CHAPTER SIX
When a new week had rolled around and Cassandra awoke, she was ready to start the day. She slept right through ten hours of the night and was well rested. Not allowing and bad thoughts to cross her mind, she stood and headed to the shower to begin her daily ritual.
The news reports offered nothing new for the morning, and even her uncle seemed less concerned about it. Perhaps it was the President's speech from days before, or perhaps it was just the lack of any more major new breaks.
Whatever the cause, life it seemed had begun to turn back to normal for Cassandra and much of New York City as best as she could tell. As she stopped into the latte shop on her way into Hi Styles that morning, she noticed that while people did have their papers in hand, many were back to talking to each other, or gibbering into their cell phones.
While some scanned the newspapers, there was no longer the eerie silence that went along with most of last week's reports. Cassandra was incredibly grateful for it.
She met Stephanie quickly at the latte shop and they walked off down one block together before parting way to head to each's place of work. Neither girl mentioned anything to each other besides the apartment. Move in was Saturday. The anticipation was growing and the girls could not wait for that day to come.
They parted ways in just a few more minutes Cassandra floated into the fashion store. A cheery Dan started down the stairs from the second floor of the shop waving a greeting to Cassandra as she punched in. She turned on the in store radio and it played music instead of news broadcasts. As the day passed on it seemed as though all the excitement from last week, all the hubbub and fear and uncertainty
that many people felt had gone away as quickly as it had come on.
In fact, by the time she was returning home to her bed late that night, Cassandra could not recall hearing a single parasite related news story. It was like it all just dropped off the edge of the Earth.
No matter, though, that was a good thing. It allowed everyone to return to life as normal. If the cause of the animals was evolution or terrorism, it seemed a mute point right now. People were moving on. The fear that swept the City, the Nation, was dissipating, and Cassandra at least, asked no questions.
On Tuesday's late evening news there were two small blips, one stating that police all across the country were getting usually large missing person calls. The news flicked over to a police officer from the NYPD who stated that he thought the reason for the increase in calls was just people over reacting.
Some of the missing person calls were coming in less than an hour after people left for work, he said. He promised the cameras that the department was going to look into reports, but pleaded with viewers to remember that the missing person law stated that a person missing was defined as one who had been unaccountable for twenty four hours.
It seemed that the large amounts of calls had little to do with the parasites, and more to do with overly nervous populations at large. The other brief story that was more closely related to the parasites was not a terribly exciting one. In fact, it was a rather understandable broadcast that Cassandra saw over the evening news.
A reporter stood in front of a building that Cassandra could not recognize. It looked large, there was a sign behind the woman in the hideous bright red parka, but her even more hideous bright red umbrella was blocking it.
As the rain drops dripped off the umbrella and past the woman's face she began her report.
"I'm here outside of Philadelphia's Mercy Hospital. This was the hospital that was first on the eastern seaboard to report the parasitic animal attacks from early last week."
She looked down quickly at the notepad in her hand.
"Seven victims were initially brought here when they encountered the parasitic animals just outside the city. Now, all of those victims did die, unfortunately, less than a day after entering these doors," she pointed dramatically to the emergency room side entrance of the hospital.
"Due to lawsuits that have been reportedly filed against the hospital, this major medical center that had been serving Bucks County and the surrounding areas of greaterPhiladelphia for more than forty years, has been shut down as of this morning. That's right, the hospital has been closed, and I have been told that all patients have been relocated elsewhere. Stranding a city in need of medical attention."
She turned to see a man leaving the building, being escorted out by official looking men in suits. The woman quickly strode over and the camera man jogged to keep up.
"Excuse me, Sir? Sir? Are you head physician Carlos Murray, Sir?"
The man looked white as a ghost and his long face was imprinted with heavy concern and dismay. He did not look up. He attempted to avoid even acknowledging the reporter hovering over him. One of the men in suits tried to get the reporter to shut the camera off.
"I have nothing to say, nothing." Murray finally said clearly into the camera.
He stared with wide eyes into the lens with a look of regret and fear on his face. His words were so rigidly spoken it was like he was trying to convince God that he felt the way he did. It was like he was evaluating his own soul through the lens of the camera and trying to convince himself of what he saw.
In a moment a suited man helped the torn doctor into a dark blue four door sedan. The reporter watched the men leave the site and then turned back to the camera to finish her story.
"Well, there you have it, this building, capable of holding eleven hundred and twenty sick and injured patients now stands empty. Earlier this morning the staff left, escorting patients out of the doors and sending them off to other already overcrowded hospitals in the area. The building now stands empty, and thousands of residents will have to seek their medical needs somewhere else."
She took a moment to pause, building drama in the evening rain. "This is..." the reporter suddenly stopped. She turned her head slightly to the side and even the camera jiggled sidewaysfor a moment. Though she was not speaking directly into the microphone, her voice came through none the less over the live broadcast.
"Did you hear something?" She clearly said to the cameraman who was obviously trying to reorganize his equipment judging by the shaky screen.
Apparently not realizing that her voice was coming through and that the camera was still on, she adjusted her hair, shrugged and turned back to the camera, waiting for a moment before she closed her story with a well spoken, "This is Lydia Lynn reporting live from the site of the former Mercy Hospital."
"I can't believe that people are suing the hospital because those people died," Michelle started up as soon as the commercial came on.
"Well, they must have settled or something or went bankrupt or who knows. I can't imagine why they would just shut the hospital down overnight. He probably just chickened out and didn't want to bring it to court." Jeremy said.
The two discussed it for a while longer and Cassandra eventually decided to head up stairs. She sat on her
bed and looked around the room.
"I should start packing," she said quietly.
She sifted through her closet space and found some luggage hidden in the back, which she grabbed and set open on the bed. But instead of putting her neatly organized expensive clothes into the suitcase that hadn't been used since she moved here from Sacramento over four years ago, she began to take down her room's decorations, pictures, posters and other nick knacks and piled them into the suitcases. She added them to the 'apartment supplies' pile on the floor and sat down to repaint her toenails.
It wasn't until that Thursday when another report made the news. It was nearing two in the afternoon and the streets outside the fashion store were bustling as usual, people inside were shopping and sifting through clothes. Cassandra was helping a mother shop for the perfect birthday gift for her daughter that was turning sixteen. The woman told her they were planning to take the girl to a nice lunch before surprising her with a brand new Lexus.
"What color is the car's interior?" Cassandra asked quickly.
The woman gave her a quizzical look, but responded anyway. "It's called desert sun. Sort of pale yellow leather. The car is white." The woman boasted snobbily.
Cassandra nodded and began to scan a hanging rack behind the display stand they were standing at. "You'll want a blouse for her that brings out her skin and matches the interior."
She grabbed just the right blouse off the rack. The stern looking lady smiled and took it from her hands. "Oh it's lovely, this will be perfect."
The woman didn't even flinch at the one hundred fifteen dollar price tag on the shirt, she just turned to Cassandra as asked of her, "What about a nice bottom to match?"
She smiled at the shopper and led her across the wood floor to another section of the store to seek out the complete look for the woman's daughter.
The music coming through over the speakers that had been playing nearly non-stop for four days now was interrupted. Cassandra felt her heart skip a beat as a familiar phrase took to the airways.
"We interrupt this program for a special bulletin."
The announcer said in a rattling voice. "Folks, folks, everyone within earshot of this radio signal, turn your television sets on now, put on the news... well, put on any local or national channel you want, they're all playing it."
The man's voice sounded excited and fearful at the same time. It was hard to tell what he was going on about, but he repeated.
"I mean it people, if you're somewhere where there's no TV, get up, leave right now, and find a TV and turn it on. This is the most unbelievable thing I have ever seen. I don't know how to describe it. It's...it's...it's... a video shot by a group of people...where was this thing shot again?" He said to someone else that must have been with him.
He came back on the air with the answer to his own question.
"South Carolina," he said into the microphone. "This footage was shot apparently this morning in South Carolina. There's about five people in the foreground, and the one recording. This is unreal. This is unreal folks, turn the TV on right now everyone listening. Call someone you know and tell them to turn it on, too. Get on your phones, your tablets, hop on online right now. This isn't for the faint of heart, but after seeing this footage I don't think we can afford to be that anymore."
Everyone in the store stopped, listened hard to the radio station and as the DJ fell silent for a moment, the shoppers and employees of Hi Style stared around at each other.
"We...don't have a TV," Cassandra said to the woman she was helping.
Jennifer walked out of the glass doors and onto the sidewalk. Across the street, an electronics store had over a dozen plasma and LCD screens on display. Jennifer stopped and stared at the monitors and soon the other people from within the shop filtered out onto the streets.
The first thing Cassandra noticed all up and down the busy street, was that everyone came to a halt. All pedestrians stared at any television that they could find, while more just stopped and turned their attention to their phones. The vehicles in the road came to a halt, some tapping fenders, their drivers ferociously honking their horns at the next person for causing the accident before a hush fell over the street.
Towards Times Square even at the distance they were at, Cassandra watched all heads point to the display marquee. The entire side of the buildings along Times Square were nothing but televisions and the monitors all lit up, becoming a giant theater screen of the images. Unable to see the screen from so many blocks away and from the wrong angle, Cassandra joined the others on the street and stared across the road to the display of televisions.
They watched the backs of the people that were blocking the cameraman's view. The image zoomed in and out of focus and bounced around as the people walked. Cassandra could see the store's employees and shoppers inside all staring at a hanging television. Someone in the store must have turned on the audio, because the loud speakers in the shop's entranceway filled with static and the sound of people breathing and stepping on leaves.
"OK," someone on the footage said as he knelt down and faced the camera, which was also lowering to the ground.
"This is for progeny. This is for everyone out there who wants to know what the hell is going on in our country. We're not at some secret installation or anything. We're just out here in the woods, hiking, enjoying summer as much as we can, you know," the voice said cackling smugly.
"And this is what we find. See for yourselves." The man in front of the camera stretched out his arm as though pulling back an invisible curtain and he slid off screen.
The people watching on the streets took such a deep gasp at the same time, it could not have been choreographed any better. The sight on the televisions was jaw dropping and terrifying. The camera angled down, overlooking a ravine. The cameraman was standing near the edge of a cleft in the landscape and not far below, it was difficult to tell the exact height with the bouncing of the camera, but it couldn't have been more than a ten foot drop.
The footage was not some sketchy darkly lit night time shoot with a fuzzy low quality camera. The images the camera saw were crystal clear in the broad daylight and well defined with its digital eye.
The view, though deep in the woods, was still bright, peaceful, serene, and a groomed trail was clearly visible on the other side of the ravine. It was clearly a park, clearly a nature trail. The cameraman panned to his five companions, all staring down into the gully, then scanned back down to the sight below.
"They're eggs," someone off the camera said very clearly.
To Cassandra, they looked more like oversized footballs, but egg sounded like a reasonable
description. It looked like some kind of satanic farmer's crop. The leathery looking three-foot-tall sacs
were arranged in perfectly aligned, evenly space rows, for as far as the camera could zoom to see.
Cassandra swallowed and gripped Dan's hand. She could not remove her eyes from the sight on the televisions across the street. She was almost oblivious to the traffic that had stopped, to the people that emerged from their cars in the middle of the road just to watch.
She only just overheard comments from the stunned pedestrians about the video and how it must have been faked somehow. She had a hard time believing it was fake, and if it was, someone put some serious thought behind setting up the "stage".
The men in the movie were obviously having a good time looking over the eggs, and really seemed like a bunch of mostly drunk party goers as opposed to the stunned silence of the crowds looking on.
Someone standing on the edge walked past the camera and the camera followed him. The young man bent down, picked up several small rocks and tossed them down into the ravine. He swaggered as he stood up, laughing.
"Eggs my ass," the man declared, "They're somebody's ***ked up pumpkins is what they are." He turned and marched down the hill to a point where he could jump easily off the edge of the cliff into the ravine.
The cameraman followed his movements, but never moved from his spot. The other men all flowed down the hill after their friend, one turning back and calling to the camera holder. All four of the men were laughing and challenging the one holding the camera to join them and get closer to the unusual objects.
"No," the camera holder shouted with a shaky voice. He obviously did not feel quite as at ease amongst the egg sacs as his buddies did. "I can get a better shot from up here."
He zoomed the camera in on his friends.
"Where'd they all come from?" the first man walking amongst the eggs said.
He walked carefully through the pods. He was a tall man with a big build like a college football player. His dark skin was clearly sweating; the only real sign of nerves beneath the casual laughter. He swaggered through the sea of pods finally stopping and turning to his friends.
"Let's take one with us, guys."
His friends said nothing. They just watched, obviously trying to calculate silently if removing an egg was a brave or stupid idea. The cameraman suddenly zoomed to one of the eggs next to his friend's leg and shouted wildly. The tip of the thing was peeling back. The egg was hatching.
"Oh man! Get back, dude," one of the boys said pointing to the egg behind the man's left leg, "One's hatching. You've made it hatch."
The man in the middle turned around to have a look as the camera panned along the area. Dozens of the eggs had begun to move. Their tips peeled back, rather than the shells breaking apart like a normal egg. They opened like a flower, instead of a chicken egg. It almost looked like they were hatching purely in response to the men around them, as it appeared that eggs further away were not moving.
As the first egg began to open leathery tulip, the boys in the small group noticed all the other egg pods beginning to open and started to pull away, their semi cool smiles they were wearing just a moment ago gone, and a look of sheer fear moved into their faces.
The camera panned from the group back to the loner in the center. Quicker than anyone watching from the streets could have ever guessed, had they known what was about to happen, a creature leapt from the egg and grabbed hold of the man's face as he screamed and dropped to the ground writhing .
People in the street jumped and shouted with fear as they watched the video's event unfold. The group standing on the sidelines all began to bolt back up the hill towards the cameraman, who was also backing away from the area. They screamed and shouted as they started off, and as the camera bounced around, more of the leaping animals could be seen emerging from their leathery bindings and skittering across the group with great speed, pursuing the fleeing people.
The camera, still running, had been dropped out of the hands of the holder. It bounced once or twice when it flew to the ground, and then settled, with only the blue sky in its view. Muffled screaming sounds, some shuffling, and a final shadow of a long-tailed crab hatching as it ran past the lens were all that was left in the final seconds of the footage.
The people on the streets just stood on the streets as the news reports came back to worried looking announcers. One station quickly went to a commercial, cutting off the reporter entirely. Another station soon followed, and Cassandra was quite sure she overheard a reporter on the news say something about shutting down. Cassandra dropped her eyes to the ground and turned and went back into the store.
After a while the rest of the daytime staff and Dan came back in. None of the customers returned. Their days had been too disrupted by the ghastly tape to think about clothing. Cassandra and the others hovered around the main counter and listened to the radio.
"Now," the announcer started. "I've got someone on the line here, someone you could consider an expert on these creatures. He is an employee at the Center for Disease Control, in Atlanta. Folks, Atlanta was one of the initial cities to report these animal attacks, and our man here has been part of the team studying these creatures from the beginning. Let's see what he has to say about this video."
"Hello?" the other man said.
"Hello, you're on the air. Go ahead."
"Yes, well," the thin voice obviously digitally altered for anonymity's sake on the other end stated, "I've seen this video probably thirty times already today. I am convinced it is nothing more than an elaborate hoax. It's so easy to mimic anything these days, with practical effects and good choreography. I can assure you that no such field of eggs as this video depicts truly exists."
"Well, do you have any evidence to prove that this was a hoax video?" The announcer questioned.
"Only that, the boys mentioned the location of where this massive field of eggs was located, and I can assure you that there have been no reports from that area, other than what these boys managed to get on video. I believe for that reason, it was a hoax. And..." he continued defensively,
"What about the cameraman? How did the video get out? This footage is completely fake. How would the camera footage have 'leaked' if the camera wasn't retrieved. This is nothing more than an elaborate hoax, right up there with crop circles. There is absolutely no …."
The announcer cut him off, "It's impossible to know what happened to the cameraman, and we really don't know who these people were, but there are reports of missing persons in that region over the last few days. How can you be sure they aren't related?"
"I see no evidence of that in this situation," the official said plainly.
The conversation continued on for only a few minutes longer with the CDC official. Much of the man's answers were cryptic and misdirecting. Cassandra saw what she saw, and neither she nor anyone else in the store believed that video clip to be a hoax.
It did prompt every radio station, every news station, every website and social media page, to get into similar debates all throughout the rest of the day, into the evening and throughout the entire next day and next.
Cassandra listened to some of the debates and tuned out others while she prepared to move on Saturday into the much anticipated apartment. Some of the debates were actually fun to listen to when one member of the arguing party would get completely dumbfounded by the other's points and have no defense left, in which case a dull silence would fill the airways before the radio announcers would cut back in to change the subject .
Other debaters made very good point, brought up some interesting questions about the tape, and the little monstrous animals in general, and Cassandra donated her full attention to one of those debates late on Friday evening.
Cassandra had missed the credentials of the two men that were bantering at each other, but she listened intently. This time, it was non believer, the one claiming he knew for sure that the tape was a hoax that got drowned out by the points made of the other man. When it was clear who had won the battle, the believer rattled off some very good open ended questions.
"Well, if this really is a terrorist attack on our soils using bioweapons, it is obvious from this tape that these weapons are breeding, and exponentially at that. In slow motion, I could count one hundred twenty seven eggs in the gully shown on the tape.
Assuming," he went on after an emphatic pause, "that each one of those hatchlings could and will overtake one man or large animal, there's going to be a lot of cadavers around those woods in time. If the military goes in to investigate, is it possible that they could all get affected... or should I say infected as well?
Which leads me to question what exactly the President's stance is now on this matter. If these things are actually weapons unlike anything other that we have known before, and they are spreading, how many fatalities will he allow before we drop a bomb to eradicate them."
Just when it had sounded like the debate had ended and the winner's soliloquy had ended, the radio host butted in.
"Sorry to interrupt you there Vincent, but there's a caller on the line here with some good questions and I thought I might let him speak to you."
"Oh, of course, patch him through."
"Hi? Hello? Sam here from Rochester. Yeah... hey, you know I've been listening, and I'm with you. I think the tape is real. But what I don't think is real is this terrorism theory."
"Really?" The debater asked quickly. "Not terrorist bioweapon, huh? Where do you think they came from?"
The caller was silenced for a moment. Apparently he hadn't actually thought that far before dialing the phone.
"Well," he stuttered. "Isn't it possible that these are just some kind of prehistoric animal that recently surfaced, I mean like the Loch Ness Monster, you know... something that's always been here, but we've never really seen it for sure."
The skeptic interrupted, Son, son, I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty." He paused for emphasis and to be sure he had the caller's undivided attention.
"These beings did not exist in the mass population until just shy of two weeks ago. I'm sorry, but prehistoric animals that have always inhabited the Earth don't just go from never being seen for millennia to suddenly popping up overnight practically everywhere. It just doesn't happen. These animals are the product of bio weapon research. I guarantee it. They were created in some underground lab in some God forsaken country with one purpose in mind - to rain terror down upon the rest of the world."
The callerseemed to have been put in his place. He fell silent long enough for the radio announcer to almost hang up on him before he spoke.
"Wait, wait. I've read that these things aren't just in America, they're all over a large part of the world. How did terrorists accomplish that overnight?"
It was a very good question, one for which the man in the studio took his time cultivating an answer to.
"One well planned, perfectly executed massive scale attack, clearly."
"Nah, nah," the caller interrupted before the other man could continue any further. "No way could they have done that. The man power involved would just be too much."
"Well how do you think they got here then?" The caller's opponent asked. After a long silence the debater continued, mocking the caller's disbelief about the terrorist attack.
"Hmm... well, if they were not deposited onto our soil by terrorists, then how did they get here? Santa Claus? Aliens, perhaps? Dropped down form Mars maybe?"
Defeated, the caller hung up.
Saturday morning rolled around not a moment too early. Cassandra shot up light a lightening bolt, thoroughly excited, and almost all packed. She dressed and readied herself for the day in record time, less than an hour.
By nine thirty in the morning, she and her family along with Stephanie and her mother, movers, and the building superintendent were piled outside the building. The girls hopped and skipped before starting up the stairs into the main entrance door. Stephanie's mother pushed the door open, but gestured the girls through first.
"It's your place, go on."
They shot past her with all the excitement of a kid in a candy store for the first time. The hallway they found beyond the door was small, tight, but elaborately decorated with tiny tiles on the floor and intricate moldings along the chair rail walls and around the only door on this floor. To their left was the start of a gently spiraling stair well. Stephanie's mother looked up to the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
"Well, you're on the top," she sighed.
They all started up the stairs, Cassandra and Stephanie racing to the top floor.
"Open the door!" Cassandra smiled.
Stephanie shrugged at her, "My mom has the key."
They both looked over the banister and watched for their families, who were making their way up slowly. When they reached the top, Stephanie's mother handed her the key happily and said, "I'm so happy for you honey. You too, Cassandra."
They smiled at her turned and unlocked the door. The wooden door creaked open gently and the girls did not hesitate to step through. They were instantly greeted by a large open spacious living room with deep rich mahogany colored hardwood floors and a large triple window overlooking the street. The girls smiled and squealed with happiness at the immense space.
To the right of the entrance door was a small efficiency style kitchenette. It had a refrigerator, some cabinets and the gray colored stone counter tops Stephanie's father had reported it had. Beyond the kitchenette was s small tiled floor area that could serve for a small kitchen table. On the other side of the room there were two doors.
Cassandra thought for sure that one of the doors would be the entrance to the hallway they would follow down to the girls' bedrooms and the bathroom. Much to her dismay as she reached for the handle on one of the doors, she found instead a small closet. Stephanie opened the other door and found a tiny bathroom with a standing shower, toilet and tiny sink.
They looked back around their dream apartment and realized that their massive living room space was also their bedroom, kitchen, closet area and everything else too. Suddenly, the apartment had lost a tremendous amount of glamour.
Stephanie turned on her mother, who was smiling at her.
"So what'cha think," she asked with her heavy New York accent.
"Well," Stephanie started. Cassandra casually jabbed her elbow into her side, reading the look on Stephanie's face.
"I think it's great," Cassandra promptly stated.
It was tiny, far from the picture Stephanie had painted in her mind of what her father had described the place as, but it was going to be their new home. It was close to downtown, close to school, not too far from either girl's homes and it was their own apartment. They could make it work.
Stephanie, however, did not take Cassandra's subtle 'please don't complain' hint.
"I thought Dad said this place was a loft."
Her mother chomped on a piece of gum through pursed lips, obviously displeased with Stephanie's remark. "It is a loft, dear. What did you expect? This is midtown, dear. You want a townhome? It's exactly what your father said it was."
Stephanie sighed and looked out the window. "It's fine, I guess."
After a while, the girls were left alone. The little bits of furniture they owned and all of their belongings had been brought up quickly by the moving crew and just after lunch, Cassandra stood in the middle of their new room, contemplating the round white sofa that Stephanie had selected.
"So...is this a bed, or a couch?"
"Both!" Stephanie said patting the odd piece proudly. "Oh come on, it's great, don't you like it?"
"Well," she shrugged, "it's different. Not really what I was expecting."
Stephanie tipped her head at her friend.
"Was this apartment what you were expecting?"
"What were you expecting?" Cassandra asked completely avoiding answering that question.
The lease on the place had been paid for a full six months by Stephanie's father and that was good enough for Cassandra. It was a chance to be out on her own and have half of a place of her own. She wasn't about to argue that it was a little cramped.
"Well, I don't know. Two floors maybe. A hallway; more room than this. Like that place in Ghost."
Cassandra smiled. "Well I think this place is fine. But we need to go out any buy some armoires or something, all of our clothes won't fit into that little closet."
Together, the pair of friends headed out onto the streets once more. The worries from just a few days earlier long forgotten from their minds.
Courtesy of the very same media that could not wait to send out the video footage to every television and radio station and across every news website, the world outside was now running a little less frightened as the very same reporters that proclaimed all should watch, now proclaimed with the greatest emphasis the could display that the video was a well choreographed fraud, and that the individuals involved, had all been arrested that very morning.