The End of Mammals by Erin Ruble
It began with the pigs. As one factory farm after another succumbed, animal rights activists proclaimed it proof of the system’s failure. They protested when the USDA ordered healthy swine to be slaughtered, but experts testified that such measures were necessary, as with bird flu, to contain the outbreak. Even so, it spread, beyond the industrial producers in the Midwest to smaller farms and eventually to backyard breeders. Speculation ran that the feed must be poisoned, but even organic growers whose heritage breeds feasted on apples and acorns saw their prized stock dwindle and die.
Jews and Muslims celebrated, finally vindicated in their aversions, until the first flocks of sheep began weakening, huddled against fences like blown seed pods.
The cows were next. By now, of course, the labs had been running on emergency hours, every university and research facility even tangentially related to veterinary science commandeered to this task. One or two of the pharmaceutical companies began switching over from male enhancements and allergy medications to try to decipher the locus of the disease. Nothing worked, not quarantine, not slaughter, but governments decided that a slow response had allowed the situation with the pigs to spiral out of control. They ordered an immediate and comprehensive liquidation of all affected herds, and all herds containing any individuals who had come into contact with those affected.
India objected. So did ranchers in the Western U.S. While the cattlemen wrangled over compensation, elk and bison close to their pastures began dying. Mice that foraged in feedlots and barns were carried away by weasels or swallowed by foxes, who then were seen staggering at the edges of fields, or collapsing at the base of trees. The woods began to smell of rot.
By the time the first monkeys began dying, people had stopped letting their pets outside. Little by little, the packs of feral dogs who had prowled the streets of Los Angeles, Tbilisi, Moscow, and Jakarta thinned; the gleaming eyes of cats watching from bushes winked out. When the forests around Bogotá and Rio fell silent, people fled into urban high-rises. In Canada and the U.S., smaller cities emptied, as people barricaded themselves in remote cabins and bought shotguns most didn’t know how to use.
The Northern Hemisphere swung back toward the sun. Birds returned. Some were shot, for fear of disease. Those that survived built nests and guarded their territories. Frogs sang in the marshes. Lizards flicked across deserts and snakes left their burrows to warm themselves on rocks and the long tongues of asphalt roads. Trout leapt after clouds of insects hanging low over mountain streams.
Room by room, hospitals began to fill.
Erin Ruble’s essays and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Fourth Genre, Boulevard, River Teeth, and elsewhere. She lives in Vermont with her husband and children. You can find her at erinruble.wordpress.com.
