Geist

Geists are monsters in Mortal Tether, a dystopian science fiction novel by Candice Jarrett.

## The Infection

Ashes began falling from the sky after a meteor carrying an alien virus crashed into Earth. The ashes saturated the atmosphere and rained down on the human population all over the world. Once every human on the planet had been exposed to the virus, a hive mind activated causing all adults over age 20 to spontaneously combust. The term for this infection is "The Plague of Ashes". Since all humans on the planet are exposed to the virus, any human that turns 20 also becomes a geist.

## Initial Mass Transformation

Amaia is watching television when she witness two newscasters succumbing to the plague. She says,

> "He loosened his tie. She pushed back her hair. Two sets of pale lips parted, black tar gushing down their chins. For a split second, their faces weren’t flesh but stone, screaming gargoyles of skin and concrete. A crack cut its way down the center of the guy’s forehead…"
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## Physical Attributes

Amaia's first time seeing her parents after the infection has her describing geists:

> "My bare feet skidded to a stop on the welcome mat.
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> Mom and Dad spread their arms wide to greet me, but once they crossed into the beam cast by the motion light, they dropped flat on their stomachs and twitched like they were being tasered. Inhuman wails of agony with the timbre of my parents’ voices ripped across my eardrums. They rolled away, and once back in shadow, spat furious growls through blackened teeth dripping with thick, red blood.
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> Up close, I barely recognized my parents. Pulsing, black veins bulged beneath cracking gray flesh, like a tangle of tree roots busting through concrete. The bones of their hands had burst through their fingertips ending in dagger-like claws of splintered bone. Their bodies were mostly covered in some kind of bark, a crust that made them resemble living statues from the neck down. I was positive Mom was still glaring at me, though her eyes were crusted shut, overflowing with milky white pus that oozed down her cheeks.
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> This wasn’t a car accident. This was a *disease*."
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## Exploding Mechanism

The following excerpt is from Chapter 12:

> “I shined a flashlight at a geist,” Liam said, “and it didn’t do anything other than make it mad.”
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> “The Mumbai kids figured that one out.” Glasses straightened. “Only a certain brightness sustained for a period of several seconds will actually trigger the mechanism where geists explode into dust. The stronger the light, the faster the change. A dim light or a bright flash mostly just makes them mad. Our scientists have been conducting experiments from the roof, and I’ve been reporting our findings to the global teams.”
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> “That lines up with what we saw watching geists from Amaia’s attic,” Liam said. “A motion light burned their skin, but they didn’t stand under it long enough to make them explode. Also, we know bullets don’t hurt geists.”
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## Daytime State

While at night geists are monsters as described above, during the day they explode into harmless clouds of ash.

The following paragraph is from Chapter 2:

> "I sidestepped thicker clouds of ash that hung in our path, vaguely aware two of them might be my parents. Loose gray flakes floated down from the desaturated sky like usual, but these clouds at eye level were different. They hovered only a few feet off the ground, like campfire smoke but somehow more liquid, shifty, and flecked with sparkles that glittered like glass. Cold seeped off them in waves the way steam pours from dry ice. They weren’t monsters anymore. They were ghosts."
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## Naming the Geists

Amaia is explaining to Liam that the clouds of ash look like poltergeists during the daytime. He mishears her and believes she said "geist".

## How the Infection is Spread

The Plague of Ashes is a respiratory virus. Geist bites have no effect on its transmission because the human population has all already been exposed to the virus.

## Distinction from Zombies

Unlike zombies, geists cannot be killed by any means. Even if they are dismembered or shot, they will still reform the next time they are in darkness. Also, the virus is not spread by saliva but is airborne. Additionally, during the daytime geists are harmless clouds of floating ash.