The Transformation

When I left, I couldn’t hear so much but the flickering of lights on patios, as they all blinked out, one by one.

Now, the wind howled in my ears, the snow crunched beneath my boots, the trees whispered in the canopy, dotting out the inky black sky. I could feel my breath in front of my face –lukewarm and thick, with a strange, metallic tang –blood in my mouth. I’d been walking since the sun sunk beneath the horizon. It was a deep crimson, the colour of spilt wine, like it was a danger signal –the sky was bleeding like the people under it were. I rubbed my hands together and dabbed them under my eyes. Micah –my little brother –was still in the village. I didn’t take him with me. I didn’t tell him I was going. I simply left.

I wondered what he’d think, when he found out I was gone. I imagined him running his hands through his chocolate brown hair –once a dirty blond that had darkened in recent years –a nervous habit he picked up when news of a strange new virus rampaging through the city eventually reached our village, and a quiet unease began bubbling beneath the surface, a terseness in everyone’s voices, hushed whispers so the kids wouldn’t hear. But Micah was smarter than that. He heard me talking to Dad after he returned from work, his eyes sunken beneath waxy patches of flesh that had deepened like he was twenty years older than he was.

‘They’re going crazy,’ Dad murmured by candlelight. ‘They’re all out of their right minds. Screaming and biting. You can tell who’s got it –they’ve got this look in their eyes –something malicious, evil, and you know they want to rip your heart right out of your chest.’

‘Don’t go back,’ I had instructed, but it was futile; we both knew it was pointless. The city was where the food was. Out in the country, our village would starve.

Dad shook his head wearily.

‘Don’t let Micah know,’ he ordered.

I nodded grimly. But I had already spotted a tuft of hair beneath the kitchen bench, crouched like a statue apart from the occasional shiver.

There was no use trying to keep it from him anymore. Once Dad padded wearily towards his bedroom, I told him:

‘I need you to do something for me. It’s very important, and it’s to keep everyone safe.’

He nodded warily, his eyes like saucepans.

‘If you see anyone in the village –anyone at all, even me or Dad –who looks crazy, who is screaming and chasing people and trying to kill people, you run and hide and lock all the doors. Don’t come out. Don’t come out until they are gone.’

‘Why?’ He’d asked, his voice strangely high and quiet –it hadn’t been like that since Mum had been around.

‘There’s –there’s a virus. It makes people do crazy things. Turns them into someone they aren’t. It doesn’t matter if you know them, or used to know them, if they’re infected, you don’t know them anymore. Promise me you’ll hide. Lock the doors. Don’t come out.’

He promised.

Silence expanded like a crevasse between us. All we could hear was the sound of snow drifting gently down and landing on the roof.

I gave him one last detail before I left: ‘The ones who are infected have green skin. You might not notice it at first, because it starts out small. It spreads from small spots: back of the ears, kneecaps, neck and elbows. Then it’ll cover their whole body. If you see anyone with a spot like that, they’re not normal. Stay away, no matter how normal they seem.’

That was what I had scrawled on a napkin and pinned to the fridge with a magnet before I slunk out the back door, with nothing more than my boots and jacket. There was a picture of all four of us on the magnet –me, Micah, Mum before she died, Dad before he had vanished, all smiling, the sun glinting off our slick, close-cropped hair. Don’t trust the green spots. I hoped he knew what it meant, because I wouldn’t be there to help him anymore. No one was.

Micah was thirteen, in the phase where his kid voice penetrated the cracks of his newly deepening adult voice. He was growing taller, stronger, but not yet at the age where he could defend himself if he needed to.

So, when he begged Dad to accompany him to the city, the answer was a firm no.

‘You’re too young. It’s too dangerous.’ Dad had flitted me a look that told me he was aware I had told Micah about the virus.

‘Please. You go. You need my help. I can’t stay here all day,’ he begged.

I felt anger bubbling beneath my skin, a tight friction. Why had he not grasped what I had told him? Did he not understand how his life would be in danger?

‘No.’ Dad said firmly. ‘I don’t even let your brother come with me anymore. It’s too dangerous.’

Micah mumbled something incomprehensible and pouted as Dad pushed past him, watery blue eyes meeting mine. They narrowed, but not in a scrutinizing way –one that said take care of him when I’m gone, and I nodded in response.

Dad never came back. I could only assume what happened to him. Now, holding onto that look knowing I’d never get another, my little brother turned into my son.

I trudged further into the forest, swamped by looming trees. Specks of snow padded my footprints into nothingness, and I pressed my lips together in a ghost of a smile –no one would be able to follow me now. It dampened the fear that was gnawing at my gut, loosened the knot in my stomach, just an inch, draining the puddle of dread ever-expanding within me. No one would come after me. I was alone. But how long before Micah came looking for me?

And how long before I came looking for him?

It was a bone-deep ache, a sadness. He really was alone now. Maybe he’d wake up to find the note and the house empty and the back door unlocked. Maybe he’d call my name and run around frantically, pull back my covers, search through my closet and under the table where we used to play hide and seek when we were kids.

Maybe he’d even cry, like he did when Mum died.

But I couldn’t think about that now. My fingers and toes had numbed from the icy chill and were beginning to lose their colour. My head pounded like it was being compressed from all sides. Snow surrounded me in an icy prison.

I squinted through the darkness, my skin like ice, itching and burning from the cold. Something dark, a rocky outcrop, shrouded by shadows.

A cave. I exhaled in relief, my body sagging as I lumbered towards it.

Inside was dark and damp and smelled of wet moss that crawled up the wall like mildew. Wind howled outside.

Finally shielded from the cold, I slumped against the rocky wall, my back pressing against sharp stones.

I wondered if I was far enough away from the village to be safe. My mouth was filled with viscous saliva, my head throbbing, spinning with a lust for something I’d never felt before.

I pressed a hand to my neck, and green spores clung to my fingers.

I just hoped I was far enough away from him before the shift began.