Slow Burn (Book 2): Infected

by Bobby Adair

  Mandi said, “I don’t see anything moving around out back anymore.”

  I sat up and got up on my knees to peek out the front window.

  “Zed, lay down, I don’t need help keeping watch.”

  “I’m still wide awake,” I said.

  “Me, too,” said Murphy.

  I sat back down on the mattress and leaned back against the wall. “You know, we could go with something of a hybrid solution.”

  “What?” asked Murphy.

  I answered, “On the housing choice. We could go down by Lake Austin and find one of those big estates right on the water. You know, one of those ones with three or four acres of lawn. That would be perfect for converting to growing vegetables or whatever. It'll have plenty of water, because it’s right on the river, and it’s still kind of close to town. As a matter of fact, we could probably use a boat to zip up and down the river in safety, and we could go scavenging wherever there aren't that many infected around. The downside is that there wouldn't be any farm tools or farm infrastructure.”

  Mandi asked, “What do you mean?”

  I answered, “I don't know. Grain silos. Hay barns. Plows. Chicken coups. I don't know anything about farms except what I read in picture books in elementary school. All I know is that there's got to be a ton of stuff I don't know.”

  Murphy sat up. “I've been thinking.”

  “About?”

  “To steal a page from Mandi's etiquette manual, may I ask a question?”

  Mandi said, “Very funny, Murphy.”

  Murphy asked, “Who's going to win?”

  “What?” I asked.

  Murphy continued, “It's an easy question. Let's face it, the uninfected and the infected can't coexist. We don't get along, right?”

  I nodded tentatively, not sure where Murphy was going.

  Murphy continued, “So at some point, one group is going to get killed off. Either all of the infected will get killed, or die of old age, or all of the uninfected will get killed or die of starvation or old age, or something.”

  “What makes you so sure about that?” Mandi asked.

  Murphy told us, “Because that's the way it always is. There's only one biggest, baddest motherfucker on the block. If there're two, there's gonna be a fight, and then there'll be one again. That's the way it is right now. There are two kinds of people now, and they both want to kill each other.”

  I disagreed, “I think there are three kinds, Murphy. Don't forget us.”

  “Oh, yeah, us,” he agreed.

  “Thanks.” I straightened up. The topic was interesting. “Murphy, what you’re saying makes evolutionary sense. You don't generally have two animals in the same biological niche. When you do, they compete and one wins out. In the long run, there's only one left. One dies out or moves on to greener pastures.”

  Murphy shot Mandi a conspiratorial look then grinned. “Yeah professor, that's what I'm saying.”

  I ignored it.

  Mandi asked, “So, it's us or them? Either the infected will kill all of us or we'll kill all of them?”

  Murphy nodded, “Yep, Mandi, that's it. I think we all agree on that.”

  Mandi said, “But there are so many of them. I don’t feel good about that.”

  Murphy laughed out loud at that. “Don’t. People win. People always win.”

  “Okay, Happy Murphy, why?” asked Mandi.

  I laughed. “Happy Murphy. I like that. Maybe Mandi is a keeper.”

  Murphy chuckled along with us. “Mandi, the easy answer is that eventually all of the infected will die of old age or something. I guarantee you that at least some normal people will survive. Hell, there's probably a hundred bunkers hidden in the mountains or out in west Texas with a hundred years’ worth of food and water, and I’ll bet they’re full of people just waiting until all of this blows over. Then they'll come out and have the whole planet to themselves.”

  “Unless the infected start reproducing,” I countered.

  Murphy paused. “I hadn't thought of that. Do you think they can?”

  I said, “Unless the virus makes them sterile, which is possible given their body temperatures, I don't see why not. You don't have to be that bright to make babies. Every species figures it out, no matter how small their brains are.”

  “Maybe you're right,” Murphy conceded. “Maybe it won't be as easy as just waiting them out, but in the end the result will be the same. The only question is, when will intelligent humans be the dominant animal on the planet again?”

  Mandi asked, “Why are you so sure they will be?”

  “The same reason it's always been true. Because people are smarter,” Murphy said, triumphantly.

  I said, ”Yeah, I agree with that too. People evolved in places where all of the predators were stronger, bigger, and faster, and so were most of the prey animals. Our only advantage was that we were smart. Evolutionarily speaking, brains always trump brawn. Brains trump speed. Brains trump size. Brains trump everything, at least so far.”

  Mandi asked, “So far?”

  Murphy said, “Don't listen to him on that last part, Mandi. He thinks too much.”

  Sarcastically, I thanked Murphy.

  “I call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

  “Whatever. What's the point of all this, Murphy?” I asked.

  ”Man, my point is that one day, not tomorrow, probably not even next year, maybe not even five years from now, but one day, this will all be over. One day, the infected will either get wiped out by smarter, uninfected people or they'll just be some minor annoyance, like wolves or mountain lions were a few hundred years ago.”

  I said, “I'm not sure that getting eaten by a mountain lion is something I'd call a minor annoyance.”

  “Zed, don't be a dick. You know what I mean. When you were growing up in white boy suburbia, you never walked to school worrying about whether a mountain lion was going to eat you. There was a time when people worried about that, but not now, because people are afraid of mountain lions, so they killed most of them off. It's gonna be the same with the infected. It'll take a while, but eventually, people will learn how to deal with them and they'll all get killed off.”

  “Fine, Murphy. Where is all of this going?” I asked.

  “Patience, grasshopper. I'm getting there.”

  “Grasshopper?” Mandi asked.

  I said, “Murphy spends too much time watching old TV shows, Mandi.”

  “Let me ask another question,” Murphy said. “Since we all agree that one day, the infected will be a problem that gets solved, what will become of the human race?”

  Mandi said, “I don't understand what you're asking, Murphy.”

  Murphy said, “What I mean is, what will life be like once all the infected are gone? Let's say that you could get in a time machine and come back here a hundred years after the infected were gone, or two hundred years, however long you think it will take things to get back to normal. My question is, what will normal look like?”

  That was an interesting question. I needed a moment to think about it. Murphy was a lot smarter than any of us, including Murphy, thought he was. I asked, “How will humanity react when it realizes that it has survived an extinction event?”

  Mandi ventured her guess, “Things will be just like they were before. Is that what you guys think? I mean they would, wouldn't they?”

  I said, “Mandi, unfortunately the cynic in me agrees with you.”

  Mandi asked, “Why is that cynical? That seems optimistic to me.”

  I said, “It's cynical because I don't think that this will be a spiritually maturative event for humanity. I think that eventually things will go back to being just the way they were. There'll be disgustingly rich people and abjectly poor people. Mankind will still find reasons to go to war. There'll still be starvation. There'll still be distrust between nations and people who are different. If anything, this virus might exacerbate that.

  “The idealist in me wants to think that mankind will come out of t
his with a new perspective on how fragile a species we are, and how fragile an ecosystem we have. The idealist in me wants to think that we'll come out of this feeling like we've been given a second chance at building a civilization that doesn’t have all the evils of the old civilization, but it won't be that. We'll just rebuild the same thing we had before. That's how things have always happened in the past. After the Black Death, people just picked up the pieces and moved on, and things were just like they were before it happened.

  “The pessimist in me says that this descent into chaos is forever, or at least for our lifetimes. All we have to hope for is a future where we'll scavenge for our meals and try not to become meals ourselves. Maybe in the long run, things will go back to the way they were, which, one day, will seem better than this. But I wonder how many people now see this as better.”

  Mandi exclaimed, “What?”

  Murphy said, “You are a pessimist, Zed.”

  I pressed on. “Before all this, how many people hated the reality of their meaningless, powerless, hopeless lives? That’s how most of us lived before. How many people want to face pointless materialism, debt, and anonymity? None of them. But that’s what we did. The world is a violent, terrible place now. But everything we do, from morning to midnight, is important. It’s all black and white now, live or die. There’s something real about that that our lives didn’t have before.”

  “That’s what you want, Zed? Everybody I know is dead!” Mandi’s anger was rising.

  I said, “Mandi, I’m so sorry, but that doesn’t make you special. You know that fact will be true for everybody you ever meet from this day forward, right?”

  She settled back in her seat and said softly, “Yes, I’m sorry. I know. I just don’t like how it is now. I want to sleep in a bed. I want to close my eyes without shivering in fear. I want to eat in restaurants. I want to go to movies. I hate what the world has become.”

  “Mandi,” I said, “that’s where everyone will get eventually. People will hate watching their children starve. They’ll hate being afraid. They’ll romanticize the memory of how things used to be, and they’ll want to rebuild. We’ll stop being survivors and turn into teachers, and accountants, and mechanics. We may live in walled villages. We may never walk alone in the woods again. But things will go back to the way they were, one day.”

  Murphy said, “Jeez, Zed, when you get on a roll, you just can't shut up, can you?”

  “I’m sorry. I know. Isn’t that the point of this discussion, Murphy, that things will be just as they once were?”

  Murphy said, “Yes and no.”

  “Why no?” I asked.

  “Because it was just one point in my argument. We haven't made it all the way to my conclusion yet.”

  Mandi said, “Can you just get to the point, Murphy? I think if I have to listen to another one of Zed's lectures, my head will explode.”

  “Whatever.” In the habit of our new social dynamic, that was my line. I smiled anyway.

  Murphy said, “Fine, I just wanted to make sure that we were all in agreement on the assumptions before I made my point.”

  I said, “And you call me a professor.”

  “And your point is?” asked Mandi.

  “We can all go and just try and figure out how to stay alive if you want, but—”

  I cut in, “Staying alive is a pretty good option, I think.”

  Mandi said, “For once, I agree with Zed.”

  “There's more,” said Murphy.

  I said, “So far it's a full time job.”

  Murphy said, “My point is that things will settle down a bit. We can go live on a farm, grow potatoes, and Zed’s chickens, and wake up one day five or ten years from now, only to find out that the world is right back the way it was. Then we're right back where we were, trying to pay the rent, trying to earn enough to feed the kids, and wishing we had the Mercedes we'll never be able to afford. What I’m saying is that instead of just surviving, we can choose to thrive.”

  “Choose to thrive?” I repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Because we’re slow burns?” I asked.

  “They're saying that the immunity rate on this virus is something like one in a thousand. But slow burns like us are rare, maybe one in ten thousand. Maybe one in a hundred thousand.”

  “And where'd you get that information? Somebody who got it off the internet told you, right?”

  “That’s immaterial, Zed. You know it’s true. There aren't that many of us.”

  I said, “Fine, I'll give you that.”

  “My point is that you and I have a special talent. We can move around among the infected with a lot less danger than other people.”

  “True,” I allowed.

  “We can take advantage of that to position ourselves for the post-virus world.”

  “How?”

  “It's easy. Instead of becoming farmers or scavengers, we become traders.”

  “Traders?”

  Mandi asked, “Traitors?”

  I said, “No, with a D.”

  “Oh.”

  Murphy said, “Yes, traders. People are eventually going to group together to survive. They're going to build their walls to keep out the infected. People want safe places to raise their families. You know what will be between all of those little villages that spring up?”

  Mandi shook her head.

  I said, “If I say no, will you just tell me?”

  “Zed, Mandi, between those little villages will be badlands. The badlands will be full of the infected and full of valuable stuff. Zed, you and me, we can collect that stuff and trade it to the villagers for their valuables.”

  I said, “Murphy. They hate us. You said that, remember?”

  Murphy responded, “But they don’t hate Mandi. She’s one of them.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “We can carry goods from one village to another. We can build a whole trading empire transporting goods, rebuilding the economy, taking our little slice off the top, and getting rich in the process. We'll be like the John D. Rockefellers of tomorrow.”

  I said, “To start with, we'd be more like the Cornelius Vanderbilts, since he was a railroad tycoon. He transported goods.”

  Mandi said, “I think I just had a tiny explosion in my head.”

  Murphy said, “That's irrelevant. My point is that these rich dudes saw an opportunity, and they took advantage of it and got rich. We’re all three in a special position to take advantage of today’s opportunity.”

  I said, “I'll give you one thing, Murphy, you are the most optimistic person I’ve ever met. Everybody you ever met is getting eaten by the infected right now, and you see past all that, and better yet, see a way to get wealthy in the process. What about money? I think it’s pretty worthless right now. Doesn’t trade depend on currency?”

  “Details, man. We can get around that,” Murphy argued.

  I adjusted my sitting position to get more comfortable and felt the phone in my front pocket push into my thigh, reminding me of its presence.

  Mandi asked Murphy some question, but I only half paid attention. I pulled my phone out, turned it on and waited.

  The screen splashed the manufacturer’s logo. It took its time, but finally came to life.

  I got three cellular bars.

  The data icon lit up.

  I waited.

  The missed call badge didn’t flash red. The message badge didn’t flash. Those always took a few minutes to catch up after the phone booted.

  Murphy and Mandi continued talking. My attention was fixed on the phone.

  To hear nothing from Amber was good, based on our last conversation. To hear something from Steph would be a fantastic surprise. I was already taking the emotional steps toward accepting her death.

  The phone vibrated and the phone’s missed call badge lit up.

  Seven.

  Holy crap!

  I missed seven calls from Amber!

  I checked for voicemail.<
br />
  Nothing.

  I checked for text messages.

  Nothing.

  I dialed Amber’s number, waited a moment, and listened to the phone ring again and again.

  It switched to voicemail. I hung up.

  Murphy said, “What’s up?”

  I shook my head but didn’t answer.

  I dialed again and listened to for the ringing.

  Mandi asked, “Is everything okay?”

  Voicemail.

  Damn!

  I dialed again. Murphy and Mandi were talking. I didn’t hear them.

  Ring. Ring.

  Voicemail.

  “Shit!”

  Chapter 26

  The air outside was still warm, but it was a far cry from the heat that would come later in the morning after the sun came up.

  I asked Murphy, “Aren’t you going to call me Null Spot?”

  Murphy’s face was cast in seriousness. “No, Zed. I don’t think you should go.”

  “I have to go, Murphy.”

  “You shouldn’t go by yourself,” Murphy told me.

  “I have Russell,” I answered.

  Murphy said, “You know what I mean, man.”

  I did. “Taking Mandi into that is likely to get us all killed. We can hardly leave Mandi here to fend for herself. So…”

  Mandi had tears in her eyes, but she remained quiet.

  “Look Zed, don’t take this the wrong way, but you barely know this girl. She was with them when they kicked us out.”

  “Please stop saying that, Murphy. She didn’t want that. She did what she had to do. It wasn’t any different than when you gave me the knife in the attic. To save ourselves, we would have killed Russell. It would have been wrong. But what choice would we have had? It was the same for Amber. She made a choice to survive.”

  Murphy shook his head. “Zed, I’m going to tell you the same thing you told me about my mom and sister before we came up here. Just like I didn’t want to hear it. You’re not going to want to hear it. If she’s not answering, she’s probably dead.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. I nodded. I couldn’t chance a verbal answer. I needed a second to get a grip on my emotions.

  “You like her, don’t you?” Murphy asked.

  I nodded again. Then I shook my head. I managed to say, “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know what I feel. Like you said. I barely know her. It doesn’t make sense to me. I just know I have to do something to help her. She called me seven times, Murphy. She wouldn’t have called if she didn’t need help. She was counting on me.”