Steam clouded the mirror, the bathroom fan unable to keep up.
Lance stared at the tub of hot water, working up the courage to step in. He grabbed a towel from the rack beside the door and squeezed it in his hands, hoping to channel some of his oncoming anguish into it.
He sat on the edge of the tub and slowly lowered his uninjured foot into it, hissing at the heat. The toll of walking on the streets in his bare feet was greater than he realized. The agony of every abrasion and knick intensified as he held the foot there, gritting his teeth and squeezing the towel.
After an excruciating half a minute, the pain ebbed.
“And that was the good foot,” Lance muttered to the empty room.
He lowered the rest of his body, minus his sliced foot, into the water at a snail’s pace. The heat warmed him immediately, attacking the soreness in his ribs and shoulder. It had been years since he’d taken a bath, and at that moment, he couldn’t figure out why.
His left foot hovered above the surface as he submerged himself up to the neck. The impending pain hung over him, making his face pinch in on itself as he gathered what little willpower remained.
Taking a deep breath, he dunked his foot and squeezed the towel as if he wanted to murder it. He bit back a scream, thumping his left hand on the outside of the tub. The end of the balled-up towel went between his teeth and he hyperventilated against it. It took everything he had to keep his foot submerged.
The misery eased fractionally, giving him only the slightest relief.
The bottoms of his feet had blackened with filth from the walk. He desperately wanted to avoid infection, realizing that a trip to his general practitioner probably wouldn’t happen again in the next millennia.
The worst part remained.
He scooted forward, his shoulders coming out of the water, and pulled his foot toward his face. The wound was dirty, but didn’t appear particularly deep. It was just enough to hurt like hell.
Lance never liked having his feet messed with or tickled, so having a piece of a glass stab into his arch came straight out of a nightmare.
The next twenty minutes consisted of swearing, scrubbing, and possibly a tear or two, though Lance tried to convince himself that some soap got in his eyes.
He found bandages in the hall closet and attached a large one to his foot. Too much pressure caused pain, so he walked around the apartment on his heel, glad that no one was around to see how ridiculous he looked.
His favorite robe clung to him as he shambled around, enjoying its comfort in silence. Liz hated its tattered appearance and made sure to say something every time he wore it.
Wearing it now without her constant nagging proved a great comfort amidst the carnage outside.
After a series of rapes occurred in the city a few years ago, Lance bought Liz a small pistol for her purse. He’d never gotten around to getting her a concealed carry permit because, as far as he knew, she never took the damn thing with her anyway. She hated guns and wouldn’t even relent to going to a shooting range for practice. After several arguments over it, he began to wonder why he bought it in the first place.
He dug in her dresser drawers and rifled through her closet, hoping she hadn’t thrown it away. After several minutes of searching, he found a box of bullets but couldn’t find the gun anywhere.
“Damn it, Liz. You should have known that I would need that stupid thing when the world ended.”
He left the room in ruins, knowing she probably wouldn’t see the apartment ever again. If they managed to get out of Pittsburgh, there wasn’t much reason for them to chance coming back. Even if the plague died out and humanity prevailed, what would remain of the civilization here?
Mankind was rapidly sliding down the food chain.
He settled for a butcher’s knife he took from a magnet hanging above the counter.
As the sun finally set, Lance took a seat by the window and watched the street below. Normal people were scarce, though he could see lights in many apartments across the street. The sick and violent roamed the city, their cries filling the night.
Lance sat and listened to them for several minutes, shivering when he heard someone screaming in agony as they were torn apart in a nearby alley.
He had no chance of making it anywhere else tonight, so he decided to secure the place as best he could. He closed all the blinds and pulled the curtains, taping the edges to the walls so no light could seep through. The electricity still flowed, and he planned to utilize it as long as he could.
The spare bedroom had a poster bed in it. It was a gift from Liz’s parents, so he thoroughly enjoyed destroying it. He disassembled the footboard and pulled the slats out, taking the wood into the front room and setting it beside the door. A hammer and nails came from the closet and he used them to cinch the footboard to the floor. He gave it several heavy shots with the hammer to make sure it was secure.
He broke one of the slats in half over his knee and nailed the pieces to the door. The poster columns didn’t quite fit between the slats and the floorboard, so he cut them to the proper length with a handsaw and jammed them in place.
The custom barricade felt solid as he pulled at the door. It would take a silverback to break into the apartment.
Unfortunately for him, there were things prowling the streets that might have the strength to pull it off.
Even still, he felt better knowing that he wouldn’t have to deal with any human intruders.
After frying some eggs and buttering two slices of toast, Lance fell into his favorite recliner with a huff. He pulled on the handle and eased back with his feet in the air. Nothing short of a crane could get him out of the chair for the rest of the night.
He pawed at the remote, too tired and lethargic to pick it up. Surprisingly, the cable still worked.
“Bastards really did cut off the signal in the hospital. Morons.”
All the news stations flashed alert messages, the talking heads tired and near hysterical in their reporting. Lance settled on CNN, if only because they had a pretty anchor on at the time.
“...full evacuation. Again, if anyone in your family or home has exhibited any signs of contagion, we urge you to leave the area immediately. You must understand that help will not come if you call 911. The police and EMTs are overloaded with calls. Most major cities are being evacuated, but each one has different protocols to follow. We’ll run any information that is given to us throughout the night.”
Lance shoveled some eggs into his mouth as he watched, wishing they would tell him something he didn’t know.
The camera angle changed, showing a guest sitting beside the newscaster. The man wore a suit that needed dry-cleaning in the worst way. Two-day beard growth and bagged eyes completed the exhausted look.
“We’re joined again by Dr. Newsome. Do you have anything to update us with in regards to the Xavier virus?”
Lance’s forehead wrinkled. “Xavier virus? Weird name.”
“If you’ll recall, I theorized that the smoke bomb pranks happening around the city might not have been pranks at all. The CDC has just come back with the results of extensive testing on the canisters found in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and several other afflicted cities. They weren’t smoke bombs.” He paused, clearing his throat. “The United States is under attack. Someone has engaged in biological warfare with us. This epidemic is not a random occurrence.”
“Dr. Newsome, you’re saying that the Xavier virus was unleashed upon us intentionally? The implications of that are incredible. You’re talking about the start of another World War.”
“That’s correct. Someone is trying to commit genocide.” He stared at his hands, his voice lowering. “And it’s working.”
“Do you know if anyone has claimed responsibility for the attack yet?”
“No.”
Lance stared blankly at the television, a mouthful of half-chewed toast in his slack jaw. Someone unleashed biological weapons against the United States? Someone hated a country
’s government so much that they would cause the illness, mutation, and death occurring outside?
While smoking copious amounts of marijuana in college, Lance and his friends often debated about the course mankind was on. His buddies thought the planet would crash and burn eventually, imploding because some moron fell asleep at the controls, or two arrogant world leaders would launch nukes at one another because they suffered from penis envy. Lance maintained that alarmism usually proved wrong, and that people would continue on as they always had.
Turns out, he was wrong.
“When we spoke this afternoon, you said that only North America appeared to be infected at this point. Is that still the case?”
The doctor perked up a bit, his shoulders squaring. “Yes, that’s correct. The canisters only went off in the United States, but Canada and Mexico have both reported cases of the illness in their countries now as well. We believe that the shutdown of international travel happened early enough that this horror has been quarantined to our continent.”
Lance finished his food. His hunger died during the news report, but he knew that he needed the calories, so he forced it down. He fully reclined in the chair, staring at the pictures hanging on the wall beside the television.
Photographs of him and Liz in Los Angeles, touring Universal. The two of them petting Shamu at Sea World. A collage from their wedding day hung above the others, their young, fresh faces unprepared for the disaster their marriage would become.
Tears flowed as he looked them over. He didn’t despair because of his lost relationship, but over the entire trajectory of his life. Years upon years, he wasted energy and time stressing over his career. His wife. His lack of children.
And for what?
The city burned around him. People ate each other in the streets, their minds washed away like sand on a beach.
So much of his life had been dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, when he didn’t even know what that truly was. He lusted after the kind of life that everyone said he should desire, rather than looking inward and following his heart.
Now he sat alone in an apartment, waiting for death to knock on his door. His wife would spend the night with another man, fleeing the very city she’d spent her life in with Lance.
He would die soon and he was just realizing that he’d never really lived.
The shrieks from the mutated and the mad grew in frequency as he sat there. They came from all sides, surrounding his building. More filled the apartments above him, bouncing down the stairwells to his third floor place, making him wonder how long he had until they came for him.
But even if they did, what did it matter? What did he have worth fighting for?
“...still haven’t identified any kind of treatment. Things are simply progressing at too fast a rate for us to make any headway. All I can say is that you should get far away from anyone showing any signs of infection. That’s the best thing you can do at this time.”
“The first of the attacks occurred four days ago. How is it possible that this could have spread so quickly in such a short amount of time, Doctor? And how can it do such damage to the human body in just a few days?”
“Well, anyone that came in contact with the chemical agent from the smoke canisters was immediately infected, we know that much. How it has spread from there is something we’re still debating. Touch alone doesn’t seem to transmit the virus, but saliva, blood, and other bodily fluids do appear to have an effect. If I had to guess, I’d say that people went home and kissed their loved ones. Those people went to the gym, the doctor’s office, or a restaurant. As for how this is doing such extensive damage to the human body… well, we just can’t answer that yet. The CDC is finally releasing pieces of information. They believe it’s a prion disease that is destroying higher brain function, but we’re hotly contesting that hypothesis because of the short incubation period. We do know that the hypothalamus, which regulates body temperature and hunger, is directly affected. It’s a truly tremendous piece of engineering and…”
Lance tuned the man out before he started giving verbal high-fives to the terrorists that designed the Xavier virus, whatever it was.
Gunfire went off in the street below. Lance fought the urge to open the curtains and look.
He wanted to ensure that no one knew that he occupied his apartment.
The small-arms battle continued for close to half an hour before cries of pain and pleas for mercy fell into silence.
“...thank you for joining us once again, Dr. Newsome. God be with you.”
“God be with us all. We’re going to need all the help we can get it.”
Lance left the television on as he fell into a restless sleep in the chair.
Chapter 10