The Book of a Few

by Rodgers, Austen

  “It’s necessary,” Dr. Milaka said. “There is also talk about trying to find safe housing for citizens and feeding the hungry.” He looked us all over. “Now if I may continue, in the experiment, one man had been bitten by the infected numerous times, and another was a clean slate. He was the control in the experiment. They were executed, like I said.”

  Dana’s disgust at this was obvious.

  “In this experiment, we confirmed our suspicion that the virus may be in us all.”

  “I don’t know about that. He could have been bit somewhere under his clothes,” Will said.

  “Trust me; we did a full body examination.”

  “So potentially everyone has it?”

  “Yes. Even the man who had never been bitten before experienced bloating like the one that had been bitten.”

  “All the more reason to burn the dead,” Dana said.

  “How is it possible that everyone has it?” I asked.

  “It could be in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink. There is no way of knowing right now. We could have had this in our blood for the last month without knowing it. It wasn’t until people started killing each other and dying in large numbers that the virus was brought out of the dark,” Dr. Milaka said. “The virus incubates in the dead, causing the contagious gas to be formed, and in turn infecting others with rabies-like symptoms. But that’s not all. I’ve gotten two reports in the last two days of something else. Sightings, you might call them. A figure of a man was seen that appeared to look like oh, what did he say, a ‘Slender Man?’ That American folklore?”

  “Long and lanky arms and legs?” I asked.

  “Yes. Tall, thin, and its skin was a tint of red and black. The man only caught a glimpse of this ‘Slender Man,’ unfortunately. It hasn’t been seen since.” Dr. Milaka sighed. “The second report was of an even larger creature. The witness spoke of it as a giant with no hands. We have no idea if the people who reported these stories were on narcotics, but we would like to think so. We sent word to the C.V.P.M., and they went to investigate the locations where these two different creatures were seen and they didn’t see anything.”

  “Well,” Dana said, “let’s hope they were high. I’ve seen some shit, but nothing like that.”

  “Do you use hallucinogens, sir?” Dr. Milaka looked at Dana inquisitively.

  “What? No, I don’t do drugs. Just seen stuff out of the corner of my eyes, in the shadows, you know?” Dr. Milaka continued to stare Dana down, looking for a sign that he was lying. Dana shrugged, “Anyway, back to the military. Where is Thomson?”

  “He has not worked since Bella’s death.”

  “Is there any way we could get a hold of him? Where could we find him?”

  “Last I knew, he left for the C.V.P.M. to start a search party for his brother, but that was two days ago.”

  “He has that much say over there?” I asked.

  “Thomas and the Colonel are close,” he answered.

  “Well, thanks for the insight, Doctor,” Dana said. “You guys have anything else you want to talk about?”

  “So, I’m still confused about all this,” Will said to the doctor. “Maybe you could just summarize what you know so far, please?”

  Dr. Milaka groaned. “All right. So, no matter if you’ve been bitten or not, it seems that when you die, your body will bloat. If this bloated body is disturbed, moved, or otherwise naturally pops and you breathe in the fumes created from the body, you take on the characteristics of rabies within a few hours.”

  Will nodded, understanding so far.

  “But the next thing we have to learn is why the bodies of the infected bloat as well,” he paused for a moment in thought. “Well, now that I think about it, before Thomson left, he told me about what you had seen; the sick man that appeared to suffer from bone deterioration.” Dr. Milaka looked at Will intensely. “This is purely a hypothesis, but what if the virus has stages? Each time a carrier of one specific strand dies, it incubates inside the corpse as it dissolves the organs and bloats. Meaning that your ‘squishy boned’ infected could be the second stage of something much larger,” he paused for a moment, waiting for us to give him some perspective when we could not. He continued, “If the virus does change itself and the host each time it transfers from one host to another, it could explain the sightings.”

  “Well, that’s why we have you, Doctor,” I said, bewildered.

  His eyes drifted around the room, and he nodded to himself as he thought until he said, “Well, it’s a good thing we still have him.” He motioned toward the infected man strapped to the wheelchair in the delivery room.

  With nothing else to say, we closed our conversation with the doctor. As we took a few steps away, the doctor spoke again. “If you see anything, tell us as soon as you can.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  We went back down to the main floor and spoke with the guards and retrieved our firearms. Being smart, we checked to be sure that they hadn’t pocketed any of our ammo. But everything was in order, and we left the hospital. The sun had sunk beneath the treetops, and we began the long walk back to the Warehouse.

  “Do you really want to talk to Thomson?” I asked Dana as we walked the streets.

  “No,” he laughed. “I was just curious what he was up to if he hadn’t been at the hospital for a while.”

  We slowly made our way through the quiet streets and tried our best not to disturb the silence. We ducked and rushed through a few backyards to avoid a few madmen that were busy feeding on a body that lay on the side of the road. After roughly a half an hour, the Warehouse finally came into sight. Sitting atop its hill in the distance, it was funny how welcoming it seemed. It felt safe; a lot like my mother’s house back in Readlyn. Both places were where I could truly relax, for the most part, and escape from the problems that plagued me elsewhere.

  We walked through the gate and up into the parking lot. A truck, our truck, sat parked outside the main doors. We walked up to it, asking one another if one of us knew why it was outside.

  “Did Lisa take it somewhere?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. I mean, I don’t think so,” Will said.

  “We didn’t tell her not to touch it,” Branden said. The rest of us groaned and cussed in response.

  We picked up our walkie-talkies we had left on the guard’s desk and I spoke into mine, “Lisa, did you take the truck somewhere?”

  “Uh, yeah,” she said in an odd tone and continued, “I’m outside of the cage if you want to talk.”

  The guys were agitated with the woman, but also curious why Lisa had not only taken the truck outside, but didn’t put it away appropriately.

  We went through the locker room, which has begun to smell due to the ever-growing pile of unwashed laundry, and stepped into the equipment room. I was the first to walk in, and the first to see Lisa standing in front of us. Tears on her weathered cheeks glimmered in the light. Her face was stricken with deep sorrow, and the barrel of a gun rested on her temple. It took me a moment to realize that Lisa’s hands were at her side; she was not holding the gun. A pencil-thin man with a black beard stood behind Lisa. He was sunken behind her frame perfectly, as he was nearly the same size as Lisa.

  Four men rushed from the corners of both my eyes with guns raised. They closed the gap between us in a matter of seconds, leaving me with no time to react. One of the men struck me with the butt of his gun across the back of my head. I managed to keep myself together and brace myself for the concrete floor rushing up to greet me. While my memory is faltering here, I do recall smaller bits and pieces of what happened next.

  I continued lying on the floor, cupping my pounding head in my hands. I remember hearing shouting; Dana’s voice stands out the most. I also remember repeated banging against one of the lockers. I was flipped over, roughly, and bound by my wrists. After that I don’t remember anything. I figure I fell unconscious.

  When my senses returned, I looked around myself. There were the
familiar tables of the break room, the vending machines, and all of my cohorts were tied to chairs just like I was. The men who had captured us were about as rough looking as we were, even after the pummeling they gave us. I counted ten of them as they wandered about the room talking to one another. Most of them wore ragged leather jackets and blue jeans and were armed with shotguns and a few lever action rifles.

  A table was standing roughly five feet in front of us, and on top of it were all of our belongings. My backpack had been ripped open and all of the contents spilled onto the table. The firearms we carried were being inspected by two of the men. I recognized the one with the black beard.

  “This one’s got a big punch,” one of the men said as he removed one of the rounds from my Type 53. “I like it.”

  “Bayonet would be pretty useful,” the black bearded man said as he continued to probe through my backpack. Upon opening the outermost pocket, he raised his eyebrows and reached inside. I knew what was in there, and from it he retrieved a single cigarette. The man brought it close to his eyes and began pinching the crinkles in the paper in an effort to straighten it.

  Without begging, with a professional tone, I simply asked the man not to smoke it.

  The man looked up from the table and smirked. His eyes drifted back to the cigarette, which he lifted, and he said, “I’m calling the shots.”

  He stepped around the table and rested himself against it. The man reached into his pocket, retrieved a lighter from it, and said, “Thought you’d slip away, huh?” The man brought the cigarette to his lips and lit it, then ran his fingers through his long brown hair. I can’t express the anger I felt, and still feel.

  “Ya know, I would have been willing to take you in and converge our forces,” he reached out and pulled one of the chairs close to him and sat in front of us.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Dana asked.

  “You should know.” The man turned to Dana. “Name’s Casey. I’m in charge of that group you fucked over this morning.”

  “Oh, in the hardware store? I’m pretty sure that was you fucking us over,” I said. The man shook his head and as he took a drag from the cigarette, I continued, “We told you what happened, and you didn’t let off. One of ours died because of you.”

  Smoke expelled from Casey’s lungs as he spoke. “And your shit cost us two. I’d say with that kind of comparison…” Casey got up from his seat and turned to the table. He picked up Lisa’s contemporary pistol and pointed it at me as he walked closer. “You owe us one.” Casey pushed the muzzle of the gun against my forehead. If I wasn’t afraid before, at this point I was scared shitless. Sweat snuck into my eyes and my grip on the armrests was tight enough that my veins protruded from my forearm.

  “Fuck you.”

  Casey gripped my hair with one hand and pulled my head back abruptly. I tried to push against it but didn’t have a chance. Pain surged through my neck as I was looking up at Casey for a moment. He flipped the gun around in his hand and brought it up above his head. In a single blow, he smashed the grip on my mouth. The pain of my teeth was immediately followed by blood. I felt something hard trying to fall down my throat, and spat it out. Running my tongue along my front teeth, I realized that it was my incisor that I had just spit out.

  Casey released me from his clutch and stepped back toward the table. None of the other guys had said a thing to him; they just sat and watched me bleed. They didn’t even give me the courtesy of a fake attempt to break free.

  Casey bent over me with his brown eyes glaring. I sucked the blood from my gums and spat at his feet. I intended to hit his shoe but missed. Casey smirked and stood up straight again while glancing over at the others. He walked around all of us as he took another drag from Taylor’s cigarette.

  To avoid further pain, I didn’t say another thing. I was already off to a bad start with Casey. When he came back around, from behind, he pressed the heat of his cigarette into the webbing of my hand. He continued smashing it into the skin between my thumb and pointer finger. I contorted at the stinging sensation and shook my hand, trying to get the cigarette off my skin. I couldn’t hold my tongue, and I violently cussed at him.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Casey said, “we’re moving in. This place is way better than the store.” I didn’t look up at his face, or the others. I continued looking at the black ash resting on the back of my hand. I couldn’t simply blow the hot ash away; it had already burned its mark into my skin. Nothing could be done to soothe it, so I tried to embrace it, focus on it, and enjoy it.

  Casey turned to one of the men at his side and they devised a plan to retrieve their belongings they left behind and bring them back here that same night. Their plan was reckless, if my opinion mattered, as it was now dark outside. They were simply going to drive back and forth with their trucks one load at a time. One of these trucks was the one we had taken from them. All of Casey’s men were completely fine with the idea; there were no questions asked. I suppose part of that is because of the number of men they have. The other part is probably because with their new haul, our belongings, they don’t have to worry about being wasteful with ammunition or gas.

  Casey and a number of other men walked out of the break room, leaving only two with us. They sat behind us in chairs of their own so that they could watch us, and not have us watch them. Within five or ten minutes, we heard the truck out in the Warehouse start up and a few men yelled: “A little to the right!” from outside. Between Lisa’s constant sobbing and Joey’s truck horn imitations, I was beginning to become annoyed.

  While we sat in stillness, I thought of Taylor. We had spent a lot of time together and always joked around. Our friendship picked right up after the first few times we spoke to one another while we were working. He was a new hire, and right quick, our small talk developed into longer conversations of common interests and ideals. Our like-mindedness allowed us to mesh together and create a bond that I’ve only ever felt with a few other people. He was, by far, the most genuine and nicest person I’ve ever met. God bless the dead.

  Within an hour, I could hear the truck return. While they had been gone, I had decided to name them the Black Bearded Butt Fucker Clan, or Triple B.F.C. for shorthand. On account of Casey and his black beard and them screwing us over, I felt the name appropriate.

  Casey paced in on long strides and spoke to his underlings behind us. “We were followed.” I could hear the men jump to their feet.

  “What? By who?” one of the men asked in a guttural voice.

  “I’m not sure. I just saw headlights.” Footsteps behind us led to one of the windows. “They’re right there.” All of us captured individuals turned our heads and tried to look toward Casey. I could only see them with my peripherals. They stood there staring out the windows quizzically.

  “The others are with the truck,” Casey said. “We’re waiting to see if they approach.”

  “Should we go out to them?” a third voice asked.

  “No, look at their truck. It’s big. Looks like a C.V.P.M. truck. We should wait for them to come here, or leave.”

  The gruff sounding man grunted, “Fuck those guys. Aren’t they the ones that got Tom and Rick?”

  “Yeah.” Casey stared at us for a moment, and then said, “Let’s move these guys. Hide ‘em.”

  His two henchmen nodded, and they began pushing Dana across the floor. The two men grunted and moaned while moving his obese frame. After a moment, a few other men came into the room and began moving the rest of us the same way. They put all of us into the equipment room, just outside of the cage.

  I imagined that Casey’s remark ‘hide them’ was a sign that the C.V.P.M were something to fear. While sitting there, as everyone around us was hurrying about, I realized that what Dr. Milaka had said must have been true. These men, the Triple B.F.C., must have already had a taste of the C.V.P.M’s might before. Otherwise, I find it odd that they were having such an anxious response to the truck outside.

  After we were all relocat
ed next to the cage, the men began bringing our guns from the break room. With no care of the condition of our belongings, they threw all of our things on the ground in a pile. My petty worry that one of our guns may get damaged was displaced when a gunshot echoed through the building.

  The men around me ducked in natural response. A few of them cussed, but they all frantically ran into the room with the truck. I watched the men rush to one side of the truck.

  One of them yelled, “They’re shooting at us! What do we do? What did we do?”

  “Vince was just out there talking with them!” another yelled.

  Casey peeked up over the truck and looked out the garage door. He ducked his head quickly when a bullet sparked against the truck close to him.

  “Fuck! He’s dead,” Casey yelled as he released the magazine from his gun and checked to be sure it was fully loaded.

  “Why are they shooting at us?” a bald man spat in Casey’s face.