The World Without Flags

I’m not infected because I’ve already had the Worm! The revelation comes to me with a feeling like my head has grown seven times larger. I feel dizzy and sit down on my cage floor. That’s what my parents were doing! They were taking care of me because I was sick with the Worm! My father was telling me I could make it because I was infected! I had always thought he was telling me I could make it across the country, but he was encouraging me to beat the infection! I’ve already been infected! I can’t be infected again!

The hope that I feel is almost too much for me. I lean against the wall, weak with relief. Any other person in my place would have been infected a dozen times taking care of Eric. Any other person with a bellyful of eye worms would have had a fever long ago. I feel like I’ve been pulled from the edge of a pit. It’s like a whole new life, like being born again.

I look around at my cage with new eyes. I don’t see it as my coffin.

Now I’m looking for a way to escape. I’m alive.

I’m thinking.

140

The greatest advantage you can have in this world is when you’re the only one who knows. And I’m the only one here who knows that I can’t be infected. To Randy, to Doctor Bragg, I will succumb to the Worm at any moment. They have no idea that I’m healthy as a horse. If I’m going to escape, I have to use that to my advantage.

Watching the steel door nervously, anyone could come in at any moment, I sit down on the cement floor and search my body. I feel the metal on the zipper of my jeans, and smile with excitement. I begin to twist and pull at the zipper until the metal tab finally comes free. I lift it up and examine it. The edges where it broke free are sharp and serrated, just as I hoped. I roll up my pant leg, take the gleaming metal tab of the zipper, and, without thinking too much, drag it across my leg, grimacing at the pain. It’s not a very deep scratch, but the blood comes to the surface. I dab my fingers in it and then rub my eyes with the blood, blinking and tearing up as best I can. I keep repeating this until I feel like my eyes are a bloody wreck, like I’ve been crying tears of blood. Then I roll down my pant legs, slip the zipper tab into my pocket and lie down.

Then, thinking of Eric, I get up, stand with one shoulder lower than the other, let my jaw hang open.

“Agh,” I groan. I clear my throat and try again. “Ergh,” I say.

I hear the clanking of the door being opened and I let the focus of my eyes go wide.

Get ready, I tell myself. Time for the show of my life.

The door opens.

141

“Yeah, you’re right, she’s not dead,” says Randy over his shoulder as he walks through the door. He strides in and then stands behind the bars, looking at me, smiling. “Don’t worry, you’re still cute,” he tells me in a low voice, winking at me. I struggle to contain a shiver a revulsion at his words. It’s hard, but I do it. I remain motionless.

Doctor Bragg walks in behind him and examines me coldly. “She’s turned very cleanly,” he says. He thinks for a moment, his gaze on me like a spotlight. “There’s hardly any sign of the sickness.” His eyes study me from head to foot. “Excellent,” he says at last. “She will endure many weeks.”

Randy laughs. “You’re a gruesome son of a bitch, you know that?”

Doctor Bragg looks at Randy sourly. “Not all of us have the luxury of inaction.”

“None of us have any luxury at all,” Randy responds to him with equal bitterness.

The Doctor looks at Randy for a moment longer, as if carefully measuring the appropriate response. Apparently deciding it best to drop the entire subject, the Doctor sighs and turns back toward me. “I’ll need a sample,” he says, “several of them.”

“I ain’t going near her,” Randy says, shooting a horrified glance my way. “Not until you wire her jaw shut.”

“Yes, I'm well aware of your phobia,” the Doctor responds drily.

Randy looks like he’s going to respond angrily, but instead he just shrugs and shows his horse teeth in some strange parody of a smile.

When the Doctor takes out his keys to open the cell door, Randy takes a step back, his smile fading. The Doctor comes in and stands in front of me with the same appraising eyes as always, empty, dark, inscrutable. He gives me one of his empty smiles. “Let me see here,” he says, and then puts his hand on my head. It’s all I can do not to jerk away in horror, but, remembering Eric, I just let him do what he wants. He pushes my head back.

“Ergh,” I say.

Randy laughs. “That’s more than she usually says alive.”

The Doctor holds my jaw and gently presses it open. I can feel him staring into my mouth. When he releases my jaw, he looks deep into my eyes. It’s almost impossible to keep my eyes from focusing and moving, but somehow I keep them under control. Finally the Doctor steps back and says, “She’s turned very gently.”

I let my jaw fall open, and then hunch forward a little, putting my left shoulder higher as I’ve seen Eric do a hundred times.