Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (15 page)

“
It’s called selective
perception. It’s actually a primitive defensive process, to filter
out excess inputs that would distract you from what’s important. As
humans evolved, we needed to be able to prioritize essential
information – like movement of a predator from the corner of our
eye – from less crucial information – like leaves blowing in the
wind – in only a fraction of a second. In a primal world, this
could be the difference between life and death. So our brains
trained themselves to recognize certain patterns, so that even if
we only see a
part
of that pattern, we can quickly make an educated guess about
what to expect.”

That certainly seemed
useful, Phoenix agreed. With her recent injuries, she knew what it
felt like to
not
be able to process stimuli efficiently – everything from the
light of the sun to the beeping of the machines beside her was
startling in its intensity. She imagined that was why she’d spent
so much time asleep lately, blocking the world out so her brain
could heal.

The Doctor continued with his
explanation. “This process is already going on in our heads all the
time. To hide the gaps in the memories we created – and the new
worlds we placed the prisoners into – we just used a special
biochemical to help the brain narrow that filter a bit, allowing
the patient to focus only on the immediate tasks at hand. The brain
takes the sensory input we’ve given it, resolves it into a memory,
and any conflicting information that comes in is automatically
dismissed, keeping the illusion alive as the patient goes about
their daily lives in the world we built for them.”

Phoenix didn’t understand why he was
taking the time to explain all of this to her. It was fascinating,
surely – if somewhat disturbing – but she didn’t know what he was
expecting her to do with this information. There was a pause in the
conversation as he waited for her response. She decided to be
direct. “And why are you telling me this?”

The Doctor sighed and
looked at her earnestly. “Because I want you to understand,
Phoenix. There will come a time – probably not long from now – when
others will try to fill your head with lies and misinformation, to
lead you down a path that may not be in your best interest. I want
you to know
why
Paragon came about, and why we – the Engineers – have taken
the measures we have to keep the peace amongst Paragon’s people, so
that one day you’ll be able to make your own decision about
who’s
really
working for the good of the collective. Do you understand,
Phoenix, why we did what we did?”

Phoenix nodded. Everything
he’d said had made perfect
logical
sense, from the disaster of their dying planet to
the need to maintain order while their colony recovered from near
extinction. Even though she had some arguments with the ethics of
tampering with a person’s brain, she guessed it was still a better
alternative than killing off prisoners, especially when there were
so few survivors left to begin with.

“
You were trying to
protect the people from themselves,” she responded. “To ensure the
survival of the human race.” She wasn’t sure if she truly
believed
that yet, but
she thought it was what he wanted to hear.

The Doctor smiled. “Excellent. You’re
a quick study, Ms. Phoenix.”

He folded his hands and headed toward
the door, looking back briefly before his exit. “And with that,
I’ll let you get some rest.”

16. INFIRMITY

The symptoms were all too familiar to
Alessa. First the sneezing and cough, mild enough that – if she
hadn’t known better – it could just have been a simple cold. But
despite her mounting dread, she’d held out hope as they’d made
their way out of the mall and camped for the night in an old post
office. The whole evening through she’d sung the mantra in her head
like a prayer: only a cold, only a cold, only a cold, only a
cold.

But her pleas went unanswered, and the
next day Isaac plunged. Taken with flu-like symptoms – a slight
fever, headache, aches and pains, fatigue – he was exhausted, but
he still insisted on pressing onward.

And so they made progress, albeit
slowly, and with every painstaking mile the buildings crept closer
together, their crowns stretching higher into the sky. And still
neither of them spoke the words looming in their heads, as if
saying them aloud held some morbid power to make them true. So
they’d kept their reservations to themselves.

For Alessa it was deja vu, this slow
march, the hacking coughs at her back haunting her every thought.
It’d been the same with her parents and brother as they’d trekked
the final miles to Paragon. Only this time, she had no delusions
about what they were marching toward. She knew there was no magical
cure at their destination. She knew that getting there sooner would
do nothing to delay the inevitable. And she knew not to get her
hopes up for a miraculous rescue that would never come.

And now, two days after Isaac’s first
fateful sneeze – the same day that Isaac had paused every few steps
to catch his breath and rest, the same day he’d finally succumbed
to the need to sling his full weight on Alessa’s shoulders just to
shuffle forward – she couldn’t deny it any longer.

Isaac was sick. And it wasn’t just a
cold, wasn’t the flu, wasn’t any malady she had any hope of curing
no matter what tonic or elixir she could get her hands
on.

He had the virus.

He was going to die.

Isaac coughed, a deep viscous cough
that betrayed the bedlam churning inside his body. He pitched
forward, his weight dragging Alessa with him as the force of the
spasm in his lungs stole his strength and hurtled him toward the
ground. Alessa braced her legs and caught them both at the last
second, the effort sapping the last of her vitality.

“
Isaac, you need to rest,”
she pleaded.

He relented, sliding from her shoulder
and slumping into the street, the small of his back pressed low
against the curb. The city’s tall buildings loomed over him like
cruel sentinels at the gates of hell. He’d never looked so small,
Alessa thought.

She crouched next to him, trailing her
fingers gently over his face. His fever raged. She tried to whisper
his name, to say anything at all to comfort him. But her throat
seized and all that came out was a choking sob.

Mortified, she cupped her hand over
her mouth and stood, turning around and sucking at the air to quash
the pathetic whimpering in her chest. This wasn’t fair to Isaac.
She needed to be strong now. She needed to give him peace, to let
him go knowing that if she survived this, she would be
okay.

It wasn’t true – it couldn’t be
further from the truth – but she owed him that much at least. He
couldn’t die feeling that he’d failed her. She wouldn’t allow
it.

Steadying herself, she turned to face
him, stretching a false, hideous smile across her cheeks. She
couldn’t muster the resolve to lie to him with words, but she could
force her muscles to do it for her.

Gently, she tugged his limp body
forward, tucking a folded blanket behind his head to cushion
against the pavement.

“
Drink this,” she
instructed, handing him a canteen. She used her own water bottle to
douse a t-shirt which she draped carefully over his scorching
forehead. He moaned with gratitude.

Ominous shadows from the buildings on
either side stretched ever longer as the sun pitched toward the
horizon, and Alessa cursed. Shadows, her nemesis. The shadows of
dusk and the impending night’s strangling cold, the shadows of
death deepening every moment under Isaac’s eyes, the shadows of the
predator lurking between buildings that she caught whenever she
drew her eyes from Isaac’s face – the shadows foretold nothing but
pain for Alessa.

She knew they’d get no further before
nightfall and scanned their surroundings, resigned. It was not an
ideal location, a street corner – too open, too exposed, both to
the brisk winter wind rushing the corridor of the avenue and to the
countless darkened windows that flanked them from every side,
hiding who knows what from her view.

But none of that mattered now – she
didn’t have a choice. The creatures may be waiting for them in the
darkness, but this is where they would stay tonight. This street
corner may very well be – if she was honest, would almost certainly
be – the last that Isaac would ever see. So she would have to make
it work, and she would do her best to bring him some comfort in
these final moments. Her self-pity could wait for
tomorrow.

As Isaac drifted in and out of
consciousness in the rosy glow of the impending twilight, she
numbly erected the tent they’d commandeered from the mall and
stretched out the high-performance sleeping bags they’d pilfered.
Gingerly, she dragged Isaac’s prostrate form inside, cradling his
head on her lap as she brushed the sweat-stained hair from his
face.

He was still burning up. She soaked
the rag once more and caressed it over his face as he slept, his
breaths wheezing, a violent cough racking his body every few
moments.

She knew what came next: the bleeding.
She’d been lucky thus far to not have observed it herself up close,
but she’d heard enough from Isaac to fill her mind with horrors. It
would start with that cough, the mucus surfacing first pink, then
crimson, then finally an angry florid puce.

Then the bruises would come,
blackening his skin with inky, coal-tinged blooms as the virus
liquefied his cells, breaking down his innards and organs until his
body overflowed with sanguine sludge.

And finally the blood – a thick,
gelatinous cherry ooze – would drain from his ears, his eyes, his
nose, any opening the body could find. It would leak its contents
out to the world, sapping him of the very matter of
life.

And then he would be gone.

A small, repulsive part of Alessa
urged her to run, to spare herself the memory – and the dangers of
contagion. There was nothing she could do for him now, after all,
only watch in horror as he wasted away, as the man she loved – all
of his kindness, all of his humor, all of his strength – was
reduced to a quivering mass of agony and gore.

The disgusting weakness inside of her
yearned to just turn it off, to cut her losses, to leave now and
close this chapter of her life and never look back. She could walk
away, not torture herself with the destruction of this person who,
for all intents and purposes, was the most essential part of her.
It would destroy her to stay – she knew it would. If not the virus
itself, then the trauma of bearing witness to his torment. It was a
choice between life – a life however cold and lonely, but still a
life – and death.

Isaac would forgive her, she knew. He
would want her to go on, to finish their fight. He would want her
to live.

But she didn’t have the nerve to leave
him now. She would stay, no matter how much it hurt – and no matter
the risk to her own health. She would hold his hand until the light
left his eyes, and only then would she give herself over to the
grief, to the anguish, to the excruciating fear that threatened her
every moment. Until then, she would stay right here, his head in
her lap, and she would wait for him to expire.

Another cough shook his body, and his
eyes fluttered open, two flashes of cobalt searching, frantic.
“Alessa?” he muttered breathlessly.

She choked back another sob and tugged
the corners of her mouth up, a grotesque approximation of a smile.
But she couldn’t stop the tears that spilled from her eyes and
trailed down her cheeks.

“
I’m right here, Isaac,”
she answered, stroking his face. She pulled the rag from his
forehead and laid her hand across his clammy brow – it blistered
like the sun.

Visions danced before her eyes,
invading her mind in a sudden rush. A blue-eyed boy, his cherub
face glowing in the summer sun, clutching a bright red fire truck
in his hands as he dashed away, a wicked glint in his
eye.

“
Joe,” he moaned. “Joe
won’t share.”

Isaac thrashed slightly, reaching out
for something she couldn’t see, only she had a feeling she knew
what it was – the fire truck. He was delirious, and somehow Alessa
could read his hallucinations.

“
It’s okay, Isaac,” she
cooed. Her tears were a river now, waterfalling off the quivering
cliff of her chin.

The visions changed. “No! Josephine’s
in the barn!” he cried weakly.

Alessa pressed her eyes shut as she
smelled the memory of smoke, felt Isaac’s mounting panic rising in
her chest. He writhed in his sleeping bag, the rag slipping from
his brow. She gently slid it back over his eyes.

Then Alessa saw a flash of her own
face, only a different version than the one she recognized from the
mirror. A more perfect version, her eyes like jade, her skin
radiant and flush, a few strands of her rich brown hair caught in a
gentle breeze.

“
I love you,” Isaac
whispered. “I – I told Joe…” he wheezed, “I’d… take care of you,”
he breathed.

Finally, Alessa broke. The sobs flowed
freely now, her body racked as she crumpled over Isaac, clutching
at him, gasping for air, her lungs squeezed tight by the
unrelenting vice of despair.