Contagion On The World

by J. B. Beatty

  “That’s good.”

  “… but it still hurts sometimes really bad.”

  “Is there a medicine for it?”

  “Yeah, there are a couple medicines that the doctor told me to take. They make all the pain go away and I don’t cry so much. That’s why we came here. I just need my medicine. I’m tired of crying.”

  “Is the medicine here?” Artemis starts casting her eyes about the store.

  “I hope so. It would be behind the counter with the special medicines. I’m hoping it’s here. I’m hoping you can help me.”

  Artemis looks at her walkie-talkie for a minute and finally says, “You can get your medicine.”

  I start to stand and she yells, “SIT DOWN OR I’LL SHOOT YOU!” Then she looks at Carrie and says, “Go get your medicine.”

  Carrie slowly gets up and steps behind the counter. I can hear her rooting around back there but I keep my eyes on Artemis, who has her gun pointed at me and doesn’t seem to like me much. She might just be sexist. Because I’m a boy and there seems to be an actual battle of the sexes going on in this town. I lean forward and start to say something. I actually don’t get a word out. I just am about to utter and I only get this far: “ ”

  She shakes her head and raises the rifle. I press my lips together and lean back against the counter.

  It occurs to me that over the past few years I’ve heard a lot of talk about parents pushing their children to grow up too fast. Everything from too much make-up to getting them cell phones to allowing them to act like they’re 20 when they’re 12. I can’t say I ever really had much of an opinion on the subject except when I looked at a girl from a distance who looked about my age, and then when I got close I realized she was way too young to look at. I had an opinion then; I wanted to burn my eyes out with a hot fire poker. I mean, there was a lot wrong with that.

  But here we are in the end of the world, and the 10-year-old with the rifle is in charge. Maybe she was pushed to grow up a little too fast and it paid off in her case. I mean, she’s avoided being eaten by zombies and she has meaningful employment. I ponder that notion for a while.

  Finally, Carrie emerges carrying three plastic bags that are very full.

  “That’s a lot,” says Artemis.

  “I hope it’s okay,” replies Carrie. “I need to get enough to last the winter.”

  “That’s okay,” says Artemis.

  We all look at each other for a few minutes. Carrie says, “Can we go now?”

  This throws Artemis for a curve and she looks at her walkie-talkie while she wonders whether to consult a higher authority. Carrie seems impatient to go. I’m frozen in my place because the gun is still trained on me. Artemis looks up at Carrie and says, “I guess so… If you promise you won’t take anything again without asking permission.”

  “Oh, of course. I wouldn’t dream of not asking permission.” She looks around. “You can stand up now, Arvy.”

  I look at Artemis, who nods and yawns. I slowly get up.

  Carrie says, “We’re just going to pick up our guns and take them home.”

  “Ohhhkay,” says Artemis in mid-yawn.

  So, we do, walking out of the Walgreens very slowly. I look over my shoulder and see Artemis returning to her toilet paper fort.

  On the road, we finally breathe easy. “Let’s try to stay north of Maple Street,” Carrie says. “The Boys Gang probably has itchier trigger fingers.”

  I nod. “Did you get all the drugs you need?”

  “Probably two years’ worth.”

  “But otherwise we have an empty truck. We should fill it with supplies—otherwise we’re kind of wasting a night. And we don’t have too many left before the snow falls.”

  “Let’s avoid stores in this town… for now.”

  We do. On the way back we visit the Dawn Meadows subdivision again. We see one zombie shuffling along the road. I speed up toward him, and then turn at the last moment so we sideswipe him and send him flying. Then I reverse and drive over him a few times.

  Carrie is aghast. “That was horrible.”

  I look at her. “RIP came up with the move. Saves ammo. And we might need our headlights. No sense smashing them on a zombie. He called the move ‘The Munch Crunch.’ Doesn’t make much sense, but it rhymes.”

  We quickly hit the next four houses on the street, and fill up the bed of the pickup. Nothing eventful to report, which is always a delightful development. We head home.

  8→RIGHT DOWN SORRY

  “W

  hat’s wrong?”

  Justin seems flummoxed. Maggie is also out of sorts. She has her face turned away from us. She’s staring at the wall.

  Carrie and I have been working our butts off the last three nights. You’d think Maggie and Justin would be a little appreciative. Maybe a “Can I get you a beer?” or even just a “Thanks!”

  Instead, we’ve walked into a situation.

  “Guys, what is it?” asks Carrie.

  “Did you know,” says Justin, “Did you know that none of the movies that were supposed to come on in December have come?”

  “Are you talking about….”

  “Netflix. All the Coming-in-December movies. None came.”

  I explain, “Well, probably that step in the process wasn’t automated. I imagine it takes a human to add a new movie to the selection. And the Netflix staff is probably all dead.”

  “That blows.” Justin is really down about this.

  Carrie seems a little confused. “Wait, Netflix? Netflix? We’ve been risking our lives to get enough food for the winter, being attacked by walkers, being held at gunpoint by Artemis of the Girl Gang, and you’re complaining about a limited selection for your list on Netflix?” She steps in front of Justin and glares at him ferociously. “Every night we march up and down that godforsaken hill in the dark with overweight backpacks, dodging zombie attacks, so that we can bring you your food… and you’re worried about Netflix?”

  Justin looks back at her. “I would be out there if I could, woman.”

  “ ‘Woman’? Really? ‘Woman’? You would be out there if you could, but you can’t, right? You can’t because tunnels give you the creeps? As if zombies in the dark and gun-toting children don’t give us the creeps?”

  “Cabin fever is a thing, you know?! We haven’t seen the sunlight in days. Cut us some slack.”

  That only gets Carrie more riled up. “Do you think we’re basking in the sun? Do you think we’re getting our minimum daily requirement of vitamin D? It’s December and we can only go out after dark, remember? Missiles, remember?”

  She turns on her heels and storms out of the room and down the hallway mumbling about “freaking princesses”.

  Justin sits at the end of Maggie’s bed, head down. Hard to tell if he’s fuming or just embarrassed.

  I say, “You know, we’re going to have to bring this down a notch if we’re going to get through this winter without killing each other.”

  Justin nods. Then he says quietly, “It’s not just that.”

  “Don’t even tell him,” Maggie says to the wall.

  “We need to say things and move on.”

  “Don’t even tell me what?” I look at Maggie’s back.

  “We should tell him,” he says.

  “Tell me what?”

  “He shouldn’t even have to be told. He should know,” she insists.

  “Know what?”

  Silence. With my hands outstretched, I implore Justin to tell me whatever the hell is going on.

  “It’s the keys.”

  “What?”

  “She saw your keys.”

  I’m so lost on this I don’t even know where to look. I pull the truck keys from my pocket and look at them. First, I think, “What??” then I think, “Really?!” and then I think, “No fucking way!” Actually, I say that last part.

  “You’re upset about the make of truck we stole??”

  Maggie might be weak right now after another chemo session, but her
voice channels a powerful wave of passion and anger. “You know better. You know Fords are crap. You know that! You know I will only drive a Chevy. This is a value. This is a belief. This is a fundamental truth. This is the way we roll!”

  “It’s not as if this is some kind of religion.”

  “No! It’s not as if it’s a religion! Because it’s bigger! It’s way the fuck bigger and way the fuck more important than a fucking religion!”

  Justin puts his hands up in resignation. I don’t know what to say. The world has ended, a friend of ours has been killed, we’re trapped in an underground bunker, and she’s worried about what we’ve got parked in the garage. I want to unleash on her with everything I have. My brain becomes a toxic whirlpool as I try to put the words together. But when I finally get the opening salvo all set in my mind, something slows me down.

  I turn to look at her on the bed, tubes going into her arm. She’s almost as white as the sheets. She may never get out again to ride in a pickup truck. She may never again experience the things that have brought her joy and laughter in the past: fishing, partying, dancing, gunning down victims of the Zombie Flu.

  I find myself biting my tongue and I wonder if this is a symptom of growing older and wiser. I suppose it was bound to happen one day, and maybe the collapse of civilization speeded things up a little.

  “You’re right,” I say to Maggie. “You’re right. It was a mistake that we only made because we were on foot and we were desperate. Next chance we get, we will switch it out for a Chevy. Winter’s coming. We need a reliable truck.”

  I stand there, looking at her back, half-expecting some sort of response, some sort of something to acknowledge that I made a noble gesture here. Which is ridiculous. I didn’t do this for the response. I turn to leave the room and as I pass through the door I think I hear a quiet, “Thanks.”

  9→RIGHT DOWN TO THE COLD FACTS

  I’m in bed ready to shut out the light. Looking at my laptop though I don’t know what I’m looking for.

  Justin comes in and sits across the room from me. “Hey, man,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  “I want to apologize for getting weird about Netflix. That was stupid. Especially with you risking your life every night out there.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got bigger things to do.”

  “That’s why I’m apologizing. And I want to thank you for bending over for Maggie there. She is very emotional with the chemo. It’s messing with everything in her mind and body.”

  I look up. “Is it going to work?”

  “Fuck knows. We just got to try. I, obviously, have zero experience with this, but I think there’s a chance the chemo itself might send her either way.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yeah. We’re trying to kill the cancer cells, but there is a ton of collateral damage going on. Her body is a battleground, and it’s a messy battle.”

  I rest my forehead on my hand. I would do anything to have her healthy. I wish she had never gotten leukemia in the first place. At the same time, I realize that if the cancer had never touched her, she’d be one of them, the zombies. Nothing’s easy anymore, and very little is good about this world.

  “Does Carrie have all the meds she needs?”

  I shake out of my reverie. “Yeah, yeah. She said she has about two years’ worth.”

  “And how’s the food gathering going?”

  “We’re finding plenty in people’s houses. We’ll make it, even if it is an eclectic mix. We’re going to be having some odd meals this winter. It’s kind of a pain that we don’t have a store nearby we can hit without mixing it up with juvenile gangbangers.”

  “Any chance you can find a food distribution warehouse or something like that?”

  “That’ll take some surfing, but I’ll check around. Honestly, the biggest problem is transporting the stuff that we do get. It’s a long haul up that hill and the terrain is rough. And we can’t leave a path so we’re trying a different route every time. It’s just horribly inefficient to take stuff up one load at a time. I just can’t think of another way.”

  “You ready for the bad news?”

  “Every conversation we have ever had has centered on the bad news. That’s all we talk about, Justin. That’s our bread-and-butter. It’s not like we ever talk about sports or literature.”

  “That’s because all the athletes and writers are dead,” he says.

  I shrug. “Okay, hit me.”

  “Checked the weather lately?”

  “Not today.”

  “We’ve got some snow coming. A lot. It’s supposed to start late tonight. And this is probably it. Whatever you can get in tonight will probably be the last supplies of the winter. Tomorrow is supposed to be a raging blizzard all day.”

  “Schools closed?”

  “Haven’t checked.” Justin smiles.

  “You know,” I say. “If all day tomorrow is a blizzard, it might be fine if we’re still lugging up loads in the daylight. “

  “Point. And if the snow is falling that fast, it’s going to cover up all your tracks. You can maybe go the straightest route.”

  “Better yet, maybe we can get some sleds and bring more up in each trip.”

  “Sounding like a plan. Where are you going to get sleds?”

  “The local Walmart is like the Korean DMZ, so we’re going to skip that. I’m guessing that most people with kids might have a sled or two stashed in the garage.”

  “You’ll want one of those big long wooden ones with the curly front.”

  “You mean a toboggan.”

  “I’m from the city. Don’t rub it in.”

  Using the power of Internet maps, I find a possible target. It’s a cold storage warehouse on the edge of the industrial park. We can get to it without driving through town.

  “Is there going to be food there?” asks Carrie.

  “Good chance,” I say. “Warehouses like this are for perishable items, which means food.”

  “If the power’s been cut, it will all be bad.”

  “Well, so far since the flu outbreak, how many places have you seen without power? I’ve only seen one or two, and that’s probably because they didn’t pay their bills.”

  “Is this on the boys’ side of town or the girls’?”

  “I think we’re talking boys’ side. But honestly, these are just kids. I don’t think they would even have this place on their radar. They probably still have all the food they need on the shelves of the grocery store.”

  Justin speaks up. “What if you can’t get in? Or you get in, and nothing’s there?”

  “Then we turn right around and head back to Dawn Meadows. There’s still a lot of houses we haven’t hit yet.”

  “Is this warehouse going to be dangerous in terms of flu victims?”

  “Zombies? We’ll keep an eye out, but my guess is that like most predators, they want to be near their food source. Which means a neighborhood will tend to have more opportunity for them than an industrial park where no one lives.”

  “When do we go?” says Carrie.

  I check the clock. “Five hours of naptime. Then we roll.”

  “I’m so tired,” she admits.

  “Last trip of the winter. We can do this. We’ll have three months to sleep.”

  10→WELL, YOU MUST BE MOST STARVED, AIN’T YOU?

  From the outside, Miller’s Cold Storage looks unexceptional. “I thought it would be a bigger place,” says Carrie.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But it’s still big enough. If you think about it, just about any place bigger than a broom closet is going to be big enough when you only have a pickup truck to fill.”

  She nods. We’re still driving the Ford. No time to switch brands. If it comes up, we’ll just tell Maggie we did. At first, Carrie objected, saying that would be lying. Then I repackaged it as “truth deferred.” She decided she could live with that.

  We drive around the back and park near a door next to the loading dock. We back
the truck in. Not surprisingly, the door is locked, since the Apocalypse hit on a weekend. I use a small sledge against the lock, finally popping it out. A crowbar finishes the job.

  Stepping in, we hear no signs of life. I find the light switches with my flashlight. Carrie starts to say, “No!” but I hit it anyway. “We’re fine,” I say. “No windows.”

  And just like that, we’re in a warehouse. Maybe only half of the shelves are loaded. And everything has come in massive quantities.

  Mexican shrimp. Preformed hamburger patties. Mixed vegetables. Lima beans. Pizza. Fish sticks. And chicken-free strips.

  “I’m going to pass on that,” says Carrie. “Where do we start?”

  “We can’t take it all. Probably should concentrate on protein and healthy food. With all of you sickies around, we don’t need to be chowing on frozen pizza and artificial juice pops.”

  The loading doesn’t take very long once we find some hand trucks. We try to mix it up a bit, so we end up with a truck packed with a variety of meat and veggies. And one box of artificial juice pops. When we leave, I find cinder blocks stacked behind the next warehouse. Heavy, but I carry some of them over and stack them in front of the door we damaged. Not as good as locking it, but they will keep the varmints out and slow any kids down.

  Then we roll. Lights out, night-vision goggles on. We travel about 40mph, which seems safe considering our limited vision in the dark. We are not seeing any wandering zombies along the road. Maybe it’s the cold. Maybe they feel the coming storm. The first flakes are striking our windshield before we even get to Dawn Meadows.

  We move quickly, hitting garages just to look for sleds. We don’t even find one till our fifth house. At the seventh house, we find the perfect toboggan. “That’s it,” Carrie says.

  “I’d really like to find another one of these.”

  “We don’t have time to be keep looking. The snow is coming down faster than you guys thought.”

  I lash the toboggan atop the boxes in the back. “One more house,” I beg. “I have a feeling.”