Tales From Twistwood

Darkness and Disease

 When I woke up, I didn't know where I was. It was dark, the only sources of light being candles. People seemed to be milling around, some of them sleeping, some of them talking to each other, and some staring off into space like they were in a trance or something. Most were doing that, actually.

I didn't question why I was here. I knew already. The disease took all of us eventually. I just didn't realize it would take me... here. Wherever 'here' was.

Strangely enough, I couldn't seem to remember being taken at all. All I remember is sitting at my desk, doing my homework, and suddenly the world dropped away. Next thing I know, I was here.

A man sat in front of me, a glassy look in his eyes. He was staring up at the ceiling. From the looks of it, he had been here a while. I didn't recognize him, but I assumed he was one of the first to go missing

Suddenly, his neck snapped forwards so he was staring directly into my eyes. He leaned closer and closer, so close we were almost nose-to-nose. He was so close, I could feel his breath on my face as he talked.

"You new?" he said in a low, gravelly voice.

I muttered a reply. Him being so close, I could see the full effects of the disease on him. Hair was all over his face, even more hair than was natural for a man of his age. It covered his cheeks and jaw, and even his forehead had a light dusting of the coarse black stuff. There's a dark red, almost black color to the whites of his eyes.

"We all have it in here," he said. "We're all infected."

"I kind of got that." I shuffled back so I was sitting about a foot away from him. It didn't matter if I was going to die soon, I still liked my personal space.

"How many days have you had it?"

"Four."

"Sucks for you. I'm at about my third week."

So I was right! He was one of the original infected! I stood up and looked around the room. I recognized a few people, but no one I cared about had gotten infected, so it didn't really bother me. But there were so many people here... I hadn't realized what had happened to the town until now.

Then I noticed the animals. There were lots of them, slinking around the edges of the room. They all looked like wolves or dogs or something like that, with completely black coats. When they turned to the light, their eyes flashed like a cat's.

There weren't many people up and about, but I noticed one lady in particular. She was wearing hospital scrubs and tending to people's wounds. The nametag she was wearing said "Janice" in big red letters.

I walked to her and asked what she was doing.

"Helping people, of course. Some of the scratches people have are getting infected. I'm not sure how long we're going to be in here, and I won't have anyone dying on my hands."

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. "You aren't, you know... Infected."

Janice laughed. "You must be new. What's your name?"

"Jesse," I said. "Can you explain what's going on? You seem to know."

Janice sat me down on the floor. I felt a bit uneasy with the wolves circling around us, but they didn't look like they were going to attack. They were just there, eyeing us like we could be their next meal.

"With this disease," Janice explained. "You're either a host or a carrier. Most people here are carriers. That's like you - you actually get infected with the disease. I was a host. I didn't get infected, but I carried the disease for a while until it broke free and was able to spread. I'm not sure why it needs a host, but it seems like this disease is some kind of parasite. It needs to be dormant for a while before it can grow. Most of the hosts so far haven't lived but... well, I was lucky."

I nodded. "Why are we in here, then?"

"No one knows," she replied. "If you become a host and survive, or if you get infected, you come here for the final stages of your process. Well, I don't really have a "final stage," so my theory is that whoever spread the disease in the first place doesn't want anyone to tell what happens to the hosts." She gave me a weak smile. "Crazy, huh?"

"Not at all," I muttered.

There was a moment of awkward silence between us before I remembered what I was going to ask.

"What's up with-" I gestured vaguely to the animals around us. "-them?"

Janice's face quickly turned from mildly happy to nervous. "Oh. Them. Right. That... That's..."

A haggard woman beside me grabbed my arm with a talon-like hand. I sat there, frozen in fear and surprise. For a moment, she didn't do anything.

"That woman ain't gonna tell you nothin', kid," she rasped. "She's just gonna let that disease take you over. But me, I'm not a coward. I'll tell you the truth."

"Judith, please," Janice cut in. "I don't want to make him nervous."

"That's the final stage," said Judith, looking into my eyes with her crazy, electric blue ones. "The final stage of the disease. See them? That's you, too. I'd look out. You don't have much time, kid."