Euphoria-Z (3 page)

At first he tried to call someone to get help, formulating his story about an accidental slip and fall. No one answered any number he called. He checked and saw she was dead, so he dragged her onto his neighbor’s lawn. The asshole kept putting his garbage cans in Jasper’s driveway, and Jasper wanted to see how he liked a corpse in his yard.

He chuckled at the memory as he ambled down the street, dodging sweaty, grinning assholes. He didn’t get his pills, but he did get to crack a few skulls. That was when he got punched in the face. A muscle-bound young man hit him so hard that he bounced off a wall and fell to the ground. He lay sprawled on the sidewalk unconscious for hours, and no one noticed.

§

Knives of red-hot pain split Jasper’s jaw. Now he was conscious, and to deal with the pain he balled his fists so tight his nails cut into his palms. He groaned, stifling a scream. The impact had cracked and dislocated his jaw, and all he could feel was intense pain. His head was sideways, and he choked on coppery blood as it filled his mouth. He groaned and whimpered as he spat it out, along with several teeth. He hadn’t felt like crying for decades, not even during the war when he was terrified on the battlefield.

The concrete was cold and rough, and he lay on it as people walked and danced past him. A passerby tripped on his foot and landed on him. The pain was so intense that he passed out again.

§

Later, Jasper still lay on cold concrete. It was close to freezing outside. He drifted in and out of consciousness as the party raged around him. But after a while he stretched and felt his jaw. Son of a gun, it was broke but good. His jaw was almost completely snapped in half at the chin. He felt around his jaw and it had been pushed into his mouth. He felt the other half of his jaw jutting out from his face at a drastic angle. He could feel the teeth and bone protruding from his chin.

He smiled, feeling his jaw scrape the roof of his mouth. He thought about the young man who had done this. What a rabble-rouser he was! Ha! It was just like being in the service, when he and his buddies were always giving beat downs to strangers—just for fun. What a beat down he had just gotten from that young fellow. He stood, feeling quite happy and cheerful, and went to look for the young man who slugged him. He wanted to shake his hand and give him a hug, and then maybe they could mix it up again. He was sure he would get the best of him this time.

Jasper wandered off, happier than he had ever been, dancing a little jig. A car slammed into him as he crossed the street, throwing him several feet into the air. He hit the ground hard and rolled over and over, shattering his body. His limbs were askew. Jagged white daggers of bone ripped through cloth and skin. Blood poured from his body and pooled on the street beneath him. He tried to stand, but all he could move was his head. He tried harder, wishing he could keep on dancing. The pool of blood grew larger, and Jasper finally laid his head down. He never stopped smiling for the remaining moments of his life.

1.

The old man just appeared in his headlights, and he couldn’t avoid hitting him. He crumpled over the front of the car, his head smacking on the hood with a loud boom, and he flew a surprisingly far distance. He hit the ground and rolled even farther.

By the time Cooper slammed on the brakes, it was way too late. The car screeched to a halt as the old man’s body came to rest on the rough asphalt yards in front of him.

Cooper was sick to his stomach as he watched the old man in the beam of his headlights. He was sure the old guy was infected, but he had still hit a human being. It had an unexpected emotional impact. His engine idled as he sat, unsure what he should do, and the seconds ticked by. He suppressed the urge to cry and resisted his instincts, which were to get out and rush to the man’s side. He would have done this immediately if not for the orgy of infected people around his car.

Cooper felt the car rocking, heard the faint squeak of the suspension. He reached up to the rearview mirror and stopped the graduation cap tassel from swinging, then decided to tear it down. The car was bucking harder as the crowd grew thicker and pressed against it.

Another large group was crossing the street in front of him, heading toward downtown. The old man lifted his head and dropped it back down before the crowd blocked him entirely from view. The old man was just looking around, not thrashing in pain or showing any emotion other than joy.

Good, he was infected,
Cooper thought, glad to know that he didn’t suffer. The old man had stopped moving, which meant he had to be dead. The only thing that stopped an infected person from moving was an injury that made it physically impossible—or death. There was nothing he could do.

Cooper was shifting into drive when a body landed on his hood. A naked woman was pressing her ample breasts against the windshield. She was beautiful, but only interesting for a split second. Several of her ribs had punctured her skin and jutted from her body. Cooper watched her breasts flattened against the window. She gyrated from side to side, but what held Cooper’s attention were the ribs as they raked the glass like giant broken fingers. Fresh blood flowed from the injury, and she smeared the glass with it. It hurt just to look at. He was trying to think of a gentle way to get her off his car when movement from the passenger window got his attention. A man, oddly clothed in jeans and a T-shirt, just stared at him with a creepy smile.

A hard jolt took Cooper’s attention back to the hood. A nude, gawky teenager had mounted the gyrating woman. He had blood pouring from his mouth, his bottom lip had been bitten off, and part of his scalp was missing. He smiled, and it seemed he was trying to penetrate the woman in some manner. She was still smiling and gyrating.

Cooper looked back at the man outside the passenger window, and his heart thumped hard with shock as he stared at the barrel of a large pistol aimed right at his face. Over the laughter, the screams of pleasure, and the crowd’s racket, he heard a horrifying clack as the hammer hit an empty chamber. The man pulled the trigger again, but Cooper was already tearing away. He turned hard to throw the woman and teen twosome from his car. He felt an attitude shift—a reality of the new world sunk in, and his heart hardened.
Fuck everybody else, he thought. I almost died.

He raced home and locked himself in. Usually cool and confident, he was rattled, as any sane and uninfected person would be. He had a hard time sitting still. The adrenaline still coursed through his veins. He grabbed the chin-up bar in the door to his room and did as many pull-ups as he could to burn the tension away. His arms ached, swollen from the exercise, but he still felt worked up. He’d gotten used to using exercise to work off tension or anxiety all through high school. He loved being in shape more than the sports and had never stopped working out, as many of his friends had. As a result, they had gotten fat and slow while he continued to build muscle and endurance. But they were mostly forced into team sports, whereas he wanted to be active.

He lay back on a small weight bench and lifted the weight carefully, not wanting to injure himself or make too much noise. He lifted a small amount, enough to feel it in his chest. He could never bulk up, always looking thin even when his muscles were rock hard and he could out lift most people, even the steroid-enhanced ones. He eased the bar back on the rack and sat up.

He looked at his trophies and certificates briefly, then turned away. It all felt like a life far in the past, even though it had only been a few weeks since he graduated. He pushed the thick yearbook off his desk. He wasn’t angry; he just had to stop thinking about the past. None of it mattered anymore. Once the world skidded to a halt, it was the survival skills he had learned as an Eagle Scout that were important now and not the patches and ribbons he had earned. Just as the strength and endurance he built up in track and swimming were more important than the trophies.

He took a shower while he still could, as all the services were shutting down. The hot water felt good. It relaxed him. He rubbed the thick stubble on his face and decided to skip shaving—he had no reason to. He walked about the house again, unable to sit still for long.

The large house was like a museum with its high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. The glass made him feel vulnerable. Even with all the shutters closed and curtains drawn, glass felt weak compared to brick or stone. He took another walk around, peeking outside. There were a lot of people on his usually quiet street. It was a massive party—an orgy—madness.

From his house he could see most of Monterey, as it was on the peak of a 900-foot hill in the center of the Monterey peninsula. A forest spread across half of the giant hill, and his house backed up to it. He planned to use that route if he needed to make an escape.

He’d already tried to get to San Jose, but the roads were blocked, dangerous, and the other drivers were insane. He couldn’t even get gas. His plan now was to stay put, but he was still very worried about his sister. They were very close, and he had to try to get to her.

His sister lived in San Jose in a large apartment complex, and he hadn’t spoken to her in several days. Things had been bad in San Jose days before Monterey was even affected. They were both worried about what she should do. He wanted her to come to Monterey, but both of them were worried about her getting stuck on the highway. When he called back to talk to her, the line was dead.

Even after things were already at their worst around the world, Monterey was still behind the curve of events. By the time the infection reached the city, Cooper was up to speed on it and determined to not get infected. He listened to the emergency broadcast system, not the mainstream media in any of its forms, and knew that this was a virus. He felt foolish even trying to go to work a few days ago.

He worked at a local burger joint and had been looking for evidence of infection. He saw his manager, a real prick who never stopped giving people shit, and suspected he was infected. When Cooper saw him smiling and not spewing crap to his employees, he knew he was infected and left immediately.

He wondered if the asteroid that hit Ufa had anything to do with what was happening now. But all this hadn’t started immediately after the impact. Many speculated that the virus had come on the asteroid, but scientists didn’t think so based on the pattern of infection around the world. The infection didn’t have an epicenter, a ground zero; it had started everywhere all at once. If there had been a point of origin, they could possibly have traced it back to a location, a specific carrier, and halted the spread.

Some thought an old military lab had been breeched. Of course there were other theories, from God to aliens to terrorists. There wasn’t a spot in the world where the virus wasn’t present.

Gunshots interrupted Cooper’s musings. He instinctively got low and tried to look out the window. Nothing. The number and volume of the shots increased rapidly until it was a constant barrage. It sounded like a battle zone, and he wondered what the hell was going on out there. He made sure the doors were locked and then called the same numbers he’d been dialing incessantly once again: mother, father, sister, friends. There was no getting through. He didn't expect there to be, but he had to keep trying. He speed-dialed all the numbers again.

He had no intention of leaving the safety and comfort of his home. He had enough food and water for weeks, months possibly. His mom liked to keep the house stocked in case of an earthquake, and his dad liked buying in bulk. But he was worried about his sister and really wanted to know if she was OK. But for now, all he could do was sit in the darkness and wait. But wait for what? He couldn’t stop asking himself that question.

A very loud crash shook the house and startled him so badly that he realized he was on his feet and didn’t remember standing. The noise of the party going on outside increased tenfold. He ran down the hall to see what had happened and froze. The orgy was pouring into his living room through shattered glass. A car had taken out part of the wall and several of the wall-sized windows. Before him, the orgy filled the house and prevented escape. Behind him were the bedrooms with their flimsy interior doors.

He was no longer safe here, and there was no way out. He was terrified for the first time, because for the first time he knew he was about to die.

2.

Sal Labeggio watched the news and sipped from a bottle of rum—just a sip. No guzzling, he wasn’t planning on getting drunk, but he really needed to calm his nerves. He capped the bottle and placed it on the coffee table with a clunk.

His wife wouldn’t let him leave the house. She was a dedicated nurse but absolutely refused to go into work as well. She knew all this happy shit was something bad. He had tried to argue and push past her, but she pushed back and started crying. She was the smart one, practically a doctor, so he backed off and promised her he would stay home. Not just home, indoors, she insisted. He had to look his petite wife in the eyes, bending down to do so, and promise her. He was glad he did.

At first, he watched as his friends and family acted happier than ever. He wanted to join in! For days they were unstoppable, full of energy and mental sharpness and abundant joy. They called Sal, invited him out, and banged on the door. Maria steadfastly, violently even, kept Sal and herself sealed inside the house. She pointed out the serious symptoms no normal person could simply ignore. For several days, the world outside Sal’s door grew happier and happier without him. The happy ones laughed, hugged, and seemed completely satisfied. Everyone, it seemed, but him and his fanatical wife was happy.