Dead of Eve (2 page)

He stood and swiped a hand over his mouth. “I knocked on doors and talked to men passing through from other cities. No one has seen another woman or child in at least four weeks.”

“What about broadcasts from other parts of the country?” Surely the radio or internet would’ve debunked his fears.

“Same thing. The amateur radio stations claim this is a worldwide phenomenon.”

A knot formed in my belly. “The ham operators are now our only source of communication?”

He rubbed his nodding head. “Attacks by the infected have grown out of control. They call them aphids and say they hunt in packs. The stories I’ve heard, the things I’ve seen…”

The things he’d seen? Unease stole through me. What risks did he take to get that information? “Aphids? Like the little green bugs in our garden?”

“Yeah, the ones that suck the life from our plants, infecting them with viruses at the same time. There’s a strong resemblance between the mutated humans and those bugs.”

I knew my arched eyebrows gave away my disbelief. I dreamt that shit. It wasn’t real.

“We’re talking parasitic feeding, Evie. Resilient defenses. And they look like them.”

My curiosity piqued. I remembered the initial medical reports speculating that the nymph virus was designed to attack victims with low testosterone. The virus targeted human women, and a group of Muslim extremists topped the list of suspects.

His downcast eyes reflected the worry I felt. “No one knows if the virus was targeted at women intentionally.”

I fought a hard swallow.

“Or if part of the plan involved mutated women spreading the infection to men,” he said.

I tensed against a shiver as I replayed the frantic phone call from my brother-in-law announcing my sister’s infection the day after their children passed. That night, he put a bullet in my sister’s head and one in his own. I should’ve expected it. His was the typical response. Those early reports claimed mutated women—nymphs, they called them—attacked their own husbands, fathers, brothers.

“Do they know how the infection spread from women to men?” My voice was thready.

He nodded. “An infected woman changes, mutates…whatever you want to call it. And because of this mutation, she has these altered mouthparts.” He wiggled his fingers in front of his mouth and dropped his hand. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“I can handle it.” Perspiration formed on my spine.

“Okay, before the Internet went down, I watched a home video of this woman in bed. She looked like she had the flu. You know, sweaty, face all sunken in, lethargic, that kind of thing. Then a man knelt next to her and wiped her face.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, waited for me to tune him out or tell him I’d heard enough. “This foot long tubelike thing shoots out her mouth. You could see the pointed end. But the man just fucking sat there. Even when it stabbed him in his chest. The camera was jerking around, darting out of the room, but you could still see that tube stuck in the man’s chest. It was like a straw sucking up his…juices.” His lips pinched in a line, eyes locked on mine.

Maybe he expected a shocked reaction. But I’d seen it before. In my nightmares. “The infection is transmitted during this feeding?”

“Yeah. The nymph injects some kind of wax-like compound that turns man into aphid.”

“Have you seen this in person? The mutated mouth?”

“Not close up. They’re impossible to run from because they move too damn fast.” He paused as if replaying a specific memory. “You can’t see them move. A fucking feat so terrifying, it feels like a trick on the eyes. I’ve kept my distance.”

I covered my mouth with my hands. To think he’d been worried about
my
safety when he left me alone to take these day trips. “Jesus, Joel. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I’ve only crossed paths with one a couple times and not until recently. I heard the rainy season kept them at bay. Water may be a weakness worth investigating.”

I sagged against the headboard. Insectile humanoids. No women. Joel seemed so convinced. How did I avoid the infection? Just staying secluded? Maybe there were other mothers holed up like me. But my A’s…the virus had been in the house.

His bright eyes roamed my face. “It’s just you and I left in Grain Valley. Maybe in all of Kansas City. It’s so desolate out there.” A shadow passed over his face. He lowered his head. “I need you, Ba-y. I need you to help me figure this thing out.”

Guilt squeezed my chest. I’d abandoned him and he didn’t want to deal with it all alone anymore. “Okay. Help me take a shower and tell me more.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. From the corner of my eye, I caught him staring at a rose etched hair-clip on my night stand. Annie’s clip.

He lifted me and ducked his head, but not before I glimpsed the wetness in his eyes. My lips gravitated to his neck as he carried me away from the bed, the glass doors, and the lingering handprint.

Over the next two weeks, my insomnia persisted, but I ate everything Joel put in front of me. Day by day, my strength returned. We didn’t have much of a plan, but we agreed on two priorities. Stay alive. Seek truth. Those words became our mantra.

He wouldn’t let me run his day trips with him. Advertising my survival had too many unknown repercussions.

I held him in a hug. Given the scarcity of survivors, he’d have to travel out of state to gather supplies and information. He’d be gone all day.

When he left, my imagination went feral with visualizations of Joel in an ambush. Joel being gang raped. Joel riddled with bullets. Mutated Joel. To curb these thoughts, I cleaned our guns and took inventory of our ammo and food supply. Our produce was bare. He warned me to stay inside, but the spinach needed harvesting in the greenhouse and I needed to stay busy. His thorough patrol of the town had confirmed we were the only humans left for miles. I grabbed my USP .40 handgun on the way out.

The pool sat a few steps off the back porch. Hydrangeas, rhododendrons and peonies bordered the walk around the pool to the greenhouse. Cyprus mulch laded the air with fond memories. Once upon a good life, I had spent hours making over the various plants.

In the greenhouse, I settled the pistol on the lip of the potter filled with Brussels sprouts and tackled the spinach, green onion, basil. The plants weren’t keeping up. Maybe Joel would find more seed.

The hairs rose on the back of my neck. I stilled my movements.

Nothing. No birds. No katydids. No rustling trees.

I stepped out. Two familiar figures stood on the retaining wall on the other side of the pool. Annie wore her sundress with rainbow stitching. Aaron hunched behind her in his Star Wars shirt, an arm wrapped around her leg, the other around a teddy bear named Booey. I took a steeling breath and approached the pool on shaky legs.

Annie’s face lit up. “Look Mama. I found him. See?”

The wind caught her dress and she held it in place. Aaron looked up at his sister and giggled.

She ruffled his hair and pinned me with the golden glow of her eyes. “Mama? The water’s warm now. Can we swim today?”

My heart jumped to my throat. I stopped a few feet before them. “I don’t think so, honey.”

She tilted her head and crossed her arms. “You don’t have time for us anymore, Mama.”

“Course I do, sweetheart.” Sobs cut up my words. I wanted to comfort her, but she was just another hallucination.

Annie extended her arm and pointed a finger in my direction. She tugged Aaron to his feet. Their skin and muscle sizzled. Then it melted from their small skeletal frames.

My muscles locked. I opened my mouth to scream. No sound came out.

Their skeletons flaked into dust and evaporated into a gray mist. The vapor gusted through me as if a vacuum inhaled it from behind.

All the sounds of summer exploded at once. Chills invaded, reached into my bones. I covered my ears and turned my head to follow the mist.

A fully mutated aphid crouched six feet away. Its wide body and enlarged back forced it to hump over. The insect-like mouth wormed out. A stylet protruded from a sheath. The mouth clicked. Black fluid leaked out.

Pinpricked pupils dotted its all white eyes. Eyes that measured me in the same manner I measured it. Muscles and blood rippled under green see-through skin. Scraps of a receding hair line and beard outlined its bulbous head.

No, it couldn’t be. A heart and arrow tattoo seemed to pump over cartilage and veins on its chest. It was Stan. Flirty fucking Stan who lived two houses down.

It shifted on its double-jointed legs and inched forward. Fuck. The fucking pistol was in the greenhouse. The scissors I used to cut spinach weighted my hand.

The pool sat a knife’s throw to my left. Was it a good time to test Joel’s water theory? A pitch fork stuck out of the compost pile on my right.

Stay alive.

I whipped the scissors at the aphid. Leapt for the pitch fork. Pinned the handle between my ribs and upper arm. Then I turned to face it.

It plunged into the fork with mouthparts snapping. Hooks for hands clawed at my face and missed me by millimeters. The thing continued attacking as if it didn’t feel the tongs impaling its chest and the scissors lodged in its neck.

My pulse raced. I held it squirming at a distance as it robbed my courage. It weighed at least a hundred pounds more than me and struck with the speed of a rattler. I needed skill over strength.

Can we swim today?

I aimed the fork at the pool. It shoved back and redirected with a swinish force. We were three feet from the water’s edge. Might as well have been three miles.

A claw flew out. Brushed my hair. Missed my head. I squeezed the fork’s handle. Wrenched it from the aphid’s chest and raised it over my shoulder.

My heart raced. Black innards dripped from the fork’s tongs next to my face. I swung the handle downward, smacking the point that thrust from its gaping maw.

The mouth went limp with a squeal. I hit it again. Exhaustion stole my balance. The aphid hit the ground and so did I. I kicked it in the torso and it rolled over the edge of the pool.

A pincer shot up and closed around my ankle. I scraped my nails along the concrete edge. My fingers lost purchase. A huge breath filled my lungs and I went underwater.

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

Stephen King,
It

The noon sun lit up the water with crystal clarity. The aphid sank and pulled me with it. I bent my waist and pried the claw on my ankle. It clamped harder.

Pressure pounded my chest. The aphid body had zero buoyancy, a fucking anchor attached to my leg. It didn’t struggle. Didn’t pull. Just simply sank.

Panic set in. The need to gasp set my lungs on fire. What was I thinking using the pool as a means to escape that thing?

The aphid’s skin pulsed in a pearlescent glimmer. A kaleidoscope of formations came and went, morphing its body. For a few precious seconds, I was captivated by the transformation. Tumors emerged, fungus-like, bubbling on its back and arms. Beads of air clouded the water and clung to my hair floating around me. It was dissolving.

I kicked with my legs and worked at the claw with my hand. Tiny hairs, like razor-sharp spines, bit my palm.

Then the hook went limp, releasing me. The abomination that was my neighbor drifted away, sinking, eyes open and staring. I swam like hell and didn’t look back until the front door was barricaded behind me with extra boards and more nails than it needed.

Joel found me that night slouched at the kitchen island, still in my clothes, which were dry and stiff.
Clunk-clunk-clunk
filled the room as his gear hit the floor. I slipped my shredded palm under the counter when he approached.

He glanced at the reinforced front door then turned hawk eyes on me. “Evie?”

I gave him a lazy smile. “Hey.”

“What happened today?” Low and steady, his tone alerted me nothing was getting by him.

“There was a situation.”

He sat down across the island and raked his fingers through his hair. “Tell me.”