Author's Note: Welcome to the 2022 Halloween Special. I decided to do something a little bit different this year. Instead of one big crossover, I will do three separate chapters with one common link in all of them. (Tea Leaves and Pink Stockings is already up. Dark Alice will be up late today.) This one wrote itself. I just had to write about Max and Linda growing up. I like how it turned out. I might go into other backstories of more angels. There will be another key later this week as usual. Look out for that. For now, enjoy this Halloween Special.
Key Nine: Pandemic:
-Max-
I remember that it all started back in summer of 2022. That was the summer that the stranger first appeared. There had been comments about him here and there. He didn't mean much to us. Looking back, I should've taken his presence as an omen.
Did he cause this pandemic that is still choking the world to this day? Some think he did. I don't. I think… no, I know that it followed him here. To tell this story properly, I have to go back a little bit.
Linda and I were in our sophomore year of high school that year. There had been a pandemic going around in Asia and Europe at the time. It had just hit Africa by the time it invaded the news. Our town wasn't worried about it. I mean, it was so far away. Why would be worried about something like that? That was their problem, not ours. How naïve we were back then. Not our mother.
"Don't ever think like that," she told us. "If we don't act, the world's problems will become our problems." Linda and I understood too well. Still, there were other things on our minds at the time. I think it was around this time that Linda got a boyfriend.
Oh, look at me. I'm getting off-topic here. I should talk about the stranger and the pandemic that is killing the world.
Within eighteen months, everything turned upside down. It started with the forest going quiet. Linda stopped walking as she frowned. I pulled my bike to a stop and looked over my shoulder.
"What's the matter?" I asked. Linda looked up at the trees.
"Do you hear that?" she asked. I took a moment to listen. I frowned confused.
"No," I said.
"Exactly!" Linda said. I frowned.
"Are you saying something is wrong?" I asked. She shared the same worried look I did. I read somewhere that animals are the ones who know when something is wrong. I remember that fact at that moment.
The days leading up to the end are hazy. Sometimes, I had to talk to Linda to get the rest out.
"I didn't want to show this," she said. Linda handed me a small journal. My jaw dropped.
"Where did you get this?" I asked. My sister looked away from me.
"He gave it to me," she said. I stared at her stunned.
"You can't be serious," I said. She wouldn't look at me.
"Linda!" I shouted.
"He told me to keep it safe," she said. "He said that you were going to need to remember what happened to our mother."
"I know what happened to her," I said.
"How much do you remember?" Linda asked. I froze. I started to say something but closed my mouth. Linda pushed the book into my hand. I couldn't bring myself to speak.
We weren't the only ones to feel the pandemic.
The following is a record from the best of my memories and the notes in the journal Linda gave me. I think some of the details will either be missing or mixed up. It's a good thing that I have Linda to fill in the blanks.
Anyway, here is what happened.
1.
I think we were in the middle of summer when the stranger first appeared. It would take months for him to come to our neck of the woods. But we heard whispers of him wandering around town. Not many people wanted to approach him. With his appearance, it was easy to see why. His appearance alone was enough to scare little children.
Now, this was about the same time that Linda and I noticed that the woods to our house had gone silent. We decided to get home and Google it. (What? Were you expecting us to go to the library? This was 2022. We can do the research at home.) Yes, we had the internet at home. We were isolated but we weren't stupid. Mom knew how to use a computer. She had to for her job.
Linda and I shared a computer in our room. She typed in "what does it mean when the forest goes silent". Google gave us the simple answer of a predator nearby. That answer didn't satisfy us. This wasn't just a predator nearby looking for its prey. It had to be something else. There was a predator, alright. Just not the one we were thinking of.
2.
-The Stranger-
My wandering has led me to this town. The people are in danger here. They just don't know it. My words are going to fall on deaf ears. They didn't believe me in Africa and Europe. Why would they believe me here?
Still, I have to keep going. I know it is coming. I am compelled to keep moving in of… something. I forgot what I have been looking for. Still, something inside of me won't let me stop.
This morning, I made it into a small town in Maine. The name escapes at the moment. Something has compelled me to come here. I can't explain myself and I don't know how long I am going to stay here. I am staying an end near the sea. I am going to leave notes for them to find me. I am about to go out today and see what I can find in the woods. I shouldn't be back until evening.
Wish me luck on this expedition. I don't know how much time we have left.
3.
It's funny what you remember with the smallest details on a certain huge event. I remember that I couldn't find a cute frilly yellow shirt on the morning they closed down the schools. I was hoping to see my crush and nail a science test that day. I wanted to borrow Linda's jeans but she wouldn't let me.
"No," she said. I sat on the bed, pouting.
"You're so mean!" I shouted.
"Get your own jeans," Linda said. I folded my arms across my chest.
"But I like yours better!" I complained. My twin rolled her eyes and walked out of the room. I stuck up my middle at her back.
"Bitch," I muttered.
"Girls!" our mom shouted. "Get down here right now!" She sounded so upset. Confused, I leaped off my bed and hurried downstairs. I found Linda and mom crowded over by the TV. The news was on. Confused, I walked over for a closer look.
"What's going on here?" I asked. Linda shushed me as she waved me off. I pushed between them for a better look.
"The president has issued a nationwide lockdown," the news anchor said. "Everything will be closed down until further notice." I couldn't believe it. One minute, I was planning on talking to my crush that morning and the next I was going to be stuck at home for the day. Mom, Linda, and I didn't know what to say. By the time the news was done, Linda and I sauntered up the stairs. So they were finally going to take this seriously? I wasn't thinking about that at the time. My mind was on how I wasn't going to get to talk to my crush any time soon. So disappointing, I know. (Hey, I was sixteen at the time. All I thought about was nature, science, and boys at the time.)
Heh. Looking back, that all seemed so petty compared to now. And it was about to get worse.
4.
That virus was all over the news. You couldn't turn away from it. Every source of news couldn't stop talking about it. Mom made us go one day without the TV at one point. We were okay with this. We weren't big on TV anyway. There was always the outside. As far as we were concerned the poison from the outside hadn't hit us yet. No, we were too busy trying to pass the time. But I couldn't help but notice that something wasn't quite right.
One day before school was supposed to let out for the summer, there had been rumors of someone walking around the edge of the woods. I caught a glimpse of it one night. I couldn't sleep one night.
"Linda," I whispered as I tried to wake her up. She yanked her shoulder away as she turned over in bed. I frowned to myself. She wasn't going to get up and humor me until I went to sleep. So, I crawled out of bed and quietly walked over to the window. There's not much to look at outside. Still, it calmed me down in a way. I leaned over as my eyes adjusted to the dark. There was no one outside at the time. It was just going to be another quiet summer night.
But then I froze.
Hm? What's this?
I leaned in closer for a better look. I couldn't make out what was down near the woods but I could tell that was a person. I could make out the head and what looked like a coat. The person looked like he was looking around on the ground. What the hell?
I reached down and pulled out my binoculars. Yep, that was a person out there. Who was this guy and what was he doing out there? I debated on waking up Linda for this. I frowned when I thought about this. Linda would probably snap at me for waking her up. No, I was alone with this. I watched as the person walked into the woods.
He didn't come back out.
5.
-The Stranger-
It's already starting. One little girl caught the virus. It started with a cough. Her parents thought nothing about it. They gave her some cough syrup and sent her to school. So stupid. That's how it always starts. It's always "just a cough". But that's the thing. It never is. That's the first sign. Coughing that doesn't go away. It doesn't take long for other symptoms to manifest. Shortness of breath, tiredness, popped blood vessels in the eyes, loss of appetite, weakness, and sensitivity to light and sound. It won't be long.
I have tracked this family for two days. They act like it will all go away but it won't. It's always the same pattern. It gets worse with each country I visit. This virus isn't like all of the others. It's smart. It always adapts. It will keep changing until the human race is wiped out. We are fighting but we are losing at the same time. It's an endless cycle.
But still, I have to keep going.
I have been trailing that girl and her classmates. So many have interacted with her. It's going to be a nightmare to track them all. But I still can't give up. Arthur Schopenhauer once said, "Man can do what he wills but cannot will what he wills." I refuse to believe that. I will fight our fate until the end.
The voices behind me keep telling me to give up. But I choose to ignore them. I have to keep going. This is all that I have left now. After all, hell is empty and all the devils are here.
6.
More people are getting sick. Despite the schools being closed, it is still happening. From what I hear it might have already came for us. The first victim was a girl about six years old. Or was she seven? That doesn't seem to matter anymore. Anyway, it all started with a cough and got worse. She died ten days later in the hospital. The medical examiner worked tirelessly to find out the reason. They tested various tissue samples, her nails, and her hair. The results puzzled them even further. There were small flakes of… well, something. So small. So powdery white. Some of them were light silver in color.
As the scientists kept testing the sample, more children are starting to get sick. A handful came from that little girl's classroom. The parents and the teachers have to be tested. I couldn't help but wonder if such a thing could be possible. Our mother refused to go into the building at her workplace because one of the parents had an ill child. She wasn't sure if it was the virus or not. She wasn't going to take any chances.
"I'll just set up the office from home," she said. Meanwhile, Linda and I were doing the best we can to keep from going crazy. Good thing we loved the outside so much. To be honest, I didn't know how long that was going to last.
7.
-The Stranger-
It's getting worse. More people are starting to get sick. I feared this would happen. Humans can be so stupid and stubborn when it comes to their health. They think they can live forever. It always something greater than them that proves otherwise. This time, I was too late.
No, I have to keep going.
Now I remember what I was looking for. I walked up to a chained fence. This fence was met to keep others out. There are rumors they are trying to keep something from the town. They will come here for certain. What's inside draws them here. In turn, it wants out. No one has been to this building in over twenty years. The people in this town don't remember what it was built for. They can't afford to tear it down. So they just let it stand. This building is like a wound that had begun to fester. Now, it's waiting to pop and ooze all over the skin.
I heard a door barking in the distance. It's then I notice that there were no animals behind the fence. I think… No, I know that they know that something was wrong. In fact, there are no animals in the woods anymore. This is even worse than Aokigahara before Japan got taken out by the plague.
I turned around. This time, it started like footsteps walking toward the gate.
"Oi! What the hell are you doing here?! Get out of here! Get out of here or I will call the cops!" I turned and walked away. They don't understand. I have learned not to even bother. Still have to keep going.
8.
I think the plague caught our mother. It started with a cough. She already knew what was coming next. Our mother went to the hospital to get tested. That was the longest night we ever had. She didn't even come home from work. Mom called us on the way to the hospital. Well, she called Linda. She put mom on speaker.
"Hey, girls," mom said. "I won't be coming home tonight. I'm at the hospital for testing."
"What? What happened?!" I asked. Our mother coughed over the phone. Linda and I held back the phone.
"It's probably nothing," mom said. "I am only here to get tested. I should be home by morning. You can make yourselves some macaroni and cheese for dinner. Don't stay up too late, okay?" Linda and I looked at each other. This sounded bad. Really bad.
"Okay, mom!" I said. It was more like I shouted it out. My family didn't judge me.
"Yes," Linda said.
"Good," mom said. "I knew I could depend on you. See you soon. Love you." That would be the last time we were going to hear from her in months.
9.
It all started in Japan. They said it was Ikebukuro. Since then, the virus had spread all over the world. Countless people are dead. But there is another horrifying side effect to this virus.
Sure, some people do die. But they came back as monsters. The stranger has seen it one too many times. The infected are unkillable. The only way they die is if they ate each other. These beasts only want meat. Raw, living meat. The first case was all the way back in the 80s. The first "angel" as she was called is still out there, somewhere. More of her kind are starting to take over the planet. Lately, it has been getting worse. The scientists don't know what to do. The problem kept developing faster than they could keep up.
The stranger knew who had a hand in this.
He's been chasing Noah around from country to country. The priest always managed to slip away just before the stranger could put it together. This time, he can tell that Noah has been here. But the priest was already gone. The stranger cursed himself. Clearly, the priest was getting some help. The stranger had a good guess of his own.
He doesn't have time to think. He must keep moving. Time is already running out. It's only a matter of time before angels start to appear in this town too.
10.
Our mother didn't want to die in the hospital. She became a victim of the plague. Linda and I could only see her via Facetime. It hurt to see her deteriorate before our eyes. In the early days, she was all cheerful and smiling. I think that she was trying to keep us calm. We were eighteen at the time and were well aware of what was going on. Still, she acted like it wasn't that bad. She smiled and talked to us every day. Still, we knew the truth.
It took two years for our town to be destroyed by the virus. Our house was the only thing that was still together because we were so isolated from everyone. Still, Linda and I had to go into town. Supplies were running low for us. We took up gardening but that still needed supplies. Money started to be pointless. There was no one going to work. I think most of our town died. Everyone else either left or underground. (I would love to believe that was true for the latter.)
I didn't get to think about that. We were busy trying to survive and keep our mother alive as long as we could. I don't remember her face. I knew that she was smiling but I don't remember her face. Why can't I remember her face?
11.
This town looked dead. The buildings looked like they had seen better days. It looked like a storm came through. There's nobody here. Nature started to reclaim the town. Vines covered the building. The grass is starting to become overgrown. Weeds are popping up from the cracks. It looked like a war took place in this town. The buildings have been crumbling for quite some time now. The glass is all broken. The town is now waiting for its inevitable destruction.
But what is this?
There are little yellow flowers popping up from the cracks. On the surface, they looked harmless. But if you look closer, they look like another omen. Is there another evolution happening? The stranger has never seen it do that before. He doesn't know what to make of this. But there can be nothing good to come from it.
"Oi!"
The stranger turned around. His heart dropped. So it's finally caught up to him. He dropped his shoulders.
"Not yet," he pleaded. "I still need a little more time." The stranger wasn't going to give up just yet. There was still a chance to change things. He felt it deep inside. Too bad they didn't or wouldn't understand.
12.
Our mother died a year after she came home. No, it was earlier than that. It was within weeks. But we didn't bury her. She didn't want to be buried either.
"My body will only pollute the ground," she told us. So Linda and I left her in her room. By the time she died, our mother had wasted away. Her skin looked so gray. She had lost so much weight. Her arms looked so frail. I don't think she could see us standing over her bed. We held her hands. Somehow, it didn't matter anymore. Most of our neighbors and friends were dead or had gone away. It was just Linda and me now.
We used candles, lye, and herbs to keep the house from stinking. We looked up how to get rid of the smell of decomposition. It was my idea to keep mom's door closed. I think it was that time I started to forget what her face looked like when she was still alive. It might have been earlier. Either way, Linda didn't object to closing mom's bedroom door for good. She even went as far as to put a towel at the bottom of the door.
We tried to act like things were normal. Linda and I didn't have anything to do. We couldn't go to school or get jobs. Our world disappeared within four years. The forest had gone silent. Some of the trees were starting to die. The beach was also empty. We heard that some people jumped into the sea as the pandemic got worse in our hometown. Linda wouldn't even let me think about it.
"You are not going to leave me alone in this world!" she shouted. "If you go, then I will go too!" I didn't know what to say. Linda just gave me a stern look as she stared me down. I took her by the hands.
"I understand," I said. We were determined to survive to the best that we could.
13.
It didn't take long for the pandemic to take up too. It came for Linda first. I remember that she had the cough in the middle of autumn of 2026. She insisted that she was okay, but we both knew. This was it. It would be a matter of time. I kind of feel guilty admitting this, but I hoped that it would take her quickly. I couldn't bear to see another family member suffer and waste away. Our mother could barely eat in the last few days of her life. We buried her under many blankets because she said that she was cold. She couldn't even speak above a whisper. I didn't want to picture Linda going through the same thing.
I didn't have to worry about that too much longer.
Within days, I had my own cough. Only it was much worse. I was brushing my hair in the bathroom when I could feel it in my chest. I tried to hold it in but I broke down coughing, nevertheless. Only when I put my hand away, I about fainted. I had coughed up blood. I remember screaming for my sister as I ran out of the bathroom.
We didn't say it but we knew what was coming next. This was it. We were going to meet our end together. I would be lying if I said that we weren't scared to face death.
"I don't want to die in this house," Linda whimpered on the day that we were supposed to die. I nodded as I held her in my arms.
"I know, we don't have to," I said. "Let's go out in the woods and die there. Will that be good for you?" Linda started crying as she nodded.
"Okay," I said. And we left our childhood home that easily. We just left everything behind and walked out the door. It wasn't like anyone was going to steal anything. The neighbors were dead or gone after all. Linda and I just walked out of the house and didn't look back. By this time, we were really frail. We had to hold each other as we walked. We hadn't eaten or drunk anything in days. I was surprised that we hung on that long.
Linda and I made it to our favorite place in the woods. We laid down on the spongey moss. We must have looked like a site. Two frail twenty-year-old women with ashen skins and nightgowns waiting to die in the woods. Somehow, that didn't matter. We were going to go together. The question was, who was dying first?
Sometime later, I awoke to someone poking me in the ribcage. I slowly fluttered my eyes open. I wasn't sure if this was a dying fantasy or it I was going mad. The stranger stood over me with a bucket in his hand. I could barely when I tried to ask questions. I don't remember what was said between us. I just remembered the offer he gave us.
"You can survive this but you are going to have to eat this."
My vision was blurry but I could make out that the stranger was holding what looked like a large intestine. My eyes widened as I remembered what happened to those who got infected and didn't die. They became ravenous monsters. Savage beasts who feasted on flesh and blood.
I quickly shook my head.
"No!" I said as loudly as my voice could manage.
"No?" he asked.
"I don't want to become a monster," I pleaded. "I'd rather die a human than live like a monster." I couldn't tell what the stranger was thinking.
"And you are sure about this?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. I could feel the tears running down my cheeks.
"How about you?" the stranger asked. I didn't hear what Linda said but the next thing I was she shoved the large intestine and others into my mouth. The taste… I had no idea how to describe it. I started chewing on the savory meat without a thought. That had to have been the first time I ate anything in weeks.
When I was finished, I felt much better. Linda held out her hand and helped me to my feet. We looked at the stranger. I could see him clearly now. His gas mask and coat looked a little less frightening now. Linda and I held hands.
"What's going to happen to us now?" I asked. He didn't answer. The stranger just turned and walked away. I wanted to go after him but Linda stopped me. I turned to her. She smiled as she shook her head. I didn't need to ask. I didn't have to ask what came next. We just walked out of those woods with smiles on our faces. We didn't know where we were going but we didn't care. We were alive and we still had each other.
This is how Linda and I became angels.