THE POPULACE
A Novel
Aaron M. Patterson
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 – The First of August
Chapter 2 – Enter the System
Chapter 3 – From There
Chapter 4 – Sad Wings
Chapter 5 – Almost Two Decades
Chapter 6 – The Choices We Make
Chapter 7 – Sooner than Later
Chapter 8 – Like Rifts of Charcoal
Chapter 9 – Human
Chapter 10 – Common Interest
Chapter 11 – Reassemble
Chapter 12 – Roadblocks and Moon Rocks
Chapter 13 – Somewhere in the Plains
Chapter 14 – The Food is Out There
Chapter 15 – Some Awakening
Chapter 16 – Me and Gene
Chapter 17 – Minus the Populace
Chapter 18 – Equals Nobody
Chapter 19 – The Road
Chapter 20 – Motor Odor
Chapter 21 – BBQ
Chapter 22 – Developments
Chapter 23 – All of Us
Chapter 24 – Sororicide
Chapter 25 – From Here
Chapter 26 – The Mouth
Chapter 27 – Pauline
Chapter 28 – Found
Chapter 29 – Wish I Were Here
Chapter 30 – Idle Minds
Chapter 31 – The New Place
Chapter 32 – Gene Lives!
Chapter 33 – Home Sweet Somewhere
Chapter 34 – Immediately
Chapter 35 – A Cup of J
Chapter 36 – Fidelity
Chapter 37 – Good Morning Winter
Chapter 38 – The Other One
Chapter 39 – Upon the Shadows of These Forests
Chapter 40 – I Am Remarkable
Chapter 41 – The Hurts’
Chapter 42 – Nice Guys Finish Dead
Chapter 43 – The End of Ignorance
Chapter 44 – And So On
Chapter 45 – Number Seven
Chapter 1
The First of August
I’m alone. I’m so very alone. Lonely? Not really. But all in my world, in the physical here and now, is just me in my sympathetic chair. It’s been like this for twenty hard years. It certainly says something about this thing called humanity, the one after everything struck, that I can commit five murders and instantly be pardoned from it. No, this isn’t the same humanity from before. And humans, well, I just don’t know them anymore. And yet, I am still one of them.
I’m alone because my very nature won’t allow me to be near anybody else. Not a single soul. It’s this thing in us all, this urge, and it does not discriminate. It does not judge. It just goes and we have no control over it. The Ire, as it’s called, has ruined humanity. That’s an understatement. The Ire took the earth’s population from 8.3 billion people down to 2.5 billion very literally overnight. By the end of 2030, five months after it hit, I think we were down to 700 million. The numbers are hard to understand, yes, but they’re accurate and extremely unnerving. Little by little, the numbers shrunk emphatically. And now, here it is, the year 2050, and I believe Mother Earth is mother to probably 5 million children. How is that for population control?
I’m currently in my cabin in the Minnesota Number-5 Development. Sounds cozy, but rest assured it’s not. Granted, I’ve made a decent life for myself here in the last nineteen years. You have to make best with what you have when you’re promised absolutely nothing. Ever. And when the corroding vortex of self-loathing comes creeping around every few hours, you’re required to swat it away like a fly. I hate the vortex.
No, this isn’t luxury. It’s necessity. It is the only way humanity can survive in this age, the age of involuntary murder. Survival of a species requires individual survival of its members. Yes, I was one who opted to stay alive, to try to understand why we suddenly became ravenous around others and to try to fix it. Tall order, even for me.
And there aren’t many out there like me; there hardly was since the beginning. Who wants to remain in a world where close-quarters contact with another individual will always end in either’s death, or sometimes the death of both? Who wants to remain in a world where there is neither a reason nor a punishment for murder? These are two questions I ask myself too many times a day and I still haven’t found answers to them. But one question keeps me going—how can I keep our species around?
I, Wallace Auker, am forty-two years old. I’m large on the side of stocky muscle. Six-foot-three, two-fifty. It’s not bragging information, but rather an indicator as to why I am still here. Some called it nature’s age-old mode of survival of the fittest, weeding out the weakest so only the strong in the herd remained—the thinning of the herd. A cannibalistic food chain was another common remark. But overall, it was none of those things. It was, and is, a fluke and nothing more.
That day, August 1st, 2030, is excruciatingly tattooed on my brain. If they ever made lasers to remove such a tattoo I would strongly ask for said treatment. I was a college student, twenty-two, at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota, only a handful of miles south of here. It was 9:10 Central Time. I was heading from one building to the next between classes. I wore a red T-shirt with the words DOXEN written in black Cooper font on the front. To this day I can’t remember what Doxen was, but I really don’t care.
As I walked to the next building I saw a fight break out between a young man and a young woman in the yard. As I looked on, I saw the fight escalate. And then more. I gawked harder to see the looks in their eyes. I had seen anger several times before that incident, but each time it was infused with a noticeable trace of sympathy. That was removed from their eyes. This was unabashed rage, as though each had killed the others’ entire families.
The fight grew heavier. Noises began circling around me, noises similar to what I was hearing down in the yard from the man and woman. I turned to see down the breezeway two young men starting to go at each other. But these weren’t normal fist fights. These were the do-anything, break-everything, do-not-stop-until-he-is-dead bloodbath types of fights. Literal assaults on one another.
As more struggles began igniting all around me, the worst thing of all occurred. I began to feel weighed down, entirely buried in a blissless blanket of complete fury. I turned slightly to my right, still very cognizant of everything, to see Professor Hufton, the stereotypical burlap-suit-wearing older English professor with a big white beard, staring me down with the same rage in his eyes. And then where there once was a white beard was a red beard. The entire image of Professor Hufton was red in many different shades. I just needed to kill him. The whole universe would become better at that very moment if I killed the old man. The world would thank me. It absolutely had to happen. He needed to die and I needed to make it so.
We ran at each other at great speed, my speed much greater than his of course due to age. I took him down to the ground and immediately kicked him as hard as I could in his left side. I shouted something very incoherent over and over, like a war cry. As he struggled to stand to strike me back, I took his head and drove it into the concrete below us. He looked stunned and began screaming, also angrily and incoherently. So I drove his head into the concrete again. He still struggled so I did it again. Then again and again and then again until I heard a crushing sound and saw the dark liquid seeping from the back of his head. His eyes remained open as he died before me. The weight was gone like a flash. Then went the redness everywhere. Now the only red I could see was the red blood pooling behind his head. And that feeling of weightlessness quickly shifted to guilt and fear over what I had just done.
I was going to jail. No doubt about it. I sat on my butt beside Professor Hufton’s
body and cried. It was all I could do. I had killed a man who had just taught me how to write haikus the previous semester. I could make no sense of it. So I waited until the campus police found me, likely through the surveillance cameras at every corner, and hauled me away.
Instead, what I got was the sound of total chaos showering my ears. I stood from the body and looked to see what could only be described as a weaponless war being waged by everybody at SCSU. And just as I was starting to feel the panic of something terrible happening, I got that same rage sensation again.
The scream of a young girl, probably eighteen years old and very frail, alerted me this time. She was running at me. I, in turn, ran at her and tackled her to the ground and laid blow after blow with my fists on her face. Violent strikes, each with their own government. The world needed me to kill her with my fists. It was my duty. And so I did. And she, too, was red. And after she was dead, her normal hue came back.
Once again, I stood to assess what I had done. Now the panic had crashed down on me like a hundred nuclear bombs. Two murders in two minutes. I was a dead man. Although people were dying all around me at the hands, yes hands and not guns or knives, of other people, I was singling myself out as the one committing such atrocities. My only option was to hide. Otherwise, I could get tempted to kill yet again. Why was I killing?
I ran into Stearns Hall, the nine-story residential dormitory building nearest to my location. Upon entering I saw more bloody fights occurring down the hall and over to my left. The rage began building inside me. I felt it. I needed to kill something. But I couldn’t see who needed to die. A few seconds passed and the urge was gone. I could think again. I needed to isolate myself and fast. An auxiliary stairwell was just to my right. I ran like a cheetah up those stairs to the roof. I found a pipe and barred the door shut. I now resided all alone atop the tall structure.
As I looked down, the horrific scene continued in the yard and other places around campus, though it gradually dwindled, for there were less people to kill. It gave me time to think. The cell in my pocket began buzzing. I removed it to see a state of emergency alert on the screen. Even though I remember every word to this day, I still cannot recall what they were trying to do.
Emergency A-4-GPWWT-55-2 Greater St. Cloud Area. 1 August, 2030. 09:20 CDT. All residents are ordered to remain in their homes. No citizen is allowed outside of their home at this time. A toxin has been released. This toxin is providing neurological inconsistencies on humans, allowing for horrendous acts upon others. No further details at this time. Again, all residents are ordered to remain in their homes. Those seen outside will be detained or shot on-site.
Toxin? There was no toxin. Of course, we didn’t find this out until later. But still, there was no reason to say that unless it was simply a deterrent. Little did the authorities know that at that very moment, in houses across the planet, men were killing their wives and children, women were killing their husbands and children, children were killing their parents, etc.
I didn’t need some emergency alert to tell me something bad was happening. Well, much worse than bad. The worst thing in the history of the world was happening. It was, without contest from anybody who lived through it, the unconditional definition of Armageddon. So there, on the roof of Stearns Hall, I laid on my back, the blood of an old man and a frail girl caking my flesh and clothes, living through the great Armageddon. The magnitude of what I had done, let alone what I had seen, sent me into a deep slumber.
I awoke to the siren of a tornado. Thinking I was waking from a nightmare, I went for my clock on the dresser. But I was still on the roof. No nightmare. Everything came back like bricks. And it was night, much of the city of St. Cloud blacked out for some reason.
Dad. I needed to call my dad. He was recently a widower, again, as my step mother had died that January and he was a wreck. I dialed his number with nothing. No dial-tone. I tried again and again with no luck. It was obvious every mode of communication was either tied up or unavailable, likely because the folks running the cell traffic were in their offices or tower stations killing each other. Again, Armageddon.
It was around this time I began fearing for my life more than I feared for the lives of those I could possibly kill. I guess I was astute, quick to pick up on the situation. I knew if somebody were to come near me, I would have it out with them to the death. I simply didn’t want to allow that to happen again, nor did I want to die. I wanted, needed to know what was going on with me and all others.
Luckily, I had in my satchel a bag of barbecue potato chips, a Twinkie, gum, and a bottle of seltzer water. I could live on that for a few days if need be.
The next morning I awoke to the tune of a megaphone blasting the sound of a man’s growling deep voice. It approached Stearns Hall. I stood to see a man walking along the road with the megaphone in one hand and a rifle in the other.
“Do not come near me,” he calmly ordered, the rifle sticking straight out as he circled while walking. “I am an official with the Stearns County Human Services. As you are aware by now, nobody, including myself, is to be approached under any circumstance. The result will be the death of you or another person. If you can hear me, stay where you are away from all people until more information can be provided. I repeat, do not come near me. Do not approach other people.”
He went on in semi-repeat fashion as he walked down the street away from campus. Clearly, the man knew the situation and wanted to try and help, regardless of the assault rifle he toted. It was some relief, yes, but the tone of his voice and the overall silence of St. Cloud that morning slowly bred more anxiety. That was my take on it, at least.
It was around noon when what could have been construed as a parade on any other day turned into my saving grace. A series of men and women, widely scattered for everybody’s protection, walked down that same street throwing bags at anybody who was in view. I saw a middle-aged man in the window of the tower across from Stearns hall waving his hands. He got a bag. Another man, this one far in the corner of another building a good distance from me, also waved and received his bag. Then they saw me. I didn’t even really need to raise my hands while they threw white plastic bags with black bow ties at the tops at me. In them were crackers, apples, first-aid ointment, little packets of peanut butter, and a bottle of water. By the end of the ‘parade’ I’d been tossed eight bags, more than enough nourishment to keep me alive.
But rather than drink all that water, that delicious water in the hot August sun, I used two bottles to thoroughly rinse my naked body of grime and, more importantly, blood from my two victims, the task aided by the use of a used bar of soap I happened to have in my bag. Though a tad thirsty, I was superficially clean of the mess I had become for a little while.
Five more days went on like this. More bags thrown my way, more people doing everything they could to keep me around. After the fourth day, I began to wonder, very irrationally due to heat, fear, and loneliness, if these people were simply there for me. I did, after all, see the guy in the building across from me jump from his window down to the street five stories below the previous day. We were dwindling. By we, I mean all people, not just the residents of St. Cloud. That was my supposition, that it was global. Otherwise, we would be seeing, hearing, and feeling helicopters and fighter jets in the skies above our heads.
Luckily, cell batteries had come a long way and I still had nearly a full charge on the fifth day. I could read information on the internet. Unluckily, all interpersonal contact, such as voice and text, remained unavailable. My dad was dead. I just knew it. As were my sister, aunts, friends back in Bemidji, everybody I ever knew my entire life. I had no reason to believe any of them survived. It was not hard to hide from the grief. I focused on survival, and it served, probably unintentionally, as the perfect deterrent.
Bit by bit, the situation was both being understood and controlled. I still ponder how the people working at these news sites were alive and communicating to get this out there. For that matter, how did th
e world still have electricity? Power plants are a collaborative effort. Without people helping people, we should have had no power. I gradually came to terms with the idea that luxuries would quickly become a thing of the past.
Five days after it all began, around midday on the sixth of August, a much larger series of people walked the street. Again separated by great distances, they appeared far more militant in nature. They called out in similar fashion to the man four days earlier.
“Evacuation of all living persons will begin at Seventeen Hundred hours today. We have marked and detailed all survivors on this street and the surrounding eight streets. You are ordered to remain at a distance of one-hundred yards from any other human, which includes us in uniform. Violators will be shot if seen any closer. If you choose to survive longer, this will be your only option.”
I had no glamorous allusions of the Army saving the day, that our nightmare was over. Quite the contrary. I knew it was the beginning of a very long, very arduous road. This was largely a result of my frequent views at news feeds on my cell. I knew what was happening, and it was going to be untainted sorrow.
My supplies narrowing, I had no intention on staying. I took the military man’s advice and took myself, albeit very carefully, to the street below. It took an hour to get everybody evenly lined up. But then we marched. We marched through the evening, the night, the morning, stopping each time somebody needed a break or the few times we heard shots—yes, they were being killed if they stepped out of line. No other time in the span of humanity was such an atrocity directly aimed at keeping everybody else alive.
I was slightly near countless other folks, but I was also alone. No words to speak, no friends to drink with. But I churned on. I had to get to this goal, to be there when we found out what the hell this was. Part morbid curiosity and part intent on helping, I had to be a part of it. For this, I walked the entire twenty-nine hours from St. Cloud to Maszerk, a tiny community twenty miles to the south.
We were stopped and told to listen at the speakers spread far apart in order for all of us to hear. And listen we did.
The Populace Page 1