part ii

“Alex?”

“Raz.”

“Where are we?”

“I- I don’t know. Can you see anything?”

“No, you?”

He doesn't respond. The quiet draws blood.

“Raza?”

-

I didn’t see Mason for a while after a while. He disappeared and I forgot. That is, until Halloween. It was always Halloween.

It was the coldest night we’d seen in a while, it even rained a bit. I showed up to school in scrubs as my costume, and didn’t bother to take them off for another of my Aunt’s holiday parties.

We went to the store on our way there to buy my mom’s boyfriend a can of dip and to pick up caramel sauce for my grandma. My sister told me that if I put my hair up in a bun it made me look like a medical student, which, in the eyes of a fifteen-year-old me; was most likely the best compliment I could receive. By the time we got to the house, my hair had been up long enough to leave a dent in the top from where I placed the rubber bands. I still remember walking in, because he was right there. The boy from my grandfather’s birthday, watching me.

“I need all the teenagers to come upstairs!”

My aunt bursts in the room without giving me ample time to stare. Every year she made us go to the loft area, and drop little surprises for the smaller kids during her infamous Halloween skit. I took my hair out of the bun.

“I didn’t even know you were coming.”

“We barely made it.”

I stared at the little baggies of rubber aliens that rested at my feet opposed to looking at him. I tried my best to remember when it was my cue to throw them. We made a game with them, every ten aliens, one hits the fan.

The difference with this encounter, was me responded to touching. Subtle brushes of fingers, accidental bumps in the arms, sitting a little too close together. It became my practice, the closer the better, he knew too well not to notice. He’d gotten a bit taller, but not as much as I had. Granted I was still smaller than him, it reminded me that things were different now. I had a different last name, he cut his hair, I grew out mine, my smile was simply more, and his was never brighter. It was like planning the downfall of a kingdom that had never been acknowledged. A group of soldiers that had never been sent to war.  

-

A woman with black shoes steps in front of me. Her hair is a thick, dark brown and her lipstick stains her teeth.

“My name is Cassandra.”

I search the room and my eyes meet that of the certain black that Riley’s turn when he’s scared. I look to see Raza. We’re all just sitting, waiting, watching.  

-

She takes us into a long hall without any windows and only three doors. The lights above me flicker like those in old horror films. Dead flies stain the glow.

“This is where you will live for now until…”

She pauses, “your release.”

She opens the door on the right, a faded biohazard sign sticks to the window like a century-old decal and the aroma of sulfur pricks our noses. Riley enters the room first, his eyes light up with the reflection of test tubes and microscopes. The walls are rimmed with books, signs, and buffered materials. There are boxes full of of chemicals and three of everything laid out on a table that was at least six feet long. It is a paradise if not for the subtle buzzing of chronic anxiety and doubt. The aching relapse to try and escape.

“What is this place?” Raza asks.

“A facility for you, and you only.”

“For what? Please, enlighten us.” Says Riley, arms folded across his chest.

“We’re dying out.” She leads us to another door.

“My people have been closely monitoring you, and despite your misguided loyalties and significant age difference;”

I can finally find the color of her eyes, they are blue.

“You’re all we have.”

She opens the door to what seems like a broom closet, it is filled with cages. Animals. Claws. Furry ears and black eyes. Raza walks to a cage with a sticky note that reads: “Pigeon 01” on the top. He sticks his index finger in one of the holes, and Pigeon 01 starts cooing and pecking Raza with her beak.

“Your patients, sir.”

Raza ignores her and begins whistling to the bird. She replies with her own tone and it’s the first time we see him smile in years. He starts again, this time with a more refined melody. The grin is as rare as the pigeon itself.

“You remeber this song Riley?”

“Johnny Cash, right? Mom always sang it.”

Bound by wild desire,

I fell into a ring of fire.

The woman huffs.

“You will use these animals as your test patients.” She slaps Raza’s hand out of the way.

“Not as companions.”

She takes us where we’ll be sleeping. Raza gets one room, Riley and I in another. We each get a refrigerator full with assorted gatorades and astronaut food and a small dresser with three drawers. One lined with soft white t-shirts, the other with a few pairs of jeans, one set of night pants and the last with various undergarments. I don’t know if I should be thankful, concerning being held against my will; or it’s the first peice of clothing I’ve had the opportunity to wear without bloodstains or boy stink. The woman points at a button on the walls.

“This is for emergencies, and emergencies only.”

She wishes us the best of luck, and leaves without a single word or time to ask questions. She turns, locks eyes with me and opens her mouth as if to say something, but decides against it and closes her lips. I’m tempted to ask what she was going to say, but in one blink, the woman is gone; we are alone.

-

The room feels godless at night. Despite my knowledge of the absence concerning a Messiah, there is truly nothing in the four walls of the building itself. No buzzing nats, no footsteps, even the animals know not to make a noise. I turn to face Riley, he is my constant. His eyes are mine, his nose is mine, he is my brother; a doctor and a caretaker. My person.

“Riley?”

“Alexandra.”

“How long do you think we’ll be here?”

“Depends.”

“On whether or not we comply?” Will we? Will we work? Why wouldn’t we? I wait for his response for a couple minutes, letting silence sink in and fill the room. I hear him pop his knuckles, he does that when he’s nervous. One, two, three, four, he stops at his thumb. It takes a minute.

“Just go to sleep, okay?” Pop, there goes number five.

“Night.”

“Night.”

He starts on his left hand, I pretend not to notice.

Raza wakes up early in the morning, I don’t know the exact time, there are no clocks here. He slips out of his grimy clothes and gets into the shower. Surprised by how dirty he actually is, he stays there for about an hour. Scrubbing off all the days. By the time he gets out, his skin looks like it was too long ago to remember. It’s the color of a  brownish-gold. He makes his way to the lab in his new clothes and clean body to begin his work. By the time I’m awake, he is already brilliant, big goggles stamped to his eyes and latex gloves shielding his hands.

“You should try the showers, kind of amazing.” He does not look up.

“So I’ve heard.” I make my way over to his side to observe. Before I can ask him, or long before he could respond, Riley walks in the room. He is six foot three, red headed, brown eye’d and tan skinned. My mother always called him “the only red-headed hispanic this side of the equator.” It’s because he was. Our mother was pure Columbian, and our father was about as white as it got. How I turned out looking traditionally latina, and Riley the hybrid; I am not so sure.

Raza loves Riley, and I wish I understood them. When all hope seems lost, there are still whispers to be shared and hands to be held. Raza gets up from his seat damn near instantaneously.

“Nice hair.”

Riley chuckles, and wags his freshly washed mop back and forth, sending water everywhere.  

“I’ve actually been thinking about cutting it.”

“Oh-God no.” Raza touches his arm. “How would that benefit anyone?”

“Me. It would benefit me. Anyway, do you want to go on an adventure?”

“Where?” Raza raises his eyebrows.

“There’s got to be more than just a few doors in this place, c'mon, it’ll be fun.” Riley takes his hand.

“Fine. Lets go.”

They walk like a couple who isn’t scared. It does not process well in my mind, so maybe they are afraid; but just never let it rise to the surface. It is how they have always been, since the day we found Raza in the slums of Old New York. He was sleeping underneath a dumpster, his small hands wrapped around his chest, and even then, he was beautiful. Black hair sticking out in every direction and dark skin painting his face. Even then, Riley knew. Riley crouches down beside him, despite the concern of being infected, and touches his shoulder. Raza shoots up and meets him face to face, inches apart. Breathing hard. Riley stands up, towering above him and sticks out his arm. He takes his hand and gets pulled up. It did not take long for them to stay. I close my eyes for one second.

“Riley.”

“Raza.”

He traveled with us as a fellow survivor and not a family member for months before I began to notice. Riley would just- stare at him. For hours, I’ll never really know what he was thinking, still unsure I would actually like to know. Riley became clumsy around him, tripping on his words along with his shoelaces. In the face of death, he couldn’t flirt to save his life. Then, one day something changed. He started smiling again, Raza spoke a little bit louder and it was all I needed to see to know. I watched my baby brother fall in love right before my eyes, all in the midst of our inevitable doom.

-

DAY 2

You can see it in his eyes that it is against every fiber of his being.

“This will only hurt a bit,” says Raza as he shoots a syringe of infected blood into pigeon 02.

“You know he can’t hear you.” I say.

“But what if he can?” His hands start to tremor. “Remember when were a kid, and all you wanted was your mom to tell you everything is gonna be okay before your annual flu shot?” Raza stands up, cradling the bird in his gloved hands and puts it in a cage. He locks it, places a sticky note labeled “patient A”, pulls out a small voice recorder, and presses it to his chin.

“Patient A is stable. The time is 10:46 am, day two, the serum was infected at 10:44 am, no change in patient A”

Raza lowers the recorder and places his fingers on the shiny glass containing the bird, and rests his head on the edge of it. I turn to Riley, he lowers his hands to tell me just wait. The bird’s eyes turn a choking, foggy grey to match the rest of his body. Raza brings the recorder back up to his mouth.

“Infection has taken action at 10:49 am” he takes his finger off the record button.

“This is so I can monitor exactly what happens to something once it’s infected.”

The birds feathers start peeling off, he tries to chirp, but not even a low coo escapes his beak.  He stands on his weak talons and opens up his left wing, when piece of the tip falls off. The wing falls to the floor. The bird is still- then sits down and buries his head in the crook of his right side. Raza opens the door to the cage, wraps his hand around the bird and pulls it out. With his other hand he opens the drawer beneath him, removing another syringe. He strokes the pigeon’s back softly until the injection has emptied itself. The bird dies, Raza stands. He throws the pigeon the the trash bin, removes his gloves, and buries his head in his hands.

“I never wanted to kill anything.”

I slip a pair of gloves over my hands and pat Raza on the shoulder.

“Back to work.” He stands up and shoots out the door, slamming it behind him. Riley starts to go after him, I grab his arm to keep him here. Just let him go. The bird begins to stink. It is the first of many.

-

The boy that I met at my aunt’s parties and on freezing halloween nights never did change. For two years he had no last name. It was the time I saw him with warning that I learned it. To this day I thank the handiwork of my mother on that freezing November afternoon, parked outside my grandmothers southern Baptist church for the annual fall festival.

“Brush your hair.” Said mom as she applied her lipstick in the car mirror.

“It doesn’t look good when I brush it.” I motioned my hands in a circle around my head; “it poofs out.” She handed me the brush and a tube of lip gloss.

“Trust me.”

When I saw the boy, finally, my fingers felt like they were about to freeze off. The air was nippy, my feet stopped in place. Mason smiled at me from about fifteen feet away and slipped inside the church. Riley poked me in the shoulder, he always knew about these things. I started on my way to the giant, glass doors when I turned back to him.

“How’s my hair?”

He lifted up ten fingers, “perfect.”

The air was so warm inside that my skin damn near combusted. I kept my jacket on and wandered into the sanctuary. There were six windows on each wall, with paintings of Mary and Jesus stained from decades ago. This was the place of my childhood. Every pew was reminiscent of just a group of days from my early life, one for every Sunday of the year. I scraped my finger across the offering plate, the rim was dusty, no attention has been paid to it in some time. Finally, I reached the hollow room above the pulpit in which people are baptized. Behind it was a mural of the church itself, and a river flowing right in front, despite the existence of any water around the building itself. The paint was chipping. The floor was cracking.

“This is some hideout you’ve got here.”

The voice belongs to Mason, he stood at the bottom of the row, hands stuffed in his pockets. I placed my fingers on the railing and smiled.

“You’re telling me you’ve never played in the sacred tank of baptismal immersion? Shame.”

“Guilty.” He smiles, I die a little inside. We had been talking for months then, about everything from his sun and back. I had grown to learn his mannerisms, he knew the bits and pieces of me I didn’t even know. His face for even one second put me at ease.

Mason started on his way up the pews until he made his way on the other side of my tank and poked his head inside. His brown hair flopped over his face.

“How do you even get in here?”

“You’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.”

He shrugged quickly, took off his gloves, and swung one leg over the wall. I gave him my there’s a door face, but nothing changed him. He moved his other leg over, and landed tightly on his age old combat boots, right in front of me.

“Do you come here often?” He said sarcastically, observing the space he’d managed himself in. I giggle, again. “If so, how do we get out?”

I laughed and motioned for him to follow my lead. I took him through cold hallways and locked doors; we talked about school and abruptly ran into a herd of very old and very angry grandfathers. One of which happened to be mine. They all had tubes strung through their noses, scars on their arms, and rasps in their voices. Eventually, my grandmother Carmen showed up to calm him down. Her hair drapes down in a braid and rests mid back. Most of what she said was in spanish, so it never gave him much time to reply.

“¡Cálmese!” She slapped him on the shoulder and pouted her lips. He looks taken aback, as if it did not happen nearly every day. Frank was a simple man, you could see it in his clothes that he enjoyed very few things. Pork, farming, and my grandmother. Who continued to yell at him, despite his lack of knowledge concerning spanish. I turned to Mason, who could not keep his eyes off the disputing couple.

“That’s going to be me someday.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

We continued on with our journey to tour the entire perimeter of the church. By the time we made it to the graveyard our fingers were nearly numb and the words began to spill out without warning.

“Alex.” Mason grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him. He put his hand behind his head and chuckled nervously. Nervous about what, I was unsure. The sky was almost five, in the winter; twilight. Within the minute, he kissed me. It was freezing, his cheeks were hot and my eyes shut quickly. It was terrifying. My chest felt it reasonable to beat at the skin of my ribs and make noise inside it’s shallow cage. Both of our lips were chapped, it was dark outside, and there was nothing anything better than that moment. If it were not for the sound of screaming; I may never had let him go.

It was my cousin’s scream. The same noise he made the day our biological grandfather died. The same chilling alarm that none of us ever forgot. I broke away from Mason’s grip and made my way to the church as fast as I could, the first thing I felt was blood, and the sound of popping bones. Carrie’s face began to turn grey and her eyes; beveled shadows. I felt something grab my leg, it was my cousin Elton, tears welled up in his eyes and he dug his fingers into my jeans. I take his hand quickly, a drip of blood ran down his cheek.

“Everything is going to be fine, alright?” I was never good at consoling. I felt someone take my hand, it was not cold. There was human blood pumping through their wrist. I turn my head- the hand was Mason’s. Swiftly; as if on agenda, the people around us started to change. Thier backs arched, their skin molded, and their souls quietly became shallow. Mason kisses me one more time, slowly, then lets go of my hand.

“I have to find my brother.” He headed to the door.

“I’ll be right back, promise.”

Sometimes I wonder why humans make promises we can’t keep.

Nothing after that was alright.

Elton died from blood loss,

I’d never see Mason again.

-

DAY 21

Why everything goes so fast, we have not figured out yet. Why the infected cells replicate themselves to a point of exponential, we have not figured out yet either. Riley hasn’t been sleeping, every night when I leave the lab, he tells me “five more minutes”. The room is cold when I wake up, the tile floor freezes my toes and I know it is November, I hear a knock at my door.

“Alexandra?”

It is Riley.

“I really think I have something here.” I open the door to be greeted by the smell of dying animals. Even he reeks of blood and dog sink. Riley leads me back to the lab, he walks like someone who doesn’t sleep. His legs wobble, his arms are skinny. He adjusts a microscope and offers it to me, like a treasure.

“This, is a normal functioning cell” He motions for me to follow him.

“And this is a cell after one week prior to being exposed to the virus.” It looks nothing like the other, a hole gapes in its side oozes black looking gas.

“And?”

“And, its mutated, its dead.” He grips my shoulders, “Alex, If I am right, this is nothing but disruption in mitosis, this is only a blip in the division process that causes one mutated cell- due to the drug, to replicate over and over again. Mass producing necrotic tissue and disabling the body. This isn’t the dead walking.”

His eyes are the brightest I’ve ever seen them.

“This is early onset necrosis.”

-

DAY 26

Raza holds a bouncy ball in his hands, he bounces it off the wall and catches it every time. Riley opens the door with a mask over his face and two more in his palms. He hands one to me and the other to Raza. I give him an odd look.

“It’s for the smell.”

Of course, the smell of rotting animals. Despite Riley’s recent discovery of the of the virus itself, our test patients keep dying. The cells replicate too quickly for us to catch them. Riley scratches the back of his head and sits at the edge of my cot. His manner is uneasy; something must be wrong. He takes off his mask.

“We only have two chimps and one bird left.”

Raza jerks up, “which one?”

“01, don’t worry. I saved it for you.” Raza lays back down in relief, I get up and make my way to the button on the wall. I press it and a little chirp comes from the speaker above it, a red light fills the room.

“We’re running out of test patients. What do we do when we run out of animals?” The light turns off, no response other than the static of the mic makes itself known. I shrug, and turn back to Riley whose eyelids are now rimmed with grey moons. It makes him look so small, like an elementary schooler who pulled their first all-nighter or of someone who worries too much. I remove the mask from his neck and send him to shower and nap.

“We can’t all be mad geniuses.”

-

If there was anything I learned from Mason it was that falling in love is involuntary.

It creeps up quietly, without warning and not unlike a fever.

From him, I learned that we are a hopelessly weak species.

Our love comes in waves, in grey skies and boiling water. It is on top of the broken buildings, the fear inside the minds of school children, for us, love is not an emotion. It is a state of being. It eats you from the inside and it becomes everything until there is nothing left to burn.

-

It is just Raza and I in the lab now, the only pigeon left rests on his shoulder, our unspoken vow is to keep 01 safe for him. We hear the door open, but it isn’t Riley. Instead, it is a boy. He’s got brown hair but that’s about all we can manage to recognize. His face is covered in dried blood and dirt. The boy falls to his knees and rests on the ground. Raza rushes to his side and helps him up, I check his wrist.

“He’s still breathing.”

I help him up, there’s a gaping wound on the right of his face and blood stains my fingers, the cut is fresh. I check his eyes- they are a dark brown and breathe a sigh of relief, not a drifter. The boy puts his shaking hand on my shoulder and tries to say something; I jerk away quickly. I stand up and tell Raza to get me a washcloth and some gauze. I slip on a pair of gloves and sit down in front of our visitor. Raza hands me the wet cloth and I begin to rinse the dirt and grime from the boy’s face. He does not react- he is still and compliant. I clean off the area of the wound and bring out a suture kit. I bring my hand to his face,

“this will hurt a bit.”

He grabs my arm, looks me in the eyes and asks me a question.

“You really don’t recognize me?”

I push the hair out of his face and clean off the rest of the dirt. No, I barely remember him. I shake my head, The boy is not a stranger, he is a ghost who knows when I realize who he is. He smiles so brightly it could start a fire.

The boy is Mason.

-

Raza messes with his gloves instead of helping me clean up the lab so we can sleep. Mason went to bed hours ago and Riley never bothered to wake up. He taps his foot on the tile ground and rests his hands underneath his chin.

“You know, I’ve been trying to figure out why they sent him here.”

I stop, “who? Mason?”

“Yes, and I can only think of one thing.” His voice is quiet.

I set down my broom, “well, spit it out.”

“Alex, what do you do when you’re done testing animals?” It takes me a moment to roll the question over in my mind; let it settle in and make it’s way through the races. Eventually I come to a consensus.  

“Humans,”

my heart sinks.

“You test it on humans.”

-

DAY 30

His presence keeps me moving.

His face is the first thing I look for when I wake up, there isn’t a moment where I don’t watch. Riley and Raza both know. Pigeon 01 and the two chimps left wait to die. I do not know if I fear more for his life or the success concerning the LDS vaccine. We work as hard as we can for as long as we can. Mason does not speak all that much, but I have realized that he likes to watch me work. He’s a nice assistant.

“Can you pass me the slide?”
Mason passes me the little piece of glass, his hands are skinny and covered in tiny slices. His color is pale and his voice cracks.

“How’s your head?”

He brushes his hair out of his face, Riley cut it a few days ago and it made him look human. “It’s okay, still hurts around the same place. But I’m okay.” We don’t know what to talk about, I’m too scared to look him in the eyes and in return he looks at me like I’m glass. Untouchable. I tell myself that the quiet is good- that maybe if we keep it then nothing bad will happen.

Stupid, so stupid.

-

I know there is something wrong with Riley that morning the minute the light hits my eyes. His words are off, there is something in his air.

“What are you testing that on?”

Riley is silent, he holds pigeon 01 in his left hand and a syringe in his right. His hair sticks to the side of his face with sweat. He looks up and the bird is dead. I step a few inches closer and take the syringe out of his hand.

“Does Raza know?”

He shakes his head.

“It needed to be done at some point, we were running out of animals-” Raza walks in the room, hands folded across his chest.

“Thanks for warning me, you know; before you killed it.”

Riley gets up out of his seat and and squished the bird in his fingers, its dead body cracking in his grip. He walks over to Raza and opens his mouth- his eyes are dark and his voice is low.

“It’s just a bird-” he pops 01 in the trash can and sets his hands in his pockets. “You’ll get over it.”

That’s when we really lost him. For the first time in a long time, he was gone.

-

DAY 36

“I think it’s Christmas.”

Mason and Raza exchange the same look, and turn back to face me. I think about it for a second, “yeah, it’s Christmas.” Raza holds the first chimpanzee in his arms like a child and sets it down on his seat. He picks up a syringe and sets it down next to the cage.

“Your problem with the animals is that the virus affects them too quickly for the vaccine to make an impact, right?” Says Mason, completely ignoring me. Raza picks the animal up again and sits down, “right.”

“How come you don’t just insert fixed proportions of the virus periodically?” Riley scoffs, “it doesn’t work that way.”

“Well why not?” Asks Raza.

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”

Mason stands up and makes his way over to the lab table, he observes the station and picks up Raza’s timer. “I’m gonna need two IV cords, some tweezers and a screwdriver.” His eyes are bright, it makes the room warm again.

He works for about two hours by the time I hear him chattering away at Raza. He’s completely unassembled the timer, cords stick out from everywhere. Raza’s eyes are huge when he sees it.

“How did you do this?”

Mason shrugs, “I’ve got a thing for electronics.” He motions for me to join him, I walk over to the station, he hands me a syringe.

“Merry Christmas?” I take it and sit down.

“Merry Christmas.”

-

The periodic release of the virus cells works like a charm. It takes a whole twenty minutes before the cells completely infiltrate the body. We cheer for what seems like no reason. Raza escapes the room for a few minutes and returns with Riley at his side. We speak very little, but all manage to smile. If not for one second, things seem to look up. But when the smell of death makes its way into our systems, and the sleepless nights catch up; we remember.

How stupid was I? To think everything would be okay?

-

DAY 40

“Something happened.”

Says Riley, popping his knuckles.

“I checked the storage today and one barrel of the virus was empty, looked like it had been spilled or something.” My eyes scan the room for evidence- when I hear a noise come from the back. It’s the sound of glass shattering, it comes from Raza. His hand jerks away from the table and he clutches his stomach.

“Raza?”

Riley rushes over to him, but is pushed away.

A deep chuckle comes from Raza and he sits back up, straightening his back.

“You know, it’s really disappointing that we haven’t found a cure yet.” He turns to Riley, “I mean, there really is just one thing dragging us down. Right Mason?” The tips of his fingers begin to turn grey and I reach for one of the syringes we use to kill the animals. I slowly make my way over to the other side of the counter. Raza laughs again, his eyes conforming to a different shape, like a serpent.

“You do realize you’re nothing but another one of our pigeons, right?”

Riley and I exchange the same look. Raza’s skin greys around his ears, and all over his arms. His eyes are the same color as dust.

Not him, just not him.

He makes his way closer.

“In fact, you’re nothing but a blister.” Mason jumps out of his seat and pins Raza to the ground, his teeth have come to a point, there is no human skin left.

“Alex!” He struggles to keep him down while I make my way over to them, Raza jerks back and forth, blood slipping from his cheek. I reach into my pocket, pull out the syringe, and aim for his leg. He grabs my arm before I can and there is no more air to breathe. I hear him stifle out his final words,

“please don’t kill me.”

I stab him in the leg and his body comes to a still. His fingers fall from my grasp and he lowers himself into a piece of paper. I watch as his body sinks into the ground, corroded skin already starting to peel. I look up at Riley, whose sunken to the floor, holding Raza’s head in his hands. I can’t hear what he’s saying, it’s all just noise. I watch him mouth the words as the tears roll down his face; I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry.