Trees

Jack walked home between the quiet trees lining the street. He idly wondered, perhaps for the thousandth time, what kind of trees they were. He’d googled it before, but the different varieties all looked the same to him.

He pulled his leftovers from last night out of the fridge and stuck them in the microwave. He sat down at his ham radio while he waited. “Danny? You there, buddy?” The microwave dinged. “I’m here, if you wanna talk.” The radio remained silent. Jack sighed and got up, hoping that Danny was just out of the house for a bit.

As he ate, Jack went through his usual routine at the computer. He logged onto his online game to see if anyone else was on. As usual, it was empty. Jack shook his, wondering why he bothered. It was just him and Danny, the only ones left in the whole world. Sometimes he was glad he was still alive, but today the loneliness was stifling.

He went outside and watered the tree in his backyard. It always made him feel better, as if the tree could hug him like his mother used to.

When he went back in, the radio was squawking. Jack rushed over to it, eager to hear another person’s voice. “Danny! Danny, are you there?” Static. “Come on, Danny. Talk to me.” More static. Jack sighed, and grew annoyed with the radio. It was his dad’s old radio, and it sometimes picked up static like that. And every time he got excited for a moment, only to be let down. It looked like Danny wouldn’t be on the radio today.

Jack logged back onto the computer. He quickly stifled one of his more common wonderings: how did the electricity still work? For that matter, how did the internet? But, as always, he shut those thoughts down, deciding that they were mostly automated and didn’t really need people around to manage them. He didn’t dare think about it too much because the last time he had, he’d had a panic attack.

So, instead, he googled the symptoms of the parasite. He did it every day, waiting for the day when he would finally begin to exhibit the symptoms. He didn’t need to bother, he knew them by heart. But he did it anyway, wondering whether he’d freak out when it started. He didn’t know.

When the parasite first appeared, the conspiracy theorists had a field day. Out of nowhere, people began showing strange symptoms: itchiness, loss of appetite, muscle aches, hardening of the soft tissues, listlessness, and a weird desire to be out in the sun. By the time an afflicted person was spending his days and nights outside, he was already mostly made of wood.

And everyone had a theory about why it was happening. Some blamed aliens, others blamed secret government projects, and still others blamed global warming. The truth turned out to be far more mundane. Scientists discovered a parasite that integrated itself with DNA. After leaving a host, it carried scraps of DNA with it to the next host. No one was ever able to figure out quite how it found itself in the human population. But as soon as it did, it spread like wildfire. No containment could be found.

And now, Jack walked down the street surrounded by vaguely human-shaped trees, and watered what used to be his mother.

As he read through the list of symptoms, for the millionth time, he realized that he was scratching his face. And that he’d been scratching his arm on the way home. And his leg while he was eating.

“Danny,” Jack said into the radio. “Danny, it’s started.” Jack’s voice was remarkably calm. “I’m turning into a tree Danny.” Jack scratched his knee. “Please answer me Danny.” Jack scratched the top of his head. “Please, Danny.” But Jack heard only silence, and, as he scratched his backside, he knew that Danny was standing outside.