by Jack J. Lee
In the last month we had all become family. Cecilia and I were doing great. I had been incredibly lucky to have Steve and Wayne knock on my door on the 11th and to have Alex as my roommate. Even though it scared me to volunteer to go into new territory, I didn’t have the guts to let my friends down. I got the feeling that Alex and Steve felt the same way. We drew straws. Alex picked the shortest straw. He stayed with Cecilia.
The three of us headed west on Blaine. We’d been going up as far as 15th East for days to dump the bodies of the zombies we’d killed every morning. The shot we fired in the air usually attracted a couple zombies. We still took the precaution of making noise before we passed blind corners. I was alert. My heart wasn’t pounding like I knew it would after we crossed 1500 East. I heard a quiet thud. Steve coughed behind me. When I turned I saw him fall to the ground with a hunting arrow through his chest. Wayne screamed, “Steve!”
I dropped my crossbow. I went up to Steve and grabbed him underneath his armpits and pulled him behind a car. “Wayne, did you see who shot him?”
“No, but I know where the bastard had to have been.” Wayne pulled out his pistol and took off running.
I checked Steve’s pulse, nothing. I put my ear next to his mouth to see if I could hear him breathing; he wasn’t. Steve was dead. How could he live through a zombie outbreak and end up being killed by an arrow? In the distance, coming from up north, I heard Wayne shoot twice. I grabbed my crossbow and ran to the shots. I had to climb over two fences before I caught up to him. He was standing over a man on the ground. There was blood on the man’s pants. He had been shot twice in the thigh.
“Why did you shoot my friend?”
“You all deserve to die! You fuckers, you know what you did. You destroyed my generator and all my lights!” I recognized his voice. He was the guy who lived on Wilson. He was crazy.
I expected Wayne to try to reason with the guy, to try to find out why he thought we had sabotaged his home. Wayne didn’t say anything. He fired his pistol. It had been pointed at the nut’s head. He didn’t miss.
“Jesus, Wayne!”
“Mike, how’s Steve?”
“He didn’t make it.”
It wasn’t until then that I noticed that Wayne’s jacket had a slash in it over his left sleeve. “You’ve been shot!”
“It’s a scratch. His arrow mostly hit my jacket”
“Let me look at it.” After he took off his jacket, I could see that he was right. The nut had used a hunting arrow with razor sharp blades. It had cut through Wayne’s jacket. Luckily it barely nicked his skin.
We went back home carrying Steve’s body. There was no way we were going to let the zombies eat him. I replayed the scene of Wayne killing the nutjob in my mind. He had done the right thing. The guy had been crazy and dangerous. We didn’t have any police to call or a prison to keep him locked up. Still, I don’t think I could have pulled the trigger in cold blood. It had been hard enough for me to take out zombies; I didn’t have what it took to execute a man. The guy had murdered Steve. He deserved to die. I’ve always believed in the death penalty but I never expected to be in a position where I might have to carry it out. Wayne calmly ended a murderer’s life. I wondered if that made Wayne a better or lesser man than me.
It was hard seeing Alex and Cecilia react to Steve’s death. They didn’t try to be manly. Wayne and I lost it too. We decided against burying him. The thought of zombies possibly digging him up made our stomachs churn. We made a funeral pyre for Steve with newspapers, firewood, and gasoline. We said good-by to our friend as the flames consumed him.
Afterwards I went into the backyard to call my family. I had been so distracted this morning that I hadn’t called. I got no signal strength at all. I went out into the street, again no signal. The nut job had accused us of sabotaging his generator and destroying his light bulbs. ‘Oh shit, had we been attacked by an EMP? Is that why the natural gas stopped working yesterday?’ My house and garage was hardened against an electromagnetic pulse. I’d made sure to store all my important electrical equipment in my house or garage. If there had been an EMP, they’d still keep working. I went to the SUV we had been using to haul zombie bodies away; we kept it parked out on the street. It wouldn’t turn over at all. “What was going on, zombies, vampires, and now an EMP?”
I walked back into the house. After I explained to them that last night we had been hit by an EMP, I told them about an idea that had just come to me. Utah is renowned for its skiing. It’s also one of the best places in the world to paraglide. Point of the Mountain, Utah is famous as one of the best places in the world to paraglide because it has unusually consistent winds. It was just 30 minutes away from my house by highway. Tourists from all around the world used to come to Salt Lake City to paraglide. When I moved to Utah, I took up this sport. A Powered Parachute is a paraglider canopy hooked up to a motor and a propeller. I had a PPC wing in my garage. A buddy of mine had wrecked his and his wife made him get rid of it. The frame and motor were too damaged to be worth keeping but the canopy was still good. I could use the motor from Alex’s Vespa Scooter, take the blade from my windmill, and make a frame from two mountain bikes. With the PPC, I could take off with just 100 feet of runway and land in my back yard. I wouldn’t have to worry about zombies and I could cover up to sixty miles in just a few hours. If there were other survivors in Salt Lake City, I should be able to find them easily with a PPC.
Chapter 16: Art Bingham, April 9th, Year 1
I couldn’t believe it. The Salt Lake City Council made prostitution legal. I’ve been an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for as long as I have been alive. For most of my adult life, I was a family practice doctor. I’ve been the Mayor of Salt Lake City for six months. If you had asked me at any point in my life prior to this, if I could see myself voting on the side of prostitution, I would have said no. Yesterday a new business, Sadie’s, opened its doors in Sugar House. Sadie’s was a brothel, owned and operated by four women and two men.
Within minutes of Sadie’s opening, my executive secretary Emma Dietrich stormed into my office to tell me that the council had to pass a law to make this business illegal. Emma’s official job title was executive secretary but the correct title would have been chief of staff. She set my daily schedule and she controlled access to me with an iron fist. If she hadn’t been so competent, I might have resented her. I didn’t know how I coped before she took her position.
When my wife was still alive, she would periodically complain that I was too accommodating and didn’t know how to say no. I was married to my wife for decades and I’ve noticed that many of our conversations, especially the ones where she told me what she wanted me to change, would be repeated word for word every few months. I’ve wondered sometimes if this happened just in my marriage or in all marriages. In response to her complaint that I was too nice, I would point out that she married me because I was the opposite of her domineering father. “Honey, you married a pussycat, not a tiger. I can’t change my stripes. I don’t have it in me to be firm with anybody.”
I spent more years married to my wife than I did single. She had flaws. You couldn’t find a worse driver. She spent more money than I made. She wasn’t logical. She drove me to distraction; I missed her. The only time I slept soundly was when I forgot she had died. It sounds crazy, but I would often forget that she was no longer with me. Whenever something funny or interesting happened, I found myself looking forward to telling her about it. There were mornings when I would be half awake and roll over to kiss my lady. Once I realized she wasn’t lying next to me I felt as lost as I did on October 10th when I saw her body lying on the floor. I believe in our Heavenly Father because I need to. I’m not strong enough to live without his help. If I didn’t have faith that I would be with Stacy again in eternity, I don’t think I could go on.
I’m not a natural politician. I never had any aspirations of being one. I loved being a doctor; everyday I was at the clinic or the hospital
, I felt like I was doing more good than harm. When Mark Jones had asked me to run for Mayor, I was shocked. I told him that I didn’t know the first thing about being a politician. He said that was why I needed to be Mayor. Our way of life, our civilization was hanging on by a thread. We couldn’t risk being led by someone who was more concerned about popularity and getting reelected than doing the right thing. He told me that I could do more good as one of our leaders than being a doctor. I’m LDS. I believe in callings. I have faith that our Heavenly Father will not give me a challenge that I cannot handle. With trepidation I had told Mark that I would run for Mayor. My fears were justified. I was overwhelmed. It was my responsibility to vet every infrastructure project that was being considered. The city government was the lender of first and last resort. Every entrepreneur needed funding and only the city government had the resources available to fund new projects. Since we had started off with no infrastructure at all, almost every proposal that came to me had some merit. The problem was prioritizing which projects should come first. In addition to my work as mayor, I was one of the few physicians available. I was working 4 hours a day at the medical clinic. Most of my time at the clinic wasn’t spent on direct patient care but on teaching. We no longer had high schools, colleges, or graduate schools. We were back to the days of apprenticeships. There were five students at the clinic between the ages of 18 to 24 who wanted to become doctors. It was a wonderful break to spend time with young men and women who wanted to learn. They were studying hours every night on their own and spending their days helping out at our clinic. I needed to keep my hands in patient care to keep my sanity but my clinic time was yet another time drain.
I was barely getting a few hours a sleep at night between my duties as a mayor and my hours at the clinic. As mayor I sometimes had to say no. Often, I was saying no because of my perception of the entrepreneur’s competence. My tendency in these cases was to delay saying no for as long as possible. It wasn’t difficult for me to figure out which proposals should be funded and given priority. It was a constant struggle for me to figure out how to tell someone that they weren’t going to get funding. They always wanted to know why.
Right after the New Year, I came to my office and was surprised to see Emma Dietrich. She informed me that Director Jones had mentioned that I needed an executive secretary to help manage my office and schedule. She told me what hours she was going to work and what her duties were going to be.
I was bemused. I thought that it was my job to tell my secretary what she was supposed to do. I had never considered the possibility of a person showing up one day and telling me that she had decided that she was going to be my secretary.
I was thinking about saying something to that effect when she told me that I had a new office and that she had already moved my stuff into it. Unlike my previous office that had a door that opened into the hallway, my new office had a waiting room along with a desk for a secretary. Emma gave me a schedule of my appointments for the day. She gently but firmly guided me into my new office and closed the door. It was nice. My previous office had the cheap particle board furniture. My new office looked like a mayor’s office with matched cherry wood décor. My new chair was sinfully comfortable.
“Darn it!” I was not going to be seduced by a comfortable chair and a cherry wood desk. I stood up to tell Mrs. Dietrich that I would need to interview her before she could become my secretary when I heard my brother-in-law’s voice outside my office. I get along with most people including all but one of my brother-in-laws. Since my marriage, Matt O’Conner has been the recurring infected rectal cyst of my life. I had lost so many relatives; I was tempted to ask our Heavenly Father why I hadn’t lost him.
Even before the Outbreak, he was always asking for money and favors. Since I had become the mayor, he’s been an ever present irritation. I had explained to Matt over and over again that because we were related, I had to recuse myself from any decisions regarding his proposals.
I referred him to Helen Hansen, one of our city councilors. She was in charge of looking at his proposals. Matt is actually a competent contractor and project manager but he has a soul of a con man and is constantly making grandiose promises that are too good to be true. He has a track record of being able to fulfill enough of these promises that he is still able get investors. He runs his business like a Ponzi scheme, using one account to pay another. It’s almost impossible to know how much money he has or how much he owes. I foisted him off on Helen Hansen because I knew she wouldn’t be taken in by him. She actually funded 3 of his proposals but had quickly determined that Matt always wanted more and that his preferred technique for getting more was to try to talk to her multiple times every day. Helen is our most successful entrepreneur and she has a couple of hundred employees. For the past two months, every time Matt approached her, several of her largest employees would escort him away. Helen’s allowed him to send her a one page memo once a week. Otherwise he was forbidden to contact her.
Matt was now coming to my office two to three times a week trying to convince me to fund his projects or to refer him to another councilor besides Helen.
I heard Emma, “I’m sorry, Mr. O’Conner. Mayor Bingham has a completely full schedule. He won’t be able to see you today.”
I heard Matt bluster.
“Mr. O’Conner, you will need to make an appointment. I’m sorry but we won’t be able to schedule that appointment today. I’ll make sure to contact you when Mayor Bingham has time.” Emma Dietrich was an irresistible force. I could hear Matt sputter his protests as she physically escorted him out of the waiting room. I knew then that Emma would be a wonderful addition to my life.
I found out later that nothing happened in our community without Emma finding out about it. She had known for months that Matt was the bane of my existence. A vast network of women kept her informed. She seemed to know every important and unimportant detail of our citizen’s lives. She decided every day who would see me and who wouldn’t. Soon people were calling her Art’s Iron Fist. I continued to look at every proposal myself, but Emma took over the responsibility of informing entrepreneurs whether their proposals were accepted or not. My ability to be an effective mayor improved immeasurably when she became my gatekeeper. I was finally able to get some rest.
It was no surprise to me that within minutes of a brothel opening in Sugar House that Emma would know about it. The council met twice a week. Mark Jones, the Federal Emergency Director for Utah, showed up to the meeting. Emma was there to keep the meeting minutes. Once all the city councilors, John Black, Helen Hanson, Sam Tucker, and Hank Miller arrived, I started the meeting. “Ok, I guess everyone knows why we’re here. So is anyone against closing down the brothel?” I figured this would be a short meeting.
Mark stood up, “Before the council votes on this, I would like to know how we would enforce a law against prostitution.”
I said, “What do you mean Mark?”
Mark replied, “Let me remind all of you that months ago we made a decision that we did not want to waste resources on prisons. We’re too small of a community to be able to feed and support prisoners who don’t do anything and we all decided that we didn’t want to be a society that had chain gangs. The only way we have to enforce our laws is to use fines, exile, or executions. We all know that anyone we exile has a high chance of dying. I hope that none of you would want to execute someone because they are either selling or buying sex for money. So if you decide to make prostitution illegal, how are we going to enforce this law?”
John Black spoke up, “What’s wrong with fining the prostitutes and their customers?”
Mark replied, “John, you’re our economist. You already know the answer to this question. If we set the fines too low, the fines will just be the cost of doing business; just another tax. If we set the fines too high, people will go out of their way to avoid the fines and then we’d be back to either exile or execution. If we are going to have something we can’t prevent, what’s the point of pa
ssing a law against it?
“Life was better before the Outbreak, but some things have improved. One of improvements is that we have so far avoided passing laws that everyone breaks or are almost never enforced. We haven’t had any illegal drugs since the Outbreak. You all have to admit that the sky hasn’t fallen because people can now smoke marijuana in public. We no longer have the resources to lock up and take care of drug addicts or prostitutes. In the old world, it seemed like every citizen broke a speeding law or a tax law or a safety law. Ninety-nine percent of the time we got away with it but we always had to be concerned about the one percent possibility that we would be caught and fined. Our society is too small and too fragile to waste energy on things that will almost never be enforced. We shouldn’t have a government telling consenting adults how to have sex.”
Helen Hansen glared at Mark, “Are you saying that it is ok for women to sell themselves?”
“You guys know I will not tolerate women being forced into prostitution or underage girls going into this business. Helen, you personally know Sadie and her partners. Her two male partners are planning on being prostitutes too. In this brothel both men and women are going to be selling themselves. We all know these people. They aren’t being coerced. What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t stand in the way of anyone doing what they want if it doesn’t hurt others. Let’s admit it; prostitution is called the oldest profession because it probably is. As long as there is a big enough population, there will always be sex for sale. I honestly don’t think prostitution is bad enough to exile or to execute anyone over it. If we fine prostitution, we will just be hypocritically taxing it.”