The Plague Runner

by Burgy, P. J.

  The other two guards came over, taking off their masks and gloves. One was a young woman, perhaps around eighteen years old, but taller and thicker than Kara. She was pretty and freckled, with short strawberry blonde hair, and sunburn on her cheeks. Miranda. The other was an older, dark-skinned man with a septum ring and a short ponytail. Hodges. Kara nodded to them as they also took an apple each. She closed her backpack and swung it back over her shoulder.

  “That’s nice of you,” Miranda said before taking a bite.

  “Mm’yeah.” Her partner agreed.

  “Well, I figured you’d still be on duty. You saw me leave, got to see me come back,” Kara stated. “Thought you could use a pick-me-up.”

  “Need a drink, but this’ll do,” Hooper said.

  “Almost the end of your shift, I hope. I’m gonna go check on the family.” Kara began to side step over to the gate door, Trap following after her.

  “Might wanna leave the dog in the kennel with the others. Don’t know if he’ll go after the geese, y’know? Don’t seem trained.” Hooper leaned down, grabbed Trap’s scuff and gave the dog a gentle tug back. “Com’on, little fella. I’ll take care of him, Kara.”

  “It’s okay, Trap.” Kara turned back when she heard a whimper and moved in to give the dog one last pat on the head. “Go on. It’s okay, boy.”

  Trap calmed and went with Hooper to the kennel, which happened to be inside the guard shack. When Hooper gave a sharp whistle, the other dogs went with him. Just as Hooper was walking up the ramp into the shack, he called back, “See you around, Kara. Stay outa trouble.”

  The dark-haired man opened the gate for her and she stepped out onto the green grass. In about fifty feet a bridge connected the land to the island town. The bridge was a buoyant, three-foot-wide, forty foot long path of wooden planks. It was smart, the way it was laid out. Both docks were held up by strong wooden pillars, but the bridge itself was kept afloat by dozens of barrels on either side. The bridge could be pulled away from the dock at the shore, drawn toward the island and locked into place.

  With forty feet of water between land and lake-town, there was little chance of any of the Infected getting across to where the citizens all slept, should any of them happen to get in. The things couldn't swim and they hated water. She'd seen them stuck on the other side of wide rivers, pacing like cats. They were fast though. They'd run down the banks to find a crossing. It often occurred to Kara how silly it was to assume that there would be time to draw the bridge back during such an event.

  It was a good idea on paper. The bridge made people feel safer living on and attached to the center island, even if it meant that they had to deal with a wobbly walkway. It wasn’t a very steady crossing after all, but the townsfolk were so used to it that they could transport heavy loads back and forth with little concern as the bridge rocked and bobbed in the water.

  Lines of insulated wire, held aloft on poles on the land, ran to the town and connected to other poles, the hanging strings of little red lights strung between the houses and around the center square in the middle of the town. Some of the electric wires ran to devices inside of the homes, or to appliances in the square itself. Kara could smell fish cooking, the scent wafting to the shore from the town. It must have been a fire cooker, because the generators weren’t on yet.

  The telltale trail of smoke was rising from one of the houses and Kara stared off for a moment before turning left along the grass. She wasn’t going to cross the bridge to the town yet, not until she made a few stops.

  She saw Gencho’s smithy shack, located near one of the sentry cabins. She had to pass under the shadow of a tower along the way, as well as walk past one of the three small safe houses with underground emergency bunkers. She hated those, narrowing her eyes as she paused to look at the side of the brick building. The outhouses were a safer option than that thing. Someone had poorly drawn an illustration of the steel panel doors on the floor of the inside of the room, along with the hiding human figures in the dark underneath.

  She scowled, imagining them down there, quivering in fear and holding onto one another as they waited for what would come from above. The Infected couldn’t read and weren’t about to bash in through a door to a brick house with no windows. Not without a reason. If someone sneezed or coughed, or a baby began to cry though... Kara shuddered.

  If those things could rip the doors off of rover vehicles and tear the metal sheeting off of secured safe houses, there was nothing stopping them from bringing down the bunkers and finding an easy meal just below them. She could hear their excited wails in that deep, dark part of her imagination, the part that dreamt up horrors she knew were less fantasy and more like glimpses of a future no one wanted to accept as possible. It was safer to wait it out on the island, but, in the event that the bridge was pulled back before everyone got across, the bunkers were available. Now, against the Red Brethren, those bunkers were damn useless.

  Kara suspected that few of the Brethren could read themselves, but even without the illustration on the side, it was pretty obvious what was going on with the little brick buildings on the grass. Why anyone would use a bunker at all, all things considered, Kara had no idea. A waste of material, each of them.

  She turned her attention back to Gencho’s shack and frowned at the body she saw lying on the grass. Kara jogged the rest of the way over. When she reached the shack, she slowed to a stopped and shook her head, looking down at the ground.

  It saddened her that she wasn’t the least bit surprised to find him there. Gencho Jones lay curled up on his side and sleeping next to his little smithy shack. He’d made the shack himself, and it was an awesome example of what the man could do when he wasn’t face down on the grass.

  The smell of him hit her first and she reflexively crinkled her nose. An empty bottle sitting on top of the worktable told her the entire story and she gave him a nudge with her sneaker, prodding him in his lower back. He didn’t respond and she dropped down to check his pulse, finding it immediately. Better safe than sorry, she thought to herself, and turned his face toward her, giving his cheek a slap. He hadn’t shaved since she last saw him and had acquired some damage in the interim as well. His left eye was bruised and dark, his lip bloodied and crusted over. Her frown became a scowl.

  “Oh, Big Brother,” she said. He gurgled in response and she slapped his cheek again, leaning in. “It’s time to get up.”

  “Little Sister.” He sniffed, swallowed, cleared his throat and then squinted at her with his beautiful, jade green eyes. Gencho smiled. His teeth were normally slightly crooked and a tad yellow from smoking, but the gap was new. “Good to have you home again. Am I outside?”

  “You know you are. Gencho, what happened to your face? Did you get into a fight?” She ran her thumb over his jaw and saw him wince. It took some effort but she got him sitting up.

  “You should’ov see the other guy,” he grunted. His long, dark brown hair was tied back into a messy ponytail, bits of green grass tangled in between the loose curls.

  The sides of his head had been shaved down at one point, but he had let it go untrimmed for some time now. He was a thick kind of muscular, what someone would call buff, and he was tall, strong across the shoulders. Tan, with a pretty face, when he didn’t have black eyes and busted lips.

  He lifted his left hand to his cheek, three fingers and a thumb feeling around at his jaw. The pinky was gone, leaving just a puckered stump at the knuckle. He wore an open vest, black spiral tattoos visible across his shoulders and upper arms. His slacks were grass stained, his boots scuffed. He wiped at his eyes and cringed.

  “Don’t joke.” She stood up, offering a hand and he took it. He was heavy and unstable, but with her help he was up and on his feet in a few seconds. She saw him wavering.

  “Who’s joking?” He made his way to his worktable and sat at the bench. He rifled through the front pocket of his vest, found his cigarettes and frowned at the first one he slid out when he saw it was smashed. The second
he took out was mostly undamaged and he produced a metal lighter.

  “How many strikes you have now?” She sat across from him, folding her hands on the tabletop.

  “I don’t know. Not sure if it got reported. We were both acting stupid, from what I remember.” He shrugged, lighting his cigarette in one breath and exhaling smoke at her. His eyes narrowed. “I got a splitting headache, so, if you’re going to nag at me, Yusha-”

  Hearing him call her by that name made her smile, despite it all. Her old call name on the radio, when they were rovers, had stuck between the four of them, her father and brothers keeping the names while dropping the lives they'd once led. She had given up the name Yusha Senshi when they'd parked the rover for good. Yusha had died that day, hadn't she? But her family insisted on keeping her alive, in whatever form they could have her.

  “Not here to nag.” She took her backpack off and set it on the bench beside her. Opening it up, she fished around inside it. “I brought your tobacco. Toby says he needs time for the bacon. Dad’s gonna be heartbroken.”

  She looked up at him as she set the bag of brown leaves on the table top and realized that he was staring directly at her. His brows furrowed. He immediately snuffed his cigarette out on the table top, burning the wood and wasting the tobacco.

  His face fell. “What happened?”

  “Oh.” She reached up, touched the swollen, sore spot on her face and then shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Some trouble on the way home.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  She dismissed him with a wave of a hand. “The Red Brethren kind. But I got out alive. That’s all that matters.”

  He stood, coming to sit beside her, reaching for her shirt collar. He studied the bruises on her neck. She let him turn her face back and forth and did her best to offer a little smile. She raised her hands up, taking his. He stared at her face. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” she told him.

  “No, I mean, are you okay?” He asked again.

  “Yes.” She leaned in and kissed his nose.

  His sad eyes turned angry and he frowned, showing his teeth. The gap was more obvious as his frown turned into a scowl. His gaze scoured hers. “Yusha, how many runs until you don’t come back?”

  “I always come back,” she said.

  “One day you won’t,” he said, holding her hands. “No one else in this goddamn water fort means a damn thing to me but you. You’ve never come back with handprints on your neck. What’s next?”

  “Don’t say that.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Look, I’m fine. And don’t say that no one else here matters to you, you big ass. You got Dad. Tengen. And, you know…”

  “At least stick around for a few days longer.” He exhaled after he spoke, giving up and sagging like a sack of potatoes at her side. “Did Dad see you yet?”

  “No. Not yet. He’s working in the shop, I bet,” she replied, “I told Hoop that I’d go see him. I will. Just wanted to see you and Tengen first.”

  “He’s going to go nuts when he sees your face.”

  “Has he seen your face?” She blinked incredulously.

  “I don’t think it would be the same to him.”

  “Big Brother.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You should see Dr. Hassel.”

  He grunted at her. “Look who’s talking. ‘Sides, I don’t need a vet.”

  “She’s a doctor. You should see her for that tooth.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll just grind it down anyway. I can handle a little pain.”

  “I’m surprised you feel anything.” A familiar voice surprised her and she turned around to see her other brother, Tengen Hai, standing about five feet away, hands on his hips. He was shorter than Gencho, and much slimmer. Still strong, but a lean strong. He had a boyish face, big brown eyes, and wild, short hair the color of fall leaves. He dressed like a runner, though he wasn’t one. “Yusha has to come home and see you like this? Come on, man. I heard you were in a scuffle with Broderick Tate and-Yusha, what happened to you?”

  She sighed.

  “Scuffle,” Gencho muttered.

  “What?” Tengen asked. He approached her. “No, Yusha, what happened?”

  “I had a little tangle with the Red Brethren, but I’m okay. Really.” She smiled at Tengen and the two hugged, Kara needing to twist around to allow her brother to wrap his arms around her. “Hello, Big Brother.”

  “Little Sister.” Tengen stepped back. “You need to be more careful.”

  “She needs to stop running,” Gencho said.

  “We both know that’s not about to happen.” Tengen cracked his knuckles and eyed her. He could look concerned and also amused at the same time, his expression mutable and fluid, so much emotion conveyed so intensely, rapidly shifting as his brows furrowed or his lips lifted. “I’m glad you’re back in one piece. Gencho, you look horrible though. Broderick Tate says you had it coming, apologized to me of course, apologized to Dad. He didn’t report you. I think he feels sorry for you more than anything.”

  “Tengen, just, shut up about it.” Gencho put his head down on the table, strong arms folded under his forehead.

  “Why this time?” she asked.

  “He antagonized me,” Gencho said.

  “That’s not the way I heard it,” Tengen said.

  “Oh? And how did you hear it?” Gencho asked, eyebrows raising.

  “Before you two even get started, just knock it off. We’ll talk about this tonight, okay? Have a look, Tengen,” Kara said, standing up and changing the subject as courteously as she could, her tone giving away her frustration. “I found something for you when I was out. I think you’ll like it.”

  She dug into her bag and produced the DVD case, handing it to her brother. He had slender hands, long fingers. He took it, looked it over, turning the case to and fro. Tengen smiled widely.

  “Excellent find. I’ll be watching this during power hour,” Tengen said.

  “Found him another monster movie?” Gencho re-lit the cigarette he had snuffed out and began to puff away on it. “Wonderful. Now he’ll have a new batch of quotes to wear out.”

  “I’ll have you know, Big Brother, that this, this movie that I am holding right now in my hands, is the original The Fly, starring the great Vincent Price. The one and the same from House of Wax, and House on Haunted Hill. Classics.” Tengen looked over the DVD with such reverence that Gencho snorted at his brother when he saw his face. Indignant, Tengen sniffed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You know it’s not real, right? None of that,” Gencho said.

  “Gencho.” Kara took an apple out of her backpack and offered it him. “Let him enjoy his movies. Here, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

  “Not drinking every day would probably work better.” Tengen stated, still looking at the DVD.

  “What did you say?” Gencho began to stand, turning around.

  “Oh no. No.” Kara pushed down on Gencho’s shoulder. “I just got back. I had a rough trip, and I just want to spend some quality time with my family. Please.”

  “You think you’re perfect, don’t you?” Gencho pushed up against her and managed to get to his feet. At six foot three, he was a beast at his full height. He towered over her at her mere five foot six, and stood well above Tengen’s five foot eleven. “Think you’re just the golden boy, don’t you, Todd?”

  “Todd? Wow, you must be pissed. I was kidding, Gencho. Sit down.” Tengen looked up from his DVD, saw the state Gencho was in, and shook his head. “I mean, mostly kidding. But kidding. Sit down.”

  “I bet.” Gencho glared at Tengen for a few seconds and then went into his smithy shack, to the hand built, welded metal tool chest in the right corner. He opened a drawer, cigarette hanging from his lips, took out a squared off glass bottle of something dark and held it to his chest as he faced Kara and Tengen. “Dad had you working on the wall today, didn’t he?”

  “You know what, I can see where this is going, and I’m going to
head back to my room. It’ll be lunch in an hour. Yusha, if you wanna stop by and see Dad, then maybe get lunch with me? We can eat at the den. Watch a movie.” Tengen tilted his head to his sister, brows lifted and smile forced.

  “I would like that. Gencho, you should come to lunch with us,” she said.

  “No thanks.” Gencho puffed on his cigarette, sat down across from her, and began drinking.

  She shot Gencho a look. “Com’on, yah big jerk.”

  “Gencho has liquid lunches these days,” Tengen stated, and then approached Kara, diverting his attention from his brother at the table. “Dad’ll probably grill you on your injuries, you know. He doesn’t say it as much as we do, but he doesn’t like you running either and-”

  “Go to hell, wallrat,” Gencho said, exhaling smoke at the table.

  “-and he might bring it up again this time, seeing as how you never brushed so close to the local flora and fauna before.” Tengen finished his sentence, ignoring Gencho save for a quick glance in his direction.

  “I know. Tengen, I’ll meet you at the square in an hour, okay? Let me just talk to Gencho a bit. I’ll see you, yeah?” Kara and Tengen hugged.

  “You’ll be excited when you see what we’re having,” Tengen said.

  “Is it fish?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s fish. It’s always fish. Maybe some green stuff. Love the green stuff,” Tengen replied, and smiled ear to ear. He bowed, backing up, turning on his heel and then walked away. “If Dad gives you a hard time about the running, remind him that he has a perfectly good rover vehicle in storage that you could borrow, if he’ll lend you the keys.”

  “The Bella ain’t suited for that kinda work anymore, y’idiot. She’ll rattle apart. Come on,” Gencho said, under his breath. He took another drink, setting the bottle next to himself, and then leaned his temple to his knuckles with his elbows on the table. His cigarette dangled from between his lips. Tengen had already walked too far off to hear him, but it didn’t seem to dissuade Gencho from getting in one last muttering insult. “Screwin’ wallrat.”

  “What the Hell is up with you, Gencho?” Kara turned her attention to him once they were alone.