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bki-writing-blog · 6 years

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No. 6

Otto wasn’t sure how many more phone calls he could take. His parents were the subject of the first call that came in two months ago, when the bacterial plague started to take lives. Since then, every call he’s tried to make to family or friends was not answered by them, but by a government agency a few days later, notifying him that whoever he tried to contact recently was confirmed dead. Every. Single. Time. By becoming a librarian, Otto hoped to continue living the quiet, introverted lifestyle he never grew out of, but he had never imagined such a scale of isolation. A week ago, Otto crossed another name out of his directory, his last friend in the Los Angeles area. No more family. No more friends. There was one contact left in his phonebook under the name: “Kode.” He was a friend he hung out with when he still lived out in New York before moving to Los Angeles when he was thirteen. He had actually been the first number Otto had put into his phone. When he called his number, a chime sounded off followed by an automated voice. It said that the number could no longer be reached and that the system would send him a correct number in the future if one could be found. That’s the moment Otto decided to go to New York. He wouldn’t miss a possible chance to see the last person on Earth he knew; he had built up enough guilt from not seeing anyone else before they passed. Plus, if he couldn’t see this Kode again, he could at least get some comfort in seeing his hometown again.

Otto was reluctant to step foot in LAX with some of the extra security measures, but if he really wanted to get across the country fast he knew he would have to put up with them. Because the bacteria developed new strains quickly, newer versions of the cure and vaccine had been issued, the latest being No. 6. While international flights remained grounded, today cross-country flights were allowed – Otto considered himself lucky. Beyond the security line was a cylindrical tube that connected all the way to high ceiling of the terminal. Inside the machine, plastic restraints unfolded from the walls onto Otto’s arm. A needle drew a blood sample and another tool cauterized the injection hole from the needle. Otto looked away to avoid a fit of squeamish fidgets and growled from the pain as the exit door opened. He scuttled to the conveyor, slung his bag over his shoulder, and took deep breaths. He never wanted to be inside one of those things again. Otto had trouble putting his earbuds in his ears with his surgical mask in the way. Even after wearing it non-stop for two months – besides for the relief that was a meal – it still annoyed Otto. It was uncomfortable now, but he knew he shouldn’t dare to take it off. Not here. It was annoying looking at everyone wearing them too; they reminded Otto of dogs wearing muzzles. Otto sat down in a row of seats and looked at the ticket information on his watch: “Flight 0029 | LAX > LGA | 10:42AM March 7th, 2032.” Sullen faces of others stared at the television above.

“…the number of lives taken by Hysuina is currently reported to be just over 6.1 billion, around seventy-two percent of the 8.5 billion people who walked this Earth before the Hysunia pandemic. The latest of the now 136 states to be declared collapsed or politically inert is Mongolia, as no official response has been given to UN communication attempts for over a week. The UN is still hotly debating about what should be done regarding states where it is confirmed that all of the former state’s citizens have perished-”

A boarding announcement interrupted the television audio. Otto and a small group of passengers were lead out of the fire escape and onto the tarmac itself instead of walking through a jet-way. He was somewhat surprised to see only a few small private jets on the tarmac. He recognized the plane his group was being led to as a Cessna Citation X+, a more streamlined private jet with swept back wings and a curvy fuselage. After climbing the steps into the plane, Otto moved along the tightrope narrow cabin, counting twelve seats. He thought it was odd that the some seats were oriented backwards and facing other seats, but remembered this was a business jet, not an airliner. He sat in the back, already nauseous. Outside the window, there was a team of airport staff scrapping parts off of a Boeing 787. The jet airliner looked like a model kit fresh out of the box with components neatly categorized around it.

Otto touched down at LaGuardia at around six o’ clock, shortly after the sun had disappeared to remind people on the other side of the Earth that this still wasn’t a nightmare. He was happy to be off the plane, but hated being rescreened upon entering the terminal.

The city was far different than what his memories told him. The entrances to the subways were barred up and police tape hung like spider webs. A sign read: “Contaminated Bodies Inside! Closed until further notice.” The elevated rail tracks didn’t rumble and screech above Otto’s head. There were so few people on the street that it wasn’t a requirement to bump shoulders. The former terrible gridlocked city streets now had traffic resembling that of a remote mountain highway and no taxis could be found. Every so often a patrol car or ambulance would whip past Otto. What was most frightening to Otto was the absence of lights in the skyline, as if Death itself had smashed nearly every one like mailboxes. Hardly any people were left to use them. “The City that Never Sleeps” may as well have been replaced with “The City that Never Awakens.” He trekked to Upper East Side Manhattan. The building where he grew up had only a couple of lights on in the windows. No children were playing or laughing on the street like he did years ago. Just then, Otto’s phone buzzed. A “Do not reply” message had been sent with a phone number, which Otto called immediately. When Kode picked up he sounded lifeless, but his voiced warmed up after Otto jogged his memory about times they shared, like dissecting frogs together in middle school. He hesitated when Otto asked to come over, but brushed whatever awkward feeling there was by saying,

“Who else is going to visit me?” When Otto asked where he was living, Kode asked, “You said you were outside your old building?”

“Yeah…” Otto replied, looking at the desolate state of the building and trying not to become upset. One of the windows now had a silhouette of someone looking out, holding a hand up to their ear. The figured waved over in its direction with its other hand before Kode said,

“Come up.”

Otto tripped on a cluttered pile of garbage in the stairwell. He was approaching the third floor door when it banged open above him. A woman ran down screaming for someone to help her. When she saw Otto, she latched on to his shoulders with both hands.

“Please! Help my son! He’s collapsed! He’s…” Her voice drowned in her tears.

“I’m sorry,” Otto said, forcibly removing himself from the mother’s grasp, “I don’t know what I could do.” She begged him to help her as she tried grabbing onto him again. Otto ran up the stairs until he hit the fourth floor. He could hear the lady continue stomping up the stairwell.

Otto banged on Kode’s door. It opened to reveal a tall lanky man. Otto’s head only came up to his shoulder. Otto had always looked down to him when they were younger. It was displeasing to him to have to look up now. Kode’s hair was now blonde and disheveled instead of stealth black and tidy, and his clothes looked so wrinkly that they could have just come out of the washing machine with him still inside them. Kode welcomed Otto inside. The apartment’s main room was quite small; there was only just enough room for two loveseats facing each other with a low coffee table in between them. Kode invited Otto to relax while he got some beverages out of his fridge. Hung up around the room’s walls were different insects in display cases, some still trapped in amber. A good deal of aluminum soda cans and glass beer bottles cluttered the coffee table on top of a reprint of The Cask of Amontillado, and the pile of pots, strainers, and pans suggested no one had washed the dishes for weeks. Otto noticed the beige fabric loveseats were covered in a variety of faded stains. He was grossed out as he sat on the carpet – the cleanest part of the room – and tucked his legs under the coffee table.

“Hopefully watching a movie isn’t too boring for you,” Kode said dully. “I couldn’t think of what else to do on such short notice.” He had his arms full of bottles of beer as he tried to clear off the coffee table. He dropped two of the glass bottles and stood silent in front of Otto. Otto noticed his arms shaking and his knees locking as he stared at the jagged glass chunks. When Otto asked him if he was alright, Kode jumped and contorted his body around at the sound of his friend’s voice. “Of course, of course… just dropped some glass… Making a mess is part of life, isn’t it?” He shrugged and rushed around muttering, “I’m sorry, mama,” before he finally found a dust pan. After cleaning up, Kode laid out numerous bottles of beer on the coffee table. Kode stuck Watchmen on DVD into the player and sat across from Otto. Otto didn’t want to take the beer Kode offered him, but didn’t want to be rude either, so he took one off of the coffee table. After both men took off their masks, Kode downed his first bottle with the fervor of a passionate churchgoer drinking grape juice during communion. His head and the bottle’s butt rotated up and down like the way the pendulum of a clock swings. Otto slowly sipped his beer.

The movie had played halfway before a brownout plagued the apartment. Kode reassured Otto that these were common and that the power would be back up in half an hour. He turned on some electric lanterns he had around the apartment. Otto couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Do you even remember me?” Otto blurted. Kode squinted his eyes at Otto.

“Sort of…” Kode responded, “But having you as company is still better than having complete strangers over, or nobody for that matter.”

“So that means… everyone you know’s-” Otto started hesitantly before Kode cut him off.

“Yeah…” Kode sighed, nodding. There was a slight quiver in Kode’s voice. He finished his fifth bottle with a gulp and smacked it with the other empty bottles, adding to the accumulation already on the coffee table. He turned to Otto and said, “I guess that’s one thing we have in common then, eh?” Otto waited another minute before he let his next words hit the air.

“So… you must like to drink… a lot?” Otto said nervously. Kode shrugged.

“I used to a lot with friends before the… I stopped for a while though, about five years. I’ve only picked it back up recently.” Otto knew he must’ve unearthed precious memories. The distance in Kode’s eyes were scarier looking away than when he stared directly into Otto’s eyes.

“These insects seem… interesting.” Otto said, unsure if it was a good comment.

“Yeah, I got into that in college. Took an entomology course. We had to keep small collections as a requirement,” Kode said. He glazed over his collections one more time. “Those were fun times.” Otto looked away from Kode as he ran a hand through his hair. Catching up was a lot harder than he had imagined. Kode picked up another bottle and groaned. He asked Otto if he wanted any ice for his beers. Otto politely declined. Otto thought it was strange that he stumbled down the hallway to get ice, but then Kode was already strange in Otto’s mind. Kode came back with a bag of ice. He picked out an ice cube and placed it in his mouth. Then he resumed drinking, but not for long. His body suddenly swayed back and forth and he had trouble sitting in his seat, as if overran by anxiety. “Say Otto…” Kode started, “I want to show you something.”

“Show me something?” Otto asked, glad the conversation seemed to be turning positive.

Kode nodded excitedly. He stood, picked up an electric lantern, and lured Otto with big slow beckoning hand motions at the apartment’s hallway entrance while displaying a wide grin. Otto – who was tired of sitting in semi-darkness and thought that getting up and moving around might make the beer in his stomach settle better – agreed and followed Kode down the hallway.

“It’s in my mother’s room,” Kode said. They stopped at a door on the left. Insulated foam was jammed under the door. Kode opened the door carefully as if there were some wild animal sleeping behind it that shouldn’t be awoken. After Otto inched inside, Kode closed the door behind them. There was nothing in the room that belonged in a bedroom. Instead, there were piles of boxes of frozen food, bags of ice, fogged up jars with insects inside, and a large shiny refrigerated vendor cart that was in the center of the room. Brown and dark red stains had painted the waterlogged carpet surrounding the cart, the sight of which agitated Otto’s stomach even more. The room seemed more organized then the rest of the rooms in the small apartment and smelled of something rank enough to burn one’s nostrils, but not of something that was unbearable. It reminded Otto of the day in middle school when his biology class dissected frogs once more. Finally, Otto noted the coldness of the room when he started to shiver and he was able to see his own breath waft in front of him like a scared ghost. Kode marched over to the cart. The wet carpet squished and foamed under his feet. “This is where I freeze captured insects until they die, but it’s more purposeful than that alone. It’s all about what’s in here.” Kode rapped a couple times on the top of the vending cart and shot raised eyebrows toward Otto. “C’mon, get over here.” Otto stepped lightly to the other side of the cart. Kode gave Otto the lantern and shoved the cart’s top door back with both hands. A plume of fog arose out of the cart and Kode moved some bags of dry ice over. Finally, a gray and wrinkled woman’s face poked out from the dry ice. The lips had cracked, looking like slabs of tough rubber. The hair looked like it would snap if you breathed sweaty air onto it and the frost on the eyelids could probably have kept those eyes shut. Otto covered his mouth and nearly ripped the door off its hinges to get out of the room. He barreled down the hallway with wet feet, tossed the lantern onto the couch, and threw up in the kitchen sink. He finished heaving as Kode stepped behind him.

“Jesus,” Otto gasped, “I have a stomach made of tissue paper!”

“Oh I’m sorry, does my love for my mother make you that sick?” Otto turned around to face Kode and wiped his mouth. Now that he could think clearly, Otto fired back.

“Love?! Who the fuck calls shoving their mom’s body in an ice cream cart love? If you really loved her you would’ve buried her!” Kode shrugged while Otto snapped back on his mask.

“I almost did, I even pumped her veins full of formaldehyde. But let’s just say burial plots are a premium these days. I couldn’t bring myself to go through with a burial anyways. I couldn’t give her away; I wanted to preserve her legacy, her being. That’s what I am doing now… preserving…” Kode’s eyes became the darkest Otto had seen them that night. He stared down at the mess of bottles. “None of this would be necessary if it wasn’t for this damn Hysunia. It’s just not right for something so small to take my strong, hard-working mama away from me… no one understands how much I loved her.” Otto felt heat in his lower chest as he remembered how he drove three hours to attend his parent’s funeral at the church they attended in Palm Springs, to say goodbye to what used to be them.

“I’m pretty sure everyone living today knows exactly what that feels like! I know what that feels like!” Otto shouted.

“Nobody!” Kode bawled back. His shoulders were hunched over and his back shuddered with every raspy breath. He picked up a bottle by its neck and chucked it at the wall. The pieces sparkled and shimmered as they twirled in the electric lantern’s ocean of light. Kode’s face looked undisturbed and he was silent, but as he picked up more bottles, he gritted his teeth more and his grunts became louder. He sliced the edge of his right hand opposite to the thumb on broken glass, but shrieked and threw two bottles at once to punish the inanimate object. When there were no bottles left, he stood still and his chest heaved. He said with an uncontrolled voice, “But it’ll all be fine in the end. When this whole thing blows over, everything will be normal again! ...And mama will be fine.” A hint of hope dug onto Kode’s voice. Otto had come out here as a desperate act of loneliness, but the disrespect Kode displayed for his mother overpowered his original feelings. This wasn’t the Kode he thought he knew. Otto gathered his belongings.

“You know keeping a contaminated source will land you in serious trouble right?”

“Are you going to tell them then, Otto? Or will you leave me and my poor mother alone?” His eyes couldn’t lock still as he glared at Otto. “Some friend you must be to call the cops on your longtime pal. Where are you going?” Otto stared into Kode’s eyes one last time with his hand on the door handle. Kode’s stare was wicked and Otto didn’t like what he saw looking back at him. Otto mustered up the courage to say,

“I can’t sleep here tonight knowing there’s a body in the next room over. My stomach nor my mind will allow it, because it fucking disgusts both of them.” Otto braved the night and walked the whole journey back to the LaGuardia area. He checked into a motel next to the airport and spent the remaining hours of the night trying to calm down his stomach and his mind.

Otto woke up exhausted. His heart raced from just getting out of bed and difficulty breathing made the surging heartrate worse; it felt like Kode’s insects were in his windpipe, still alive. He saw large purple Ganglion cysts speckled on his upper arms that sent panic down his nerves. Otto quickly dressed in multiple layers. Calling the police on Kode wouldn’t be in the day’s agenda nor would flying back to Los Angeles, but Otto knew what would. He stepped into the trash-filled alley next to the motel, the pain of the sunlight knotted in his eyes. He frantically rummaged through the motel’s overflowing dumpster, his arms burning. Otto threw up before finding a glass bottle. He smashed it on the alley wall, the noise almost fully dampened. He put the broken bottle into his bag and walked briskly to Central Park. With his heartrate, it felt as if he sprinted there. Any voices were muffled and lost. Otto hurried to Bow Bridge overlooking the park’s lake. He took in the sight as he ripped off his mask to take in whatever fresh air he possibly could. He leaned on the concrete railing for about fifteen minutes before his peripherals became fuzzy. He didn’t have long. Otto took out the broken bottle and held the sharp edges to his neck with both hands. After all the Hysunia had taken from him, Otto wouldn’t let it take him. Maybe he’d even see his parents and friends again. He twisted the bottle as it plunged into his neck, severing the jugular veins. The area was cool right before hot blood cascaded and filled the spaces between his layers of tops. He dropped the bottle and stared out across the lake, clutching onto the railing. He collapsed within the next minute. The screams of the few people around him were muffled to whispers. He stared up at the sky, his vision becoming less and less. In that moment, Otto could’ve sworn he saw Montresor walking away from him with a full stride as the last thought Otto could process grinded along the top of his mind: “May he rest in peace!”

#science-fiction #sci-fi #science fiction #scifi

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