Jornada del Muerto: Prisoner Days Read online

  11/04/2056

  There’s a lot that we don’t know. Here’s an incomplete list:

  How much of The 146-protein has to be in the blood for it to cross over the blood brain-barrier and cause the person to transition to a wasp?

  Are the children of 146-protein parents born as wasps?

  Has all livestock transitioned to wasp?

  Have any livestock species survived?

  Did any of our families survive?

  What will we do if we see a family member turned wasp?

  Do the half-breeds control armies of wasps?

  Is it possible to control a wasp in any way?

  Have wasps killed every human on every continent?

  Have the wasps run through this country, and then died out?

  How long can a wasp live?

  I have this fantasy that we will leave the Pen and everything will be normal, like it was when I entered the Pen in 2021.

  During the Great Human Transition, people took videos of the wasps and posted them to the Internet. They made a sport out of setting wasps on fire or running over them in their vehicles. I suppose they saw this in movies and wanted to try it themselves. The first year or so, there were hundreds of thousands of videos of wasps.

  There was an entire Internet video channel dedicated to videos of people turning into wasps. After watching all these videos, I’ve determined there are four stages to becoming wasp.

  Turn on 146: In defense of the original scientists, the first four nucleobases of The 146 historically have stopped protein synthesis. This was known to be true in every species and most plants. The 146 DNA should not have created any protein. This remained true for a long time. No one is sure how long. And then The 146 was turned on and started generating 146-protein.

  Build-up of 146-protein: Once turned on, The 146 created 146-protein. The body is unable to break it down or excrete it. The protein disrupts higher brain functioning such as decision making, planning, and some types of memory in three distinct pathways:

  Slow loss of brain function: According to scientists, around 70 percent of the humans have an open blood brain barrier which allows any amount of 146-protein to flood the brain. Thus, their higher brain functions began deteriorating the moment The 146-protein hits their bloodstream. It’s believed that President Olymsteed’s higher brain functioning was destroyed in 2037 nearly two years before he ordered the nuclear strikes in the Middle East. His handlers thought they could keep him in office, as they did with Ronald Reagan after Reagan had fallen ill with Alzheimer’s disease. Of course, we know now that they had to kill President Olymsteed after he ate Secretary of State Janey Stephens.

  Rapid loss of brain function: Around 25 percent of the population has a less porous blood-brain barrier. The 146-protein must build up in the blood before it crosses the blood-brain barrier. These people’s brains are flooded with the brain-melting protein all at once. While they resist the protein longer, they succumb much faster. Less than 8 hours after The 146-protein reaches the appropriate level in the blood, they transform into wasps.

  There is a very small portion of the population that is immune to The 146-protein. It’s believed these people represent a genetically distinct subset of human population, possibly related to the Denisovan.

  Turning into a wasp: After The 146-protein turns the brain to mush, the person effectively dies and the soul leaves the body. The person falls to the ground and is still, as if asleep, for at least two hours. We saw a security video of a man going to sleep in his own bed, next to his own wife. He woke up two hours later to eat his entire family. His transformation to wasp was complete

  Cannibalism: The wasp wakes with a tremendous hunger and need to feed. They will eat anything and everything in their path. Animals? Pets? Children? Everything. The very young, infirm, vulnerable, and dependent are the first to go. Wasps seem to have a particular dislike of domestic cats (not dogs or feral cats) and domestic cats have been eliminated from the Earth. The hunger lust appears to be insatiable.

  Once a wasp turns, it is unstoppable. A wasp will eat through its own hand to get at a living being. They are hunters with a keen sense of smell and hearing. You can shoot them, hit them, light them on fire, or otherwise destroy them, but the wasps keep on coming.

  Early on, I found a couple of videos documenting scientific studies of wasps. In one study, scientists and/or government officials from the NIH infected five death row inmates. Every experiment turned out the same way -- the wasp ate everyone in the room only to move on to eat everyone in the building.

  After the first announcements of the wasp outbreak, some person with a unique sense of humor posted all the digital zombie films to an Internet video site. Hoping for clues for fighting the wasps and half breeds, George and I watched every zombie movie we could get our hands on.

  The most accurate film? “28 days later.” But that’s because the movie is about survivors long after infection, and we’ve survived so long after the infection. It’s been almost ten years. George and I have survived, even thrived, here at the Pen.

  I was instructed to leave by the original prophecy. I feel compelled to follow the prophecy. George would follow me anywhere. My great-great-grandmother said that when the Tewa shaman had gone 500 days without seeing a wasp, it was time for him to return to the pueblo. It’s been 472 days since either George or I have seen a wasp. Day 500 will be November 30, 2056.

  I don’t know what we’ll find at the pueblo. In my heart, I hope that I will see children playing ball in the streets; women gossiping as they hang laundry; men laughing, talking, and watching football; and food, glorious bounty of Ind’n tacos, elk chili, donuts, cheetos, frito pie, and all childhood favorites. But in my heart, it’s still 2015.

  About nine months after all hell broke loose, my peoples’ souls stopped by on their way to the afterlife. Rather than turn to wasp, or be food for wasps, most of the Tewa and Tiwa killed themselves. It sounds very dramatic, but we’d been waiting for the invader to turn to wasps for almost 500 years. The pueblo people knew what would become of them. We would much rather live and die together than turn to wasps.

  I know they are dead. The woman I’d loved died with our grandchildren in her arms. I know my son died before my brothers and their children. I know my sister, cousins, nieces, nephews. and any aged elder, are all gone.

  And still, in my heart, it’s the summer of 2015. The fields are full of a bounty of harvest. Having arrived from Mexico, I’m a minor celebrity in our community. My great-great-grandmother is ill but not yet dead. My father has just retired from his job as Park Ranger at the Pecos Pueblo Historical Site. My brothers and sister are married, and their children run like banshees in the street. The weather is warm, and I am happy.

  What if I missed their ascent to the afterlife in the press of souls and my own grief?

  The question haunts me. I am filled with doubt -- maybe someone survived! I tell myself that I’m being silly or stupid. Of course, the pueblo people are gone. The Dine, with their general mistrust of people and scattered Hogan housing, might have survived. The Hopi and Apache may have outrun the wasps. The wasps may have missed the Comanche and plains Indians. But the pueblo people live right on top of each other. My mind accepts the truth that my heart rejects -- my people are gone.

  I have projected my soul to my home, to the black mesa, where we hid from the Spanish Conquistadors, to Mesa Verde, where our ancestors made their home, to Three Rivers, where the ancient Mogollon thrived, and to the Clovis cave at Burnet Cave. My soul sees only death, destruction, and wasps.

  I had prepared myself for this eventuality.

  And still, my heart refuses to give up on humankind. In the deepest reaches of my heart, I believe that, somewhere, there are other human beings. Maybe the Wixaritari survived or some of the hidden tribes of Mexico. Maybe the Mogollon Monster or Bigfoot, as the white man called him, survived. Maybe my mother’s little sister is waiting for me at the pueblo.

  The first few ye
ars with the Wixaritari, I was desperate with homesickness. I would lie next to the fire long after my shaman teachers were asleep. In my mind, I would see each person in our clan, all of the friends I’d left behind, every lover, and beloved. I would send them blessings and love. I prayed that they missed me in the same, desperate way. I longed for them.

  By the time I returned, I’d grown from a homesick child to a man, from student to full shaman. I had hardened to life. I was separate from human life, detached. Having delved into the deep reaches of the spirit world, I no longer felt a close connection to my family or community.

  I wasn’t homesick when I came to the Pen. I didn’t miss them. I received a photo of my son, born six months after I entered this cell. I put up his picture but felt no connection to him. My family was my spirit guides and my home the spirit world.

  Now that I know that everyone is gone, I wish I had cherished them. I wish I had done what most prisoners do -- written letters, begged for visits, taken conjugal visits, stayed connected to my family, my people.

  I didn’t. And now it’s too late.

  It’s been almost ten years since I’ve heard a coherent sentence. It’s been more than five years since my ears heard the sound of drums and music. George and I live in a silence broken only by the sound of our labor.

  I will never hear Tiwa, Tewa, Dine, Hopi, Apache, or any Ind’n language again. The wasps completed what invaders were never able to do. The wasps have broken the backs of the Indian Nations.

  I see my mother in my dreams. Her black hair falls almost to her knees. She is holding me in her arms. Her long nose brushes my face. The firelight reflects in her dark eyes, which hold only love for me. She is singing to me in Tewa. I see her smile. I feel her kiss on my cheek, and fingertips tickle my belly. I am safe in her arms. I am safe. The world is filled with sound. The television blares the announcer’s annoying voice and roar of the professional football-game crowd. My brothers listen to punk rock in the room they share on the other side of the wall. My sister is giggling and gossiping on the telephone in the hallway. But my ears hear only my beautiful mother’s song. I am perfectly content and happy.

  I miss everything now -- the noise, the bother, the eternal neediness of people, even the guards and prisoners. George is sitting right next to me while I type this. I miss him, too.

  As a shaman, I’m trained to be open to the flow of life. I am transition. I create transitions. I know how to put the slightest pressure on any given part of a change to get it moving again. More than anything, I believe in my very soul that life is change.

  And still, I miss them all so very much.

  I was the one who never wanted to be the shaman. I only wanted to be left alone with my mountains, streams, and big, open places. I didn’t want to save the day. I didn’t want any part of the prophecy.

  But here I am. Alone. The last one standing.

  11/05/2056

  I should tell you more about the wasps. For all we’ve experienced, we don’t know a lot.

  The infection destroys a person’s mind and releases their soul. Their body continues to function. The body eats, eliminates, heals injury, mates, and sleeps. I have some question as to whether a wasp can love. They may not love, per se, but they form attachments to each other over time. Wasps group together in something like colonies or hives.

  Unlike in the movies, wasps don’t wander around with filth all over them. Their skin doesn’t rot from the bones. They also don’t stumble around with their arms waving in the air. Wasps walk upright, like men.

  They are unable to verbalize but, over time, seem to learn a kind of communication. I’ve wondered if this represents an evolutionary to Neanderthal man, as they walk erect, no speech pattern, hunt to kill, etc.

  The greatest difference between a wasp and a man is wasps eat only living flesh. I believe they only eat mammalian flesh, but George and I aren’t around fish, reptiles, spiders, or birds. We’ve never seen them eat anything but living mammalian tissue.

  After they first turn, their hunger seems insatiable. It’s possible that they are so hungry because they need nutrition to transform their bodies. Over time, either they seem to adjust to the hunger or the hunger lessens. By the end of a year, the wasps we kept for observation ate about twice a day.

  The transformation doesn’t appear to be painful. Outside of the obvious discomfort of losing all of your bodily fluids, the wasps don’t seem in pain when it happens. Transformation is simply something that happens while they sleep.

  We know that wasps:

  * live for a long, long time;

  * are impervious to heat or cold;

  * eat only living tissue;

  * mate, but, to our knowledge, cannot procreate;

  * seem to have no memory of life before becoming a wasp and limited recall of their life as a wasp;

  * are unable to learn. We tested this at the Pen. No matter how many times they completed a maze, they never remembered how to do it two hours later or the next day.

  * have lost all reason, decision-making ability, forward thinking, or planning capacity.

  To a certain extent, wasps live in a perfect Zen moment. They live in the present and respond to what’s right in front of them.

  Early on, George and I captured a number of wasps. It wasn’t very hard. With the entire Pen at our disposal, and a lot of wasps around, we were able to create an entire cellblock of wasps.

  Over the course of the next few years, we experimented on wasp subjects. We tested what they would eat, how they functioned, if we could train them, would they return to a more human-like state, and a variety of other ideas we got from watching all of those zombie movies.

  A few of them became almost like pets. Well, pets that would prefer to eat you. Pets that couldn’t be touched. We developed a fondness for them anyway.

  In the end, we experimented on what was the most humane way to euthanize them. Their souls beg for peace. Their souls wanted to move on, to complete their journey to the afterlife. But the souls were unable to leave as long as their bodies were in the semi-living state of wasp.

  Our experiments with the wasps have taught us quite a bit about the junction of soul and body. The human soul is only as important as the physical body it lives within. The physical body can easily survive without the soul, but the soul cannot find peace until the physical body is at rest.

  I could go on and on. Souls are fascinating to shamans. In the last four years, I’ve learned more about souls than I did in the twenty-plus years studying the shaman path. I’ll put souls on my list of things to talk about.

  This entry was supposed to be about wasps -- what they are like, what they eat, how they are dangerous, and how to kill them. Back to the task at hand.

  After the initial transformation, wasps tend to be more aggressive and hostile. It’s almost as if they are angry for their transformation and they want you to do something to fix it. Or want me to do something to fix it. They bite, kick, punch, and scream.

  George is impervious to their bite. We have seen people turn to wasps after being bitten, but, at least here, it’s fairly rare. According to everything I read before the Internet went down, direct blood-to-blood interaction turns on The 146 in those who aren’t making The 146-protein. In those who are already making the protein, the replication goes into overdrive, as if it’s competing with The 146 in the saliva of the biter. People convert quickly.

  I believe that we had such a massive conversion here because the Pen housed so many hard cases -- people who’d spent most of their lives in prison eating The 146-modified food and getting 146 vaccines. For the first couple of years or so, George and I spent all day, every day, killing wasps. It’s hard to believe, but it’s been more than a year since we’ve even seen a wasp.

  While movies play up the fact that wasps can infect you, the true danger of the wasp is their violence. Granted, we’ve just studied ex-prisoners at New Mexico’s most violent prison. Still, wasps seem to love to kill. Because they ea
t only living tissue, death comes to their food late. They kill a lot more people than they eat. They kill for the sport of it or even kill because they are bored. The amount that they kill is one of the least human things about them.

  We haven’t seen a wasp use an implement -- knife, gun, shovel, etc. We tried to train them to use tools, but most of our training was ineffective. We were able to get them to take up the asphalt and cement in the exercise yard. The wasps mostly did that with their bare hands as a way to vent their violence and boredom.

  Probably the most important thing we’ve learned is how to kill a wasp. In movies, the standard line is: “Remove the head or destroy the brain.”

  That only sort of works. The 146-protein has already destroyed the wasp’s brain. When we had a lot wasps around, we did a few autopsies. Their frontal lobes are like gelatin with the consistency of oatmeal. The only portion of the brain that’s functioning is the back of the head and the deep recesses of the brain. Wasps can see and have reptilian drives.

  Bashing it in the forehead doesn’t affect the wasp at all. You can’t kill a wasp by destroying his or her brain. It’s already destroyed.

  Removing the head works. BUT, you must separate the head from the body and keep it separated. You should have seen George’s face the time we chopped off the head and then tried to bury them together. To our horror, the body reanimated when its head came close. George picked up the head like a basketball and hurled it toward the rusted basketball hoops. He laughed when the head went through the rim.

  As an aside -- one of the joys of my life now is making George laugh. He still has that hearty belly laugh. His laugh reminds me of a time when things were normal, when we didn’t live in hell. George is a good friend to have.