Bag Men

by Jackson, Silas

  Troy cocked his head. “Nothing, at first, except anger. I was pissed that she’d abandoned me.” He paused. “Huh, that’s funny.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I guess I didn’t know that mom wasn’t mom anymore. Not at the time. I can’t remember for sure if I knew she’d died and, uh, reanimated. I was just angry. She came after me. I panicked.”

  “You did the only thing you could do.”

  Troy stared at her. “Does that make me a murderer, Doc, if I wasn’t sure if she was still her or not, and I killed her anyway?”

  Dr. Jones set down her pad and steepled her fingers. The perfect cliché of the caring therapist. “Troy, let’s be clear. You couldn’t have done anything differently, or you very likely wouldn’t be here at this point. We wouldn’t be having this conversation. You wouldn’t be an invaluable member of the community that is the Republic of Sacramento.” She picked up her pen and paper again. “And, personally, I think morality has probably taken a strong turn for the pragmatic. Considering the times we live in. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Troy nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “Now: the dream.”

  “Oh, boy.” Troy swallowed. “Could I have some more water, maybe?”

  Dr. Jones indicated the shiny, metallic thermos beside him. “Help yourself.”

  He poured himself a full glass and took a swig. “Cotton mouth, all of a sudden.”

  “Troy.” True to character, she shot him an amused look over the rim of her glasses. “Now you’re stalling.”

  “You caught me. Okay. Umm. So, the red and blue lights, just like they were when the cops and ambulances were flying by our house that night, all those years ago. I’m standing over my mom. She’s in bed. Her head is turned away from me.” He tried to hide the fact that his hands were shaking by folding them in his lap. “I’m holding the hammer over my head. Then, her head turns and she’s not my mom at all. She’s my partner. Dara is about the same age as mom would’ve been back then.”

  “What do you do, in the dream?”

  “I, uh, I bash her skull in with the hammer.”

  The warmth fled Dr. Jones’s face as she made a note. “How old are you? I mean, how old is the dream-you? Are you a grown man?”

  “No, no. I’m ten years old again.”

  “And the figure that alternates between your mother and Corporal Meadowlark, what does she do?”

  “She looks up at me, just before I hit her.”

  “There’s no struggle? She doesn’t come at you, like the body of your mother did after it reanimated?”

  Troy shook his head. Dr. Jones scribbled another note.

  “What does it mean, Doc?”

  Dr. Jones looked at him like a horse breeder might look at a potential purchase. Quickly, her face assumed that warm, easy smile she’d fostered. “In the end, it’s just a dream, Troy. It’s only important for what it symbolizes. If you’re asking me if I think you want to murder your new partner, the answer is, of course, ‘no, I don’t.’ I don’t believe you’d be violent with her, or with me, or with anyone of your fellow citizens.” She uncrossed her legs. Her eyes wandered to the clock above Troy’s head. “Looks like we’re just about out of time.”

  Taking that as his cue, Troy got to his feet. He reached out to shake Dr. Jones’ hand.

  As he opened her office door, she said, “This was a good session. I think we really made a breakthrough today. Look at how open and honest you were with me, where before you were shut up like a clam. When you first came to me, I’m not afraid to admit, I didn’t ever think we’d break so much new ground so fast.”

  “Maybe I was looking for someone to talk to. You’ve been good, Doc. My last appointed psych — well, let’s just say that I’m sure he had his hands full with me.”

  She reached up to pat his shoulder. “You’re making progress. That’s all that matters. Everything is an adjustment.” Retreating behind her desk, she added, “Speaking of, I hear you’re headed out tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Where to?”

  “Out past Free Flagstaff. Can’t say beyond that.”

  “I understand. State secrets, et cetera. But that’s a long way.” She shook her head sympathetically. “And, talk about adjustments: not only do you have a new partner, but you’ve been assigned a new overseeing Agent, too. The bigwigs must trust you like no other.”

  Troy shrugged. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”

  Without another word, Dr. Jones tapped her pencil-sized recorder. For the first time since they’d started meeting last year, her veneer of calculated professionalism fell away and her face was clear of any mask. She told him, “Listen, Troy, I know Agent Morris. Though maybe not that well. I doubt anyone does. Anyway, he isn’t a bad man. But you don’t want to get on his bad side.”

  Perplexed, he could only say, “Thanks, Doc.”

  She turned the recorder back on.

  “See you next week.” She assumed her practiced smile again. “Be safe out there.”

  “You too.” Troy closed the door.

  In the hallway, he accosted the water fountain, drinking deep. He got so thirsty when he was nervous. That might have had something to do with the days when he was younger, as he was making his way across the country. He’d nearly died of exposure, dehydration, and starvation. To say nothing of the roving gangs of psychos and the hordes of Drunks he met along the way. That’s why he drank like a camel drank, he liked to think. To prepare for dryer days.

  And he sure as hell felt nervous then, as he pushed open the glass double doors of the Health & Wellness building and squinted into the bright sun of a Sacramento morning.

  See, what he hadn’t told Doc Jones was what he thought the dream meant: he suspected his new partner of being a Sleeper.

  Christopher Troy Myers

  January 21st, 2070

  Old Sacramento, Military Barracks

  On nights before a Run, Troy played poker with his fellow soldiers. He was really bad at it, and lost almost constantly. But it kept his mind off things. Besides, they were only playing for credits, and Troy never really felt that he needed all of his pay. The Republic provided food, shelter, clothing, and so on to each according to his need. And being a soldier had its perks. As an Army Scout, Troy represented the first line of defense against every kind of danger the Republic might face. He was one of the frontrunners, the vanguard; hooah. For these reasons, some considerable resources had been sunk into him over his twenty-odd years of service.

  That being said, he didn’t sleep in a loft, or dine on salmon and arugula. But he didn’t need more than the standard bunk and rations. So, he played poker—badly—with the remainder of his salary, while his bunkmates laughed at him and thought he was touched in the head.

  When Regular Lee lost, it was because of bad luck. Jordan would only consistently suck when in a really bad mood. Troy lost because he didn’t care and wasn’t paying attention. Completing the table that night, however, was Dara Meadowlark. And she was playing worse than Troy, even though she looked like she was trying.

  Maybe sweat beaded on her forehead because she was nervous about the Run tomorrow. That could be why she had trouble concentrating on a simple game, and was performing poorly enough to be fleeced by someone as unskilled and uninterested in winning as Troy.

  Then again, maybe her skin was damp because she had a fever. And maybe she was shitty at poker because her thinking had slowed way, way down.

  As Troy looked around the room, he reminded himself that he was decades older than any of the men and women there. They hadn’t seen what he’d seen, lived through all the changes he had, and he often wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. In a way, you could almost envy these young people who hadn’t had to watch civilization tear itself apart. Kids are adaptable. They grow and learn. The hell that the world had become was their cradle. They’d never expect anything better.

  Looking at that idea from a di
fferent angle, you could call them coddled. Yeah, even these soldiers. Coddled, asleep, blind even, because most of them were pavement stompers. All they’d ever do is patrol city streets deep within the best fortified city anyone knew about. The best in the world, probably. It had been years since the last raid. And these, let’s face it, kids hadn’t been alive to see the Drunks transition into Runners, then into Hunters, and so on, before finally becoming Sleepers.

  That’s why they would all be just as dead as the civilians inside Sac—yeah, even these soldiers, if it weren’t for the Scouts. And the Bureau, Troy admitted to himself. Despite how much of a pain in the ass the Agents could be at times, they were the ones wading in the shit, right there in the thick of the worst the world had to offer. Right there with the Army Scouts. Though their respective training couldn’t have been more different, Troy had learned while working with (or, rather, for)Agent Ashe that one very important fact united this division of the military with its civilian overseeing counterpart: when things went bad, Scouts and Bag Men were the first to die.

  Less than three months ago, Agent Ashe proved that theory true. She was shot to pieces in a town called “Stillwater,” somewhere in what used to be Nevada. Whoever had been responsible had taken her rifle and her head in the half minute it took Troy to catch up.

  At the time, he’d been cradling the head of Barker, his old partner. Cut in half by a razor-wire trap.

  That was the fucking badlands for you.

  Aaron Barker had made a mistake as stupid as a might-as-well-be-green-as-grass rookie. He should’ve known better. But nobody deserved to go like that, no matter how stupid they were.

  And that’s what would happen to anyone of the dick-measuring pricks (yes, Troy included the ladies in that number) occupying the tables and bunks in the barracks. They’d grown up during Reconstruction, most of them, if not all. They had no idea what it was like to be sure you were going to starve to death, or crawling into a cupboard, having to hear every second of your friend being raped and murdered. Lying in a pit of corpses, waiting for the infected to shuffle past. Stabbing your niece through the eye with a shrimp fork.

  VHV. That’s what they called it now. Vox Humana Virus. Because the infected sounded, acted, even thought almost human.

  That shit terrified Troy every damn day.

  But the Bureau of Public Health sent its Agents out, every day, to deal with the threat. Having such highly trained professionals watching over the city had done the trick. Infection rates had never been lower (according to a report by the BPH). Every time a “vector” of the virus was identified, one of the Bag Men — a cross between Batman and a trauma surgeon — would swoop in, capture, and submit the deceased for incineration.

  Were there hiccups? Did infected wreak havoc from time to time? You bet your ass. Still, everyone born into the latest generation saw only how ruthlessly efficient they were at keeping Sac safe. That was the whole point, after all: trust us, we are your government; we exist to protect you.

  Sleepers. That’s what most people called the newest brand of infected. Because they looked a lot like anyone else. Until it was too late to do anything about it, and they were digging their fingernails into your guts. The infected had sure come a long way from the mindless, lurching, skin-shedding freaks that Troy first started putting down when he was about ten. The virus had come a long way.

  Every generation lost a piece of the bigger picture. Troy doubted anyone younger than he was could understand how horrifying VHV truly was. It didn’t just end civilization as we knew it. It persisted, changed, kept picking away at us as if to ensure that it finished the job. Troy sometimes wondered, as he imagined many did, if VHV was somehow intelligent. Regardless of whether or not it had been sent by God or some other higher power, or even just an accident of nature, it was really good at killing humans precisely because it got smarter every few years.

  None of you get how adaptable the virus is, Troy thought as he squinted at Regular Lee, at Jordan, at all the other green-as-grass-ass rookies, ending with Dara Meadowlark.

  He was by no means a Bag Man, or a doctor, but years of experience in the field had taught Troy to know and watch for the signs and symptoms of infection. His knowledge didn’t come from a book but from being in the eye of the shit-storm for twenty years. As the virus’ tactics changed, so did his. That’s how he was still alive, where so many of his friends and colleagues had bit the dust before him.

  And, right then, as he laid down his seven of hearts and two of clubs and ponied up more of his credit chits, everything in him was telling him to watch out for Meadowlark.

  She didn’t smile. Her hair was greasy. She smelled off, musty, like a dog that needed a bath. She did use more than the standard one- or two-syllable words you could drag out of a Sleeper. But that didn’t mean she was in the clear. Could just be the virus adapting again. Like it always had.

  Troy and Dara sat only a few feet apart.

  He watched her every quirk and shift in expression from behind his cards.

  Jordan raked in his latest winnings. After he did, he said, “So, were any of you there on Christmas Day?”

  No one jumped to answer. Christmas Day had been a reminder of how quickly the stable life inside Sac’s walls could turn into a nightmare. The world was still a place for monsters.

  “Come on.” Jordan coughed. “Don’t leave me hanging like this. I was out.”

  Jordan was a Scout, too, and bull-headed. Worst of all, he had a big mouth. Troy gave him another year. Hell, his next outing might even do him in. Troy liked him, but he called a spade a spade.

  The kid wasn’t taking the hint. “I heard from Moms it was a lot of them, this time. At least three. And it got real messy before the end.”

  “If your mom told you what happened,” said Regular Lee, throwing down his cards, “then you don’t need a recap.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause Moms is in the know. ‘Cause she was totally there to see it happen.” Jordan grumbled to himself. “Well, fuck all you tight-asses. What’re we supposed to do? Playing cards and shooting the shit go together like, like—”

  “Idiots and gossip,” said Regular Lee.

  Dara said nothing.

  Finally, Troy felt inclined to chime in. “A new year and a new decade, rung in by the death of that boy they called ‘Shippy.’ Just a radio tech, no one too high up. But he worked for The Gees, and that’s good enough for most people these days. A word of general advice: folks are always just a little bit happy, deep down inside where it don’t show, that one of the Government’s own is sent on his way out of this world.” Troy shuffled the deck. “Just another reason for us to be careful.” He looked pointedly at Jordan. “All of us.” Troy was bad at poker, but a whiz at shuffling. He water-falled the cards as he said, “Remember that just ‘cause we’re not Gees doesn’t mean everyone knows it. When people turn resentful, they do stupid shit. So we all gotta remember to stay courteous and polite, even when they’re throwing rocks our way. That way we never get mistaken for the real enemy.” He paused for effect. “Everyone who isn’t Sac: bandits, cannibals, Wild-Childs, and,” his gaze fell on Dara, “Sleepers.”

  Dara nodded along.

  He passed her the cards, and she dealt.

  Christopher Troy Myers

  January 22nd, 2070

  About 210 Miles South of Sac

  So far, the trip south along Interstate 5 had been smooth sailing. The weather cooperated. Troy, driving, had his window down and let the sun warm his arm. His right hand held the map by which he and Agent Bernard Morris navigated. Under the map rested his standard issue 9mm.

  As she’d climbed into the Humvee, Dara Meadowlark had pointed at the weapon, asking, “Expecting trouble?”

  “You never know,” Troy had answered.

  The three of them had left at dawn, taking advantage of every hour of natural light they could. It was 11:05 a.m. They’d managed a steady 55 miles per hour. They were making good time.

  Traffic isn’t
bad, at least. Troy couldn’t help but chuckle tiredly to himself. Remembering, even after all these years, what Atlanta traffic had been like, he learned to appreciate the quiet of a long stretch of open highway. Some might call it eerie. He called it peaceful. The I-285 loop around Atlanta, now that had been a horror.

  “Map says we should be something like 60 miles out from Bakersfield,” he said over the thrum of the Humvee’s engine and the wind that tried to whip his words away.

  “You mean No Man’s Land,” said Agent Morris, riding shotgun.

  Troy said nothing. Morris was right, though. What had been Bakersfield, California, before Shit Hit The Fan, was now significant only for being the rough middle point between the Republic of Sacramento to the north and, to the south, the Kingdom of Yuma. Bakersfield was derelict. No one settled there, so it became No Man’s Land between two states that didn’t really get along too well. To put it diplomatically.

  Sometimes, a mission would still come out this far for whatever reason. The soldiers would dig trenches to set up camp for the night. They dug up bones every time, the bones of those who’d been running away from Bakersfield.

  “Any word about Yuma’s movements, sir?” said Troy, steering with his knees while folding the map into his lap. “Us grunts don’t get much by way of political news.”

  “Let’s keep it that way, Sergeant,” said Morris, frowning from behind his aviator sunglasses. “The hand doesn’t need to know what the head is thinking in order to act.”

  I hate this guy already, Troy thought to himself. What a shit day.

  Being cooped up in a cramped Humvee with Agent Sunshine for hours was bad enough. Behind them sat Dara Meadowlark, though, and Troy couldn’t help but wonder when she’d snap and blow his brains out with her 9mm, or bite a chunk out of his exposed and very tense neck.

  She wasn’t much of a talker. She hid her eyes with her hand. Morris wasn’t picking up any of the signs, even though they might as well be massive and neon with how in-your-face they were.

  “Corporal Meadowlark,” said Troy.