Two Alive

by Jonez, Jeremiah W.

  Antonio laughed and blasted Miles in the face with the rushing water. Miles demanded that he stop and the two teens began wrestling for control of the water line. Antonio laughed before finally giving his younger, smaller sibling, the hose. Miles threw his towel aside and sprayed the water all over himself. The boys weren’t modest at all. The captain tossed the boys a bar of soap, still in the box.

  “Fa sho!” Antonio took the hose back from Miles and began rinsing himself.

  Miles was blown away to see the soap and took the bar from his brother to lather his body.

  “You ain’t gay is you?” Antonio asked Baker.

  “What?” Baker’s face screwed up in confusion. “No!”

  “Aite, cuz Miles only thirteen. And I see how you lookin’ at him but he under age. And just cuz I’m nineteen don’t mean nothin’. I like women.”

  “Shut up!” Baker barked.

  Antonio laughed and took the soap from Miles.

  “If they do get in. You can’t fight ‘em.” Miles said, now holding the water hose in hand and rinsing the soap from his body. “If you fight ‘em in here they’d just kill you. They’d go mad and just kill you. It’s too small in here. You’d all die trying to fight.”

  Baker stared down at the boy and looked over at his men watching the steel shutter door. “Just hurry the hell up.”

  Miles and Antonio continued washing themselves and only horse played once or twice more. When they finished, they wrapped themselves up in their towels and Baker led them back to the security room. When they arrived, Lesly was waiting with spare clothes for the boys while their outfits were being washed. Carver motioned for the children to go back in the office to get dressed but Antonio dropped his towel and started putting on the gray sweatpants and sweatshirt that was offered. Lesly turned away and covered her eyes to avoid looking at the young men change.

  “Oh my god.” Lesly said under her breath.

  “You ain’t seen a man naked before? Well you can thank me later.” Antonio laughed and pulled on the hood of his sweatshirt.

  Lesly rolled her eyes and made her way out of the room as quickly and as politely as possible. Miles put on a pair of black and red basketball shorts with a long blue Warriors t-shirt. The table was back in the center of the room with empty chairs around it. Empty only because Julia was standing with Carver behind Nadine, watching the display screens of the outside docks, and Martyn had just entered from the store entrance. When the boys were dressed, Julia went to the table to meet them and Martyn made his way over, wearing blue rubber gloves and holding a stethoscope.

  “You two aren’t very modest are you?” Julia crossed her legs when she sat. She saw the boys drop their towels but chose to look away as they dressed.

  “What’s that mean?” Miles saw Martyn approaching him and he lifted his shirt when the medical doctor asked him to.

  “You don’t seem to care where you get naked,” Julia replied.

  Antonio laughed. “We ain’t gon get naked in front of a fuck load of lurkers. We been in that room for the past two days and we know y’all probably watchin’ us all day. Y’all probably already saw us naked.” Antonio pulled up his sweatshirt when he saw the doctor making his way over with the stethoscope. “What’s up Dr. Shock-ka-barty.”

  Martyn sighed and shook his head. “You can just call me Martyn, Antonio.”

  “What you checkin’? Tryna see if we infected or somethin’? Naw we good. No bite marks, no scratches or any of that. You need to check that Major Carver nigga, he always coughing and shit.”

  “Watch your mouth Antonio!” Miles shoved his brother, “Watch your mouth!”

  Carver’s cold eyes watched the two boys, then he looked to Julia. She made a small smile before she cleared her throat.

  “No, actually, Chakrabarti is just giving you a slight physical to check on you two.” Julia said.

  “Can I get my phone back?” Miles sat in one of the folding chairs.

  Julia waited a beat. “Do you really want it back that bad?”

  “Yes. Yes, please.” Miles nearly leapt out of his seat at the possibility of getting his phone back. He had been asking for his phone every chance he got but the major refused to give it back to him, still worried that the device worked somehow and he would use it to contact someone outside.

  “I’m still working on that actually.” Julia eyed Carver, who was too busy examining the monitors. “But in the meantime, let’s just finish this quick physical and we’ll give you something to eat in the office. How’s that sound?”

  “Huck heah!” Antonio tried to speak with Dr. Martyn’s tongue depressor in his mouth.

  “Are you a doctor too?” Miles asked Julia.

  “Yes I am,” she replied. “But I’m not a medical doctor like Dr. Martyn or a scientist like Dr. Manson. I have my doctorate in psychology.”

  “That mean you like… you like, you know about the brain and can figure people out and stuff?”

  She chuckled. “Something like that.”

  “I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up.” The small boy’s smile faded. “But I didn’t do enough school. Plus, the world went to shit.”

  Julia measured his words. “So how much school did you do Miles? Were you at school when the world went to shit?”

  “I don’t know. I made it to classroom twelve with Antonio and the big kids at our school, so I think I did good.”

  “You two were in the same class together?” Julia directed her question to Antonio, who was eager to answer after Chakrabarti had finished with him.

  “Yeah. We was in a classroom wit hella different ages. I was fifteen and we had people in there who was twenty. You either graduate when you turned twenty-one or you transfer to a different school. Like Frick or O High.” Antonio sat in the chair next to Miles.

  “What school did you want to go to?”

  Antonio moved his chair slightly to give Chakrabarti space to examine his brother. “I wanted to go to Castlemont. That’s where my cousin went.”

  Julia nodded. “Did your cousin make it out of Oakland too?”

  Antonio paused and thought. “I don’t know. I ain’t thought about it. We just been on the move so long that… I just ain’t thought about it. Anybody you ain’t seen in a minute probably dead though.”

  Julia blinked slowly. “That’s a hard way to look at life. Especially for someone your age.” Her jade eyes went between Antonio and Miles, the statement meant for both of them.

  “Well, the world went to shit so life went to shit,” Miles said, before the doctor told him to say ahh.

  Julia shook her head and lowered her eyes. She had to agree with the boys’ sentiment. “The world did go to shit. It’s a damn shame.”

  Antonio lit up at her response and her choice of words. He knew adults were being honest most the time if they cursed. “How long y’all been here anyway? Y’all ain’t never seen a striker or a siren or none of that shit?”

  “No, we probably did, but we just never named them like you guys. They were all just freaks to us. Infected people. Or people who needed help.”

  “They’re not people. Not anymore. Once you get infected you just become one of those.” Antonio pointed over his shoulder at the monitor where Nadine was sitting. “Those ain’t people. Those are monsters. And if you fuck around they’ll kill you.”

  “Kill or be killed.” Miles jumped back into the conversation the instant Martyn was done with him. “That’s what the old man would say.”

  Antonio snapped his head around to his brother with a grimace on his face. He looked around the room quickly and saw the adults had reacted to what was said.

  “Old man?” Carver started to move closer to the table.

  Julia put up a hand low in her lap that she hoped the major would see and back off.

  “What the fuck Miles?!” Antonio lowered his voice and grabbed his brother by the sleeve, pulling him close and started to whisper to him.

  “Who’s the old man? Did he help you guys s
urvive?” Julia leaned forward just enough, but not to invade the hushed words exchanged between the boys.

  Carver wasn’t as courteous, still moving closer with each heavy boot fall. “Is he waiting for you out in the woods? Is he watching this place? How many more are with him?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Miles kept repeating the words and started rocking.

  Julia stood up from her seat. “It’s ok, it’s ok Miles. I just want to--”

  Carver grabbed Miles by the arm and ripped him from his seat, “Who is this old man?”

  “Get your fuckin’ hands off my brother!” Antonio jumped up, knocking over his seat and grabbed the major’s arm.

  Before things could escalate any further, a shrieking wail came from the dock area. Everyone in the monitor room whipped their heads around to look in the general direction of the docks while Nadine was glued to the display in front of her; the blood in her face starting to drain and her expression a look of paralyzed fear.

  “Uh… major. I don’t want to use the cliché but… you better come look at this.” Nadine was trembling, her voice was shaky.

  The major let go of Miles and saw the frightened look on Nadine’s face. When Miles was free, he went rushing to the display screen and saw an infected creature, that may have once been an elderly man, was tweaking with its mouth agape as it screamed.

  “It’s a siren. One of the strikers is turning. It’s turning like before! It’s turning like before!” Miles was nearly leaping out of his skin, though the expression on his face was one of childhood joy rather than fear like the others. To see another infected person, go from one type to another, like he saw two days ago, was exciting to Miles. This was something new he and his brother hadn’t encountered.

  “Into the office now Miles!” Antonio was running to the office door and grabbed his folding chair with him. He looked back at Julia and Dr. Martyn, both of them stunned and confused, but Antonio didn’t have any words to assure them. “I don’t know how many people y’all got, but y’all better tell them to barricade somewhere while y’all deal wit that madhouse! Miles, c’mon!”

  Miles glanced at his brother and ran past Carver to meet Antonio at the door to the office.

  “Madhouse?” Carver said the word like it was foreign to him. Like he had never heard the expression. But it was more likely he wasn’t sure what Antonio meant when he was using the term.

  “What is that screaming? It’s insane!” Chakrabarti looked to the ceiling, wondering how the cry could be heard so loudly from outside. Through the thick walls, down a hallway and through a steel shutter door, the wailing from the infected siren sounded like it was no more than ten feet away behind a screen door.

  “You said a siren, Miles?” Julia called to the boy before they closed the office door. “What’s going on boys, what is it? What’s a madhouse? What’s the siren doing?” She did a double take and saw Carver now standing at the monitors with Nadine and his eyes were glued on the screen in front of him. Finally Julia made her way to the display to have a look herself; Chakrabarti followed.

  “It’s a siren. A siren’s out there. It’s just gonna scream and scream and bring more infected and drive the other ones crazy. They turn into a madhouse. They go crazy like a madhouse. The hive is just gonna go crazy and then they’ll break in here. They’ll find a way in. They’ll get in. You have to leave and go somewhere safe before the madhouse gets in here!”

  The outside camera display was exactly how the boy described. It was carnage. Infected people were blitzing the outside dock like a stampede of mindless bodies. They attacked everything. Launching their bodies against the wall and the shutter door and exploding like a riot of angry hornets as they encircled the howling siren. The frenzy was so intense many of the infected were killing each other with flailing arms and fists in all directions or trampling those that fell to the ground. Others turned cannibal and eaters were biting and chewing and gorging ravenously on anything they could sink their teeth into.

  A thick dark ooze was beginning to pool beneath the bodies and covered most of the ground around the hive. Many of the monsters were slipping and falling in their own black fluids while they continued rampaging. But that didn’t stop them from ganging up on the shutter door and beating on the steel so forcefully that the metal was starting to dent.

  “Oh my god.” Martyn put a hand to his mouth, shocked into silence.

  “Holy shit!” Nadine’s blue eyes shot back and forth between the monitor display and the major standing over her, “What do we do? What do we do?”

  The major watched the turmoil on the display and was entranced. He barely even registered when Captain Baker came running in and asking what was going on outside. Carver was too fixated on the creatures as they started trying to break into the semi’s trailer as well as the shutter doors.

  “There’s still time,” Miles called from the door as his brother tried pushing him into the office. “There’s still time to get rid of the hive! There’s still time! You still got time!”

  “Miles, c’mon! We gotta get in here and close this door! Maybe we can ride it out!” Antonio tried prying his brother’s fingers from the doorway.

  “What do we… what do we do then?” Carver coughed and coughed and then struck his chest with his fist. He turned to the boys and hacked up something that he spat on the floor then stomped with his boot, smearing it.

  “How do we stop this? What do we do?” Julia’s eyes were hard but fearful.

  “You need to drive them away.” Miles looked to his brother and Antonio shook his head and let him go. “You gotta lure them away with somethin’. A loud noise. Lure them into the woods. Use a loud noise and lure them.” Miles made his way over to the monitors with the adults.

  “Lure them away how?” Baker stepped behind the small boy.

  “With a loud noise,” Miles said again.

  “And lure them where?”

  “Into the woods.” Antonio shook his head and reluctantly added, “If we can get them into the woods, we can lose ‘em there. Just lure ‘em into the woods wit some kinda sound or some shit and then when they get in the trees just spin off on ‘em.”

  “Spin off?” Martyn was scratching his head, still mesmerized by the display on screen but listening to the plan to get rid of the horde.

  “You mean like, get away from them, slip away, right?” Julia clarified.

  “Yeah.” Antonio was making his way over. “But that’s a big ass hive and they got a siren sittin’ right there. You need somethin’ hella loud.”

  “We’ve got air horns in the store.” Julia snapped her fingers at the realization. “Can you make it work with an air horn?”

  “Like one of them loud horns wit the button, that go, baahhhhhhhhh!” Miles tried imitating the sound but was just annoying everyone.

  “We have to hurry this up people!” Baker glanced back at the screen. The mob outside their door was getting more ferocious. “Yeah, an air horn! Will it work?”

  “Yeah, it should. But if we gon do it, we need some weapons.” Antonio gazed at the major who was still locked onto the monitor screen.

  Carver glanced out the corner of his eye at Antonio. He stifled a hard cough that caught in his chest then cleared his throat, staring daggers at the teen who just crossed his arms in annoyed patience.

  “Eric… we have to let them do this. They know more about these things than we do.” Julia spoke up behind the major’s left shoulder.

  “Sir, I don’t like the idea of this.” Baker spoke up and his men started running in from the dock area, frightened. “But with the current situation and the way these kids talk and how they handle themselves… we could use them out there if they think this plan will actually work.”

  “It will.” Miles was looking up at the captain and then turned to Major Carver. “It’ll work. It will work.”

  Carver took a deep breath and stood up straight. He swallowed his pride and knew that something had to be done quickly. Against a nagging
voice in the back of his head, he pulled a knife free from a holster on his belt and slammed it on the table in front of Antonio. It was a decent size hunter’s knife, six or seven inches long with a sharp edge and a serrated back side. Miles picked it up and flipped it around in his hand.

  “We can’t get our guns?” The question came from Antonio with legit curiosity.

  Carver eyed the boy, letting seconds tick away. His cold eyes scanned the blank expression on the teen’s face and the much older man wanted nothing more than to punch Antonio for posing such a request. The phrase, beggars can’t be choosers came to mind but didn’t quite fit the bill. The major felt more along the lines of, dead men tell no tales, or something like, people-who-were-supposed-to-be-dead-shouldn’t-have-anything-to-say. The two brats were clever enough to see through Carver’s attempt at poisoning them with rat poison laced water, and now they were trying to dish out strategies and make requests. It was infuriating.

  The major took his Beretta from his side holster and removed the clip. He thumbed out seven of the fifteen bullets before reloading the magazine and gave the weapon to Baker.

  “They can use that when they get outside.” The major slipped back into his role as leader and went over the plan like it was his idea. “Take them through the front and find the air horns. Take six of your men with you, captain.” Carver considered it handled after he had finished speaking and Baker nodded.

  “Eight bullets? What the fuck?” Antonio scrunched up his face, upset.

  Carver’s glare found the boy and he stifled another aggravated cough. “If you’d like, I could give you a stick and you can just go out there and figure it out.”

  Antonio scoffed and shook his head. “Do your men even know how to handle themselves? How many lurkers have y’all killed?” He directed his question to Baker and the rest of the soldiers behind him.