Contagion On The World

by J. B. Beatty

  “No silencers?” asks Carrie.

  “No, RIP said they’re actually very hard to find, being illegal and all. He also said they’re not as effective as what you see in movies.”

  “Really?”

  “RIP knew that kind of stuff. He knew everything.”

  Justin stands by the door. “I’ll shut the first hatch after you,” he says. “Be careful. Call if you run into any problems.”

  “The whole thing is a problem,” I say, looking up. “But yeah, I’ll call.”

  We climb up the ladder. Motion-controlled lights flicking on as we make our way into the tunnel proper. We hear Justin locking the hatch behind us. We do the same process at every one of the locked hatches along the way. I dread opening the second-to-last one: that’s where I had the battle to the death with Super Zombie. And even though I dragged the body out and cleaned up that stretch of tunnel, it still smells of blood and death.

  Finally, I shut off the last light and pull the latch and the final hatch raises slowly. I slow its opening with one hand and carry a pistol in the other. All is quiet, and I pull myself out, spinning around slowly to survey the area. I slip the night-vision goggles on and spin again. It‘s a weird perspective, but yeah, I see more. All clear. I put my back against a large tree and face the hatch, giving a short whistle so that Carrie comes out.

  We shut it securely behind us and scatter leaves over the area. For the first time, we will be using the keypad to get back in. The keypad I found behind the fake bark of a fake tree stump about 20 feet away. I discovered it quite by accident when I disposed of Super Zombie’s body. I was so winded from dragging the corpse that I sat down on the stump. My rear end, not normally so sensitive, got cold fast. It seemed like I was sitting on concrete, which I was. It didn’t take me long to discover that a patch of the bark was actually a hinged panel. Clever people. Justin dug through some of the documentation in the control room and found what turned out to be the code.

  And finally, it’s as if we have the keys to the place. After the Super Zombie episode, everyone feels better about our not leaving the door open when we go on our missions.

  4 →I KNOW THE SIGNS OF A DEAD CAT BEING AROUND

  Carrie leads down through the woods. We follow a big loop that will bring us around to the dirt road. In the darkness, we figure that may be the safest path. We’ll be able to travel more quickly and more quietly.

  Above us, no stars. The thick clouds will protect us from the satellites. We are silent, having decided on no non-essential conversation unless we are in a shelter. Carrie is light on her feet and when I close my eyes I can barely hear anything. I am a bit clumsier and have to be careful not to scuff my heel every few steps.

  I wear running shoes, not hiking boots. She does too. I never really got why all the soldier types and hunter types prefer boots when trekking through the wilderness. Well, yes, I get it—they’re tougher. If we didn’t have to worry about creating noise, then yes, I might wear boots. Also, if I didn’t have to worry about running for our lives to avoid being a dinner entree. It seems a no-brainer to me to wear running shoes exclusively.

  Carrie sees it before I do. She stops dead and puts out her hand behind her to signal me. I walk into her hand and nearly cause her to fall over. Once I back up, I watch her raise her rifle. Then I see it standing at the side of the road, not 20 feet ahead. It is frozen in fear—or caution, since I don’t believe it sees us yet. Finally, Carrie makes a clicking noise and the deer bolts into the forest on the other side of the road.

  We start moving forward again.

  I had imagined that zombies would be throwing themselves at us every step of the way, but we make it down the hill and to the intersection with the county highway without having detected any of the creatures. Of course, we had noticed there was a very low number of them to begin with in these woods. The old timers had described to us a shrinking population, which they thought was the work of the Super Zombie, who was treating his fellows as a prey species.

  We have two miles to go before we hit the neighborhood we targeted. We pass scattered houses. Some have vehicles outside, but it takes a while to spot one that fits our needs. Eventually we see a newer pick-up truck parked between a house and an out-building. There are no lights shining in the house and there is no smoke coming from the chimney.

  “What do you think?” I whisper.

  “What are you asking me for? I never stole a car before,” Carrie says.

  “I still need your input,” I say. “We’re a team.”

  “Okay,” and she pauses, then, “If you can find the keys to it, then take it. Because I don’t know how to hot-wire a car. I was never in the Girl Scouts.”

  “I don’t know that’s something they teach in the Girl Scouts.”

  “I have no frickin’ idea. I stopped at Daisies. We only did art projects.”

  We creep into the yard of the house. This entire trek, we have been on such high-alert that I swear every part of me is tense. Yet the paranoia goes up an unimaginable notch as we near the house. We step around the back. No signs of life. I pull at the door handle of the truck; it is locked.

  We’ve got to go in. I try the back door. Locked.

  Better to be noisy first than to sneak in and be ambushed. That’s one of the scavenging rules we have come up with. Carrie takes a position behind the truck, using the hood as a rifle rest. I pull open the screen door, and then kick as hard as I can at a spot just below the doorknob.

  If this were a movie, the door would crash open. However, I only generate a loud thump. And my foot hurts. Here’s where shitkicking boots might come in handy. Running shoes with plenty of heel cushioning aren’t as good of a tool in this context.

  I try again. It hurts again. I look back at her. “Well?” I say.

  “I was only a Daisy,” she says.

  I carefully look around to see if our noise has attracted any attention. Nothing. I take out my pistol and make sure the safety is on before I use it to smash the glass pane nearest the door knob. That makes an ungodly amount of noise and I freeze. Still no response. I reach through the broken glass and turn the deadbolt from the inside. I push the door open and hear broken glass crunch as I step in.

  “Hello,” I say gently, testing the waters as it were. “Anybody home?”

  Nothing. I lean outside and wave Carrie in. She follows me into the house. We leave the lights off. We do a sweep of the downstairs—no one. A window is broken in the front. I check the walls of the kitchen but the key rack I find has no truck keys. Nothing on the countertops either, or the dining room table or the coffee table in the living room.

  “Where hell would the keys be?” I ask her.

  “Bedroom dresser,” she says.

  I look up the stairs. I really don’t want to go up there but I can’t see another choice. As I slowly climb the stairs the smell hits me. And though I’ve caught the scent of death too many times to count in the last few months, I can’t say that I’ve gotten used to it.

  I find her in the first bedroom. The lady of the house, dead and decomposing. There is a glass of water on the nightstand and about seven pill bottles. Pills are scattered on the floor and on the bedspread next to her. Middle-aged woman, glasses, dark hair. Wearing a nice dress. Holding a Bible. Probably one of the “everything happens for a reason” crowd, I think. But then I tell myself I have to quit being such a nasty cynic. Next to her is a cat—with a sash tied tightly around its neck. The woman’s arms are badly scratched. I check the room: no keys.

  When I emerge, I see Carrie in the hallway; she had checked the other two rooms. She shakes her head and peeks into the bedroom with the woman’s body. “Cat too?” she says matter-of-factly. I nod.

  I am ready to give up as we walk back downstairs. Then I see what must be the door to the basement. It has two boards across it at crazy angles. And they have about 50 nails pounded in them, many of them bent. A hammer lies on the floor.

  “There’s a story here,” I say.
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br />   “Hubby must have turned. And she locked him in the basement,” Carrie says. “His name was probably Elmer. They were high school sweethearts. He was quite the linebacker. Sure, he’s older and he’s not even six-foot tall anymore—farm work will kill your back—but he’s done a decent job as a husband and father and provider. There was still love there. And she was so heartbroken at the sound of him throwing himself at the door that she took all of her meds at once.”

  “Not bad. You have skills.”

  “This one was easy.”

  “Yeah,” I say, trying to decide our next move.

  “The hard part will be opening this door and getting the keys, because you know damn well they’re in the pocket of his overalls.”

  I know that with every fiber of my being. Fuck me. I give voice to my fears. “If this were a movie, he’s waiting on those steps and as soon as we get the door open, he will leap at us with all the force of a hungry werewolf. I’ll die, because I’m first in line. And you will barely survive your battle to death with him, emerging bloodied but stronger, and you will wander the desolate hellscape of our world searching for peace. Or maybe love.”

  “Good,” says Carrie. “But this is real life. And unless this is a magical zombie, he probably starved to death five weeks ago. And I’m not going to wander the hellscape. I think I’d just go back to the bunker.”

  “What sucks is you don’t remember the passcode to get in.”

  “Hell I don’t: 67529… oh shit.”

  “Just what I thought. You’re missing three numbers.”

  “Crap. I only made it to…”

  “Daisy? I know. That’s a weird crutch to use for every shortcoming the rest of your life.”

  “Open the door, genius,” she says.

  Using the hammer, we pry off both boards after about five minutes. Then she backs up and readies her rifle. I open the door. On the steps, we see his body. Being dead, he doesn’t look so scary. I flip him over and he slides to the bottom, his head kerthunking on every step.

  “I think you’re wrong,” I say. “Definitely not a husband. More like a teenage son.”

  “Then we’re missing something. No woman would kill herself over a teenage son. Trust me. A few tears, a glass of wine perhaps, and then dinner with the girlfriends. Boys are expendable.”

  She raises her rifle over me to scan the basement while I pat Junior down for the keys. I find them in his right front pocket. I jingle them toward Carrie.

  “Let’s check the basement,” she says. “See if they have a survivalist pantry.”

  We do. They don’t. We step over Junior and head back up. I carry an old cooler that I found in the laundry room. Upstairs we fill it up with the food from the freezer, except for the unidentified packages that could be anything from freezer-burned venison to parts of her missing husband. Then we hit the can cupboard, putting the overflow into a cardboard box I found at the bottom of the hall closet.

  “See anything else we need?” I say.

  “No,” she says over her shoulder. “These people weren’t exactly foodies.”

  She scans the area around the truck before hefting up the cooler and lugging it out the door.

  The truck starts on the second try.

  5→THIS WAS THE MOST AWFUL TROUBLE AND MOST DANGERSOME I EVER WAS IN

  Finally, in the truck we can talk freely. We decide to drive with the lights out. Behind the wheel, I wear my night goggles. She pulls hers off. “Do you mind? I just want to get these off and feel like I’m getting a breath of fresh air.”

  I look at her oddly, but she probably can’t tell since my expressions are obscured by my goggles. And it’s dark and she can’t really see me.

  “They don’t cover up your nose or mouth,” I point out.

  “I’m in charge of my own breathing,” she says. There’s an edge there and I don’t know her well enough to know if it’s real or a joke. Plus, she’s a female, so by definition I am incapable of reading her at all.

  We head down the road in the direction of the subdivision that we had earlier picked out. In just a few minutes of silent driving, we are at the signpost of the neighborhood. “Dawn Meadows” is what the developer had christened it. We see a few lights—possibly left on since the end of world. No smoke curling from chimneys. Signs of mayhem are everywhere. Cars parked on lawns. Two onetime humans prone in the street, the stripped rib bones showing on one.

  “I don’t have a great idea. So maybe we just hit the first house and work our way down the line?”

  She nods and pulls her goggles back on. I pull onto the lawn and point the truck out for a quick getaway. I back close to the front porch so we can load food easily.

  The door of the first place is open. We go through the “Anyone home?” routine and get nothing. We shut the door behind us quietly.

  “Let me check the medicine cabinet,” she says, making for the stairs. She’s looking for some of the medications she needs for her Lupus—cyclo-something and rheumo-something—but we’ll have better chances tomorrow when we hit the pharmacy.

  “Hold on,” I say. “Let’s do a sweep of the downstairs first.” She hesitates, and then follows me into the kitchen. We check the main floor bedroom—plenty of blood, no bodies. Downstairs is clean and a freezer is packed with meat. I lead Carrie upstairs and it checks out. I nod to the bathroom. “Have at it. I’ll start packing food.”

  It seems every family has that pile of cardboard boxes under the basement stairs. And a cooler for that occasional tailgater. I find all I need and empty the freezer in about five minutes. I lug that haul up the stairs and set it near the front door. I scan the street from the front window after I think I catch a glimpse of some movement. But it’s nothing, I see when I take the time to carefully look.

  I empty the kitchen pantry and find a few more meals in the freezer there. I open the main door to the refrigerator despite not wanting to. Too often I have found giant fuzzy growths. Even with the power on, there’s no disguising that it’s been more than two months since someone threw that pizza box in the fridge. This time, though, in addition to a collection of leftovers that I avoid, I find a six-pack of Scotch Ale. New to me but Maggie might like it, if Justin lets her have any alcohol.

  We repeat the process at the next house after I text Justin a quick update—yes, cell phones are still working in the apocalypse, but we figure that’s not going to last forever.

  The neighbors had a much gorier battle to the death, and we find ourselves stepping over a number of small bodies. As much as possible, we try to avoid looking at their faces. We’re doing everything we can to try to stay detached.

  Carrie grabs a few things from the medicine cabinet and then she helps me unload the pantry. Heavy on mac ‘n’ cheese and other pastas. Also, in the freezer are frozen Go-Gurts, which must have been on sale. Sometimes—just saying—the right comfort foods can really soften the edges of the Apocalypse.

  Not till we try to load up the truck do we realize we have a problem. I think the first cue for me is the zombie standing in the bed of our pickup. Whereas Carrie’s screams seem to be focused on the pack of four she sees on the lawn.

  I drop my box and reflexively back into the house. Carrie and I collide on our way in, but we manage to slam the door shut without any zombies bouncing off of it.

  “This is so not good,” Carrie says.

  “Cover the window,” I say. “I’ll check the back.” I race into the kitchen, checking every window to assess what kind of numbers we’re dealing with. I also doublecheck the doors and windows themselves to be sure there are no easy entrances for the zombies.

  I come back to Carrie, satisfied that the house is secure… unless they decide to bust through the windows.

  “How are you doing?” I ask her.

  “Oh, you know… Been better,” she says. “This is double creepy because they’re barely moving. They’re just waiting, it seems.”

  “For what?”

  “Exactly.”

 
“There are some out the back as well. Not a ton, but so far I think we’re looking at a total of 15 or so.”

  “That’s enough to ruin the rest of our lives.”

  “Ruined theirs,” I say.

  “Those are two words that actually don’t comfort me about anything.”

  “Well, we have automatic weapons. That can do a lot of damage against any kind of animal, and that’s all these things are.”

  Carrie turns to me and says, “The one that took a bite out of your neck was smarter than the average bear. What if these animals are all like that?”

  “Then we’d already be dead.”

  “Again, not very comforting. Do you have a plan? Because a plan might actually be comforting. You know? It might make me feel there’s a light at the end of this particular tunnel.”

  “Okay, let’s work on a plan,” I say. “So far, the number of zombies out there seems to be stable.”

  “Walkers. They’re not zombies.”

  “What the fuck ever. You notice they can run pretty good? So, I don’t think they’re walkers either.”

  “Fine. Flu victims.”

  “Doesn’t work for me. Makes it sound like we need to bring them chicken soup instead of machine gunning them. Can we just please agree to call them zombies so that we can come up with a plan to see the morning? It’s my job to get you back alive.”

  “Long live the patriarchy. Fine. Zombies. Fucking zombies.”

  “Okay…”

  “Who are incapable of reanimation…”

  “Moving right along… I’m thinking we have a little bit of time. They’re waiting for us, and perhaps they’re thinking the darkness is concealing them. They don’t seem to be in any hurry to attack. If they’re acting like other predators, then they’re going to wait and pounce when we move. That’s good.”

  “My, aren’t you the optimist. How is that good?”

  “Well, it gives us some time to think of a plan. Let’s just keep an eye on them and make sure they’re not moving. And put our thinking caps on.”