The Plague Runner

by Burgy, P. J.

  “No, he hasn’t,” she said, and sipped her drink. She paused to think before speaking again. “For the record, Dad, I don’t miss the fort drama.”

  “Fort drama? This is our lives, girl.” Renshen smirked as he spoke.

  “I leave it here when I run.”

  “I guess you would,” Renshen said.

  “Here comes Tengen,” Kara stated and raised a hand to her brother as she caught sight of him walking into the square. He had a grace to him when he walked, lithe and energetic. When he reached the table and sat next to Renshen, Kara found Tengen’s smile as infectious as usual.

  “Fish again? Oh boy.” Tengen slapped his palms on the tabletop, looking back and forth between Kara and her smile and Renshen with his unamused smirk. “I suppose I could have eggs. Mushrooms. Margarite’s bamboo shoots... Or fish.”

  “Boy, it’s the same damn thing every day,” Renshen said.

  “No, there’s the deer jerky.” Tengen folded his arms on the table. “But you’re not putting that out for everyone.”

  “Hell no, I gave everyone what I could. The rest is mine. I’m the one what did all the work,” their father muttered. “Dragged it in, cleaned it, cut it up, hung the meat.”

  “You bagged a deer? Around here?” Kara tilted her head.

  “Oh yeah.” Tengen said.

  “First deer we’d seen in months’n’months. Wailers got this whole valley picked clean. Didn’t help that good ol’ Johnny Raymond, bless his soul, tore down all the trees to build Blue Lagoon. No forest, just flat land and a lake with a wall around it. So we see this deer-”

  “And it’s like, we’re wondering, do we kill it? Do we catch it? Do we eat it?” Tengen asked.

  “These are the questions you gotta ask yerself when you see something so rare.” Renshen chuckled and took out his pipe. He stuffed it with crushed up tobacco, pulled from a little bag along with the pipe. “Somethin’ so rare, and somethin’ that may run off in a second.”

  “I can tell where this is going,” Kara said, resting her chin on her hand. “And it’s nowhere good.”

  “Oh, it’s worse,” Renshen said.

  “Dad says to hold up while he gets his rifle. You got the guys in the towers wanting to take shots at it, but Dad says No, he’ll get it. So off he goes, in a big hurry.” Tengen held his hands out, fingers splayed. “No one else is allowed to shoot this deer for some reason.”

  “I’m the Goddamn Mayor of Goddamn Blue Lagoon, and it was the first Goddamn deer we seen’t in forever. Of course, I’m gonna be the one t’shoot it,” Renshen said, brows heavy.

  “Entitled much? So, he gets his rifle-” Tengen started.

  “Had it in the security room. Grabbed it, and then I think, if they open the gate it’ll spook the thing and it’ll run. And I sure as hell ain’t climbin’ up into the tower t’take pot shots at it.” Their father became more animated as he spoke, stopping only to sip his wine. “I wanna be closer.”

  “His aim isn’t good from up there,” Tengen interjected.

  “Quiet, boy. My aim is fine. I just wanted t’be closer. Like a real hunter. Not from some tower. That’s not intimate at all. I just wanted t’hunt authentic’ly.” Renshen scowled at Tengen and then returned his gaze to Kara, who was listening intently and grinning ear to ear. “I did. I can see just fine. You knock off that grinnin’. So, I get on the ladder, thinkin’ maybe I can shoot over the top of the wall, you know? Seems like a great idea, and the deer is still there, so I get a ladder-”

  “He climbs up, tries to aim over the wall,” Tengen said, eyes sparkling.

  “Oh, he’s in my sight. I got him. Aimin’ up for a heart shot,” Gencho said.

  She leaned forward. “Yeah?”

  “And I’m getting’ ready to pull the trigger, it’s quiet, deer is standin’ there, he sees me and we stare, my eye to his eye, and I know he’s about to run, then I hear the gate open, and the deer gets startled, so I try t’take a shot before he runs. But then Blam! Son of a bitch, Tyler Dean Manchester, with his 12 gauge shotgun, ten feet away standin’ in the goddamn open fort door, filled my beautiful deer with buckshot. We were pickin’ it out for hours and I slapped that boy upside his head. Said he didn’t know. But he was supposed t’be guardin’ the gate, not runnin’ for his shotgun and shootin’ at the wildlife.”

  “So that’s how you got the deer jerky.” Kara said.

  “Long story short, yeah, but ain’t nothing sacred around here, swear to God,” Renshen said, rolling his eyes and then sipping his wine. “I told ‘em, one day they’ll be a goddamn unicorn outside the gate and Tyler Dean Manchester’ll blow it away.”

  “See, I said one day there would be a dragon outside and he’d shoot it. Then, it would eat him,” Tengen said, “But no one gets what a dragon is, so I show them this movie-”

  “You gotta watch that with the younger folk, Tengen,” Renshen stated. “I know what isn’t real, you know what isn’t real, but all those movies you like to watch give ‘em nightmares.”

  Kara straightened up in her seat when she saw her eldest brother meandering over to them, and Renshen and Tengen turned as well when they saw that she was distracted. It was a surprise, to be sure, for all of them, she thought to herself. It was probably a surprise to Gencho too, who came around to sit right next to her, holding a glass of something smelling strongly of alcohol. He sniffed, nodded to them, and sipped his drink.

  “There he is,” Renshen said. “Was hopin’ to get the whole family together for dinner.”

  Gencho sucked on his teeth, the bruise on his lip turning yellow and purple, the tear scabbed over completely now. His eyes were slightly bloodshot with little pinpricks of red freckling under them, as if from strain. Kara wondered if he’d vomited or cried his eyes out. It could have been either, or both. His black eye was less swollen at least. He was still wearing the exact same clothes he’d had on earlier, and smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and booze. “Sentimental as always, Dad.”

  “I just thought it’d be nice, you know?” Renshen went on, killing off his glass of wine. “Haven’t done this in forever. Just the four of us.”

  Gencho swallowed thickly, looking disengaged until Kara placed her hand on top of his. He looked at her and smiled a little. He nodded. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

  It was good to eat and drink with her family, strange as they may have looked together. Slender Tengen with his wild orange hair and pale skin, Tall, muscular Gencho with his almond shaped eyes and long, dark hair. Strong, shapely Kara with her brown skin and thick, dark hair. And Renshen with his white hair and blue eyes, built like an old soldier. Not one of them were related to the other, and yet, Renshen was her father, and the two men were her brothers.

  Empty plates lay on the table around them, the fish picked at and the potato skins left behind. She was finishing up swallowing the baked radishes she’d gotten when Renshen told her how much she had hated radishes as a child. Then, Tengen was describing a time that she had gotten stuck in the turret compartment of the Bella and she was laughing, telling him that she was trying to hide from chores. Renshen commented that now he knew why she always went missing when the mud needed scraped from the wheels. Gencho laughed about how Renshen almost clubbed Tengen over the head, and Kara sipped her wine to listen to Renshen defend himself.

  “Didn’t know he wasn’t Infected, did I?” Renshen said, hands up. “Besides, the boy forgave me, didn’t he? Didn’t you, Tengen? You forgave your old man for almost cavin’ your skull in?”

  “I got over it,” Tengen replied, taking a drink from his own cup. His cheeks were turning rosy from the alcohol and he chuckled softly. “I don’t hold grudges.”

  “’Cause we fed you,” Gencho said, grinning. He looked to Kara with sleepy, jade green eyes. The cigarette he had just lit was sending up trails of smoke that were caught up and carried away in the pleasant breeze. “You know this story, Kara. How we found Tengen Hai.”

  “I know this story,” she answered.

&n
bsp; “She knows the story,” Tengen said.

  “Too bad, I like this story, so I’m telling it. I tell it the best.” Gencho pointed his finger at her, the same hand holding a cup four or five times refilled since they’d started dinner. “Me and Dad, we stop at this big, abandoned super store, Super Mart or Big Old Mart, or whatever, and it’s the middle of the day but dark. So we go in, clear out the five or six Infected just squatting in there.”

  “Oh yeah.” She listened to him, eyebrows lifting.

  Gencho went on after taking a drink. “And we go in, looking for supplies, finding stuff. This thing runs across the floor and Dad chases it down. It gets into the ducts and Dad breaks the ducts open to get at it, so it climbs the shelves. Like a squirrel. Just like a squirrel, but it’s a kid. Dad gets it down from the shelves, traps it in a corner. Kid is acting wild, like an animal, so Dad figures it’s an Infected, but I didn’t think it looked like one, so I shine the UV light on it right before Dad could beat it to death. And it’s this little ginger boy.”

  “I believe the term is ‘strawberry blonde’,” Tengen said, holding up a finger.

  “Maybe he was seven or eight? Anyway, we pull him out and get him to the Bella, try to get him to talk, say anything. He won’t talk, so we think he’s mute. Then he says, ‘Todd Yablonsky, 21 Fairfax Circle’, and we ask what he’s on about, you know? And he says it again. And again. Over and over, it’s the only words he knows. ‘Todd Yablonsky, 21 Fairfax Circle’,” Gencho said. “Did that for a solid two weeks before we got him to say other things. He’d spent four years there, hiding in the ducts, in the walls. Little wallrat.”

  “Well, he came ‘round quick.” Renshen smiled at Tengen. “Got to talkin’, and then never shut up.”

  “I want to take offense to that remark. I really do,” Tengen stated.

  “Oh, you had Gencho takin’ care of you and listenin’ to you all day. You two were thick as thieves. He’ll deny it, but Gencho loved hearin’ you go on and on.” Renshen glanced between Gencho and Tengen. “And when we got Yusha, you two fell in love with her.”

  “Wow, get a few drinks in you guys and watch how sappy it gets.” She laughed and set her empty glass down on the tabletop. She turned to look as some of the musicians in the corner began to play. There were a few couples dancing, some children as well, and it was a pretty uplifting sight. The red lights hadn’t turned on yet, the sun was low but it wasn’t dark. There would be time for some joviality and noise before curfew. Standing up and brushing herself off, Kara offered her family a big grin. “I am going to dance, because I can.”

  “Then I am going to dance with you, because I can.” Gencho stood up, snuffing his cigarette out. He stepped over the bench and approached Kara, holding his hand out. They were close for a moment and he brought his face near hers. “I’m so sorry, Yusha. I love you.”

  “I love you, Big Brother,” Kara said to him, leaning in.

  “This I gotta see.” Tengen turned around to have a look, and Renshen chuckled.

  Kara and Gencho danced alongside the other couples, laughing together. He spun her under his arm, and they attempted to recreate that funny tango dance they had seen in one of Tengen’s movies. The people around them clapped, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt that it was going to be alright.

  Chapter Four

  Morning at Fort Blue Lagoon was quiet, uneventful. The sound of birds calling from some distant meadow drifted in through Kara’s open window. The curtains, just fabric hanging from a rod above the frame, moved in and out with the breeze. Damp but cool air blew in, giving her a chill. In only her underwear, lying on her small bed with the blankets thrown off of her body, she felt goosebumps stand on her flesh and reached down to pull her fleece blankets over her legs and hip.

  It wasn’t quite light out, the sun was rising but it would be another hour before breakfast was served. She grunted and flopped onto her back, arms and legs out as far as they could go on her tiny mattress, which was not very far at all.

  The bed sat directly on the floor, her room tiny and cramped with a low ceiling. She couldn’t stand in the six by six cubicle she called a bedroom, but it fit a bed and some shelves for her clothing, folded neatly only a couple feet away from her. The walls were painted blue, and Kara’s attempts at clouds were puffy, shameful reminders of her lack of artistic skill. The beige rug on the floor had a square hole cut in it, a hole big enough for her to drop down into, using the ladder installed into the wall to climb down.

  On the fourth floor, at the very top of their tower, she imagined Tengen already up and watching movies on the first floor, sitting at the kitchen table in very much the same way he had the day before. He would play it on mute, of course, knowing every line of dialogue so well that he didn’t need the sound anymore. He would want to keep the noise down, to avoid irritating any late sleepers or resting guards in the neighboring houses. After breakfast, all bets would be off, and that TV would be turned up.

  She savored the feeling of sleeping in a real bed, and then felt the aches from the day before return two-fold. She hurt worse today, her legs stiff and hard to move. Wincing, she forced herself to sit up and get dressed. The clothing she wore was the same she had worn during her run, but were now washed and dried, smelling of grass and pine needles. A Runner couldn’t smell like soap. Their clothing was washed special, and treated with scents and oils that were of the forest, of the wilderness.

  She tied her hair up and it immediately rebelled. Too tired to fight with it, she let the bangs hang out. She climbed down the ladder, passing through Tengen’s empty room first. Of course, she had been right. He was probably downstairs in front of the TV. Tengen’s room was slightly bigger than hers, but not by much. His room had old, tattered movie posters on the walls, and his huge collection of clothing was folded up tightly on the shelves. He’d made his bed up. Kara had not. She sighed and kept going downward.

  It was a legitimate shock, albeit a pleasant one, to see Gencho in his bed. At six foot three, Gencho would have had to curl up on his side to keep his body within the confines of his mattress. He would not be contained by the size of his bed. His room was bigger than Tengen’s, allowing for him to hang off of the sides of the mattress instead, sprawled out like a cat in the sunshine. Shirtless, a bare leg on the floor. He snored softly. His clothing was not folded, but flung onto his shelves, or left on the floor across from his feet. His boots were toppled over. Seeing her brother sleeping soundly, hugging his pillow tightly with his long hair hiding part of his face, brought some peace to her, and she continued to climb downward.

  She reached the lowest level and didn’t see Tengen there, but heard the town waking up outside, the windows open with the curtains moving in the breeze. It was odd that he wasn’t there. The TV wasn’t on either. The kitchen table had been cleared, the tiny counter space and sink bare. The chairs were all pushed in. Kara furrowed her brow and pushed back the hanging curtain of the doorway and stepped outside onto the boardwalk of their spoke.

  It was strange to see the guards out, milling around near the dock. She made her way through the misty morning fog that rose up from the lake, no crowd to fight her way through as she traveled across the square and toward the bridge leading to shore. The bridge bobbed under her feet, the barrels sloshing in the water. Renshen Bui, dressed in the same riot gear as the security officers save for the mask, which he held at his side, was near the security shack talking to Jensen Hooper, and they both looked deadly serious. Tengen was there too, also in riot gear, mask in his hand, and spotted her first, pointing at her and making the other two men aware of her approach.

  Seeing so many guards out unnerved her, and she watched as one of the sentries gathered up the dogs, bringing them out of the shack in a pack. The dogs were led over to the fence and commanded to sit. Trap was sitting in the doorway, tail wagging and tongue lolling out.

  “What’s going on?” Kara asked, reaching Renshen.

  Jensen Hooper cleared his throat.
Renshen nodded at the other man, and Hooper nodded to Kara, greeting her before taking a few steps away to check on the dogs.

  “Yer up early,” Renshen said.

  “Yeah, what’s going on, Dad? Tengen?” she asked.

  “Ah, well, shit,” Renshen muttered. He looked off toward the garage and then back to her. “Was hopin’ to check it out first, ‘fore I said anythin’ else. But that ain’t gonna happen now. Yusha, we got a distress call from Pleasant Tree last night.”

  She tilted her head. “What?”

  “A distress call. Came in five hours ago,” Renshen told her. He was being careful with his wording, pausing for a moment. The pounding of her heart in her ears was getting louder, but she could hear him just fine when he spoke again. “She’s not answerin’ back…”

  “What kind of distress call?”

  “Dunno,” Renshen replied, shrugging. “Tai said they were callin’ for help, somethin’ about the gates bein’ opened. Somethin’ or someone got in. Then the channel went dead. I was roundin’ up some of the boys to go take a look.”

  “I’m coming too,” she said.

  Renshen eyed her. “Outta the question. You stay here.”

  “I said I’m coming too.” She took a step closer to him.

  He shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

  “Those people need our help.” She took a step back, glaring at him until he grimaced and turned away.

  “Not ‘nough room on the Bella,” Renshen muttered.

  She scoured his face with her gaze. “You’re taking the Bella?”

  “Only way to get there’n’ back within a day, Yusha. You know that,” Renshen told her. “Just don’t got enough room for me, Tengen, the guards an’ all them dogs, an’ you.”

  “So trade a guard with me. Come on. Dad. You have to let me come. I have to know if they’re okay. Please. I’ll run for it if I have to.”