Carver had to stop and think about the term and he chuckled to himself. “Yes. The freaks outside seem to be moving in a swarm… almost like a hive of bees. Now, please everyone, we really need to get to work dealing with this problem.” The major flashed another reassuring smile and the group turned to walk away. Lance lingered, still eyeing Carver; then he sighed before following the others.
“This is getting crazy.” Julia spoke as soon as the group of people were out of earshot. “We’ve got the infected outside, a missing group we sent out and two kids locked up who could possibly try to kill someone. Am I missing anything?”
“The bodies in the docking area. Baker, go take care of that.” Carver looked to his right-hand soldier, who hadn’t left his side since dealing with the kids.
“We can burn the bodies in the docks, major. I’ll get the boys on that.” Baker pulled his radio from his waist.
Carver started for the doorway to the security room.
“What’s your plan, major?” Julia said and the major stopped in his tracks. “I know the wheels are turning. So what are you thinking?”
The major turned around, “We need to kill those kids and get rid of their bodies.” Carver was so curt and to the point that Ben and Julia were stunned. “That’s probably our best option.”
“No it’s not!” Ben looked to Alana, who was still close enough to overhear the conversation. It spurred on his anger with Carver. “Not going to happen! How could you even think that?”
“Someone has to think of the worst-case scenarios. If you all are too soft to do it, I will. Besides, I’m sure the thought has crossed your mind, Julia.” Carver eyed the woman and saw the wheels turning in her head.
But she shook the thoughts away. “No. We can’t just kill whoever shows up here. We don’t even know anything about these kids.”
Carver shrugged his shoulders. “It’s one option.”
“An option that is off the table, Eric!” Ben snapped.
“So that’s what we should do.” Julia’s statement was enough to surprise Ben, but she wasn’t talking about what Carver insinuated. Honestly she was paying little regard to what the two men were saying. “We find out what they want. We ask some more questions and get some more answers. Then we make a decision on what to do with them after we hear their story. But we need all the committee to make a choice like that.” She looked at Alana. “Can you find Lesly and Chakrabarti, sweetheart, and bring them back to the security room?”
“No, I’ll go find them,” Ben intervened. “Alana, just go back to our aisle.”
“Dad, I can do it! I’ll find them faster than you anyway.” Alana’s teenage angst was coming through her tone.
“I just don’t want you to have to come back there. There’s a lot going on and I don’t want you mixed up in all this.”
“Too late for that, dad.” She turned to jog off.
“Keep this quiet, Alana,” Julia called to the young girl, who stopped to listen. “Don’t tell anyone about what’s going on other than what they already know.” The young girl nodded and ran off, and Julia turned to the men, “Let’s go.”
She went past Carver and Ben and they followed after. As they entered the security room, Nadine spun around in her chair, looking a shade redder than she was earlier. The display in front of her was the cause of her blush and her excitement.
“Uh, you guys… those things at the door are starting to get more aggressive. Please tell me we’re going to do something about them soon.” Nadine was shaking her foot so rapidly under her chair she was starting to bounce in her seat.
Julia went to Anderson standing near the broom closet and ordered him to open it again. The soldier looked to Carver. “Open the damn door.” Julia was about ready to snatch the keys again from the military man. Carver just nodded behind her and Anderson went to open the closet.
Again, Antonio came lashing out, this time with a broken broomstick in his zip-tied hands. He swung it around and even knocked Anderson back, but when he charged at the unflinching major, Baker stepped in and stopped the boy mid-attack. Baker dropped Antonio to the floor and put a pistol to his head.
“This kid just doesn’t learn,” Baker said under his breath.
Antonio cracked back, “Fuck you.”
“Everyone stop!” Julia shouted, just as the bickering was beginning. She didn’t need to say anything more to quiet the room. She eyed the captain, standing over the boy, and Baker backed off some. Julia began to drag an empty table away from the wall to the center of the room; the scraping was the only noise now.
Ben grabbed two folding chairs from out of the closet. He noticed Miles in the back corner rocking back and forth and mumbling to himself. “Hey, are you ok? Miles?” Ben remembered the small boy’s name, but his saying it wasn’t enough to spur the boy out of the closet.
Miles didn’t respond. He just continued rocking.
“Ben, could you bring those chairs over.” Julia set up a chair for herself and sat down on one side of the table with her hands folded in front of her.
Ben set up the chairs opposite her, and Baker picked up Antonio, stuffing him into the seat across from Julia. The young boy looked at her and rolled his eyes. Baker went to the closet to get Miles, but with each command to come out, Miles just continued rocking and shaking his head, refusing to exit the small space.
“C’mon kid!” Baker shouted.
“He ain’t gon come out,” Antonio said, looking over his shoulder at his brother. “He ain’t gon come out cuz y’all took his phone.”
Julia peered into the closet and saw the small boy huddled in the corner under a shelf. “His phone?”
“Y’all took his phone. Now he gon be trippin until he get it back,” Antonio responded.
“But it doesn’t work… right?”
Antonio just shook his head in response and sighed.
Julia glanced at Miles for a moment. “I saw how worked up he got when they took it from him.” Her eyes flared green when they went back to Antonio. “Is he autistic?” she asked.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with him.” Antonio was serious and almost growling as he spoke. His eyes turned dark and he squared his shoulders.
Julia’s expression softened and she undid her coiled fingers. “I’ve worked with people on the spectrum. I don’t mean to say there’s anything wrong with him.”
“Well he good. Don’t worry about us, ain’t nothin’ wrong with us.”
Julia’s eyebrow went up at the word us. Was he including himself or were there actually others in the woods. “Ok. So, you’re name’s Antonio right? And that’s Miles?”
“Yup.”
“Nobody else with you?”
Antonio just rolled his eyes in response and let out an exacerbated breath.
“You came here looking for supplies? Food? Are you running out where you are?”
“We good. Me and my brother just saw the store and thought to search it if we could. Wouldn’t you?”
“I would. Especially if I was running out.”
“We not runnin’ out of anything!” He was biting off his words. “We just ate a deer I hunted the other day.” He was boisterous now.
Julia leaned back in her seat, her hands still on the table. “Ok. So you can take care of yourself. What happened with those freaks outside then?”
“Naw, they called strikers. You don’t even know what they called.”
“Ok. Strikers.”
Antonio licked his lips and leaned back. “Yeah.”
“What happened with those strikers outside?”
Antonio blinked and sighed. “We got fucked up. We let a siren get too close and it called a hive. It was probably following her around.”
Julia blinked and leaned in. “Wait, a siren? You mean like a police car or something?”
“Noooo. C’mon, you ain’t never seen a siren? They when infected people start just screamin’ and shit until it die or you kill it. If you don’t kill it, it’s gon call hella strikers a
nd then form a hive.”
Julia leaned back and put a hand to her chin. “So if it’s a hive, why not just call it a queen?”
“Cuz it ain’t always a girl. And the hive tears the siren up eventually. Plus it be hella screaming. It’s like the sirens that called ships to the gallows.” Antonio laughed.
Julia might have chuckled. “Did you read that in a book or did somebody tell you that?”
Antonio took a moment to look around the room. Nadine, sitting at the monitors; Anderson standing two feet from her, shaking; Ben standing at Julia’s left; and Baker a foot or so from Antonio’s right shoulder. Everyone was so drawn into his explanation of the infected types that they were on the edge of their seats. Nadine literally had to catch herself before she fell.
Then Antonio caught eyes with the stern Major Carver, standing far enough away to be out of the dim overhead lights. Carver was just an outline, but Antonio could still see his piercing gray eyes.
“Antonio, right?” Julia broke the staring contest, leaning out some to get the teenage boy’s attention. “Hey. So tell me what happened next. You came down here… you wind up on the docks, surrounded?” She looked to Ben for clarification. He nodded.
Antonio’s brow started to relax and his eyes went back to Julia. “Yeah, that’s what happened. We was gon try openin’ the door cuz we didn’t have nowhere to go.” He moved his bound hands across the table in a sweeping motion.
Ben decided to ask a question. “Then what? What if we didn’t open the door? Did you take a gamble that we would?”
“Pshhh! Shit we didn’t even know anybody was even in here or not. We just tried what we could and it fucked us up.” Antonio shook his head and laughed.
“If we didn’t open that door… what would you have done?” Ben leaned in.
“Died probably.” Antonio inhaled deeply through his nose. “I don’t know. We got a lot of ‘em but it was just too many.”
“You looked like you were prepared to die.” Carver stepped forward and the light poured over his still dark expression. “Why?”
Antonio looked to the major. “People die every day. You don’t know when you goin’.” His eyes went to Ben. “So you just keep living until you die.” His eyes fell to Julia. “And we don’t die until we die.”
Carver regarded the words with a hint of admiration, unlike Ben, who looked troubled by what Antonio said. It was common knowledge between the major and Captain Baker, trained military men, that death was just something you lived through. Especially now that death had teeth and hands that the infected used to tear you apart. Whatever this child had been through out on the road was enough to make him realize that dying was a part of life.
Julia waited a few beats before preparing to speak again when a familiar cackle could be heard coming from the doorway. In walked Lesly, the thirty-something, most likely forty-something, Costco store manager who still believed in wearing her uniform, which she washed three times a week. She was smiling from ear to ear wearing a plum lipstick and a light blush to compliment her milky skin.
“Good news guys, I took care of the movie night issue. Everyone was so excited about the movie night tonight.” Her voice was girly and screechy. It was annoying at first but after two years, everyone in the store was used to it.
“Damn, aey you sound hella funny!” Antonio was cracking up and hitting the table with his zip-tied hands.
“Oh my goodness!” Lesly took one look at the dirt-covered boy wearing a beanie stuffed with an afro, and an outfit similar to a riot-officer-meets-survivalist, and she recoiled at the sight of him.
“Y’all got a movie night too?! That’s what’s up!”
“Lesly, this is Antonio. Antonio, this is Lesly Cooper.” Julia did the introductions.
“Um… nice to meet you.” Lesly was shaken up a bit but still managed to bring back her Colgate smile, if only half as big as before.
Close behind her was a tall, brown-skinned man with long hair and short whiskers under his nose. “What… what’s going on here?” the man asked the room as a whole.
“And this is Dr. Martyn Chakrabarti.” Julia gestured towards the tall man.
“Shaka-barty?” Antonio screwed up his face trying to say the name back.
“Martyn, will do just fine.” The medical doctor was tense as he entered the room, but when he turned to Julia and she gave him a reassuring look, he relaxed his shoulders.
“Manson, get your ass out here!” Julia shouted and before she finished her sentence, the scientist appeared from the office room, standing at the doorway opposite the closet.
“Yes, yes. I’m here.” Manson took off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. He nodded to Dr. Chakrabarti and put his glasses on without even acknowledging Lesly’s presence. She turned up her nose at him.
There was a past between the two that left Lesly cross with the appropriately nicknamed, “mad scientist.” It wasn’t just his reckless use of store items but also his indifference and odd behavior with many of the members of the store community, including herself. With a name like Bob Manson, being too peculiar was almost alienating and cause for concern. Though the scientist didn’t seem bothered by the snide looks he often got, like now from the store manager.
“Ok,” Ben sighed. “The full committee’s here.”
“Ben… did you want to come back on the committee?” Martyn looked almost elated by the idea.
Ben hesitated. “Not exactly. But at the moment, things have gotten complicated and I feel responsible for it.”
“You are responsible for it.” Carver coughed.
“This boy and his brother there,” Ben pointed to the still rocking Miles in the closet, “they were outside on the dock, surrounded by freaks.”
“Strikers,” Antonio corrected.
“Right, strikers. The infected had them trapped at our door.” Ben looked to Antonio, who seemed to agree that infected was an acceptable term. Ben continued, “I… I made the call to let them in.”
“And now we have two intruders and a swarm of freaks right outside our door.” Carver added, not caring to use any of the new terms from Antonio.
Lesly looked across the room and saw Nadine at the monitors, shaking her head. Lesly’s heels clicked on the linoleum floor as she went to have a look at the display, and Nadine moved aside to give her a good look. Lesly shrieked and Martyn went to see the screen next. There were dozens upon dozens upon dozens of monsters jumping and climbing over each other as they crowded the small dock outside. Many of the creatures looked lost but determined while others pounded on the steel door with bloody fists; paying little regard to the assault breaking their fingers and wrist.
Dr. Martyn’s mouth hung open. “Oh my… oh my god. This is…”
“Insane.” Nadine finished his sentence for him.
“I’ve never seen so many freaks in one place.” Lesly turned to Ben and the others. “This is like the news reports that talked about whole cities being infected.”
Antonio started laughing. “Whole city? It ain’t that many out there. It’s hella them, but it ain’t a whole city.”
“What… what are we going to do?” Martyn asked, his brown eyes darting back and forth between the teenage boy and the adults in the room.
“About the strikers?” Ben asked.
“The freaks.” Carver corrected. “And these boys.”
“Strikers!” Antonio corrected.
Martyn looked back at the screen, “All of it! What are we going to do about all of it?”
Lesly had had enough and went back to the table with the others.
Ben took a breath. “That’s what we called you guys here to figure out. We all need to decide what to do next.”
“The freaks outside aren’t the most pressing matter. These kids might have a group nearby waiting to try and attack us,” Carver stated and Antonio scoffed at him. The major continued like he hadn’t heard him. “The infected outside will eventually move on when they see they can’t get in. We’ve
seen it happen countless times before. There’s nothing to worry about. They’ll leave.”
“No the fuck they won’t.” Antonio chuckled.
Carver narrowed his eyes on the teen at the table. “They’ll leave. They always do. The freaks wandering the parking lot always come banging at the doors and leave after they realize they can’t get in.”
“Those was probably lurkers. They dumb, of course they leave. Strikers don’t just leave.”
“Ok, I’ve had enough of this!” Carver roared, his deep voice booming. “Lurkers, strikers, hives... how many new names are you going to come up with? We’ve listened to this little bastard long enough!”
Antonio slouched in his chair and rolled his eyes. “Aite. Don’t listen to me. And get everybody killed.”
The major glanced at Antonio with irritation and turned away from the boy.
Julia leaned forward in her chair with her hands once again flat on the table. “What do you mean? Why won’t the strikers leave?”
Antonio sighed and his wandering eyes went back to the woman in front of him. “Strikers go after noise. Wit all them strikers out there banging on the door, hollerin’ and barkin’ and all that shit, they just gon stay there forever. Even if they forget why they even came here in the first place, all the noise is gonna keep them here and they gon stay and just make more noise and probably attract more infected.”
“Please,” Carver growled, but Ben shushed him.
“So what, what do we do? How do we get rid of them?” Julia asked next.
“You gotta make ‘em leave. They gotta hear something louder than the noise they already making and they’ll go chasing that. They ain’t gon leave otherwise.” Antonio snorted and reached up with his tied hands to pick his nose.
Julia sat back and turned to Ben behind her. “He’s telling the truth.”
“Or he has no idea what those things will do and is just making up bullshit!” Carver went into a fit of coughing.
“Yo is he good? He ain’t infected or some shit? Do y’all be checking people for bites?” Antonio rattled off questions about the major’s health and Carver nearly barreled through Ben to get to the boy.
Two Alive Page 7