CHUPACABRA

Chapter Twenty-Three: Without You

The first bird Forty finds is sheltered by one of the drainage pipes in the garden, its body haloed by wild clover. It's a crow, unfortunately one of the few Naila sets feed out for at the front of the house. They're almost pets to her, often bringing sticks and acorns as thanks for the seed.

Forty recognizes the patterns of decay on it immediately. The belly is somewhere between bloated with death and concave with those large, gaping wounds along its torso. The smell from it brings her back to that day in Cade and Missy's house, tucked away in that dark, death-filled room.

"It's here already," Forty says to Naila, who hacks angrily at some trailing weeds in the potato bed.

"What is?"

After finding out Forty and Thirty-Seven are wanted murderers, Naila whittled out every single hidden truth between the two of them. The most important of those concealments was the poison.

"That bird died like Cade's grandpa," Forty answers, parting some of the clover with her shoe to uncover the crow. Naila wanders over and squats by it, picking up a stick to shift the bird this way and that. The line of her jaw is taut, her muscles tensed like she's ready to run away.

"So it is a biological poison," she sighs, toeing the bird into one of the spare buckets on the side of the house. "I was really, really hoping it wasn't."

It's like the Chupa virus then, Forty thinks. Like Naila, she is no expert on genetics and the more complicated workings of the virus escape her, but she remembers Dr. Zapata's simple explanation like it was yesterday.

We've never seen anything with such aggressive mutation and such a unique way of infection. It doesn't just affect your cells. It changes them, mutates them, turns them from human into the virus itself.

The way the bird's body seems to destroy itself sure seems similar. Is this a new virus? No, it wouldn't have that slight tang of artifice if it was wholly natural. It doesn't make sense to Forty, though, that the monitors at the compound would create a new disease just to stop her. Surely the possibility of ecological devastation should have given them pause.

"It's for me," she says, not quite meaning for the words to leave her mouth. The bird is a morbid message in a way, telling Forty that her freedom will result in more death. It already killed the sibling's grandfather, and who knows how many livestock or people after that. Forty doesn't watch the news, but Naila makes it a point to keep the channel on now. She hasn't heard anything about a disease like this, but perhaps the infection is still in its infant phase.

"We have to burn this thing," Naila says, picking the bucket up and taking it towards her burn barrel. She has a pit dedicated to cooking and another for warmth, so she obviously deposits the bird in the one that won't contaminate food. She drags the barrel further from the house, her face grave.

"Should I go look for anymore?" Forty asks. That should be the next step. They don't know how this new virus spreads, but if it's through eating an infected corpse then surely managing scavengers should be a priority.

Naila shakes her head. "I don't want you or Thirty-Seven going out anymore. I'll have to look for another way to get game for y'all, but for now you shouldn't be out on your own. Especially him. He eats everything he sees." There's a slight chuckle in her voice, a little bit of fondness in the wake of this death.

Forty fetches Thirty-Seven from where he takes his daily hike in the woods. He likes to haunt a particular section of trees, their trunks tall and ancient. In the spring, Forty knows they will erupt in fruit, and before that their blossoms will make the area smell lovely. It's a nice spot, but unfortunately a popular one with animals. The last thing she needs is him eating an infected one.