Brian Steele - 4POCALYPSE - Four Tales of a Dark Future

“Darryl Haise,” the officer said, shoving the handcuffed man toward a chair in the lobby and giving me a bone crusher of a handshake. He had short-cropped blond hair and pale blue eyes and he grinned an all-American grin.

“I must protest,” the man in the coverall said as he awkwardly sat on the edge of a chair.

“Shut up, Renfield,” Haise said.

“We need to leave the vicinity immediately,” the man named Renfield said.

Haise took a step closer to Renfield and his voice turned ugly. “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

I asked Rendfield why we needed to leave and Haise snapped a look at me, his eyes narrowing.

“Because they are coming back,” Renfield said. “The infected are coming back by the hundreds if not thousands. And it gets worse.”

Haise gave Renfield and open-handed slap that knocked the man out of the chair.

“Holy shit, man,” Benjamin said behind me.

For a moment I could only stare. The world had gone all to shit, we few survivors had to stick together, and this cop was beating down a man in handcuffs?

Renfield had fallen on his side. It wasn’t a hard fall. The Palace lobby floor was cool marble and plush carpet, and he fell on carpet, but the man was humiliated

I took Renfield by one elbow and helped him into the chair.

“Okay,” I said. “How are things worse?”

“Do not listen to him,” Haise said.

I turned and looked at Haise and for the first time I noticed a light in his eyes that was either insane, dancing rage, or barely contained terror.

“I want to know what’s going on out there,” I said, trying to sound strong and hoping Haise didn’t take a swing at me. I was no fighter.

“So do I.” The voice boomed, reverberating off of marble.

I turned and saw Jilly and Conaghan coming down the stairs, a belt of tools Conaghan had found jingling with every step. Conaghan had an easy smile on his face, but his eyes were dark and hard. Jillian was pale.

We stood together, the six of us tense, until Isao approached, flanked by his children, and announced, “We go to make-uh pee-pee !”

The broke the tension.

Haya looked embarrassed and Haru rolled his eyes. Renfield snorted. I grinned. Haise saw my grin and took a step back. Conaghan smiled again, but he was watching Haise closely.

“Let’s take these cuffs off,” Jillian said.

“That man is dangerous ,” Haise said.

“Please,” Jillian said.

Haise put a hand to one side of his mouth and spoke in a dramatic stage whisper. “He eats flies. He’s fucking crazy.”

Renfield gave Haise an offended glare, and then ignored him as he addressed Jillian, Conaghan and me.

“Did you know that our most common companion creature is not the dog or the cat, but the common housefly? They have been with us since the dawn of Homo sapiens, eating and defecating and mating alongside us while we carried them into every region of the world. They are almost perfect, far better in their biological niche than we are in ours.”

“Fuck off, Renfield,” Haise said.

“The Roman poet Vergil once had a lavish funeral for a fly,” Renfield said, “and had it laid to rest in a mausoleum. He may have cared for the fly, or he may have had ulterior motives—”

Jillian gave me a what the fuck look and I cut in.

“The government was planning to confiscate the property of the rich and distribute it to war veterans,” I said. “But no grounds containing burial plots or mausoleums could be taken. Vergil saved his land from seizure.”

Renfield gave me a nod. He looked like a young Richard Dreyfuss. “For the rest of us, however, flies are simply pests that need to be exterminated, and the genocide of musca domestica has been one of mankind’s enduring efforts. However, the fly has turned the tables on us, by delivering one disease after another into our lives until it found one that could truly annihilate us.”

Realizing that Haise was probably the crazy one and that the crazy one had a goddamned gun, “I said,” I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Haise unlocked Renfield’s cuffs and stood back, as if the exterminator might explode.

Jillian began explaining the few rules at the Palace; everyone pitches in on the work, chock your door open when you leave a room because unlocked doors were few and far between…

I noticed that Haise looked bored, his eyes glazing over. Both Conaghan and Benjamin were keeping a close watch on Haise.

I walked with Renfield to the now empty Garden Court. Daylight streamed through the stained glass dome; it was the room with the most natural light during the day. I noticed that Randall was still sitting in his chair with Clyde at his side. He hadn’t said a word.

“Thank you,” Renfield said, as we took seats at a table.

I glanced at Haise, and back at Renfield. “Renfield. Eating flies, I’d have thought that was a joke, but Haise doesn’t look like a horror movie fan, and even less like an aficionado of classic literature, so…”

A small smile appeared on Renfield’s face, half-hidden by a scruffy beard. “He’s a fool. A terrified, small-minded fool. And for the record, I don’t eat flies, I eat maggots.”

I was speechless. Then Renfield topped his last statement with one that was even more incredible.

“The reason Officer Haise had me cuffed and kept me with him is that I told him I knew how to become immune to the disease. Happyface, the smiler bug, whatever you want to call it. Haise was keeping me close to see if I became infected.”

Renfield raised an arm and pulled back one sleeve of his coverall. “Officer Friendly was responsible for allowing a grin to attack me before he shot it.” Renfield raised his arm. There was a nasty, healing wound on his forearm, and I could clearly see the half-moon imprints of human teeth that had bitten into and broken his flesh.

“I don’t know if you are aware of how fast the disease manifests, but it is almost instantaneous. I was bitten two days ago. That’s direct contact. Primary transmission. And I’m fine. I’m immune.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“A bite from one of those things is primary transmission, the most immediate, the fastest to take effect. Getting splashed with their blood is secondary transmission. It can take longer, but will still kill you. Tertiary transmission, from infected flies, is the way it all started, and the rarest way to become infected.”

Renfield leaned close, and spoke softly. “We all need to be immunized,” he said. “And we need to get the hell out of Dodge. The plan has changed. Originally the plan was to drive all the grins out of San Francisco, to try and save the city. Instead, the powers that be are corralling every grin they can find, and the grins are travelling in very large packs. They are going to hold them here, in the city, until the things die off or until whoever is still I charge can figure out a safe option for mass disposal. Firebombing, perhaps, or extermination squads. As for people like you and me… well, we don’t really have a say. Now, a lot of people came here to the heart of the city, to escape when the outbreak happened. What if the grins that are wandering around out there follow the same instinct?”

I didn’t know what to say to that, either.

“Mind if I sit in?”

Renfield and I were startled. Randall had approached us silently, and he was a big man. I gestured to one of the empty seats at the table and he sat, patting one thigh. Clyde trotted across the lobby to join us, his claws ticking on the marble floor.

I asked Renfield, “Why did you stay behind?”

“I stayed behind because… well, because I’m an exterminator. I was convinced I could find a way to destroy these things and avoid catching the disease. I heard second hand information from all over the world on amateur radio, theories of the three kinds of disease transmission, the suggestion that it started with flies, which is actually the hardest way to catch the disease, and became a pandemic when people gave the bug to each other through violent attacks.”