COVID-19: Stay at Home Order
Anthony was a single man, a lonely man, an introverted man. He lived in a small studio apartment in a very tall building in a not so friendly part of town. Moving to the big city to chase his dream as an artist, Anthony fell flat and was working as a dog walker for wealthier families. The job paid poorly, but it allowed him to just barely get by, that was until COVID-19 and the…
STAY AT HOME ORDER
15 days to slow the spread they said, yeah right! Now it’s almost May and here I am, still locked in my shitty little apartment. Other than bingeing on Netflix and talking to the TV, the only other human face I see is the UberEats guy who delivers copious amounts of Cantonese food that I make last the whole week because it doesn't look like I’m getting stimulus money or unemployment. And the worst part of it is, I think I have the virus.
It started with a dry cough a couple weeks back and I got nervous as all hell and started Googling symptoms and asking people online if they knew anything. Which was useless. The only response I got back was when I mentioned I had lost my sense of taste and some troll on Twitter said, “Look at your outfit, you had no taste to begin with,” but the symptoms got worse and weirder.
Dry cough, no sense of taste, high fever, these were all things I had heard the health professionals talk about on TV, but my skin peeling off? No one said anything about that. It started on my arms, like a sunburn, but then it spread to my stomach and chest, and then my legs and feet. I’m not talking about just a little skin, I’m talking about my whole leg peeling in one big piece! I have the splice of skin sitting in the corner of the room propped up against the wall, a whole leg! Foot and all! There’s even the tattoo of Sagittarius on my calf perfectly preserved in this sheet of skin.
It wasn't half bad at first, after the old layer of skin peeled off, the remaining flesh was baby soft and smooth. The winter weather had wreaked havoc on my skin and left it a dry, ashy mess but not any more, well, at least until I started noticing the scales. My back had an itch that just wouldn’t quit and when I checked it in the mirror, I couldn't believe what I saw; scales. Hard, brownish green scales where the skin had peeled. I then noticed them on my arm around my elbow, then on my legs. I scrubbed and scratched and applied lotion but they just spread and spread. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the headaches started.
Maybe I was dehydrated so I drank a bunch of water, but that didn't help. Maybe I’d take a bunch of Ibuprofen, that didn't help either. The pain just continued, rushing upwards on the left side of my face over and around my eyebrows where it felt like a nail being rammed through the middle of my forehead. After three days of pain, I took a big handful of Ibuprofen nighttime and promptly passed out on my couch and in the morning the pain had all moved into my jaw and was throbbing. Great, I thought, I’m pretty sure I have COVID, my skin is peeling and turning scaly and now I have some sort of abscessed tooth, how could my 2020 get any worse?
I stumbled to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror but when I opened my mouth my jaw just dislocated leaving my mouth gaping open, my chin hanging in the middle of my chest. Shocked and scared, I clamped my mouth closed so fast I felt my teeth shatter as they crashed together. I again opened my mouth wider than it had ever been opened before and pulled out the shattered remains of teeth from my upper and lower mandible and sobbed frantically.
What was happening to me? I have to do something, but what? I have no friends or family in the city, my neighbors are all jerks and the TV is telling us to shelter in place, who was going to help me? Could any one help me?
There I sat in the darkness of my tiny apartment, the only light coming from the TV set to a cable news station that played an endless loop of COVID death totals and ever changing information. No one knew what was going on, least of all me. My skin continued to peel, the scales continued to spread and my few remaining teeth continued to rot and fall out of my still throbbing head and to make matters worse, I was all out of leftover Egg Foo Young.
It was late, but UberEats was prepared to deliver my order. A number 2, wonton soup, General Tso’s chicken and 2 extra egg rolls. My stomach growled and gurgled as I waited for the delivery driver to come, 45 minutes later and he finally showed up.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
“UberEats.” He said in a muffled voice through a makeshift mask wrapped around his face, I could smell something sweet wafting in through the door from the hallway but it was not the sweet spices of Cantonese food that tantalized my olfactory nerve, no, it was the smell of him.
“Pleasssssse, open thhe doorsss,” I barely recognized my own voice as it croaked out of my mouth, drool rolling down my chin as my slippery tongue rubbed against my bare gums, it had been so long since I talked to anyone, “Sssstep inssssside.”
The door creaked open, the light from the hallway shone into my darkened apartment and in walked the UberEats driver, young, short and somewhat pudgy, an appetizing little morsel.
“Where, uhm, do you want me to set it?” his eyes squinted looking for me in the darkness.
By the time he noticed I was behind him it was too late, I had already lunged at him, wrapping my scaly arms around his pudgy torso and unhinging my jaw to bite down on his face and muffle his screams. I kicked the door shut behind us as he flung the general Tso’s chicken high into the air scattering rice all over my tiny apartment as I squeezed him harder and harder.
Soon he stopped fighting, his body seized and shivered due to lack of oxygen. When the fits of movement from nerve death stopped, I started slowly and steadily sliding the boy into my mouth and down my gullet.
There I crouched in the darkness, his legs dangling lifelessly out of my mouth as a gurgle of my stomach acids slowly dissolved the young man. Then it finally occurred to me; I don’t think this is COVID, this is something much, much worse.
Want to subscribe to our newsletter so you won’t miss the next short story? Just sign up HERE
Want more frightful fiction? Just search below:
