To The Ones We Love

Philippa found him fetaled in a tight ball in the cupboard next to the sink. She’d been opening and closing the cabinet doors in rapid succession, executing an efficient sweep of the kitchen, and she lit up with the now familiar rush of adrenalin when she saw him, threw herself back against the fridge with an involuntary yelp.

“He’s here! I’ve got him!”

Sev and Tima came straight in, and the three of them stared at the slick, intermittently shivering man for a moment before Sev pulled a tarp from his pack, spread it on the floor. Phil helped him draw the man from his hiding place while Tima went out onto the balcony, sprayed it down with fire retardant.

They laid him on the tarp, careful not to tear the spore-sacs that were swelling all over his naked body, skin pulled tight and glassy across them. Thick gardening gloves made touching the clammy skin easier, although they knew it was purely psychological. If the spores got on the gloves they’d eat through and into their flesh in seconds.

“Gerry Rumsfeld.”

Phil looked at Sev, then back at the vacant eyes of the man.

“I don’t know him.”

“He has a daughter in… year three, I think.”

“Oh yeah, Cathy, right? I haven’t had her for anything.”

They took hold of a corner of the tarp each and dragged him out onto the balcony. Phil took the nozzle of her backpack sprayer, doused him in generous amounts of gasoline. He didn’t react, stayed bunched in a trembling ball, muscles tense. Once she was done, Phil and Tima went back inside and Sev took out a box of matches, lit him up.

They stood inside, the glass door closed, and watched him burn. It was eery how compliant they were as they burned, non-reactive, trembling slightly, chest still rising and falling. Until it didn’t. In the early days they’d shot them first, but bullets were too valuable now for niceties. And they knew there was no vestige of Gerry Rumsfeld in that thing anyway, it was pure bioweapon. A delivery system for more death.

They let it burn out, thick black smoke billowing into the street signalling to everyone fortressed in the school over the road that another one was down.

No one knew the provenance of this thing. It had happened suddenly, simultaneously across the country, and had so quickly decimated lines of communication that all they had were rumours and speculation. Domestic terrorists, foreign terrorists, a hostile nation somewhere, it was laughably obvious to Phil that people’s opinions on this marched in step with their political beliefs, so she took it all with a grain of salt. The only thing everyone agreed on, it was man made, and that’s all that mattered to her. We did this to ourselves.

Also, it was released deliberately. People agreed on that. The nature of the infection, incubation and dispersal of spores meant is had been designed to have a devastating, but very localised impact, and yet it had hit all major centres in the country at once. It had been a coordinated attack.

Phil, Sev and Tima exited the apartment block, approached Alf who stood in the centre of the road, keeping watch, AR levelled. He eyed them carefully, his mouth a hairline crack in concrete. Alf was a prick, which made him perfect for his role here. They all knew he wouldn’t hesitate a single heartbeat to shoot them dead if he suspected they’d been infected.

“What next?” Phil asked as they reached him.

“Someone was seen at forty-eight Barbour this morning. Frank Cosgrove, they reckon.”

“Ugh.” Phil shivered. Cosgrove’s daughter was in year six with Phil’s son Pete. He was a sleaze, always had a crack at her at gatherings. The idea of him naked, slimy, covered in distended spore-sacs was too disgusting to contemplate and she shoved the image away.

They made their way along Telluride towards Barbour, barely noticing anymore the blackened corpses that littered the street, some still clinging to the seven foot chain-link fence that surrounded the school. The onslaught had been relentless in those first days, and this fence she’d always hated for the way it made the school look like a prison had been their saviour.

Now it was down to about a dozen a day, often less, and mostly they got to them while they were still in stasis, incubating their spore-sacs. Shifts of spotters worked around the clock, glued to the windows of the top floor of the school, scanning the surrounding streets and buildings with binoculars. They’d note any movement, pass it on to search and destroy units like Phil’s that also worked rolling shifts, neutralising the threat. They’d been very lucky so far, if just one of these things penetrated their defences, erupted inside the school… the thought of having to execute contaminated children before they started to incubate was untenable to Phil. They’d weathered their fair share of trauma so far, everyone in the school had seen people they know slaughtered and burnt, many of the kids had witnessed their parents, infected and mindless, killed while trying to get into the school to spread the infection to them. And Phil had hardened accordingly, but shooting children? She didn’t think she could go on after that, she’d have to throw in the towel.

Who knows, though? The old Phil wouldn’t recognise who she’d become, after just a month of this. Her partner Lew was struggling with her transformation too, couldn’t understand why she volunteered for this detail, aside from the fact it just needed to be done. But equally she was struggling with Lew’s resistance to it, his constant efforts to deflect from their stark reality, offer hollow comforts. You’re not doing anyone any favours, she thought. This is how it is now, and the sooner everyone accepts it, the better off they’ll be.

Her son Pete, twelve going on thirteen going on forty-five, had changed too. He’d always been quiet, but gentle and quick with a hug. Now wound tight and unsmiling, the hugs had gone, forced out by contempt for any hint of softness. He was an Alf in training, she knew, and it tore her heart out even as she recognized it put him in good stead to survive. He’d tried to get her to take him on their rounds this morning, wanted to be at the coalface, hunting out and destroying the infected. She’d said no of course, but he’d persevered in that grating way kids have, and finally she’d snapped and shouted at him. Then Lew tried to explain to him why he couldn’t go, the damage doing the things she’s doing would inflict on a developing psyche, and she’d snapped and shouted at him to, told him to stop being such a fucking wet blanket.

There was pain in both their faces as she’d shouldered her backpack sprayer and left their room. Thinking about it now, tears welled in her eyes and she wanted to get back inside, hug them both and apologize. But she had a job to do, and an hour left of their shift.

And then Alf’s walkie-talkie crackled “Behind you!” and dozens of voices were shouting at them from the windows in the school. They spun around, saw a naked woman running full tilt at them down the street. Alf was on it, gun to shoulder. First shot missed, second slammed into the center of her chest, dropping her face forward onto the bitumen, tumbling with her momentum.

They turned and ran from her, hearing the wet pops of the spore-sacs exploding, a last ditch effort to contaminate someone with their payload. When they were confident it was done, the body was inert, they moved slowly back towards it. They still didn’t know for sure the range of spore dispersal, but previous observation had put it at a couple of meters at least, so Phil started spraying the ground when she was three meters away, wetted down a circle with the woman in the center.

“Mrs. Balawe.” Phil said as she recognized the woman. She hoped the Balawe kids weren’t watching from the windows. If she’d believed evil was a thing, this aspect of the infection would definitely qualify. Someone, somewhere, had designed it this way, for the infected body to develop a myopic obsession with targeting its nearest and dearest, spreading the infection to them. It had an awful genius to it, decimating functional systems and social morale with a single stone.

And here they were, holed up in a school with more than two hundred of people’s nearest and dearest.

Sev dropped a match on the edge of the circle and they watched the wall of flame rush at Mrs. Balawe, envelop her. Sev turned to Phil.

“You must be pretty much out.” Hoping for a yes so they could call an early one.

Phil hefted the weight in her backpack, testing it, listening to the timbre of its sloshing. “Nah, enough for one more.”

“Fuck you, you throw a lady a bone…” Sev mumbled wryly.

Phil smiled, half wished she’d picked up on his ruse so she could get back and see Pete and Lew.

They continued on towards Barbour.

She was luckier than most, she knew. Her son went to the school she taught at, and her boyfriend was the student counsellor there, so when everything went down at least they were all together, and together in a building that was defensible and well stocked. There were shortages, of course, food high amongst them, so they also had gatherer units out scouring the neighborhood in daylight hours, collecting food and siphoning gasoline from cars to power the generators, which they used sparingly. Taps had stopped running before the first week was out, but the school had a pool and one of the science teachers had set up a dechlorination system. Flush toilets couldn’t be used after the running water dried up, so they’d dug down to a large stormwater drain under the oval, smashed through the concrete and set up basic latrines. Everything just went straight down into the drain, sat there, the stench was awful, but once a good rain came it’d all get washed away. Overall, having a full compliment of school teachers meant they had a broad range skill sets to draw from, at a theoretical level anyway. They’d done well so far.

They left Alf standing guard in the street, entered number forty-eight via the broken front gate, got in the house through a smashed window down the side. They split up, swept the ground floor, found nothing. At the top of the stairs Phil went right, checked the bathroom, while Tima and Sev took a bedroom each. Tima called out within seconds and Phil rushed in, found her staring at a naked man hunched down behind the bed, his head shoved under the bedside table. It was comical, a fully grown naked man trying to hide like a three year old, but neither of them laughed. Sev came in, shook out a tarp, as Phil climbed on the bed, lifted the bedside table out of the way.

“Where’ll we do him?” Tima asked.

“It’ll have to be downstairs, out the front. There’s no balcony,” Sev grunted as he and Phil rolled the man backwards onto the tarp. Tima headed off, Phil squeezed down where the table had been, got a firm grip on her end of the tarp. She registered the man’s face as they lifted him up and over the bed, staggered towards the door.

“This isn’t Cosgrove. I don’t know this guy. He doesn’t even look like Cosgrove.”

“I don’t really care, to be honest. They’re all just lumps of toxic meat as far as I’m concerned. Let’s just burn the fucker and get back.”

Phil still felt uneasy, she wasn’t sure why. It would be easy enough to make a wrong ID all the way from the school, even with binoculars. They reached the stairs, and Sev went down first, walking backwards, hefting his end high so the man wouldn’t bump against the steps on the way down. They didn’t want to risk rupturing any spore sacs. But he was heavy, and Phil could see Sev’s arms shaking with the effort. She moved slowly, letting Sev dictate the pace.

Suddenly his foot slipped as it felt for the next step down and he wobbled, lashing his leg around, struggling to find purchase.. Phil froze, tightened her grip on the tarp, powerless to help. But he managed to wedge his foot in the banister, stabilise himself. They took a moment, caught their breath, then he untangled his foot and they continued down. Once at the bottom they lowered the man to the floor and carefully dragged him to the front door.

As the body burned on the small patch of front lawn, Phil and Sev joined Alf and Tima on the street.

“All good?”

“Sure, but it wasn’t Cosgrove.”

Alf eyed her. “You sure?”

“Trust me, that isn’t Cosgrove.”

He thought a moment, then raised his walkie-talkie. “This is Alf. We’re burning a spore-bag at forty-eight Barbour, but it isn’t Frank Cosgrove.”

“Copy that,” came the reply. “Hold your position.”

The walkie-talkie went silent. They stared at it, then Sev sucked in a sharp hiss of air. “Fuck.”

Phil looked at him.

“We got him. What’s it matter if it isn’t Cosgrove? Let’s just head back, our shift’s done.”

Tima nodded, and Phil was about to agree when the walkie-talkie crackled to life again.

“They reckon it was definitely Cosgrove. Did you check the whole house?”

Alf looked at Sev, who groaned. “There’s another floor. But fuck, we found the guy, alright? They made a wrong ID.”

“That guy didn’t look anything like Cosgrove, Sev.”

Sev darted a sharp look at her. “Really?”

“What? He didn’t. I’m sorry.”

They fell silent, all thinking the same thing. If that wasn’t Cosgrove, if he was still in there somewhere, he was only getting riper. Every minute they wasted the spore sacs were getting bigger, the skin tighter. Every minute they stood there, the more likely he’d come out of the incubation phase, spring into action, run out of the house and erupt all over them.

Alf looked from Tima to Sev. Presented the AR to Tima. “You alright with this?”

Tima knew he wasn’t asking if she knew how to use it. She nodded, took the weapon. Alf took out his sidearm, jerked his head at the house.

“Come on.”

Tima watched Alf and Phil head into the house, then shouldered the rifle, aimed it at the darkened doorway. Sev shifted nervously beside her.

Phil and Alf moved quickly up the stairs, rounded the landing and headed straight up to the second floor. It was a converted attic space, low A-frame ceiling with exposed joists, the whole thing painted white. It was set up as a home office, a couple of trestle tables and a run of white, formica cupboards along one wall. Two skylights opposite, a large, triangular window at each end. They moved quickly through the space, Alf in the lead, gun ready, but there was no one there. Then they crossed to the first of the cupboard doors. Alf planted his feet in front of it, settled into place, leveled his gun. Phil breathed deeply, moved her hand slowly towards the small round hole that stood in for a handle. She hesitated, then slipped two fingers into the darkness behind. Looked at Alf. He nodded and she yanked the door open.

Nothing.

They moved to the next door, and Phil reached towards the small hole. Her breath was caught in her throat, her fingers trembling. She slid them in, pulled the door open. Empty again.

There were four doors left. She felt like she was playing Russian roulette, each empty chamber one chamber closer to a live one. She forced breaths in and out as she stepped up to the next door, tight and shallow, hissing between her teeth. She looked at Alf, hooked her fingers on the hole and ripped the door open. Still nothing.

They moved quickly through the last three, not pausing for the fear to take hold, but they were all empty.

Phil sucked in deep breaths of relief, suddenly felt a little dizzy and toned it down.

“We’ll give the rest of the house a once over, then fuck it, we’re going home.” Alf was scared too, Phil realized, and it made her feel a bit better. She nodded and they headed for the stairs.

They saw the man silhouetted in the doorway below as soon as they reached them. His head jerked to them as Phil and Alf staggered back in shock. Alf swung up his gun, fired as the man belted up the stairs at them. Phil turned and ran, but the man had seen her, and something deep in Cosgrove’s memory banks triggered the contagion’s focus. It barrelled past Alf, knocking him aside, pursued Phil down the length of the attic.

She ran at the far window, threw herself at it shoulder first, caught a glimpse of Alf tackling the man as she smashed through. She hit a tree on the other side, bounced from branch to branch all the way down like a rag doll, landed heavily on her solid backpack, swords of pain slicing through her side. She was arched in agony, unable to move, the wind knocked out of her. No sounds of scuffle came from the gaping window, the eery silence only cut by the ringing in her ears. She stared up into the blue sky, trying to suck in air, saw a light rain falling, wafting, glittering in the sun. Where were the clouds?

She realized what it was a moment before the spores showered over her. She screamed as they ate into her like acid, microscopic particles searing through her flesh, seeking out her spinal fluid.

“It got me!” She shouted. “Im in the -“ and her body was lost to her. Her mouth clamped shut. Her legs twisted, rolling her onto her front, ignoring the tear of pain from broken ribs. Her arms pushed her up. She heard Tima running up the stairs inside, heard gunshots. Her arms took off the backpack, dropped it. Her legs ran her body to the back fence and she was clambering over it, dropping into the neighbor’s garden, running down the side of the house and into the street beyond. She tried with every ounce of willpower to override the infection, exert control, but it was out of her hands.

When Pete’s father first left, Phil had had to drive for Uber after hours to make ends meet, and she was so stressed and exhausted that whenever she slept she had endless dreams of being in the back of a runaway car, trying to scramble over the front seats and get to the brakes, but never able to. This was exactly like that, she was an impotent passenger in her own body. Whipped from side to side as her legs ran, nauseous vertigo flowing through her. She felt everything, the thump, thump of her feet on the ground, the searing tear of her broken ribs, the burning spores replicating in her flesh.

And then she felt her mind racing, random thoughts flashing past. It was searching her memory banks, seeing what stood proud. Pete and Lew. She sobbed inside, but her face was blank. She prayed Tima and Sev would find her, shoot her. And then her body dropped down onto all fours, down onto her belly, and the bitumen scraped flesh off her face as her hands dragged her through a drain opening in the curb, into the stormwater system below.

Her body scrambled through the drain on all fours until it reached a main artery, then stood and ran. Her arms tore off her shirt and bra, tossed them aside, and then she realised where she was going. She smelled the stench of the latrine as she rounded a corner, and she knew she was under the oval now, under the school. Her legs waded into the shin-deep faecal sludge, to the spot where thin daylight spilt past the latrines above. Her hands reached into the sewerage, removed her shoes, her socks, pulled off her pants. Her body sat down in it, curled up into a tight ball, and settled. Cold, thick slurry oozed up between her thighs, around her belly and lower back. The stench was overwhelming, she wanted to vomit, but her body was still. She tried to force movement in her limbs, tried to reassume control, but the most it engendered was a slight tremble in her muscles. She couldn’t even move her eyes from their vacant stare ahead, and she knew suddenly that Gerry Rumsfeld and the rest had been there, fully conscious, as she’d doused them in gasoline and set them on fire. They’d felt every moment of their incineration. And she also knew how relieved they must have been that they’d been found in time.

Small pockets of acid were percolating in her muscles now, all over her body. Spore sacs growing. And she prayed with every desperate ounce of her being that someone would think to look here before the spore sacs matured and her body reanimated, climbed up through the hole above, and ran into the school in search of Pete and Lew.