by Ward, Tracey
And I’m itching to be the head of my own house.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I think it’s past time we took it.”
“The people inside have been good neighbors. They won’t be happy to see us come kicking down their door.”
“Fuck ‘em.”
Marlow chuckles. “Eloquently put.”
“Are we doing it? Are we taking the other stadium?”
He looks behind me at the crops in the field and the homes built over the bleachers. It’s not crowded. We have plenty of space to grow, but do we want more?
Doesn’t everyone always want more?
“I hate gardening,” Marlow says suddenly. “My nana loved it. She tried to get me to help her in her vegetable garden when I was a kid but I never stayed. I wanted to be out running and playing. Do you know what my favorite game was?”
“Capture the flag.”
He looks at me in surprise. “How did you know that?”
“Because you’ve told me before.”
Three times, I think mockingly.
“You liked it because it was a game of strategy,” I continue, “like chess. Intelligence won over brute force.”
He chuckles. “I really have told you this before.”
“Your mind is slipping, old man,” I smirk. “Better get that checked out.”
“Thank God you’re here to watch after me in my dotage.”
I look away, annoyed by the word ‘dotage’. I don’t know what it means and I’m sure that’s why he used it. I’ll always be younger than him, always better looking, better liked, but I’ll never be smarter. He was taught to read at a young age by a grandmother who loved him. She cared about his future. She made sure he did well in school and paid for him to go to college, and even though he used all of that knowledge to run a gambling operation for the biggest thug in Seattle he still has it. He’s still pumped full of things I’ll never know.
“As much as I hate it, these gardens are important,” he explains, his words a thoughtful drawl. “They give people hope. They’re a physical manifestation of their labor. They work hard, they get results. They think the world is dead and gone, but here come new buds. New fruit, new life. It keeps going and when they look at the gardens, whether they know it or not, that’s what they see. Life and hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“The future. Themselves. Their kids.” He waves his hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. It makes them happy and happy people are more productive. They’re easier to manage. The garden keeps them focused and docile, so whatever’s happening with the crops we need to straighten it out. If they start to worry they’ll go hungry they’ll get loud. They’ll get ideas and that’s not something I want to deal with.”
“So the baseball stadium,” I say leadingly, bringing us back around.
He waves me away. “We’ll discuss it after the head count. We’ll do a little weeding out before we take on anything else.”
“But when we take it you’ll let me have it. You’ll let me run it.”
“Like I said,” he replies amiably, “we’ll discuss it after the head count. In the meantime I have more meetings and you have a fight to get to. Who are you going up against today?”
“Some guy from the Westies.”
“Should I bet on you?”
“You’d be stupid not to.”
He laughs as he waves toward Mike, one of his guards. “Head down to the theater. Put in a marker for me on Vincent to win.”
“How much?” Mike asks.
“That’s a good question. How much, Vincent?” Marlow asks me. “How much should I stake in you?”
He’s gauging me. Asking me to set my own worth. Too high and I’m an overconfident, hot-headed kid who can’t be trusted. Too low and I don’t trust myself.
I should tell him to put down fifty. It’s higher than the average bet, even for a man like Marlow, but it’s not too high. It’s a safe answer.
“A Benjamin,” I tell Mike. “One hundred dollars to win.”
He stares at me blankly, obviously not sure if I’m joking or insane. He looks to Marlow hesitantly but the boss gives him nothing. He just watches me, unmoved. Finally Mike nods his head and backs away, heading for the exit and the theater. He’ll place the bet and if Marlow wins, he stands to win big.
But if he loses – if I lose – both Mike and I are in some serious shit.
“Good luck today, Vincent,” Marlow tells me with a satisfied smile. “Be sure to give us all a good show.”
***
The Underground used to be the WAMU Theater – an event center sitting between the ballpark and the football stadium. It’s a big empty space not good for much anymore. You definitely wouldn’t want to try to live here. Not unless you like the dark because when the torches aren’t lit, that’s all this windowless cave is. All it’s good for now are the fights and the market.
I cruise through the doors, nodding to the guys standing guard and scanning the crowd. It’s a good turnout. The old lobby is full of vendors setting up shop. They range from clothes to food to booze. A rare few even sell skin, the women from their gangs dressed in next to nothing walking up and down the line of makeshift shops and doing business in dark corners or busted up bathrooms.
I’ve built this thing from the ground up. It started out as me and some guys from other gangs sparring to stay sharp and in shape, but then it grew and I encouraged it to keep on growing. We started lining up fights and placing bets. People showed up just to watch, then to bet, then they started to bargain and trade until the market sprung up in the lobby, the only place where the daylight can get in.
Once the vendors started coming, more people started to show. Now other gangs in the area come in droves every week to get in on the action and make connections, and every vendor who sets up shop, no matter what he’s selling, pays me a fee.
A fee Marlow doesn’t know anything about.
It’s dangerous. If he found out that I was earning that money on the side it wouldn’t matter who I am or how closely I work with him. I’d be as dead as the smugglers he’s trying to ferret out. I can’t do it forever and eventually if things get too big I’ll have to start handing the profits over, but not yet. Not until I’m done stockpiling. What I’m saving up for I don’t know, but money is still power and there’s never been anything in this world I’ve wanted more than that.
“How are you gonna rig the fight this time?” an angry voice asks from behind me. “Put a laxative in his water?”
I turn with a smile. “Nah. Sleeping pill.”
Nate shakes his head in disgust and looks away. It’s tough to see him where he’s hiding in the shadowy corner of the room, but it’s not so tough that I can’t see the slings.
“How are the arms?” I ask him.
“Fuck you.”
I chuckle, sticking out my hand for him to shake. “Come on, man. No hard feelings.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“I think it depends on which side of the street you’re standing on. From here it’s hilarious.”
“I almost died that night thanks to you. No other Pikes were here. I had to make it home alone with two broken arms.”
I cross my own arms over my chest and shrug. “If we’re being real, I’m surprised you came out today.”
“My boys brought me,” he admits in a hushed mumble. “They had to guard me the whole damn way. I couldn’t fight. All I could do was run.”
“Good to see the injury hasn’t changed you.”
“Fuck you,” he growls angrily.
I slap him on the shoulder, making him wince. “You said that already. You have a good night, alright? I’ll see you around.”
I leave him there in the dark corner by himself to sulk in his sling. Dude had it coming. I have no regrets about busting him up the way I did, him or any other Pike. They’re loud-mouth, angry assholes and while most guys would be worried about having the whole crew feeling ugly toward them, I couldn’t car
e less. They’re welcome to come at me and see where it gets them, and when Nate heals up I’ll be waiting for him.
“Vin!” Asher calls, waving me over. “We got a problem.”
I saunter slowly to where he’s towering over some pasty white kid with his six feet four inches of ebony skin, gleaming bald head, and heavy intimidation. “With what?”
“The guy you’re supposed to fight,” his voice rumbles, “he didn’t show.”
“So what? It’s early.”
“It’s not that early. I told him the rules when he signed up. You get here early or you don’t fight.”
I shrug, unconcerned. It’s not the first time a fighter has gotten cold feet and bailed or just straight up disappeared. Hell, one time a guy died in front of me on the guard two days before I was supposed to fight him. The world is ugly. People die every day.
“Alright, so get me an alternate. Where’s Bennett?”
“He refuses to go in the ring with you anymore.”
“Sore loser.” I smile to myself, pointing over my shoulder. “Get Nate in the ring. I’ll just bitch him slap him for twelve rounds.”
Asher isn’t laughing. He looks heavily at the kid next to him. “Tell him.”
“The guy you’re looking for,” the kid says anxiously, “he’s not a Westie.”
My smile immediately fades. “What do you mean he’s not a Westie? He quit? He was kicked out?”
“No, I mean I’ve never heard of him. There’s no Greg in our gang and the way he described him,” he points to Asher, “I’ve never seen him either. He’s not one of us.”
I look to Asher who’s already watching me, then glance back at the kid. “Get lost, alright?”
“Yeah,” he mutters, already hurrying away.
I step up close to Asher, lowering my voice. “If he wasn’t a Westie, then who was he?”
“Not a clue. You want me to ask around? See if anyone else knows him?”
“No, not yet.
“How many times was he on the Guard?”
“Just once.”
“And he was good?”
“Good enough that I let him sign up for the Underground after one day on the job.”
I watch the crowd milling around us. It’s full of familiar faces. People who greet me by name and wish me good luck. People I can identify. That I’ve grown to know over the last three years because even though it’s a big world out there, for the most part we’re pretty closed off here in Seattle. You see the same people over and over again, and even though you might not know them all by name, you learn to recognize them. So much so that new faces start to seem weird.
“This isn’t go—“ I begin.
My words are cut in two by the blare of a siren that screams through the room. We all stare at each other in amazement, stunned into silence. Most people don’t know what it means. It’s never gone off before and it’s none of their business, but that might be about to change because that siren is a last resort. It’s a distress call.
It means the stadium is in trouble.
Chapter Twelve
Trent
I don’t sleep for a week after the incident on the ship. My arm aches from where the bullet grazed me and it’s a constant reminder of how completely wrong that afternoon went. I go in and out, my body shutting down to survive, but nightmares wake me up every time. My schedule is thrown off and I’m up at all hours, even in the dark when I shouldn’t be on the ground.
I’ve learned from the animals, just like Dad told me to. They can tell when one of the zombies is coming. Rabbits go in their holes, deer run for the thick of the trees, and entire flocks of birds will take to the skies. That’s when I know I need to move. It doesn’t matter where my camp is at that moment, I run with the animals. I head in the same direction the birds fly and I don’t stop until I’m exhausted.
They still find me sometimes. There are times when I’ll be going about my day either fishing or hunting or just taking a walk to clear my head or stretch my legs, when suddenly one will come out of nowhere. Even out here on the coast in the woods with no big cities around, a stray infected will find its way to me.
I kill them when it happens. I don’t think about it and I don’t debate it. I just do it. Then I burn the bodies.
I have to relocate afterwards. The scent scares the animals away meaning it scares my dinner, and I go where the food goes. In the beginning I buried them, but I started having dreams about them rising from the earth and climbing into my tree to find me, their rotted faces covered in dirt and their mouths open and groaning. I jerked awake so hard one night that I fell out of my tree. I tweaked my knee and couldn’t run for almost a month. I was pretty sure I was going to die. That’s when I started the fires.
“Go to the woods. Stay clear of people. Hide with the animals.” I chant under my breath. “Go to the woods. Stay clear of people. Hide with the animals.”
I push through the low brush quickly and quietly. It’s half a mile from my camp to the road and I repeat the words to myself the entire way.
“Go to the woods. Stay clear of people. Hide with the animals.”
It’s ironic that talking to myself is how I stay sane, but I have to do it. I have to use my voice and hear it in my ears. I’m worried if I never speak that I’ll forget how, so every day for at least half an hour I talk to myself, just to prove that I can. Sometimes I sing songs that I remember. I memorize and recite poems from a book I found in an abandoned beach house a year ago. I don’t like them, they’re abstract and stupid, but the words are weird and they keep me thinking. I like to think it all keeps me human.
I find my favorite tree along the road and easily climb halfway up it. I have a spear stashed up here, one that I built just for this purpose – hunting small game. Lately, though, with the nightmares and my lack of sleep, the tree serves a second purpose. Napping.
It only takes an hour or so of sitting up here with my back against the bark and the spear laid lazily across my lap for my head to start to droop. I shake myself a couple of times to stay awake, I even try reciting poetry and my mantra to keep me busy, but even though I can run from death, I can’t escape sleep.
“Go to the woods,” I mumble, my eyes falling shut. “Stay clear of people. Hide with the animals. Go to the woods. Stay clear of people. Hide with the animals… Go to the woods… stay clear of people.”
“Just a little farther, dude! Come on! Please!”
My eyes snap open, my body going rigid. I passed out. I fell asleep and now that my eyes are open I don’t know if I’m awake or dreaming.
Two people are coming toward me. They pitch and weave as they walk. Both look like men, though one is pretty young. I can’t see his face but his height would say eleven or twelve. Maybe younger. He’s stumbling, the guy next to him dragging him more than anything. Both have the same golden brown hair, the same dirty, tattered clothes, but the one who is shouting looks like he’s my age. He’s a few inches shorter but a couple inches broader. Every ounce of strength he has appears to be dedicated to pulling the younger kid along.
“You can make it, Ry,” he grunts roughly. “We’re almost there.”
I don’t know where ‘there’ is to them, but they are most definitely not almost to it. Not unless they’re looking for death. The closer they get the better I can see how bad off they are. Pale. Staggering. Slow. One zombie is all it would take to kill them, and it might not even take that. The cold of the coming night will be enough to end the little one.
“Stop.”
I’m as surprised to hear my voice as they are. All of us pause, the bigger guy scanning the tree line frantically. He’s looking too low.
“We—we aren’t armed,” he stutters.
His voice is rough and quiet. He’s probably dehydrated.
“It’s not smart to travel unarmed,” I admonish him.
“We didn’t really get a chance to plan ahead.”
His eyes continue to scan the brush underneath me. Now that they’ve
stopped moving the kid has slouched against him completely. His chin is against his chest. It rises and falls with labored breath.
“Where are you coming from?” I ask.
“Oregon. Woodburn.”
“You’re from the quarantine zone.”
“Yeah. You?”
“Nowhere.”
“You’re from nowhere?” he asks, sounding confused. His eyes are all over the place. He’s probably disoriented.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” he answers weakly. “Somewhere safe.”
“There is nowhere safe.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” The guy shifts the weight of his friend, hoisting him higher only to have him slouch even closer to the ground. “It’s been fun talking to you,” he groans, “but we need to keep moving. My brother needs water.”
I note his chapped lips. The heavy rise and fall of his breath, obviously from exertion, but there’s no sweat on his face and arms. His body is dried out. Used up.
“You won’t make it to water,” I promise him.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes.”
“You wanna point me in the direction of it anyway? Give us a shot?”
“You have no shot. You’ll both collapse before you make it.”
“Cool,” he replies dryly. “Thank you for that, but unless you’re going to kill us if we keep moving, we’re outta here.”
“Wait,” I say as I carefully stow my spear.
“I don’t have time to wait, man,” he snaps impatiently. “He needs water.”
I drop down from the tree, landing smoothly on the rough ground. The guy lurches back in surprise. He nearly stumbles and I wish I would have thought to warn him. I didn’t mean to scare him. I step slowly from the thick cover of bushes at my feet and come to stand in front of him on the road, my hands plainly visible and still.
“I have water,” I tell him.
He blinks rapidly, his eyes darting to the brush behind me.
“I’m alone,” I assure him calmly.