INFECtIOUS by Elizabeth Forkey

speaking. I clear my throat and keep going,
"thank you for all of our blessings. Thank you for this food and for
protecting us today. Please give us wisdom. Amen".

 
    " and love," Aunty adds her request onto the end of my prayer.  

 
    "Amen,"
we both say again in almost unison.  

 
    Matt is staring
at us, his eyebrows arching so high that they disappear beneath his shaggy
hair. The small smile playing at the corner of his food crusted lips says it
all—he thinks we are CRAZY.   I think he
would've laughed out loud at us if he wasn't already back to stuffing himself. I shouldn't care, don't care, what he thinks, but I feel
insecure anyway. I eat, but, despite my hunger, my food doesn't taste as good
as I thought it would. It sticks in my throat and lays heavy in my stomach.

 
    I'm sure it's
from all the nerves.

 
    The less than
pleasant smells wafting across the table from Matt aren't helping either.  

 
    If he has to
stay here, hopefully he'll shower before laying on our
clean guest bed. I'd bet a pint of blood I'm going to end up being the one who
cleans his room. He smells like death and cat stink.

 
    Aunty visits
with Matt and gets occasional replies, usually while he's chewing with his
mouth open. I just pick at my venison and mashed potatoes with gravy, push my fruit salad around on my plate and nibble at
the homemade honey rolls.

 
    Aunty startles
me by bringing up what happened to us today at the outlets. If I felt more
equal with her right now, I would argue that she shouldn't be talking about
this with him. I'm still feeling the effects of her chastisement, so I let her
tell the story while I fight the cramps that keep rippling through my stomach.
For some reason, at the end of her tale I'm blushing. She has left out how
terrified I was and somehow made me sound braver than I was.  

 
    When I look up
from my plate, I am caught in his green-eyed stare. My eyes widen and I glance
nervously over at Aunty, but she is politely cutting her meat and offers me   no sanctuary from
his heavy stare. I spend a few moments nervously trying to decide where to look
before he breaks the silence.

 
    "You were
bleeding before. What happened to your neck?" It's the first time he's
spoken to me and I wish he wouldn't have.

 
    I look down at
my lap. I know I have to be civil and polite and answer him, but I don't want
to speak to him. Childish as it may be, I find myself wishing I could just
stick out my tongue at him and hide under the table.

 
    "It got
scraped when he was strangling me." I mumble, still looking at my lap. I
have to hold myself back from saying "Duh."

 
    "You think
they were trying to take you?" he asks with none of the sarcasm I had
expected. "If you're right, they were probably junkies. The scientists
don't fail. They get what they want no matter what. I've heard that the drugs
are scarce lately, something went wrong with the last
batch. I think they are running out of reliable employees."

 
    It's really
strange to hear him talk about them .

 
    "Why aren't
you on the drugs?" I throw the question out without thinking, and it comes
out sounding hostile and accusatory.

 
    "Who says
I'm not," he spits back.

 
    "Well, you
don't seem crazy and desperate like the others."

 
    Believe it or
not that was me trying to sound nicer.

 
    "I mean,
you seem starved, but more normal."

 
    Oh yeah, I'm a
wonderful conversationalist.

 
    "I AM
normal," he says loudly, his words punctuated with even more hostility.
"You people are the weird ones. Just because you're immune you think
you're better than us. And you're delusional." He makes "coo
coo" motions with his fingers around his ear to show just how mental he
thinks we are. "There is no God, it's been proven. You think because you
don't have the disease that "someone" (he makes air quotes with his
fingers) is looking out for you. There are way more of us. That should prove
something. If you're so smart you would figure