Isabella pushes Markus to the safety line.
“And Hana! I love that you opened the quarantine, giving the infection rate a helping hand,” he says over his shoulder. “And it was Ben that worked the bacteria into the water. You’re all God’s pawns. We all are!”
Isabella is shocked so she backs off. Everyone on board had a part in Zilla’s game?
“You were all so eager to believe the propaganda I fed you. You’re like children. Ian, you float between anarchy and socialism, and you don’t really understand either. You can’t have it both ways! You bought every paranoid conspiracy theory you ever read.” He turns to Isabella. “And your greed got you far in life, didn’t it, Isa?”
She punches Markus in the side as hard as she can.
He coughs but continues. “Ah, Ben. You were easy weren’t you? Busy blaming everyone else for your failings. Mad at the world for the actions of the lost souls around you. You all have no principles to guide you, except for maybe Josh over there. Your wandering hearts keep you all lost and afraid and confused. It is why God chose you to do the hard thing. To help him return his children to Heaven.”
Ian leans close to Markus. “Why did you do this? Why?” His voice cracks. “Why?”
Markus lifts his chin. “It was already done. In God’s plan, it was always going to be this way. Now we can live out our lives in his service because we are the chosen ones. We will be at God’s side for eternity.” His eyes are wide, strained and bulging in his madness.
Ian turns
away from Markus. “Fucking horse shit. Why let people be born in the first place? Why let everyone suffer like this?”
“Religion is not logical, but ideological.” Josh says. “Just as fucked up as fascism and communism and any other idea that justifies one person killing or taking from another.” Josh glares at Markus. “You killed my mother. Why not me?”
Markus shrugs, not answering Josh.
“What do we do?” Tanis asks.
“Kill the idea. It’s a virus, no less real than the one this piece of shit used to kill the world,” Isabella suggests then looks at Hana. She closes her eyes and lowers her head. Isabella knows Hana agrees now.
Isabella punches Markus in the side again. He bends over and turns to the safety line, waiting out the pain. Like a thief, Isabella slips her hand into his jacket pocket and pulls out the case with the anti-virus syringes. Markus doesn’t try to stop her.
Isabella desperately wants to smash his face into a cobbler-like substance and throw him overboard, but she doesn’t. Some invisible hand stops her. They’re not far from a horde of puppets. And if he made it to shore, they’d tear him up. It might be what he deserves.
Hana stares, standing as still as a wax figure, the wind lifting her golden hair off her shoulder like a flag. She can’t fight Isabella and she knows it. No one on this boat can. Hana shakes her head slowly, imparting her rational charm on them all.
Isabella’s shoulders relax. She’s always known how strong she is, ever since her father’s fists stopped hurting her, but Hana is strong in her own way. She’s smart. “Fuck it,” Isabella mumbles and backs away from Markus and the group. It takes another kind of strength to admit you’re wrong. “I’m sorry Hana, sorry Tanis.” Isabella says to the two of them. “It was wrong to fight you guys, my crew. You’re not a bad group to ride the end of the world with. Do with him whatever you want.”
Hana raises her gun and steps toward Markus. “Hands behind your back. When we get to Cuba every survivor will know the face of Zilla. You’ll get your trial then. It will be all of us that get to judge you this time.”
“But he can’t go with us to Cuba,” Tanis says, his face as tight as a knot.
Josh stomps off, clearly confused and pissed.
“Lock him in a stateroom for now. We need to figure some things out.” Ian looks at Hana. “I want him to stand trial, too, but we’ve got some dirty laundry ourselves.”
“We’re victims here,” Hana spat. She shook visibly, so she holstered her pistol.
“I know, we are victims. But we’re partly responsible, all of us. We didn’t do our research, we didn’t think.” Ian heads to the bow as Hana and Ben escort Markus down below.
Ian lifts up the anchor and Isabella and Tanis set the sails.
They sail south, but with a different air around them. Now there’s a dark secret aboard the ship like a gaping wound covered by a tiny Band-Aid. Isabella wishes she could rewind time. Go back to how she was living when she was Cott’s bodyguard. It was easier then, taking orders, following protocol. She didn’t have to think much. Of course, not thinking much led her to launching the EMP for cash that didn’t exist. She chokes back tears as the wind caresses her face and toys with her short hair.
The Pioneer slips past rows of grand homes, their dark windows looking like the eye sockets of skulls. The yards and docks are full of watchful puppets. The survivors are the parade of the living, and the dead hate them for it.
Isabella’s not too pissed that she didn’t shoot Zilla in the face because she knows what lies ahead for him. He’ll get his justice one way or the other. Maybe they’ll throw him to the puppets and let the worms crawl into his skin and try to take his body. Though he is immune, he should still die at the hands of his children, the dead that walk in his image, a reflection of his twisted soul.
Ian pulls out a hose. He washes himself clean, and Isabella takes the next turn. With the hose and buckets and sponges, everyone on board cleans the boat and purges the sadness from her teak, her tackles, winches, and lines.
As Isabella scrubs the gunk out of the nooks and crannies, she thinks about Zilla. The master game he played and won. She thinks about her life before the extinction event. There’s no part of her mind or body that feels like the old person. Before all this, Isabella was a phantom on the Earth, a mind in a foreign object that went from place to place. Now she feels every muscle, every scratch, every wound. Her body is different, and so is her consciousness. Yeah, she’s different, and because of the emptiness around her, she feels vulnerable like a scared little girl who just can’t seem to wake up from the scariest nightmare anyone has ever dreamed.
Chapter 1.36
Ian:
Into Nyx, the Goddess of Night
Ian orders everyone to gather around the helm. The wind is warm, the light bright. Fatigue sits on his shoulders and begs him to sleep, but he can’t. Not yet. His fingers run along the smooth steering wheel, and for a moment he forgets to steer. Hana sits next to him, and so does Tanis and his dog. He can’t go further in life without addressing what Zilla had said. It can’t hang between them and grow into cobwebs because they will forever be trapped by their guilt and secrets.
Isabella and Ben approach, smoking and sipping whiskey.
Ian clears his throat and prepares to be judged. “What Markus said was true. I got a syringe. I’m vaccinated.”
Isabella blows out her smoke. “We all know he was telling the truth. Except for Rice, Andy, and Josh, the main reason we survived is because of the shots.”
Everyone takes turns sharing the finer details of their roles, and how, collectively, they ended the world. Josh listens, in shock, looking small and thin and alone. Ian hears the water lapping off the boat’s sides.
Finally, he says, “So, you get the shot, Josh. You’re saved,” Ian mumbles. “That leaves one dose for anyone we come across.”
Hana gives Josh the shot. When she’s done Josh laughs. Josh hadn’t said a word since the confessions. Finally, he mutters, “You guys are like the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.”
“There are five of us, you know,” Ben adds. “Six if you count Zilla.”
“Whatever, you’re the fucking Six Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If I had just one more month, I’d have blown the story open. Maybe I could have stopped all this,” Josh says thinking about how he and Gigglypuss69 were hot on the trail of Zilla’s master plan.
“I want to know how a minister becomes a mass murderer,” Ian says. Ben sips the whiskey and passes it around.
“I thought that shit was what the Muslims wanted to do, hasten the return of the Mahdi, or some shit,” Ben says.
“Anyone can twist their mind to justify whatever they want. Markus twisted Christianity into a pretzel so he could make his God however he wanted. I’ve seen every color of criminal do it.” Hana takes a drink, wincing as the burn hits her throat.
“We’ve all twisted ourselves up to justify what we’ve done,” Isabella says. “I don’t really like people, but I didn’t want to off them all.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing, either. I thought I was helping!” Tanis mumbles. He takes a sip of whiskey and chokes on it.
“We were manipulated by a psychopath,” Ian says and sips. The warmth in his chest doesn’t calm his nerves but sets them on edge.
Hana stands. “He was right on one point. We didn’t have any principles to guide us, to help us make the right decisions. First principal is, do no harm.”
She is about to continue adding to the list when Ben interrupts, “Maybe the first is not to believe bull crap that comes out of people’s pie holes.” Ben walks away from the group.
“I should have verified what Zilla was saying, but he just said all the right things.” The boat rocks, but only gently. The wind and weather is calm and cool. “I don’t know how he went crazy or why. I don’t think we’ll ever know, unless Markus tells us,” Ian says.
The horizon accepts the sun as it sets. It will be a long night. They all dis
perse, wearing cloaks of shame.
Ian heaved-to for the entire night and stayed near the helm. Isabella had remained at the bow. She walks to midship and stares at the dark shore. Ian wonders what she’s really thinking. She looks ready to give up.
The next day, Ian sets sail as soon as the sun rises. He doesn’t know about everyone else, but he didn’t get much sleep.
The day passes slowly though the clouds above seem to race across the sky. Ian sees a sign on the channel marking South Carolina waters, and keeps at the wheel. It helps him from cracking into a million fragments. Everyone else ends up on his or her own part of the boat. There’s a heavy silence and it feels shitty.
They keep going. It has been obvious that the United States has been overrun and there is no containment line—not along the eastern shore at least. Ian decided to go to Cuba days ago, regardless, but still hoped to see an army, a group of survivors, someone alive.
The water they have doesn’t hydrate them enough, and the food doesn’t satisfy. The fact that they were still breathing hardly changes their moods. Everyone is stuck in sadness.
Now that the truth stands in front of him like a phantom, one that he just can’t leave behind, he wants to drop the sails, drain the fuel into the ocean and float over the horizon to whatever afterlife awaits.
But he doesn’t. Instead, Ian hugs every last person on the boat, even Ben. He lets himself cry, not caring how the strain and tears twist his face or how weak it makes him look.
They work as a team, trimming the sails and adjusting course. They continue down this everlasting southern migration for no other reason than because it was what they set out to do.
Eventually, Ian feels further away from that phantom. Is it behind him now, or is he too tired to see the shadow it casts over his mind. Either way, he starts to feel the breeze on his skin, and it cools his soul. He swims when he sets anchor and lets the salt water pull the moisture from his skin until he’s wrinkled and faded.
They pass by Miami and watch thousands of puppets stumble and feed. Someone had hung a banner out of a high-rise condo that read ‘survivors inside’, but when they checked out the windows with binoculars, they saw only darkness and burn marks and shattered windows and puppets skulking on almost every floor. There would be no possible way for them to get through the horde to the tower anyway. Not unless they had incendiary bombs or a tank.
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