by David Wong
“Congratulations, now you know the single reason why the world is the way it is. You see the problem right away—everything we do requires cooperation in groups larger than a hundred and fifty. Governments. Corporations. Society as a whole. And we are physically incapable of handling it. So every moment of the day we urgently try to separate everyone on earth into two groups—those inside the sphere of sympathy and those outside. Black versus white, liberal versus conservative, Muslim versus Christian, Lakers fan versus Celtics fan. With us, or against us. Infected versus clean.
“We simplify tens of millions of individuals down into simplistic stereotypes, so that they hold the space of only one individual in our limited available memory slots. And here is the key—those who lie outside the circle are not human. We lack the capacity to recognize them as such. This is why you feel worse about your girlfriend cutting her finger than you do about an earthquake in Afghanistan that kills a hundred thousand people. This is what makes genocide possible. This is what makes it possible for a CEO to sign off on a policy that will poison a river in Malaysia and create ten thousand deformed infants. Because of this limitation in the mental hardware, those Malaysians may as well be ants.”
I stared at the crowd outside and rubbed my forehead. “Or monsters.”
“Now you’re getting it. It’s the same as how that crowd out there doesn’t see us as human. The way the rest of the country won’t see anyone inside city limits as human. The way the rest of the world soon won’t regard anyone in this country as human. The paranoia rippling outward until the whole planet is engulfed. This infection, this parasite that dehumanizes the host but is utterly undetectable, it is perfectly designed to play on this fundamental flaw, this limitation in our hardware. That will be the real infection.”
Marconi emptied his pipe into a bedpan, and pulled out a bag of tobacco.
“Which brings us back to the Tower of Babel. Humans were always destined to be derailed by this limitation in our ability to cooperate. At some specific point, determined by the overall size of the population on the planet and a host of other factors, we will destroy ourselves. That is the Babel Threshold. The point at which the species-wide exhaustion of human sympathy reaches critical mass.”
“And you think this whole thing, starting with me finding a giant alien spider in my bed, was Their plan to trigger that event.”
He nodded. “The parasite’s ability to stay undercover indefinitely, the infected showing absolutely no symptoms … it’s perfection. Anyone can be infected, at any moment, anywhere in the world. If you want to see what the future of life on planet Earth looks like, simply take a glance out that window.”
I found a chair and collapsed into it. There was a harsh knock on the door behind me.
From behind the door, Owen said, “It’s been long enough, doc.”
“Five more minutes won’t change anything, Mr. Barber.”
Lowering my voice, I said, “Wait, you wrote a book about this happening before it happened? Damn, why didn’t you send me a copy?”
“You shouldn’t have needed a book to see this coming. No one should have. This is what They’ve been building toward since civilization began, accelerating as it got closer, like the last sand running from an hourglass. Look at the games children play now. The average child has killed ten thousand men on a video game screen by the time he enters high school. Reinforcing that lesson one button press at a time—the shapes at the other end of your gun are not human. And when news of the infection spread, what did the world immediately call the infected?”
“Zombies.”
“Exactly. Our culture’s most perfect creation—an enemy you are absolutely, morally correct in killing, because they are already dead. Why, you are doing them a favor by smashing in their skulls. We as a species were so primed for this that to get combustion, They only needed the tiniest spark. It actually happened sooner than I expected, but…”
He shrugged as he lit his pipe, as if to say, “Eh, can’t be right every time.”
I said, “Well, you took a long time to say what I pretty much already knew. We’re screwed. I mean, to be clear, we’re rooting for the bombs, right? That’s the only way to satisfy the paranoia, let them blow all this to shit on live TV while the mob out there cheers.”
Marconi puffed on his pipe and stared out the window.
I said, “I mean, we absolutely cannot let that part get out, right? The fact that the zombies are undetectable until they’re biting your brain? That fact needs to die with the quarantine, otherwise it’s going to be a global lynch mob out there. Which means making sure none of them get out, even if innocents die in the process. I mean, it’s shitty, but that’s all we can do, err on the side of overkill. Right?”
Marconi said, “The sedative is running out. One of my infected patients woke up.”
I said, “Jesus. Really? Did you—”
“I’ve been talking to him all morning. He’s still strapped to his bed. I calmly explained to him the situation, and he asked me to leave the restraints on. He said it was the only responsible thing. What do you make of that?”
“I … I don’t know. But you can’t just leave him like—”
“You’re right. I can’t.”
“I mean it’s just a matter of time, right? Until he monsters out and kills who knows how many people?”
Marconi studied me.
Owen banged on the door again. Marconi said, “We’re coming.”
2 Hours, 30 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
To Tightpants, aka Jimmy Dupree, John said, “So we know for sure now? They’re going to bomb it?”
Jimmy nodded. “You’re the one who was askin’ earlier about the innocent people inside quarantine.”
“Got a friend in there.”
“No, you don’t. What this is, with the bombs, is a mercy killing. Nothin’ more. You need to get that straight.”
Staring through the windshield at the fence down the street, John nodded.
Dupree said, “Don’t know if you heard the shots last night, but there was an outbreak, from the quarantine. Bunch of ’em found an old utility tunnel that the government, in its infinite wisdom, failed to spot on the blueprints. Few dozen tried to get out. Looked like some militia tried to stand their ground and got themselves torn to pieces in the process. Don’t got any idea how many zombies got out into the wild but I spent my night disposin’ of thirty bodies. There’ll be more, a lot more, if they don’t do somethin’ about that quarantine. It’s a bag of live snakes in a nursery. Well, word finally filtered in, from the feds at the perimeter. The bomb drops at noon. We just got to keep it secure until then, then this whole flippin’ nightmare will be over. And if noon comes and nothin’ happens, we’re gonna surround this place and pour bullets into that fence until nothin’ on the other side draws air.”
2 Hours, 25 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
I couldn’t help but notice that Owen had the reds build up the fire. Looked like they had found some more wooden pallets somewhere. That shit really burned.
To Owen, I said, “You know what? I never got to sit down and write that note to my girlfriend. Marconi used up all my time. And all he did was give me a chili recipe. Do you want it?”
He didn’t answer. It was a beautiful morning, though some clouds were moving in. I could actually hear birds chirping somewhere. Birds don’t give a shit about the apocalypse any more than we’d care about some species of bird going extinct in the Amazon. Which had probably happened twice already this morning.
All of the reds were awake and standing around me. I looked back at the hospital entrance and saw a smattering of greens standing there. I glanced up at the roof, and there were the rest of them, lined up along the ledge and looking down.
From behind me, Marconi said, “Mr. Barber, I don’t know if you can hear the commotion on the other side of the fencing, but we do appear to have larger problems here.”
Owen said, “With all
due respect, doc, I’m not a fuckin’ idiot. Those people are about to riot out there because they figured out this quarantine isn’t secure, thanks to last night’s breakout. And guess who we have to thank for that?”
“Killing David here will not assuage their panic. It will, in fact, accomplish nothing except to confirm their worst fears about us.”
“ATTENTION.”
Everybody turned toward the booming sound of a voice coming from a public address system.
“PLEASE MOVE A THOUSAND FEET AWAY FROM THE QUARANTINE FENCE. FOR YOUR SAFETY, PLEASE WITHDRAW FROM THE QUARANTINE PERIMETER TO A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST ONE THOUSAND FEET.”
2 Hours, 20 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
John heard the PA system outside the fence announcing something he couldn’t quite make out from inside the truck. Warning the crowd away from the gates probably. He pulled the tow truck up through the quarantine crowd, gently knocking over a DO NOT CROSS BY ORDER OF REPER—HIGHLY INFECTIOUS—TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT sign. Beyond it were the four-foot-high concrete barricades. Beyond them was an unmanned jeep with a mounted gun that John assumed would shoot anyone who touched the fence. Beyond it, the fence itself. For all he knew, Dave could be no more than fifty feet away, on the other side of that chain link. A cheap pair of bolt cutters would get through it in two minutes. But it might as well be the center of the Earth. He needed a drink. They had a little over two hours until either the army incinerated this place, or the entire town went apeshit on it. Two-plus hours in which to accomplish … what?
The crowd was actually moving back, to his surprise, and then it dawned on him that the military was trying to get the rubberneckers out of the blast radius of whatever they were going to drop on this place. He wondered if he was close enough to be engulfed by whatever came streaking down from the sky. He threw the truck into park.
The PA system repeated its message. John lit one of his last two cigarettes. He twiddled with the levers on the console. He heard a humming from behind him and a shadow inched across the cab. Oh, hey, he’d figured out how to work the stupid ramp mechanism. It’d have been nice to have done that before he was forced to steal some guy’s tow truck, but that was how every single possible thing had gone so far in this situation. Just a little bit behind the curve, a little slow to figure out the right thing. Story of his fucking life.
John realized at the very least he needed to get this poor bastard’s tow truck out of the blast zone, and that leaving it here would be a major dick move considering he no longer needed it. John got out and climbed up onto the tilted truck bed, released the cable that secured the Caddie and got behind the wheel. He twisted the ignition and woke up the bear under the hood. He reversed off the truck bed, flattening out on the street below. Creedence loudly assured him that a bad moon was rising.
2 Hours, 15 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
Marconi was trying to voice another objection, but Owen wasn’t listening—his eyes never left mine. He cut off Marconi in midsentence and said, “All these people in here. All those greens. And look, you got exactly one guy standing up for you. Look up, at all the greens up there, watchin’ this from the roof. Notice how none of them came down to advocate on your behalf? None of ’em are throwing themselves in front of you and sayin, ‘you take him, you got to take me, too!’ You know why? Because every single one of ’em knows you wouldn’t do it for them.”
2 Hours, 14 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
John backed up in the Caddie, and kept backing up. Farther and farther down the street, the tow truck and its tilted bed shrinking in his windshield. He stopped. He thought.
He flicked his cigarette out of the window.
He buckled his seat belt.
2 Hours, 10 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
Owen said, “Dude, this is going to be lost on you. But I need to say it. Because we are going to die, Wong. Don’t think I don’t understand that. I know the feds aren’t gonna let us outta this place. So let me say my bit. I have kept the order in this quarantine since the day the feds pussied out of here. All in all, I’d say it’s the best thing I ever done in my life. Maybe the only positive thing I’ve ever done. And that’s all right. Whether it’s bombs in here, or bein’ torn apart by the mob out there, I will stand before the good Lord and say that I held things together as long as I could. And my final act is to declare you guilty, for the deaths of thirty men and women, and the probable deaths of two hundred and seventy more. I find you guilty of committing the only real sin Jesus ever asked us not to commit: the sin of not giving a shit about anyone but yourself. Doc, step aside.”
From behind Owen, somebody said, “They’re having a block party out there. Listen.”
“What?”
“They’re playin’ music. Creedence.”
They were turning up the volume, too. “Bad Moon Rising” swelled in the distance, getting louder and louder. And under it was another sound, a terrible noise like a mechanical Chewbacca that fell into a rock-crushing machine.
At that moment, John’s Cadillac came soaring through the air.
It cleared the first fence and almost cleared the second—the rear tires caught the razor wire and started unspooling it from the top of the fence, trailing behind the falling Caddie like the streamers on a kite.
Everyone scattered. The grille of the Caddie plunged right into the middle of the bonfire, scattering smoke and flames and bones to the wind. The Cadillac finally bounced and jolted to a stop among a rain of burning human skulls.
The voice of John Fogerty garbled and died. The driver’s door opened and John flung himself out, clutching a sawed-off shotgun. He screamed, “DID SOMEBODY ORDER SOME FUCKING PRISON BREAK WITH A SIDE OF SHOTGUN?”
* TRANSCRIPT OF AN EXCHANGE BETWEEN UAV DRONE OPERATOR CAPTAIN SHANE MCINNIS (GUARDIAN) AND LIEUTENANT COLONEL LAWRENCE EAGELSON (YANKEE SEVEN-NINE) ON THE MORNING OF NOVEMBER 15TH, 09:55 HOURS *
Guardian: Be advised, a vehicle has breached the quarantine fence along the western side. I repeat, a vehicle, appears to be a civilian passenger car, has breached the fence.
Yankee Seven-Nine: Guardian, are you we looking at containment failure here?
Guardian: Negative, uh, Yankee, the fence appears to be intact.
Yankee Seven-Nine: Okay I need clarification, Guardian, I thought you said it had been breached by a vehicle—
Guardian: Affirmative, there is a vehicle inside the fence, the driver has exited.
Yankee Seven-Nine: Then how is the fence still intact, Guardian?
Guardian: It, uh, appears he went over.
Yankee Seven-Nine: He what?
Guardian: Yankee, I think he ramped it. There’s a … some kind of truck with a platform on the back and I think he used it as a ramp.
Yankee Seven-Nine: All right, did you say you had a clear shot at the driver?
2 Hours, 5 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
John grabbed my shoulders and screamed into my face. “DAVE! ARE YOU IN THERE? IT’S ME. JOHN. I AM YOUR FRIEND. CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
“Why are you talking like that?”
I looked inside the Caddie. John had come alone.
“Where’s Amy?”
“I don’t know! Outside town I think.”
“Oh. Thank God.”
“Or not. I actually don’t know.”
Owen strode up and kicked aside a smoldering skull. He raised the pistol.
John raised his shotgun. Their eyes met.
John said, “Owen? What the hell are you doin’ here?”
“You are one crazy son of a bitch, John.”
To me, John said, “Is he infected?”
“I don’t think so.”
Owen said, “Ain’t none of us infected.”
I said, “We … don’t know that.”
John said, “Well, whatever. Everybody needs to get the hell out of here! By lunchtime this is all gonna be a crater. Did
you hear the announcement out there, Owen?”
I said, “Wait, do you two know each other?”
“Yeah, remember I said I was doing setup for him? This is DJ O-Funk.” To Owen, he said, “Hell, I thought you’d be out there on Daryl’s farm, ridin’ this thing out.”
“I was. Went into town on a beer run and got scooped up by the feds. I punched one of those guys in the space suits and I guess they took that as a sign of infection.”
I noticed the rest of the inmates were staring at us, shell-shocked, as we held this conversation next to the crashed Caddie and among the scattered pile of smoking human remains. It finally occurred to me to turn my eyes up to the circling drones, wondering if they were zeroing in on our skulls right now. I had a vague thought that we should run for cover, but the entrance to the hospital was a hundred feet away. It’d be a nice, leisurely couple of shots for some guy sitting at a console out in the desert. We could duck in the car, but the drone was also equipped with the kind of rockets that could turn it into two tons of burning steel confetti.
Actually, why hasn’t he shot us already?
Dr. Marconi walked up and John glanced at him. “Doc? You been here the whole time?”
“John. I would ask you what you are doing but I fear you would actually tell me.”
“I’m just here to get Dave. Now we’re gonna get in my Caddie and I’m gonna drive a Caddie-shaped hole in that fence over there. The rest of you can walk right out behind us. Once out, you will owe me a case of beer. Each of you.”
Owen said, “You didn’t see the big fuckin’ guns lined up outside? They’ll turn you into chunks in two seconds.”
“I didn’t see any big fuckin’ guns, I saw a bunch of little fuckin’ guns. I don’t think they were anticipating Cadillac-driving zombies. But either way, you need to find a way outta here, before they bomb the place.”