Read Online Project Pallid by Christopher Hoskins - Free Book Online

then grab a couple more of the red, pickled jars
from the shelf.   I try hard to
muffle the audible Pop! as the first opens, and I strategically spread
its contents across the floor. I do the same with the second, and the air
becomes filled with the noxious aroma of vinegar. This scent-masking epiphany
might be grasping at straws, but it’s worth a shot when I’ve got few other
cards left to play.
    With
the emptied jars stacked in my designated bathroom, I retake cross-legged safety,
and I stare up at the splintery door from my bed.
    The
quiet is unnerving.
    I
haven’t heard the sound of a live person in days. No voices. No cars. Nothing.
    I’m
alone.
    Another
droplet adds itself to one of the cloudy puddles nearby, and it’s a constant
reminder that safety’s only an illusion now.

 
    Long
before Mrs. Arnold lost it at the bank, Catee and I suspected the disease’s
source. Their neighbor’s transformation was what Catee’s dad had been
maniacally warning everyone about, and it’s likely the thing that kept him so
distracted in the months before.   Mrs. Arnold’s sickness was the time of judgment he’d prophesized; it was
the start of The Whitening, and it had his hands all over it.
    For
an old woman, she was surprisingly strong. Even with four officers cramming her
into the back of the squad car, they weren’t strong enough. Her legs kicked
viciously and whirled in all directions, and even the toes of her then shoeless
feet reached out for anything and anyone they could. Her teeth snapped audibly
together, and her head whipped wildly around, as if independent of her brain.
    The
cops did their best to keep out of reach, but she managed to lock her teeth
into one of them, and they sunk so deep into his forearm that they must’ve
latched onto bone. Another officer went straight for his Taser and, briefly
subdued, they scooped up her limp body and laid it across the backseat of the
cruiser.
    Cameramen,
at safe distance seconds before, swarmed to press their lenses against the
windows from all angles. And even though Mrs. Arnold’s eyes were rolled back in
her head, you’d hardly know it: their backs were as white as their fronts. And
while not the most gruesome, that, above all else, was the most chilling part
at the time—she had no irises, no pupils, nothing. Her eyes had become
pristine, white orbs that reflected glints of light from their wet surfaces.
    There
was no humanity left in her empty view of the world.
    The
car idled and cameras rolled while the officers debated who’d transport Mrs.
Arnold to lockup—its driver needed to stay behind for treatment.   But the debate ended seconds later when
she snapped back to. The nearest cop jumped in, the lights and sirens flicked
on, and the car whizzed from sight without a second’s pause.
    But,
in spite of the hurried departure, there were enough cameras and enough angles
of shots to catch a full picture of what had gone down.
    In
one clip, she just lay there. Her whiteness glowed, in perfect contrast to the
black, leather seat. Her white hair fanned around her head, and only the
crimson stains of feeding disrupted her monochromatic starkness.
    And
in the next instant, she was bolt upright. Her head whipped wildly back and
forth. Her nostrils flared. Her head tipped back. And her mouth stretched open
to release a screeching howl that tore through televisions and ripped viewers
from the inside out; my skin lifted from my body to escape it.
    And
then, like she’d pick up a scent, she threw herself into the car’s windows and
banged off the divider that held her prisoner in its back. Her wailing
intensified, and street-side onlookers covered their ears in pain as they
gawked in horrified awe at the unfolding events.   And as an officer leapt in and the car
pulled away, its shrinking windows became clouded with streaks of spit and
smears of white: blood of the infected.

September
7 th :

 
    When
I got our locker combination from Catee the second time