We all have it in here. We are all infected.”

 The man’s breath was hot in the brisk air and smelled like the sewage overflowing from the city’s underground pipes. I winced at the stench but produced an empty stare in response. 

“Do you hear me? We are all-”, he grunted as he caved over himself, one pale freckled hand pressed flat against the wall besides my head while the other groped his chest. He was wearing a white shirt turned grey and brown from going unwashed and there seemed to be a glistening sheathing around him. His greying hair was slick with grease and his face matched the pale November sky, with blue and green constellations ripping across it. The man continued to mumble to himself, shaking his head feverishly and pounding the wall beside me. 

There was no point in his pondering and pleading and praying. He was going to suffer an excruciating death. His heart would collapse in his chest and stop the flow of blood to the rest of his body, then his throat would feel as if it were being torn open by razor blades, and finally he would enter a painful rest as his body eased him into a comatose state. Then he would rise again. 

The man bellowed in pain and fell to his knees, still clutching his chest. His piercing black eyes were like two pebbles in his bruised sockets, pouring into mine and beckoning any sense of assurance or closure that I would not provide. When the infection first began, I believe I was more sympathetic; scouring up its wandering victims and giving them solace in my home. I would lock them in the basement and let them ride out the sickness, hoping they would overcome their newfound desire for blood. But I continuously failed. 

I watched intently as his body convulsed, teeth jittered, and neck pounded violently until it turned mauve. A few more groans fell from his lips before a calmness set over him. His eyes fluttered shut and his body laid flat against the ground as his chest rose and fell slowly. This would be the only peace he feels from now on; when he wakes in a few hours, he will have no recollection of his humanity, no childhood memories, he won’t even remember his full name. He 1won’t recognize his wife of thirty years, or his four children, or his vacation home near Chesapeake bay-- his life until now will mean nothing to the monster that wakes from its slumber. The only thing it will know is greed. It will just serve as another pawn in this cycle we have created; hiding in the shadows of the night until it finds the perfect prey. 

The murder of crows in the distance squawk with excitement as they peer at the collapsed man before me. How disappointed they must be at this wasted flesh. I reach into my back pocket and grasp the length of the wooden stake. I remember when the sensation of the rippling indentations in the ashwood made my skin crawl, when the weight of the stake felt unbearable in my grasp, when the sight of its sharpened tip would create knots in the pit of my stomach. 

As the crows huddled around me in the form of a scythe, I kneeled before the man and watched the center of his chest slowly cave; revealing itself to me. Within seconds, the stake is dug deeply into the man’s chest. The scarlet liquid pours out slowly, staining my arm and sleeve. His body barely reacts; a sudden jolt and it is over. 

That version of me is gone; gone with the memories of my childhood home, gone with the budding love for my late wife, gone with my desire to live. I simply exist; hovering across town as the days melt into each other. At least I spared this man the pain of eternal stillness, stuck in a daze of endless solitude and relinquishing of identity. I am no longer a woman; but an empty vessel. 

The crows push past me, climbing onto the remnants of the man, and digging their beaks into his skin and tearing tendon from bone until their faces are stained with crimson, only to quickly spit the polluted meat back on the ground. They squawk impatiently as they dissipate into the gloomy sky. 

I wipe the stake across my exposed knee, letting the beads of blood grasp onto my hair and pool against my skin before shoving it in my back pocket. I take one last glance at the man’s face; his gawking empty eyes and pale thin lips, and head back home. Home. Home is a social construct.

It is not a real place, but a feeling of refuge.

When I try to remember any details about my childhood home, I am met with pins and needles pricking my brain and a nauseating sensation. I can’t remember if the floor was carpeted or covered in hardwood, if the walls were a dull beige or shades of blue, if my room was lacey and delicate or if there were nail marks on the walls from hanging up band posters. The only thing I slightly remember is a calming feeling. When I concentrate on this distant past, I can try to force together memories as if shoving two end pieces together for a puzzle. I picture a thin tall woman with dark brown hair like mine hunching over me to wrap her snake-like arms around me in a warm embrace. I believe this could have been an intimate moment. 

Once I reach the town square, a cackle of lightning brings a downpour of harsh rain. The pale clouds above me darken like murky lake water. In the center of the square, I lift my chin to look at the tall marble statue of the veiled Virgin Mary who greets me with unwavering pained eyes carved in stone. As the downpour quickens and slams against her cheeks, it looks like she is crying and streams of tears gather at her upturned nose. The baroque church in the distance creates an overbearing shadow behind her as if trying to swallow her entirely. The pointed spires on the church were uneven, one rusting and crumbling with time. When the infection first started and riots broke out, I remember seeing clusters of protestors pounding and clawing at the church’s walls until they gave out. They pierced holes in the gates and tore cherubs from the frieze to shatter them on the ground. The veiled Virgin somehow remained untouched throughout this. I do not believe I was ever a religious person. If I was, surely I was not dedicated enough to cling onto my asserted beliefs through my transition. Although the overall immediate reaction seems to be a desperate return to religion, a rhetorical begging for release and redemption, the effort seemed pointless to me. Though for some reason, I always picture my dark haired mother with a black and red beaded rosary around her neck. 

As I make my way through the town, I reach the steps of my home; St. Ignatius Psychiatric Hospital. My original home, where I tried so dearly to hold onto the emotional connection of my wife through the various framed pictures, was made unlivable by my own design. I brought in the countless victims and let them ruin the last evidence of my humanity. I could not stand to share the same walls as the monsters that ruined its innocence. While St. Ignatius was not my first option, it certainly did not bother me that the front gates could be locked and keep me isolated from the world. 

Before I take my first step up the stairs, the rain quickly ceases and I hear the iron gates creak open. I immediately shoot my head up and find three men dressed in white darting towards me and before I can react they pummel me down to the ground. While I flail against their harsh grips and curse repeatedly, they do not budge. I feel a cold metallic needle forced into my arm and the pricking and nauseating sensations grow over me. Then everything went black. 
‍
‍“Dear Lord, please forgive this tortured soul and welcome them into your kingdom with open arms. Please offer them solace and ease during this time of need…” 

‍My eyes slowly flutter open as a familiar mumbling of prayers fill my ears. At first, all I can see is blinding white; white coated walls, popcorn ceilings, glistening white floors, and mothball-scented sheets covering my body. The numbing pricking in my brain has not ceased and I turn my head slightly to find a nun kneeling by my bed. Her skin is not pale or mangled or diseased. As I blink furiously to focus my blurry vision, I find my arms and legs are tied to the bed with leather straps. 

The nun shoots her head up and crosses in front of herself, continuing to mutter incoherent prayers. When I ask her where I am she does not respond. Her dark brown veil comes to her shoulders and my stomach drops when I notice the black and red rosary around her neck. My eyes shoot back at the walls, with their soft and bumpy structure, and the white bolted shut door with the tiny wired window in the middle and I am reminded of the hundreds of therapy rooms inside St. Ignatius. As I grow more panicked, I begin to bang my head against the thin pillow and demand to be released. 

The nun’s mumbling is only silenced by the creaking of the door which reveals a man dressed in scrubs that enters the room. He quickly steps to the side of my bed and leans into me with his heavy breathing and the scents of rotting make my stomach knot. The man removes his surgical mask and I am suddenly inches away from the infected monster I killed just moments ago outside the town square. I try to swallow my fear but whimpers and cries escape my trembling lips. 

He hushes me and pats my head with a pale glove-covered hand, “You gave us all quite the scare, wandering the streets like that, especially Sister Grace.” 

He gestured over to the nun who took refuge in the corner of the small room, clutching onto her rosary and glaring at the spot above my head. I lifted my chin up to find a portrait of a veiled Virgin Mary with tears streaming down her cheeks. I shook my head violently as tears welled up in my eyes and the pounding in my head grew with each sob I tried to swallow. This cannot be real. 

‍“I am very sorry, my dear, but these situations just keep occurring and I am seeing no hopeful improvement in your condition.” The man’s lips were stretched so far into a smile that I could see his pink gums peeking out as his empty sympathy poured out. I gripped the thin material on his knee with the little mobility of my hand and begged him. I begged him with the same desperation those victims showed once they were infected. I begged him as if he were a promising deity. 

His smile did not cease, it almost glimmered. “But there is one final option I am willing to try…” 

His voice drifted as he stood up and quickly exited the room. My eyes met Sister Grace’s as my chest continued to shake with echoing sobs. I could barely form a proper sentence with my jittering jaw, and before I could pose a question, she shushed me with her prayer and left the room. 

I screwed my eyes shut as the numbing pain in my head heightened with my cries. How was none of it real? The sickeningly pale man’s face, and his scarlet stained eyes, and his guttural groans; that all had to be real. The same man who stood before me just now, with a similar sickening tint to his demeanor. But I killed him. I shoved my wooden stake deep in the indented crevice of his chest and watched the blood pool around my arm. I stared into those eyes with their distinct emptiness and felt no grief or regret or pain for him. I did, I know I did. I remember the cawing of the crows; the grinding orchestra of hoarse croaking, rising and rising with a deafening crescendo. I can see one perched atop me now, with its beady black eyes peering into mine and its beak slightly opened to reveal the mush bloody torn skin shoved inside, with tendons dangling down to my chest; my chest with a freshly dug crater in the center, rimmed with bright blood and chunks of missing skin. 

I did not realize how loudly I was screaming until a fat glove-covered hand smacked over my mouth and silence fills the air. The three men dressed in white surround me and work telepathically to remove my straps and IV needles only to place me in a wheelchair and quickly strap my limbs to it. 

“Enough noise from you.” One of them says as he shoves a mouth-guard in between my teeth. Within a few seconds, the men work to wheel me out of the room and down an equally blinding white hallway, lined with the dozens of rooms I remember passing in my once desolate home. The three men slowly wheeled me down the hallway and the squeaking of their rubber shoes against the linoleum floor was soon masked by the yelling and muttering that echoed from behind room doors. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I let out pained grunts that were muffled by the mouth-guard. 

As we neared the end of the hallway, a young girl, maybe 17 or 18, dressed in similar white clothes as me paused to shush me with slow gesturing arms, as if they had been dipped in molasses, and gawking empty eyes like the victim’s I thought I killed. 

“Don’t be afraid.” She said flatly and reached up to push her blonde bangs back and reveal a monstrous scar starting at the center of her forehead which staggered to the back of her head. “We all have it in here. We are all infected. But you will feel better soon.” 

Those same words that the man uttered to me moments before I ended his turning. The same sickening tone that made my skin crawl when I first heard it. Why has this entire day felt like a torturous and endless game of deja-vu? 

The man to my left pushed the young girl aside and they continued wheeling me to what I feared would be my end. I felt the same knot in my stomach when I was first infected, the prickling in my brain and the tingling in my chest, yet it has somehow intensified. We finally reached a dark metallic room, which contrasted so grossly from the intense lightness of the rest of the building. Inside there was the man, who I had once killed and who had risen again, standing beside an iron medical table. As the three men forced me down against the coldness of the table, I felt disconnected from my body. As if my spirit had lifted outside the visceral plane and was watching everything from above; here I was already dead. 

When the man took his whirring machine to my frontal lobe, the sound of the splitting and shattering of my skull was so heinous that I fell into a silent hysteria. My bound arms shook against the table as he continued to poke and pry inside my brain. There was no point in fighting, I was already dead. The cold metal against my skin felt like a fitting resting place; cold and alone, exactly how I have been my entire life. I felt an intense pressure in my frontal lobe, which ricocheted to the back of my head and landed in the center of my nose. My eyesight went foggy as I struggled to focus on the fluorescent lights above me. Then a metallic taste filled my mouth and all I could see was darkness. 

A strange calmness washed over me; a sudden burst of euphoric light that dulled me to oblivion. I was no longer exposed and cold, but blanketed in a warm embrace. I was floating through a dark abyss in space, slipping further and further into the deep. 

As I tried to dive deeper into the indiscernible darkness, a sickening sensation overcame me as a distinct rotting scent filled my nose. I tried to grasp onto something nearby, something to keep me grounded in this nothingness, but I felt my body rising as if I was being plucked out of the abyss.

My eyes slowly fluttered open, blinded by the bright lights above me, and an overbearing dread overcame me. I felt an intense hot stench bleeding into my cheek and my drowsy eyes met an unfamiliar man whose gloved hands were drenched in blood. 

“Welcome to the new you.”