Zero

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

It was the last time I ever lit a candle, but the memory of that night was still so visceral, sometimes I wondered if the tiny flame had burned my soul, and my scarred memory was the invisible damage that would never heal. Never be smooth, and soft, and free from pain.

We thought we were safe there, in that abandoned cottage. Well, as safe as we could be, under the circumstances. But the candle was a beacon and they tracked it right to the door.

My temper ended up saving my life. Ironic, really. Lucy always said my temper would be the death of me and that I was the most hot-blooded child she ever raised. And she had raised many.

But I didn't want to be there, in that abandoned cabin in the woods. I was angry. Angry at the world for being broken and toxic. Angry at Lucy and Joel for taking me out of it.

So I left. Like the petulant child I was.

I nearly froze to death that night, but the cold saved me. It burned out my anger.

Now I only have sadness, loneliness, and regret.

That's all that's left in this forsaken world. But there's plenty of it to wallow in for many years to come.

***

I'm not sure I ever knew how to laugh. My earliest memories are of learning how to be invisible. Quiet. Children are to be seen, not heard. And even better yet, not seen. My parents weren't bad people, I don't think. I don't know, in all honesty, I was too young to form a cohesive opinion. But when I try to remember, it's like watching that movie, the Stepford Wives. They felt like robots, mindlessly moving through life with a single motivation: look perfect. Be perfect. Find the perfect solution.

Children don't come by perfection naturally, so until they can be trained to smile and nod and keep their dress clean, it's best they stay hidden.

I was hiding when the police found me. Quiet as I could be, practicing. Waiting for them to come home and appreciate my stillness.

The official story was that the patient was out of his mind. Out of control. He should have been restrained, but no one realized the extent of his trauma and how he would react when wakened.

My parents were brilliant; everyone told me so.

My mother was a neurologist. My father was a psychotherapist.

They were the first to die, but they weren't the last.

***

Lucy and Joel couldn't have been more different. They were loud, and goofy, and as far from perfect as two people could be, though in my memory, they're forever enveloped in an idealized halo born of nostalgia and regret. I was terrified of them at first. They tried so hard to make me feel at home, without realizing "home" meant something different to me.

I doubled-down in my practice of perfection, trying to compensate for their over-the-top, never-ending exuberance.

I followed in my parents' footsteps, studying the brain. I needed to understand why people behaved the way they did. Why my parents were so meticulous and restrained and why Joel and Lucy were so reckless and compulsive. The more I tried to figure things out, the more irritated I became. I couldn't understand why, at the time, but it felt like a collision of my two worlds in the worst way. I was volatile, and I perfected this explosive rage over the years with my foster parents.

When the world dissolved into a festering, writhing bed of chaos, I was ignorantly resentful. When Joel said we were leaving, I was righteously furious.

When we ended up in an abandoned cabin in the woods, I was downright hostile.

I wasn't stupid, I was just too selfish and self-involved to realize that lighting a candle was the wrong decision. I shouldn't have left. I should have just stayed in the dark like I was told.

The candle didn't guide me back to the cabin. But it didn't go unnoticed.

***

"I hate you!" I screamed as loud as I could, stomping around for good measure. "I don't care if they find us. Anything would be better than being stuck here with you." My face was so hot the tears evaporated before they could even create wet trails down my cheeks.

Joel, quieter in the past 3 months than he had ever been in his life, gestured for me to turn down the volume. Lucy stood there, wild-eyed with her hands over her mouth, compensating for my outburst so much like I used to do when they were loud and raucous and causing an uncomfortable scene that I started laughing.

"Oh, now you want me to be quiet? What happened to, 'just have some fun, Charlotte, it's ok to let it out sometimes.' Now. Now I want to let it out. I. HATE. YOU."

I didn't mean it. Even as the words came out of my mouth, what I really wanted to scream was "I'm scared." Or maybe, "I hate what's happening." Maybe even, "I hate my parents." But I couldn't say any of those things, so I hated Joel and Lucy instead.

It was their fault we were here in this disgusting cabin in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't any safer than staying in town; everyone said it didn't matter where you went. They'd find you. So why bother torturing me even more by bringing me here?

I felt the shaking start. I clenched my fists and gulped in air to steady my heartbeat and stop myself from screaming even louder. Anger made me stronger than fear, but fear was more persistent. It was overpowering and I just wanted to stay mad. I whirled toward the door and ran out, escaping the room that would box me in with my fear. Out here there was more space to breathe and think, and if I could think, I could sustain my rage.

"No, Charlotte," Lucy screamed, panicked. "Come back! Please come back!"

I ran. I could hear Joel telling her she had to be quiet; they would hear. He'd find me.

But I wouldn't let him. I was better at hiding than he was at finding. The dark had always been a trusted companion.

It wasn't even hard. There was a tree within viewing distance of the cabin. Its huge gnarled roots protruded from out of the ground, creating a perfect hollow for me to curl up in. He didn't even come close.

I could hear Lucy's muffled keening for a while and imagined Joel holding her wrapped up in his arms. With that vision, my anger evaporated and I wished I could be there in his arms too, held tightly next to Lucy, the three of us safe and untouchable. But I couldn't go back. Not all the way back.

As Joel and Lucy went quiet, probably sleeping, I felt the panic set in. The unbearable knowing that they would leave me here. They wouldn't find me and they would pack up and leave in the morning, when it was safer again.

A faint beam of moonlight shone through the trees, hitting the cabin. It was the only light left, perhaps in the entire world.

Feeling the weight of an elephant on my chest, constricting my lungs, I scrambled toward the cabin. I needed to get there or be lost forever. I'd apologize and Lucy would cry some more and we'd go on like nothing ever happened, but I had to get to the cabin.

I'm sure it only took a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. My face was slick with tears again when I finally stumbled forward into the wall of the cabin. I stared through the empty hole that was once a window, catching my breath, shaking from spent adrenaline. I saw them, just as I imagined. Lucy curled into a ball in Joel's lap, both of them sleeping peacefully.

The anger was back in a flash. They didn't even care I was gone. I couldn't go back in. I wasn't that weak.

But the fear was still pulling strings in my chest. I couldn't go back in, but I wasn't sure I could go back out either.

That's when I saw the candle. The solution. I would light it and the flame would be visible from my tree root hovel. I wouldn't get lost or abandoned, but I would show Joel that I could survive without them.

I remember thinking, surely a tiny flame, a mere spec that didn't even alert Joel and Lucy, couldn't cause any harm. I knew, even then, that it was dangerous. But I did it anyway. I lit the candle and let it burn brightly in the window of the abandoned cabin.

***

I heard them coming. I was nearly frozen from the cold night, laying against the huge tree, trying to blanket myself in leaves for warmth. The sound of the forest changed. The night creatures went silent first. Then I heard the leaves getting dragged across the dirt. It was early fall. There were many leaves but only some were dry. The dry leaves crunched. The wet, decaying leaves slipped through the mud and sometimes squeaked against each other. My first thought was of a predator. A bear or a wolf or a mountain lion. If I stayed still, maybe it would pass by and continue hunting elsewhere. After a few minutes, holding my breath, I realized there were too many crunches and dragging squeaks coming from too many different directions. It wasn't a stalking animal.

They were here. They were so much worse than a bear. There was no escape from them.

I was too terrified to move. I didn't turn to look at the cabin, but I heard the door open when they found it. I heard everything as if the only sense I had left was hearing and it was magnified a thousandfold. I heard them go into the cabin. I heard Lucy's piercing scream, cut short by a wet, gasping gurgle. I heard Joel grunt and fight. It didn't last long. Then I heard them shuffle through the house, dragging feet across the decrepit floor boards. I heard them leave the house again. I knew they would come for me next.

A calm settled in. It was almost peaceful, knowing you were about to die. It would all be over soon and I wouldn't have to worry about being angry any more.

I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

***

I woke when the sunshine had thawed my fingers enough that I could feel the burning of returning sensation. It took much longer for my thoughts to reawaken.

I was still alive and they were gone.

They didn't find me.

When the shock wore off, I realized I must have been so cold, so close to natural death, that they didn't smell me or feel my body's heat. I was probably no warmer than the decaying leaves I had covered myself in.

My numb mind stored this tidbit of knowledge away for future use.

It was easier to stay hidden in the daytime. Everything was warm; one person's body heat didn't make so much of a commotion. But it would in the winter. I needed a better hiding spot.

I knew our packs would still be in the cabin. They wouldn't have touched it; nothing in them was alive.

But I couldn't bring myself to go back inside. To see what was left of Lucy and Joel, knowing it was my fault. It was too much. So I just started walking back in the direction we came from. I had kept my phone, so at least I had my books to keep my thoughts occupied.

The Rebirth by Dr. Rashmi Tiriaq

Narrated by Dr. Rashmi Tiriaq

It began in July of 2022. Doctors Tamara and Antonis Kokkinos commenced their first human test case with their experimental drug, Z, designed to restore a human brain from a permanent comatose state. Their experiment had dire ramifications, but it wasn't until years later that the extent of the consequences were revealed. The laboratory unknowingly contained the initial damage. The deceased doctors were cremated and the patient, now known as Zero, returned to his coma through medically induced measures until his death, 9 years later. It was then, in the morgue, when no more drugs were being transfused into his blood, the treatment started working once more. This time, the patient didn't kill all those he attacked. This time, the treatment spread.

I had listened to this particular audiobook more times than I could count, but it kept me company, like an old friend, as I wandered through the woods. I listened with one ear and half my brain to the words, searching for clues that might help me. With my other ear and more vigilant half of my brain, I listened for danger. As the day wore on, and the details became more precise, more apt to hold the secrets to my survival, I tuned out the woods. As long as the birds were chirping and the squirrels were scavenging, I was likely alone.

My parents had discovered a way to artificially restore brain function to patients with severe brain damage. They had worked in a special facility filled with patients who had been donated to science. The patients were technically still alive, but only due to the technology that breathed for them and kept the heart pumping blood through the body. The treatment stimulated specific neurons in the brain that had stopped working due to the damage caused by whatever trauma the patient had suffered. In theory, the treatment would allow brain function to return and the patient would be able to re-learn how to be human. Neurons in your brain are remarkably resilient and adaptable. The patient may not be the person they were before the coma, but, hopefully, they would live again.

The treatment worked. Just not in the way it was expected to work.

In patient Zero, his neurons were reactivated and he woke from his coma, but the brain no longer communicated to the body the way a human brain was expected to communicate. It was like a car with plenty of gas and power, going full speed ahead with nothing to direct it. The body functioned, in some ways more efficiently than a normal human, but there was no driver. No thought processing or reasoning.

Patient Zero took my parents by surprise. They didn't expect him to even be able to move after so long in a coma. Muscle atrophy should have kept him immobile for months. He killed them almost accidentally, hurling a tray of miscellaneous medical tools at them. A scalpel lodged itself in my father's neck. As my mother went to save him, Zero hit her across the head with the railing from the bed. The nurse staff found him eating her leg, my father bleeding out beside them. They used tranquilizer darts to return him to his coma.

My father died within the hour and both my parents were cremated the next day, according to laboratory policy. They were placed in the incinerator immediately, bypassing the morgue and a potentially reputation-ending coroner's report.

I was sent into foster care to be coddled and "protected" for the next nine years.

When the technology keeping Zero's body medically alive was no longer a match for nature, he was taken off life support and pronounced dead. It took 2 and a half hours for the drugs to dissipate enough for the treatment to fire up his neurons again. The coroner was eating her lunch when she became his first meal since my parents.

This time, there was no nurse staff with tranquilizer guns to stop him. He left the coroner after just a few bites and went in search of more varied flavors. By the time he had sampled two of the sleepy guards, the treatment was active in the coroner and she followed in Zero's taste-testing footsteps.

Authorities estimate the entire laboratory was overtaken within three hours.

The city was lost in 6 days. The state, 2 months.

The treatment spread fast and the only way to stop it was fire. But fire itself attracted them. They didn't feel pain, or at least they didn't let it stop them. One would have to be detained until every last cell in the body was turned to ash. That was hard to do without getting scratched or bitten in the process.

Rubbing my hands together for warmth, a cold breeze sent shivers rippling down my back. An eerie quiet seemed to blanket the woods and I paused, mid-step. The birds and squirrels had gone silent and dusk was falling over the tops of the trees. Breaking out in a full body cold sweat I started to panic.

The words of Dr. Tiriaq were still pouring through my ear bud as I whipped my head from side to side, looking for movement.

There is no hiding. They can sense body heat from miles away. Their hearing is far beyond the capabilities of an average human. They can smell the difference between living organisms and the dead. Your only hope, if discovered, is to outrun them. Their heightened senses do not extend to grace, and though they have perfect balance and do not appear to experience pain, if their body is injured, it does not heal.

They would see me, hear me, and smell me well before I saw them. Run. It was my only choice, but where could I run? They could be coming from any direction, or all of them. I don't think they can climb, but neither can I, so going up a tree was not an option. I didn't think I would survive another night of near hypothermia and there was no guarantee that trick would work twice.

I had to pick a direction and pray.

I ran.

I continued in the same direction I had been going because it seemed as good as any.

I heard them before long. They seemed louder somehow, as if the forest floor was suddenly a bed of tiny twigs, snapping under their heavy feet by the thousands. It echoed from every direction, but I kept running.

As they closed in around me, the rancid odor of rotting flesh clouding around them was so strong I could taste the sickening sweetness as I gasped for air.

For the second time in as many days, I knew I was about to die. This time, there was no calm. No peace. Only terror. My legs kept moving in an unconscious physical rejection of defeat. I couldn't see anything through the sweat pouring over my face, but I knew they were everywhere. Every few minutes a grasping hand made contact, finding no grip on my slick skin. Every few seconds, now. One almost had me, and I tripped over a fallen log, flying forward in my momentum.

Bracing for impact, ready to roll and dodge and fight, I just kept falling.

It seemed ages before I hit the ground, only it wasn't the ground. It was water. And I sank quickly, the shock and pain of impact nearly knocking me unconscious.

Arms and hands reached in after me but I was too stunned to fight. My brain rebelled but it was trapped inside my body, unable to move my limbs any longer.

Hands tightened around my leg and pulled.

If only I had drowned. Drowning would have been more peaceful than being eaten alive.