by C, Mitzi
We would be here for weeks.
I nod and squint under the sun, habitually glancing either direction before crossing the road. “How did you do it?”
She looks at me, rose pink lips thinning. Do what?
“How did you save me from the Zidivin?”
Her eyes divert to the road ahead. “I killed it.”
“It’s alive?”
It is a parasite my father can conjure and replicate at will.
“Why did he create Blue Skys and experiment with innocent children? Why did he need Doctors to do his work? Why did he even go to prison in the first place? I mean,” I swallow, “why did he allow himself to be imprisoned when he is basically immune to human restraints?”
Kandi smiles faintly. So many questions, her mind projects. He was new to his calling when I was born. When my mother bore me, my father inherited his father’s position. His goal was to study the fragility and strengths of human beings so he could create a superior race with alien blood. My blood. Under the guise of disease prevention, my father secured government funding and support to build a project coined Blue Skys.
While the project was under construction, my little sister began having dreams of a spaceship. Our dad told me the dreams were visions, and that they were proof our race was coming to take us home. Later, I had a vision of my father and Leyla having an affair, and I made the mistake of telling my mother. With Traci beginning to question the façade he had so carefully assembled and Mom considering divorce, he chose them for the ritualistic sacrifice which he enacts on two people annually. Performing the necessary sacrifice to his Bloodline while simultaneously eliminating the chance of my mother obtaining custody of his children was killing two birds with one stone. He went to prison because my mother had called the police before he came home, and they caught him with our blood on his hands. He mostly remained in prison for seven years so he wouldn’t be on the run while the Doctors were testing a diluted form of liquid death (you may know it by the term Theratocin) on his Patients.
Whew. I hadn’t expected such a long-winded answer. My brain is struggling to process... everything...
“So, let me get this straight...” I inhale. “You can kill parasites with your brain, and your father is new to this whole ‘Death’ thing, so he decided to toy with yours and his gifts with the mindset that he could create a race superior to humans.”
A superior race which would be subject to him, yes, Kandi affirms.
“Wow.” I honestly don’t know what else to say. I have so many more questions, but now I am afraid to ask them. We walk mutely through depopulated streets until I have allowed my thoughts to stew long enough for the cogs in my head to turn smoothly.
At the edge of the town, Kandi approaches a rusty Chevy Geo parked in front of a flower shop and invites me to enter shotgun.
“You can drive?”
She smirks ever-so-slightly.
“You can drive, and we have been walking for two weeks?” I toss the suitcase in the backseat with gusto. “Really?” I open the door to the passenger seat when a fact dawns on me. “Wait – you don’t have the keys.”
She ignores me and slips inside, adjusting the seat and mirror while I inwardly shrug and buckle my seatbelt.
“You know how to hotwire a car, or something?”
Or something, she admits. As soon as she places her hands on the steering wheel, the engine roars to life.
I know I should be surprised, but I am solely filled with veneration. “How long can you keep it running like this?”
She shifts gears and backs out of the parking space slowly. She doesn’t know the answer to my question, so she chooses not to respond. I roll my shoulders and watch Passage disappear in the rearview mirror. “What are we going to do when we meet your father? Have you figured out how to stop him?”
Kandi shakes her head and grips the wheel more tightly.
“Well, you can kill Zidivin. Maybe if you apply the same method on him, it could...”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my marbles.
I hold my hands up. “Never mind.” I listen to her thoughts for a minute before daring to ask another question. “Have you known all along that your dad wanted to destroy humanity? Like, did you know what he was planning when he used you in those... experiments?”
“No,” she says. “I knew virtually nothing until Ms. Hendricks compelled me to return to high school. That’s when I began... noticing things.”
“How old were you then?”
“Fourteen.” She clears her throat and takes a sip from her water bottle.
“How old are you now?”
Twenty. That is the established age of maturity in my Bloodline.
“Ah.” And I will be nineteen in two months, which means... my mother must have met my father at least within the eight months after she landed on Earth with Jeremy and Jim. “By the way, is ‘Jeremy’ your dad’s real name?”
No.
“What else do you know about your race? How do they look so much like humans?”
My father believes we were created by the same God, and God simply favored our species more than humans. I don’t know what to believe.
“Maybe you guys are like... future humans,” I mutter as I gaze out the window. “You come from an Earth hundreds of years in the future and traveled back in time through the worm hole.”
Kandi’s giggling toasts my heart.
I smile and look at her. She is radiant. The knowledge that she isn’t human and that I am only half human strikes me again like a punch in the gut. I want to ask her why she bled so much last night, but I also don’t want to ruin the moment. My stomach is in knots. I absently begin to fantasize touching the back of her neck and pulling her face to mine, while her thoughts resonate in my mind: Why is he looking at me like that?
My eyes immediately veer from her face while heat diffuses in my cheeks. I am grateful she cannot read my mind right now, or this situation would be an unprecedented level of awkward.
We stop for lunch fifty miles later on the side of the highway. The merciless sun is at its zenith, and I am rapidly dehydrating. I imbibe two water bottles in one breath before I remember our water supply isn’t endless. While we devour sandwiches, Kandi internally wonders where I went after I escaped Blue Skys. I tell her about the farm and Samantha, and how my time with them ended when Doctor B and cavalry arrived. I tell her how I ran back to Blue Skys to find Doctor L still on the scene recovering from the toxic black flame.
“She was scared,” I say. “I don’t know whether she was scared of you or your father because you were both on her mind. She has the Patients locked up in Sunny Days as we speak.” I take the last bite of my sandwich and brush the crumbs from my hands. “I wish I knew what she was doing to them.”
Probably nothing. She lost everything in the fire. With Zidivin spreading, her plan now is likely to lay low and protect the Patients. Kandi meets my eyes. She may not have cared about the Patients as people, but she cares about her work. She believes she is doing this to improve the human condition.
“So she didn’t know your father would release Zidivin into the world?”
She shakes her head. I doubt it.
I lean forward. “Why was she so intent on getting you to talk? What did she want from you?”
Kandi closes her eyes as she relives a memory.
“I am going to ask you one more time.” Doctor L paces the room in her lavender suit. Kandi is secured to a chair with spiky chains that gouge the flesh of her neck, waist, wrists, knees, and ankles. The room is lit by a single swinging lightbulb overhead. Sitting behind her: Doctor B and Doctor M with clipboards and torture triggers in their laps. “What are you, Kandi?”
Doctor L signals Doctor B, and she is electrocuted a third time. Her breaths come in ragged bursts as her body gradually repairs itself.
“Where did you come from? Are there more of you out there?”
Flame escapes Kandi’s mouth; she smacks her lips together as if ta
sting it. She is electrocuted again and utters not a peep.
“I know you can speak, Kandi! I will let you go once I know the truth. Just tell me what you are. It is that simple.”
I squeeze the bridge of my nose as a sharp ringing tone pierces my skull. “She wants to know what you are. Why?”
A single tear appears from the corner of her left eye. I don’t know.
“Perhaps I can enlighten you.”
Startled, I look up, and my heart withers and dies with its last beat. Invisible fingers compress my windpipe. A tall, lean man in a rich gray suit appears behind Kandi and places a large hand on her shoulder. His sun-bleached hair hangs over his hairline in a style mimicking Brad Pitt’s, and his eyes are a frightening electric emerald, sizzling and popping with energy. Kandi’s father. I am staring Death in the face.
“Hello, Juan.” He grins. “I must express my gratitude to you for sustaining my daughter while I have been away. You have proven yourself an invaluable asset, and I shall revisit you in the future to discuss terms of servitude.” His eyes soften as though with compassion. “You are destined for eminence.”
Kandi’s eyes glow, reflecting her father’s. “Go, Juan.”
I raise my chin. “Why are you here?” It unsettles me that I cannot hear his thoughts.
He yanks Kandi’s hair back, though this does not seem to affect her. “I have big plans for her.”
“Wait-”
Suddenly, a circle of inky fire ignites around Kandi and Death. Death grimaces. “Kandi, what are you doing?” he demands, pulling her hair more fiercely. She smiles. Don’t look for me, Juan. Then, in a burst of incalescence, they vanish.
***
July 20, 2017
I have lost track of time since Kandi disappeared. Could be days, weeks, millennia... since I last saw her.
For a while I assumed she zapped to Rock Springs, since that was our original destination. However, once I reached Rock Springs I had no idea where to look. I explored the city (which isn’t very big, anyway), for centuries before giving up and venturing south.
I don’t know why I am so obsessed with finding her. Maybe I need her help? But I know that is not the only reason. I feel connected to her somehow – perhaps due to our similar heritage, or the fact that I was inside her head for over two weeks? Whatever the reason, I cannot abandon her, despite the warning she projected before the flash of dark heat.
Of course, the question regarding how she “zapped” anywhere irks me. If she could teleport, why did we have to walk hundreds of miles to the middle of nowhere?
I have returned to Utah to revisit Sunny Days. My intention is to survey the area before I resume my quest. Up to this point, the cities and towns I’ve passed have been relatively quiet, while a few appear wholly vacated. The Zidivin is spreading. The entire world is swiftly falling asleep, doomed to an eternal slumber if Kandi’s blood doesn’t turn them into blood-thirsty maniacs.
I read a sign on the side of the road: Sego Lily Valley – 25 miles. I glance back in the direction I had come and see no approaching vehicles, as expected. Though I am hiking on a busy road, I haven’t seen a car in at least three hours. Something feels... off about this place. I have smelled nothing but burning rubber since the last road sign, and the air is eerily quiet and unmoving. Almost like time has stopped.
Fifteen minutes after I pass the mile marker, I stop to breathe, eat, and relieve certain bodily functions behind some sagebrush. As soon as I step off the road, I hear a roaring engine increasing rapidly in volume and dive for the bushes. I peek through the brittle branches as a silver F-350 rumbles to a halt and four men in suits and sunglasses emerge. Their thoughts immediately invade mine, and their objective is brazenly clear: they want me.
The driver is Kyle Smith, or Doctor K, Kandi’s former aide and the man who kindly informed me of my execution the day it was scheduled to transpire. He and his fellow wannabe-agents crunch across the desert terrain toward me. Kyle stands at the head of the pack and speaks. “We don’t want any trouble, Chavez. We just want to talk.” He eyes his watch and cocks one brow. “We know you are looking for Kandi. We can help you find her.”
I stretch to my feet and brush dust from my pants. “Oh, good. That’s great.” I gaze to my right at the setting sun while analyzing their intent. “You know what? I could use a ride.”
Kyle smirks like he finds me amusing. “That, we can give. Alec, Gabe?” He signals for the two he named to cuff me.
“You know what will happen if you try to bind me, right?” I query dryly.
The surfer reconsiders. “Very well. As I said, don’t want any trouble. Let’s go.” He waves for the others to get into the vehicle, then grabs my arm and shoves me forward. I picture grabbing his arms and ripping them from his shoulders. I all but salivate thinking about it.
The back of the truck is snug with three men crowding the seats, and it is not enjoyable in the middle. The dude to my right (Alec) has brown hair, a cleft in his chin, and an earring in his left ear. The dude to my left is Korean and could probably beat the other dude in an arm-wrestling competition with one finger. Gabe, shotgun, is the tallest and looks more friendly than the two flanking me in the back seat. Kyle is, of course, Kyle, and will always evoke a bitter taste in my mouth.
He is the first one to speak once we’re moving. “Look, 108, I know how you must feel about us – Blue Skys, and everything – but the truth is we are on the same side. We both want to stop this pandemic, we both want to find Kandi in one piece, and we both want to bring Doctor J to justice.”
“What will you do once you find her?”
He shrugs. “Develop a cure, of course.”
“Then what?””
Kyle gives me a side eye through the rearview mirror. “Well, hopefully we’ll be able to convince her to work with us. And you. We can work together to cure the world of all diseases, as planned from the beginning.”
“No, the plan from the beginning was to create and perfect Zidivin, you moron. Don’t you get it? Jeremy Levinson has been using Blue Skys as a platform for world domination.” Wow. Those words sounded much more intelligent in my head.
Kyle chortles and shakes his head. “Who the heck told you that? Some Blue Skys conspiracy theorist?”
“You don’t understand,” I assert carefully. “Blue Skys was a trial run. Two-thirds of the infected will die, and the remaining third, if cured, will turn into people like me. Many who aren’t infected initially will crave the blood of the cured. You’ve seen this before with Kandi’s uncle, haven’t you?”
“Amazing. You truly are certifiable,” he remarks soberly. “We can give you something to take the edge off. Jun?”
Jun reaches into his pocket, and I immediately snatch his wrist. He winces. “I am perfectly sane.” I don’t release him until he nods in agreement.
“We have been looking for you for a long time,” Gabe mentions. “Where have you been?”
I cross my arms, ignoring him because I can. I momentarily close my eyes against the blinding sun blazing through the windshield. “Where are we going?” I’d know a lot more if Kyle would think about useful information rather than where he wants to stop for dinner.
“We are going...” Kyle takes a right turn, “to the Sunny Days administrative office.”
Awesome. A few miles ahead, I spot traffic, and my heart trips. I hate this city. “Where are my grandparents?” I inquire out of the blue.
Kyle exchanges a look with Gabe. “We found them in their home. Evidence suggests Doctor J killed them. But, if it’s any consolation, they were not really your grandparents.”
I exhale a puff of air and bury my face in my hands. I completely forgot my mother isn’t human. “Let me guess... one was stabbed in the heart, and one had their throat cut?”
Kyle narrows his eyes. “How’d you know?”
“That’s how Jeremy kills people, isn’t it? In pairs, in the same manner, with the same knife?”
Doctor K swallows and loosens
his collar. “You must have read that in Kandi’s file. The night you stole it from L’s office?” For a moment, I swear Kyle looks impressed. “What’s the word from F, Alec?”
I look at Alec. He’s scrolling through messages on his phone. “Greensburg is infected. They’re closing in on...” Alec is interrupted by a massive tail collision which pushes the Ford forward into the minivan in front of us. I glance behind us at the perpetrator: a jet black semi truck. The windshield is tinted, so I can’t make out the driver. Kyle changes lanes and accelerates. The semi follows us and drives us further forward, despite Kyle’s gradual climb toward eighty miles per hour. Cars honk, motorcyclists steer clear, and drivers ahead of us floor it. Kyle curses and weaves right across three lanes, banging the horn with his fist.
A second semi approaches from behind, pushing us to eighty-five.
“Gabe, get L on the phone!” Kyle shouts. I can’t hear what he says next because the first truck has sped in the adjacent lane and crashed into our left side. The Ford bumps over a sidewalk, and Kyle nearly flattens a mother and her child.
“What is going on?” I yell, unable to fathom an enemy of Blue Skys besides myself and the parents of the Patients.
“No idea!” Kyle makes a hard left turn to get back in the rightmost lane.
All of a sudden, two more semis advance against traffic to block us from the merging lanes. Kyle has no choice but to careen off the road and stomp on the breaks, shrouding the pickup in dust. Emergency sirens converge ever nearer.
I have perhaps thirty seconds to mentally scroll through every cuss word I know before the air morphs and liquidizes around us, crushing my skull and wringing my brain like a wet rag. I cover my ears, close my eyes, and grit my teeth, breaths effortful as I wait for the pain to pass. When it does, I open my eyes to find Kyle, Gabe, Jun, and Alec dead with their heads against the brain-spattered windows.
I stare at their dead faces for far too long, then climb over Jun’s body to collapse out of the truck. My body is still quaking from the trauma, and I taste copper. Every solid object in sight wobbles like Jell-O. Ugghh...
When I look around, I see no trace of semi-trucks or cops. I only see an empty highway and a Utah desert landscape, tumbleweeds and all. Oh, and a very tall, thin man in a flowing ebony robe, but I hardly think that’s worth mentioning.