by Pike, JJ
Barb was out there waiting for them in her tent-of-trees, with her pack of dogs and faith in God and the Everlee’s silver.
As long as the Remainder Pigs hadn’t done the worst and taken her out all would be well.
She didn’t wait for Sean’s signal. She didn’t have to. It was time.
Hedwig scrambled out of the ditch and ran.
CHAPTER SEVEN
YEAR ZERO, DAY THIRTY-THREE
NAME
G
A
RK
JOB
CHARACTERISTIC
INF
D
Cause
Gen. Hoyt
M
60s
Comms/lead
Slow
Y
Prof. Baxter
F
50s
Science
See: Hoyt
N
Rayton
M
48?
Science
Fast/fit
N
G. Hawes
F
25?
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
S. Dower
M
~20
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Bob Devlin
M
19
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
Sandrino
M
22?
Front guard
Fast/fit
N
Felix X
M
~20
Front guard
Obese
N
14
FF
Richardson
M
~20
Rear guard
Slow
?
Wallace
M
35+
Rear guard
Slow
?
Emily Klyon
F
25
Water
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Jeffries
F
23
Water
Fast/fit
N
Keppler
M
19
Water
Fast/fit
N
Loma
M
19
Water
So-so/med
N
32
M?*
Kazaowski (sp?)
M
~20
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
?
Doore
M
25+
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Silverstein
F
~20
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
Y
Libbie
F
25+
Cook
Med
N
Andrews
M
30+
Cook
Fast/fit
N
Choco
M
30+
Cook
Slow
N
Bubs
M
38
Cook
Slow
N
Mikey
M
~20
Build/strike
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Stew
M
25+
Build/strike
Fast/fit
?
Powers
M
25+
Build/strike
Fast/fit
?
Larson
F
28
Doc (ex. nurse)
Fit
N
Mac
M
30+
Nurse (medic)
Fit
N
Godeao
F
35+
Nurse (medic)
Fit
N
32
M?*
Mitzy Truman
F
22
No clue
Lazy
?
Jubjub
M
35+
No clue
?
?
M? Possible MELT-related death.
M?* Can’t prove it, but probable MELT-related death.
After much argument, I convinced General Hoyt and Mitchell Bubs to leave all food found at the mall behind. We can’t confirm that yesterday’s deaths are from contaminated food, but why take the risk? I’m almost certain Godeao and Loma died because they were having sex in the woods (high skin-contact, maybe?), but that’s another hypothesis rather than a fact. Bummed to lose Seamus who was beginning to show signs of being a decent trapper.
Talked to Christine about halting the physical inspections. It went something like this:
ME: Have we found any signs of MELT infection on any of our people?
HER: No. (I know this not to be true which is why I went to my next point.)
ME: Has Hoyt infected you? Is he contagious? Is he getting better or worse?
HER: No. No. And can’t say. Seems stable. He’s been changing his dressings every third day. I have high hopes we’re feeding MELT thereby keeping it out of his system. The lesions are, however, unchanged.
ME: Has anyone else shown signs of infection?
HER:Silence. (Not like her. My antennae went up.)
ME: Is there any reason not to share that data with me?
HER:She chewed her fingers. Stress. So I kept pressing.
ME:Did Godeao have MELT?
HER:She tilted her head. Great, Christine, don’t go into politics when this is over. You’re a terrible liar.
ME:How about Loma? Did he have a case of MELT? (Can’t believe I’ve started calling our rogue compound a disease, but that’s what it is. A disease.)
HER:Maybe.
ME: Did you know they were intimate?
HER:Chewed her cuticles. I’ll take that as a yes.
ME:You did nothing to stop it?
She walked away. I followed, but she refused to answer any more questions.
QUESTION: Why would Christine Baxter, who is a METICULOUS thinker and a WORLD-CLASS scientist knowingly allow someone to mill around when she knew they were infected? Worse yet, why would she allow them to continue to have sex? With one of our nurses? At the rate we’re traveling we’re going to reach Indian Point next year.
[DAY EIGHTY: Just came back to see if there had been any clues or if I could have known sooner. I worked it out. I know why she didn’t stop them. Goddammit.]
Alice seems to have come back and annotated her diary. Makes me want to skip ahead, but I already know what she knows, so I’ll plod along.
She switches back to DAY THIRTY-THREE, but doesn’t annotate that. Tsk, tsk, Alice. Sloppy note keeping. Thought you were doing this for SCIENCE.
We left the bodies where they died. Kazowski argued that we should burn them. I get why he’s arguing that. If they ARE contagious we don’t want MELT to feast on them and then move on. But, who’s going to touch them? We’re not just lepers, we’re uber-lepers. Lepers lived with their disease. We don’t (Hoyt notwithstanding; for all we know he could drop dead at any moment). I’m going to continue to treat this as a fatal disease until I’m told you can live with it.
The next page was crossed out with one large X, making it fully legible.
I need to get a message to Bill. How the hell am I going to do that? If he’s moved south (God, I hope he has), how wo
uld I even find him? Our plans were good, but good enough to deal with a global meltdown that ravaged the land as well as the people? I imagined the grid going down, the stores being ransacked, people turning on each other (some bugging in, some bugging out, some banding together, etc.), but I never imagined all of it happening at once with the added attraction of the ground beneath our feet being a source of infection. Which way will he go?
I can’t even start to think about moving Midge.
Or Paul. Wow, Paul. No spleen = no defense against the world.
The end of the page is cross-hatched, making it illegible.
DAY THIRTY-FOUR
Terrible day. We crossed paths with a platoon of twenty-plus soldiers coming north. Hoyt tried to have them arrested for abandoning their posts. They were as well-armed as us, so that was a bust. Three of their people were hit, None of ours. The forward guard meant we knew the interlopers were coming and had time to take positions and defend ourselves.
No one was killed, but they had injuries bad enough that they should have been in an ER, not stomping up New York looking for a place to call home. Hoyt was wrong. Military justice isn’t a thing anymore. They’re just kids. Everyone has lost everything.
There was one guy—Major Lou Miller—who tried to talk them into staying with us. Smart guy. Safety in numbers and all that. They raged at him, with good reason. We’re headed into the fire, they’re heading away. He had a chest full of glittering medals that told me he’d done this (or something like this, war, combat, going into rather than away from danger) many times before. His uniform was a mess, but he’d taken the time to polish his damn medals. That told me something important. He was like me, a professional. He believed in duty and honor and keeping your word. His men might be ready to revolt but he was going to stick with them until he got them to safety. Would that there were a hundred-million Lou Miller’s in the world.
Miller reported: Hundreds of thousands dead, south of here. Army quit doing sweeps at least two weeks ago. Anyone inside the hot zone is on their own recognizance (apart from us, of course; we’re still getting supply drops). MELT (his impressions, not empirical data, but I’ll take what I can get) has taken everything in a thirty-mile radius of New York City and flattened it. The water is so polluted it’s undrinkable. His men were living on rainwater.
(I didn’t comment. What’s the point? He has to know they were glugging poison.)
There are no humans inside that perimeter (again: a guess; how can he know? his platoon survived). You can’t survive it (see earlier note; they made it as far as us). I asked if he had any intel on Indian Point but he hadn’t even heard that it had been compromised. He was a genuinely nice guy. When it came time for his men to move out he elected to go with them (though he’d have been welcome to stay with us; we need level-headed people). My impression: they’re hostile to the idea of being commanded by anyone. If I’d been in his shoes I’d have bailed. Major Miller couldn’t be persuaded to stay.
I re-read what I wrote earlier today and laughed. Of course I wouldn’t bail. I haven’t.
We’re down to twenty-two people. We’ve abandoned most of our gear. It didn’t take long to understand that what you need when you’re in the wild is a decent pair of shoes, a good knife, and (if you can swing it), a weapon. (I didn’t fire my pistol. I’m holding my powder for when we really need it. If Miller was right, things are going to get much, much tougher and I don’t know that we’re going to hold together as a crew. I may need to defend myself.)
DAY THIRTY-SIX
NAME
G
A
RK
JOB
CHARACTERISTIC
IN
D/D
Cause
Gen. Hoyt
M
60s
Comms/lead
Slow
Y
Prof. Baxter
F
50s
Science
See: Hoyt
N
Rayton
M
48?
Science
Fast/fit
N
G. Hawes
F
25?
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
35
AWOL
S. Dower
M
~20
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Bob Devlin
M
19
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
Sandrino
M
22?
Front guard
Fast/fit
N
35
Felix X
M
~20
Front guard
Obese
N
14
FF
Richardson
M
~20
Rear guard
Slow
?
35
AWOL
Wallace
M
35+
Rear guard
Slow
?
Emily Klyon
F
25
Water
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Jeffries
F
23
Water
Fast/fit
N
Keppler
M
19
Water
Fast/fit
N
35
AWOL
Loma
M
19
Water
So-so/med
N
32
M?*
Kazaowski (sp?)
M
~20
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
?
Doore
M
25+
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Silverstein
F
~20
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
Y
Libbie
F
25+
Cook
Med
N
35
AWOL
Andrews
M
30+
Cook
Fast/fit
N
Choco
M
30+
Cook
Slow
N
Bubs
M
38
Cook
Slow
N
35
AWOL
Mikey
M
~20
Build/strike
Fast/fit
N
32
M?
Stew
M
25+
Build/strike
Fast/fit
?
35
AWOL
Powers
M
25+
Build/strike
Fast/fit
?
Larson
F
28
Doc (ex. nurse)
Fit
N
Mac
M
30+
Nurse (medic)
Fit
N
AWOL
Godeao
F
35+
Nurse (medic)
Fit
N
32
M?*
Mitzy Truman
F
22
No clue
Lazy
?
Jubjub
M
<
br /> 35+
No clue
?
?
Woke to find a BUNCH of our people had taken off in the night. The watch are gone (not dead; missing) which means they were in on it. Hoyt is spitting mad, but what did he expect? None of us want to be here (apart from me, Baxter, and Hoyt who all believe we have a duty to step up) and once they’d seen the example of Major Miller’s men (and women; I’m using shorthand; they’re all men in the military) there was always a possibility that they’d high-tail it out of here.
If they were my kids, I’d tell them: do your duty, but (you’re young, you have your whole lives ahead of you), think about what you can REASONABLY be expected to achieve. Is it a hopeless cause? Perhaps turn around. Go and find somewhere where you CAN make a difference. Paul would never give up. He’d fight until he dropped dead. (Please don’t drop dead my darling boy. I couldn’t stand it.) Petra would follow Paul into battle. (I wonder how her pregnancy’s going. I can’t wrap my head around the idea that we’re going to be GRANDPARENTS. Will she forgive me for leaving? Bill won’t tell them. He was so adamant that they [crossed out/illegible]) Aggie (she was so brave, so together, so awesome; I’m so proud of her)…