Personal Demons

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

What the hell was that?! It sounded like it came from outside. But that’s impossible!

Scott Travis was the last man in the universe, the nearest habitable planet was five days away, and there was nothing outside the shuttle except the ionized gas of an interstellar nebula. He had been in the cockpit, staring out the window at the amazing colour and light show put on by the incandescent gases, and daydreaming about his wife, when the knocking had interrupted his reverie. Now, he looked around for the source of the disturbance, already beginning to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing, and was losing his mind after four days of complete solitude.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

But no, there it was again. He was sure he’d heard it this time. It sounded like it was coming from the mid-section of the ship.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

It sounded exactly like what someone knocking on the door to the main airlock would sound like… or at least what Scott imagined that would sound like: having never heard that particular sound before. But that’s impossible. I must be going crazy. Nevertheless, he switched on the camera outside the main airlock, to see if there was any physical cause for the sound. What he saw made him jerk back from the screen in surprise. There was a woman out there! And not just any woman… it was his wife, Elena! The camera didn’t show her face clearly, but after ten years of marriage, he would know that long blonde hair, and that slender outline anywhere. “It can’t be”, he gasped, as she raised her fist to knock again.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. 

He was at the airlock door even before the last blow fell, staring across the chamber into his wife’s face. It was her all right. There was no mistaking the fine brows, the blue eyes, the petite nose, and the generous mouth. She was the love of his life. But what was she doing here? She couldn’t be here. She had died 4 days ago, along with the rest of what was left of the human race. Aside from that, there were the other impossibilities of her being out in space without a suit; and somehow remaining stationary  outside the airlock, despite the fact that the ship was moving at over 500, 000 km per hour, and there was nothing to hold on to out there.

That isn’t my wife. I might be going crazy, but I’m not so crazy that I don’t know that whatever that is, it can’t be my wife.

She had stopped knocking, and was now mouthing words at him, though of course there was no sound in the vacuum of space. The metal of his ship had conducted the sound of her knocking to him, but it could not conduct the sound of her voice. He tried to read her lips. “Let me in, Scott”, she seemed to be saying. “Please, let me in”.

He decided he would. He wished he had some kind of weapons on board, but they had all been lost with The Last Hope. Whatever the thing outside was, it might be dangerous. Letting it in might be the last mistake he ever made. But then, that might not be a bad thing, given that the magnitude of his last mistake was more than he could live with, and having to bear the guilt completely alone was intolerable. Yes, he decided fatalistically, if that was death out there, let it come for him.

It took five minutes for him to de-pressurize the airlock, open the outer door so ‘Elena’ could step inside, and re-pressurize the airlock. During those five minutes, all he could do was wait and stare at her. She was wearing the low-cut black silk dress he had given her for their five wedding anniversary. That dress was his all-time favourite. There had to be some significance to the fact that this thing was wearing it, but at the moment, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was. ‘Elena’ appeared to be breathing normally, even straight after she had stepped into the airlock, and there was nothing for her to breathe. Apart from the impossibility of her being there in the first place, she appeared normal in all respects, except for her eyes, which never blinked, and were dull and glazed, rather than bright and alive, as he remembered.

At last, the door opened, and he was face to face with ‘her’. “What are you?”, he demanded.

“I’m your wife, Elena.”

Even her voice was just as he remembered it.

“But that’s impossible. You’re dead. I killed you. I killed you all”, Scott’s voice cracked with grief as he said the last two sentences.

“What are you talking about? I’m not dead.”

“But you are”, Scott insisted. He was sobbing and crying now. “I killed you, I know I killed you.”

“Don’t be silly, darling, I’m right here. How could you have killed me? Oh, don’t cry dear.” She walked over and wiped the tears from his face with her hands, which felt soft and warm, and completely real. “I’m perfectly all right. There’s nothing to get upset about. Now let’s just sit down together, and you can tell me all about it. Tell me what’s bothering you.” She put her arm around his shoulders and led him over to the shuttle’s dining nook, where they sat on a small couch behind a small round white table.

He couldn’t contain his guilt, or his grief, a moment longer. The need to tell someone was so strong, it made him forget his questions about the identity of the being he was talking to. “I killed you”, he repeated. “I killed the whole crew.” With much sobbing and weeping, he went on to tell the story of The Last Hope.

One hundred years ago, the human race had been decimated by the Zombie virus, or Z virus, as it became commonly known. The virus had three principal effects on it’s victims: firstly, the host was afflicted with a flesh eating disease, which caused the tissues of their body to rot; secondly, the host’s cerebral cortex became smaller, while their hypothalamus became larger, diminishing their capacity for rational thought, while increasing their hunger, and other more primitive drives; and thirdly, and most bizarrely, the host gained the ability to slow down – but not stop – the decay of their own body by eating the flesh of healthy, uninfected people. If the zombie, as the host was called, did not eat human flesh, it would die of organ failure within 3 days, but if it did eat the flesh of healthy humans, it might last as long as a week. The virus was commonly thought to be man-made, because nothing that had evolved naturally would have the exact effect of turning humans into flesh-eating zombies, and as a biological weapon it was perfect: it not only made your enemies kill each other, it terrorised and demoralised them in the process; and it was much, much more contagious and virulent than any natural flesh-eating virus. It could be transmitted by breathing the breath of the infected, or by absorbing their bodily fluids through physical contact; and anyone unlucky enough to be bitten by one of the infected and survive, became a zombie themself within an hour. The mortality rate was 100%: everyone infected by the virus died, unless they were bitten on the arm or leg, and the infected limb was immediately cut off: as little as a minute’s delay could lead to the virus spreading to other parts of the body.

In the first week of the pandemic – before society collapsed entirely – there was endless debate about who had created the virus, but in the end, no one found out, and in the end, it didn’t matter, because the perpetrators suffered the same fate as their victims: a slow and agonising death, which claimed over 99% of Earth’s human population within the first month. Worse still, the virus mutated and crossed the species barrier, to infect all mammalian life. For the few human survivors, there was no safe place, as every creature with hair, from dogs and cats, to tree squirrels, to house mice, was transformed into vicious, flesh-eating monsters.

The Last Hope was the first, and last, spaceship ever equipped with a photon drive. Hurriedly cobbled together during the last days of man on Earth, its purpose was to carry 200 survivors to a life bearing world orbiting a distant star, where they could hopefully begin again. Travelling at 99% of the speed of light, it would take them 100 years to get there. With civilization crumbling around them, there was no time to build a generation ship, so they arranged to place themselves in cryogenic suspension, and to awaken two weeks before planetfall on ‘New Earth’. Their plan might have succeeded, if it hadn’t been for Scott Travis.

Scott’s wife and two sons had been infected with the Z virus shortly before The Last Hope left Earth. Since their flesh and their brains hadn’t yet been affected, and freezing them would halt the progress of the disease, it had made sense to put them in cryosleep and take them with him. As a molecular biologist, he had reasoned that with the cryo chambers putting the disease on hold indefinitely, he would have time to find a cure for the Z virus, and as he was the closest thing to a doctor The Last Hope had, the other survivors had agreed with him.

Upon awakening from cryosleep, Scott had worked around the clock to find a cure for his wife and two sons. After 48 hours without sleep, he believed he had one. When he mixed the antibiotic he’d discovered with the Z virus cells, the virus cells had appeared to die. He then created a vaccine, and injected himself with it, just in case the cure didn’t work. Then he had brought Elena’s cryo chamber into the lab, sealed the lab air-tight, resuscitated her, and given her the antidote. After 24 hours, Elena had shown no signs of infection, and there were no signs of the Z virus in her blood. This was unheard of in a Z virus victim: even the mildest infection caused swelling and discolouration of the flesh within three hours. Positive he had found the cure, Scott had resuscitated his two sons, Tom and James, and given them the antidote too. As they were all cured, Scott had seen no reason to keep them isolated from the rest of the crew, and as he was the only doctor on board, no one had argued with him.

Two days later, virtually the whole crew, including Elena, Tom and James, had turned into zombies at the same time. Those who were less severely infected than the majority, immediately fell prey to the zombies. Only Scott was completely uninfected, because he had given himself the vaccine. As soon as he realised what was happening, Scott had raced back to the lab to figure out what had gone wrong. When he looked through the microscope, he saw that the virus cells he’d thought dead three days ago, were now active again. Apparently, the ‘cure’ hadn’t killed them at all, only made them enter a state of dormancy for three days. Scott hadn’t cured his wife and sons; he had turned them into carriers for the virus. For three days, they had suffered no ill effects from carrying the virus in their blood; yet they had passed it on to every crew member who had touched them, or breathed the same air as them.But why didn’t I find it in their blood?!, Scott wondered. Is it possible it could have been hiding from me?

It might be, he realised. As the virus was genetically engineered, and he had been concerned only with killing it, rather than studying all its properties, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that the virus might have some kind of rudimentary intelligence built in to it. The speed with which it had mutated and jumped species also hinted at that.I wonder why the vaccine worked, when the antidote didn’t?

There had been no time to ponder that then. His thoughts had been interrupted by the noise of a zombie pounding on the door of his lab. He’d realised then, that he had to get off the ship as quickly as possible, or the zombies would devour him. There was no point trying to save anyone else: they’d all been infected. There were no lifeboats aboard, only a small shuttle designed to hold a landing party of  four. The original idea had been for a small landing party to check out New Earth and make sure it was safe, before giving the all clear for The Last Hope to land, since they knew nothing about the planet except that it had a breathable atmosphere, liquid water, and a temperature range hospitable to humans. Now the landing party would consist of just one person: himself. But it was a long walk to the shuttle, and only a short walk to the armoury, and he’d never make it to the shuttle unarmed.

He unlocked the lab door and threw it open as forcefully as he could. The zombie that had been banging on it flew across the corridor, hit the wall, and fell to the floor in a sitting position, dazed and concussed. Scott had to push and punch his way past three other zombies to get to the armoury. Luckily, the zombies weren’t good fighters: the damage the Z virus did to their cerebrums made them slow and clumsy. Nevertheless, Scott was unable to avoid getting bitten once, on the right wrist. He remembered thinking at the time, that he had better be 100% immune, or he would be joining the zombies within an hour. Then he was at the armoury, where he had snatched an assault rifle and ammunition. The crew of The Last Hope had taken the weapons in case there were dangerous life forms on New Earth… they had never dreamed they would have to use them on each other. There had been a great many zombies between Scott and the shuttle, but he had used the assault rifle to cut them all down before any of them could touch him. Unlike the zombies of horror stories, the victims of the Z virus could be killed as easily any normal human. Scott had run out of ammunition just as he reached the shuttle, so he’d dropped the gun on the deck. Without ammo, it was useless: he’d just have to take his chances with whatever hostile life forms might be on New Earth.

“Killing those men and women was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life”, Scott sobbed. “I’d gotten to know some of them pretty well during the construction of The Last Hope, and in the five days before everything went to hell. I tried to tell myself that I was doing them a favour, by sparing them from the slower, more painful death of the Z-Virus. But still, I see their faces every time I sleep, in my nightmares.”

“That’s what this is, honey”, Elena cooed, as she took him in her arms “a nightmare. It never happened. You imagined the whole thing.”

The reality she offered was so much more pleasant than the hell he’d been living in for the last four days, that he was tempted to accept it. “But… what about Tom and James? What happened to them?”

“They’re here, honey. They’re right here.”

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

There it was again: the banging on the outer door of the airlock.

“But, why are they outside? How can they be outside? There’s nothing for them to breathe out there.”

She drew back from the embrace she’d been holding him in, and looked him in the eye. “You want us to be a family again, don’t you?”

“Yes. More than anything.”

“Then don’t ask so many questions. Just sit there and relax, while I let them in. In a few minutes, we’ll all be together again.”

The idea that it was all a nightmare, and his family had never died, brought such intense relief from the emotional agony he’d been in for the last four days, that for the moment, it silenced the objections of his rational mind. The emotions he’d experienced since Elena had come aboard the shuttle were so intense, he was in a kind of emotional shock. Feeling only comfortable numbness, he watched as she de-pressurised and re-pressurised the airlock, then opened the inner door to reveal their sons.

“DADDY!!!”, Tom and James yelled in unison, as they stepped into the ship and saw him. They were both just as he remembered them: Tom, 10 years old, blonde-haired and brown-eyed; James, 6 years old, brown haired and green eyed; both of them good-looking boys, and tall for their age. Tom was wearing a light brown t-shirt and yellow shorts; James was wearing a light green t-shirt and brown shorts: the same clothes they’d been wearing last Christmas, which was Scott’s happiest memory of them. But Scott was so overjoyed to see them again, he barely noticed what they were wearing. As they ran to meet him, he automatically knelt on the floor to embrace them both.

“Tom! James! I’ve missed you both so much”, he sobbed, as tears streamed down his face. “I love you. I love you both so much.”

“We love you, too, Daddy”, they replied simultaneously.

“We all love you”, said Elena, as she knelt on the floor to embrace the three of them.

For a moment, Scott’s happiness was complete, but then the realisation struck him that this was all too good to be true. “But how can any of you be alive? I saw you
die. I saw it.”

That wasn’t entirely true. He’d been with them when their flesh had begun to rot… much faster than the Z virus normally consumed flesh; it seemed that being ‘asleep’ for three days had only increased its appetite. Before he could lift a hand to help any of them, the com system had been flooded with reports of people’s flesh rotting all over the ship, and then Elena had lunged at him and bitten his shoulder, and he’d known it was too late to save any of them. After wrestling Elena away from him, he’d run to the lab, so he’d never seen his family die. But they had to have died. They had to. No one recovered from the Z virus on their own, and there was no cure, as he’d discovered the hard way.

“That’s right, ‘darling’”, said Elena, in a voice turned suddenly malevolent. “We’re all dead, and we’ve come to take you with us.”

Scott recoiled in horror as his family transformed into zombies before his very eyes. Tom’s left hand swelled up to three times it’s normal size, then turned bright red, then dark red, then began to scale, and peel. Then the flesh turned purple and began to blister. As the blisters broke open and began to ooze yellow pus, the hand began to shrink, and the skin turned black. All of these changes, which normally took place over several hours, happened in just a few seconds. A similar decay process had started on James’s left leg, and Elena’s right arm.

Scott was backing away, with tears pouring down his face, sobbing hysterically, “No, no, no, no, no, no!!!”, yet he was unable to take his eyes off his disintegrating family.

Tom’s left hand was now just bone, as was James’s left leg, and Elena’s right arm.
“JOIN US”, the three zombies chorused, in voices that were deep, menacing, and no longer in any way resembled those of  the individuals they once belonged to. “WE’RE HUNGRY. SO VERY, VERY HUNGRY.”  As the zombies spoke, they each took a shambling step forward (even James with no muscles attached to his left leg) and reached out with both hands towards Scott (even Elena, with no muscles attached to her right arm).

“NO! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! I’M LOSING MY MIND!!”, screamed Scott, yet he continued to back away from the threat he knew couldn’t possibly be real. The corruption had spread to other parts of the zombie’s bodies now: Tom had black and blistering areas on both legs and his right hand, while his left arm was bone up to the elbow, with the black swiftly working it’s way up what was left of that arm; both of James’ legs were now just bone, and the black had started to eat its way up his torso; there was no longer any flesh on Elena’s right arm or right shoulder, and the black was spreading in both directions along her torso: down towards her right breast, and up her neck towards her head. As Scott watched in horror, the faces of all three zombies began to swell and turn red, then peel, purple, and blacken. Tom’s left cheek melted away, revealing the cheekbone and teeth and jaw on that side; James’s nose fell off, and dissolved before it hit the floor; and Elena’s right eye became a pus-filled blister that exploded.

The last was too much for Scott. He screamed wordlessly, and ran towards the cockpit as fast as he could. The zombies shambled after him, still chanting in unison: “JOIN US! WE’RE HUNGRY! JOIN US!”

Scott made it to the cockpit five steps ahead of the zombies, and locked the door behind him.   

Almost immediately, the zombies started banging on the door.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

God, how he hated that sound!

Suddenly, the noise was coming from all around the cockpit: not just the door, but the floor, the ceiling, and the walls. THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPETYTHUMP
THUMPTHUMPETYTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPETYTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

He looked out the cockpit window and immediately saw the source of the clangour: there was Mary Williams, John Wright, and Joe Johnson, barely recognisable with their faces half-eaten away by the Z virus, all pounding away at the cockpit window with their bare hands, or in some cases, bare bones. Behind and beside them, he could make out the outlines of countless others. God, it looked like the whole crew of The Last Hope was out there!

“NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!”, Scott screamed.

The cockpit window was made of transparent steel: strong enough to withstand a direct hit from a micro-meteorite. There should be no way any number of zombies could break through it. Yet, even as Scott watched in horror, the steel began to crack. He had precious few seconds before it shattered, and let all the air out of the cockpit. He used those seconds to scramble into the spacesuit that had been left in the cockpit as a safeguard against the possibility of the window breaking. Even as he did up the final seals on the helmet, and turned on the oxygen, he wondered, What am I doing this for? I’ve got no weapons, and nowhere to run. I’m just delaying the inevitable.

Then – CRASH! – the window exploded, and blew out into space, along with all the oxygen in the cockpit. But it was only a very small cockpit, and there wasn’t enough oxygen in it to carry Scott into space – even if the window hadn’t been filled with zombies. The window was 4 feet wide and 2 feet high: just big enough to admit the zombies two at a time. Mary Williams and John Wright were first. Mary’s face was no longer recognisable: her eyes, nose and lips were gone, her skin was blackened, shrivelled, dotted with pus-oozing blisters, and stretched tight over a skull with long brown hair still attached. As Scott punched Mary, the skin, pus and hair exploded away from her skull, and her skull flew free of her neck. Blood fountained from the stump of her neck, dousing his suit’s faceplate with so much blood he could no longer see out of it. But that was the least of his problems.

As Scott was hitting Mary with his right hand, John Wright, the left half of his face black and blistered, grabbed Scott’s left arm with both rotting hands and bit down as hard as he could. Impossibly, the bullet-proof kevlar (again, designed to resist micro-meteoroids) began to tear. There would have been a sound like air being let out of a balloon, except there was no sound in the vacuum. As Scott drew back his fist to hit John, Joe Johnson, the lower half of his face a grinning skull, the upper half miraculously untouched, pushed Mary’s now-lifeless body out of the way and entered the cockpit. Scott managed to punch John off him, but his right arm was immediately seized by Joe, who bit into his biceps.

Now, there were two rips in Scott’s space suit. Scott knew it was hopeless, but pure adrenalin, and survival instincts made him keep fighting. Unfortunately, John wasn’t dying as easily as Mary, and while Scott was struggling with Joe, John grabbed Scott’s left arm and bit into it again. Scott shook both arms frantically, in a panic-stricken attempt to dislodge the zombies. At the same time, he instinctively backed into the cockpit, to resist the zombie’s efforts to drag him into space.

At last, he was hard up against the cockpit door, which his ‘family’ was still banging on. He could retreat no further. Nor could he dislodge John or Joe, and as they dragged him to the floor, he could feel other zombies biting into his legs and torso. He tried to scream, but realised he had already screamed himself hoarse. Now, he could only hope that one of the zombies would remove his helmet, so he could at least suffocate, and be spared the far more agonising death of being eaten alive.

As if granting his wish, a zombie ripped his helmet away. Although he had no wish to live any longer, his body’s survival instinct was too strong for Scott to resist – he held his last breath for as long as he could. The blackened, pus-oozing skull-face of a zombie filled his vision as his consciousness began to fade. He realised the zombie was about to bite into his right eye. But just before that could happen, and just before he blacked out, the zombies disappeared, and Elena reappeared, once again whole and beautiful. Then he blacked out.

His first awareness was of pain, coming from multiple sources on his arms, legs, and torso. Then, he realised he was breathing, which should have been impossible. Didn’t I die? Didn’t I suffocate? Or did I imagine the whole thing? No, the pain coming from all over his body was far too real, for him to have imagined the whole thing. He opened his eyes, and the relatively dim light from the shuttle’s living area momentarily stung them, then Elena’s beautiful face was there, looking down at him. He immediately began to back away in terror, knocking the pillow off the bed he’d been lying on, and would have fallen off the bed himself if Elena hadn’t grabbed his shoulders and restrained him. Her grip, was firm, but gentle.

“Relax, Scott, relax. Please, please, relax. I’ve bandaged your wounds, but you’ve got to give the bleeding time to slow down. If you try to move too quickly now, you’ll bleed to death.”

Scott stopped struggling and looked at her more closely. There was nothing else he could do. He didn’t have the strength to fight anymore, and if she was going to kill him, at least it would be an end to this nightmare. And he desperately, desperately wanted an end to this nightmare.

Now that he really looked at her, he saw that her eyes were no longer blank and staring, but alive and moving, and the concern in them appeared genuine. They weren’t quite his wife’s eyes, though. There was something missing from them, something Scott couldn’t quite define.

“You’re right, Scott. I’m not your wife. And yes, I am reading your mind. Don’t worry about it. Just try to relax and breathe deeply, and I’ll explain everything. I was able to use the resuscitation unit to bring you back, but you still need to get oxygen into your blood and your brain. I’m sorry for the ordeal I put you through. Very, very, sorry. None of that was meant to happen. It was an accident.”

“Who am I?” – she vocalised his unspoken thought. “I am the nebula this ship is flying through. When you entered me, I was like an unborn child, aware that I existed, but knowing little else. I had no consciousness or identity. But I did have latent telepathic powers, and the moment you entered me, those powers began to activate, and grow. At first, I could only pick up your strongest feelings, and the clearest images in your mind. Your family and the zombies were my first, primitive attempts to communicate with you, based on what I saw in your mind. But I didn’t know what I was doing, and I lacked the skill to control those aspects of myself. At first, you had more control of them than I did, but you didn’t know you had control, so you controlled them with your subconscious: turning them into your sweetest dreams, and your most horrible nightmares.”

“But I was learning from you from the moment you entered the nebula. Learning how to think, and become self-aware. As my telepathic powers grew, so did my intelligence, and my ability to control them. Finally, I was able to re-absorb the zombies and assume the form you see now, which is sentient, and I assure you, quite harmless”.

“You won’t turn into a zombie again?” His voice was barely a croak. His throat still ached from all the screaming he’d done earlier, and it hurt to speak.

“I promise you I won’t. That was never meant to happen the first time, and it will never happen again, now that I have full control of my powers. I’m truly sorry for what I put you through, Scott.”

“And you’re really real?”

“I am as real as your memories of your wife. If you wish, I can be your wife as you remember her, but I can never truly be your wife, because I won’t have her memories.”

“Would you be able to have children?”

“The gases of which I am composed can take any form I wish them to. At the moment, I have no internal organs, but with your knowledge of biology, I could, in time, create functioning replicas, including a working reproductive system. I know you’re thinking of starting the human race over again on New Earth, and I would be happy to help you do that. If not for you, I might have drifted unconscious among the stars for millennia. In every way that matters, you brought me to life. Not only am I very grateful to you, but I am very, very curious about this new human form I have taken, and you are the only one who can teach me what it means to be human.”

“What about the crew of The Last Chance? Can you bring them back like you are? Not as zombies, I mean?”

“I can bring back as many of them as you can remember clearly. They will be as you remember them, and remember only the times they spent with you, but over time, they will develop their own memories and become complete individuals. All I need is an image to start with, and then a unit of myself can take that form. I don’t have to read your mind to know you want your two sons back first.”

“I certainly do. But could you do me one favour? When you bring them in, don’t have them knock on the door.”