The Yawn

Yawning is contagious, but what if it’s also deadly?

The loudest thunderclap Joaquin had ever heard rocked the Starbucks window so violently that he was sure the glass was going to crack. Only it didn’t. And it wasn’t a thunderclap. Rays of bright blue daylight pierced the openings between the sheets of paper that he and the other four people in Starbucks had covered the window with; whatever threatened to obliterate the glass wasn’t from a thunderstorm.

Mia tiptoed to the window, moving as silently as her heels would let her, lest whatever it was on the outside know there were people inside. She reached to pull back a piece of paper and peek out.

Joaquin rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not sure that’s wise,” he whispered. “We don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”

“We don’t,” Adam agreed. He powered off his Kindle and slipped it into his backpack.

Autumn closed the cash register drawer. “I think we’d better find out what’s out there.” She nodded at her co-worker, Reiko, the only other staff member working at 5:30 a.m., hoping for agreement. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, management expected that even in the notoriously workaholic Washington, DC, the morning rush for coffee would be a fraction of what it normally was. Two staff members would be sufficient from opening until 10 a.m. Autumn and Reiko had drawn the short straws.

Reiko bit her lip and mouthed, “I don’t know.”

Joaquin turned to Autumn. “Maybe whatever’s going on will just end on its own accord. Maybe it’s self-limiting.”

“And maybe it’s a bomb with a bigger one coming,” Autumn said. “Knowledge is power. Please pull back the paper just enough for us to peek out.”

Mia pinched one corner of paper. Twenty minutes before, they had locked the door, pushed a table against it, and covered the window with every piece of paper they could find — napkins, coupons, newspapers, magazines, and receipt rolls. Mia didn’t remember whose idea that was, but it had seemed like an urgent and sensible response to witnessing four people outside Starbucks simultaneously collapse onto the sidewalk. What had just happened? Like a choreographed Broadway play, the five cafe occupants simultaneously picked up their phones and started tapping into the world of social media.

“The plague spreads by sight.”

“Don’t look at anyone!”

“Real life or in a picture, doesn’t matter. If you see it, it kills you.”

“Turn off your phone now! Turn off the TV! Don’t go out!”

Messages pummeled social media with lethal warnings, cautioning that the entire world had turned into Medusa.

They all powered off their phones and slapped them face down on the tables. Adam and Joaquin took the extra precaution of crushing their phones underfoot, while Autumn and Reiko unplugged the store’s computer.

Mia pried back a napkin and pressed her nose to the glass. She blinked, let her eyes’ focus return, and blinked again.

“There’s a limo with its bumper against the window. That’s what made the bang.”

“So some driver keeled over because of…it…this plague. Died and crashed,” Adam said. “Nothing to see here. Please re-cover the window, miss.”

“It’s Mia. ” Mia’s lips quivered. “There are also two guys in suits with machine guns pointed at the glass door like they’re about to shoot their way in.” She gulped. “There’s a woman between them.” Mia hesitated while her brain caught up with her vision. “Carol Perez, the president of the United States.”

A determined set of knuckles banged on the door. “Open,” the voice commanded. “Open this door now.”

Autumn and Adam moved the table away from the door while Reiko unlocked it. A split second after the lock clicked, the door burst open, knocking Reiko over. Her head hit a table, splitting her skin and releasing a copious flow of blood.

“You okay?” Autumn asked.

“Hurts. But I don’t see stars or anything.” Reiko sensed the beginning of a large bump.

Joaquin passed Reiko a wad of napkins, which she pressed to her wound. She started to stand.

“Stay where you are!” one of the Secret Service agents shouted. He painted the room with the barrel of his gun. “Everyone against that wall. Keep your hands out of your pockets and visible. Move slowly.”

“Kevin,” the president said. “There’s no need. We’re in this impossible situation together. I don’t think these people are a threat. Put your weapon down. We’re fine, as long as nobody yawns.”

“Yawns?” Reiko asked. Her blood-matted hair pressed against her neck. Reiko glanced to the ceiling as memories triggered by what the president said tried to free themselves from her pain.

“Tell them,” President Perez ordered. “Meanwhile, this is a Starbucks and I need a coffee. Can somebody help me with that?”

“I’d be delighted, Madam President,” Autumn said. “How do you like your — ”

“Anything will be fine. Just as long as it’s fast and hot.”

“Madam President, would you mind taking a seat at that table?” agent Kevin Tremblay asked, extending his hand toward the table in the corner, the farthest away from the door. “It’s the most secure location here.”

Agent Tremblay removed his mirrored sunglasses and studied each of the Starbucks occupants. He caught half of Adam’s serpent tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve and spent a few extra seconds examining him.

“At four a.m. local time, John Goldenring yawned on live television on Sunrise America,” he began. “That’s not surprising — sometimes morning show hosts can’t help but yawn because to start work at four, they’re up before two. Only, this morning, everyone in the studio yawned right after Goldenring. From the reports we received, it appears everyone who was watching the show yawned, too. And those who saw the TV viewers yawn — family members, friends — yawned as well.”

“Yawning is contagious,” Mia said.

“Right.” Agent Tremblay continued. “Thirty seconds later, everyone who had yawned was dead.”

Joaquin gasped. Adam dropped his coffee.

The president took the floor. “Yawning is now instantly contagious and, within a half-minute, fatal. It’s the deadliest plague the world has ever known, seemingly unstoppable, with the potential to wipe out humanity before the week is over. It almost killed me. We were on our way to a prayer breakfast. The rest of my motorcade didn’t make it. We took refuge in the closest place, this Starbucks.”

As if on cue, Autumn handed the president a coffee cup with the word POTUS scribbled on the side.

President Perez continued, “The vice president, speaker of the house, and over half the cabinet are dead. The rest of the cabinet are probably still asleep, but when they wake, they’ll catch a yawn, too. Based on the scattershot information we were able to get in the car, Europe and Asia are already mostly gone. We made an emergency stop at your Starbucks because it didn’t look like we’d make it back to the White House.” Her coffee spilled over the cup’s lip as her hands trembled. “My national security advisor, who was sitting beside me, looked out the window. He must have seen somebody yawning because the muscles around his jaw tightened and his mouth began to open wide.”

“I shot him in the head,” Logan Willis said. “I shot him before he could complete his yawn.”

“So here we are,” the president said. “We made it just in time.” She glanced at her watch. “The question is, what do we do now? Will this plague burn out, like the bubonic plague or Spanish flu, or are we stuck in this Starbucks until we run out of food and water and die?”

Reiko grasped a chair and lifted herself into it. “We broadcast a message.”

“What kind of message?” Agent Tremblay asked.

Reiko reached into her backpack, retrieved a pack of white surgical masks and passed them out. “First, everyone put one on. Then I’ll explain.”

The president raised an eyebrow. “Yes. The mask covers our face,” she said. “If we can’t see a yawn, we can’t catch it.”

A morgue’s gloominess enveloped Starbucks as the eight covered their faces.

“Exactly. We’re safe for now.”

“For now?” Mia asked. “How do we eat or drink? Do we have to wear these masks for the rest of our lives?”

Reiko locked eyes with the president. “Can you broadcast a message to the entire country?”

“If there are enough people alive to do that, yes.” President Perez said. The Presidential Emergency Message System had never been used. She wasn’t even sure how it worked, only that it existed and pushed text alerts to every phone in the country. “What message?”

“Tell everyone to wear face masks.”

“Most Americans don’t have face masks at home.”

“Then they need to run to a drugstore, find a mask, put it on, and not take it off for a day. Break into the store if they need to.” Reiko thought back to old Japan. “Bandanas and scarves will work, too, but face masks stay on more securely.”

“Why for a day?” Joaquin asked.

Reiko tugged her mask’s straps. “Everyone knows Japanese are fond of surgical masks. Visitors naturally assume we wear them to prevent colds or the flu, or to keep pollen out of our lungs. And that’s true. We wear them for health.” She clasped her hands together. “Some women wear them when they don’t want to put on makeup but need to go to the store for a quick trip. Sometimes people don masks to increase the space between them and strangers, to create a cocoon. But that’s not why the custom began. Mask wearing started three centuries ago when a plague like this one struck the northern island of Hokkaido. Yawns spread from person to person, killing everyone. Nobody was immune, not samurai or royalty. The yawns killed as swiftly and assuredly as a sword to the heart. There wasn’t any television or sharing pictures on the internet back then, and Hokkaido was isolated, so the plague didn’t spread beyond the island, but it spread far enough. Over a thousand people are said to have perished. The first masks were made of cloth, but they worked. After a day, the plague stopped. People removed their masks and everyone was fine.”

“Are you saying that a virus that originated in Japan three hundred years ago is ravaging the planet now?

“It’s not a virus.”

A puzzled expression covered the president’s face.

“It’s a yokai. A ghost.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Logan Willis said. “There’s no such thing.”

“The wall between our world and the spirit world is not strong. Many ghosts pass through, but the wall does keep out the most horrifying ghosts most of the time.”

“But not this time?” President Perez asked.

Reiko shook her head. “Not this time. The wall between worlds weakens from time to time. This is the ghost of Gushiken, who was sent to Hokkaido in 1700 by Shogun Tsunayoshi to help unite Japan. The shogun’s rival, Hagihara, captured, imprisoned, and tortured Gushiken by keeping him awake for ten days, ringing large brass bells in his ears, waving lanterns in front of his face, and forcing wasabi down his throat, until Gushiken died from lack of sleep. Gushiken’s ghost is here.”

Mia asked, “How can one ghost be in so many places all at once?”

“How can gravity bend space-time? How can quantum particles on opposite sides of the universe affect each other instantly? All I can tell you is what’s true.

“Broadcasting a message to alert people to put on masks will stop the yokai. Gushiken will return to his realm if there’s nobody to haunt.”

The president turned to Agent Tremblay. “Do it. Somebody must still be alive in the bunker or at the Pentagon. Get the word out now.”

“Wait one moment,” Reiko said.

“What?” The agents fingers were a tap away from his earpiece. “Why should we wait?”

“Gushiken will know we are the ones ruining his plan. He will come for us. He will find us and kill us to try to stop us, and if he fails at that, he will kill us afterward for revenge.”

“That’s insane,” Joaquin said.

The rattling door caught everyone’s attention. The lights inside blinked off, and darkness covered the street like a sudden, enormous thundercloud blocking the sun. As the rattling grew louder, a stench of rot, like an animal that’s been decomposing in the woods for weeks, filled the room. Flies buzzed around their ears, diving at them, scooping bits of flesh with their mandibles.

The Secret Service agents powered up flashlights, light sabers piercing the darkness. They aimed their lights and weapons at the door. The door shattered. Shards of glass flew through the air, killing Adam, Mia, and Joaquin, who were the nearest. Agents Tremblay and Willis stood on either side of President Perez, sandwiching her. An invisible force ripped their masks off and pried open their mouths into wide yawns. The president and her guards died next.

Quickly, Reiko dug a plastic knife into her partially clotted wound. She laid her head on the table, her arms dangling like broken branches. Her face flattened on the tabletop as she held her breath and willed her heart to slow. Her blood flowed from her head into her mouth, a metallic taste coating her tongue and throat, threatening to send her into a coughing frenzy. With all her strength, Reiko mimicked the dead and stayed that way until the only sound in Starbucks was a coffee maker’s gurgle.