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Post by Stephanie Valencia on May 9, 2013 16:46:11 GMT -5
Prologue
The cough escaped from her throat without warning and hung in the air. Corinne’s eyes widened. The moment that followed seemed to stretch into an hour but she knew what was about to happen. The others lifted their heads to look at her, their eyes equally wide, their faces fearful. Corinne put her hand to her mouth, restraining a second cough, shaking her head, entreating the others to stay silent. But it was too late.
“Infection,” Rafe said, quietly at first.
“No,” Corinne managed to say before coughing again.
“Infection!” Rafe called out.
In an instant, the metal cell door flung open and two guards barrelled into the cell, their stiff white hazmat suits rustling loudly as they advanced on Corinne.
“It was just a cough!” she cried, as they aggressively lifted her off the ground. “It was just something in my throat!” But her words were followed by another flurry of coughs, hoarser this time, each one violently racking her body. She struggled against them, trying desperately to break free while the others sat on the ground, witnesses to her futile efforts. The guards dragged her towards the door, finally managing to subdue her, before one of the guards aimed the barrel of his ray gun at the back of her neck. He pulled the trigger and her body instantly slumped into the other guard’s arms, her knees giving out, her head lazily hanging over her chest. The guards carried out her body and shut the metal door, confining the remaining ten detainees in the dimly lit quarantine cell.
Day 4 of quarantine: 10 days until release
Stephanie looks around the room at the nine others. The cell is brighter now that the sun is out, light making its way through the solitary barred window at the top of the wall, the glass smattered with dirt and dust. Kat and Morgan are still sleeping, their bodies curled next to each other on the cold concrete. Brenda sits near them, taking a drag of her cigarette, which have been rationed out to last for the full duration of the two-week quarantine period. Pete and Gina are seated in the corner, playing a game of cards against Boo and Natalie. Meanwhile, Stephanie sits on the ground, leaning against the concrete wall, Rob seated next to her on one side, Rafe on the other.
“Do you think Corinne was actually infected?” she asks quietly.
“Yes,” Rafe answers.
“But how do you know? How do you know she didn’t just have something in her throat like she said?”
No one answers her. She turns her gaze to the four detainees playing cards. It seems as though the game is over. Pete is showing the other three a card trick. He asks Natalie to choose a card.
“If she was actually sick,” Stephanie says, “what’s to say that we’re not—”
“Shut up,” Rob interrupts her. “Don’t. If they hear you say it, they might misunderstand and come in here.”
Pete shuffles the deck and begins arranging the cards face down.
“And besides,” Rob says. “We’ll know by tomorrow if any of us are…you know.”
Brenda looks over at Rob, Rafe, and Stephanie. “I don’t think she was infected,” she says dryly, releasing a long exhalation of smoke. “I think you jumped the gun, Rafe. She could have just had something in her throat.”
“She didn’t have anything in her throat,” Rafe insists. “Trust me. She needed to go. If she stayed, we’d all be sick within five days.”
“If that’s the case, she probably spread it anyway, don’t you think?” Brenda cocks her head.
Stephanie feels Rob’s hand putting pressure on her leg, silently telling her to observe the confrontation between Rafe and Brenda without getting involved. He had told her, from day one, that the only way she’d survive quarantine was to keep her mouth closed and her eyes open. His hand pressing firmly on her knee is his wordless way of recapitulating his lesson.
“She didn’t spread it, Brenda, and you can thank me for that. If I hadn’t called out for the guards, she would have stayed in here and who knows what could’ve happened.”
“Nothing would’ve happened because she wasn’t sick to begin with,” Brenda says, putting out her cigarette on the ground.
“What makes you so sure that Corinne was healthy?”
Brenda’s jaw hardens. She thinks she understands what Rafe is getting at. “We’re all healthy, Rafe; that’s why we’re here. The point of quarantine is to prevent healthy people from getting sick. To prevent them from coming into contact with people who are infected.”
“But what if a person who appears to be healthy happens to be infected and doesn’t show symptoms until after they’ve been placed in quarantine?” Rafe presses her. “What if that person has come into contact with ten other healthy people and contaminated their living quarters?”
“Living quarters,” Brenda scoffs. “You call this shitty cell our living quarters?”
“Who did you sleep next to the night before last?” Rafe asks.
Brenda pauses. She licks her lips and then smirks. “I don’t remember.”
Pete turns over a card. “Your card is the queen of hearts.”
Natalie nods, impressed. But her attention is focused on the conversation behind her.
“The night before last,” Stephanie says, “Brenda slept next to Corinne.”
“I thought so,” Rafe says. “Do you remember now, Brenda?”
Brenda stands up. “Rafe, what are you trying to do?”
“You slept next to Corinne the night before last, and last night, Corinne was terminated because she was infected.”
“She was not infected,” Brenda says angrily.
But Rafe continues, getting to his feet, “So if Corinne passed on the virus to anyone in this cell—”
“She didn’t!” Brenda shouts. “She didn’t pass anything on to anyone!”
Rafe moves towards her and utters, “She passed it on to you.”
Suddenly, Natalie stands. Rafe and Brenda separate, each looking at her, anticipating her next move. Natalie looks towards the door and cries out, “Infection!” On cue, two cards burst into the cell and pause. Natalie extends her arm and points to Rafe: “He’s the one.”
Before he can protest, the ray gun discharges into Rafe’s neck and he collapses, dragged out by the guards, who seal the cell as they exit. Stephanie holds her face in her hands, trying to stifle her sobs, as Rob pulls her into a tight embrace. Natalie walks up to Brenda and they hug briefly. Brenda, over Natalie’s shoulder, locks eyes with Stephanie. She holds her gaze there for a moment before returning to the pack of cigarettes on the ground.
Day 5 of quarantine: 9 days until release
The cell begins to darken as the sun sets outside. Not a word has been spoken since Rafe’s termination but a palpable tension persists. As the others begin to fall asleep, Stephanie prepares for a second consecutive night without rest. She can’t conceive of what would have led Natalie to falsely accuse Rafe. She sees that Natalie’s eyes are still open. A moment later, Natalie rises from the floor and stands by the window, staring at the outside world from which they have been sequestered. Stephanie slowly gets up and moves to stand next to her. The two women stay by one another in silence before Stephanie finally speaks.
“Why did you do that yesterday?”
“I had to,” Natalie responds.
“You knew he wasn’t sick,” Stephanie says.
Natalie turns to face Stephanie, taking her gently by the shoulders. “What I did to Rafe is exactly what Rafe was about to do to Brenda. It’s exactly what he would’ve done to me. And to you. You shouldn’t have let him fool you like that.” Natalie starts to walk away but Stephanie stops her. “Does Brenda blame me?”
“Do I blame you for what?” Brenda says suddenly, her voice right behind Stephanie.
Stephanie turns around, standing now between Brenda and Natalie, an unspoken understanding shared among them but from which she is excluded.
“Do you blame me for saying that you slept next to Corinne?” Stephanie says, almost weakly.
“Why would I blame you for that, honey?” Brenda asks, her crooked smile sinister in the darkening light coming in through the window. “I mean, it definitely pissed me off, but I should be able to get over it, shouldn’t I?” She winks at Stephanie before turning to face the window with a sigh.
Stephanie’s glance darts from Brenda to Natalie, who seems to stifle a somewhat nervous smile.
“I could really go for a smoke right about now,” Brenda says, staring outside.
“What happened?” Stephanie asks. “I thought you rationed your cigarettes.”
“They’re gone. I gave them away.”
“To who?”
“To a guard,” Brenda smiles.
“But…cigarettes are allowed. You didn’t have to give them away.” Stephanie says. She senses something in the arrangement of their bodies—Brenda in front of her, Natalie behind her— and the way that Brenda is playfully dictating the pace of the conversation the way a cat holds a mouse by its tail.
“I didn’t give them up for free, babe,” Brenda says with a smirk. “Ever heard of bribing the guards?”
Stephanie raises an eyebrow. “Most people in prison bribe the guards for cigarettes, not with them. What could you possibly get in return for a pack of smokes?”
Brenda grins. “This,” she says, brandishing a ray gun.
Natalie wraps her arm around Stephanie’s torso, restricting the movement of her arms, and covers her mouth with her hand as Brenda aims the ray gun at Stephanie’s throat. Stephanie tries to scream but her voice is muffled by Natalie’s hand; she manages to kick Brenda’s knee, throwing off her balance. As Brenda re-aims the ray gun, Rob tackles her to the floor, the ray gun falling from her hand and sliding across the concrete. Natalie throws Stephanie to the ground and runs towards the ray gun, but before she can reach it, Stephanie yells, “Infection!” Rob quickly backs away from Brenda, crawling swiftly to the wall, while Natalie freezes, the gun inches away from her feet.
The two guards enter the room. Brenda points at Stephanie but before she can say the word, Rob yells, “She’s the one that’s infected. It’s her!” gesturing towards Brenda, her body still in a heap on the ground. The first guard points his ray gun from across the room and terminates her. As they carry her out, the second guard stoops to pick up the ray gun at Natalie’s feet and takes it away with him.
Day 8 of quarantine: 6 days until release
“We only have to last six more days and then we’re free,” Rob whispers into Stephanie’s ear. “Then we can pretend like none of this ever happened.”
She feels his voice reverberate in his chest, her head resting just above his heart, his arm wrapped around her shoulder. The others have fallen asleep but she and Rob still lie awake on the dirty concrete floor.
“I can’t think that far ahead, Rob,” Stephanie says. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
“You have me. You can do this as long as I’m here and I can do it as long as you’re here,” he reassures her. “Do you know how scared I was the night that Brenda and Natalie ambushed you? If Brenda had killed you…or if she had gotten you terminated…I don’t know what I would have done.”
Stephanie shakes her head. “There’s no point thinking about it. It’s over now.”
“It’s never going to be over, Stephanie,” Rob says darkly. “There are people in this cell that we cannot trust. They will try to get us terminated so that they won’t be terminated.”
“But we’re all healthy!” Stephanie asserts. “We’re killing each other but we’re all perfectly fine! None of us is infected, yet we’re getting each other terminated! Why are we doing this?”
“Listen to me,” Rob says, taking her firmly by the shoulders. “Brenda didn’t trust you. She tried to terminate you because she was scared that you’d terminate her.”
“But I wouldn’t!”
“It doesn’t matter what you would or wouldn’t do. What matters is what Brenda thought you would do. If anyone in this cell suspects that you or I would try to have them terminated, then we’re in danger. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Stephanie nods meekly.
Kat turns over in her sleep, her body rustling against the floor.
“You’re not going to like what I’m going to say right now…” Rob begins.
“Just say it.”
“We need to terminate the people in this cell that we don’t trust to keep us safe,” Rob says, each whispered word ringing out with leaden clarity.
Stephanie stares at him for a moment and shakes her head slowly. “No. No, Rob, I can’t do that.”
“We have to.”
“No,” she says again. “Rob, I cannot do that. I can’t, I’m sorry.”
“Steph, wake up. They’re going to kill us if we don’t kill them first. If you want to survive—”
“But we’re only six days away!”
“If you want to survive…this is what we have to do.”
Stephanie hears movement once again from Kat’s direction. She looks over to see Kat slowly prop herself up on her elbow, her eyes still closed, still half-sleeping. Her movements rouse Morgan who sits up next to her.
Morgan ineffectually slaps Kat’s arm. “You woke me up. Go back to sleep.”
But Kat stays still. She slowly puts her hand to her chest, inhales hoarsely and releases a solitary cough. Suddenly, Morgan sits up and turns towards Kat, a look of horror manifesting on her face. She pushes herself along the floor away from her, turns towards to the door and says, “Infection.”
Day 10 of quarantine: 4 days until release
Stephanie watches Boo pace nervously around the room. He’s been behaving strangely for days; she had voiced her reservations about him to Rob, but Rob had insisted that apart from being cautious, no other measures needed to be taken just yet. She wonders if Boo is trustworthy, or if he is one of the people in the cell with whom she shouldn’t trust her life. A week ago, she wouldn’t have entertained a singular doubt about him, but his behaviour in the past two days leaves her uneasy.
“Ten days ago, there were eleven of us in this room,” Boo says, breaking the silence, his words tightly strung together, the sentence swiftly escaping his lips as though it were a single word.
“It’s scary to think about,” Stephanie responds.
He spins around to face her. “You think anyone else in here is infected?”
The others, sitting in various parts of the cell, look at Stephanie now. She realizes she’s made a mistake by engaging with him, by tacitly agreeing to have this conversation. But it is too late. She is compelled to proceed. Hesitation at this point would amount to self-recrimination.
“No, I don’t,” she says firmly.
“You don’t think anyone else in this cell is infected?” he asks again.
“No,” she repeated. “I think everyone in this cell is perfectly healthy.”
“Kat wasn’t healthy,” he responds immediately, his movements fidgety, his right eye twitching. “She woke up in the middle of the night with a cough. I think it’s pretty safe to say that she wasn’t healthy. Don’t you think so?”
Stephanie pauses. “Lots of people cough in the middle of the night.”
“Do you cough in the middle of the night?” he stares at her, unblinking, though the muscles in his right eye continue to contract slightly every few seconds.
“Boo, are you okay?” Rob asks from the side of the room.
“I’m great, Rob,” Boo says with a wide, deranged smile. “I’m perfectly fine. Thanks for asking, buddy. I think it’s great that the seven of us are all still getting along. Isn’t it great? Ten days ago, there were eleven of us in this room. Eleven! Isn’t that just wild? And now here we are, only seven. But I digress. Where was I? Oh that’s right,” he spins towards Stephanie again. “I remember: do you cough in the middle of the night, Stephanie? I mean, it’s normal, after all, isn’t it? Or so you say. If it’s normal, then you must cough in the middle of the night. Do you, Steph?”
“Do you?”
“Never in my life,” Boo responds instantly with a smile. “You?”
Stephanie considers her answer, but doesn’t know how to respond. An abject denial would be reconfigured into a lie; an evasion would be seen as an admission of guilt. “I don’t ever recall waking up in the middle of the night with a cough.”
“You don’t recall.”
“No, I don’t recall.”
Boo stares at her, the twitch in his eye persisting as he brings his hand to his chin.
“This is the problem I’m having with all of this. I’m having a problem, you see, understanding what’s going on in the cell, understanding what’s been going on for the past ten days,” Boo begins to pace again, his sentences running into each other almost nonsensically. “Corinne was sick, Corinne was infected, isn’t that right? Corinne coughed and she was infected, right?”
“She may have been infected, there’s no way for us to know, Boo,” Stephanie says.
“Okay, let’s say that Corinne was infected. Just for argument’s sake, okay? Let’s say that Corinne was actually infected for real and that’s why she was terminated. She coughed and she was terminated. Right?”
Stephanie shrugs her shoulders. “Okay, for argument’s sake. Fine.”
“If Corinne was infected, then she must have passed it on. So Rafe was infected and Brenda was infected and—”
“Rafe was not infected,” Stephanie shouts, glaring at Natalie, sitting on the opposite side of the cell. “Every single one of us in this room knows that Rafe was not infected.”
“But for argument’s sake—” Boo reiterates.
“Fuck argument’s sake!” Stephanie says, slapping her hand hard against the ground.
“Listen to this,” Boo says softly, urging Stephanie with his eyes to listen to his line of reasoning. “If we suppose Corinne was infected, maybe she passed it on to Rafe, and maybe Rafe passed it on to Brenda, and Brenda passed it on to Kat, and—”
“But none of that is true,” Stephanie shakes her head. “Rafe was not infected. And…and neither was Brenda. Corinne coughed and Kat coughed. It may have been a coincidence, we don’t know. They may have been infected, they may have not. But Rafe and Brenda, we know, for sure, were not actually infected.”
“So you admit there’s a possibility that Kat might have been infected?” Boo asks, a nervous grin spreading over his face.
“Of course there’s a possibility, Boo. Yes,” Stephanie concedes.
“So here’s where I’m confused, right? Because Corinne was terminated the same night that we were put in this cell, isn’t that right? The very first night that we got here, Corinne was terminated. That was day one. Isn’t that right, Steph?”
Stephanie looks down at the ground, realizing Boo’s meaning. “That’s right.”
“Of course it’s right. How could we forget? Corinne was terminated on day one. The same day that we go here.” He pauses. “How long is the virus’s incubation period, do you remember, Steph? How long is the period of time from exposure to the virus until symptoms begin to appear? Do you remember how long, Steph?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“How long?”
Stephanie raises her gaze to meet his, her jaw hardening as she says, “Five days.”
“Yup, five days. And Kat…Kat was terminated on what day?”
Stephanie sighs. She doesn’t have to say it. Everyone has already arrived at the same conclusion, whether or not she pronounces the words.
“On what day was Kat terminated?”
“Day eight, Boo. Kat was terminated on day eight.”
“Bingo,” Boo smiles. He fervidly rubs his chin, the latest of his nervous ticks. “So the question is…who infected Kat? I mean, since we know, isn’t that what you said, Steph? Since we know that Rafe and Brenda weren’t actually infected, since that’s a fact, in your words, Stephanie, not mine, in your words…since Rafe and Brenda weren’t actually infected and Corinne was terminated eight days before…who infected Kat?”
“Maybe Kat was infected earlier and had been hiding her symptoms,” Gina suggests.
Boo pauses and considers it. “I guess that’s a possibility, isn’t it? But can I tell you what I think? I don’t think Kat was hiding her symptoms. I don’t think so at all. I think…you know what I think? I think someone else in this cell has been hiding their symptoms. Someone else in this cell infected Kat and has been hiding their symptoms and they’re going to infect the rest of us too, don’t you think so? We only have four days left until we’re finally released and there’s one person in this cell who’s going to infect each and every one of us so that we don’t make it.”
“I don’t think—” Stephanie begins, but Boo interjects.
“You don’t think what? You don’t think so? Why don’t you think so, Stephanie, hunh? You don’t think anyone would do something like that?”
Boo’s breathing is becoming more rapid, his face is flushed. Stephanie realizes that he’s working his way up to an accusation. He’s going to accuse her.
“I do. I think so,” he says. “I know there are people in this cell that would do something like that. One person especially.” He pauses and casts a glance over the others, sitting against the wall, before returning his gaze to Stephanie. “You’ve already had someone wrongfully terminated, you admitted it.”
“I was defending myself,” Stephanie says, clenching her teeth. “She was going to kill me.”
“And now you’re going to try to kill the rest of us, aren’t you?”
“I’m not the only person in this room that had someone terminated,” Stephanie yells. “Natalie had Rafe killed for no fucking reason!”
Boo looks behind him at Natalie with a smile and turns back to Stephanie. “Natalie’s different. She and I go way back.”
Stephanie opens her mouth to counter, but Boo shouts suddenly at the top of his lungs, “Infection!”
Rob and Pete spring to their feet instantly. Rob pulls Stephanie towards the others while Pete stands with his back to them, his arms outstretched as though shielding them from Boo, as the guards storm into the room. They see the six bodies huddled together against the wall and Boo standing alone in the centre of the room, and immediately advance upon him. His cries are cut short by the sound of the ray gun and they exit a moment later, bearing his dead body.
Stephanie breaks down into tears.
“It’s okay,” Rob reassures her. “We couldn’t trust him and now he’s gone. It’s okay. We’re going to make it.”
“I can’t handle anymore of this,” Stephanie says, her face in her hands.
But a noise suddenly cuts through the sounds of her sobbing and she looks up. The others turn their heads too in Natalie’s direction. Natalie’s eyes, filled with terror, scan the room. She coughs.
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