Mass Hysteria

by Michael Patrick Hicks

  “Too slow, bitch,” Harbin said, pressing the bow into the center of her face. The arrowhead poked into her forehead, scraping at the skin.

  Harbin’s eyes were wild and red-rimmed, bloodshot all the way through. His face was oddly sallow and greasy with sweat.

  He began to carve, dragging the arrow across her forehead, a gush of blood slinking over her left eye, blinding her.

  She felt a weight in her hand and realized she was still holding the glass pyramid. Sandy’s small consolation prize for being a city employee. She swung with all that she had left and felt Harbin’s knees buckle as the cheap award smashed into his face. She brought her other arm, her wounded arm, up and around, knocking the crossbow aside and away from her, wrenching it from his grasp.

  She kicked back, then brought her foot up, aiming square for his testicles, kicking his balls back and up into his pelvis. He clutched at his groin and fell, wailing loudly.

  Anger flowed through her as she raised the paperweight and brought it crashing it down, again and again, until his hair was matted in a bloody pulp and her face was coated in grisly spatter, her left eye lost behind a curtain of blood flowing from her forehead.

  Finally, she collapsed and sank to the floor, one arm throbbing with exhaustion, the other in a blistering heat of pain from the arrow.

  Shay couldn’t help but laugh, no matter how much it hurt. Her torso was bruised bone-deep, but the laughter still boiled up from deep within her, demanding release. She couldn’t say why, but she found all of this suddenly hilarious.

  Turning back toward the mayor, she laughed harder. He was out cold, maybe dead. She didn’t care because she was still alive, and that was all that mattered.

  “You fucking pussy,” she said to him in between laughs, and that only propelled the hysteria on even further. “You fucking pussy! YOU. FUCKING. PUSSY!”

  She rolled in the blood, a pool of both his and hers, laughing to herself until she grew hoarse and her breathing went ragged, tears running down her face in a torrent. She laughed until her sides ached and she was left clutching her belly in both arms, and then went on laughing through the pain and the tears, exhausted and wondering what the hell had brought all that on.

  Eventually, her laughter slowed into stutters and hiccups that left her wheezing. Her abdomen felt like she had just done a thousand crunches.

  Once she had herself under control, she got her feet beneath herself again and stood. She’d twisted her knee during the fall down the stairs, and her ankle felt stiff and sore. She hobbled her way to the nearest office, but the door was locked. She tried the next, and then the next.

  A dim voice reminded her this was the weekend. Of course, all the offices were locked. Harbin was here only because of Tremblay and the emergency meeting to deal with the fire downtown. The sheriff and the mayor would have been busy trying to muster resources and figure out what was happening. At least until Harbin snapped. Apparently they hadn’t gotten very far in calling for support from the neighboring towns before Harbin cracked, or things were equally bad in those other districts.

  How widespread was all this? Her flesh prickled into goose pimples at the prospect of this madness being a far-reaching event, her father’s voice taunting her with an “I told-you-so.”

  She tried another door, distractedly, the glass rattling in its frame.

  She had been on scene at enough hunting accidents to know not to remove the arrow herself, so she left it alone. She tore loose a strip of material from her blouse and wrapped her wounded arm as best she could. If she could get back to her patrol vehicle, there was a first aid kit in the trunk. Recalling the people she had seen inside the library before her car had died, she thought maybe she could make it there, maybe even find help.

  Okay, so that was it then. Time to get moving.

  With no clue where Harbin had hidden her and Tremblay’s gear, she grabbed his crossbow, keeping the arrow notched and counting three others in reserve.

  Good enough.

  13

  LAUREN’S LIPS FOUND JACOB’S and relief flooded through her, the endorphins kicking in as her brain lit up with simple, pure joy. She held his face between both hands, their kisses growing in urgency.

  “God, I was so worried about you,” she said between kisses, practically gasping the words out.

  She pulled him tighter, wrapping her arms around his neck. Moisture beaded between their cheeks as tears ran freely from his eyes. She wiped them away with her thumb, the feel of his stubble sending an electric thrill through her, and he smiled shyly. She covered his mouth with hers, grinning all the while. He tasted and smelled like beer, but she didn’t mind, not at all, because he was with her again, in her arms, safe.

  “It’s a nightmare out there, isn’t it?” he said.

  She nodded, tugging at his shirt and working it up over his chest. “Help me,” she said, and he pulled it the rest of the way off.

  Sometime after their third beer each, after Jeff had dumped more cans into the cooler, the bottles splashing into ice that had mostly melted into a cool pool of water, they had broken free of the radio control room. Lauren led Jacob into the ladies’ restroom and let loose with the insatiable desire to cover him in kisses. She’d been keeping herself in check for too long, sitting beside her father and drinking with the boys, trying to tamp down on her top priority of being with Jacob. She’d been so worried about him, and now that she had him back all she wanted to do was keep him wrapped up in her arms.

  Her fingers roamed over his chest, following the thin trail of hair that ran down the middle of his torso and disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  “You’ve got all these cuts and bruises,” he whispered. “What happened out there? Are you hurt?”

  “Shut up,” she said, her words softened by the bright upward curl of her lips. “Talk later.”

  She worked at the button on his jeans, yanking the zipper down. His worry for her had not put a damper on his desire, and she pulled his face down to hers again, her tongue sliding over his.

  He worked a hand up under her tank top, his fingers working beneath the cups of her bikini top to squeeze her small breasts. She moaned into his ear, walking backward, and led him to the long counter of sinks.

  She undid her shorts and stepped out of them, while his other hand dove between her legs, pulling aside the bikini bottom. She gasped, dazzling sparks of pleasure dancing through her.

  “Yes,” she breathed, her mouth at the nape of his neck, biting gently at his shoulder.

  She pulled his boxers free, his erection pressing against her belly. She pushed herself up onto the edge of the counter, guiding him into her. She gasped again, her muscles still slightly sore from the previous night—but a good sore, a soreness that she enjoyed and found herself wanting more of. Her hands gripped his ass, holding him there, wanting merely to be filled by him while her tongue slid against his, his hands running through her hair.

  “I was so fucking worried about you,” she said again, and now she was crying. All the various emotions of the day slammed through her like a tidal wave, exploding for release. All of the fear and panic and anxiety flooded loose.

  She had Jacob. She had her father.

  For maybe the first time all day, she felt safe.

  Lost in their urgent lovemaking, she failed to see the bathroom door open ever so slightly.

  Scott pressed the wet can of Miller Lite to his forehead, enjoying the slightly cool feel of aluminum against his bare skin. With the power out, the University Center was getting hot quickly, all the still air trapped on the third floor and getting warmer by the minute.

  He popped the top on his seventh can and took a long pull. He couldn’t remember when Jeff had left, or even Lauren and Jacob for that matter.

  He should not have been drinking at all, but the first one had gone down so easily. Just one, he had thought then, taking the can from Jeff, the four of them clinking the cans together in cheers to the impromptu end of the world. Je
ff had offered him a second beer, and he shrugged, figuring what the hell. Really, though—where was he going to go? The car was dead, all contact with the outside world was cut off. Was he even on duty anymore? He puzzled over that one briefly, before deciding that no, he was not. Not anymore. He had his daughter, which was really the most important thing.

  If the world was ending, did it matter if he enjoyed a few beers before everything else went tits up on him?

  By the time he started on his fourth beer, he was thinking about aliens and germs and biological warfare, the thoughts all jumbled around in his head. An alien invasion, was that really what all this boiled down to?

  Maybe not little green men, or big Independence Day explosions and city-sized spaceships destroying all their shit, but still a form of alien life that had, inadvertently or not, staked a claim.

  Microbes, bacteria, maybe a virus. Some kind of space flu.

  The one thought that kept recurring, even as he slid into a drunken fog, was a simple question: How much worse could it get?

  Alone, the three kids run off to do who knows what, he let the anguish free and cried to himself. No matter how much he tried to avoid it, his brain kept pinwheeling back to Hex, and his forearm throbbed from where his dog had bit down and tore him up.

  Losing Hex was like losing a kid, he thought. That dog was his little boy, when it came right down to it.

  But it wasn’t just Hex that had gone mad. It was all the dogs, cats too, if what Dec had said was true. Birds, even. Everything was turned upside down, as if nature itself had turned hinky and become inverted. Everything was a predator now, ultra-aggressive, and all those rules and relationships between hunter and prey had been tossed right out the window. Whatever this disease was, it had changed things rapidly and maybe even for good.

  So, how much worse could it get?

  Plenty, Scott figured.

  If this space bug did all this to the animals, and if it were as widespread as Jacob and Jeff suggested, then things could go only further south. No power, no safe quarters, every man for himself. Getting worse was really only the best-case scenario that his drunken, stumbling mind could fathom.

  And if it started infecting people…

  Hell, maybe it already has.

  The truth was, even with what little Jacob and Jeff had pieced together, neither knew a damn thing about this virus. How did it transmit? How long did it incubate? Given the time between the meteor shower and the animals’ hostility, the bug was clearly fast acting. What were the effects of exposure and what were the symptoms of infection? This stuff with the animals—was it the first stage of infection, or last, or somewhere in between? He didn’t know, and Scott reckoned nobody else did either. Not yet, and certainly not with how rapidly the animal kingdom had spiraled out of control and began asserting their dominance in a mad, rabid frenzy.

  He thought about the meteorites crashing into Earth all across the globe. Jacob had mentioned Russia and other parts of the US being struck. It hadn’t taken long for Falls Breath to fall apart in the face of all this, its resources taxed beyond the breaking point in less than a day. Cops had been killed, firemen trapped, the hospital was overrun, and without power everyone was cut off from one another. Were airplanes falling out of the sky under avian assault all around the world? He shook his head, frustrated by the lack of information. Maybe the big cities were faring better, but he had no way of confirming that. All he could do was drink while his anger simmered to a boil.

  When he stood, the radio control room tilted sloppily and he held onto the nearby desk for support, waiting for the world to right itself. Scott had never been a heavy drinker, but even watered-down piss took a toll if he had too many.

  After a minute, he felt like he could walk and he lumbered his way to the window. The view was a mix of mundane and special, with the parking lot below and the bay beyond. The sun was starting to descend but had not yet set, the water a crisp, inviting blue.

  The water did not concern him, though, not nearly as much as the flashes of movement between the vehicles. Dark blurs darted around the cars, some of them stopping to sniff the ground and chase a scent.

  A part of him wanted to think that they were merely dogs, but he knew how foolish that sentiment was. They were dogs, yes, but whatever bug they had caught had turned them into something far worse, something feral. They had regressed back to a wolf-like state, transformed into constant hunters, killers, and feeders.

  He watched them for a time as they weaved through the parked cars. When they got too close to one another the dogs snapped and hunkered down, looking ready to spring until one, invariably, backed off.

  He wondered if they would actually fight, if one dog would attempt to assert superiority and become the alpha. He didn’t have to wonder long.

  A pair of huskies barked, and he could sense the warning in it, one dog telling the other, quite clearly, Back the fuck off.

  Rather than retreat, the instigating huskie lunged forward, going for the neck and winning a surprised yelp from the other.

  They fought for a good long while, to the point of exhaustion and then collapse.

  No, that wasn’t quite right, Scott realized. One huskie simply gave up, lay down, and bared his belly. Then, the new alpha clamped down on the dog’s throat and tore it out, swallowing down the hunk of meat.

  Other dogs came forward, circling the new alpha and his fresh victim, each of them watching warily and licking their chops. The alpha indicated something that escaped Scott, and the other dogs came forward, cautiously—perhaps respectfully—and began to eat the body of their fallen pack mate.

  For a moment, he watched the dogs tear meat off the bones of an animal they had run with only a short time before. Seeing the strips of bloody flesh, he could not help but salivate and notice how empty his stomach was. Full up on beer, but empty of real food. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten, only that it had been many hours earlier. Breakfast, probably.

  Eventually he turned his back on the bloody feasting and drained what was left in the can he held, putting the grisly sight out of his mind as best he could.

  If that was what Hex would have been reduced to, the kind of life he would have had to lead, one in which life itself was a constant war, then maybe he was better off.

  He ambled back to the cooler, popped the lid, and enjoyed the brief flash of cool water on his hand and wrist as he snagged a new can of beer. The crinkle of aluminum and the hiss of escaping carbonation was a welcome noise, and he savored the splash of beer against his tongue, feeling surprisingly refreshed by the alcohol.

  A scream cut through the building, and he dropped the can, beer exploding out of the mouth of the can as it hit the carpet. He broke into a run, heading toward the direction of the noise.

  The pitch and quality of the scream snagged on a primal instinct within him, and he realized that scream was familiar.

  It was Lauren.

  The sex was frantic and brief. Gone was the tenderness of the night before, the gentle touches and soft caresses, him asking her if she was okay, if this felt good, or what about this?

  God, had that really only been last night?

  Lauren pushed aside the thought, giving herself fully over again to Jacob. Now was not the time for thinking of such things, not while his thumb was between her legs making slow, tight, perfect circles.

  “Oh, fuck,” she moaned. “Yes!” He brought her body to the precipice’s edge…and then shoved her head over heels, a tight contraction of pleasure ripping through her, forceful enough that she nearly blacked out from the exquisite joy, burying her moaning into the crook of his neck before grabbing his face in both hands and suffocating him with intense, grateful kisses.

  “Oh my god,” she said, his thrusts growing faster as he himself grew close, closer.

  His breathing grew ragged and paused momentarily at the height of his release, and she grabbed his ass in both hands, pulling him deeper inside her as he came, feeling on the ver
ge of another orgasm herself, her body responding and clamping tightly around him.

  His sweaty forehead pressed against hers, both of them delirious, their panting mixed with laughter and smiles that quickly turned back into kisses.

  “God, you’re amazing,” Jacob whispered.

  “Hmmmm,” was the only sound she was capable of.

  She leaned back into the cold mirror while he stepped away, disengaging his body from hers.

  “That was incredible,” she said dreamily, her entire body still tingling, flesh covered in goose pimples. She watched him through half-lidded eyes as he pulled his pants up from around his ankles and stood, the waist of his jeans and boxer shorts bunched in both fists, as the bathroom door exploded open, startling them both.

  Her eyes shot open in time to see the cricket bat collide with Jacob’s face, blood spraying free and smacking against the wall, his body stumbling backward and colliding with the door of a toilet stall. The stall door banged open beneath his weight, followed quickly by a meaty cracking noise as he tripped over his own falling pants and the back of his head slammed into the toilet.

  Jeff stood between them, his back to her, raising the cricket bat over his head and hammering it down, over and over. With each lift of the bat over his head, ropes of blood whipped off the end, spattering the mirror beside her, painting the walls of the toilet stall. A pulpy clump of skin smacked onto the countertop beside her, sliding on a slick of gore into the white backsplash. Lauren, paralyzed with fear, choked on a scream that demanded release but was squelched by the impossibly loud sounds of bones fracturing, the sudden stink of raw meat, and a thick, raw metallic odor.

  When Jeff turned, she saw the lust in his eyes plain as day. His cock stood free of his unzipped pants, a thin line of pre-cum dripping from the empurpled head. His shaft glistened in its own fluids as he stepped toward her, stroking himself. The slick, meaty noise of his masturbation echoed in her ears as he approached, a wolfish grin splayed across his lips as he jerked off, keenly watching her. He licked his lips like a hungry dog eyeing a savory bowl of beef and gravy chow, muttering to himself. She could not make out the words, but his intent was clear enough.