Contagion On The World

by J. B. Beatty

  Eventually he slows in front of a house that has vehicles in front of it. No signs of life, though. He drives onto the lawn and U-turns, so the truck is on the driveway pointed at the road. Quick getaway. “Check it out,” he says.

  We know the drill. While he stays at the wheel, his handgun ready at the window, both Carrie and I unload, rifles at ready. She shouts, “Anyone home?” No need to be quiet. We sacrificed stealth when we drove down the road.

  The curtains in the windows don’t move. Carrie is watching the forest edges. Nothing.

  “Garage,” I say, and I take point toward the structure. The side door is unlocked. I open it, and step back, listening. Nothing. Flashlights. She hangs back, looking out the door to cover our flank and maintain visual contact with Justin. I step in, looking for a gasoline can. Got it, a big 5-gallon red plastic container. Empty, though. No sign of hose, so we backtrack and spot a spool of garden hose behind a bush in front of the house. I set my rifle at my side, pull my knife out of my leg scabbard, and cut 7-foot length.

  The van is unlocked, so I easily pop the gasoline latch open. Then I get the siphon going, lucky not to get any gas in my mouth. It comes spilling out of the hose and into the can. I breathe a sigh of relief. After about two minutes, it slows to a drip. Empty, and we need more. Vehicle 2 is a Ford Fusion. I can hear my inner Maggie voice starting to rage but I’m not one to judge. It’s locked, so I use my knife to pry the fuel latch open.

  Better. It doesn’t take too long for the fuel to sound like it’s near the top of the gas can. Then it does take too long. Because I hear Carrie whisper, “Oh fuck.” Then she yells, “Zombies at 2 o’clock!”

  That means nothing to me, since I’m not looking in the same direction as her. Then I see two figures barreling toward us across the patchy lawn. I am still reaching for my rifle when she opens up. One drops instantly. The other one gets within 20 feet and then falls, twitching.

  “Get the gas can into the back of the truck, fast!” she says. I pull the hose out and loosely attach the cap, grab my gun, and run to the pickup all hunched over as if we are taking enemy fire. I can’t explain that last part. It just seems right. Carrie is swiveling her rifle barrel back and forth and walking backwards to the truck.

  I throw the gas can in the bed of the pickup and join her in scanning for another attack. All seems clear. “Get in,” she says. I don’t hesitate. She follows, climbing up and rolling down her window to point the gun out.

  Her door slams. “Good to go,” Justin says. And just as he hits the gas, something leaps at him and the truck lurches off the driveway. Justin is hammering at a zombie that lunged through the window and latched onto his arm. “Get the fuck off me!” he’s shouting. I slide over and put my foot on the brake before we hit a tree. Carrie leaps out, taking care to shut the door behind her. She rounds the front of the truck and then opens up. The zombie drops.

  “Dammit!” says Justin, grabbing at his arm. For good measure, Carrie sprays some rounds into the forest. “Fuck!” says Justin. “Fucker fucking bit the hell out of my arm!”

  “You can’t drive,” I say.

  “I can drive,” he insists. “We have to get the hell out of here. Get in, Carrie!”

  She says, “You’re shotgun, Arvy.” She opens Justin’s door and says, “Slide over. I’m driving.”

  Grumbling, he does. I point my rifle out the passenger windows. Seconds later, we’re racing down the road.

  “How bad is it?” she asks.

  “Fuck all,” replies Justin.

  “While that describes the emotions you might be experiencing,” she says, “it does nothing to enhance our understanding of the actual medical crisis we are facing. Care to try again?”

  “It’s bleeding bad. It’s a mess. Probably infected with a million germs. But I don’t think he got an artery. If he did, I’d be fading by now.”

  “Tourniquet?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  I start digging around for something to use. In the glovebox I find a USB cable to recharge cell phones. “That’ll do.” I lean over him as I get it around his upper arm and start to tie it.

  “Tighter,” he says. I pull on it more.

  “More,” he says.

  Finally, I get it right.

  “Just drive till you find a clear, open area. We need to get the gas in, and I need to get this arm cleaned up and bandaged properly.”

  A few miles east, we find our spot, open fields on both sides of the road. A dark farmhouse in the distance. “Gas first,” he says. Carrie climbs into the bed of the pickup so she can better keep watch in all directions. I pour the gasoline in, looking over my shoulder obsessively. Though maybe it’s not obsessive when there really are monsters out there who want to eat us.

  Finally, the can is empty again. I reaffix the cap and toss it in the back. “Where’s the med kit?” I say.

  “No idea,” says Justin. “We didn’t load the truck remember? It was the demon hunters.”

  After several minutes of rooting around with a flashlight in hand, I see the tackle box underneath the bike trailer.

  I get to do the gory cleanup as Justin holds the flashlight, micromanaging my every move. “Shit,” he says. “That’s going to take a few stitches.”

  “Now?” I say in panic.

  “Back at the bunker. For now, you’re going to use those butterfly bandages to pull the skin close. Then we need to wrap it tightly. And then get rid of the tourniquet.”

  As I’m wrapping his forearm, Justin leans toward the window. “Any sign of trouble?”

  Carrie’s voice comes to me like she’s far away. “Just another tranquil night in Hoxeyville.”

  “Okay, we’re good,” he says a few minutes later. “I’ll drive.”

  “Like hell,” Carrie says, coming back in the driver’s side.

  When we get moving, I ask, “How much longer?”

  “Fifteen or so,” Justin says, “barring disaster.”

  “We’re good at disaster,” Carrie says brightly, adding, “But there is one thing we need to do on the way.”

  “Actually, there’s not,” says Justin. “We’re going straight home. I need stitches. And bourbon. On ice.”

  “Remember Artemis?” Carrie almost sounds nervous as her fingers play the steering wheel. “We’ve got to get her out.”

  “We don’t even know where she is. There’s no way we have time to do something like that before the sun rises. It’s already getting lighter up ahead.”

  “No, we’re not going to get her now. But we need to leave her a message.”

  “How do we even do that?” I ask.

  “She and I arranged a message drop. We’ve just got to get to that industrial park on the outskirts of town. We’ll make arrangements to get her tomorrow night.”

  Justin grumbles.

  “Can you write the note, Arvy?”

  “Sure.” I start digging around in the glovebox. I find two dead pens before I grab a pencil with a broken tip. That I sharpen with my knife. For paper I find the envelope containing the vehicle registration and insurance. I turn on the flashlight and read the name. “Mary Jane Wilks. Do you think she still needs this?”

  “Not in this world,” says Justin.

  “Okay, what’s the note need to say?”

  “Just ‘tomorrow’,” Carrie answers.

  Justin pipes in, “What if she finds the note next week? Which tomorrow are we talking about? Are we going to go there every tomorrow until she shows up?”

  “She tries to check it every day. It’s a mailbox in front of a business. And yes, if she’s not there, we’ll go every night until we get her.”

  Justin exhales in frustration. “You will,” he says.

  We leave the note in the mailbox in front of Miller & Sons Fabricating. I can’t imagine what they fabricate because I was a coddled youth and my parents expected me to get a liberal arts education. They certainly didn’t want a fabricator, I’m guessing. Meanwhile, the sky grows brighter. We driv
e fast back to our garage while I wonder that it took a zombie apocalypse to destroy class tensions in the United States. Or maybe not.

  We park behind the garage and grab the most essential stuff to go with us on the first trip. The rest, Carrie and I drop in various places in the woods, just to make it a little harder in case any scavengers stumble by in the morning.

  47→A DESPRATE GANG OF CUT-THROATS

  As always, we approach the bunker entrance carefully after scouting the surrounding area. We see no signs of human activity: no one has unearthed the well-hidden hatch. I input the code and we hear a slight poof of air as the hatch releases and raises an inch or so on its own.

  Carrie goes in first, then helps Justin down the ladder. His arm is burning up. I follow, bringing our baggage in several trips. It takes me twice as long as it would without a broken collarbone. I lock the hatch behind. It's a relief to see the lights are on. I've had enough darkness for the time being.

  We have decided not to make retrieving our various items from the woods and garage a priority yet. The sun is already on its way up. More importantly, we're all so tired that mistakes would be made.

  Once we're all back in our quarters, the priority is stitching up Justin. Carrie brings him a dose of antibiotics while he sits in front of the computer, sipping that bourbon he wanted. “Who's doing the stitching?” I ask.

  “Let’s see,” he says. “Stick out your right hands.” I look at Carrie. She shrugs and sticks her hand out, palm down. I showcase mine right next to hers. Justin calmly gazes at them.

  “You win,” he says to Carrie. “Junior's got the shakes as well as a broken collarbone.”

  I lift my hand and examine it myself. “What shakes? I'm almost perfectly still.”

  “You want to do it, you can do it,” she smiles.

  “I don't want to do it. I just don't see what you're talking about. I'm practically a corpse in terms of my involuntary bodily movement.”

  “You're doing that thing again,” she says.

  “What thing?”

  “That thing where you're using 50-dollar words for 50-cent jobs and as a result you're not making much sense.”

  “Am not.” I am tired and indignant. Mostly tired.

  “You are. That's what some of the drunks did back when I was bartending. It was an obvious—though perhaps subconscious—effort to appear to be less drunk and more in control than they were. You should have a drink, a strong one, so that you can have an excuse for talking that way. Can I get you a beer?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “We need some hot water, a couple towels and washcloths. And sterilize a needle,” orders Justin.

  I get up and join Carrie in fetching supplies. I head to our medical storage. When I come out she tosses me a beer. High-gravity, bourbon barrel-aged stout. Yeah, I'll sleep well. The little pleasures of the Apocalypse.

  Carrie sets about removing bandages to get Justin ready for the stitches. To Carrie he says, “You clean your hands, hot water and soap. They need to be the cleanest they have ever been.”

  “Yes Master,” she snarls.

  He raises his chin as if he's been punched and wants to punch back. He growls, “Keep talking like that and when you catch fire, I'll have to think twice about putting it out.”

  The cleaning is a disgusting process. I appreciate that so often with our post-Apocalyptic family, Justin has had to do the dirty work and he has never complained. Me, I'm losing my appetite and my youthful innocence all too quickly, and I’m only watching.

  The bite is deep, and appears to have ripped through his skin completely, though luckily the zombie didn't actually bite anything off before Carrie served him a helping of death. The teeth marks are clearly visible, except for a spot where he must have been missing a tooth or two.

  “Ouch!” Justin says. “Be a little more gentle,” he coaches. Then he adds, “But you still got to get in there. Just pour that peroxide on. Don't be cheap. We'll never run out.”

  The wound bubbles. As does my stomach. But she must be doing an adequate job, as Justin is spending more time looking at the computer screen, typing occasionally with his right hand.

  “Twitter's gone,” he says when Carrie comes back.

  “We knew that. We knew we couldn't post,” she says.

  “Now we can't see a thing. It's password protected now.”

  “You mean, different from your login?”

  “Yeah. It's an entirely new level of security. We can't see anything besides a Twitter corporate logo and the login panel. And we're locked out.”

  “You've tried our logins...” I say.

  “Of course.”

  “Try this one,” says Carrie as she starts threading the needle. “LoopyLueRIP. All as one word. Capital L, capital L, capital RIP... password 'Deadkitten8'.”

  “That's kind of...”

  “I was 15 and morbid. Deal with it.”

  “Deadkitten8,” Justin repeats. “No luck. Twitter has ceased being accessible to the masses, though the simple existence of this new barrier indicates that someone's using it. Someone who's better placed than we are.”

  “And here I thought that we were in the best of all places,” I say, “in a bunker protected from zombie and nuclear attacks and stocked with quality beer.”

  “Thank Maggie for the beer,” says Justin. “It won't last forever. The girl had a nose for scavenging. Those days are gone.”

  “I'm never going to measure up,” says Carrie. “Stop comparing us.”

  “I wasn't comparing anything. Just saying shit. You're special in your own way.”

  “How?” she demands. “And hold still. Here comes the first stitch.”

  “Careful. Don't go in deep. You're just pulling together the skin on the surface. Okay. Ow. Okay, like that. You only need about four more. No... about three millimeters down.”

  “Three millimeters? I don't even know how far that is. How am I special?”

  “There. That's three millimeters.”

  “That's just a smidge. You should have said 'just a smidge.'”

  “Sorry. Next time I'll be more precise in my language.”

  “How am I special?”

  “That's really hard to answer when you're leering over me sewing shut an open wound.”

  I lean back with my beer; I've seen enough stitching for a while. I don't want to see it in my dreams.

  “How am I special? It's a fair question. What do I bring to our crew?”

  “We're a 'crew'?” I say.

  “How about a ‘gang’? I almost said 'family'.”

  “Then say 'family'--it's a little more personal. 'Crew' makes it sound like we're a loosely-knit band of car thieves that only gets together on weekends after 1am. ‘Gang’ is just as bad, only more tattoos.”

  “We do steal cars,” points out Justin.

  “How am I special?”

  “She won't let this go,” Justin says to me.

  Finally, I take the bait, despite my misgivings about her recent dalliance with torture. “You're special, number 1, because you're alive. That's actually pretty big these days in terms of separating you from the herd. You're special because you took to guns pretty fast despite having no experience. You're special because you're not afraid to kill.”

  “Definitely not afraid to kill,” chimes Justin.

  “We’re understating that part,” I add.

  “That's cold,” she says.

  “If we didn't stay cold now and then, we'd never make it.”

  “Are you going with me tonight to get Artemis?”

  I hesitate. “Can someone fix my collarbone first?”

  Justin says, “I will. It’s going to hurt. I’m looking forward to this.

  “Yeah, of course,” I say.

  “What are we going to do with this Artemis once we get her?” asks Justin.

  “Get her down here, keep her safe. Get her settled. And then we go get that vaccine.”

  “And leave her here?” he asks.

&nb
sp; “Duh. Yeah. Good childcare is so hard to find these days.”

  “She'll be down here all alone for who knows how long. What if she...”

  “What if she what? Drinks some beer and throws up? That's better than her getting raped by some old pervert warlord wannabe in Big Rapids. Or getting torn apart in her sleep by one of her tweenie/zombie roommates.”

  “Okay,” says Justin.

  “You need to be nice to her when she gets here.”

  “And I'm just not sure it's best for her to be here. But I don't have any better ideas. I don't even know.”

  “Isn't that what the Apocalypse is all about?” I say. “It's a tremendous worldwide shortage of better ideas. Our options get pretty limited when we're all fighting for our lives.”

  “That's brilliant,” says Justin. “You should tweet that out.”

  Instead, he yanks my arm and everything goes black.

  48→SHE WAS GOING TO LIVE SO AS TO GO TO THE GOOD PLACE

  That night, Carrie and I take the truck and swing by the mailbox. The note is still there.

  “Balls,” she says.

  We turn around and spend the next few hours stowing the rest of our supplies from our road trip. The battered bikes we leave behind the garage under a tarp. The one that's in good shape, we hide in the woods. I take all the batteries so that we can charge them up.

  Everything else we lug to the bunker. It’s a big job. And I’m wearing a sling, to remind me not to use the arm. The pain, though, does a good job of that already.

  The next night, we drive slowly through the rain, lights off, to the industrial park. The note is gone. We go to the rendezvous point, a swing set put up as a display model outside of a landscaping business. We pull up onto the lawn and park under a tree. I turn the engine off.

  We crack the windows a bit so we can hear better. Nothing but the patter of raindrops. “How long are we supposed to wait?”

  “One hour,” she says.

  “One hour from...”

  “One hour from the time we get here.”

  “That's not very precise. How is she supposed to know when we get here? Is there an actual arranged time? Does she even have a watch?”