by Chuck Wendig
“One.”
“No. No. Please, tell Ozark—”
“Two.”
Tears burned hot in his eyes, scalding his lids.
“Three…come on, now, Preacher.”
The memory of that day in the Morton building, surrounded by all those weapons—it felt both like it happened yesterday and like it happened to someone else a lifetime ago—crashed down on him like a crushing wave. He gagged, dry-heaving.
“Four. Tick-tock, tick-tock.”
The sound grew louder and louder out of him, that mewling whine, that fearful wail, until he suddenly sprang up out of the cot. His posture was of a cockroach scurrying across the floor hoping not to be noticed even as he found his way to the desk and the chair. He sat down and put his hand out.
“There we go,” Danny said.
Danny grabbed for his hand. He flinched away, but the man was fast and rough. He held the wrist so hard that Matthew was afraid it would snap like an old branch under a pressing boot. The man spun Matthew’s hand around, so that the palm faced down on the pressed-wood desk.
The hammer struck fast. Danny used the rounded end. It whipped down hard, dead into the center of Matthew’s hand. It crunched. Pain cascaded out. He howled, recoiling, yanking his hand back and cradling it against his chest.
For a while, he heard his own retching sobs and the pounding of his heartbeat deep in every corridor within his body.
And then came the sound to match his pulse.
Whong.
Whong.
Whong.
Ozark Stover stepped into the bunker.
The big sonofabitch looked around, disgusted. Stover reached up, grabbed a fistful of his own massive beard, and tugged on it before smoothing it out and sneering.
“I heard your little warning,” Stover said.
“No, no, it wasn’t that,” Matthew said, gabbling. Mouth sticky with his own spit and tears. “Please don’t think I’d do anything like that.”
“You did. I know you did. Ty, he told you that we had designs on the flock, and you thought you could get them a warning—as if anyone there would even listen to our little online venture. I get it. You’re still a preacher man, still thinking your job on this earth is to do some good, save people. Let me separate you from that notion. Just as I separated this from Ty.”
He reached in his pocket and tossed something onto the floor.
It was a thumb.
Bloody underneath. Bit of white bone shining.
“You made out like a bandit,” Ozark said, “ ’cause you get to keep your hand together. Those bones will heal—not well, I wager, but they’ll heal. Ty paid more because Ty’s crime was more serious. He knew not to talk you up, and still, he opened his dumbfuck mouth.”
Matthew tried to form words but couldn’t. He braved a glancing look at his hand—the fingers curled in, an arthritic claw. The back was already swelling up. He briefly imagined how many bits, little bits, were in there, broken. And how his hand was now little more than a mitt of skin holding the shattered pottery of his bones.
Ozark jerked his head, and Danny took that as a command. He loped off toward the ladder and disappeared up the hatch. Leaving Matthew alone with the monster.
“I’m doing you a favor,” Ozark said. “It’s gotten bad out there, Preacher. And it’s only getting worse. The dam hasn’t broken yet but it’s gonna. Quarantining people. Bodies piling up. Someday soon, with the help of people like me and a voice like yours, they’re going to see that the government and Madam Fucking President want them to line up against the wall so they can be marched into camps where they get sick and die. Not me, though. Not us. Our people will make it through. Let the spics and chinks and all the other monkeys get sick—our blood is strong. Our heritage is strong. We’ll strike out. We’ll live when they die. We’ll survive when they don’t. And when the smoke of burning bodies clears, when the brass hits the asphalt, we’ll come into the sunlight of a new day. A new nation.
“The sleepwalkers, they’re a part of that. Maybe they’re why this plague is here, maybe they’re not, but you look at them—makes me sick. They don’t belong here. I don’t see faces I recognize. We strike out against them and any who stand in our way. Any who would drag us down when the time comes to crawl up out of the ashes.”
You’re a psychopath, Matthew wanted to say.
But all he said was, “Okay.”
Ozark nodded. “All right, Preacher. This has been a good talk.”
“How…how is my family?”
“Your family? Your family. Huh. Didn’t think you were that delusional to still think you had a family to call your own.” Ozark grinned, his tongue sliding across those picket-fence teeth like a washrag. “Your boy is fine. Bo is learning all the things he needs to learn.”
“And Autumn?”
Ozark clacked his fence-post teeth together, then shook his head. “Preacher, I wasn’t going to tell you this, because I didn’t want to saddle you with a heavier burden than you are already carrying, but your wife, she’s gone. Died a few nights after you came to see me. Don’t worry, Bo was by her side. I was, too. She never came out of that coma, so I’m sure she didn’t have to wonder where you were.”
“Wait,” Matthew said, pleading. “Don’t go. You’re lying. Please tell me you’re lying. Don’t go!”
But he choked. The words lodged in his throat like a hunk of gristle.
Ozark tossed the USB key on the desk. “There. Re-record the script. Don’t ad-lib this time, or I’ll break the whole arm, not just the hand. Every time you fuck me, Matthew, I’ll take another piece of you.”
We’re all dying because we can’t do what we know we need to do. Look at those sleepwalkers. What do you see? Lot of women. Lot of not-whites. Feminized soy-boys and trannies and spergs. All weak, controlled by the fungus like those cordyceps zombie ants. Those ants are the ones who spread the fungus to their fellow ants and dollars to donuts that’s what’s happening here. They’re the origin point for White Mask. (Though I dispute that name because White Mask is a racist name meant to associate this plague with the white race. I use it only so we all understand what I mean.) You wanna end the disease? You gotta kill those walkers. FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED, and you bet that I’m armed. Are you?
—user ARM-Army at r/MensRights
SEPTEMBER 6
Pelican State Beach, California
THE FIRE CRACKLED AND POPPED as the wind swept through it.
A handful of shepherds sat around it: Pete Corley, Marcy Reyes, Mia Carillo, and Shana Stewart. They passed around a bottle of something called mescal. Shana took only a sip given recent, well, news, and to her it tasted a whole lot like burned, barbecued tequila. It was gross and Corley agreed, saying it tasted like fireplace ash. Mia tsked them both and said, “Shut up, that’s what I like about it. It’s warm like this campfire.” Then she plugged the bottle between her lips and took a big gulp. Ploomp.
The flock was north of them, now, by a few miles. It was Pete who suggested they get away for a little while, Benji and Arav had brought the CDC trailer south to run tests—all day long they spent swabbing shepherds and walkers alike, sticking these long cotton swabs way too far up their noses before bagging them and moving on. Reminded Shana of a flu swab. Arav said, “It’s to see if any of us have White Mask.” Then he smiled and reassured her: “I’m sure we’re safe.”
Shana hadn’t told him yet that she was pregnant.
Shit.
Don’t think about it, she told herself. This is a problem for Future You. Tonight, just sit here and look at the beach and the stars and the fire.
But she kept looking down the length of beach. Two vehicles sat parked there. Her father’s RV and the CDC trailer, each next to the other. Each a dark shape with windows glowing. Dad said he’d take a nap. Of course he didn’t join them.
He was putting on weight, now, sitting in that driver’s seat all the time. He was like Pete Corley’s chauffeur and attendant. More interested in the rock star than in his own daughter.
Well, you’re going to be a grandfather now, too, jerk.
Shana, don’t think about it.
Okay, Shana.
You’re talking to yourself, Shana.
Shit.
Marcy wasn’t having a good time. She was too far from the flock, she said, and that not only made her agitated, she said that the “glow no longer protected her,” whatever that meant. The woman seemed in pain—her large size made smaller, like she was folding in on herself. They offered to take her back but she said, “No, no, I should take some time, get off the road for a little while.” She offered a forced smile. She said to Pete: “You talk anymore to your wife and kids?”
“No,” he said, his face a gloomy blue made orange as he leaned closer to the fire. “I think they’re done with me. I’ve made my choices.” He snatched the bottle from Mia again and took a big swig.
“At least you have people,” Marcy said. “I don’t have anyone anymore. My dad died from colon cancer. My mother died before that from breast cancer. No kids. And I don’t want love or sex. So.”
Pete sniffed. “Spare me the Misery Olympics.”
“I don’t mean it like that,” Marcy said.
“He’s right,” Mia said. “I hate when people do that. It’s like, Oh, my cat died today, and someone says, Well could be worse, and then they bring up some other shit that has nothing to do with your cat dying.”
“I didn’t mean it like that!”
“All of you shut up,” Shana barked. They turned toward her and she rolled her eyes. “This sucks for everyone in different ways. The world’s gone batshit. Literally, in a way, since I guess maybe this White Mask thing comes from bats? Whatever. I just mean, can we not grouse at each other? It’s not too cold. The stars are pretty. The sound of the sea is nice. Can we just…not…do whatever this is?”
“Ah, fuck it,” Pete said. “I deserve it anyway.”
“Nobody deserves any of this,” Marcy said.
“I was cheating on her. Lena. And I don’t mean in a metaphorical way, like, Oh, I was cheating on her with rock-and-roll, I mean, I was literally fucking somebody else. Lots of somebody elses over the years. Some of them I even loved, gave them my heart. Like a cruel idiot.”
He plugged the bottle in his mouth and drank again. Mia took it back from him, almost having to wrestle it away. “Gimme.”
Shana already knew this about Pete. It was surprising he felt comfortable enough to tell the others at this point, but she figured with the world being what it was, maybe he felt like what did it matter? And they had all grown closer over the last couple of months. Shana asked him, “You still talk to the other women?”
“Not other women. Other men.”
Mia whistled. “Oh shit.”
“I’m gay as the day is blue. Queer as a three-dollar bill.”
“Do they know?” Shana asked. “Your family.”
“Nah. Or maybe they do and I’m blind to it. But I’ve kept a pretty good lid on it. Some of my band knows and…Evil Elvis, that fucker, I hope he gets the fungus except it goes straight up his ass and gives him the powdery moldy shits before he dies.” Everyone gave him strange looks and he waved them off. “Oh, he was going to blackmail me, so fuck him. Others have tried, too. I’d paid off a few journos over the years, people who wanted the exposé. All because I didn’t want to hurt Lena and the kids. Meanwhile, I’m hurting other people. Landry, shit.”
“Laundry?” Mia asked.
“Landry,” Pete said, enunciating the name. “Clean the sand out of your ears, will you? Landry. The man I was with for a while. Before I came here to…do whatever it is I’m here to do.”
“Is he sick?” Marcy asked.
“No. Maybe. Shit, I don’t know.”
“You haven’t spoken to him?”
“No!” Pete said, a sharp rebuke. He softened his voice and said it again: “No. I haven’t spoken to him since…” He winced as he seemed to think about it. “July? Shit. I assume he’s moved on.”
Shana said, “You should call him.”
“What? Why?”
“I dunno. You like him. Or love him. Everything sucks. Maybe he’s waiting for you. Maybe he’s dying or dead. Call him.”
“Really. You think?”
“Unless you want to keep on being a cruel, shitty idiot.”
“I am pretty good at it.”
“That’s probably not a thing to be proud of.”
“Fucking fine, I know, I know.” He slapped his cheeks, made hollow bongo sounds on his own face. “I’ll call him in the morning.”
“Call him now.”
“It’s late. He’s in New York.”
“Wake him,” Marcy said, chiming in. “Like Shana said: Life is short. What if he’s sick? Maybe he needs you.”
“Gods, I hope he’s not sick.” Pete flicked his gaze among them. “I hope none of us are sick. That’s what they’re doing back there, isn’t it? Testing all our swabs. For that insidious disease.”
Fear slithered through Shana. She imagined Arav going through tests. She imagined her own unborn baby. She didn’t know what was happening or what was coming—not with herself, her sister, with any of them. It was enough to make the whole world sway and teeter beneath her like she was standing tippy-toe at the edge of a crumbling cliff, and again she admonished herself, Don’t worry about this, you can’t change any of this, but she remembered seeing the hanging man, and the graves piled with the dead, and the storefronts closed up, the car crashes, hearing the distant sirens, the faraway screams. The world’s gone sick, the wheels are coming off the fucking bus and we’re all riding that bus…
Marcy reached out and touched her arm. Gave her a small smile.
It was enough. Just enough.
For the moment.
It centered her. But it made her wish Arav were here with her around the fire instead of there in that trailer.
* * *
—
ONE BY ONE, the swabs went under the black light.
Most went through and came out clear, which both pleased and surprised Benji. He feared the worst—because, at this point, the worst had become reality. Why not assume everything was on fire and swirling down the drain in perfect simultaneity? But this was welcome news. So far, he’d only found a dozen shepherds who showed any signs of White Mask. That meant tonight he could isolate them and—regrettably—send them on their way. It sounded strange, of course, to label that good news—these were people who presently had been given a terminal diagnosis. A death sentence. Giving them the news was no less than telling someone they had pancreatic cancer or some other metastasized malignancy.
Instead, he focused on the swabs. As did Arav, who sat at a lab station behind him, their stools nearly touching.
The swabs were simple in their design: They soaked them in a staining agent called Sporafluor. Then they went up the nose as far as they could go, swabbing to catch early growth of Rhizopus destrucans. After which, they popped the swabs under a black light.
The staining agent reacted to the fatty esters present in the fungus. If R. destructans was present, the flecks of it on the swab glowed in the black light. No fungal pathogen? No glow.
“I’m having good luck over here,” Benji said, more than a little excitedly. “Not many shepherds. And none of the flock.”
“Same,” Arav said. That one word was cold and invited no more discussion. Benji pushed on, regardless.
“I suspect it’s because few from the outside choose to interact with the flock—though it’s sad to be isolated, it may be working in our favor.” He cleared his throat and turned around. “Not that it’s good any are infected, of course. We’ll
have to move quickly. We’ll have to find them and extricate them so they don’t infect the others—but I’m hopeful we can get control of this. I’m talking too much. Am I talking too much?”
“It’s fine,” Arav said.
“You’re still mad at me.”
“I’m not mad. I don’t hold grudges or do regrets. I don’t think they’re useful.” Arav stayed focused on his work.
“That’s a more mature outlook than in those who live a hundred years, Arav. I admire your wisdom.”
“It’s not wisdom. It’s just reality. Of course, I don’t know what reality this even is anymore. Nothing feels real. And I suspect you’re keeping things from me, even still. I don’t hate you for it, but I don’t find it comfortable.” Arav finally turned around. “I understand it, though.”
“I’m sorry. I think you know what I know. I wish you didn’t.”
“And you trust Black Swan. And Sadie. And all of them.”
“No. But…what choice do I have? I feel trapped. If I do something, if I try to…stop the flock, what if I stop the one mechanism we have to foster a small, smart, healthy group of survivors?”
Arav sighed. “I guess.” He paused. “You haven’t told them, yet. The other shepherds.”
“About the…swarm?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“I don’t know. I fear they’d leave just when I need them.”
“I think you should tell them. And you should tell Marcy that it’s not angels. That it’s just…some defect, a glitch. Her skull plate has turned into a receiver, hasn’t it?”
“I don’t want to rob her of her faith,” Benji said. Worse, Benji couldn’t quite explain why she felt so good around the walkers. His best guess was that, since her skull plate was resting on her ocular nerve, causing deep, body-wracking migraines, the delicate vibration from the incoming swarm frequency was enough to alleviate pressure. There had been studies in the past on how certain radio frequencies or sound waves could be used to inhibit pain. This, he imagined, was that.