The Citrus Syndrome

16 ; evil

Evil

Wilson

I'm glad I'm still on my feet. I feel for the poor souls littered around the floor.

As hospitals are turning away more and more victims, our basement is filling up. The sick have expanded their reign into dead men's offices and conference rooms. They've taken over the library, too.

The library is for "Special Cases", this meaning mostly those in the psychological stage. That's where I stay. Strange things happen every few minutes: a woman will catch fire, an immobile man will jump to his feet and karate-chop the air in front of him. Others cower in corners or shiver violently.

I'm talking a small boy down from on top of a bookshelf (I'm not sure how he got up there) when Taya drags Cat in. My boss is wrapped in a fluffy blanket, and that's all. With her hair down and her usually closed-off eyes overflowing with tears, I can hardly believe she's the same person who once told me that as an assessment for new lab workers, she made them drown kittens.

Hey, you need a certain pity threshold for that job. Kitten drowning is just the activity to test it.

But the woman in Taya's arms couldn't kill a kitten. She couldn't yell at a man for punching in two minutes late or storm into a conference and silence the entire room with one blink of her icy blue eyes. All this woman can do is cry and shiver.

It's sad, but almost better. Cat is easier to help when her guard is down.

I stop begging the boy to come down. Instead, I pull over chair to stand on and grab him. He screams, clawing at my face until I set him down on the floor where he proceeds to attach himself to my leg, seated on my foot.

I remember my daughter doing this when she was young. Adorable, yet annoying. That sums up kids, I think.

My eyes cloud with tears. What would my babies have hallucinations about? What scares an eight year old girl enough to drive her out of her mind? Embarrassment, maybe. Crowds, the deep end of the pool. Heights.

I know what my son is afraid of. He fears all things to do with people: rejection, ridicule, exclusion. Being hurt, being murdered, being kidnapped. Hurting someone, murdering someone, kidnapping someone.

Isabelle wouldn't let my take him to a psychiatrist, but hearing these things from my son shook me. The boy was afraid he would hurt someone else. Isn't that reason enough to call a shrink?

With the child wrapped around my leg, I hobble toward Cat. "What happened?" I ask Taya.

The woman shivers, handing her whimpering girlfriend over to me. "I don't know, really. She just started screaming and cry all of a sudden. Hallucination, right? Will it hurt her?"

The answer is yes. It already has. I sink to the ground with my boss's body in my arms, placing my hands on her stone cold cheeks. She's frozen solid. Even the tears on her face have gone to Ice.

"Ghania!" I call out. My quiet friend looks up from her cleaning, eyes twinkling with hidden eagerness. She followed me up here when I left the basement. Who could blame her? It's even more depressing down there than up here, if that's possible. "Can you start a fire? There's a lighter in the librarian's desk."

I know what she's thinking when she puts down her mop and gives me a look before starting away: we don't have a fireplace. And she's right. But just because you don't have food doesn't mean you can't starve. If Cat needs fire, we'll make fire.

She shivers, burrowing into the blanket. "Is she awake?" I ask Taya.

"I can't tell," she says, kneeling beside us. She places a kiss on Cat's forehead, trying to wipe a tear from her cheek. Frozen solid, it doesn't move. "Poor thing, she's ice cold."

I nod. On the other side of the room, Ghania digs in the drawer, coming up victorious a moment later. Now I have to think logistics. How can we make fire without burning down the building?

A scary thought occurs to me: what if we did?

What if we lit a flame in the center of this floor and let it eat up every suffering man, woman, and child inside? What if we put them all out of their misery and cut short and misery that would have begun?

As suddenly as it comes, it leaves. "Taya," I say, "Gather some books, okay? Boring ones. We're going to burn them."

Surprisingly, she smiles. "Fahrenheit 451," she giggles. "I'll get you that one."

I smirk at her nerdy joke. "You do that."

She stands and goes to find some encyclopedias, leaving Cat and I alone. The moment Taya leaves, Cat's eyes pop open.

"Kill me," she hisses without warning.

"Cat? What? I didn't know you were awake. Are you--?"

"No! Wilson, we have to go before she gets back." Cat's eyes dart around the room. She points to the side exit, insisting, "Take me out there, okay? You've got scalpels, we've got poisonous pills around here. Kill me."

I shush her, stroking her cold cheek. "No way."

"Why? It's not like you haven't thought about killing me before. I'm a bitch, Wilson."

It's true. But I shake my head. "You're not a bitch," I say. "You're my friend. And I'm not killing you."

Her eyes soften, pleading with me. "Willy," she begs. "I'm asking for mercy. If you're my friend, you'll do it."

I look into her clear eyes, lightened with a hope I can't fulfill. "No," I repeat, "and that's final."

I have never felt so evil as when she looks up at me and begins to sob.