The Last Virus Read online

  “I am sorry,” I said. It was a trite condolence, I know. It was unsatisfactory in every way. But I had my own horrors. And they had already hardened me to stone.

  “Is there anything else?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I will need to connect the pocket trigger to the detonator. Please lift the thobe to your neck.”

  I walked around to the back of him. It is a connection I always make after they don their garments. However, with him, I wanted to make sure he was in the right frame of mind after concluding his story. In the end, he seemed calm enough and not at all agitated. I ran the wires to the front and clipped the pocket trigger to the belt I had put on him.

  “It is not a light trigger. For obvious reasons. You will have to depress it with more than a modest amount of force.”

  He nodded and pulled back down the thobe so that once again it fell to the length of his ankles. I looked him over. He was a good choice, I thought. The tone of his Mediterranean skin would blend in well up there.

  “We are done?” he then asked.

  “With the fitting, yes, we are done. I still need to go over the operational instructions.”

  “I have had training.”

  “I understand. But I am required.”

  I told him that after carefully removing the belt and vest, he was to place them on the ground. I told him to wrap the belt around the vest containing the explosives. I said there is a prayer mat near the door. I said to use it to disguise the belt and vest. I said that after delivering his package to the target, he would have exactly two minutes to leave the area after depressing the trigger. He asked for the blast range. I answered by saying it had an approximate radius of one hundred and ten feet.”

  He pushed off the examination table and put his feet on the floor. I nodded over to Private Scott and he unbolted the door.

  “Private Scott will be your escort to your next location.”

  He nodded and shook my hand. I was exhausted from his story, and I was glad he was leaving. He was a step out the door when it occurred to me that he did not reach down for the prayer mat. It then also occurred to me that he had no such intention of removing the vest and belt from his person.

  “Private Scott, please bring him back into the room.”

  The private did as I had ordered, and I then instructed him to leave us alone for a minute.

  “It was not forgetfulness, was it?” I asked, sliding my eyes to where the prayer mat lay.

  “I have no need for it.”

  “If I report this, you will go nowhere.”

  He did not give a reply.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have been ordered to an ammunition depot on the edge of Ayla.”

  “Your orders, but not your destination. You are returning to her school, aren’t you?” I said, now understanding what he meant when he said they dismiss at 1745.

  “They have turned it into a madrassa.”

  “So their children. That’s your target?”

  “An eye for an eye, so the God of the Old Testament says.”

  “And what do you think your Lily would say?”

  “I do not think dead children say anything at all.”

  “No, you are right. They do not say anything at all. May heaven then welcome you.”

  “If it does, I will refuse the invitation.”

  “You must take the prayer mat, though. It will help you as you are walking around Ayla. They will think you are returning from prayer, or going to it.”

  “Then I will take it.”

  I opened the door for him. He had just begun to turn when I spoke my final words to him.

  “Elizabeth. My daughter’s name was Elizabeth.” I felt weak after uttering it as I had not spoken her name since they had raped, tortured, and then disemboweled her before my eyes.

  “Then this is for Elizabeth and Lily.”

  To his face, I brought my hands and then kissed him as if we were husband and wife. He understood. He knew that kiss was for our children. It did not matter whether we had conceived them together or not. He left, and I said a prayer for both our souls. It was the first time I had spoken to God since I felt my Elizabeth being ripped from my arms.

  The Lovers

  The Old Man and Us

  T he sounds of the last crying soul faded to silence. It had been what we were waiting for. We weren’t alone. No one’s ever alone here. But at least for all I knew, those who slept with us were not awake. My body I moved nearer to her and threw a soiled blanket over the two of us. Blankets down in these tunnels are life jackets for children and lovers. We were side by side like lazy dogs too tired to stand. I reached an arm across her body and placed a hand upon her cheek. Down here that touch of skin on skin is the only thing that makes you feel alive and somewhat human again.

  “Perfume,” she said.

  I slid a hand into the pocket of my jeans and sprayed us both with what was left in the bottle. You stink constantly down here. Showers are by tickets and tickets are given out once every two weeks. I gave her one kiss on the back of the neck. She asked for a mint even though we were taking breaths from the same direction.

  “It’s the last one we have left. And it’s not even a mint. It’s an orange-flavored aspirin,” I replied.

  “I don’t care. I’ll take half,” she said.

  I broke it in two between my teeth. She stuck out her tongue and I placed it there.

  “The old man is still awake,” she said in a whisper.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “I saw him move his head toward us.”

  “What the fuck?” I replied, pulling back the hand I was just about to slip under her sweater.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “It’s not okay. It’s fucking weird. I can wait.”

  “No, don’t. Anyway, he always watches us.”

  “How come you never told me that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not like it’s a leer. It’s just more like a remembrance of things past.”

  “Proust?”

  “I guess. I wasn’t thinking about it. But yeah. That’s probably where I got it.”

  “Do you stare back at him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus Christ. So while we’ve been making love, you’ve been gazing into the eyes of someone else.”

  “It’s not someone else. It’s just the old man.”

  She then reached behind her and squeezed my hand gently. That always made me want to fuck her. That always made me bury whatever we had been arguing about. I threaded the button of her jeans through the loop and eased down the zipper. I never needed any foreplay with her. Even when we were kids up there, I was always rock hard after that zipper had reached the end of its journey. I continued on, pulling her jeans and underwear down to her calves. Down here you stay half-dressed. Down here you remain like kids in the backseat of your parents’ car.

  I slid my hand under her sweater and clamped it hard onto one of her breasts. I was in her not a moment later. I was breathing heavily. She was not. I couldn’t help myself. I had to edge my head up and over her shoulder. The old man checked me with a glance as if I was just a bystander and then resumed staring at her. If I wasn’t thinking about cumming in her, I would have been thinking about how much more fucked up could this get. She was right though. It wasn’t a leer. And it wasn’t her face he was staring at. He was just remembering what it was like to have someone that near.

  Gilly’s in the Tunnels

  “How was your day?” I asked her after I had entered our quarters and began stripping out of my clothes. It was always such a lame start to our conversations but one that I always gave. It was fucked up to tell you the truth. It was like we were still living back in our Lincoln Park apartment. But if you didn’t do it that way, you would lose your mind. The saying down here is that you have to fake it to make it. And since we weren’t doing so well in the beginning, we decided to just go along with that maxim.

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nbsp; “Sad,” she began, “we took in four soldiers and two of the elderly. None of them made it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I replied in a tone devoid of any emotion whatsoever. A part of me wanted to yell “Cut” so I could have one more go at the line. The other part, which I let stand, told me to print it because sometimes you get so sick of pretending that you haven’t become immune to all of this death.

  “How about yours?”

  “Just another day of digging. Wish they would tell us where the fuck we were digging to.”

  “Oh, I heard something interesting today at the infirmary.”

  “What was that?” I asked while I was slipping my University of Illinois sweatshirt over my head. I thought I would get another month or two out of it. However, after I pulled it to my waist, I widened another hole and realized it wouldn’t last much longer. That sucked royally. I had already used up all my work credits on a pair of woolen socks and boots two sizes too large. I would now have to continue looking like an asshole for a little longer. Not that it mattered to me. But sometimes it did matter to me.

  “It seems we have a very famous rock star in our presence.”

  “Who?”

  “Gilly.”

  “Whoever told you that was lying,” I said quickly to invalidate. “What the hell would he be doing here? He’s from England. Well, from wherever those motherfuckers call England nowadays.”

  “Yeah, I was pretty skeptical at first until I remembered that he was here for a retrospective of his work at the MCA a week or so before the invasion. It’s possible he never got out.”

  “Shit. You’re right. He just might have still been here. I remember reading an article in the Chicago Reader about that show. Did they say where he was?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask?” I said.

  “Of course, I asked.”

  “Hey, how about on Sunday we take a walk around the tunnels and do a little search for him. Sound like a date?”

  “Sure.”

  “Fuck, that’s what I miss most. I don’t think there was a weekend that we weren’t at the Bottle, Metro or Hideout listening to a band.”

  “Yeah, I miss that too.”

  Story of Our Lives

  We were lovers before all of this began. We were lovers back then in our freshman year. Fifteen’s such a great time to start fucking. Everywhere you do it is different and an impromptu affair. You walk around at night for hours just looking for another spot to fulfill your lust. You hit the woods. You hit the fifty-yard line of your high school. You hit the park and squeeze your bodies into the rocket ship. Now and then you get lucky when one or the other’s house has been emptied of all inhabitants. It’s like the first time every time. You kiss with your eyes closed and screw with them open. You talk for hours afterward. You say things you wouldn’t dare tell your best friend. A walk back to where your parents live. A walk back hand-in-hand because you’re not yet old enough for a post-coitus flip to the edge of the bed. A long kiss behind an elm or maple. You both enter through a window because you both blew curfew by a mile. In bed you lie awake for another hour because once again, it’s been the best fucking day you’ve ever had.

  That was our first year. Fuck, that’s where I would set the time machine. After that, it didn’t go as planned. We had our problems. Her infidelity or mine usually the crime. But we were kids, and how can you blame either of us for wanting a new face, a new storyline. We would break up. We would hook up again. A seemingly endless cycle of hating and then loving each other. High school ended, college came. We got stronger. We stayed together through those four years like we were married. Again, the time of our lives, pretty fucking close to when we were fifteen I was thinking. I loved her with all that my small heart could give. I think she felt the same. Who knows though? You never know. You’d be a complete idiot if you thought you did.

  Eventually, we both graduated and took jobs in the city. We found an apartment in Lincoln Park over on Cleveland Avenue. We had our 8 to 6 jobs. We had our 9:30 shows, and we had our time in an endless array of dive bars. We had our parties and our friends had theirs. A perfect life for me. Perfect for her too I can only surmise. It seemed like it anyway. Six months in and I was guessing maybe another four or five years before we started talking kids.

  We never saw it coming. No one saw it fucking coming. There were a few attacks in the city before that. I remember we went to the candlelight memorial for those children slaughtered in the Our Lady of the Angels’ massacre. All isolated incidents, so we were told. We were just packing up our things to head back home when the drones came. We were way up north in Door County on a Christmas break from our families. On the drive back, we started to get alarmed as reports started to come in about the dead in the streets. Outbound, the roads were jam-packed. Inbound, we had a little bit of room. I drove at top speed when I could, and used the shoulder as an alternative. She took my hand across the center console. I squeezed it tight. We both knew something was seriously wrong. And that was confirmed as we finally exited the highway. The streets looked like the zombie apocalypse had come. Some walking erratically and covered in blood. Some writhing about on the ground. Some already obviously dead. We pulled up to our apartment, ran inside, and jammed chairs under the door handles. I grabbed a baseball bat and handed her a bunch of kitchen knives.

  For twenty-nine days we binge-watched the reports from all over the fucking place. We kept thinking this couldn’t be fucking real. We kept thinking the Mannheim Front would certainly hold off those fanatic assholes. We kept thinking then if not us, then certainly the Russians or Chinese will put an end to all of this fucking madness. On day thirty, the explosions got louder, and our television became an emergency broadcast screen saver. I told her we need to get the fuck out of here. She said we should just stay and hide. I won the argument, I guess. We grabbed what we could and stuffed it into our backpacks. More mortar shells and now the sound of automatic gunfire. We went east because everyone else was heading fucking east. We got as far as Clark and Lincoln Park West when I saw someone open a manhole cover and lower themselves in. I nodded over to her. She agreed.

  And that was it, the story of our lives before our descent into hell. Five small paragraphs and it’s all told. Except of course, for the time we spent getting here. But that’s not something we even talk about, so I’m content with leaving it at that. I want to say that we were one of the lucky ones not to be captured or killed on that first day after the Mannheim Front fell, but now I must admit I wish two of their bullets had found our heads. Now all I want is to go first. I can’t imagine her death before mine. I can’t imagine staring into the lifeless eyes of the girl who showed me how to be both lovers and best friends.

  A Sunday in the Tunnels of Sector 4

  The tunnels were crowded on Sundays. Most of us had the day off. People were either going or coming from an aimless walk. People were either heading to or returning from the commissary. Those working the black market were standing around every hundred feet or so, making out like kings selling things you never imagined you could get in this living catacomb. Others were just out of their quarters to get away from staring down four walls until another Monday came. I was actually looking forward to this day. I didn’t think we would find Gilly. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that we had something to look forward to. That was something we never had before since being down here.

  “Are you ready?” she asked me.

  “Almost. I’m having trouble here. I don’t have enough lace to get to the second loop.”

  “We have an extra one.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. But you’ll have to block.”

  I got to my feet and stood in front of her while she went to our hiding place. I looked around. No one in our quarters was paying attention. I did a count of the faces. Five. We still had five.

  “Aren’t you a little excited?”

  “I suppose,” I said.

  “Are you going to ask for his
autograph?”

  “No. And you’re assuming we’re actually going to find him.”

  “Oh, we’ll find him,” she said confidently.

  She was bouncing on her toes, the way she used to do while waiting for me to get ready for a show. Might as well, I thought. Might as well pretend. It’s the only fucking thing you could do here to get through another day. A few days before we had talked about how we were actually going to conduct the search. She said we should just stick our heads into every room we passed. I couldn’t disagree. It was probably the only way we would find him, if he was actually here to be found. That though I understood would also ruin our day within no time. Down here, it would be like ducking your head into the rooms of either an insane asylum or an oncology ward looking for a fucking rainbow unicorn. So, I sold my next eight weeks of breakfast ration tickets to get us something that could muddle the reality a little bit.

  “Where in the . . .” she started to say as I lifted the 375-milliliter bottle of peppermint schnapps to my lips and took a swig.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Give it here.”

  “Give what. I don’t have anything,” I said and put it back where I was originally hiding it.

  “You want me to reach in and take it?”

  “I was hoping.”

  She played along and reached down the front of my pants. She took the bottle out, and as she was taking her drink, put her other hand down my pants. I wanted to turn around and go right back to our quarters and make love to her.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked after taking her drink.

  “Found it.”

  “Liar.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t care. Just give me a kiss.”

  That taste of alcohol on her lips brought back so many memories. It was a kiss from the past, a kiss when nothing mattered at all. We continued on. We finished off the bottle in no time, which didn’t surprise me because both of us always drank like fish. We had a good buzz on. We talked about days long gone. It was one of those walks where if I had a ring I would have asked her to marry me. Ten minutes later she stopped at another room and said this was going to be the one. I rolled my eyes and watched as she popped her head in.