Useless Bastard

by Hooke, A. J. A.

  Josh then turned towards the electronics store and drove part way onto the field next to it. There was a grinding sound and Dave could see the bus backing up towards the van that Josh had parked earlier. Dave thought that maybe he should be helping out by doing some sort of signalling, but there was little point if Dave didn't know what Josh was trying to do. And so Dave watched Josh drive the bus back and forth until there was a sudden silence as the bus engine stopped.

  The bus was backed up against the van that was near the butchers. The bus stretched across the road and extended past the front of the electronics store. Dave walked up and was impressed by how tightly the bus had been parked. Oddly Dave could hear Josh walking on the other side of the bus towards the van. So Dave walked over the van. He heard one van door open and then the other.

  "It's not a great gate but if we build up some ramps in front of these van doors we could probably still get a trolly with a load through here. A bit awkward but I think it will be doable."

  Dave nodded. "That's genius. I would never have thought of something this simple."

  Josh closed the far door of the van, got out, and closed the remaining door. "And it's easy to close up."

  "I like it. This is a lot better than I imagined."

  "We make a good team."

  "That sounds really corny but I've got to agree with it."

  "I think most of what we've done here will be good enough to hold off some evil minded visitors, but there's still the gap between the back of the supermarket and the house next to it. I reckon that the gap there is big enough for someone to walk through. We're going to probably have to put a temporary fence there. Just have to find some planks and nails."

  Dave turned and looked to the arts and crafts store. "Do you think that they'd have something?"

  "Maybe they have something to make frames for the canvas panels. That could be all that we need. At least for something that's temporary. It's worth checking out."

  * * *

  Dave and Josh walked out of the arts and craft store. They had made a surprisingly good haul. Some decent planks. Tools like a box-cutter, a saw and a hammer. Some small bags of nails and even some ropes. Nothing that would make a great defence but enough to be a useful, temporary block.

  "Let's go and fill in the gap behind the supermarket," said Josh.

  "Shouldn't we just block it with a van?" asked Dave.

  "That might be a good idea. I want to have a look first. My worry is that if we do park a van over the gap that it might be used to climb up onto the roof."

  Dave looked at the SUVs that he had parked earlier. The only way to approach them from the outside was on the far side. That is the gaps were blocked by the tallest parts of the SUV. But if you were to approach the SUV from this side you could easily enough climb onto the bonnet and then have even less trouble stepping over the windscreen to get onto the SUV's roof. Dave was surprised to notice that the geometry of the vehicle that you used had an influence on the effectiveness of the defence.

  "And I completely forgot about the glass windows that are on that side of the supermarket."

  "I guess we'll have to board off the windows on that side. It's not great but it should only be temporary anyway. I've gotten to like the idea of using big heavy vehicles as walls. I can't see them being easily broken through."

  "We'll probably have to block off the street going west as well."

  "We should probably block them all off. Just to get a series of defensive lines."

  "Before our plans get too complex, let's just have a look. Maybe we can come up with a simpler solution."

  Dave and Josh walked past the doors to the supermarket and placed their recent findings on the ground. Josh grabbed onto the side of the bus and clambered up. Dave took a moment to assess that Josh was easily fitter then himself - a fault that Dave would have to improve. Working for long time in an office had made Dave a bit on the weaker side - physically and mentally.

  "Fuck," hissed Josh.

  Dave almost said something before he noticed Josh was signalling for quiet. Josh crouched down.

  "We got company," whispered Josh.

  "How many?" whispered Dave.

  "I only see the one."

  "A walker?"

  "Yep. He doesn't seem to have noticed me."

  Dave looked thoughtful. "Make sure he's alone."

  Josh hissed a profanity to himself. Still, Josh slowly raised himself part way up and looked down at the visitor. Josh then looked away and looked down the various different road directions. Josh then disappeared from Dave's sight. Dave assumed that Josh had climbed down from the wall and was climbing the other walls to inspect the roads in their respective directions.

  Dave looked down at the pile of items that they had gotten form the arts and crafts store just before. He picked up the box-cutter and put it into one of his pockets and picked up a few of the coils of rope. The ropes didn't fit into his pockets but Dave could hang them well enough off his pant's belt for them to stay in place while he climbed the bus in front of him.

  On top of the bus, Dave crouched and looked west. He couldn't see the walker that Josh had mentioned. Maybe the walker had been further up the street and was now too close to the defensive wall to be seen. Dave could see Josh on top of the other defensive walls where Josh was having a good look around.

  Dave quietly walked to the edge of the bus and carefully lowered himself down. He walked to the western wall and clambered up and onto the bus that made up the wall. Dave crawled to the edge of the bus and looked right down into the face of the walker. The walker was just standing down there while looking up at Dave. Dave felt chilled at the calm way that the walker was just staring at Dave.

  Finding no need to be stealthy Dave stood up and began to drop all but one of the rope coils down to the road near the walker. For a few moments the walker turned its head to look at down at the fallen rope before looking back up at Dave. Josh soon joined Dave in looking at the walker.

  "I've only ever run away before," said Josh talking normally, "so this feels incredibly creepy."

  Dave took the rope that he hadn't dropped, uncoiled it, and used the box-cutter to cut the rope in half. Dave retracted the blade of the box-cutter before putting it back into his pocket.

  "Here," said Dave while handing one of the rope pieces to Josh. "Try and make a noose."

  "Are you going to do something crazy like try and drag it away?"

  "No, we're going to do something even worse."

  Dave finished making his noose and he opened it up enough for a head to fit in it. Josh copied Dave and watched Dave expectantly. The rope had a certain amount of stiffness to it that allowed Dave to lower the noose down and over the walker's head. Dave lowered the rope enough so that the noose hung loosely about the walker's neck.

  "Okay," said Dave. "Your turn."

  Though Josh didn't seem too pleased, he still quickly managed to get his noose in the same place as Dave's.

  Dave pointed to the left. "I'll walk this way." And then he pointed to the right. "And you walk that way. Try not to fall off the bus."

  "I'm thinking that it would be easier to just run up the road as bait if you want him to leave."

  "Oh no, this is going to be way more fun than that."

  Dave and Josh walked apart. When the angle of the ropes were about half way between horizontal and vertical Dave began to slowly pull on his rope. Josh noticed what Dave was doing and also started to pull on his piece of rope. The nooses closed firmly on the walker's neck.

  "So now what? I doubt that we can pull hard enough to pop his head off."

  "I want you to hold your rope firmly."

  "And?"

  "Try and stop the walker from getting me as I climb down."

  "Fuck," swore Josh as he saw Dave drop his rope and climb down.

  This activity hadn't been unnoticed and the walker turned and tried to walk towards Dave.

  "This is weird," said Josh. "He's not pulling so hard that I can
't control him."

  "I'm surprised by that. I was hoping that you'd just slow him down. I can't believe that these walkers are so easy to overpower."

  "Anyway. Whatever you're going to do could you do it already? This is just the time where something goes horribly wrong."

  Dave picked up his previously dropped rope and started to walk towards a metal street light post that was on the opposite side of the street to the supermarket. The walker tried to follow but was held back by Josh. Dave made a single loose lope around the light post.

  "Let out some slack," said Dave.

  Josh slowly let out rope while Dave slowly walked away from the light pole. The net result was that the walker found itself pulled towards the light post.

  "You've got enough space there," said Dave. "Drop down and we'll finish this off."

  Josh dropped his rope and quickly lowered himself down the street level. The walker's attention switched from Dave to Josh, but Dave's loop around the light pole made controlling the walker easy. Josh picked up his rope again.

  "So far so good," said Josh.

  "Now comes the tricky part. If anything goes wrong run away. I'll do the same. The walkers seem slow so there's no point dying while trying to be a hero. We can just take however long it takes to do this safely."

  Dave slowly pulled on his rope causing the walker to back up against the light pole.

  "I need you to keep the walker's attention for a few minutes," said Dave.

  Josh immediately started to sprout a sequence of profanity that Dave found impressive. The walker become very interested in Josh and tried to walk towards him. Dave quietly walked up to the light pole while keeping out of sight of the walker. Dave watched the walker really carefully while he reached for the loop that was around the light pole and slid it up to the same height as the walker's neck.

  The walker seemed aware of Dave and started turning around. Josh started to jump up and down and wave his arms while getting closer to the walker. The walker in turn lost interest in Dave and focused on Josh. Forgotten by the walker Dave proceed to pull the rope tight to the light pole, locking the walker's head and neck firmly against the pole.

  This resulted in the walker being very interested in Dave, while at the same time not being able to move its upper body. Dave proceeded to firmly tie the walker to the light pole. There was still a good amount of rope left over and Dave cut off the spare using the box-cutter that he got from his pockets.

  "Now," said Dave pointing the walker's neck, "time for you to tie your piece."

  "Shit," said Josh taking a wide arc to get behind the walker and tie his piece of rope to the electric light pole. Dave cut the spare part of the rope when Josh was finished. Josh walked an arc around the walker, making sure to stay out of the walker's grasping distance, and stood a safe distance in front of the walker.

  "One last thing," said Dave. "Keep its attention for a bit."

  "Sure," said Josh sounding unsure, yet he still yelled out: "Hey, stupid!" The walker was very interested in Josh's following sequence of insults.

  While Josh yelled at he walker, Dave snuck behind the walker line of sight. At first Dave knelt down and started using the box cutter on the walker's pants. The pants were mostly rags and it took little time for Dave to cut and tear away the cloth fragments. Josh's eyes opened wide in surprise but the stream of abuse continued.

  Dave wasn't making any effort to be careful in his treatment of the walker and just slashed quickly at the clothes with the box cutter. Dave was more concerned about his own safety. He preferred to cut quickly and keep his distance than stay too long near the tied up walker. As a result Dave ended up putting some really deep gashes into the walker's body. Dave's initial curiosity about how the wounds would bleed turned to shock when he saw what really happened to the open wounds.

  The walker had lost all its footwear and was completely bare foot, this resulted in Dave standing up and cutting apart the torn shirt that the walker was wearing. A few more cuts with the box cutter and the underclothes were removed, leaving the walker tied naked to the light pole by its neck. Dave gathered up the removed clothing and tossed it against the defensive wall.

  "Although he seems pretty well anchored to the light post, I don't really like how his hands are free."

  "More nooses?" asked Josh.

  Dave nodded and picked up some previously discarded rope from before. "Here," said Dave handing one piece to Josh.

  Quietly they made up another pair of nooses. The walker seemed to be helping them as his hands were raised towards Dave and Josh. Dave carefully juggled his noose onto the walker's hand on his side, while Josh did the same with his noose and the walker's hand on his side.

  "Tie these together around the back?" asked Josh.

  "No. Hold your hand here for a moment. I want each hand tied separately to the light post."

  With that Dave dragged the walker's arm downward and back. When the walker's wrist was close to the light pole, Dave looped the free end of the rope about the light pole and tied a rough looking knot. Dave stepped back and nodded towards Josh. Josh proceeded to do a mirror version of what Dave had just done. Once he had finished, Josh walked around to the front of the walker where Dave was standing.

  "We're done," said Dave. "No need for any further song and dance. He isn't going anywhere and with his hands tied we should be somewhat safe as only his feet are free and he doesn't look like the kicking type."

  "I thought that you were pretty sick there when you started to cut off his clothes. I'm not too sure about finding out that this is how you swing. I can live with gay but having a thing for the dead?"

  Dave laughed. "No, I actually have a pants on explanation."

  "This ought to be interesting."

  They walked back to the defensive walk and climbed up. They turned to look west and sat down with their legs hanging over the edge of the bus's top.

  "I got to admit that I hadn't thought that we'd be doing something this bizarre," said Josh.

  Dave nodded. "I wasn't planning on doing this so soon, but we've managed to acquire our first specimen."

  "Just fuck me now," said Josh laughing towards Dave. "I was expecting interesting, not fucked up."

  * * *

  Dave stood up and looked down at the walker that they had tied up to an electric light pole. "Let's leave Charlie for a moment and get back to our chores."

  Josh also stood, and then thumbed at the walker. "So he's got a name now?"

  "He was once human."

  "But he's not any more."

  Dave frowned. "How do we know that?"

  "What?"

  "If this only affected a small part of the population then our society could have mostly survived. The electricity would probably still be on and we'd have access to information. Even if in the form of statements from politicians. Most importantly there would be scientists. There would be people taking the time to look deeply into this and try and understand what happens."

  "Do we need to know anything? Can't this just be some shit that happens and then we forget about?"

  "If we don't even know what's going on then it becomes nearly impossible to talk about it. Here's something simple. When I first saw things like Charlie I struggled to find a name for it. You gave me the idea for the naming convention."

  "I just called them 'shitters'. It's not a particularly technical expression."

  "But you hit upon how we should name things for now. You saw something like Charlie attacking a living human and decided that was 'shitty' behaviour. You then used that as a basis for you name. In other words you didn't create a term that described what Charlie was instead you chose a name based on what Charlie did. You took a functional approach to naming instead of a descriptive one."

  "I wasn't thinking that deeply at the time."

  "Neither of us was thinking that deeply. I suspect that at the time neither of us actually understood what Charlie was. We saw living humans being ripped apart by the dead. Afterwards those pi
eces would then reform into a whole body. We sort of assumed that in the process of being torn apart that the original living human had died. But think about what it means when a reassembled body stands up. Standing up and walking around are simply not behaviours that a dead person does."

  "So you're saying that our Charlie here isn't actually dead?"

  "I'm saying that we don't know. The process in making a Charlie looks like it starts by killing a human being that's actually alive, but then these freshly dead don't just lie down like a dead body. There's something that we're missing and the terms 'alive' and 'dead' simply don't apply. At least not in the way that we applied them in the past."

  "So what do we do with our Charlie friend then?"

  "I don't really know, but I did notice something odd. When I was cutting away his clothes I would accidentally cut into his body."

  Josh looked down at Charlie. "He doesn't look cut up."

  "He isn't. All my cuts healed before my eyes. I couldn't see any process to it. The wounds just pressed themselves together and the corresponding marks on the skin faded away. I didn't see bleeding. I didn't see pus oozing out of the wound. I didn't see little tendrils reaching across the wound. I didn't see anything that seemed to be actually driving the healing process. It just happened."

  "That's crazy. Maybe your cuts were just shallow."

  "Maybe. I know that it sounds crazy, and that's why I want to know more. Maybe I'm trying to prove that I'm not crazy. Maybe I'm just being overly curious. Our society has broken down. There's no parent in the form of government telling us what we should know in order to survive. But I'm curious and I want to think things through for myself, so I'll first start with studying Charlie. If there's no one else to tell me what's happening then I have to do all the work myself."

  "I've never been the one to think deeply but I feel that this is one of those times that I'm glad I'm like this. I'm just worried about what we'll discover. What if we find out something that we regret finding out? There's no way to unknow something."