Fiction: The Deemed – Part 1 (by Chris)

THE DEEMED

Raith slept on the floor the night his parents died. He heard nothing as he slept; not the final mumblings of his father as delirium gave way to darkness nor the clunk of his mother’s locket as it fell from her hand with no one to save its fall. He dreamed of dark clouds stirring in tumult, clouds that formed the maw of a great angry face. In his dream, he knew it was the face of God.

When he rose the next morning, he tried to wake them but was unsuccessful. Somewhere inside, he knew that they were gone but his conscious mind wouldn’t let him accept it. He shook them and shook them until the cold of their skin sickened his stomach and he ran to the bathroom to wretch. He couldn’t bring himself to return to the room all that day. He was in agony; he wanted to scream, to cry, to destroy, but instead he wept and did his best to distract himself from the sorrow that plagued him.

He decided that he’d been in the house for too long. Ever since the sickness hit, three weeks past, the only person to leave the house had been his father and it was only out of necessity. The family had run out of food and were running dangerously low on water. Thankfully, it had just been the three of them. That one excursion has cost his parents their lives while he remained healthy and the thought wrenched at his heart. The night before, his father had told him that he’d been immune. He must have been immune. He said that he and Raith’s mother could die content knowing that he would be able to go on. Raith tried to diffuse him, told him not to talk like that. He’d taken aspirin. He was going to be okay and his fever had already broken. But it hadn’t been true and they were gone.

In the weeks since the sickness first surfaced, the nights first grew in noise and then slowly, day by day, slipped into silence deeper than any he’d ever known. The power had gone out with no one to work the plants. Without sound, without light, the darkness was the blanket that draped the world. What scared him the most was when something did break the silence. Shattering glass, bangs, shouts (moans), frightened him as if he were a child less than his 16 years.

But he was immune and he could leave if he wanted and not have to worry. He’d have to come back, he knew. He couldn’t leave his parents in their room for long. At the moment, however, he couldn’t stand to be in the same house the held so much pain.

* * *

He lived in a small town 15 miles from the ocean where it all began. The day the fish died, the country stood at attention. One morning, the waves brought in more than driftwood and stray trash. Wave after wave of dead white fish washed into the shore. Their bodies had made up most of the oceanfront since.

The disease had a mortality rate in the high eighties and a contagion that was nearly universal. Some people thought it’d spread from the deepest parts of the ocean. Others speculated that a meteor might have hit carrying some alien virus. In the end, it really didn’t matter. They were all dead. By the last reports they’d heard on the radio, it was spreading across the country like the worst kind of wild fire. Its spread was unprecedented and those who contracted it died within days. Symptoms varied but almost always resulted in a fever that boiled the blood until the victim succumbed to hallucinations and a sleep they would never wake from. Over the course of those days, victims suffered pulmonary distress and extreme swelling of the glands, causing breath to wheeze and rasp. Raith’s parents had turned red in the face the day before they passed and had sweat profusely through the night.

By the time the power went out, the news was reporting widespread panic. The sickness had spread across the country. People in the most important of jobs were being told to report in but most didn’t for fear of catching the disease. Hospitals were filled into their lobbies and all general practitioners were asked to come to the aid of their communities. Military law had been declared in Boston, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. All large cities were under strict quarantines enforced by armed guards. Raith’s own town had been quarantined but due to its small size and an already taxed military, it was exempt from the martial law that it would prove to need.

* * *

He’d been able to see out the front windows until his father boarded them up but, even still, the desecration of his street shocked him. Windows were broken in most of the houses and vehicles. A television lay smashed on the sidewalk a few houses down from his own. He walked the street in silent awe and as he walked, he walked alone.

Two blocks from his home, a car sat crumpled against a telephone pole. Raith had seen car crashes before. His Driver Ed. instructor had been sure to show them several videos about the “dangers” of reckless driving. Here though, in his own town, surrounded by two story white shuttered homes, the wreck seemed out of place and all the more disturbing. He walked past it slowly. The driver lay against the steering wheel. There was blood but not much. The driver had apparently died from the impact but the puffiness of the face told him that he’d been sick too. Either way, the man was doomed.

The residentials faded to the business district over the next three blocks. Similar desolation lined the streets and seemed to get worse the closer to town he got. Public garbages were over turned and laying in the streets. One lay on its side on the front porch of an old white Victorian home, apparently used to smash out the front window. It was obvious that in their final moments, the townspeople had resorted to looting; he was sure that most was done for sheer opportunity but thought that some had probably searched the houses out of desperation for medicine or food. In a dark way, the destruction of the town, the lack of humanity, reminded him of the worst kind of fallout, like stuff he’d seen in old science fiction movies. Where was everyone? Everyone couldn’t have died. He was here after all and his own existence meant that others must also be.

Something moved behind the broken panes of the house. He stood, suddenly more scared than he remembered being, but saw only the silhouettes of overturned furniture and debris. He waited but nothing else stirred. A trick of the mind, he thought. Stress. He considered investigating, as he had for several of the houses he’d passed, but decided against it. He knew that, like his own, the houses were probably homes to the deceased. He walked on, seeing and hearing nothing more from the dead houses.

As he made his way into town, he found himself weak in the knees. Similar destruction had reaped the small business district but there were bodies. Not all of them had been sick, either. A man lay, hung over a pane of glass, in the view window of Palmer’s Shopperette. Another man lay on his back in the middle of the road arms spread out wide, a manhole making a mock halo above his head. A dark red blotch marred his chest where he’d been shot. Still, the town was quiet. Raith was mortified; terrified. He’d never seen such horror done to another human being. He hedged away from the people, continuing on, not thinking about where he was going but focused on keeping his legs moving away from the scene behind him. When he was passed the dead man, he broken into a run.

He ran without regard down the road, his eyes pressed shut. He didn’t know where he was going, he just knew that he wanted to be away. He felt sick and exhilarated at the same time. More than anything, he wanted to believe that somewhere in the wasteland there was safety, that somewhere out there was a kind hand and some vestige of the world he’d known less than a month before.

He tripped and fell hard onto the asphalt, scraping his palms reflecting the sting in his eyes; he hadn’t realized that he’d been crying. When he was able to see, he opened his eyes to a small white church in the town square. The town had been built around the church, reflecting its conservative history. The building itself was small, longer than it was tall, with a black paneled roof that rose into a high steeple. Black double doors stood at the top of the stone steps.

Words were painted across their face in dripping, red scrawl.

BEHOLD THE JUDGMENT OF GOD

He scrambled back, startled. They had defaced the church before they died. What happened to people? There was nothing but fear in the face of death; no respect, no love, no hope. Only fear. He turned and ran from the town, closing his eyes past the dead men.

* * *

He didn’t stop until he was back into the residentials. He had passed the Victorian home with the broken bay window when a cry pierced the air behind him.

“Waaaaaaaiiiiit! Please wait!” It was the high pitched scream of a child, mingled with sobs.

Raith stumbled, taken off guard. He turned to see a little girl in a dirty pink day dress running towards him. Her face was smudged and tear steaked.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Please help me. There’s no one here and you’re not one of them. I know you’re not. Take me with you. Please.” She begged.

“Wait, what do you mean? Not one of who?”

“We can’t talk about it here. They’ll be back soon. We have to go. Take me with you. Mommy and Daddy are gone, I can go.”

“I… I have something I need to do.” He said, thinking of his own parents. “There’s no one else with you?”

“I’m all alone. Daddy stayed the longest but he was sick, like Mommy. You’re the only one I’ve seen that’s not one of them. They can’t find us.”

He wasn’t sure about it but told her to come along. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine and, even though he didn’t know what to do with her, he couldn’t leave her all by herself. He asked her if she needed anything but she only looked at the ground. On the walk back to the house, she told him her name was Joanna Stark. She’d was in third grade but thought that most of her friends were probably with God now. That’s what her Daddy said about Mommy. Raith thought she was probably right but didn’t tell her.

* * *

He made her wait in his bedroom as he did it. He’d cleaned her up, given her food and water, and told her to rest. She needed sleep. He knew that she had a lot to tell but he couldn’t spare a moment to hear it just now. He had something to take care of.

He couldn’t carry his parents out of the house. They were too heavy for him and their bodies had begun to stiffen. Instead, he wrapped them in the sheets of the bed, covered them with the blanket and, as easily as he could, pulled them downstairs. He had to stop more than once as the pain overtook him and there wasn’t a moment when he didn’t cry. It was hard to believe that that his mother and father were in the softened bundle behind him. I’m sorry, he thought. Oh God, I’m so sorry.

He buried them in the garden where they’d spent so much time. With each shovel full of dirt he dug, memory would overtake him. How his dad had shown him how to shave years before he grew his first whisker; he used a disposable shaver with the razor removed, his face covered in far too much shaving cream. But when he stood beside his father doing the same it didn’t matter. His mother, insisting on taking pictures of him and his date before his first semi-formal dance. He’d been so embarrassed then, but would that he could have her back now. They both read through every short story he wrote. They both made their way to his soccer games and concerts with the school band.

When it was done and he’d put them in the grave, his vision was blurred so bad he could barely see. He crumpled on top on the mass of sheet and blanket, thinking not of the dirt that would stain him but only of his worst remorse. He scraped in the first few layers of dirt with his hands while he was still in the hole with them. In time, he extricated himself and finished the task rightfully, using the shovel and patting the ground when he was done. He prayed then, not to a God who’d forsaken them, but to one who would feel his pain and answer his prayers.

“I’m so sorry, Mom and Dad. I should have gone for help…” and fell to his knees anew.

Joanna watched him from the window but said nothing more to him for the rest of the night.

* * *

The next morning, Raith had a plan. He was on his own now and had a little girl to take care of. He wouldn’t make the same mistake he’d made with his parents and just hope for everything to turn out okay. He’d have to do something, go somewhere, where people were still healthy. Joanna was asleep when he’d returned to the house the previous night but he woke her early the next morning.

“We have to go.” He said, and without quabble, she rose and followed him downstairs. He explained his plan while they ate a proper Sunday morning breakfast of dried fruit and canned Juicy Juice.

“We need to get out of here. There’s nothing left in this town Joanna. I’ve been thinking and I think that anyone still healthy would try to get to a hospital. Mom used to tell me that if I ever got lost I could go there and someone would help me. It was a ‘safe zone’ she called it. I think if there are still healthy people, that’s where they’d expect us to go.”

“But—“ Joanna tried to cut in.

“I know. It’s all the way on the outside of town but it’s not very far. It couldn’t be more than a couple of hours walk.”

“But—“

“We can’t drive. Before it got so bad, Dad said they had all the exits blocked, so people couldn’t get out and spread the disease. We’re going to leave as soon as you’re done. The sooner we can be out of here, the better.”

“Raith?” She said. “Aren’t you scared?”

“Of course I am. But we don’t have a choice. It’s that or we stay here for the rest of our lives and wait for someone to come get us. We can’t do that Joanna. It won’t work. If we’re getting out of here we need to do it ourselves.”

Joanna said no more. Raith was determined and what he said made sense. No one came to help you when you were in trouble. She’d only found Raith by chance and she only knew he wasn’t one of them because he was alone. They were never alone. When they finished eating, they left, locking the door behind them.

The journey began just as Raith’s had the day before. Nothing moved, no sound was made. The town was a scene of destruction but empty. Raith shielded Joanna’s eyes from the man in the wrecked car and hurried along towards her home and the business district. When they passed, Joanna wouldn’t look at the house. She watched her feet and made a face that looked like crying. But there were no tears.

They walked into the business district. The road arced downwards into town and, from this angle, they could just make out top of the hospital past the quarantine line. He wouldn’t be surprised if a path had been made just to get the towns people to the hospital without letting them any further. They were like caged rats. They walked on. Raith, again, shielded her eyes as they passed the bodies, acting strong by will alone.

As they neared the church, they heard voices. Real, human, voices. Joy surged through him.

“Come on!” He told Joanna and tried to pull her along but she stood frozen in fear. “What’s the matter with you? There’s people. Come on!” And tried to pull her again. She wouldn’t move. “Joanna, what’s the matter?”

“It’s them.” She said. Her voice strained. She shook her head and Raith could feel her tremble. Footsteps approached them somewhere from the direction of the church but they couldn’t see anyone yet. “They’re coming! Come on, Raith! Come on!” She pulled frantically on his arm, trying to pull him into a nearby store. Her terror persuaded him and he allowed himself to be moved. They hid behind a display case.

“Who are those people, Joanna? What’s gotten into you?” He whispered.

“They, they think God did this to us. There’s this crazy woman and they all do what she says and she’s bad. She thinks she can talk to God, Raith, and Mommy said that only Jesus could do that. She’s not Jesus.”

“But they might be able to help us!” He said, forcing his voice to remain whispered.

“They won’t. They won’t. They saw me one time, when I came out after Mommy and Daddy died. They grabbed me and took me to her and she said that if I was pure God would have taken me. She said I had to be punished, that all children had to be punished because we had sin on us. She’s crazy Raith. Don’t let her get us.”

“What happened?”

“The man holding me had his hand on my mouth. They took me to a tent and it was only her and another man there. When I heard what she said, I bit him. Hard. I got his blood in my mouth but I ran as fast as I could. She was screaming for people to get me and that she would find me. That’s why I didn’t come out when you passed my house the first time. I didn’t know if you were one of them.”

He considered her words. Had people gone that mad where they could believe such a thing? He’d watched documentaries about people believing insane things when they were scared. He wanted to believe her.

“We have to get to the hospital either way. We’ll have to sneak by them.” For a moment, Joanna looked as if she might refuse. “We’ll try to move through the buildings. We’ll hide. They won’t find us Joanna. It’s going to be okay.” Two men passed outside the store.

“She’s right.” One said. “We fell too far and now it’s our time.”

“She can talk to him man!” Said the other. “Can you fucking believe it? She can actually fucking talk to him.”

The rest of their words were lost as they passed beyond the store. It was enough for Raith.

They made their way into the street and quickly moved behind an abandoned car before moving into another decrepit building. It used to be the town florist. Dead flower petals were strewn across the floor. They continued sneaking onwards until they could see the church.

A crowd of twenty people stood grouped around the stairs. Atop them, before the defaced doors stood a woman with disheveled hair and a ragged floral dress. Raith recognized some of the people in the crowd. Mr. Sands, Mrs. Waltson, he even thought he saw Mr. Beaweather, his fifth grade math teacher. A man stood at the top of the stairs holding an elderly man on his knees before him. The old man was gagged and already bleeding from a cut above his eye.

“Sinners!” She shouted. “A world full of sinners! And their price has been paid. But we remain.” The crowd murmured in ascent. “Oh yes, we are the chosen children. We know the word. We know to strike down the unclean as God himself has shown us of late. The world has forgotten the lessons of our Lord and we enter into a new Old Testament.” Cheers erupted from the standing. “Yes, my children, I am your mother. Mother Madeline and I hear the words” her voice echoed of the sweetest revelry as she drunk herself deep on the indulgence. “And God shall speak to the mother, as she to her children. The power is unto me. Not all that remain are clean, no. Let us not forget the child,” Joanna tensed. “that escaped us. God told me, ‘Madeline, strike her down. Children are without sin but I leave her here as a test to you. She is unclean. Many are unclean.’ And so it is! God has told me that this old man,” she pointed at him. “has not accepted his word. The time has come and passed, old Bartholomew. Repent now, lest you find pain everlasting when you art loosed from this world.” The man holding him removed the gag. The crowd around shouted obscenities. Sinner, they called him. Filth.

“I…” he said. “I… have made my peace.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head.

“Then so be it.” She removed the knife from the waistband of her dress.

Raith grabbed Joanna and covered her eyes against the scene that followed. Mother Madeline killed the old man on nothing more than whim and the onlookers cheered. The hospital wasn’t far now. They had only to get around the church and they could make a run for it. No matter which way they chose to go, they could not pass the circle that surrounded the building without exposing themselves.

“Joanna, we’ve got to go now, while they’re distracted. See that road in front of us? All we have to do is run across it into the next building and we can sneak around them. This is our only chance. Do you hear me? Then let’s go. Come on! Go! Go now!” He pushed her forward and grabbed her arm as they made a break across the road to the left of the crowd.

They had almost made it but it was too late. Mother had seen them and shrieked unearthly.

“Children!” She yelled. “The girl! Get them! Get them, now! It is our test! They must die!”

The crowd surged after them. There was no point in hiding. It was only a race now, twenty adult versus two children. They avoided the store they’d been aiming for and went into the circle where the church sat. It was open and their only chance was to make a bee-line for the hospital. Raith didn’t know whether they would make it or, even if they did, whether anyone would be there to save them. He only knew that in this town there was only death.

He started running holding Joanna’s arm but quickly scooped her up in his arms. They had a head start but not much. They ran out of the circle and back into another street of businesses and apartments buildings. They could hear the ragged screams of the crowd that hunted them, their breath as they wheezed pursuit.

“You can’t run!” One shouted.

“You’re going to die, little sinners!” Shouted another.

Joanna buried her face in Raith’s shoulder and cried outright for the first time since they’d met. A gunshot rang out behind them and streetlamp burst above their heads.

“Don’t!” He heard one yell. “They are for her.”

Rocks and other objects flew at them, some striking Raith painfully. He was so close now. They chased him but he was faster even with the weight of the girl. The businesses and buildings faded away and he approached a tall barbed wire fence. On the other side, he could see the hospital completely just a short distance away. There was a single gap in the one surrounding the town, where the road passed through, but it was blocked with several large army vehicles. Dead men, soldiers succumbed to the virus, sat in the seats and lay propped up against their sides.

They were gaining on him and his heart sank. He would fail. There was no way through. Then he felt it. She pressed her face against his neck, wetting him with her tears, and kissed him. It was so sweet, so small, that in the terror of the moment he knew that he couldn’t let go.

“Hold on,” he said. “I’m going to need my hands.” She gripped him with all her might.

“No!” A man behind them screamed. It was Mr. Beaweather.

He clambered onto the hood of one of the vehicles and nearly slipped. It was an old army Jeep, the kind with no roof, and he tumbled from the windshield into the cab. He fell half into the lap of a long deceased soldier, still in his Army regalia but with no pride left with which to wear it. He kicked and grasped his way upright, knocking the body with a sickening softness and causing it to slump over. Raith’s hesitation cost him dearly; they were already on the vehicle by the time he jumped out.

It was now a matter of success or failure. Nothing more stood in his way. Open road and grass lay between him and the hospital. The building, he noticed, had its own barbed wire fence surrounding it. But the main road into the parking lot was cut off with two chain link doors. Two watch towers stood on either side of them. Could there be people there, up in those towers?

He had no time to think about it. They were over the car now and gaining. He was out of breath, slowing down even though ever fiber of his being told him to push onwards. Their feet stamped the beat of he and Joanna’s demise into his ears. Closer. He was getting closer. But so were they.

“No!” Mr. Beaweather screamed. “No! They’re ours!”

Yes, there were people in those watch towers. He could see their silhouettes moving against the morning sun.

“Help us! God, please help us! Please!” Raith screamed, tears streaming down his own face. He put his head down and put forth a final burst of speed. They were so close.

Gunshots rang out from behind them. Their regard for Mother Madeline now forgotten, they wanted only their prey. Seconds afterwords, more shots rang out but not from behind them. The men in the towers were shooting at them. This was it, they came seeking salvation to find their own end. Shot after shot pierced the air and Raith closed his eyes against his fate. Joanna screamed.

And just like that the footsteps behind them stopped pounding. There was only quiet. Raith reached the gate but it didn’t move. He grasped the chainlinks in his fingers and collapsed. When he opened his eyes, he saw his pursuers lying dead on the ground behind him. He grabbed Joanna, she too was unharmed. He closed his eyes and rest his head against the fence.

“Are you sick?” A voice called out from above them. When he looked up he saw a man in a rubber suit and gasmask, that reminded him oddly of a beekeeper.

“I’m… immune.” He panted and looked at Joanna. “We’re immune.”

“Let them in.” The man on the tower issued the command, the gates opened, and they were saved.

* * *

In the days that followed, they found out that similar destruction had ravaged most of the country and parts of the world. Most of America’s biggest cities had turned into the world’s biggest graveyards in a matter of weeks. The military had done their best to stem the spread of the disease but, in the end, most had contracted it and died themselves. The American government was in tatters.

Three months after the first cases of the illness were reported, a vaccine was created. It was mandatory for all citizens but, in truth, amounted to nothing since most of those that remained carried a natural immunity anyways. The country moved on.

In time, the crazy’s and fanatics, like those in Raith and Joanna’s town, were cleared out and held to bear for the atrocities they had committed. Many escaped, it is true, but America retained little law enforcement and there was nothing that could be done. It could only be hoped that few of these escapees returned back into society separate from where they had left. Mother Madeline was put to death by firing squad within a week of Raith and Joanna’s salvation. Ten separate bodies had been found within the church where she held execution. The others in her brood looked on before being sentenced themselves.

Joanna and Raith grew up together as brother and sister. Raith took her with him, wherever he went. He never left her but, in time, she left him.

THE END