by Norman Dixon
“What keeps you up at night, Yannek?”
Ecky finished his cigarette and stared off into the distance. “People who are not afraid of unknown . . . people outside Settlement. Like ones who scavenge trade groups. You can see it in their eyes, the emptiness, and it is either you or them. That is what scares me, friend. The reality of it.”
CHAPTER 6
Bobby stood naked before the flagpole. His small frame shivered in the steadily falling snow, ankle-deep, barefooted, he tried to move, a ring of ice pulled at his neck. He reached back with numb hands. They closed around a heavy, familiar, cold steel chain that clacked when he tugged.
He looked frantically about, but everything was white, snow-blind as Ol’ Randy would say. Bobby squinted. He could make out vague silhouettes of the Settlement’s buildings beyond the white sheet of winter. He screamed, or at least tried to, not a single breath escaped his lungs, not a sound, save for the howling of the wind, the light crunch of the falling snow, and the sharp clang of the chain. Terror gripped him, yet, his heart did not beat in response, he spun, causing his neck to bend at an awkward angle.
His heart wasn’t beating at all.
He lifted his hands before his face. They were pale blue, and two of the fingers on his left hand were bent completely back, broken, but he felt no pain. In fact, as the realization set in, Bobby did not feel the cold at all, the shivering stopped instantaneously, just a last gasp of the mind, involuntary motor function, pointless, useless now. The only thing he knew for certain, other than being trapped, was hunger, a hunger so fierce it put fasting to shame, it gnawed at his insides even as they slowly rotted away, it made his veins itch as the blood coagulated.
It happened, it finally happened, he had become one of them, Bobby had become a Creeper. But he could still think, could still understand. There must be some mistake, he thought. The tug of the chain reminded him, cruelly, there was no mistake. This was the end. Rest in peace Bobby Carroll, another casualty in the war against the undead, a good boy, a fierce soldier, a veteran of thirteen winters, such a shame.
Out of the wall of white a fist-sized chunk of Colorado rock flew through the air. He tried to move out of the way, he really did, but his body no longer behaved properly. He stumbled. A low wet moan escaped his mouth as the chunk of rock smashed against his chest. Somewhere inside a loud bang resounded. With that painless sound the white scene of terror faded from his eyes, and he found himself within the dark confines of the barracks. Pastor Craven stood over him.
“Rough night, son?” he whispered.
Bobby snapped upright as he, unsuccessfully, tried to will his body through the rough wooden headboard. All around him the other boys slept peacefully, unaware of the demon in their midst. Most of them worshipped the man as a great purveyor of peace and love, the messiah returned in these end times, but they didn’t know the darker side, or perhaps they did and just chose to ignore it, their hate for Bobby and his brothers making it easy for them.
“Now, son, don’t go waking the good ones. They’ve earned the extra sleep this morning. You have not. Now get dressed while I wake the rest of the vermin." A sliver of moonlight cut through the window, flashing across the Pastor’s eyes, transforming him in that moment, into a stalking beast of prey.
The beating of Bobby’s heart returned tenfold.
“Get up, get up now, and meet me outside." Pastor Craven thumped Bobby on the forehead with the Good Book.
Bobby didn’t utter a word. He knew it would only make what was to come, worse. Like a good little soldier he obeyed, dressing quickly and quietly in the dark room, before slipping out into the cold Colorado morning. The darkness of winter night had yet to release its grasp on the earth. Somewhere behind that barrier the sun waited to rise, as if afraid to confront its rival.
How much longer did he have? The cutoff point was dangerously close, or had it already passed? He couldn’t think straight, and he couldn’t dwell on it because the punishment would only get worse if he delayed. He didn’t care about causing trouble for himself, but he didn’t want his brothers to suffer on his behalf.
Bobby jammed his gloved hands into the pockets of his jacket. The effort did little to ward off the chill. He looked at the fading, silver on black insignia, peeling away on the sleeve. It was the face of a man Ol’ Randy called the Raider. Bobby allowed his mind to drift back to that day while he waited for his brothers, one of the few pleasant ones in all his winters.
“Well, Bobby, ya’ bout outgrown at’ there jacket and ya be needin’ a new one for this coming winter. Is it thirteen already?" Ol’ Randy was elbow deep in a box of winter jackets in the storage shed.
“Yes, sir,” Bobby said with a smile planted on his face.
“Lookit you, practically a man, but not yet. Gotta’ pop yer cherry first.”
“If I eat extra desert I’ll be a man, sir?”
Ol’ Randy’s high-pitched laugh filled the shed as he fell head first into the pile of jackets. He stood up, holding a long black jacket in one hand, and wiped the tears from his red face with the other. “Damn, son, I ain’t laughed that hard in some time. Fergit what I said bout the cherries and such will ya. Gonna git me in trouble.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now see here, Bobby. This the perfect coat for ya. Know why?”
Bobby looked at the black coat. It seemed ordinary to him with the exception of the silver symbols on the sleeve and back. Even though faded and peeled, the face of a man was clear.
“That there is the Raider of the City of Angels.”
“Is he a hero of the war, sir?”
“No, Bobby. He’s just a symbol of the world that used to be. But that’s not why it fits ya. No, fits ya cause to the best of my knowledge it’s where ya’ from. Go on now, try it on." Ol’ Randy tossed the jacket to Bobby.
Bobby wasted no time getting into the jacket. It fit almost perfectly, though, the sleeves were a little long. “There is a City of Angels, sir?”
“Not on this earth, Bobby. That’s just a name of a place.”
“Was good place before world went crazy,” Ecky said from the doorway, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“Hey, Ecky, look at my new jacket.”
“Is fitting yes?" Ecky ruffled Bobby’s hair.
“Ya’ fucking commie bastard.”
“Enough with pleasantries, Randal. Was saying that jacket looks nice." Ecky shrugged.
“Pinko asshole speak English will ya’?”
“Was English last time checked?”
“But he’s not pink, sir.”
Ecky spit his cigarette out as a burst of laughter hit him. Ol’ Randy joined him, and so did Bobby, though, he did not know what was so funny. The world was a different place for him. He had never known the life that existed before the war, and in some ways he’d never know the cultural nuances.
He could hear his brothers’ protesting their rude awakening, and he felt the bible thumps that followed. He buried his head in the jacket, smelling the remnants of that day in the scent of stale smoke. He wished Ol’ Randy were with him now, and Ecky too, for that matter. But Ol’ Randy was out in the darkness going about Settlement business, for it was widely know, Ol’ Randy made sure of it, that he would sleep only when dead.
The barracks door opened behind him and Paul was the first to exit followed closely by Pete and Bryan.
“Hey, Bob-o, another morning in paradise.”
“That’s enough of your filthy mouth, son. Open it again and I’ll see to it that you don’t eat for a week. Now get to steppin’ we are going to Corral.”
The boys froze at the word.
“That’s right, you heard me correctly, you got some Creeper cleaning to do before the Lord can grace us with the warmth of the sun, now get moving."
To the Folks the Corral was a necessary evil, a sacrifice borne of the need to understand their enemy completely. They had to observe them, study them, dissect them, and use them as tools of learning and so
, with chains and collars and thick burlap hoods, they welcomed them inside the safety of the fence. But even the youngest of the Settlement’s inhabitants knew, you could trust a Creeper about as much as you could trust an angry rattlesnake. In order to keep the safety of their little slice of heaven intact they developed a system. Everyone had to pitch in when it came to the matters of the Corral, at one time or another, and throughout the span of their lives.
The system and the structure were simple at first glance: make a hole in the ground to put a few Creepers in but deep enough so they couldn’t get out. When you needed one for target practice or a lesson you used the small crane to secure a body and yank it out. But Bobby knew the complications of dealing with the unpredictability of the undead, and they were far from simple.
The wooden planks and peaked roof reminded Bobby of animal skin left too long to cure in the sun. The wood held the ashen gray of an old man’s beard and the brittleness of his tired body. Along the perimeter, a patchwork of chain-link fences reclaimed from the suburbs of the countryside enclosed the structure. Two young men stood guard, rifles resting on their shoulders at the narrow entrance.
“Sir,” they snapped to attention.
“Mornin’.”
The young men eyed the boys with contempt, but did a poor job of hiding their smiles that spoke of impending misery.
“It’s pretty ripe in there, sir. The Doc was up late last night cutting one up and she’s never one to treat a Creeper lightly. That leaves four in the pit. Parts been falling off em’ all week.”
“Very well, c’mon boys it’s time to put you to work." Pastor Craven waved them through the gate and into the Corral.
They shuffled in silence past the orange jumpsuits and blood-stained hoods hanging limply from a strip of nails on the wall. They stopped at the edge of the pit. It was said, with an air of pride, that Pa Crannen built the pit with his bare hands many winters ago. In his eagerness to teach the Folks he ignored one detail, and one stormy night it came back to bite him. The pit overflowed and the Creepers floated to the top. They took down ten men and women before the night watch knew what had happened. The Folks begged Pa Crannen to abandon the idea altogether, but he knew the urgency of understanding the enemy. So he devised a better system.
There were never to be more than five Creepers in the pit at any time. When they were removed they were chained, hooded to prevent biting, and dressed in orange jumpsuits pilfered from the county jail. The suits made them easy targets for the watchtower and gave everyone warning. And since then the system had never failed, in fact, the knowledge gained was worth the early sacrifice.
Bobby waved the flies from his face to little effect. They were so thick, buzzing around, if he were to take a deep, open-mouthed breath he’d be eating them by the dozens. With the flies, came the stench, boiling up and over the rim of the pit, a thick hot fog of sweet, sickly death.
Paul vomited beside him, drawing a low wail from the Creepers in the pit. The living dead below clawed at the muddy walls, not out of a need to escape, they were oblivious to their imprisonment, but out of hunger, unending hunger. The sound of their bodies rubbing together wet and soft, the buzzing of the flies, made Bobby want to scream in horror, but he closed his eyes and willed his sanity to a safe place.
I am to become one of you, he thought. In that moment he was overcome by a vast pity, a sorrow of resignation to a predetermined fate. He didn’t feel sorry for them, they were the enemy, he felt sorry for himself, not for what he’d become, but what he had caused himself to become.
Pastor Craven’s hand on his shoulder pulled him from the abyss of submission. “Get on that crane, Bobby. The rest of you get suited up, gloves, goggles and masks. C’mon now, the Lord demands a swift hand.”
Corral duty was often used as a form of punishment. The severity of the duration of that punishment was determined by the weight of the crime. If one were to get drunk and act the fool, that deemed one clean up duty. Curse during recess, or lunch, or anywhere, and by birth you didn’t carry the name of Ol’ Randy, you got a week. All the boys of the Settlement spent their fair share of time cleaning up the filth, but none spent as much time within the slop as Bobby and his brothers. They had the cleaning of the Corral down to a science, a fucking magnificent cock sucker of an art form, as Paul put it.
Bobby fell into the cadence of routine as he operated the rickety knobs of the rusty crane. His brothers stood out of the swinging arc of the crane with hoods and collars at the ready. One by one Bobby hoisted the Creepers up, taking extra care to keep the wiggling undead feet just off the ground to allow his brothers better leverage. Their calm movements were those so used to what they were doing, that they moved with an air of nonchalance. It wasn’t arrogant at all. They worked with an attention unmatched by even the fiercest First War soldiers. The Corral was their second home, second only to the back of Craven’s hand.
The boys were well aware of their standing within the Settlement. It wasn’t fair, especially since the passing of Ma and Pa Crannen, but it was better than the alternative. They had food, shelter, education, and each other. The only thing they concerned themselves with now was their own safety.
Pastor Craven watched the boys closely, but not out of concern for them, instead, he wondered if the punishments were too light. The boys were getting quite good at the task of cleaning the Corral. As he followed their quick, exact movements he began to formulate a new set of punishments. Faith would not let him kill them, but he was damn sure going to make them work for their places at the table.
Bobby compartmentalized his fear, boxed it up neatly, and left it in the back of his mind. He no longer felt the sting of the wound, he felt only the stiffness of his fingers as he worked the crane. In no time at all the boys had the Creepers hooded and harmless. With the aid of chain collars, on the end of long steel bars, they forced the walking dead against the wall where they were chained, effectively subdued, but one could never be sure, so Bryan kept close watch with a rifle.
They were soldiers first, and kids second. From the first day they entered the Settlement the boys were trained to kill, to survive, and to overcome the hell on Earth that had befallen their world, without exception. To fail in those tasks was to die . . . or worse.
Bobby shut the crane’s noisy engine down and stepped into a pair of waders. The rubber had seen better days, cracked and dry, it wouldn’t be long before they failed in keeping the bodily fluids out.
“Bobby, I’ll go down this time. It’s my turn,” Peter said, looking even paler than usual in the uneven light from the hanging bulbs overhead.
“It’s not your turn . . . it’s Ryan’s. I’ll go,” Bobby said. He had to do something, move his hands, get to work, anything. If he didn’t, the monster in the box at the back of his mind would break free and tear his fragile bravery apart.
“But,” Peter protested.
“I’ll go,” Bobby said in a whisper.
“Let him go,” Paul said, removing the aluminum ladder from the hooks on the wall. He and Bryan set it in the pit and gathered a length of rope and a bucket.
Concentrating on his balance Bobby started the descent into the filthy pit. The waders were too big in the feet, like floppy clown shoes, but he made it down without a fall. His feet sank into the muddy, rotting stew. Between the leaky roof, the putrescent decay, and rowdy guards pissing on the hated enemy, the bottom of the pit was knee deep in rank, chunky slop. It was the brothers’ chore to empty it . . . one bucket at a time.
“You ready, Bobby?” Paul called down to him.
“Let’s get it over with,” he replied, a half-submerged femur bobbed next to him.
The key to getting through Corral duty as quickly as possible was having a disciplined line. They were down a man, and that meant each of them would have to work twice as hard and three times as fast. The goal was to get each bucket up, out, and into a shallow basin behind the Corral where it was burned off. It all seemed so unnecessary, but there were lesson
s to be learned from it: one got used to the scent of the enemy, and one learned not to repeat the mistake that got one there in the first place.
“Incoming,” Paul shouted as he hurled the bucket into the pit. It splashed next to Bobby.
Maggots floated around him, crawled on the waders, but Bobby ignored them. He filled the first bucket and set it on the metal hook at the end of the rope. As the first bucket was on its way up another plopped into the muck and Bobby set the pace. He worked like a madman. He didn’t have to worry about his arms hurting him in the days to come. The Fection would take him soon enough. But before he did he owed his brothers one last effort.
CHAPTER 7
Held in check by the potent cocktail of sedatives Ryan battled a terrible fever. He thrashed wildly against the restraints, fighting some nightmare she could not see.
Lyda set a tube of the boy’s blood in the small centrifuge on her desk. The device had been plundered from Boulder County General several years ago. They weren’t even supposed to check the hospital, after all, hospitals were the first places stripped bare when the Fection took over. Panicked masses flocked for help, for a cure, for answers, to the places they’d been used to attaining such things from, but the hospitals were not safe, they were wounded centers, from which, sprang countless new cases of the Fection.
Lyda remembered well when the Fection hit like a tsunami. There were those, the smart ones, and she lumped herself in this category, along with the rest of the Folks, that took heed of the warning ripple on the beach, but the rest of the planet ignored the signs, and when the wave finally came crashing ashore they had no chance.
Stupid and smart alike, it didn’t matter when everything turned to chaos. Those first few weeks were like a worldwide looting spree. The initial outbreaks of violence across Denver claimed more lives than the living dead and the Fection they carried, combined. Before the news feeds died out the reports were the same from every corner of the globe. People reverted to their savage roots. Like caged animals they fought for survival against anything that got in their way. Undead or living, it didn’t matter. Food, shelter, water, protection . . . these were the things that mattered.