The Testimony

by James Smythe

  Audrey Clave, linguistics postgraduate student, Marseilles

  I couldn’t stop looking at Jacques’ mouth, because it wouldn’t stop bleeding. Also, and I didn’t tell him this, but it had started to smell, like when somebody hasn’t cleaned their teeth in days, or weeks. It was bad breath but worse, you know? It should heal alright, I kept telling him, because it’s the mouth, and that’s what they say, right? That it heals really quickly, faster than any other part of the body. He wouldn’t talk about it. There are more important things than my mouth, he said. He told me to fuck off when I said he should try and see somebody, go to a hospital, maybe. You’ve seen what’s happening in those places, he said, you haven’t got a chance in hell of making me go there. You’d go if you cared about me, I said, if you cared about us. Fuck you, Aud, he replied.

  I let him cool down, then asked him what was wrong. You really fucking think that this is God? he asked, and I didn’t reply, because I knew what I believed, and what he didn’t want me to believe. It was better to stay quiet. I mean, I knew you were naive, but thinking it’s really God? That’s just retarded.

  The end, I suppose. That was when our thing, whatever it had been, that was when it all ended between us.

  Phil Gossard, sales executive, London

  I had to drag Jess off the phone, using threats of stuff her mother and I could do to her – we would ground her, we would take her phone privileges, we would make her do the washing up, that sort of thing, only gentle threats, but they usually seemed to work – and eventually we made it into the car. I put her in the back, and I checked her seat-belt, because that’s what you do, as a responsible parent. I tried to call Karen again, to tell her what had happened to my dad, but there was still no answer, so I rang her mobile – which I knew would be off – and told her we were going to Canterbury, that we’d be back the next day. I thought that the traffic would be worse than it was, but the streets were dead. They were quiet. So we drove. I had Radio 4 on, and they were doing special reports on Africa, and some woman was saying that we had forgotten about those worse off than ourselves. We have a responsibility, she said, and they reeled off numbers of predicted deceased in areas where there were no medicines, and it was terrifying, the sort of numbers that put genocides to shame. This weapon has killed more than any war in the past, more than any drought, and we step in to stop those; why have we not stepped in to help here? There was a counterpoint, of course, that we had enough problems here at home, that we had to fix those. Besides, the counterpoint man said, how do you fight something that you can’t understand, much less find? The woman arguing for Africa then said, You think it’s God, don’t you? and the man said, If the shoe fits, and the whole argument became about that then, about deciphering The Broadcast. Eventually the presenter stepped in: Either way, he said, we’re fighting things we can’t see. I remember that moment, that line, because my hand spasmed, stopped working, the pain going right up my arm, and I slammed it against the steering wheel to try and get feeling back into it, but that made the wheel shudder and the car hit a kerb. We were only a mile from the house.

  I was fine; that’s the irony of the crash, because I didn’t even have my belt on. It hurt too much to get my hand to do it, so I didn’t bother. I didn’t have a scratch on me, not a single one. Just Jess. She hit her head on something, or snapped her neck when we hit the lamppost, the paramedic told me. He couldn’t tell. We won’t know until somebody more qualified looks over her, he said. I waited nine hours for him to show up, nine hours that I spent sitting on a wall near the car, alone, because I was told by the flustered woman at 999 to not move her, and to leave the car. When he left – without her body, because they had been instructed to not take any back to the hospitals, because they suddenly weren’t important – I called my mum, and told her what had happened. She wailed, for Jess, for my dad, for all of us. I tried to call Karen, let the phone at the nurse’s station ring for what must have been twenty minutes before somebody answered. I don’t know where she is, the woman who answered said, so I said, Well, can you tell her that her daughter’s dead, and then I hung up. The car still worked, can you believe it? It still drove, because the crash was so tame, so pathetic, so I got back in with my dead daughter sitting behind me, still strapped in, and I drove her home.

  Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

  The Vice President called me into the Oval Office again, from my desk where I had been sitting and watching the news and working every single contact I had that might want to share anything that they knew, anything at all. POTUS’ pictures had already gone from the office. I’m telling you because you deserve to know, he said, but we’re releasing a statement now to the press giving the terrorists twelve hours to come forward, to tell us how to stop this. Why twelve? I asked, and he said, Because that’s how long it’ll take to prime the warheads we’re gonna use if they don’t. Twelve hours, or we point the missiles at the A-rabs, and I start reading out launch codes.

  Ed Meany, research and development scientist, Virginia

  The bodies we had in – and we were getting new ones all the time, because there’s only so many tests you can run, and with a lot of the tests you need bodies closer to death – were coming up with crazy low T-cell counts across the board, thin blood, cell lysis, hep-low levels of white blood cells. We were pumping ourselves full of antiretrovirals, far above the doses that were recommended, and we all took injections of the stuff they give you before chemo to boost your immune systems. I took vitamins as well; handfuls of them. Everybody coming into the building was scanned, sprayed, made to wear sterile suits. We didn’t know what was causing it, but they all had severely compromised immune systems – like nothing we’d ever seen before – so we at least had something we could try to cure.

  Brubaker turned up, refused to strip for the decon hose-down, so we told him to get in a suit and wrote it off. It’s hard to say no to a man like him. He asked us what we’d found, so I told him. There’s nothing in the air, I said. There’s this – I hesitated, but I called it a disease – there’s this disease that’s tearing through people, but it doesn’t leave a trace. Where did it come from? he asked, as if we had a fucking map. We don’t know, I said, because we can’t find it. Natural? he asked, and I said, No, this is man-made; it has to be. It’s really unbelievably cutting edge; we’ve never seen anything this amazing. I mean, we cannot find it. This is proper top-secret, years-from-now research. How was it delivered? (He was sweating, which meant that he was worried about this for bigger reasons than just the disease itself.) We don’t know, I said. Best guess? Airborne. It’s too fast for anything else. And I’d think it has an insane range. We had prepared a box of drugs for him and the high-level staff to take; This stuff will stop you getting ill, we think. Take some yourself, give some to the Vice President. What is it? he asked. It’s the stuff they give to people about to undergo serious chemo or long-term operations, boost your immune system beyond belief. It’s medicine, I told him.

  He was going to leave when I reminded him about The Broadcast. Don’t you want to know where we are on that? I asked, and he smiled. You still don’t know where it came from, what it was? No, I said. We’re working on it, but it’s practically impossible without a signal, without something to trace. He nodded. I don’t know why we’re still paying you all, he shouted as he went into the decontamination room. It was rhetorical, I think.

  Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

  I didn’t want them to think that I was powerless. I knew we were losing everything, but that power, from my job, my position, was something that was mine.

  Jacques Pasceau, linguistics expert, Marseilles

  I decided that I was going to go to see my sister. It would let me get away from Audrey, because I knew that she would take the break-up badly. She was that sort of girl. My sister lived in Avignon, but I wasn’t going to just sit around and wait for whatever to happen. The news was a constant block of death, of peopl
e – reporters – stationed outside hospitals, coughing and spluttering. Audrey said that I should get my teeth seen to, because she was worried that it could be related to whatever was making these people ill. They’re getting infections from their wounds, I told her as I left, this isn’t infected. It’s just bleeding. Besides, I said, if you pray to your God about it, surely He’ll save me on your behalf?

  I put my leathers on, my helmet, got the bike out of the garage, and I was all ready to go when I noticed that another of my teeth, one of the canines, was loose. I wiggled at it with my tongue – I was so used to the taste of my own blood by that point that I didn’t even notice it – and it just slid out, easy as that. I spat it onto the floor, onto the concrete.

  Simon Dabnall, Member of Parliament, London

  Dotty looked awful, grey and old and devastated. She smelled already, like the whiff you get from empty wheelie bins, and her arms were wrapped in burgundy towels. Clive had covered her body in a bed-sheet, presumably to preserve her dignity, and mine; but it hadn’t helped, as the water had soaked through, and it was clinging to her naked body, leaving nothing to the imagination. It took me a second to realize that the towels were dyed from her wrists, that they had been off-white before Clive (I assume) put them there. You shouldn’t have her just sitting here, I said to Clive. I know, he told me, but the ambulances say that they can’t be here today, maybe not even tomorrow. How are you? I asked him, and he said that he was fine. Bit of a cough, he said, then he actually coughed, as if to illustrate the point. They’ve been saying on the news that any symptom, no matter how small, might be a sign of whatever this is that’s killing people. I listened as Clive’s throat dryly slapped itself around, and I thought about how neither of us was going to be long for the world. I’m sorry, old girl, I said to my sister’s body, but you might just be better off out of it.

  Elijah Said, prisoner on Death Row, Chicago

  The alarms didn’t stop, and food wasn’t served as it should have been. I slept on the cot when night came, pulling the bars shut myself, but they wouldn’t lock. The next morning everything was silent, and the lights were off all throughout the block. I opened my cell door, walked to the shower room, checked that; checked the other cells; looked out of the windows in the hallway to genpop, to see the lights on through the rest of the prison. They were timed, I knew, so that didn’t mean anything. We were in the older wing; everything was still manual. There, they could lock the place down in seconds. I walked to the door that adjoined us, found it locked: they kept it locked sometimes, but Cole had opened it; it must have shut after Finkler left. I banged on the door, to let them know that I was there, but there was no reply. The other end of the corridor: the imminent room first, with its plain table and chairs, and its window looking out over toward the river, to give you your last taste of freedom, of blue skies and green lawns and muddy water; then the observation gallery, black plastic chairs, boxes of pale white tissues; and the chamber itself, a chair in a room, a medical cupboard at the back wall, leather straps, a telephone. I picked it up, listened as it rang at the other end, but nobody answered. I waited by it, tried it again, and then went back to my cell and sat, and waited.

  Ally Weyland, lawyer, Edinburgh

  Katy came into my room and told me that she had been watching the news. There’s so many people dead now, and they’re not giving numbers out or anything. You want to call home? I asked her, and she nodded. I couldn’t stop her, even though it might upset her, if her mother reacted half as nastily as she did when I rang. I gave her the handset, told her the code for calling the States, left her to it. Five minutes later, when I’m elbow-deep in washing up, she comes back in, red eyes, clenched fists. There wasn’t an answer, she said. No answer from the house or their mobiles. They’re probably in church, I said to her, but she knew what I was actually thinking. I’ll try later, she said. I tried to call my mother then, because we hadn’t spoken in a couple of days, but there was no answer from her either, even though I let it ring and ring and ring, and she never really went out anywhere. We both thought the worst, so we sat in the living room and ate digestives. The phone rang then and we both leapt up, but it was Mark, not a parent; they were moving on, he said. We’re not sure where, but Joseph’s gone to rent a mobile home, drive back toward the East Coast. I took the phone into my bedroom and we chatted for ages, because he seemed like a nice guy, and I needed somebody to talk to.

  Mark Kirkman, unemployed, Boston

  My parents were already dead, long before this; listening to Ally talk about hers, about Katy’s, I was glad – relieved – that they never lived to see this.

  Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

  As soon as I got back to the White House I shut myself in my office, opened the pills, swallowed some down dry. I called Livvy and told her to stay in the house until she heard from me. You’re not feeling ill, are you? I asked, and she said that she felt fine. Good, I said, don’t go out anywhere. Just stay there, and I’ll be back soon enough to get you.

  What’s happening? she asked. I think it’s all about to get worse, I told her. Worse? She sounded like she didn’t believe me, and, thinking about it, I don’t see why she would have. Worse? It was as bad as it could get, surely?

  Mark Kirkman, unemployed, Boston

  It’s a lot easier to not worry about your loved ones when you don’t have many to worry about. I had spoken to Ally for ages, long enough to distract me. Joseph had gone for the RV, one big enough that we could put my bike in the storage container at the rear, but we weren’t leaving until the next morning, and that meant I had solid time by myself. I sat in my room and stared at the minibar and wondered if my liver would catch up with everybody else. Eventually I opened a bottle, and I drank, and then I slept.

  When I woke up, Joseph was shaking me. You were out for the count, there, he said, and he tried to pretend that there wasn’t a bottle on my bedside table. I thought you should see this. The Vice President was being interviewed on Fox News. We have our top scientists working on this problem, and we’re assured that there will be a cure imminently, he was saying. I could tell he was lying; he was awful at it. He leant in closer. We can’t let terror win, he said. We can’t let this overpower us. To that end, we’re going to be pursuing further tactical strikes against those countries in the Middle East that we believe could have information as to the whereabouts of the madmen responsible for this attack. When they attacked us before, when they planted bombs, we started putting pressure on them. It’s time to apply that pressure. He sat back, smiled. People of America, I know you didn’t select me as your President, but I will do the job entrusted to me to the best of my ability. Pray for me, America; pray for me, as your President.

  Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

  You said we had twelve hours. They do, he said, but this was my way of lighting a fire under their asses. We’re priming the strikes now, because it’s important that we’re prompt. I’m the President; when I say something’s gonna happen at a time, it’s damned well gonna happen. I called him a motherfucker, and I left, because we both knew I was fired anyway. There was no point arguing with him. I went to my office, threw my personal stuff into a bag, took my pills and left. I handed my security card in at the desk, and that was that.

  Meredith Lieberstein, retiree, New York City

  I prayed – actually prayed, out loud, on my own in the apartment – that what killed Leonard was his old age, his heart, some remnant of his cancer from years before. All I wanted was that it was something tangible, not like the people on the news, mourning in community, in denial about what had happened.

  They were in denial about what might have killed their loved ones, refusing to believe that it could be a biological attack, or that it could even be our sudden lack of God; that was worrying, because denial, as a stage of grief, came before anger, and there were so many people in denial that I dreaded to think what would happen if they all moved onto stag
e two at the same time.

  Hameed Yusuf Ahmed, imam, Leeds

  I stayed inside for days, after they took Samia away. I didn’t open the mosque; the only time I went down to it was when they tried to burn the place to the ground.

  I had a phone call, and I wasn’t answering the phone, because it was terrified Muslims I didn’t know the name of, all asking me for advice, asking what they should do. I don’t know, I told the first few, then I just stopped answering. I don’t know why I answered it that time – I forgot, almost, picked it up, said Hello, and the man on the other end of the line told me that the mosque was burning. I stood at my window and watched it, three streets away, as it smoked; as the night grew orange around it, like a halo; as the fire brigade turned up, doused it, and then it smoked again. I knew that every part of it – the rooms, the walls, the books in the library, all of their words – would be gone. I didn’t bother to look at it, or ask how it happened, because I already knew; it was a lost cause in every way. I thought about The Broadcast, and how they happened, and how each one coincided with somebody expressing their lack of faith; and I told myself that it was just that, coincidence. Nothing – nobody, no entity, whatever name they went by – could be that cruel, that pointed.