20
GULFPORT
The next day I woke up with cotton mouth and a nagging headache. I’d stayed up late, drowning myself in a bottle of whiskey and self-pity. Prit had joined me but hadn’t offered any advice. Just having him there eased my anxiety. He knew all too well that sometimes there’s nothing you can say.
I was caught in a dilemma. On one hand, the clean, germfree world of Gulfport disgusted me as much as it did Lucia. On the other hand, it seemed like our only option. Wandering around in the Undead wasteland the United States had become, we wouldn’t stand a fucking chance.
“What do you think, Prit?”
My old friend stirred his coffee and collected his thoughts, choosing his words carefully. “When I was very young, I lived on a collective farm on the steppes in Central Asia. Our school was a beautiful wooden building that had been painted red. We were taught that our way of life was the pinnacle of human endeavor and that the Soviet spirit was at the heart of a worker’s paradise. We knew nothing of the West, except that it was the Motherland’s enemy. One day, when I was eight, I was on my way to school when I saw a policeman arrest a man. At first I thought he must be a thief or something like that.” Pritchenko smiled sadly as the childhood memory came alive. “What did I know? I was only eight. Later I learned that the man was arrested because his son, who was a soldier stationed in Berlin, had defected to the West.”
Prit paused for a moment, his mind far from Gulfport. “I always wondered what motivated the man’s son to desert, knowing the price his family would pay. What drove a man to make a decision with such painful consequences? How much did he suffer when he made that decision?”
The Ukrainian looked me in the eye. “I know more about suffering now than I did back then. I also know that, to make a drastic decision, a person must feel he has no alternative, no matter the consequences. I don’t think you’ve reached that point yet. Plus you let the responsibility you feel for us weigh you down too much.” Pritchenko shook his head. “I’m your friend and I’d die for you if I had to. I see your point of view and Lucia’s too. But I’ll stand by you, whatever you decide.”
“Thanks, Prit.” I choked up as I looked into Prit’s eyes. He’d hardly aged in the two years since we met. Except for those missing fingers on his right hand and a few wrinkles around his eyes, he was the same short-tempered, half-crazy guy who’d stuck by me in the ruins of Vigo. And one of the best people I’d ever known.
We had spent half the night talking and laughing about all the times we’d cheated death and all the things we’d do if the Undead ever disappeared for good. We had finally dozed off in front of the crackling fireplace.
When I got up, Pritchenko was lying on the couch, snoring like a freight train; Lucullus was curled up on his lap. I dragged myself to the bathroom, took a long, hot shower, shaved, and put on one of the suits hanging in a closet. It was a size too big, but I looked pretty good. It felt strange to be in a suit and tie after so long.
I went to Lucia’s room. Her door was locked. I knocked softly, but she didn’t answer.
“Lucia,” I said to the closed door. “I’m sorry for what I said last night. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Everything I do is to make sure we have a future.” I wasn’t sure what to say next. “Let’s talk when I get home tonight. We’ll straighten everything out. I love you.”
I left the house feeling empty inside. A beautiful Lexus sat in the driveway with keys in the ignition. I assumed it came with the house. Since the town was too far away to walk to, I got in and started the engine.
As I drove through the empty streets, I realized that, for the first time in years, I wasn’t trying to outrun anyone or anything. And yet, I kept catching myself looking around in a panic or accelerating through tight spots, as if a mob of Undead were after me.
The Apocalypse had changed me. Were those changes for the better? Would they last forever?
21
When I arrived at city hall, Mrs. Compton was waiting for me amid a sea of staff scurrying to their offices.
“Good morning,” she said. “Hope you slept well. There’s a ton of work waiting for you. Mr. Wilcox, who used to run the Office of Hispanic Helots, died on the golf course three months ago of an aneurysm. Mr. Talbot, head of the Office of Black Helots, has overseen the two departments since then, but he doesn’t know a word of Spanish and has made a huge mess of everything. Hope you can make sense of all that paperwork.”
“Paperwork?”
“You’ll see. Follow me.”
Mrs. Compton led me to a large office in the northwest corner of the building. When she opened the door, my heart sank. Mountains of folders were stacked on top of every surface and sticking out of overflowing filing cabinets. Some of the stacks were on the verge of falling over.
“Sue Anne will be your personal assistant.” Mrs. Compton pointed to a blond girl in her early twenties sitting at a nearby desk. She was smiling nervously and chewing gum. She reminded me of a cow chewing its cud. “Ask her anything. She’s here to serve you.”
After talking to Sue Anne for a few minutes, I realized I couldn’t entrust the girl with anything more complicated than making photocopies or bringing me coffee. She looked very Aryan, so she fit right in, but the Creator had apparently forgotten to give her a brain.
“Well, let’s sort through this mountain of paperwork and determine what’s a priority and what can wait. Write down the titles of the folders, then create an index, OK?”
Sue Anne looked at me dumbfounded, as if I’d asked her to piss into a glass and give it to Mrs. Compton to drink. She even stopped chewing her gum.
“You know what an index is, don’t you, Sue Anne?”
“It’s a type of music, right?” she said and nodded, feeling more confident. “The Music Index. My cousin Norma loves them.”
“Forget it, dear,” I sighed. “I have a better idea. Find me some coffee that’s better than this swill.”
As soon as Sue Anne left (oh, God, let that coffee be very, very hard to find), I sat down in the middle of my office and started to divide up the folders. After a while, I worked out a system. An hour later, I’d made three piles. One group of files contained the expenditures of the Hispanic helots. Another group referred to supplies and living conditions in the Bluefont ghetto. The third group of files pertained to the regular supply of Cladoxpan.
As I sorted through those folders, I got a clearer picture of how Gulfport was run. Twenty-three thousand white people lived in Gulfport. Seven thousand people lived in the helot ghetto of Bluefont, about twenty-five people in each of the three hundred houses. That was too many, even for those spacious houses. Bluefont was inside the Wall, but was separated from the rest of the city by a fence and a river they’d channeled alongside it like a moat. The bridge where I’d negotiated with Carlos Mendoza connected Bluefont to the rest of Gulfport.
Every week, helots gathered at the south end of the bridge, and Green Guards gave them the weapons they needed. Then they headed out on expeditions to towns within a hundred-mile radius. Sometimes they were gone for several days. When they came to a town, they loaded their trucks with any supplies they could find for insatiable, affluent Gulfport. When they returned, they parked the loaded trucks in the town’s warehouse and turned in their guns. As payment, they received Cladoxpan, which kept them from changing into Undead.
On those expeditions, there were inevitable casualties, not from TSJ—nearly a hundred percent of the helots were already infected—but from the terrible wounds the Undead inflicted.
Due to these losses, the population of helots remained more or less stable. Every so often, like a steady drip, individuals or groups of people showed up at Gulfport or crossed paths with the supply expeditions. If they were black, Native American, Latino, or Asian, they were offered shelter and companionship in Bluefont, where they were compelled to live a life of semislavery. The few who wer
e white, like Lucia, Prit, and me, joined the population on the other side of the fence.
The helots outnumbered the Green Guard, which comprised just forty Aryan Nations ex-cons and a militia of a hundred and fifty soldiers. Charged with maintaining the safety of Gulfport, the guards and militia would have been powerless to control the crowd of infected helots. So, from time to time, they carried out a Nazi-style “cleansing” in the ghetto. As I read, my palms grew clammy and I broke out in a cold sweat. I found numerous folders with “EXPELLED” written in big red letters across them, but no explanation inside. I hesitated, then picked up the phone and called Mrs. Compton.
“Oh, those are the helots who break the rules. Murderers, drunks, thieves, and rapists, the scum of the earth,” she replied cheerfully to my questions. “The Office of Justice processes those files.”
“I’d like to see those files.” The lawyer in me had awakened and was trying to figure out what sort of twisted justice the Reverend Greene applied.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Mrs. Compton said primly. “That department answers directly to the reverend and those reports are confidential.”
I hung up, intrigued. After making sure Sue Anne hadn’t returned, I prowled the halls until I found the Office of Justice. The door was locked. A number of people milled around in the hall. If I lingered too long or tried to force the door open, they would get suspicious. I’d have to find another way to get my hands on those files.
I returned to my office, brooding. One of the file cabinets was labeled “Certificates of Residency.” I opened it and skimmed through folder after folder. After a while I stopped, gasping in horror. The papers told of a monstrous crime.
Greene and his thugs realized they couldn’t rule over the helots by force. Controlling the Cladoxpan ensured some degree of submission, but it wasn’t enough. And it didn’t solve the problem of what to do with the thousands of helots, especially women, children, and the elderly, who were useless on those supply expeditions. So they hatched a diabolical plan to quash any chance of a rebellion.
At first, the Green Guard conducted random raids. The helots watched helplessly as dozens of Bluefont residents were arrested for no reason and put on trial. All of them disappeared and “EXPELLED” was written on their files. When the tension in the ghetto reached explosive levels, Greene’s advisors took the next step. Half of the helots received certificates of residency and half didn’t.
From then on raids affected only those without a certificate. So there were two groups in Bluefont: those who slept peacefully at night and those who feared there’d be a knock at their door and the Green Guard would drag them off to the unknown. When there was a raid, the privileged simply showed their certificate, thus ending their solidarity with the undocumented helots.
But that was not enough. One day, the guards started handing out two different types of certificates: with a photo and without. The helots could choose which they wanted. Many thought that a certificate with a photo seemed more official. The next raid rounded up the helots without a photo certificate. Those who had photo certificates breathed easier, thinking it had saved them, but a week later, the photo certificates were replaced by red certificates. Many were suspicious of the new document, so they declined it. Then, two weeks later, there was another big raid and everyone without a red certificate was dragged off.
That plunged the ghetto into despair and distrust. Soon, red certificates were replaced by two kinds of blue ones: “soldiers” or “no qualification.” Since each helot could choose his or her classification and would then receive the corresponding document, doubts about which were better gripped Bluefont again.
Many smelled a trap and declared “no qualification.” Others chose “soldier,” thinking it was better to be seen as useful—Gulfport couldn’t do without them. Three days later, anyone who had chosen “no qualification” stopped receiving Cladoxpan. Just hours later, fifteen hundred people changed into Undead. The remaining helots had to fight off the Undead and clean up the ghetto themselves, even as they became increasingly distrustful of one other.
Finally, the Office of Justice voided all existing certificates, declaring that many helots had fraudulently registered as “soldiers,” and a new raid swept Bluefont. The outcry was terrible from the many helots who’d been duped into signing up in the wrong category.
A new type of certificate was followed by another and another in a variety of colors. Weakened and submissive, the ghetto accepted the situation, praying they’d have the right document at the next raid. Although they were infected, their will to live was strong, and they clung to any hope, no matter how small.
This cruel, merciless method gave Greene absolute control over Bluefont. The helots were firmly under his boot.
I leaned back in my chair, too sick to keep reading. The Nazis used almost the same system in the Jewish ghettos in Poland. It was cruel but terribly effective.
My God, what kind of shit am I mixed up in? Lucia was right. Taking a chance out in the unknown would be better than staying here another day.
We had to get out of there as soon as possible. That very night, if we could. When I got up to leave the office, I heard Sue Anne’s voice on the other side of the door.
“Hey, you can’t go in there without an appointment!”
The door burst open. There stood Viktor Pritchenko, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat. He must’ve run all the way from home. I could tell he had bad news.
“Lucia’s gone,” he said, panting. “She escaped to Bluefont!”
22
Lucia tossed and turned all night, too hurt and angry to sleep. She knew her boyfriend had good intentions, but this appalling place was too much to bear. Just thinking about the arrogant Reverend Greene gave her chills. There was something deeply disturbing in his eyes, something thick and dark like burned motor oil that enveloped her every time he directed his gaze at her. And those Green Guards were repulsive.
But she wasn’t just upset about the town’s shocking racism or the way women were reduced to window dressing. She was sick of the way her boyfriend and Prit made all the decisions. They never listened to her opinion.
When she replayed their argument, Lucia kicked herself for letting her damn temper get the best of her. I should’ve listened patiently, reasoned with him, made him see that this place is cursed. Instead I acted like an ice queen. I wouldn’t even look him in the eye. As she listened to her friends’ conversation downstairs, she nearly jumped out of bed, ran down the stairs, and hugged her boyfriend till he couldn’t breathe.
I forgive you, he’d say. I love you so much. I’ll go anywhere if you’re there.
Instead she lay there in bed, stewing; her wounded pride wouldn’t budge.
She suddenly had a scary thought. What would happen the next day? How could they patch things up after everything they’d said? She wished she had a stronger argument to prove her point. Then an idea as bright as a neon light lit up her thoughts. A helot! If he just talked to one of them, if he saw firsthand the pain and sadness they felt, he’d understand.
Carlos Mendoza’s smiling face floated before her eyes. A handsome, determined man who stared down those sailors when they threatened him. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, and she felt like she was burning up. She had to find that man and talk to him.
Before she knew what she was doing, she jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes. Her room was on the second floor, above the porch, so she wouldn’t have any problem sneaking out her window. A voice in her head screamed, This is a crazy idea. You’re acting like a child. Then she heard Prit’s deep laugh coming from the living room, laughing at something he’d said.
They’re having a good laugh at my expense. That gave her the impetus she needed. She screwed up her courage and started out the window. Then it dawned on her they’d be worried sick if she disappeared without a trace. They didn’t deserve that, even i
f they were acting like assholes. So she went back inside and picked up a notebook lying on the dresser.
I’m going to Bluefont. Hope to be back soon. Don’t worry about me. L.
She left the note on the bed and slipped out the window. She tiptoed across the porch roof to the corner of the house, where trumpet flowers grew up a trellis. She carefully placed her feet in the trellis holes and climbed down.
The fine mist had turned into a gentle downpour. As she looked in the brightly lit windows, a voice in her head cried out, Don’t go! But it was too late. Shrinking from the rain, Lucia set off for Bluefont. Her tears and the raindrops flooded her face.
Her house was on the far side of town and she got lost a few times, so it took almost forty minutes to reach the border. As she turned a corner, her mission almost ended before it began. A Humvee with four soldiers from the Gulfport Militia was slowly patrolling down the middle of the road, lazily passing a spotlight over the houses. Lucia threw herself behind some dumpsters. She held her breath as the light shone on her hideout. For a moment she thought they’d spotted her, but then the light moved on as the Humvee drove off in the rain.
Lucia waited to make sure they were gone before she came out of her hiding place. Ten minutes later, she reached the channel that separated Bluefont from the rest of Gulfport. She stared into the rain-swelled river that roared through the channel, black foam curling on its surface.
She walked along the embankment, looking for a place to cross, but got discouraged when she realized that the channel ran the entire length of the perimeter. When it reached the Wall, it emptied into a long spillway. When Lucia rested her hand on the Wall’s cold, rough surface, she heard a moan coming from the other side; a half dozen other voices joined in. Her hair stood on end. The Undead lurked just outside of town. They couldn’t scale the barricade, but still they waited.
The Wrath of the Just (Apocalypse Z) Page 12