Lockdown: The Arcadia Diaries

Memories of a dead past

Author's note: Listen to "He's Here with Me Every Day" from the soundtrack of the first season of The Affair for this chapter.

Present Day

New Orleans, Louisiana

May 31, 2020

Terra M. Kimbrough

Sitting in my apartment and eating curbside-delivered fried oysters and crabs wasn't my ideal definition of a lunch date but it was Clorinda's idea. After having Zoom sessions for the past couple days, Clorinda finally decided it was time to see me in person. She was dying to have a one-on-one conversation with me in person.

"Wait, so you actually tried a military MRE for the first time while you were in that shelter?" Clorinda laughs. "That's nuts, girl! How was it?"

I shrug. "Not that much different from civilian food," I reply. "But it had its perks."

"Girl, I'm shocked you still managed to have an appetite despite everything you saw!" Clorinda laughs again.

"Yeah, I felt the same way," I reply. "Even I expected to lose my appetite after seeing people dying from those things in gruesome ways, but I guess I'm tougher than I would like to think!"

"What else happened in that shelter?" Clorinda asks me. "Kyle told me you guys ran into some old friends that you previously thought had died."

"Yeah, that's true," I reply. "Well, that and some other things. I even got to speak to the winner of a beauty pageant. Well, she would've been the winner of a beauty pageant if the parasite outbreak didn't happen."

One year earlier...

Arcadia, ME

July 5, 2019

Terra M. Kimbrough

"I was supposed to be Miss Crustacean. But I guess that's dead in the water now that these bugs have started going around killing everyone!" Millie Evans looks stunning in her blue dress and tiara, despite having mascara smeared on her face due to crying her eyes out for who knows how long. "But I guess life does that. This isn't fair! These kinds of things don't just happen to people!"

"I know," I say, putting a hand on Millie's shoulder. "I was shooting a documentary with my boyfriend about life in Arcadia. Then the parasites began going around killing everybody and my boyfriend's dead and everybody else is scared that they're next..."

"Isn't everyone?" I hear a voice from behind Millie. Millie turns around and I'm met with another blonde that looks almost exactly like Millie-right down to the blue eyes.

"Uh..." I look at this lookalike in confusion. "Body double?"

The lookalike holds her hand out. "Hi. I'm Eva. I'm her twin sister."

"Twin sister?" My eyes go wide as I shake it. "Wow. You two look almost exactly alike. Well, I can tell Millie apart 'cause she's wearing a tiara. I'm Terra."

Eva manages to crack a smile. "Yeah, well, there is that. Nice to meet you, Terra."

My stomach growls. Then I look up at Eva and Millie. "Somehow my stomach still manages to have an appetite despite the carnage I've been seeing lately."

"Oh, no! I can't even eat a cheese stick after what I saw!" Eva groans. "Those things are...YEESH!"

Millie cringes. "After all that, you can still eat? Wow!"

"I'm gonna go grab a bite to eat. You girls want anything?" I ask the two girls

Millie kindly shakes her head and so does Eva. Without another word, I get up and walk over to a rather long table at the end of the line of cots. The first thing I notice is a packaged MRE (meal ready to eat). My stomach growls again, and I begin hungrily staring at the MRE. 

"I take it you have never had an MRE before," A voice peeps behind me. I turn around, startled, and find myself looking at the Asian chick from the hospital. She looks Japanese, with yellow skin and jet-black hair. 

"Yeah, actually I've never had an MRE before," I reply. "I mean, I know what those are but I've never tried one myself. Is this the last one?"

"That's mine, actually," The woman says. "But there's other food available." 

I quickly glance over at the table and see a box of Mahi pasta of some kind. It must have been takeout from a restaurant nearby. I open the box, then frown upon realizing it isn't microwave safe. The Asian chick walks over, then without another word, hands me a paper plate. "Here, use that."

"Thanks," I whisper, before popping that thing in the microwave. 

The Asian chick looks at me and says, "I'm Kuri."

I shake the chick's hand. "Terra. You with the US military too?"

Kuri doesn't respond for a couple minutes. Then she says, "Now I am."

"Did you immigrate here from Japan or something?" I ask, taking the pasta out of the microwave and taking a bite of Mahi Mahi. 

Kuri doesn't reply for a moment. Then she says, "That is classified."

"Oh." I shrug. "Okay. Sorry I asked."

Kuri doesn't respond. Instead, she asks, "Where are you from?"

"California," I reply. "Irvine."

Just then, David Coggins walks in on us talking. "I see you've met Kuri. She's a friend of mine from Japan. She immigrated here not too long ago."

"When'd you come to the USA?" I ask Kuri.

"Back in 2002." Kuri replies, a bit embarrassed that David brought it up. 

"That's cool," I whisper.

"So, if you don't mind me asking, what were you up to here in Arcadia?" David asks me.

I take a deep breath. "I was shooting a documentary with my boyfriend about life in Arcadia. It was for a YouTube video he wanted to make. However...." I look down at the floor. "He didn't make it."

"I'm sorry," Kuri says, putting a hand on my shoulder. 

I then look Kuri and David in the eyes. "That's why I'm finishing this documentary. I want to show the world what happened here. After those parasites got him..."

David walks forward. "We'll tell the world together. Hell, Larry, Kuri, Erica and myself-we'll tell the world too. By any means necessary."

I look back at Millie and Eva, who have struck up a conversation with Kyle, the Goths, and Isabella. "Friends of yours?" David asks me.

I nod. "I met 'em yesterday, during the 4th of July party, before all of this went down."

"Were they in the video you were trying to make?" Kuri asks me.

"No," I reply. "I mean, not at first. Not until...." I trail off. "Until all this started."

David nods understandingly while Kuri looks behind her. She then looks at me and asks, "So what do you plan on doing when you get home?"

I take a deep breath. "Post this footage online for all to see, I guess. Well, that and probably see a therapist for...."

A bloodcurdling scream stops me in my tracks and I instantly look towards Kyle, Millie and Eva. We all look at each other in alarm, before we all run towards them, with David and Kuri drawing their guns. "Faith! Faith? Eva? Millie?"

When I reach Millie's cot, I notice the unmistakable rash of boils and lesions that have broken out on Millie's neck.

"Stay back!" David pulls me away from Millie. Then he shouts into his radio, "We got a bite! We got a bite!"