I twisted to return the tickle.
All white eyes sunk into her skull. Spiny pincers replaced dainty hands. Pus oozed from her pores and plastered her hair and dress. Her skin glowed green, covered in tiny hairs and thin enough to reveal the fluids pumping underneath. Dusty lips cracked and fell away. A spear-shaped tube emerged from the hole that disfigured her mouth.
She held out her arms. The claws snapped open. Black blood leaked down her chin and the mouth-like thing moved. “Will you sing the Teddy Bear song with me, Mama?”
I jerked out of her reach and screamed.
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet, within a month—
Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman!—
William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 1, scene 2, 144—146
Arms hooked under my knees and back, lifting, pulling me close. “Shh. You’re okay.” Joel rocked us and murmured words I didn’t hear. When my shivering tapered off, he whispered, “Talk to me, Ba-y.”
“Just another dream.”
He stroked a finger down my cheek and raised my chin. “Tell me.”
I shook my head and screwed my eyes shut.
“Is it the A’s?”
I slid off his lap and lay on my side.
He rested a hand on my hip. “I’ve let you have your silence for two months. We’re going to talk about Annie and Aaron very soon.” I cringed when he said the A’s names.
“But there’s something more urgent we need to discuss.” His voice was grim.
I rolled back. His fingers thrummed his knee. Shadowed eyes flicked back and forth.
“I’m listening.”
He cleared his throat. “Have you turned on the CB radio? Do you know what’s going on out there?”
“CB’s been silent for days.” Maybe weeks.
His mouth tilted down. “There’s no kids, no old people…no women.”
No kids. Somehow I knew. Didn’t stop the burn simmering in my chest.
“Evie, they’re saying women didn’t survive this thing.”
I shrugged and waved a hand over my body. “Obviously they are wrong.”
“Women are gone. Dead.” His eyes blazed. “And those who didn’t die…their fate was worse.”
“A fate worse than death.” I whispered it, lived it, despised it.
He sucked in his cheeks. “Don’t. Don’t go there.”
No, I’d plunge back into my fated solitude later. After I convinced him to leave me be. “Then get to your point.”
“I’ve done my own investigation. In the two-hundred-mile radius of this house, the rumors are true.”
“You know this because you’ve searched through every house in the metropolitan area.” Fucking melodrama.
He stood and swiped a hand over his mouth. “I knocked on doors and talked to men passing through from other cities. No one has seen another woman or child in at least four weeks.”
“What about broadcasts from other parts of the country?” Surely the radio or internet would’ve debunked his fears.
“Same thing. The amateur radio stations claim this is a world-wide phenomenon.”
A knot formed in my belly. “The ham operators are now our only source of communication?”
He rubbed his nodding head. “Attacks by the infected have grown out of control. They call them aphids and say they hunt in packs. The stories I’ve heard, the things I’ve seen…”
The things he’d seen? Unease stole through me. What risks did he take to get that information? “Aphids? Like the little green bugs in our garden?”
“Yeah, the ones that suck the life from our plants, infecting them with viruses at the same time. There’s a strong resemblance between the mutated humans and those bugs.”
I knew my arched eyebrows gave away my disbelief. I dreamt that shit. It wasn’t real.
“We’re talking parasitic feeding, Evie. Resilient defenses. And they look like them.”
My curiosity piqued. I remembered the initial medical reports speculating that the nymph virus was designed to attack victims with low testosterone. The virus targeted human women, and a group of Muslim extremists topped the list of suspects.
His downcast eyes reflected the worry I felt. “No one knows if the virus was targeted at women intentionally.”
I fought a hard swallow.
“Or if part of the plan involved mutated women spreading the infection to men,” he said.
I tensed against a shiver as I replayed the frantic phone call from my brother-in-law announcing my sister’s infection the day after their children passed. That night, he put a bullet in my sister’s head and one in his own. I should’ve expected it. His was the typical response. Those early reports claimed mutated women—nymphs, they called them—attacked their own husbands, fathers, brothers.
“Do they know how the infection spread from women to men?” My voice was thready.
He nodded. “An infected woman changes, mutates…whatever you want to call it. And because of this mutation, she has these altered mouthparts.” He wiggled his fingers in front of his mouth and dropped his hand. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“I can handle it.” Perspiration formed on my spine.
“Okay, before the Internet went down, I watched a home video of this woman in bed. She looked like she had the flu. You know, sweaty, face all sunken in, lethargic, that kind of thing. Then a man knelt next to her and wiped her face.”