Order of the Dead

by James, Guy

  The treasure that the X’s in her head marked were the people who were still alive and uninfected, the people who were still secure. There was something about the dashed lines, like there was something under them that she was supposed to get but was still on the verge of understanding.

  She tried to push into the sand—for some reason the surface of the map told her she was looking at sand—and dig into it by forming shovels with her hands. But, no matter how far she dug, the dashed line was still there.

  There was something about it though, something about the connections between the survivors in the different places. She couldn’t quite grasp it yet, and then her right hand hit something sharp and she pulled it back quickly. The hole she’d dug disappeared.

  It was a dangerous thing she was trying to unearth, that much she knew, even though she had no idea what was there for her to discover. Whatever it was, it was hers, and she was determined to get it. The traders would help her draw the maps and fix the dashed lines more precisely where they were supposed to go.

  A smile bloomed like a rare flower on her face. Her breathing wasn’t bothering her at all right now.

  I can’t wait to hear the traders’ stories, she thought, to see if new traders come…new traders with new stories, stories of the world outside the fence and far away from this forest. That would be a dream come true.

  68

  Brother Acrisius snarled at the light creeping into the room. Fucking audacity of the stuff. He was grimacing as best he could, but only half of his face was wearing the expression well, while the rest of it, the paralyzed part, contorted only slightly out of its usual freeze.

  He propped himself up on one elbow, putting a painful squeeze on one of the active pustules on the elbow’s point, which was one of the larger of his body’s boils, a real fucking gift from the gods as far as painful expulsions went. His back was aching something terrible, the half of it that he could feel, anyway.

  It was probably a worry ache, he knew, and if it was, it was justified, because he had a good deal to be worried about. A great deal, in fact.

  Reaching for the curtains, he pushed himself up farther. He flicked them open a crack, knowing he had to do it to get himself up and at ’em—it was high time for getting up and at ’em and there was much at ’em for him to get at today—and he not only groaned at the new brightness, but got the paralyzed half of his face moving more than usual. It was going for contempt now, more than just irritation, but only half of the pustule-ridden facial skin took on the angry frown the right way, and the rest was pulled along for only some of the ride.

  That was alright, though, because it made Brother Acrisius look not only angry, but downright malevolent, like someone you didn’t want to bump into in a dark alley, or anywhere, really. It wasn’t the state of his body, which was wretched, but the dark glimmer of his eyes that seemed to hint at an unspeakable wickedness. His eyes were a dead giveaway, in fact, because what was in his heart, in his mind, and, at the moment, in his pocket too, really was appalling, and his blue, yellow-flecked eyes spoke of it quite plainly.

  He’d once been an investment banker with Goldman Sachs, back when there were people who ‘investment-banked’ and companies like Goldman. He’d turned thirty-two the year of the stroke.

  That year his bonus was $246,500, which was decently above average, but well within mortal range, and far less than what he thought he deserved. He’d cared about his job and money quite a lot, enough to make himself sick over his position and the perceived lack of green it was bringing in. And the heart problems that made the stroke go round had their modest beginnings in the stressful pursuit of the green stuff that made the world turn—or so he’d thought at the time.

  I-banking was different now. He was still a market maker, out of necessity more than anything else, because no one else was qualified to do it, but now he was also a high net worth individual himself, perhaps even ultra-high net worth, when he dared think about it. Of course the stocks and bonds and currencies he owned weren’t quite the ones you’d think of, but times had changed, and the world was different now.

  Other than the mattress, a light, and an old suitcase that served both as storage space and a bed table, the room was bare.

  Acrisius moved to get up, and, as always since his stroke, the right side of his body went, and the left side followed, ponderously, moving like a snarl of unripe but very well-wrinkled squash, the frozen side of his face wearing a permanent scowl.

  The mattress underneath him was bare and stained with large spots of yellow, resembling sickly, overgrown amoebae, and smeared in places with brown. The springs squeaked a half-hearted protest as he cajoled his body into action.

  The mattress’s edges were discolored and frayed, and a spring, brown with rust, stuck out at a corner. He edged his working foot toward the spring until his toes were touching the bare, rusted metal, caressing its familiar roughness.

  The idea that this behavior might be rewarded with tetanus never entered his mind. He had no fear of tetanus, or of any disease, including that brought by the virus, if that was even a disease at all.

  Perhaps it was better described as a transcendental state, permanent and remarkable. Who knew what the zombies felt after the virus took them? It could be unparalleled bliss, or nothing at all.

  Brother Acrisius didn’t dwell on these details much. If you asked him, it was a waste of time to suppose things that couldn’t be proven, or to look for unfindable cures and immunities. He wasn’t afraid of the virus, anyway, even though he acknowledged its power. Fatalistic as he was, he knew that what would be would be. Life had already proven that much, and, he was sure, would continue to do so.

  He rose and stretched, rising onto the ball of his good foot and raising one arm over his head. He’d learned with time to hobble without crutches, and he could stand in one place just fine so long as he wasn’t holding anything heavy.

  Then he yawned and took a deep breath. The air in his room was rank, which was unsurprising given the small space and Brother Acrisius’s aversion to bathing.

  The walls were unpainted, lightweight steel, the same stuff that was the framework of all the Order’s trucks. It made for good shelter from the elements, and was suitably austere for Acrisius’s taste.

  He dug his hand into his pocket and withdrew a tattered, green pouch that was decorated with only the tiniest specks of mold, just a spore here and there. He sometimes tried to recall where he’d gotten it, but couldn’t. From the possessions of one of the Order’s dearly converted, he suspected, one of the converted from the early years. There’d been many more then.

  Memory was becoming a more challenging thing these days, especially when it came to summoning up the events that had taken place in those first three years after he found a new life within the Order. It was as if there were a cloud over part of his mind, enshrouding the memories of that time. He was sure there was a way to remember, and the easiest way would have been to ask the brothers and sisters who’d taken him in and who were there with him through those years, but he didn’t want to ask.

  Most of the ones who’d been there then were dead now, and he was on the outs with the handful who were left. And anyway, he felt strongly about not asking. If the memories were to be recalled, he’d long ago decided, they’d be recalled without anyone’s help.

  “The virus has provided for me before,” he whispered, “and it’ll provide for me again.”

  He loosened and undid the drawstring of the pouch and opened it. From the pouch he pulled a piece of dried muscle meat. Jerky.

  Anticipatory saliva was already pooling under his tongue. The smell, salty and pungent, reached him as he brought the stringy muscle tissue toward his mouth. He could already taste the sublime flavor.

  He put his hand back in the pouch and stroked the coarse, striated, and pitted pieces of flesh that he treasured. Then he brought his hand up to his face and ran his fingers over his skin. The texture was remarkably similar.

  His c
omplexion had been…uncooperative, for as long as he could remember. Severe blemishes had taken root in him in his pre-teens and had refused to let up since, growing only more dogged in their efforts to split and boil his skin.

  After the outbreak, the skin afflictions had become an unyielding churn of pustules and boils that were regularly infected, emitting pale fluid at times and a mixture of yellow and green pus at others. He didn’t care about his appearance or what it meant about his health. Belong to the virus now as he did, imperfections of the flesh were wholly irrelevant. The parallel between his skin and the jerky was a source of minor amusement, nothing more.

  Acrisius left his room and walked down a dank and narrow hallway that was patched with mold to the lavatory, which smelled appreciably worse than his room. Because each emptying of human waste from the trucks brought with it the risk of zombies getting in, it was done rarely.

  Instead, disinfecting and deodorizing solutions were used, but these were in short supply and carefully rationed so that the smell never improved to a level that wouldn’t make a person gag. He was used to this, however, and, breathing normally, he positioned himself over the toilet and began to relieve himself while chewing the jerky. His stream of urine broke the surface of the tranquil waste in the container under the toilet, and the smell of sewage rose up toward him with new vigor. He shrugged, which was a half-shrug in his semi-paralyzed state, and bit harder at the jerky.

  As his stream was diminishing, he felt a burning sensation deep in his urethra. That wasn’t unfamiliar either. He watched the tip of his penis until the expected happened: urine spotted with blood trickled out. A mild grunt of displeasure passed over his bottom lip, then plunged into the toilet with the grace of a saliva string.

  Whether the pain meant a kidney or bladder stone, an infection, or internal bleeding caused by something else, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter, anyway, because there was nothing that could be done about it. The Order’s antibiotics were in short supply, and they weren’t to be used for maladies such as this, which weren’t clearly life-threatening. The bleeding came and went as it pleased, and, in this instance, didn’t even last for half the pissing session.

  He finished up in the bathroom without washing and returned to his room, trying to massage away the burning feeling in his penis by moving two fingers in a circular motion under his scrotum. This brought some mild relief, and the pain began to ebb.

  69

  Sitting down on the mattress, Brother Acrisius opened his hand-copied edition of Brother Mardu’s book, entitled, The Book of the Order of the Dead. Farting loudly while his uncooperative leg twitched to the toot, he turned to a page at random and selected a passage, which he then whispered to himself.

  Alone, it lacks that stuff, that biology, the machinery that it needs to be one of the living. It takes hosts out of their own lives, and thereby gains a foothold that is above that of its previous un-alive existence, and in doing so it becomes un-dead. From un-alive to un-dead. By doing this, the virus necessarily pushes down on the host with its feet that it uses for climbing up to the un-dead place, and so they go down—whether they be people or animals—the rungs of the ladder until they are submerged in the putrefying pool of un-alive. That is a place of complete power exchange. The hosts have given themselves fully to the virus, and they have been pushed down into a wonderful place where they no longer need to worry or think or eat. They can relax in utter subservience. The virus thrills in un-death, because it is in that state that it changes the world, terraforms the planet like a visiting alien god. It transforms the world into the landscape that it desires. It is our great conqueror, and we submit. We must submit, because who are we to stand in the way after the whole world has bowed down to this great god? It is nothing short of a god, our god, the only god. It has done more to the world, and more for us, than any force in all of history. And it wants more. It is always hunting for more, giving life to its wants and needs through its control of the un-alive. They are the great god’s pawns that move about the world, existing only to serve, and we, we are lords among these pawns, and it is our fortunate role to help these pawns do their godly work. We are humble servants, fortunate, humble servants. And for as long as we help our god to express itself more fully, to fulfill its wants and wishes, whatever they may be, we will always have a place as kings of this world, all of the spoils not taken by the virus will be ours, and we will do whatever we please and be free, so long as we satisfy its needs, so long as we open ourselves to it completely, and let it take everything it wants of us.

  The terraforming verse made Brother Acrisius quiver with relish. It was as good as chewing the salty, forbidden jerky, which if any of the other brothers and sisters had tasted, they would’ve known its source on the first squirt-drawing chew of it, because the jerky the Order made didn’t come close.

  Within the Order, Acrisius’s secret was known only to Mardu and one other. It was a bargaining point that Acrisius had won, and one that he would keep as long as Mardu needed him as badly as he did. Perhaps Mardu’s conceding that point had been the last straw, the one that broke the zombie camel’s back and sent the Order spiraling far out of favor with the virus, but there’d been no way out of making that compromise.

  It was a game of give and take, made that way by necessity. The Order had to give some of what properly belonged to the virus, so they could get some more Sultan, which they would then use to replace what had been taken from the virus, and more.

  Couldn’t it see that? It would be made whole, and then some. For now, that was Brother Mardu’s problem, and his to bear alone.

  Acrisius was the one with the contacts. He made the exchanges, so why shouldn’t he get a kickback or two, a bonus? That was all part of the give and take game, and Mardu got it, knowing when to look away.

  For others in the Order, the punishment for being discovered eating a jerky like this would be a fate worse than death, as that is what the virus prescribed in its private chats with Brother Mardu. Someone who had the misfortune of not being Acrisius, if caught chewing the stuff, might be flayed and dismembered alive, or perhaps more creatively, put to the intestinal crank, or maybe all of that rolled into one. They wouldn’t be given to the virus, however, because their misdeeds would’ve made them tainted, unclean, not good enough to be taken by their god.

  Being that all meat came from the same animal these days, the difference in Acrisius’s stash was a matter of vintage. Saul also knew the secret of the jerky, and now, when Brother Acrisius thought of Saul, his Saul, he was filled with yearning. He hadn’t enjoyed Saul in three nights, and he wanted him now, but this wasn’t the time.

  The virus had to be appeased first, and then there’d be time for nocturnal delights. Meditating on that, Acrisius bit his lip until he tasted blood, then took a long piece of jerky and stuffed it in his mouth. He bit down and pulled, trying to tease out a stringy part, and ended up dislodging the roots of one of his teeth.

  Wincing at the pain, he kept pulling and chewing. Saliva mixed with blood squirted from his mouth once, then calmed itself and went placidly about the task of seeping out past his tongue and teeth to color the corners of his scabbed lips.

  The squirt of Acrisius’s vital red stuff, the piss from his mouth, had landed on the passage he’d been reading in Mardu’s holy book. It was soaking in over the word ‘satisfy.’

  Taking that as a sign of well-earned delights with Brother Saul that were in his future, he sighed contentedly, and for a moment he felt his belly fill with the twinges of a child-like glee. Yes, he would be extremely satisfied soon.

  Groaning with lascivious delight, he went on chewing the tangy meat and thinking of Saul while a hand crept closer to the uninspiring swell at his crotch, which was the best he could manage these days. But that was okay, because in his mouth was a taste of heaven, the end product of plucking a cherub from his cloud perch and flaying and gutting and fileting said plump, flying youngster, and then letting the sun and salt do the rest.
/>   70

  Jack and Sasha were sitting in bed leafing through some crude sketches that Faith Crabtree had given them to play with. Years ago, Senna and Alan, who’d started to become concerned that the minds of New Crozet’s children were trapped within the confines of their town box, had done their best to put together an art program, getting the kids drawing and telling and retelling stories and playing new games, and the sketching Jack and Sasha did together was an outgrowth of that line of projects.

  To Senna and Alan, it was a way of finding some needed relief, a means of going beyond the fence, if only in spirit, and doing something besides farming and reinforcing the fence. To the kids, it was good old fun.

  A shiver shook its way through Sasha’s body, and Jack jumped off the bed, took a spare blanket down from a shelf in his closet, went back to the bed, and threw the blanket clumsily around her shoulders. He climbed back up and resumed his post next to her, and saw that she’d moved several sketches ahead while he was getting the blanket.

  A light thump came from downstairs, carrying up through the old floorboards. It was Larry Knapp’s metal cup falling from the table. He’d passed out some minutes ago, and his sleeping arm, in its drunken restlessness, had crept upward and the cup was knocked off and set to rolling happily on the carpet until it found a table leg to settle against. Knapp would wake up again in a few minutes and be none too pleased about it, but not yet.

  Sasha and Jack both pretended not to have noticed the sound, but Jack looked down at the worn floor and frowned. He got up again and walked to the open window—it was a cool night but the fresh air was pleasant—and the hum of insects washed over him like a breeze.