Larvae

Larvae

It might’ve started with a simple sniffle or perhaps a small cough, but the way that it spread was astronomical.

I didn’t think that my biological weapon would do this. If I had known, I never would have made it in the first place. Oh, how I wish I could go back in time and destroy the experiment. The mass number of people that have died by my hands, that is blood I will never be able to wash away.

It all started one stormy night, it was a Sunday and I was at home with my bug collection. I’ve always loved bugs ever since I was a young tyke and as I got older the love for them grew in multitudes.

Id started a secret experiment that the US government were none the wiser.

I worked for the Centre for Disease Control and I knew that there was a weapon that we were creating to wipe out the weak. A new plague if you will.

Over population was a big deal in this century and there were more people than any one government could control. The answer to this problem was to create a biological weapon that would kill off the unvaccinated, the elderly and the young. Anyone that survived the incubation period would then receive the antidote and be able to continue living their lives in a better economy. The way that the government and the CDC released the virus was in the water. First, we engineered unnatural clouds and filled them with the virus so that when it rained, the virus would take hold of its hosts, then when people became struck with the sickness, injected water from shops and the tap and these were highly polluted as well. Once the weak started to die, we started reducing the amount of the virus in the water sources until eventually we just stopped it all together.

I don’t think we thought that the virus would take hold and mutate so quickly. Of course, I was immune to the virus as I was one of the first people to receive the antidote, as I was one of the lead scientists to develop the cause.

It wreaked havoc through the town in a few short weeks. One person would enter a diner sick and ask for a menu, then the waitress would get sick from the menu. It kept going up until the sick persons plate ended up back in the kitchen and the chef got sick. From there the entire diner was sick and bleeding from the eyes and ears within an hour. That’s all it took for the spread of infection to pass from one host to another. By the end of the week, New York was completely eradicated as was Texas, Missouri and Los Angeles.  

Now back to the bugs. I found out very quickly that once the virus took hold, there was no way that we could stop it. I thought perhaps creating a special breed of water bugs, they could be used to filter the virus from the water and create clean drinking water again.

We had already diminished more then 70 percent of the population. If we didn’t find a cure soon, the entire US country would be expunged of humans.

I had been working on these bugs for quite some time, as I knew signing onto the virus team wasn’t a good idea, but I did need the cheque that came with it.

The death toll that belonged to my name alone, is enough to make a war veteran break down and cry.

I couldn’t handle the guilt or the mountains of dead bodies that lined the streets. We weren’t allowed to burn the bodies anymore as the virus had mutated to the point that it became airborne.

The survivors had a curfew and they were only allowed in certain parts of the town. The swimming pool had been drained and converted to a mass grave.

The water towers were empty as were the dams, but no matter how much water we disposed of the virus kept growing.

My bugs were ready to test and so I began adding them to the water sources that remained.

At first the bugs worked, and people began to get healthier, their bloodshot eyes clearing and the death rattle they had vanished. I felt so very proud of what I achieved and decided to test it with other bugs including flies and cockroaches.

For about a year it worked perfectly, the remaining populations becoming stronger and more efficient as they rebuilt the society that they had lost because of the virus.

Then one night it all went downhill fast. The bugs began to mutate at an alarming rate and the flies started laying maggots everywhere. Every crack in town was crawling with maggots. You couldn’t take two steps in the street without coming home with maggots laced into your boots or crawling in your hair.

People started to stay home and not leave their houses because of the fear of the maggots.

I had received letters upon letters of praise from the US government and the CDC, stating that my larvae idea was a brilliant way to continue spreading the viruses.

I had created the most lethal larvae and from that point on I knew that there was no stopping this virus. It had spread from the US to surrounding countries, through the water and the animals. The larvae loved the whales and the dolphins, with their flesh missing from fights with sharks or humans. The maggots bore into the whales and then spread like wildfire through whale soup.

After that whales began beaching themselves in order to avoid the maggots, but this only made them more dangerous.

The maggots took to the shores all around the world, carrying the virus and spreading it effortlessly throughout. At this rate, the world as we know it would come to an end and the new reign would fall.

The maggots didn’t just spread the virus, but as they became stronger then started eating the host bodies and growing. I learnt quickly to never dwell where a deaf person can hear because that was a sign that there were maggots nearby, as the deaf person was infected.

I had witnessed it with my own eyes one day how deadly the maggots truly were. I watched in muted horror from the corner as a homeless person approached a deaf person at the lights. I couldn’t hear what the person was saying, but the next thing I know there are maggots crawling from the deaf persons mouth, wriggling and consuming the persons face entirely. The homeless person staggered backwards, but the damage was already done as they lifted their hand to their face and all I could see was that the person had no skin left just bone. The maggots made quick work of the tiny frame, leaving only a pile of skin and bones at the foot of the deaf person.

In old medical journals, doctors used maggots to clean and sterilise wounds. No longer were maggots used for that reason and instead they were the end of all life as we know it.

Id managed to find a small group of survivors that were holed up in a school. The windows had been completely covered with expanding foam as this was one of the only materials that the maggots could not penetrate. They had kept me in a quarantined bubble for 172 hours as that was the maximum time it would take for the virus to kill me. Once they knew I was clear of the virus, I had to undergo multiple medical tests, boiling hot showers and an oil dip. By the time I was allowed into the common room, I was slick with oil and clean as a whistle. The oil prevented the maggots from being able to grip to the skin and the boiling hot water that I had to endure was to kill any remaining eggs I may have had on my person.

I didn’t tell the survivors that I was the reason that the epidemic had happened. If they had known that I was the scientist behind the problem, they would have fed me to the wolves.

I stayed with this group for months, they had everything they needed. They had food, communication supplies and bedding. There were only about 20 of us in the group but we all had an important role to play. There were cooks and doctors, engineers and a few younger children that kept guard at the doors and the windows, armed with flamethrowers. I had to lie about my occupation, and I stated that I was a banker. They had put me in charge of the weapon counting as that is the thing, they think a banker did was count stuff. Every night I would count the bullets, the gas and the knives and record it on the blackboard. Whenever the kids left the compound to go hunt for food, I had to issue them with a number for their weapon and if they didn’t return, I had to find something else that matched the number of what we lost.

In the few months that I had been here, we had lost 5 of our people. 3 of them became overwhelmed with sickness one night, coughing up blood and their bellies distended. They were thrown into isolation and unfortunately, they perished within a day, their bodies exploding in a cloud of blood as they collapsed to the floor. We also lost a doctor this way as they didn’t take proper precautions when they went to help one of our people in isolation. It was one of the kids and they were so scared and screaming in between their bouts of coughing up blood, that the doctor ran into the room to console them, only realising after they has entered the room that they didn’t have a face shield and mask on, and so when the child coughed on them, their blood went into the doctors eyes and the doctor died the same excruciatingly painful death a few hours later.

The last person that we lost was one of our resource men. They had left early morning to try and find survivors and food and they were to report back at 1500 hours. Well the time surpassed and there was still no sign of him. Days turned into weeks and we were starting to lose hope that he was ever going to return until one night we heard a deathly gasp near the window, and as we went out to inspect what it was, he died in the arms of a stranger. The stranger died shortly after, blood running from their eyes and mouth.

Slowly time ticked on. Becoming years since the first outbreak of maggots. The children had grown into strong yet cold adults, as we couldn’t really rely on one another as we never knew who would succumb to the virus next. It had been what felt like years and our numbers were dwindling in the low tens. One of the ladies was pregnant and this raised alarm in the community as there were no more vaccines for children. If a child was born, they would succumb to the virus immediately, killing their tiny bodies almost instantaneously, but not before spreading the new mutated virus to the mother and the doctor.

We were all dreading the day, as the mother got bigger and the baby grew stronger. The mother grew weaker as the mutated baby growing inside of her, fed off her nutrients that we couldn’t provide any longer. The food source was dire, and it had become that dangerous outside that we dare not leave the compound. With so few of us remaining, we didn’t dare risk losing anybody else.

At night-time, when it was my turn to watch over the pregnant lady, to make sure she didn’t go into labour while we were sleeping, I was working on a formula to try and end this once and for all. Little did everyone else know, but I had been sneaking out at night and bringing back contaminated animals to test my theory on.

The good thing about being holed up in a high school is that the chemistry lab was one, untouched and two very well stocked. This is where is I spent majority of my time, when everyone else was busy.

So far none of my tests had resulted in anything good. I could speed up the virus, killing the host more effectively, but also more painfully. I had yet to discover a formula that declined the strength of the virus.

Nothing could make me stop, not even my community. If they found out what I was doing, they would probably put me in the room with the baby and let the virus destroy me. I’m not sure if the antidote that I received all those years ago would keep me safe. I don’t display any of the symptoms, unlike the others in my community. They all had bloodshot eyes and constantly their eardrums would burst, and they would become deaf for a little while. Others found that they had swollen ankles and a fat tongue that prevented them from talking for days. I did not exhibit any of these symptoms so the antidote must have been still working.

I had decided one night to take some blood and look at how my antibodies were working. Perhaps if I knew, then I could alter the formula to mimic the antidote in my blood. That way I could save everyone, and they would never get sick again.

I had just taken my first vial of blood and I was about to look at it under a microscope, when I heard vehicles rock up. This came as a huge surprise as we hadn’t heard from anyone for years, our communications frying themselves and then the electricity died.

I raced out of the lab and out the front door, grabbing a mask and gloves as I went. I pulled my sleeve down over the bandages covering the inside of my elbow. It would just raise more questions then I was ready to answer yet.

Everyone else followed me outside, the pregnant lady joining us at a waddle. We stood stoic, weapons raised and the fighters in the front with the pregnant lady at our rear.

As the dust cleared and the maggots dispersed, we saw what was in front of us. It was the US army. 

This cant be happening. Nobody has come in all these years to save us and now the US army were standing at our door, saluting us. Nobody said anything. We stood there in a Mexican standoff, waiting for the other party to make the first move.

They stopped saluting and moved in formation towards me. I shrunk down next to the pregnant woman in the hopes that they didn’t recognise me. Unfortunately, they did.

They came to a halt in front of me and grabbed me by the collar yanking me out of my hiding place and into the front of the community. They saluted at me, then split down the middle as the general approached me. I could feel my community’s eyes boring into the back of my skull and I knew that there was nothing I could do to talk myself out of the situation.

The general kept her briefing short, and to the point. The CDC had reopened, and they were on the lookout for any surviving scientists to come back and help them develop one final cure. I knew the disguise was up as soon as she said that. I heard yelling behind me, a lot of them fighting that they had the wrong person as I was just a banker. Even after me deceiving this group for so long, they still fought for my innocence. I turned to face them, but I couldn’t as the general had me once again by the collar and was trying to make out the face under all the grime.

She held up an ID badge and thrust it in my face. “This is you, isn’t it?”, she demanded.

“Yes, that is me”, I stated, flinching away from the gasps that filled the air behind me.

She dragged me away from the group, them yelling obscenities in my direction as I am shoved into the back of a truck and then jolted into the door as we took off at such a speed that there would be dust in the air for the next century.

They took me back to a lab, that was pristine and white and so jarringly inappropriate in this day and age. There were quite a few scientists that they had managed to find and that’s when I remembered the tracking device they implanted in the back of our necks when we signed our contracts.

They had me shower and gave me new clothes and a haircut. I felt like my old self again and I could almost forget what I had done.

I was taken into a room with the general who was asking me if I had made any process in finding and or making a cure. I stated that I hadn’t.

That is when she showed me her plan. The plan was to set off all the nukes, move underground and start a new society. There was nothing we could do to stop the spread of the infection and so the only means left was to destroy every living thing and start again. That’s what we were found for, was to start a new super race of humans, where viruses and sicknesses don’t exist.

I watched as she pressed the button to the nukes and turned away when the live feed started coming through in the bunker. There were so many survivors out there that are now dead. Turned into pink mist. So many lives and so many stories just gone like that. One press of a button and they are no longer.

I couldn’t help but feel guilty years after what had happened, what I had developed and it being the reason that the entire human race was annihilated from existence. This was their plan all along and I played my part perfectly. The perfect race of humans, living underground in a scientific bunker, creating super humans in a lab that aren’t susceptible to anything. The day would come when I would finally die, leaving only my guilt and this super race to the world.

When they take their first steps on the earths soil centuries from now, they won’t know the devastation that came before them.  And I guess perhaps that is a good thing.

Perhaps I can stop feeling so guilty about everything and just get some sleep. I feel like I haven’t slept in years and I am just so damn tired.

Goodnight, my guilt, until another day.