Contagion On The World

by J. B. Beatty

  “No fucking idea.”

  “And when? When would you want this to happen?”

  “I’m thinking now, because tomorrow I might feel even worse. I might change my mind. And you wouldn’t know whether to feel happy or sad.”

  “Maggie,” I say seriously. “I’d be sad. This is something I want to happen. I want you.”

  “Well, let’s get going.”

  “Ummm, romance? I can’t just be ready.”

  “There’s a candle,” she says.

  “Lights on or off? Lights off might be nice and romantic, but I kind of want to look at you.”

  “I don’t need you looking at me. I’ve looked better. There’s a candle. You get candlelight looking, that’s all.”

  “Where?”

  “There,” she points. “Light the fucking candle. Turn off the overhead light. Jump my bones.”

  “You’re quite the sweet talker.”

  “Redneck women don’t have time for that bullshit. Come on, get up here.”

  I light the candle. And check the door lock. And turn off the overhead lights. And sit back on the bed.

  “Clothes, dude. You’ve got to take them off.”

  “Alright already,” I say.

  If I just stop writing here, we can safely leave this to everyone’s imagination. And that’s exactly what I would do if I didn’t feel that would be terribly misleading. But I don’t want to go into every awkward, embarrassing detail.

  So here: I hold her. Our lips touch. She tells me—surprise in her voice—that I am a good kisser. And for about five minutes, there are motions we attempt to go through. And the only thing the motions lead to is sleep. Great sleep, though. Amazing.

  When I wake, I look at her. She’s still every bit as beautiful as the first time I saw her in junior high. Her eyes balance in a dreamy place halfway between open and shut.

  I kiss her gently and I can’t stop kissing her. I think she’s asleep but once I think I see her smile.

  Four days later, she dies. It comes much more quickly than I expected but Justin says that’s how it happens when someone’s at peace and stops fighting it.

  I am holding her hand. Justin is holding her other hand. We don’t have one of those machines that shows her heartbeat. There’s no flatline followed by a buzzing noise. If this were a movie, there would be one. Instead, we wait for her next breath. We lean forward. I squeeze her hand but the next breath doesn’t come. I look at Justin, who nods. Then I crumble and I hold my face against hers. And I hold her until he leads me away.

  He says he’ll take care of her. He knows how to do that stuff.

  I stand in my room, frozen and empty. My mind is quaking under a barrage of self-crimination. The things I wish I had done; the things I wish I hadn’t. I feel paralyzed.

  I emerge from the hatch for the first time in 74 days. I have a shovel. Much of the snow remains, but it is slushy and going fast. In the dusk, I walk around looking. I am wearing a pistol but I see no one to shoot.

  Down the hill, two pine trees shelter a spot where the snow is gone and the ground is covered in pine needles. It feels peaceful; it feels safe. I dig there. After a few hours, it is deep enough. Not six-feet deep, because that would take me a week. I return to the hatch. She is just inside, wrapped in sheets and blankets. She is difficult to move, but I manage it.

  I bury her on a night when we can see the stars above.

  28→THE ASHES SCATTERED ALL AROUND

  Justin and I assemble most of the bomb together. We could not have done it without all the black powder that RIP squirreled away before he was destroyed by a missile. I don’t know if he was anticipating a low-tech future as muzzle-loaders or he actually thought we’d be making IEDs. I finish it outside, except for the final connection. In the woods I hide it, concealed under brush. A few days later, I place a second bomb under the brushpile.

  This is how I do it. I keep busy. I’ve learned to avoid looking at Maggie’s grave when I’m outside, because when I do, it all hits me. Probably it’s the fresh air. I lean against a tree. I cry and my chest heaves until my ribs hurt. I tell myself I am crying for her. I know that I am crying just for me.

  War and danger appeal to my mood. It fits in with the pathetic image I am painting of myself, the guy who has nothing else to live for.

  We are ready to go on the road. It will be all three of us now. We pack all the supplies we will need for two or three weeks. The sun has just set as we make our way down the hill to the garage. Justin is carrying one of the bombs, me the other. Getting Justin through the tunnel had been a trip, but he will be fine. A guy can get used to anything.

  The Ford truck is where we left it. “We really need to switch this out,” I say. “A Chevy would be much better for the job we’ve got to do.”

  Justin nods his agreement. Carrie gets in without a word.

  We drive without lights, following back roads. We are not in any hurry. Our target is a spot on US-131 about 36 miles north of us. Deep forest on both sides of the road.

  I am behind the wheel, wearing night-vision goggles. I keep the speed leisurely, probably around 40 on stretches where the road is straight and the visibility good.

  “God, this is creepy,” says Justin.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Driving in the dark. I can’t see a damn thing. I am completely trusting that you can see everything. It’s creepy.”

  “Are you having trust issues, big boy?”

  “More like fear that you’re going to slam into a tree and kill us all issues.”

  “Not at this speed. You’ll be maimed, but not killed.”

  “I feel so much better.” He crosses his arms.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  We visit the Dawn Meadows subdivision again. I want to stop by and see how the old woman is doing, the one we left food with in December.

  Justin stays with the truck. Carrie and I approach the house carefully, carrying our rifles and wearing the night-vision goggles. There are no lights on inside, no smoke coming from the chimney. A picture window is shattered. After walking around the house—me one way, she the other—we end up back in front and decide to go through the window.

  It’s a big step up and on the inside, we step down from the couch. A barren coldness permeates the room. A chair has been pulled close in front of the fireplace, but no fire has been there recently. The kitchen looks neat as if it were attended to carefully. We find nothing in the bedrooms. I check the basement, expecting to find her starved corpse, but I don’t. Similarly, the garage is empty.

  “She’s simply gone,” I say to Carrie.

  “Who took her?”

  “Maybe she left on her own.”

  “By breaking out the front window? I would think she would take the door.” Carrie scans the front room again before opening the door. “Someone or something came through that window and grabbed her.”

  Justin is watching as we cross the front lawn to the truck. When we say nothing, he doesn’t ask. He knows how this goes.

  We slowly drive through the remaining streets of the subdivision. No movement. No signs of recent activity. Plenty of houses we never got around to scavenging. Right now, though, we are only looking for one thing. After a few nixed possibilities, we see it. We pull up next to the truck and we all get out.

  “Chevy,” says Justin. “Pretty new, too.” It’s a dark color, though I can’t be sure which since we’re not putting any light on it. Extended cab, plenty of room in the bed.

  It’s parked across the driveway as if it had been driving across the lawns and not in the street. No keys inside.

  “Carrie,” says Justin quietly, “Stand watch out here.”

  “I’m okay with going in,” says Carrie.

  “We’re all taking turns,” he says. “We’re too small of a force to have specialties.”

  Justin and I approach the house, circling it with guns ready. The sliding door in the back is unlocked. Inside, we find the kind of zombie attack scene we are u
sed to. It’s a mess, as if everything that could be picked up by a single person was used as a weapon. A pool of blood had dried in the kitchen, and centered in it is a weathered, shriveled corpse. After a winter of being frozen, it has been thawing for about a week. The smell hits me like a kick in the spleen.

  Judging from the hair, it was a woman. No keys in her pockets. I check the key rack—amazingly, it’s always in the first place I look for it to be. We Americans are terrific at intuitive household organization. Nothing there.

  Justin and I split up. He finds the remains of two kids upstairs. Downstairs, I check, and it’s empty.

  “I bet zombie dad took the keys with him.”

  “Asshole.”

  Then I see them, sitting in the kitchen sink. Chevy keys on a University of Michigan keychain. “Fans,” I say.

  “I bet they didn’t even go there,” says Justin. “Now they’re just dead posers.”

  “Kind of harsh tonight,” I say as we step back outside.

  “It’s been a long winter underground. I’m allowed to be grouchy.”

  After checking the engine—it starts right up—we start transferring our supplies. Carrie stays on watch, but reports not seeing any movement. “Either there’s no zombies here because they couldn’t handle the winter, or because they’ve eaten all the neighbors and moved on.”

  “If this were a movie,” says Justin, “They’ll be attacking just before we get into the safety of the new truck.

  “Then hurry up, jerkface.”

  “Everyone’s a little touchy,” I say, nonetheless hurrying.

  Once we’re in the truck, I start it up, put on my goggles, and we pull away from the house of death and out of the sub. At the road, I turn west, and then north.

  “Funny thing about hibernation,” says Justin. “In the spring, when bears come out of hibernation, that’s when they’re at their hungriest. And grouchiest. That’s when they kill the most humans.”

  “Totally not true,” I object. “I am almost positive I read that most attacks are in the fall, because that’s when the woods are full of hunters and there are far more bear-human encounters.”

  “Source?” challenges Carrie.

  “Probably one of my dad’s hunting magazines. Justin?”

  “Probably a guy told me.”

  Carrie sighs. “I think I’m going to give this one to Arvy.”

  “This is rigged. You slept with him.”

  I hear Carrie take a sharp intake of breath. I look at him sideways.

  I am surprised he has brought this up in casual banter. We haven’t mentioned it since we mentioned it, and lately nobody’s mentioned it.

  Carrie smacks the back of his head.

  “Fine,” he says, and he pulls down his goggles so he can look out the window.

  Silence follows like a confused child who can’t figure out why his parents are arguing.

  Eventually, I note, “Maggie would like the truck.”

  “Yep,” mumbles Justin.

  “At least I have legroom now,” says Carrie.

  After perhaps 15 minutes of driving I hit the brakes and slow dramatically.

  “What is it?” says Carrie.

  “I don’t know, but goggles and guns now!” In a flurry of activity both Justin and Carrie get ready to fight. Windows down, barrels out each side.

  “I saw maybe a couple of things fly across the road. Fast. And they absolutely disappeared.”

  “By things, you mean what?” asks Carrie.

  “I…”

  “Deer?” asks Justin. “Because that would make sense.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I know deer. I’ve seen a million run in front of my car at night.”

  “But are the night-vision goggles confusing the way you see things?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I can tell you they weren’t deer. They might have been human,” I say. “But they were too fast.”

  “So maybe you just want to step on it and get us out of this neighborhood?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Just be alert.” I accelerate and keep the truck to the center of the road so that we have maximum visibility on each side. We see nothing else, but not for lack of looking.

  Our first destination is a secluded house in the woods north of Long Lake. We need a temporary home base that we can hide at in case we can’t get away from the bomb site and the GAC fast enough. I’m just hoping that no one else is staying at the house already.

  We drive toward it slowly on a curving driveway that’s got to be 500-feet long. We stop halfway there and make the final approach on foot. All lights are out, which is a good sign. As we get closer, we start to see that maybe that actually wasn’t the best of signs.

  “Carrie, what the hell?!”

  She stares in shock. “Don’t blame me,” she finally says.

  Our flashlights show that only a few bits of the house are still recognizable. The toilet. A rectangular mini-monolith that probably was once a refrigerator. The rest, ashes.

  “Well, who do we blame? You were our realtor on this one.”

  “Fucking Google Maps.”

  Justin sighs. “A tiny little apocalypse and they stop doing updates.”

  “You have a curtain number two?” I ask her.

  “Yeah, I have three other choices… Let’s get out of here.”

  A lone figure stands on the driveway between us and the truck. We all take aim. He doesn’t move.

  “Let’s avoid gunfire if we can,” says Justin. “Cover me.” He puts his rifle back over his shoulder and unsheathes his knife.

  At 30 feet away, I say, “Hey, are you alright?” to the person/zombie. “Yoo-hoo?”

  No answer. Then Justin says, “Dude, if you are a healthy human being, you better say something in the next 10 seconds, because otherwise you’re going to be dead in 11.”

  Nothing. It just stands there. We slowly draw closer. Justin moves to within five feet. He doesn’t do the whole countdown, but he says, “3… 2… 1…” then “Okay, motherfucker,” and he lunges at its chest with his knife. The figure stands for a moment with no visible reaction, then crumbles to the ground. Justin puts his foot on its chest and pulls his knife out.

  “He’s dead,” he says.

  I shine a light in the face. It’s a man. “Zombie?” asks Carrie.

  “Can’t tell by looking at him,” I say. “He’s wearing clothes, for what that’s worth.”

  In the truck, we head to a place about a half mile away. Carrie is fretting. “I wonder if that was an old confused man and not a zombie. Maybe that was his house that burned down. Maybe he was just lost. Maybe he had dementia.”

  “Don’t worry over it,” says Justin. “We had no choice. We have to play this game for keeps or else we’re the ones who die.”

  “Yeah but just because our world has ended, doesn’t mean there won’t still be people with Alzheimer’s.”

  “I don’t think you can make that diagnosis… Jesus,” he says. “Don’t make this into a murder, for god sakes. Life is already too damn ugly and complicated for us to be worrying about ethics. This is about one thing: survival.”

  29→IT’S THE BRAZEN SERPENT IN THE WILDERNESS!

  The next place is still standing, which is a point in its favor. It has another long driveway, a garage, and a large covered porch. We search the house and find no occupant and no sign of recent activity. I even find a case of beer in the garage.

  “The scavengers around here are really lacking in enthusiasm,” I say.

  I open the garage and get the truck backed in. We decide that Justin will take first watch, then Carrie, then me. We eat. I fall asleep.

  In the early morning, before the sun has decided to rise, Justin gets up and I tell him that I want to scout the surrounding woods a bit, and get close to the nearest house and take a look. If we have neighbors, I don’t want a surprise visit.

  “Careful,” he says.

  Not far into the woods I stumble over a corpse that is well past its sell-by
date. After a few minutes of quiet tromping, I see the outline of the next house through the woods. I creep as stealthily as possible toward it, getting down on my belly as I move to the edge of the trees for a good look.

  Nothing. No one home.

  I return to our place.

  Inside, Justin and Carrie are studying a topographical map that is askew on the dining room table. She looks up. “No Internet.”

  “And just like that,” I say. “The Dark Ages 2.0.”

  Today will be a long day. Taking turns keeping watch, napping, resting. When the sun sets, our work begins. Till then, we hope that no locals are curious enough to drop in for a visit. Plan A for the attack has us downing a tree across part of southbound 131. Not to block it, but to steer vehicles to the side of the pavement. Just about 10 meters farther, the bomb will be planted inside of an abandoned car. We’re going to play that one by ear in terms of the positioning of the car. Ideally, we want to set it up so that the force of the blast all goes outward toward our enemy. But it will be dark, and we will be in a hurry; we have to work with what we find. If there are no patrols, we may have all night to set this up, but there is no guarantee.

  The bomb will be detonated by an electronic signal. We will be using the controller for an RC toy car. I will be the button man. Carrie and Justin will be armed and ready to rush in, both to neutralize any threat and to try to extract one GAC man alive.

  And we will wait and wait—for days if we need to—until someone wanders along. It may not be the perfect plan, but it’s the only one we can come up with for an army of three.

  “Yo bookworm,” says Carrie. She finds me on the couch, where I have collapsed with a book I found in the bedroom. She flips the cover up so she can read it. “You’re cooking with the Barefoot Contessa?”

  “One, limited selection here. Two, we definitely need to start eating better.”

  “Three, maybe you just need to start cooking better.”

  “I’m not arguing,” I say. “So, how are you doing?”

  “What do you mean,” she says. “Do you mean small-talk-wise or do you mean Lupus-wise? Or do you mean some other kind of existential way, as in ‘how do I feel being the only Millennial woman on earth?”