Bag Men

by Jackson, Silas

  “Shouldn’t we stick to the Humvee, sir?”

  Troy shook his head. “Can’t navigate without light. When dawn comes and a strange vehicle is parked outside, what do you think they’ll do?” He pulled the night vision goggles off. “I don’t want to be caught in the open. In that small building, we outgun them. Out here, who knows? And I don’t know if you’ve ever been outside in the desert during winter, but I don’t think too highly of that experience.” On cue, he shivered.

  “What about the old woman? The one on the bed?”

  “What about her, Corporal?”

  Meadowlark shifted uncomfortably. “She could be turning.”

  “Even more reason to get a grip on the situation. Before it gets us.”

  Troy tapped on the window of the Humvee, where Agent Morris lay, sprawled over the back seats, reading from a massive, frayed, hardcover copy of Moby Dick by flashlight.

  No discipline. Troy growled under his breath. No sense. Motherfucker.

  He tapped the window. Then he reported to Morris. The Bag Man was suddenly a lot more agreeable than Troy thought he’d be.

  “Right, let’s get inside then. Starting to get a nip in the air.”

  Morris slammed shut his book, clicked off his flashlight, and opened the Humvee door. Pulling his jacket tighter around himself, he led the way, almost sauntering, to the front door of the antiques shop.

  Under the awning, he grinned back at the Scouts before rapping his knuckles against the door.

  “Now, before you shoot, you, in there,” he said, throwing up his arms like a preacher, “you should know two things about who you’re dealing with. One, we mean you no harm unless you mean to do us harm. And, two, we are heavily armed and will defend ourselves if necessary.”

  He then moved to the right of the door and pulled out his pistol.

  Troy tried a different tactic. “We can offer you food, and some medicine. Depends on what you need.”

  Someone from inside the store said, “This some kinda trick?”

  “No, we don’t want trouble,” said Meadowlark.

  “We just need shelter for the night,” said Troy.

  He listened to the wind’s mounting whine. The shutters and awning clacked and groaned, respectively.

  “How many are you?” said the younger woman, through the door.

  “Three,” said Meadowlark.

  “We’ll kill every one of you if you try anything,” said one of the men.

  Morris shouted back, “You have our word. Take it or leave it.”

  The voices were frantic, and the words unintelligible. One of the men said, “We’ll take it,” and the door opened a crack.

  An older man’s voice said, “Holster your guns. We’ve done the same.”

  Troy nodded and he and Meadowlark lowered their rifles.

  A handgun is better for close quarters, anyway.

  Morris slid his piece into the holster at his hip. Troy figured the man would be ready in the event that this fireside chat turned ugly.

  Troy said, “We’re coming inside. Don’t shoot.”

  The store’s shelves had been shoved against some of the windows to block them off. The back door had been barricaded in the same way. The room was bare. Troy assumed they’d used the merchandise, if there’d been any left when they got here, to fuel their fires.

  He introduced himself and his colleagues to the cluster of frightened, raggedy strangers. Even though she was sweating so profusely she looked like she was melting, it was the old, bed-ridden woman who spoke (in a heavy eastern European accent) for her group.

  “I am Benedykta Budziszewska. Bennie for short.” Her chuckle turned into a hacking cough. The younger woman dabbed a drop of blood from Bennie’s lips. Then she said, arm flopping as she did her best to indicate who she was referring to, “Arnold. Pavel, my son. Michael. And Helena.”

  “Nice to meet you all, ma’am.” Troy scanned the shop for hidden threats. “Just would’a wished the conditions were different.”

  “As,” she coughed again, “do I.”

  “I don’t mean to pry, ma’am, but what’s your condition. Were you attacked?”

  It was the guy named Michael who answered for her, “She’s got the flu. We’ve tried everything.”

  “She’s very old,” said Helena.

  Bennie said, “Yes, my time will come soon. This body of mine has weathered many storms, but this shall be my last. I’m ready to go. I only would have liked to see us safely to the coast.”

  “What’s at the coast?” said Meadowlark.

  “A settlement,” said Michael, as if challenging her to argue. “They fish there and trade with islanders. Arnold’s dad told him about it.”

  “Oh?” Agent Morris grinned. “We haven’t ever come across anything like that, have we, Sergeant?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Troy replied.

  “Arnold, was it?” Morris turned on the man who was hovering around Bennie’s bed made of newspaper and backpacks, at the edge of the circle of firelight. “You said your dad told you about this place? That’s great. We’d love to look into it. See, we have ourselves a pretty fair settlement, too. Up in Sacramento. A real, thriving community. Making contact with other people is what we do best. One might say, we live for it. So, if you could tell us where this place is, maybe pinpoint it on our map, we’d be grateful.”

  Arnold’s sullen frown deepened. “Can’t trust you. You’re strangers.”

  “I understand your reticence.” Morris held up his hands. “You don’t know us from Adam, after all. But, I assure you, we’re telling you the truth. Maybe a bit of food and meds for you and your old lady will convince you of our good intentions.”

  “You g-give us food now, to stab us in the back after.” Arnold was shaking, getting really agitated.

  Morris’ shrug was totally over the top, almost a curtsy. “Why are you getting so angry, Arnold? Fine. Don’t tell us. We were trying to be your friend, is all. But if you’re going to be a royal prick about it, well, your loss.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Oh, but just one more thing. Can I take a look at your eyes?”

  “What?” said Arnold.

  “Your eyes. You sound a little sick to me, friend. I’m a doctor. Let me examine you.”

  “F-fuck you.”

  “Lay off him,” said Michael, balling his fists. “I told you we shouldn’t have let these assholes in.”

  “Like we had any choice.” Helena looked imploringly at Troy. “What is this?”

  “Sarge,” said Corporal Meadowlark.

  Troy sighed. “Yeah, I know.” He raised his rifle, locking the sights on Helena. He shouted, “Nobody draws, or I drop you all right now.”

  Meadowlark aimed at Michael and Pavel.

  Troy added, “Don’t any one of you move an inch.”

  “What’re you doing?” said Michael. “You bastards.”

  “Please, just take what you want,” said Pavel, holding up his hands. “Leave us alone.”

  Morris, meanwhile, had his pistol aimed at Arnold. “Everybody cool it. Why so coy with me, friend? Got something to hide?”

  Arnold looked like a cornered animal, baring his teeth, practically hissing.

  “Arnie, Arnie, Arnie, answer me my questions three,” sang Bag Man Morris in a grueling falsetto. “How long have you been traveling with this group?”

  “Half a year, dickhead,” said Michael.

  “Don’t antagonize them, Mike,” said Pavel.

  “Question two,” Morris held up the equivalent number of fingers. “Have you ever told them where exactly this pseudo-mythical settlement of yours is supposed to be located?”

  “He’s been leading us there this whole time. Stop this,” said Helena.

  “Not doing so hot so far, Arnie. Alright, time for number three: do you eat from the same pot as they do?” Morris kicked over the pot of beans that had been simmering over the fire.

  Arnold lunged at him. Morris put three rounds neatly into his center mas
s. Arnold flopped onto his back.

  Stunned silence took over the shop.

  Michael broke that silence with, “Fuck. You killed him.”

  “Normally, my dear Michael, I’d say, ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ or make one of my thousands of other excellent and apropos literary references,” said Morris, still pointing his gun at Arnold’s lifeless body, “but in all actuality, I didn’t kill Arnold, here. He was already dead.”

  “You bastard,” Michael screamed.

  “Calm down.” Morris eyed the body. “Wait. Watch.”

  Maybe ten seconds later, Arnold’s body contorted and jolted, like it’d been hit by a shock from a defibrillator.

  Morris walked over to stand beside Arnold, and said, “Welcome back, Arnie,” and put one between his eyes.

  Looking to Meadowlark for support, Troy saw only confused disgust on her face. It was up to him to smooth this over. “Look, I know you probably don’t understand what you just saw. Arnold was one of the infected.”

  “But he’s been with us for months,” said Bennie, who’d rolled onto her side.

  “This is what the virus looks like, now.” Troy was having a real problem with words in that moment. “He was a carrier when you found him, probably. He’d been infected. And the process is slow, often enough. Everyone knows that. But not everyone knows that the new breed of infected can talk. They can pretend to be human, but they aren’t.”

  “We were friends,” said Pavel, staring at the corpse.

  “Maybe at first. But he changed, I’m sure. You might not have noticed the change, because you didn’t know him too well. But that thing wasn’t the man you met.”

  “Murderers,” said Bennie, hacking. “You come in and kill us. This we expect in this world. But you do it and you tell us fantastic stories and ask us to thank you, afterward? You are monsters.”

  Agent Morris said, “Sergeant, don’t waste any more time explaining things to these people.”

  He then lifted his pistol and, in turn, shot Michael, Helena, Pavel, and, finally, old Bennie through each of their heads.

  “They were almost certainly infected,” he said, reloading and then holstering his weapon.

  Meadowlark said, “Almost certainly?”

  Ticking off his fingers, Morris said, “Traveling with a vector for months, old, sick lady in bed, everyone eating from the same container. Sergeant Myers, you do the math and see if you don’t agree with me. I wouldn’t need to be a doctor to figure these people had virtually a zero percent chance of survival.”

  “Virtually,” said Corporal Meadowlark.

  “He’s right.” Troy put a hand on her shoulder. “We had no choice.”

  “We could’ve—“

  “What? Let them go? Into the world, to infect more people? Maybe they’d even spread it all the way back up to Sac? Or, should we have brought them with us? No, you idiot.” Something resembling actual pain clouded Morris’ face for the briefest of moments when he said, “There is no cure, remember? Everyone seems to have forgotten that, now that the contemporary brand of vector can talk.” He gestured around the room. “If you get infected, you’re already dead.” He barked, “So get out of here.”

  Christopher Troy Myers

  January 22nd, 2070

  QuikFil Gas Station

  The gas station across the street from the antiques shop was vacant and had been looted bare. There were only empty cans to remind anyone that once people probably survived here, huddled against the literal and figurative dark.

  Now that the area had been cleared, Troy was able to pull the Humvee around and park it in the shadows behind the building, away from the street.

  Agent Morris had told Troy and Meadowlark to wait for him inside the gas station. “Don’t open the doors or windows for any reason. I’ll come for you when it’s safe.”

  In full hazmat suit, he busied himself dragging the corpses out of the antiques shop. Once he had the remains outside, he dumped each into the bonfire in turn.

  “I can’t watch this anymore,” said Meadowlark. She kicked a can across the can-strewn floor of the Quikfil. “Guess we know why they call him Bernard ‘Burn More’ Morris.”

  “It didn’t look like he enjoyed it,” Troy mumbled over his shoulder. “Killing them.”

  “Didn’t look like he didn’t.”

  Dara Meadowlark sure was displaying a lot of empathy for a Sleeper. So much so that, for a minute, Troy considered that maybe he’d been wrong about her. Then again, that could just be another trick of the virus. It got more sophisticated every year. Every month, even.

  The man who’d taught Troy how to shoot had told him, “Don’t you ever trust nobody, boy. Y’feel me?” And, one fact you couldn’t deny: Troy was still alive.

  His trigger finger felt real itchy right about then.

  Don’t trust her.

  The door opened, jingling the bell. Stripped of his protective suit, Morris stepped in, saying, “I gathered all of the ashes into a body bag.” He was a bit out of breath. “Doubles as a hazmat container. High quality material.” When Troy looked at him, he shrugged, adding, “Best I could manage.” Morris waved a hand at the corner where Meadowlark lay curled up. “Ah, our little songbird has fallen asleep.”

  Or is getting ready to pounce. Troy said, “I’ll take first watch, sir.”

  “Good man. I’ll be crashing in the corner opposite the lady.”

  Troy turned around and stood by the windows, peering out in all directions. Standing kept him awake.

  It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, in that gas station. The four walls sheltered him against the chilly wind. That was something to be grateful for. He’d known worse.

  After a couple hours of tracking the shifting of the shadows as the clouds overhead cut the light of the moon, Troy realized he had to relieve himself. Grumbling, he shuffled over to the door and pulled it open. The bell tinkled, but the others remained fast asleep.

  The wind plucked at his ears: the desert’s way of reminding him that he wasn’t welcome. Whatever, just give me a bush and I’ll be back inside in no time.

  Searching for a suitable place to squat and empty his bowels, Troy circled around back to where he’d parked the Humvee. Beyond the vehicle lay a patch of brush that would do just as well as any other place.

  9mm in one hand, knife in the other, because taking chances didn’t keep you breathing, Troy stepped off of the asphalt and onto the dirt.

  He heard a rustling in the bushes to his right. He tensed.

  A hare padded by.

  He exhaled. “Jesus.”

  Turning to face the gas station, Troy squatted down, reaching for his belt buckle.

  Then something heavy, like a shovel, slammed into his upper back, knocking him onto his knees.

  Hands in the dirt, it took a few seconds for him to figure out what had happened.

  He’d been attacked. He didn’t have a grip on his gun and knife anymore.

  “So, I got to thinking after I let you guys slip away that I really like your ride.”

  Troy’s purple-and-red-dotted vision focused on the face of Jack MacLeroy. “You.”

  MacLeroy grinned, whites of his eyes bright under the moon. “Sorry about the rough treatment, there, chief. My boys here get a mite excited at the prospect of a good raid. And I can’t blame ‘em. Sweet lookin’ Hummer out front, and that filly you got in there ought’a be a ride and a half, too. Am I right?”

  Posting himself on his elbows, Troy spat, “Fuck you, redneck.”

  “Don’t tell me you never tried it, never even thought about it?” MacLeroy leaned down low, cocking his head. “What’re you, queer or something?”

  Drops of sweat trailed Troy’s nose and dappled the dirt. He cast a glance around him. He was surrounded by six unwashed Yumans that he could see. Might be others skulking nearby.

  Doing a shuffle-step through the dirt, MacLeroy said, “Now, you might be wondering how we caught up with you so fast.”

  Troy spat foamy white
spittle near MacLeroy’s boots. “Nah, I was thinking I’d like to rip your arm off and stick it so far up your ass that you could wave at your friends through your teeth.”

  MacLeroy ignored him. “You Sac pricks might not believe it, but horses are still the most reliable mode of transportation God ever put on this green earth. A good cowboy can ride across country, where you gotta stick to the roads. Roads that are blocked by a lot of dead cars. Roads that are cracked up and falling apart. And you shit-for-brains Sackies can’t move as fast as us, who’re used to pulling all nighters on raids.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” said Troy.

  “I was hoping you’d be impressed. We rode pretty hard to get here. Had to leave our rides a couple miles southwest so you wouldn’t hear us, so you would stay stupid and deaf.”

  Troy shook his head. “Know what, man? Why don’t you just go ahead and fuck your horses, if you love ‘em so much, and leave us and our Humvee alone?”

  “Ooooh,” Mackleroy sucked on his teeth, “‘cause I want your ride. Mmm. It’s shiny. It’s metal. It’s got a sweet, sweet .50 cal mounted on it. And there’s just some times when speed ain’t the be-all-end-all. Sometimes, a guy’s just gotta cruise in style, you know?”

  “So, what, you’re gonna kill me now?”

  With a sickening squelch, Mackleroy licked a dry tongue across his teeth. “Ain’t gonna lie, champ, looks to be that way.”

  Troy started laughing quietly. “Would’ve been a fair fight if you hadn’t caught me by surprise.”

  Laughing right along with him, MacLeroy said, “I like your spunk, old man. Let’s see if your guts are as cute as your tongue.”

  “This is a violation of the Treaty of Bakersfield.”

  The Yumans snickered.

  “Whatever, man,” MackLeroy groaned. He pressed the blade of Troy’s own knife close enough to give Troy the cleanest shave of his life. “Treaties, agreements. You assholes have forgot what the world is like now. It ain’t about signatures and shit.” The Yuman stood and threw his hand out to indicate his men. “The law in the wild is made by the man with the most guns. I’m the law out here.”