Project Pallid (30 page)

It’s
only when I get the wheel aligned that I slam the gas again. I hit 30, then 40,
then 50, in seconds flat, and he slides from the roof, tumbles down the back,
and rolls to the ground behind me.

And
as I get to the end of the street and come to a split-second stop, I catch a
final look over my shoulder to see him leap upright and take off,
scramble-sprinting my way.

I
bang a left, and I don’t look back.

Ryan
Hayes isn’t worth another second of my time.

May 11
^th:
10:27 A.M.

Like
I said, I’ve never been behind the wheel before, and I might as well have
commandeered an alien spacecraft for all I know about driving. I stop a mile or
two from the end of my road and pull over to adjust the seat and mirrors the
best I can, and to accommodate the fact that I’m only 5’5” and driving an iron yacht,
built for a twelve-man crew. The leather bench seat is alarmingly
white—too reminiscent of the rest of the whiteness in my life right
now—and the seatbelt is completely essential for locking me in place at
the car’s helm. I learned that at the first sharp corner, when I slid across
the seat’s slick surface and into the passenger side.

Repositioned
and focused entirely on the road now, I’ve nearly mastered the art of keeping
the beast between the lines, and I stick as close to center as possible. Its heavy
engine hums under the hood, and I can feel its power run through the gas pedal
and into my foot. It feels good. Like driving’s a weapon, all its own.

Most
of the route to Madison is a straight-shot from Platsville with almost no turns
at all until you get to town, so the ride becomes an exercise in patience, more
than in driving. Having already mastered the art of gas, brake, and
straight-shot steering, I only slow enough to creep by intermittent houses, and
I eyeball each one for signs of life.

It’s
like everything dried up and blew away during my time underground. There’s
none, anywhere.

Some
houses are boarded up with cars that sit in barren driveways. I pass a couple
on the sides of the road, too: stopped, broken-down, whatever. But like the
ones on my road, they only look like trouble.

It
takes another ten minutes to cross the Madison town line, and the houses become
tighter grouped; the opportunity to find life becomes more likely. Still, all I
find is the absence of it. There’s hardly a bird in the sky, moreover, people
in the streets. But
they’re
there. And there’re plenty of them, too:
hordes of pallid bodies, littering lawns and strewn across the sides of the
road, some even in it, and I have to swerve my yacht in back and forths to
avoid them.

There’s
no movement from any one. They’re all dead now—at the hands of each
other. As rampant, white blood cells exhaust their hosts, they turn to outside
sources for survival. Anyone or anything is disposable—especially
competition. Or so, that’s how I’ve assembled it all. And when there’s nothing
else left, and when the fuel runs dry, the disease implodes like a star, and it
leaves behind the worn out shells of people I once knew. People I once loved.

There
comes a point in downtown Madison where, in spite of my best maneuvering, the
collection of corpses becomes so dense that they’re unavoidable. Solutions
flash through my head—like stopping to clear a path, or turning around to
find another route—but each alternative is marked with its own perils and
dangers that I can’t rationalize as worth the added danger. And so slowly, with
soft-spoken apologies and grimaced teeth, I ease the Marquis over the dead in
downtown’s intersections.

“I’m
sorry,” I whimper. “Sorry.” “Ooomph.” “Sorry again.” It’s disgusting, not
knowing who’s under my tires as I rise and fall over the fallen. But given the
circumstance, I have to imagine they’d understand, and that they’d do the same
thing in my shoes, and for the greater cause.

And,
clear of the white landmines, I’m only blocks from Catee’s house. It’s just at
the end of the road and a few blocks in. The excitement of finally getting to
her brings me to the cusp of carelessness as my foot pushes the pedal closer
and closer to the ground; the determined hum of the engine grows in suit. Lost
in thought—of what I’ll do when I see her—of what I’ll do if she’s
not there—I nearly pass the street to her house, and I slam on the brakes
and screech rubber; the car lurches and I almost lose control.

At
a stop, I’m facing the wrong direction, and I ease the gas and pull the wheel
to a hard left. I make as sharp a turn as the behemoth’s oversized frame
permits, and U-turn it onto her block.

The
fallout here’s as obvious as anywhere else I’ve seen; the silent desolation of
it all is exactly the same. Windows are boarded, front doors swing open, cars
sit vacant in driveways, and nothing moves. Not a person. Not an animal. Not
even the wind through the trees. It’s like all the life has been sucked from
Madison.

And,
like downtown, Catee’s road is littered with the white and the fallen. But the
few who took final fights to the streets are easy to navigate, and I don’t have
to contend with the sickly thump of speed-bump bodies any longer.

Two
turns later, I ease the Marquis into her driveway and leave the engine to idle
as I scrutinize the house and yard, and I plot my next move. It’s intrinsic to
want to dive out and rush in—to throw open the door and scream to her
that I’ve finally made it—but that’s foolishness, and I can’t risk exposure
after I’ve come so far and gotten so close.

The
house looks almost exactly as I last saw it. With Mr. Laverdier gone, there was
no one left to board it up like so many of the others I’d seen along the way.
The grass is longer, obviously unkempt, but aside from that, their house looks,
in isolation, as though it’s entirely unscathed by the surrounding decimation.

Not
to be too weighed down, I select a small knife from my bag that seems easy
enough to carry, but because I’ve got no place to put it without stabbing
myself, I opt for the tried and true—my stake—at least until I
figure a more functional way to carry my arsenal with me.

The
heavy door of the Grand Marquis squawks loudly as I ease it open, and I close
it behind me with as much silent precision as possible. I scan the yard and try
to peer through the closed windows of her house, and I wonder if she heard me
pull in. Why isn’t she rushing out to me with open arms? When I get to the
foyer door, it’s unlocked, and I pull it open and tiptoe inside. The garage
door to my right sits open, and I scan its guts: Nothing. No one.

Her
front door is locked, and at the risk of getting too loud by breaking the
glass, I leave it temporarily to head to the backyard and to the eave where I’d
seen her retrieve their spare key a dozen times before. Luckily, it’s still
there. And back at the door, it slides into the chamber and the locks pops
loose. It swings inward all on its own, as if it’s inviting me in.

Her
house, like everything else since my surfacing, is uncommonly quiet to the
point of discomfort. Uninviting before, its desolation has taken on an entirely
different and magnified interpretation of the word. It feels like I’m doing
something unlawful by walking in alone—like I’m breaking and entering.
But then again, like carjacking, life—or whatever this is—is
lawless now. It’s about survival. And my only job is to ensure that hers is
safe.

“Catee?”
I softly ask the empty air. Aside from the vacant garage and the absent boxes
from the hall, everything looks as it always had.

“Catee???”
I repeat, and inch closer and closer to her bedroom door.

One
hand on the knob, and with my stake propped against the closest wall, I knock
gently. “Catee … it’s Damian …” I say in a hushed whisper. “Catee? Are you in
there?”

With
no response, I turn its knob and the door pops open.

The
room’s empty.

I
step inside for a better look: under the bed, in the closet, she isn’t there.
Dumbfounded, I stand in its center.
What next? Where she could be? Is she
okay, wherever she is?
And then I see it: a handwritten letter that sits
unfolded, on her desk. My name screams from its top in a handwriting that’s so
familiar it brings tears to my eyes. It’s the first I’ve heard from anyone in
so long, even if they are just words on paper, and my newfound hardness melts
some; I can feel some of the soft Damian returning, but I shake him off. Not
here. Not now. That Damian’s dead to me now. He’s of no use in this world.

Damian,

I
don’t have much time. He broke my phone and he’s taking me away with him. I
tried to stay and wait for you, but I can’t. I don’t have a choice.

I
hope we find each other before it’s too late. I’ll always remember you.

I
love you.

Catee

I can’t stop myself from becoming lost in
the letter. I read it again, hold it tight, and I smell it in search of her
scent. And with a sigh to release the air I’ve held deep in my lungs, my
heartbeat returns, my eyelids open, and my reflection stares at me from above
her desk.

The paleness of my confinement is still
there. My hair’s disheveled, and my complexion’s marred with caked-on dirt
that’s streaked in trails of salty tears that I’ve too routinely shed. But
there are none left in me to offer their dried-up beds. There’s only rage
inside me now. A fiery one that burns behind the hardened stare I shoot at my
own reflection.

My clenched hands come undone. I lift the
mirror from its hook, crash it to my knee, and shatter it to a thousand shiny
fragments that clink to the ground. I hurl its frame across the room—hard
enough that it smashes into her bedroom window and wedges itself
there—before I pick-up the letter, refold its creases, tuck it away, and
storm from her room.

My spear’s hurled into the back of the
car, and I slam its door shut. Then the front one, too, as I climb aboard my
Grand Marquis—totally ambivalent to the possibility of attack—not
even worried about defending myself anymore. Why should I? I’ve got rage on my
side now: untethered,
 
unfiltered
rage to keep me going, and nobody and nothing will stop me.

Chunks of Mr. Laverdier’s lawn spin from
under the heavy tires of my land yacht as I tear across it and smash his FOR
SALE sign from its post. It clangs to the hood, shoots over the roof, and it clangs
to the ground behind me.

It’s just an empty house now.
 

It’s never been, and it’ll never again
be, anyone’s home.

May
11
^th:
11:42 A.M.

The ride to the university isn’t
far—a few miles at most—and it isn’t unique to what I’ve seen
elsewhere. As expected, its dense population has created even more victims, and
the shredded bodies of the pale and maimed line the way there.

Nicole and I aren’t what you’d classify
as the best of friends—at least, not on the surface. But to judge us by
dinner table demeanor alone, fails to address the deep-running roots we’ve got.
It’d be like assessing the beauty of a tree in the dead of winter and failing
to recognize its cyclical nature. We’ve had our ups and downs—more downs
than ups as we hit our teens—but that’s true of any brother and sister.
The strength of our bond runs much deeper than any snapshot can provide, and
it’s built on the isolationism we both felt being raised alone, but together,
in rural Platsville.

She and I built our first, then our
second, then our third, fourth, and fifth cabin in the woods together. And we’d
spent countless summer days riding bikes and getting into more trouble than I
can say. We’d been each other’s support systems long before we’d made outside
friends, and long before their pressures and guilty pleasures pulled us further
and further apart. Despite everything, Nicole’s my sister. She always has been,
and she’ll always be. And with my dad gone now—my mom, too, in a
sense—Nicole might be all the family I’ve got left.

So, as I pull onto campus for only the
second time ever, I hope she made the right choice in staying behind. I never
heard back from the frantic voicemail I left her, and I don’t know if she knows
anything about Dad. Had she seen the news, too? Either way, and no matter what,
I won’t tell her about what happened in the basement—not yet. Not when we
still have so much left to do. Not when I need her strong. If Nicole knows
nothing, I’ll keep it that way for as long as possible.

By the time I get up the rising lane that
leads to the campus’ main entrance, I’m convinced I’ve got no idea where I’m
going. Had I ever imagined I’d be driving here alone, in post-apocalyptic
fallout, I would’ve paid more attention to where we were going when we first
dropped her off.

Rolling along, I survey the bodies that
line the road. I weave through the ones I can, and I cautiously roll over those
that I can’t. I inspect what remains of faces, and I hope to not see hers among
the dead. The campus map, billboard style, sits just ahead and to the left, and
I know I’ve got to stop. I remember Androscoggin Hall, but that’s it. I can’t
begin to guess where it sits on the sprawling acreage of campus; and it’s with
great hesitancy, but necessity, that I throw the car into park, leave its
engine to idle, and step from its creaky door to find her dorm on the map.