Plagues

Chapter 7

“Tough luck, Al,” Leo remarked the next morning as we exchanged money and clips, remarking at my worst time yet. If I had actually been in a real maniac situation, I would have been bitten twice. “You’re usually very, um…what is it…um…on the ball. Today, you seem lost.”

“It was a…weird night last night,” I grumbled.

“Want to talk about it?”

I sighed, legitimately contemplating sharing. But sharing the events of last night felt like a secret I couldn’t entrust with anyone except myself and those who were there.

“No, not really,” I said.

He half-smiled and nodded, handing me my bag.

I was surprised to see Mikaela, Darwin, and Kali at school that day, though they all looked like their nerves had been fried. They looked equally surprised to see me. We sat in the back corner of the lounge in a nest of couches and chairs, they acknowledging my arrival and presence with only a weak and tired toss of a nod towards me. I caught and returned, slumping down on a couch. Darwin’s distress seemed to bubble in his eyes that were focused on Mikaela whose face was blank, baggy, and pale. The worry and anticipation of more of the same reaction from last night crinkled Kali’s face. She looked to me, like she expected me to have all the answers.

Why Matt? Why did we think we were so invincible? What if those guys were the authorities; some secret division of BIOTRANS? Why did they try to kill us? Why all this? Why us? I could hear those questions clawing and pounding at all our minds’ borders, the one separating the valley of our subconscious from our urbanized sanity. The question that stuck with the most force was why in the name of all that is logic did the maniacs not so much as even hold a stare to those guys? And why the fuck did those guys go loud like that? Were they trying to get busted? Did they have some special maniac repellent? Their faces sure were strange. The eyes, the skin white as snow.

I noticed Darwin looking at me, the emotional pressure within threatening to burst out of him seemed to have dispersed and faded. This was the calmest I had ever seen him. He wasn’t distracted or looked like he had somewhere else to be right at that second. I smiled appreciatively then leaned over to my left and gently clutched Kali’s arm. She looked to me, softening to calm, trying to convey a feeling of control and of a sense filled world.

“Hi,” I softly uttered, just above a whisper. She smiled a little more.

“Hi,” she replied.

I turned to Mikaela and placed a firm hand on her far shoulder, wrapping my arm around her back. At that moment, her face fell to her hands in heavy breathless sobs. I rubbed her back as she drained out. The tension seemed to be washed away in her tears. Kali went and knelt in front of her, taking Mikaela's hands hands in hers, enabling eye contact.

“It’s okay,” Kali said, a sad smile on her face, as she softly brushed Mikaela’s cheek dry of tears. “We all miss Matt but he’s at peace now, free of this miserable and fucked up world. Try to be strong, Mik, for him, for you, for the group. We’re all in this together.”

Mikaela looked to me in a way which I couldn’t distinguish between anger or nostalgia.

“He admired Al,” she said, “who was top of his class with honours in Defense and Tactics. Matt wanted to go on to work for BIOTRANS and be an officer on the front lines of the infection. That’s probably why he followed Darwin when he saw those guys.” Her tone picked up in severity as she shifted her focus to her new subject Kali. “He wanted to be a born leader, to get up close with the face of death and be explorative and brave, like Darwin.” Her volume raised, becoming irate. “Darwin, Al, he wanted to be just like you! He’s dead because he wanted to be you!” She tossed Kali’s hands away and shrugged off my arm then shot to her feet, turning on the group. “He’s dead because of you!”

“Mik,” Kali pleaded, standing up.

“No, fuck off! You all stay away from me. I don’t wanna be next.”

She took off out of the lounge as Aero came in. He looked to us pointing after her. Kali shook her head and Aero went to go find her.

The taxing weight of defeat set back in as we returned to our original tense state.

“She’s right,” Kali said.

Darwin and I looked to her, cautious and anxious of what was to come.

“It’s why he came with us,” she said. “He wanted real practice.”

“But I never said follow me,” Darwin argued.

Kali’s head snapped over to him.

“Seriously, Darwin? You’re saying what? Matt had this coming? You heard Mik; he wanted to be like you and Al. He wanted to be the best! Maybe it should’ve been you.”

“Or it shouldn’t have been any of us,” I interjected.

“No, it shouldn’t have, but it was. Matt didn’t deserve to die.”

“Kali, we all know that was the risk going into a restricted zone like that,” Darwin said, leaning in closer to her and lowering his voice. “It’s inherent risk.”

I looked to Darwin, startled by his logical apathy despite its consistence; I guess I thought everyone had their limit.

“We’re not BIOTRANS or the police,” Kali retorted firmly. “We didn’t sign anything saying we can’t care one of our friends was killed. Besides, if you wanna go down the we-know-what-we-signed-up-for road, we knew that death was a risk at the hands of maniacs! Not at the hands of-”

“Shut up!” Darwin snapped in a hiss like an angered cobra. “We’re not having this conversation here. We’re already in deep enough shit. So drop it. We can discuss this in private later.”

Kali’s eyes were wide as her lip quivered in anger. I was starting to worry she might turn Darwin the cobra into Darwin the belt.

“No. I don’t wanna have anything to do with you,” she said. “When you actually clue in and realize you’re human and should feel something, come talk to me. Otherwise maybe you should consider spending more time among maniacs, ‘cause you’re really starting to become one.”

Kali grabbed hers and Mikaela’s bags and departed from the lounge. She gave one last look to me before leaving.

“We’re still going hunting, right?” Darwin asked. I sighed.

“I don’t know,” I groaned. “Maybe.”

In second period, Darwin and I took our usual seats on the couch against the rear row of semi-encircling desks together. We didn’t say much of anything to each other though. We just worked on our individual final presentations in silence. While web surfing on my phone, I noticed a story in my Google search that peaked my attention. A public housing block here in Toronto at Gerrard and Sackville was under quarantine after two rooms “inhabited by infected” had been reported to BIOTRANS yesterday afternoon. There was zero mention in the Toronto Star article about it being specifically maniacs that had “inhabited” the two rooms in question. The article just said that maniac activity is particularly high in that area, as it is in all low income areas across the continent. The police chief and the BIOTRANS district head were doing the whole “we can’t confirm or deny anything at this time, the investigation is on-going, blah-blah-blah” crap. I shifted slightly in my seat. I wanted to share this with Darwin, but part of me felt like it was fraternizing with the enemy after what happened in the lounge. I didn’t know exactly where I stood on the issue. I just knew the group had possibly gone through a breakup.