My girlfriend went missing and the police are not taking it seriously. I asked for advice online and was told to write down in as much detail the events before and after she vanished, a timeline I can take to the police in the hope they do something, anything.
June 15 2022
Life during a pandemic is not easy, but my girlfriend Paige and I make the best of it. It has been ongoing for two years now, and I work from home in IT and help take care of Paige’s twelve year old daughter Claire. She’s not mine but I love her anyway. She is beautiful, she has her father’s curly hair and dark skin, but Paige’s striking blue eyes. She takes remote classes over her computer. She’s a smart kid and is obsessed with studying bugs, entomology or something. Kids get weird obsessions. Paige works part time driving for Uber. We have been waiting for the much anticipated vaccine against the Red Deer virus, as you know it all started with some infected venison, which spread quickly through the western states, then Canada, then the rest of the world. Once the vaccine is rolled out we can get back to normal life. At least that’s what Dr. Foppe has been saying on TV, in his admiral uniform speaking from his hospital ship The Mapother IV. After a year of testing now Dr. Foppe announced the approval of Cochlormeda-22 vaccine for the treatment of Red Deer virus, his voice droning on in a remarkable imitation of Richard Nixon. Finally we get our lives back. Since Red Deer is primarily transmitted through meat, and is a “prion” disease, meat of all kinds has been banned. We get along fine with meat substitutes, and while a year ago I would have scoffed at the idea of eating “hamburgers’’ made from mealworms and maggots, I have to admit with enough ketchup on it they’re not bad. The texture is something that needs getting used to.
Paige was ecstatic about the prospect of a vaccine. Claire hates needles and I can’t blame her, I’m not a fan either. But I’d rather get a jab than spend the rest of my life dealing with these Red Deer zombies. I remember the first time I saw one. I was driving in the rain when I almost hit a car stopped sideways on the road. The driver’s side door was open and the driver was standing in the rain. He was staring straight up at the clouds, mouth open, his car still running. I got out of my car and ran over to him in the road, and said, “Hey man did you have an accident? Are you OK?” I touched his shoulder and he twitched, and started choking. His mouth had filled with rainwater and he was struggling to breathe. But his eyes stayed on the sky, wide open and swimming in raindrops. This guy was going to drown on the side of the road.
I managed to get him back in his car and called 911 from inside my car, after coating my hands with sanitizer. I was transferred to another line where I gave my location and emergency. The guy was still staring at the sky through the rain washed windshield of his car, mouth wide open. Close your mouth before you swallow fly a saying of my mom’s popped into my head. His eyes were still swimming with rain, creating a weird rippling effect. A crow landed on the windshield and started pecking at the glass, trying to get to him. I honked my horn and it flew off. I waited in my car.
Within 10 minutes one of those white CDC vans pulled up. Four men in haz-mat suits got out, all wearing gun belts and pistols. Claire calls them the “Spacemen” as their resemblance to astronauts was striking especially with the bulky astronaut style oxygen generators they wore on their backs. Velcro patches they wore on their arms displayed the CDC Special Forces logo. These guys meant business. They strapped the Red Deer guy to a stretcher and bundled him into the van. One tapped on my widow with a flashlight and had me take the RapidTest kit, which is a strange combination of a breathalyzer and an eye exam. Up close the CDC agent’s eyes were bloodshot from fatigue, his mask dripping with condensation from heat and sweat. I passed the test and was sent on my way.
One component of Red Deer virus is it makes people stare at the sun. Nobody seems to know why. We now call them skywatcher zombies. We know now not to approach them, just call the boys from the CDC to handle them. These poor infected bastards will stare right into the sun until they burn their eyes out, and still blindly stare at it. Since the vaccine was rolled out it has limited effect on those infected, most regain about 75% normal function, but booster shots are required every three months. Penalties for missing boosters range from hefty fines to forced quarantine at a CDC facility. As a precaution the infected are mandated to wear sunglasses at all times. The lenses are the same lenses people use to view solar eclipses so they are quite dark. The sunglasses have a locking mechanism behind the head that prevents the infected from removing them if they have an episode.
So far it has been successful, aside from a few sunburned faces people aren’t going blind anymore from staring at the sun. To compensate, street lights have been upgraded using the brightest high intensity discharge lamps, left on day and night. Grocery stores also use similar lighting, so most people wear the sunglasses anyway even if they are not infected. My city is lit up like high noon in summer all night, and I have not seen the stars or even the moon in months. Black out curtains at home are necessary. In fact, the sunglasses have become something of a fashion phenomenon, since the success of movies like “Captain America: Dark Skywatcher”. I see lots of school kids wearing the distinctive wrap-around lenses that lock in the back that Chris Evans wore in the movie, and still wears whenever he’s out in public, or doing public service announcements as Captain America about the importance of the upcoming vaccine and doing your duty for America. Seeing these kids in the schoolyard, it is amusing watching them running into each other or playground equipment, falling down laughing or with the occasional bloody nose, but kids are resilient. The CDC has been manufacturing millions of these Skywatchers sunglasses, and partnered with Disney to promote them. They are 5G rated and monitor wearers for signs of Red Deer infection, which alerts the CDC immediately with your location. Pretty cool stuff!
However, sun-blindness isn’t the worst fate skywatcher zombies faced. I’m sure you’ve seen the videos. Bloody faces turned towards the sun, the miracle of sight reduced to jelly and torn skin on their cheeks as crows mercilessly pecked their eyes out, perched on the victims open mouth, bird shit staining their chin and shirt. Thankfully now the sunglasses help to prevent this to a point, the crows pecking uselessly at the plastic lenses, trying to pry under the tight fitting lenses with their beaks, denied the delicacy of the eyes having to settle usually for the lesser prize of the tongue, but it is better to be mute than blind. In any place with a large human population, the crows, ever hopeful, line the rooftops and telephone lines like something out of a Hitchcock movie, croaking and screeching, waiting for the next skywatcher zombie to look skyward and their meal.
Back to today, I was in a video meeting waiting for it to start. Our team lead popped up, wearing Disney branded Skywatchers glasses, wrapped around his head like goggles. He said, “Hey Bryan, where are your Skywatchers?”
“Hi Scott, they’re giving them away at the vaccine clinic today, I’m waiting for that,” I said. Then a few more joined, and asked the same thing.
“He’s getting them today at the vaccine clinic.” “Oh that’s good.” “I’ll see you there!” “My kid loves his Captain America Skywatchers!”
There was a quiet knock on my office door, and there was Claire looking scared. “Bryan, my mom’s not answering her phone.”
“Claire, I’m in a meeting. Can this wait?” I rolled my eyes at my workers. Kids, right?
“OK”, Claire said and quietly closed the door. I need to start locking that. Finally lunch break rolled around and Claire and I waited for Paige to come home to join us. She was late. I called her and her phone rang and rang, but didn’t go to voicemail. Odd. Must be out of service area. Claire showed me her latest project as we ate our bug burgers. She was studying how caterpillars grow into butterflies. Did you know their bodies completely liquify in the chrysalis before reforming into a butterfly? She said there are also “zombie” caterpillars that get infected with a parasite that makes them want to get eaten by birds so the parasite will infect the birds. Honestly I was getting a little grossed out about this and the video on her phone of a caterpillar, its body squirming and pulsating with parasites under its skin, its eye stalks swimming with parasite eggs.
“Claire, please I’m trying to eat,” I said, putting down my bug burger. She’s smart but does not have much common sense.
“Sorry. It’s just that when they get infected it makes them want to climb up a tree to get eaten! Isn’t that crazy?” Her wide eyed enthusiasm was endearing.
“Shouldn’t you be working on your report on Dr. Foppe?” All the kids in her class were making presentations on Dr. Foppe’s life and career as the head of the CDC, and his high tech floating hospital ship The Mapother IV in anticipation of the vaccine rollout. Claire seemed less than enthusiastic about it.
“I don’t like him. He’s fat and ugly and wears that stupid uniform. He’s not even an admiral, did you know that?” said Claire.
“Claire,” I said, wiped bug juice off my chin. “I don’t want to hear you talking like that about Dr. Foppe. He’s the reason we’re winning against the virus. Don’t you want to go back to school?”
“NO! Everyone wears those stupid glasses and I don’t want to! I don’t want to get a shot!” She was practically crying.
“I don’t like shots either sweety but it is for your own good, it stops the spread of the virus and will keep the Spacemen away,” I said.
That did the trick as Claire was terrified of the “Spacemen”, the CDC workers in their haz-mat suits, often armed. She told me she has nightmares about them coming into our home in their bulky white haz-mat suits, respirators making them sound like Darth Vader, scary looking guns on their hips, and taking her mommy away. Her eyes got big and she went quiet. “OK,” she said quietly. She left her half eaten burger on the plate and went to her room. Waste not want not I thought as I dumped more ketchup on it and finished the burger for her. Crunchy! It had been an hour or so and I called Paige again. This time the phone didn’t ring, just a few clicks then the call dropped. I used the location app to find where her car was. It was only about 13 miles from our home, a quick drive north.
I knocked on Claire’s door and poked my head in. “Sweety, I’m going out to find your mother, will you be OK for a few minutes?”
“Can I come?” she said, jumping up, her curly hair bouncing and her blue eyes sparkling. How could I say no?
On the drive she was quiet, her baseball cap pulled low in the harsh daytime street lights. I wore a pair of very dark Wayfarers but was still squinting against the glare. Not many other cars on the road, besides the ones abandoned on the shoulders, some with the doors left open. I had to slowly maneuver around a few in the road. I finally spotted Paige’s car, a blue Tesla pulled to the side of the road. The driver’s side door was open but nobody was inside. Claire tried to get out and run to the car but I made her stay and lock the doors. Something was off.
I carefully got out. Rows of large crows screeched at me from power lines above. Slowly I walked to the car, careful not to rile up the birds. Her phone was on the car’s floor mat, off. Fuck. I heard a loud squawk and pulled my head out of the car. Three large crows inspected me from the roof of the car. More landed by my feet. One pecked at my leg and I kicked at it. Without warning a whole murder of crows descended on me, a flurry of black feathers, beaks, and deafening squawks assaulted me as I ran for the car. It was locked. Claire was in the passenger’s seat trying to be as small as possible. The crows pecked at my head, my neck, arms and trying to get at my eyes. I felt blood running into my eyes from my scalp as I frantically unlocked the door with my key fob, tearing open the door and diving in. My sunglasses flew off my face slippery with my blood. Claire screamed as I slammed the door, decapitating one large crow. Its head landed on my lap, still trying to bite me with its beak. With a grunt of disgust I flung it off my lap to the floor and crushed it with my boot. I put the car in gear and drove through a cloud of frenzied crows, their bodies bouncing off the windshield leaving blood matted feathers smeared across it. Clair was still screaming. I was screaming. The crows were screaming and I drove, wipers vainly smearing guts and feathers as I attempted to see the road.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck” I found my self saying. We were out of the danger zone it seemed and I pulled over to calm down. I picked up the crushed crow’s head from the floor mat and cracked the window and tossed it out. Claire was crying. “I want my mommy where’s my mommy”. I snapped “Quiet!” and she shut up, whimpering. The crows were no longer content waiting it seemed. They had developed a taste for human flesh. This is when I decided it was time to get the police involved.
To be continued…