The Virus

I wrote this one a good few years ago and just recently revisited it and re-edited it. Hopefully there is more of a story here than some of my other stories. Thanks for looking.


The Virus
I was lying on the carpet, the one with lotus flowers that I had bought on e-Bay for a bargain, too sick to make it to my bed, listening to the blaring TV. I could feel my eyes swelling up so I closed them. What was the first sign of fever – sweat, hot and cold flushes? I had all of the above and now I was starting to shake. It’s funny when the dreaded word ‘death’ takes centre stage in your thoughts and you start to ponder all that you did in life. Would people speak well of me when I was gone?
Would they say, “She was a good person. A right saint.” Or would they say, “Thank God she’s dead, she was a right bitch.”
Who knew?

For some strange reason I thought of the man outside who had positioned himself at the corner regularly injecting himself with rusty needles. He reminded me of my father with his monkey shaped ears and his glassy-blue eyes. His lips were purple, like he had lived off a steady diet of beetroot. I hated beetroot. The red-purple juice could stain anything and the taste was like a mouthful of dirt. Not that I knew what dirt tasted like. He annoyed me, that lucky son-of-a-bitch, the way he dodged oncoming traffic cursing drivers in their cars as they narrowly avoided him. He thought he owned the very ground his feet touched. I felt like screaming when I saw him openly stabbing his arms with crusty needles.
“Won’t you go home and do that in private?”
No, he did it in my face with his eyes rolling around in his cavernous head. Soon he would be screaming for another hit, his tin cup shaking furiously.

There was a cockpit with a sea of flashing controls and I was sitting in front like a child who had been given a new toy and didn’t know what to do. I looked over at the co-pilot, sitting next to me, with his beach blonde hair in his eyes. He was probably a hippy back in the sixties. Now all he could do was peek through his fringe perhaps imagining when he last got laid—most probably the sixties.
“Houston, this is flight 197 request emergency landing.” I shouted into the controls. This is fun.
A voice replied: “This is Houston, over, permission denied.”
“Mayday! Mayday!” I roared, pressing a big red shinny button. The co-pilot turned his head and shot a despondent glance in my direction.
“This is control tower. What seems to be the problem?”
“We are experiencing difficulty with the…”
I stretched out my arms. Ha-ha! Look me! I’m flying! I heard a commotion above. People were talking amongst themselves but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I opened my eyes. A face with a surgical mask stood over me. The smell of fish was thick in the air.
A crowd of people in white and green rushed about.
“She’s waking up!”
“She’s alive!”
“…Nurse can we get a hand here!”
“Stay back!”
“…Doctor!”
Where the hell am I?
The face with its surgical mask looked at me with its oversized head. It wore a shinny earring in its left ear and had pasty green eyes.
“I’m your Doctor.” He put a gloved hand to his chest. His breath stank of fish. I christened him Mr. Fish.
“Uh, hello,” I croaked, lifting my neck.
“Don’t move.”
“Why, not?”
“Miss … ?” He procured a clipboard from the foot of my bed. “Yes, Miss Williams you are not well enough. Not yet that is.”
“What happened, I thought I was in my apartment. I didn’t die, did I?” It didn’t look like heaven. Someone’s breath couldn’t smell like rotten fish in heaven. Who said you would go to heaven?
“You are alive! And that is a very good thing for YOU and for US.”
“Yeah I guess. So why is it good?”
“Well, you are the first person to survive the epidemic. Do you know what that means?”
“That I am going to turn into a lab rat?” I imagined myself in a cage spinning on a wheel. I would be going nowhere, just spinning. I didn’t want that.
“No, no” His eyes were everywhere. “It means that the good oxidants that were mixed with the bad oxidants…”
“What does it really mean doctor?”
“It means now that you survived the deadly strain we are closer to combating the disease.”
I wasn’t looking forward to my future. I envisioned being hooked up to every possible tube and analysed 24/7. “And what if I refuse?”
“Miss Williams you won’t refuse!”
“And why can’t I?”
“Just think of your grandchildren and the stories you can tell them about how you were instrumental in saving mankind.”
“And what if I don’t want grandchildren?”
Mr. fish-breath put his hand to his forehead. “It will be easier if you co-operate. We will save mankind with or without your consent.” I folded my hands and lowered my lip. I guess it would have to be done the hard way. I would take mankind with me to the grave. “Don’t you know that there are countless people dying and you are the only one that can help…?”
“Don’t give me that doctor. What about the countless millions that die in wars everyday, is it up to me to help them too?”
He swung his fist in the air. “Miss Williams you will co-operate … you will co-operate!”
“I will do no such thing, do you hear?” I turned over on my side. There was no convincing me.

They left me on my own, filled with needle marks and tubing. Thank God they didn’t put one up my ass. The pain would have been unreal. I listened to the monitors whirring in the dark and watched a flashing display of lights.
Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!
The hospital would not let me go not until they discovered the secret to my survival. I got out of bed and ripped the wires and cables that covered me like a bowl of spaghetti. It was time to make a dash. Cautiously, I neared the door, peered out of my room into the quiet empty green corridor. Green was supposed to be soothing – it was not. I turned around. I thought I heard a noise. With no one in sight I ran down a flight of stairs.
I could smell fish. I turned around.
Oh, God! Mr. Fish’s eyes resembled large red marbles. I started to run he ran too. He pursued me with his big swollen head.
He shouted: “Come back here!” And then his arm caught mine.
I tried to shake his grip. “Bastard!”
My fist flew into his face as he fell backwards. I watched his eyes as he tried desperately to grip on to anything to stop the fall.
“Help!” It was too late for help as he hit his head off the soothing olive coloured wall.

I was outside now, thank God, with the cool refreshing air in my face. I walked slowly down the deserted streets looking in every which direction for a friendly face but there was no one about. If anyone was alive they had locked themselves up in their houses, I assumed. Maybe the dead had been taken out of the city and dumped. Only those stupid enough would do such a job though earning a wage would probably not come high on one’s list of priorities.
I saw him as I neared the corner with his metal cup. A used needle lay on the ground beside him and he clutched a shaky handwritten cardboard sign. It read: Will work for food! I spat. He wasn’t looking for food.
“Please!” He reached out his arm. A steady thick stream of yellow mucus dripped down his nose. He used his tongue to stem the flow. His pants were torn, his legs covered in big black bruises and his arms filled with open pocket marks.
I patted my pockets. “No money here.”
“Please!” He was starting to crawl towards me like a desperate dog on all fours. The amber sky lit up his silver hair as he began to rattle his begging cup, again.
“Don’t come near me!”
“Please!”
I turned my back and ran. He terrified me.

The sun filtered through the tatty net curtains like God’s hand was shining on my life. I put on a decent pair of jeans, an old faded t-shirt and pair of runners and then made my way, apprehensively, out of the apartment, out into the world.
No one was around though the stench of rot bit me in the pit of my stomach and as I walked down the empty streets the smell only got worse. I turned the corner startled to find the bum in the middle of the road with his tin cup all lit up in the sunlight.
“Please!”
Oh God no! Not that man again!
He was advancing towards me. “Get away from me!”
He rattled his cup. “Please!”
“Please?” Is that the only word you know?
It suddenly hit me. The man was the only other person alive. It was him and me. Oh, God no! What would I tell my grandchildren?