by Alan Janney
I ask, “Just like that? You want to go with us?”
“Of course.”
“Well…okay. We need to bury the bodies,” I say and the four Variants obey immediately. I step into the musty cabin to collect my things. The small television is on. A news special, highlighting the domestic counter-terrorist teams. The Herders are corralling mutants. The footage is grim. Shock weapons, bursts of electricity, howls of pain.
Some of us are violent. Some of us should be incarcerated. But not all. I shatter the screen.
I emerge with backpack hitched tight. They’ve already dug an impressive ditch. “Becky, Cuddy’s four-wheeler has a metal cargo basket. Fill it with his supplies. Please.”
An hour later we follow the beaten path west towards Wildwood. Becky drives the ATV. I lead.
- Seven -
We camp at midnight near Highway 27. I don’t want to stop but the others are tired. I’d prefer not to light a fire, but they beg. I don’t want to talk but they won’t shut up. Sigh.
What I really want is to find a boat, sail into the Pacific and read a good book. I almost groan with sudden desire. But these kids would follow me. They’re not kids, though, it only feels that way, and I won’t be free of them any time soon.
What would I read? I can’t remember my favorite books.
They swap histories around the cheery blaze. The tall pretty girl was one of the first volunteers to be injected in Compton. She’s so pretty it hurts to look at her. She woke over a year ago and guarded the eastern Downtown boundary as recently as April.
What month is it now? May, I think. Maybe June?
One of the boys, a stout kid with coal black skin, brags that he was a Warrior, one of the Father’s favorites. He fought the Outlaw in a tower once and lived.
Longings and fury rise like lava in my heart at the mention of the Outlaw.
The other boy is named James. He’s newer and migrated here from a small Chrysalis near Reno. He fled the war when his companions were killed by fire.
Becky doesn’t say much, just that she feels better now.
The four laugh at jokes I don’t understand, and they use foreign jargon. At a lapse in conversation, I ask, “Where are you all going now?” They stare at me, quizzically, silently. I point at the tall pretty girl and the warrior boy, and ask, “Why were you following that blond kid?”
“Nathan was strong.”
“So?”
“So we followed him.”
“You’re leaving Los Angeles? Why?”
“It’s a mess.”
The boy nods. “Not like it used to be.”
“Explain.”
“The Father is dead,” the pretty girl says simply. “Walter is gone. Carla is dead. There is no leader.”
“Caleb trying to lead,” the boy scoffs. “But he isn’t a leader. No way.”
Walter? Carla? Caleb? I don’t know these names, and it makes my head hurt.
Becky softly adds, “Los Angeles is a bad place now.”
The tall pretty girl wrinkles her nose. “And the Fire Girl is there. You can smell her a mile away.”
“The Fire Girl?” I ask.
“The Cheerleader. She’s almost as strong as you.”
Frustrated, I ask again, “Where will you go now? You haven’t answered my question.”
Becky says, “I want to stay with you.”
The tall girl chirps, “Me too! Where are you going?”
The two boys nod and watch my reaction. I ask, “Anywhere I go, you want to go?”
“Yes,” all four answer at once.
I rub my eyes and can’t think of a response.
- Eight -
The four strangers sleep.
I do not. I hug my knees to my chest and glare at dead embers for hours, considering my options.
At three in the morning, I shake the pretty girl awake. “Hey. Wake up. Hey. You said Caleb is in charge of Los Angeles?”
“Mmm,” the pretty girl moans, partially asleep. She has pine straw in her hair. “What? Oh. Yes. Why?”
“What’s he like?”
“I don’t know. He’s quiet, I guess. Scared. Kind of a wimp, you know? We call him Kid.”
“Am I stronger than him? Than Kid?”
“No. But he’ll be afraid of you. He’ll run away.”
“You’re sure?” I persist.
“Definitely,” she smiles dreamily. “You’re like…pow.”
“Okay.” I sniff, trying to identify a scent that’s been eluding me. “Do you smell…sugar cookies?”
“That’s probably me.”
“You smell like sugar cookies? Your deodorant or something?”
“No. It’s me.” She covers her mouth and laughs.
“Why?”
“I dunno. But this is my first time sleeping in four days, so…can I…?”
“Sure. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
She does, and I think about Caleb and sugar cookies and the future for the remainder of the night.
- Nine -
I gain new followers during the night. Six others creep close. I don’t acknowledge their arrival and they remain at a safe distance.
At dawn, Becky and the three other original followers stare uncertainly into the trees and back to me. Becky won’t leave my side.
I jerk my chin at the forest. “Feed them breakfast. Everyone eats and then we go.”
“It’s okay!” the pretty girl calls into the trees. “You can come out! She will feed you breakfast!”
Ten. Ten total Variants watch me and feed from the four-wheeler’s cargo basket, eating bread and meat and apples. We can scavenge more supplies soon. I eat the final plum from my pink backpack and rub fingers into my joints, which have begun to ache.
Three of the newcomers bear scars, purple and raised welts on their necks and limbs. They relate stories of fleeing from Herders. Men in helicopters with electroshock weapons tormenting them, even though they’d done nothing wrong.
The thought of this makes me want to uproot trees. What will happen to them? They aren’t unified, and they can’t fight back, not against the entire United States military. They are leaderless. And I don’t have a home.
They exchange names. Kayla. Megan. Travis. Adrian. Tray-Von. Becky.
Their collective mood has shifted from fear to enthusiasm, even if it doesn’t register in their voices yet. I sense it. I sense it the way I feel sunlight on my face.
The tall pretty girl, Kayla, asks, “So…what’s your name?”
What’s my name. It was written on the hospital bracelet, but my name didn’t seem important at the time. I’ve forgotten. I long for my name. For my family. I answer, “Carmine.”
“Carmine. That’s unusual. But pretty.”
“It means red. Or crimson,” I explain, and all ten sets of eyes drop to my right hand, which is still stained with blood. “Finish eating. It’s time we go.”
“Go where?”
“We’re going to spread out and head south. We’ll collect as many as we can.”
“Collect what? Chosen?”
“I don’t like that term,” I say.
“The Father called us Chosen.”
“I don’t care. I’ll think up another name soon. You have a new purpose now. Point is, we find as many as we can. Hundreds. Thousands. And we rendezvous in Los Angeles.”
They stir excitedly. Hope rises.
“We need to unify. You need a home.” And I need one too. They hang on each syllable. “Follow me. And we’ll figure this out. You’ll be safe in Los Angeles.”
“Really?”
“I can do this. I promise.”
- Ten -
Three days later I walk down Broadway at noon, followed by a crowd of three hundred. The Variants in my wake are of all shapes, sizes, and strengths, but they share one common characteristic; they are desperate for leadership and they believe I’m it, based purely on strength.
I don’t know what we are, but everyone who underwent the knife is more
of an animal now than before. Strong emotions trigger physiological changes in our bodies, and we devolve from rational human to part savage. We’re like werewolves without the fur. And without the lunar dependency.
Because of our new primal instincts, strength rules. Might makes right. And I woke up king of the jungle. Or queen. A terrifying thought which steals my ability to fall asleep.
Parts of Los Angeles still burn; there is no active fire department. With the rest of America in chaos, California decided to leave Los Angeles to the Variants. At least they’re partly contained here, right? When the dust settles, officials will come back and deal with the city.
Except I’m here now. If they don’t want the city, we’ll take it.
I watched a briefing from the CDC based in Atlanta, and they don’t use the term mutant or Chosen. They call us Variants, and I like it. Less offensive somehow.
From the Variants, I learned Downtown LA was evacuated in November of last year. The rest of Greater Los Angeles followed suit, slowly peeling away beginning in March of this year. Now the city is empty for fifty miles in all directions, everyone running from the monsters. From us.
Our arrival downtown has not gone unnoticed. Towers are lined with thousands of Variants. They cling to surfaces like spider monkeys overhead, and an eerie silence permeates the once bustling metropolis. I’m shocked by what I see. Several streets are caved in, revealing underground metro lines below. Many of the towers bear scars from some previous battle, and in the distance I see an enormous mound of rubble, clearly a fallen skyscraper. It’s a war zone, not the City of Angels.
The pretty girl, Kayla, has already arrived. She and a crowd of two hundred wait at the intersection of Broadway and Olympic.
“See?” She beams and sparkles with excitement, and I’m beginning to realize she’s more than simply pretty. Her beauty is enhanced to such a degree it’s hard to look away. She smells like a field of strawberries. “Follow me, I told them. Come and see. And they did!”
“Where is Kid?”
“I don’t know.”
I want this issue settled immediately. There cannot be two leaders. Caleb, the one they call Kid, should have been stronger. With better leadership the Variants wouldn’t be wandering away and into the clutches of Herders. Or worse, into Walter’s. I’m hearing alarming stories about Walter, a powerful Variant living in Oregon. My head swirls with painful emotions when I think of him.
“Caleb!” I roar. The others back away and give me the entire intersection. “Kid! Come out here!” My voice is a hurricane. I’m shouting loud enough to rattle nearby storefront windows. I pace back and forth, and my voice disperses throughout the city. If he’s downtown, he can hear me. “Caleb! Now!”
“The boy is gone,” I hear. I turn and I’m startled to see a spry bald man, maybe sixty years old, striding from the crowd. The rest of us are nineteen or twenty, so his advanced age is a stark contrast. He has thick forearms and he’s wiping his hands with a greasy rag. “Fled yesterday, like a damn coward. Heard you were coming.”
“You’re in charge?”
“Absolutely not. Never have been, never will be, got no interest. I fix things.”
“That’s Nuts,” Kayla offers. “He’s our genius. And he’s Infected.”
Infected. My vision swims with distant memories. I’ve been hearing that term, Infected. Gotta lock it down. That means he’s different from me, but I don’t know how. “Then who is in charge?”
“You are, and it’s about time,” he says. “I’m restoring partial water pressure, and haven’t slept in four days. Send me some help and it’ll cut my time in half.”
Send him help. He wants me to allocate some of these people. Just like that, I’m in charge? Just like that, I’ve got a city to take care of and no one bats an eye at the transfer of power?
“I’m in charge,” I announce, but it’s a cautious announcement. An exploratory power grab to see who voices disagreement, but not one does. Kayla’s so happy she bounces on her toes. “And this is our home now.” I’m standing in the intersection, surrounded by five hundred onlookers on foot and by another thousand on the towers, and when I finish speaking they swarm closer. Over a thousand bodies press in to touch me. Kayla grasps my hand, and then so does someone else, a face I don’t recognize. Strangers approach and caress my shoulders, my arms, my neck, my scalp, my back, and even my abdomen. Becky gives me a full embrace. I am ritually squeezed and prodded. They cup my chin and my cheeks and then retreat, making room for others. At first I’m startled, verging on claustrophobia, but soon I understand they need to touch me. Our skin contact creates a bridge. A connection I cannot explain, other than I experience them differently than I did before. Our bond calms their anxiety and fear.
We are one.
- Eleven -
That night, Olympic Boulevard is lit with small coal fires. Pyres are set in the middle of the street where cars once roared and we gather around in pockets to rest and eat.
We spent the day creating a new life. I divided the workers into five-person teams and assigned missions, such as scavenging enough water and food to last for a week, locating other Variants and calling them home, helping Nuts, clearing rubble, locating resources, mapping trouble spots, and so on.
“Stay together,” I warned them. “Safety in numbers.” Two Variant teams spent the afternoon patrolling the outskirts of Downtown, Leaping from building to building, and they reported small gatherings of survivalists to the south and east. Sturdy Los Angolans refusing to flee. They’ll become our allies, if I get my way.
It’s a breezy night and my bones ache, but the fire glazes us all in a communal warmth. I sit in a canvas folding chair, Kayla on my right, and Becky on my left. Becky doesn’t speak, but Kayla doesn’t shut up. She and a kid named Mason do most of the talking. Mason is wiry and powerful, a leader among the Variants, and he keeps saying, “Everything will change now. It’s going to be better.”
“This is our home,” Kayla replies, echoing my words. “It’ll be a real home. I’m going to hang curtains. I’m so excited!”
I hear whispers from the outskirts of our firelight.
“She killed Nathan.”
“Ripped him open and cut his throat.”
As the evening wears on, our campfire population swells. We started with twenty, but soon I see a hundred faces. Maybe two hundred. Maybe over a thousand. All these lonely monsters. Formerly they obeyed the Father, a madman named the Chemist and also their creator. Then they followed Caleb, but he wasn’t resilient enough. Didn’t have the backbone. Now, me?
Nature hates a vacuum.
“We can be free,” Mason says. He can do the trick of spinning a knife around his fingers, transferring it up and down between his knuckles. His hands are heavily tattooed.
“You weren’t free yesterday?” I ask.
“There are different forms of slavery,” he says. “Slaves to fear. Slaves to ourself. Our uncontrollable wants. But now…”
Someone outside the firelight asks, “What will we do now?”
The question is for me. Silence falls. Warriors eager for purpose, listening for orders. A tingly sensation settles over me, like being sprinkled with fairy dust. An immense conviction mounts in my chest, a certainty that we’re part of something special. A preordained court of angels, in the grand halls of an abandoned cathedral.
“The world is crashing,” I proclaim. “They blame us, and they’re correct. To an extent. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow we’re the solution. We’re going to build a refuge. A safe place. A city we’ll protect.”
I see the wonderment in their eyes. The hope. Our corner of the world won’t break. We’ll hold it together.
Someone asks, “What if they stop us?”
“They Herders won’t stop us.”
“What about the Others?”
The Others. I keep hearing about the Others, mighty Variants like Walter who are stronger than us. I don’t understand all the terminology yet, or the hierarchies, bu
t I know everyone in the firelight is terrified of them.
“We won’t be stopped,” I say. “By anyone. Our purpose is too important. We’ll be the light in a darkening world.”
They are satisfied with my confidence, and the murmuring begins again. I listen until my ears go fuzzy with exhaustion. The night wears on and I stare at looming towers above. So much empty real estate. So many empty apartments. So many unused resources. Such a crazy, savage world.
Tonight I’m going to find a million dollar apartment in the Ritz, climb into in a king bed and sleep well for the first time in days. Tomorrow our work begins.
- Twelve -
Ten days later I’m on the roof of the US Bank Tower, inspecting the northern horizon with binoculars. Experimentally I raise and lower the glasses a few times and decide I see better without them. Another side effect of the Hyper Virus; I’m a predator and I have excellent eyesight. “How far away is Rosamond?”
Mason McHale is on the roof too. He is my age. Tall. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Hispanic, like me, but nature built ethnicity more prominently into his features than is evident in mine. Tattoos gleam dully on his hands. He wouldn’t be attractive, a little too brutish around the eyes, except for his confidence and perpetual smile. Our hastily cobbled-together society is a whirlwind and he’s taken on a team of Variants to act as our provisional police force until we establish a permanent one. He says, “Dunno. Eighty miles?”
“If the smoke rises high enough then we might see it over the mountains.” I keep staring. Of all the tragedies befalling our country, this one hits close. The small city of Rosamond was wiped off the earth yesterday. Unfortunate enough to be the battleground between Herders and berserk mutants, Rosamond’s gas supply caught fire and poof. The town burned down. “We should send trucks. Trucks to pick up the Rosamond survivors and bring them here.”
“Should I go? I’ll take the Falcons.”
“The who?”
“The Falcons,” he repeats, with a hint of sheepishness. “That’s what I’ve decided to call my team.”