The Longest Night

It was late evening. She had spent hours lying on the undressed bed, curled into a ball. Perpetually imploding. She squeezed her eyes shut. Squeeze it out and repair. But she didn’t want to repair, she didn’t want to forget.

The sun set. She couldn’t lay there all night, especially not in those clothes, covered in blood as they were. The scrubs crossed her mind. She kicked off her boots and peeled off her clothes, a second skin. She walked towards the closet, pausing when she got a look of herself in the mirror. Still deathly thin, but now where once she was covered only in scars and bone-white skin she was now mired with bruises and gashes from her upper ribs to her mid-thighs. It was brutal, it was ugly, it was all she had left of him.

Enough. She opened the closet doors and pulled out a neatly folded pile of scrubs. The clothes felt freshly washed. She unfolded it, and the creases hung in the clothing for only a few seconds before they softened. It smelled of flowers and wind. A pair of white slip-on shoes were on the floor. She slipped into them and left her room. To keep moving was to keep it at bay.

A few people milled through the corridor towards the mess hall, their heads still hung as if they would never lift again. She could almost feel the self-hatred and guilt rolling off their skin as they walked by her.

Aroma led her down the corridor. The mess hall was quiet; though many were there eating, no one was talking. A soldier handed her a bag of food just outside the door. It was Goran.

“How do you have enough for everyone?” she asked.

“Food specialist.”

“What do you do?”

“She does it.”

“Oh.” Catherine took her food and left. She took a seat at the nearest open spot and unfolded the bag carefully. Baked potato, steamed broccoli, knife and fork. When was the last time she saw a potato? Or broccoli? It was so green. She took a bite and burned her tongue. Then she took another. It burned. She wanted more.

She jumped. A man on the other side of the room had slammed his fist into the table. He was shaking. His face was going red. The man whom he was staring at sat still as stone, elbows propped up on the table, fists pressed against his forehead.

“How can you just sit there? Eating your food like nothing’s fucking wrong?”

“That’s enough,” Ackermann said, approaching from behind. “Let’s break this up.”

Ackermann put his hand on the man’s shoulder and he lunged for the other’s throat. Ackermann tried to apprehend him while Reid and Goran rushed in. “You ate my wife!” the man shrieked. “You ate my wife, you fucker!”

It took all three of them to drag him away. He screamed “wife” and “fucker” all the way out. The man at the table began to shake.

Catherine ate the last of her broccoli stalk then picked up her baked potato and took it to her room.

She felt his hand gently touch her jaw, turning her face towards his. She opened her eyes and saw him above her, inches from her face.

I thought you were dead.

He brushed her jaw, throat, slowly across her chest, down her belly, and rested between her thighs.

The air rushed out in a sigh, her eyes closing. His hand moved slowly, carefully, and she had never known anything could exist. And he was there. He was touching her now, and oh, God, she must have died too—

She opened her eyes and looked around the room. The feel of his hands lingered only briefly. Though she was under the covers she felt cold.

She had no idea what time it was but the building was still busy with sounds. Voices could be heard through the walls. The generator hummed, reminding her it stood between them and death as they survived together.

Surviving.

She pulled the covers back and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. Even if she could fall back asleep, she wouldn’t stay there. He would be there. She needed to escape that.

A conversation drifted down the corridor from the mess hall. Ackermann’s and Reid’s voices. In the opposite direction, four people speaking in hushed tones. One was Doctor Anderson’s. One as a woman. The other two were other men she did not know. Jeffries’s name caught her ears.

“He was stabbed,” Doctor Anderson said. “Well, cut by a knife is more accurate. Supposedly by one of the residents living here now. We swore his privacy, though.”

“How is he?”

“Who? The resident?”

“No, Jeffries.”

There was silence. “It was too late.”

More silence. She walked slowly towards the office, hung on each word.

“But you say he retrieved some samples?”

“Just water samples. From McClelland Lake,” the woman said.

“How did Jeffries get them here?”

“It’s incredible, really,” Doctor Anderson replied. “We didn’t get all the details of the story, but we pieced it together. There’s a woman here”—Catherine leaned against the wall by his door, keeping herself out of sight—“who was living at the lake. She attempted to save Jeffries’s life. He retrieved some samples while he was there.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that people were still living south of here.”

“Self preservation runs deep.”

“Well, Jordan, did you get any results from the samples?”

There was a pause. “That’s what I was just coming to tell you,” she said, her voice hushed, washed in excitement. “There’s no trace of it in McClelland Lake.”

“It’s dissipating.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Catherine knew little of the context, but that word gave her frisson; at a basic level, she could understand that this discovery was a pivotal moment in their research. He then gave a small chuckle. “I suppose there’s no need to worry about a water supply for a while, then.”

“We were able to analyze our samples on the way as well. We took them from the river.”

“What did you find?” Doctor Anderson asked.

“A higher concentration of the virus was in our control group.”

“You ran tests out there? Why didn’t you wait until you got back?”

“Because we found hundreds of these scattered on the bank.”

There were sounds of cloth rubbing against cloth – a knapsack slipping from someone’s shoulders – then shuffling and tinkering of delicate equipment. Everyone was silent.

“What is that?” Jordan asked quietly.

There was some shifting as all four drew closer together, hovering over the apparent object Catherine assumed they were passing amongst one another. “We didn’t dare open it.”

After a moment, Doctor Anderson said: “No.” It was disbelieving.

“There’s a note on the label,” the first stranger said.

“We couldn’t read it,” the second man said. “We were hoping one of you might be able to.”

Then there was the longest stretch of quiet yet. A chair scraped across the floor, as if someone landed in it heavily.

“What is it?” Jordan asked.

“This says…” Doctor Anderson trailed off. “It was manipulated and redistributed. Not for personal use. This…a ship must have capsized in the Pacific for you to have found that many in the river. Or…”

“It couldn’t have been intentional?” Jordan muttered.

Catherine closed her eyes and slumped heavily against the wall. No good guys, no bad guys.

“No. We…”

Quiet.

“Thank you, Jordan,” Doctor Anderson finally said, seemingly exhausted. “Let’s get some sleep. You’ve done well. I appreciate all your work.”

“Thank you, sir,” one of them replied, disheartened.

Catherine turned silently in the hall, and walked back to her room before the others exited. The three dismissed scientists turned down the opposite direction of the hall, and hadn’t caught even a glimpse of the weathered girl in the darkened hallway. She reached her apartment, opened and closed the door quietly, then sat on her bed, looking at her feet. Suddenly, a dark scoff ran past her lips, and she shook her head.

Humans are designed to destroy themselves.