“What’s barter?”
“It’s another word for trade.”
“What do people trade for?”
“I don’t know, various things I guess.” Nessie finished the shirt, folded it up, and put it on her pile of completed clothing. She then picked up the next article, which was a pair of holey socks. Although needing patches around the toes and heels, one also required some stitching along a run up the back of the ankle. “I’m usually the recipient of a wool trade. That means I’m getting the wool.”
“What do people want from you?”
“I usually knit the wool into clothing or blankets they want, but most of the time, people give me things to move their clothing up the line. Sometimes it’s their last pair of pants I’m fixing, or their favourite shirt, and so they want it repaired sooner than the usual time it takes. They give me wool or sometimes larger pieces of cloth and leather to get bumped up the line. I then take what they give me, turn it into new clothing or what have you, and trade it back to other people for other things or more clothing supplies. That’s how I got the solar panel. It was actually one of your brothers who traded it to me, if I’m not mistaken. Does one of them have a long leather coat?”
“Yeah, Larson does.” Becky sounded excited about this revelation.
“I made that for him along with several other high-end items in exchange. I believe he still wears the coat, although he might have traded the rest for other goods.”
“Why did Larson have the solar panel anyway? Shouldn’t it have been with the others on the community building?”
“Honestly, what do they teach you if you don’t know this stuff?”
Becky shrugged. “Math and junk. How many calories to eat each day. I know how to cook a bunch of things even if I’m not very good at it.”
“Well, first of all, the community centre currently has all the solar panels it needs. Mind you if that changes, or one breaks, they can take mine. It’s more like I have it on loan in that way. The reason your brother got it was because he goes out scavenging.”
“That’s where they both are right now.” Becky sounded a little sour about this, either missing them, worried about them, or most likely both.
Nessie nodded, remembering seeing their names on the away board. “I won’t sugar coat it, it’s a dangerous job they do. But, because it’s dangerous, they get to claim part of the loot they bring back as a reward. Basically, they get first dibs on anything the community centre doesn’t need.”
“I think I’d like to do that when I get old enough. It sounds exciting.”
“What? More exciting than a swarm of zombies showing up at our wall?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re not old enough yet, so keep knitting.” Nessie thought she might have a talk with Becky’s parents later, or maybe even talk to the girl herself. More exciting? It was deadly out there. Sure, it wasn’t as bad as when the outbreak occurred—Nessie refused to call it the Day like everyone else—but it was still the most deadly occupation. They had lost a few scavengers over the years, while others had been injured, and one team had been completely lost. They went out for a search and not one of them made it back. No one knows what happened to them; could have been any of a number of things. There were zombies to worry about, but there were also animals, unfriendly humans, unsafe terrain, and even basic illnesses. As structures aged, they weakened, becoming more prone to collapse. Even if the whole thing didn’t come down, enough scavengers had returned with cut-up legs and broken ankles to attest to the dangers of even one weak spot in the floor. It’s why Nessie decided to move to the container yard. She could see and trust the structures here, whereas the Black Box’s supports were buried beneath painted drywall so the place looked good. Who wanted to live somewhere that looked nice when your life was at stake? Nessie thought that Becky didn’t understand the world yet and that somebody should talk to her about it. Then again, when do young folk ever listen to the advice of older generations?
The sewing machine whirred as she moved on from the socks to a jacket.
A skittering of nails on metal drew the attention of both Becky and Nessie to the front of the container. One of Misha’s dogs stood there, the tall skinny grey one who was mostly Great Dane. Powder was her name.
“I don’t have any treats for you today,” Nessie told the dog.
Powder’s head cocked to the side upon hearing the word ‘treats,’ her tail making a single swish back and forth in anticipation.
“No, not today,” Nessie said again, avoiding the trigger word.
This time Powder took another step inside. When Nessie turned away, ignoring the big dog, she listened as it circled the front of her container and lay down.
Nessie sighed. “People don’t like bringing me things when there’s a giant dog blocking most of the entrance.”
“I can take her somewhere. I think she just wants attention.” Becky carefully placed her knitting on the table beside the sewing machine and dropped out of her seat.
“That would be lovely, thank you, dear. Anytime you’re bored and would like to knit, this will be waiting for you.” She patted the beginnings of a headscarf that might one day shade the girl from the sun, or hold back her hair depending on how large it became.
“Come on, Powder,” Becky called as she walked toward the Great Dane. “Let’s go find you something to play fetch with.”
The dog raised her recently lowered head, inspecting Becky as she approached. Upon determining that the girl was indeed talking to her, Powder quickly scrambled back up onto her feet. Dragon barked at Becky’s back as she left with the lanky beast.
Nessie sighed and shook her head once she was alone again. She had never had any children of her own, never wanted them, but she worried about the future generations all the same. It wasn’t just that they were growing up in a changed world, it’s that their parents hadn’t, and so didn’t know the proper way to raise them. What should be taught? What could be ignored? On average, how did kids react in certain situations? No one really knew, because no one had grown up in this world. Most of the teenagers had grown up to be clever, helpful individuals, ready to step forward and assist at a moment’s notice, but the ones even younger? What would they be like?
As she moved on to the next item in her ‘to do’ pile, Nessie thought about starting a sewing class. She could teach the kids not only how to use a sewing machine, but also basic hand stitching, crocheting, knitting, and even embroidery. Although they were still finding and repairing machine-spun fabrics, there might come a day when all clothing had to be made from scratch. Nessie felt it was up to her to make sure the younger generations knew how to when the time came. The scavengers had been told to look for looms and spinning wheels, but these items weren’t easily found and none of the teams had had any luck so far.
The sewing machine whirred on.
The next interruption came with an odd-sounding knock on the side of her container that usually meant whoever was there was holding something and couldn’t use their hands to create the sound. Nessie looked up and saw a young man standing in the sunlight. He was carrying a fair-sized metal box and kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Nessie had seen the scrawny, greasy man around but had never interacted with him directly. It appeared he repaired his clothes on his own and used duct tape to do it, which was a waste of useful tape in Nessie’s opinion. She thought his name might be Venti, but wasn’t sure.
“Can I help you?” she asked, watching as he continued to shift left and right.
“I hear you’re willing to trade for high-value items?”
“Provided I want what you have. Come inside.” Nessie got up from her chair as Venti stepped into the container. He was a loner of sorts, often out fishing by himself. Nessie wasn’t sure he had any friends.
Venti placed his box on the floor, metal striking metal, sounding heavy. “What kinds of things do you usually offer in return?”
“Clothing and blankets, usually m
ade of leather or wool. You can request something, and I can make it special for you. I also have some other odds and ends in my wardrobe, but again, it depends on what you’re offering. It’s not just the metal box is it? Because, as nice as it is, I don’t need another box right now.”
“No, no. It’s what’s in the box.” Venti sounded nervous, like he shouldn’t have whatever he was offering.
“Tell me what it is then.”
Glancing over his shoulder, Venti made sure no one was going to see them. Nessie doubted anyone would. Her container was at the end of a row, and the one across from it was used as a storage depot to stockpile junk for which they had no immediate use. There was no reason for someone to come down here unless they were looking for Nessie.
Satisfied, Venti bent down, flipped up the latches on the front of the box, and raised the lid, allowing Nessie to see what was inside.
“How on earth did you get these?”
8
Doyle’s Restless
Doyle sat in the plastic chair, flipping through a battered collection of short stories in an attempt to find his favourite one to reread, with his fire axe leaning against the side of his leg. The scar on his face was itchy again, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. The itching sensation was lodged under the skin, and no amount of scratching or rubbing seemed to make it go away. He’d just have to ride it out as usual. At least it didn’t bother him as frequently as it used to; it was especially bad in the days after he sustained the injury when the Diana sank. A bullet had grazed his face, tearing the meat off his cheek, just inches away from killing him.
The door opened and Robin stepped in, startling somewhat when she spotted Doyle. She hadn’t been expecting him there.
“Doyle, what are you doing here?” she asked as she moved toward the boy on the bed.
“Crichton asked me to sit a spell for him while he takes care of some things. Wants me to let him know if the kid wakes up before he gets back.” Doyle held up the walkie-talkie that Crichton had given him; it was already tuned to the man’s channel.
“You can help me then. I’m going to pour some more liquid down his throat and could use your assistance.”
As Doyle got up to help, he tossed his book onto the seat and readjusted the axe so that it leaned against the chair. There were only a handful of times that Doyle had separated from that axe since the Day. It had saved his life on countless occasions. When the zombies had first broken out, he had been at an outdoor concert providing extra security along with some other firefighters. He had no idea where his buddies, Jim and Cillian, were now, just that they weren’t here. There had been a disturbance at the concert, now known to be caused by the zombies, and Doyle had reacted quickly. He didn’t know why he grabbed the axe off the side of the truck, just that he did. Jim had followed him; neither of them had thought to wake up Cillian who had fallen asleep in the front seat. In the crowds, Doyle and Jim had become separated, and Doyle found he could no longer help anyone but himself. Fighting his way across the park, he managed to get behind the stage where all the band buses were kept. He boarded a bus that happened to contain the mega band, Gathers Moss, and drove their asses out of there. Later, after he had left the bus in order to find help, he got together with a small group of strangers. Eventually, the group stumbled into Gathers Moss again, but by then, the band’s numbers had reduced to two, and one of them was trying to kill Robin and her friend. Hearing the screams, Doyle reacted to his fireman’s instincts for saving people by using his axe to cut through the hotel door, despite the risk to himself. He and Robin had been fairly close friends ever since, locating the Diana together with the rest of their group. Before that, Doyle would never have thought he could be friends with someone so much younger than him. The Day changed a lot of things.
Going over to the bed, Doyle helped hold the boy’s neck and head steady while Robin carefully poured some discoloured water into his mouth. Doyle assumed the water had a strange colour due to some dissolved nutrients in it. He was glad to see the kid swallow it on his own, that he wasn’t so gorked out that they risked choking him. Once Robin determined he had had enough, Doyle repositioned the boy so that he looked comfortable.
“I wonder what happened to him,” Doyle spoke over the prone body.
“Really?” Robin raised her eyebrows at him. “Looks pretty obvious to me. He was alone and couldn’t take care of himself.”
“Yeah, but I’m wondering how he ended up on his own. There are a lot of ways, but which one did he have to go through?”
“We’ll find out when he wakes up. If he even remembers.” Robin listened to the child’s heartbeat and carefully checked his blood pressure. Since she didn’t need his assistance anymore, Doyle returned to his seat.
Robin continued to perform a few checks on the boy and made chit chat with Doyle. Eventually she finished and Doyle was once more alone with the mysterious child. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, but he didn’t particularly like this job. Something about the kid was creepy, although he couldn’t put his finger on what. Maybe it was because, right now, he seemed no different from a corpse. And, these days, you didn’t want to be in a room with a corpse for too long no matter how the person had died. It had been quite a shock when they discovered the virus had gone airborne. Everyone had always been afraid of that happening, because then they couldn’t do anything against it; they couldn’t fight. It turned out to be not as terrible as they had feared, however. Instead of instantly killing everyone and turning them into psychopathic pathogen spreaders, the airborne crap stayed dormant. Robin made a habit of updating Doyle with what was known about it. While the active stuff attacked your organs and shut you down, the new and improved airborne junk waited until something else did the job for it, whether it be illness, injury, or active zombie virus. What it all boiled down to was that everybody would become a shuffler once they died, save those taken out by a massive head injury, say for example, a bullet to the brain. The boy lying in the bed looked dead, which meant he could be a larger threat than if he were alive. It was creepy and unsettling.
Doyle’s walkie-talkie crackled. He stopped watching the kid and looked down at it, waiting to see if anyone was going to say anything. It had already emitted a few bursts of static that turned out to be nothing. That was not the case this time.
“Doyle?”
He picked it up and pressed the button. “I’m here.”
“It’s Crichton. I’m coming back now. Has there been any change?”
“Robin came in, performed some checks and poured some watery stuff down his throat, but that’s it. The kid’s still out of it.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.”
This time Doyle didn’t hold down the button when he spoke, talking only to himself. “I look forward to it.”
He didn’t know why Crichton was so absorbed with this kid; why he, personally, had taken it upon himself to be there when the kid woke up. Doyle suspected it was because it was something to do. For the most part, Crichton took care of their defences, but lately those had been running themselves well. The farmers knew how to build fences when they expanded, the lookouts were always in place, and only the smallest of children didn’t know what to do if a threat showed up. This kid was their first visitor in months. With Brittany and James handling the smaller day-to-day operations, Crichton found in the boy something on which to focus his attention.
Doyle didn’t bother flipping through his book again. He knew that even if he found the story, he wouldn’t be able to read it in time before Crichton showed up. Studying the cover instead, Doyle began to suspect he had grabbed the wrong book: he wasn’t sure now that this was the anthology containing the story he was remembering. Sighing, he put the book in one of the large pockets on the side of his pants and once again wished they had found a copy that hadn’t had the table of contents ripped out of it. Books were not a high-priority scavenge item.
Maybe I should go out with a small team for a day trip jus
t to get books? Doyle thought. If the guys at the pre-Day firehouse knew he had those thoughts, they would think he had been replaced by a body snatcher. Doyle reading books? Unheard of.
When Crichton finally entered the room, Doyle was more than happy to vacate his seat, picking up his axe and sliding it into the holster he had made and wore on his back.
“You going to be down here all day?” Doyle asked as he moved toward the door, changing places with Crichton.
“Until he wakes up, yeah. Why? Something on your mind?” Crichton paused before sitting in the plastic chair.
“I was thinking of grabbing one or two people and making a run to the nearest bookstore. It’s not too far; we should be able to get back by tomorrow, two days at the latest.”
Crichton thought it over for a moment, looking at the boy. “We don’t know where he came from, or what dangers he could have lured this way.”
“Has dual purpose then,” Doyle shrugged. “We can see if anything’s amiss while we’re out there.”
Crichton’s expression rarely changed, but you could always tell when the gears were turning in his mind. “Very well. But you explain exactly what you’re doing and what the dangers might be to those who volunteer to go with you.”
“You got it. Oh, and what should I do with this?” Doyle held up the walkie-talkie. He didn’t usually carry one around; Crichton had just given it to him when he had shanghaied Doyle into babysitting.
“Take it for now. Radio me before you leave and tell me who’s going, along with what your supplies are. After that, hand it to anyone watching the fences and they’ll get it back to me.”
“You got it.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
“Get going then. The sooner you’re out there, the sooner you can get back. And try to take a good runner with you if you can, just in case you need to send a message back to us.”
“Will do.” And with that, Doyle slipped out of the room containing the creepy boy.
Survival Instinct (Book 4): Defensive Instinct Page 10