The Unnatural

Chapter 21: Patient Zero

"Dad! Hold on, Dad!" Addy pleaded from the backseat of Amanda's car, with her father's head in her lap. Amanda was driving as fast as she could.

A horrific croak came in and out of Daniel's lungs—a guttural, crackling wheeze. His sweat-soaked eyelids clung shut, the sunlight bouncing off of them.

Addy was crying, "Daddy..."

She held his hand firmly; his was limp in her's.

What is happening? She asked herself. But she knew the answer, it was the curse of knowing how things worked.

She felt the virus in him. Understood it, remembering her vision of the future.

All those dead.

The end of humanity...

Then she closed her eyes, griping her father's hand tighter.

There... There the virus was, a living entity, insatiable and desperate to propagate.

She concentrated and was able to trace its origins in her mind, leading her to the vision of an unknown woman in a black button-down dress with a white collar, and a white apron tied around her waist. She had never met this woman before, yet she felt somehow linked to her.

Go deeper!

Addy concentrated harder, a name imprinted on the canvas of her mind...

ROSITA.

She gasped; her eyes snapping open and then closed again.

An exhausted moan escaped her open mouth as she witnessed it all unfold in the theater of her own mind.

Rosita, a maid at the Four Seasons, knocked on the door. There was no response, nor should there be. The room in question had no guest registered, yet a keycard had somehow been activated for it. When she entered the room, she found a girl, naked, curled into a ball on the floor. The bedsheets formed a makeshift cocoon around her.

As a single mother of three, Rosita knew a fever when she saw one. Surveying the room, her maternal instincts took over. She cradled the girl in her arms, her clothes soaked in the girl's sweat, and gently returned her to the bed. She placed a cold, wet washcloth on the girl's forehead, then left the room. Whatever clerical error had occurred here, Rosita wasn't the one to fix it. Instead, she would let the girl rest.

The following day, Rosita came into work feeling a little under the weather. As the day progressed, so did her illness.

Holding her temples, she balanced herself on her cleaning cart. Her destination was a room halfway down the hall. She shut her eyes, hoping to quell the dizziness. Instead, her closed eyelids painted a swirling, nauseating darkness.

She retched into a trash bag on her cart and hastened her pace down the hall, reaching the room she intended on cleaning.

She fumbled for the key clipped to her waist, unlocked the door, and entered.

Instead of leaving the door ajar with her cart outside, she wheeled the cart in, shut the door behind her, and slumped against it. Sweat cascaded down her face, stinging her eyes. Violent coughs wracked her body. She couldn't breathe. The edges of her vision blurred, the bright room dimming as her eyes fought to stay open.

In the end, they surrendered to darkness.

--

Addy watched as the man (Matthew) who was staying in that room, slid his keycard into the slot. It unlocked, but something blocked him from pushing the door open. He braced himself, ramming his shoulder against it. It creaked open, the sound of something heavy dragging across the carpet.

Around the door edge, he spotted it, a woman's shoe, followed by the foot it belonged to. A limp leg lay crookedly. Matthew's eyes bulged as he pushed harder, the leg sliding grotesquely like an inanimate object being shoved aside.

He forced the door wide enough to slip inside. When he released it, it slammed shut, and the dead housekeeper collapsed to the floor. 

Matthew knelt down and checked her pulse. Her neck was slick with sweat and mucus, her entire face a clammy mess.

No pulse.

"Holy shit," he gasped, his hands instinctually forming a barrier around his nose and mouth.

He dialed 9-1-1.

Matthew couldn't fathom how he managed to sleep that night. When he awoke, the memory of the deceased woman from before felt like a surreal dream. Actually, everything had an unreal quality to it. His head throbbed, and the back of his throat was scratchy. He blamed those Manhattans he drank at the hotel bar.

It hardly mattered;. he had a plane to catch. An hour later, he arrived at the airport. The scratch in his throat now a full-fledged cough.

—

Addy trembled,  pulling herself from her vision. She knew she could have continued tracing the virus (her virus) through each victim (her victims). It was a part of her; she could feel it now, burning its way through her father.

Less than a mile away from the hospital, she yelled, "Pull over!"

Amanda hesitated, "What, Add? We gotta get him--" A glimpse of Addy's pallid face in the rearview mirror stopped her short. She hit the brakes.

Addy flung open the door and vomited, expelling the remnants of her breakfast. Strings of bile hung from her lips as she heard her father moan once more.

She slammed the door and croaked, "Go."

There had to be a way to save him. The virus originated from her, that much was clear. Her ever-evolving DNA had birthed an ever-evolving virus. Perhaps it had started innocently in her, like a common cold. The thought gnawed at her. 

The virus had mutated, assimilating into her. Amanda and Fletch were immune; their genetic makeup was recognized. The dwindling part of her cells considered human were attacked, obliterating them. It explained why only humans were infected, why her father was now teetering on the precipice of death.

Think, Addy, think!

She wished Peter was here, now more than ever. He had a talent for mapping out the alternative paths.

Wait... Peter...

Amanda's vision of him... talking to Addy. There's something to that, someway it all connected. But what?

Amanda's car screeched to a halt in front of the hospital, as Peter's voice echoed in Addy's thoughts. It was words she had once spoken, but his voice reaffirming the idea.

"Time," he hinted. "It always comes back to time."