The Book of a Few

by Rodgers, Austen

  CHESTER: What are you doing?

  DANA: (Whispering.) Keep your voice down. Those fuckers are looking for us in the house next door.

  CHESTER: (Whispering.) Where’s your journal?

  DANA: Why?

  CHESTER: I…I’m going to read it. You set me up. I know it.

  An Excerpt Written By Will

  They’re pouring in. We’ve pulled back into the building. Two of the servicemen were literally hammered by this big ass motherfucker. I couldn’t count how many there were. It all happened so fast. C.V.P.M. just got Casey’s men and Branden their guns, so we might have a better chance. Just heard a different noise coming from inside, something like a screech. Infected are getting further in, we need to push back. What the hell is going on?

  Transcript of an Audio Recording, Resumed

  (Ruffling through a bag.)

  DANA: Go ahead. Here, take it.

  (Long silence, broken occasionally by flipping pages.)

  DANA: I wouldn’t write it down, you know. For this reason.

  CHESTER: So you admit it?

  DANA: No, you idiot.

  CHESTER: That’s a lie.

  DANA: Okay, once and for all, why do you think I would give the C.V.P.M. your journal?

  CHESTER: You needed someone to come with you, and I was the easiest to manipulate. That’s why I’m here. To protect you, you selfish fuck. (Pause.) You never intended on going back to Iowa, did you?

  DANA: Why would I want to throw away the warehouse? I’m not willing to make another trip like this, that’s it. Plain and simple.

  CHESTER: So you’re going to either make me go it alone, or force me to stay with you ‘til the day that I die. Fuck that, and fuck you.

  (Footsteps, grunting, un-holstering of handgun, single click.)

  DANA: You gonna shoot me?

  CHESTER: Sounds much better than living with you.

  An Excerpt Written By Will

  Three of Casey’s men are dead, and I’m pretty sure Casey has a broken…body. He took a swing from one of these big fuckers. We also lost another C.V.P.M., leaving us with Branden, me, Casey (injured), two of his men, and five of the C.V.P.M. So, ten people. We’ve got ourselves barricaded in an office room. Can’t decide what we are doing. A few want to stay and wait for them to find us and mow ‘em down as they enter the door. The rest of us think we should break out one of the boarded windows, come in another window somewhere else, and hit them from an angle. The C.V.P.M. is making the call: We’re going with the latter plan.

  Transcript of an Audio Recording, Resumed

  DANA: You won’t do it. You need me, too, Chester.

  CHESTER: No, I don’t think I do. In fact, I don’t think anyone needs you. Why would anyone want to be on your team?

  DANA: Because I get shit done, Chester. Put the fucking gun away and keep your goddamn voice down. Now.

  CHESTER: (Laughs.) No, I don’t think I will. If I let you live, you’ll just go on. You’ve killed innocent people, Dana. You manipulate the odds in your own favor with no regard for anyone else. You’ll just move on from person to person. Once someone is no longer useful to you, you’ll probably kill him or her if they’re a problem. I won’t let you do what you’ve done to me to anyone else. You don’t deserve to see your family.

  An Excerpt Written By Will

  We flanked ‘em good! Probably shot nearly twenty. It was intense, the flashes from the gunfire illuminating their faces as they charged at us. But before we knew it, they were in our firing line. We had to leave Casey on the ground being eaten alive, and we lost two more of the C.V.P.M. to another new threat. This thing dropped from the ceiling, no shit. Had some kind of webbing between its arms and its torso. But I did get a good look at it. The webbing was cut, or clipped like a de-feathered bird. It had a hunched back and—get this—two faces. One where you would think it would be and a second almost sideways on its chest. Creepiest shit I’ve ever seen. Don’t have much time. The rest of us are holed up in the inventory management offices. I don’t know what we are going to do next.

  We hear a chopper. Must be backup! Thank God! Now gunfire. Big gun, too. Smaller gunfire? It’s not us. C.V.P.M. chopper versus the strangers maybe?

  FUCK! Big fucking ball of fire and metal just crashed through the roof, the fucking chopper is down already. Infected are getting through. I’m making a run for it.

  ——

  This thing jumped on me and sprayed this black tar on me. It’s like sludge. It had these little mini-tentacles, or the end of a hose, just sticking out of the corners of its mouth. It grabbed the back of my head, had its feet on my stomach, and screamed as it pumped this shit on me. I don’t know where the others are, or if they even made it out of there.

  As of right now, I’m inside a church a good half-mile away from the warehouse. I feel like I’m getting sick, and I’m just going to stay here for a while and try to calm my nerves. This is so horrible; I just can’t even begin to comprehend what has happened. All the hard work put into trying to find a new way to survive—gone. All of my new friends are probably dead, and I have nowhere else to go.

  Ugh. I just need to calm down, relax, and come up with a plan of what to do now. But it’s so hard to find a reason to move on when you’ve lost everything. God, my head is just pounding.

  Transcript of an Audio Recording, Resumed

  DANA: You don’t have it in you to kill me. You don’t have the edge on you to survive, let alone kill anyone.

  CHESTER: Maybe not, but I sure as shit would have done better without you. We shouldn’t have let you in the warehouse in the first place. It’s a mistake I constantly regret.

  DANA: You would be dead already if it weren’t for me, you fucking punk.

  (Pause.)

  DANA: Come on! If you’re going to kill me, then fucking do it!

  (Pause.)

  DANA: See, you can’t. You’ll never have a sliver of the life you used to because you don’t have the balls to take what you need.

  CHESTER: (Voice weak.) You’re right.

  (Single laugh. Pause. Gunshot.)

  (Footsteps, ruffling, heavy breathing.)

  End of Transcript

  Day Twenty-Six

  He smirked before he died, and he laughed. He knew right at that point he was going to screw me over. I knew that the bandits were going to follow the source of the gunfire, so I dashed out of there after grabbing both of our journals, the handgun, and the audio recorder. I barely had enough time to escape. Well-played, Chester. Well-played.

  Taking your own life was your best option. It’s a shitty place, and you knew you couldn’t live like this but, at the same time, you wanted me dead. You couldn’t muster the strength to kill me because that would make you just as ‘bad’ as me. So by killing yourself, you alerted the bandits where we were hiding and ended your own misery. But your attempts at indirectly killing me failed. I made it.

  I finally found my wife. It’s been almost a week since I first got to town. They weren’t at home, so I’ve been spending my time searching. I knew they weren’t dead because the house had been abandoned. So much wasted time. I should have thought to look at my mother-in-law’s house. But at least they are alive. I was so happy to see Jack, most of all. I missed the little dork.

  Things might be a little more dangerous here, but it’s not like, after some time, Iowa will be any safer. Sooner or later, there will be the big ones out in the street there, too. Anyway, it’s nice to be with the family again. Mother-in-law is a pain, but oh well.

  Day Twenty-Seven

  Actually took a detailed look at our food today. We aren’t at risk of running out, not quite yet anyway. We could probably last a week without going out to find more. But at that point, we would only have enough for two or three days. Probably shouldn’t run the risk of getting that low.

  Honestly, I’m surprised that my wife has been providing for Jack and her mom by herself all this time. She said that she has managed to keep hidden. She thinks the
big infected are a little blind. She has gotten in a few tussles with people and infected alike. Thank God for the skills she acquired in the Marines.

  Day Twenty-Eight

  Went out with the wife today. She showed me a few places that, last she knew, had a little food left. Only one of them actually had anything edible. She had hidden a few cans she couldn’t carry in the tiled ceiling of a small grocery store, so at least we got something.

  I would definitely agree with her that the bigger infected lack in the brain department. They are easily distracted, too. You can chuck a rock and they will search for the noise for an hour, pacing about. We didn’t get that good of a haul today.

  Day Thirty

  Saw one of those shifty, black, and skinny motherfuckers. It saw us, too; tried to get us. It literally took to the walls and tried jumping down on us. Shot it, but almost pissed myself. It’s got claws and shit it uses to climb. Teeth are jagged, and it’s got these tube things on its face.

  It’s black, just like the doctor back in Iowa said, but I wonder if it’s the same thing. It’s got like some thick mud coating all over it. I don’t know; smells like blood, though, so I didn’t touch it. It was fucked up, I’ll tell you what. The wife and I headed back to the house after seeing that thing. We are starting to become more aware of our situation with our supplies. We are running out.

  Day Thirty-Two

  It’s just too damn crazy here. The past two days, the wife and I had tried leaving in search of food. But within an hour, we end up back tracking to the house. It would be one thing if there were the regular infected all over, but I’ve only seen four. It makes me wonder: If the virus or disease or whatever changes you over time, however it does it, wouldn’t that mean that the infection had been here longer than it has in Iowa? It does make sense, doesn’t it? That would explain why the Internet, phones, and everything other than the local power were out for two weeks before the infected showed up.

  Day Thirty-Three

  Things aren’t looking good here. We’re starting to limit ourselves to half meals. At this rate, five days from now, we’ll run out. Need some serious brainstorming to come up with a solution for this. Or a miracle. We’re going to make a trip out later today. Hopefully, for the love of God, we find some food. We’re fine on ammo and medical supplies, and the mother-in-law’s SUV is intact, but we don’t have food.

  Having relocated to a different part of the country has made me realize that, no matter where we go, things are going to be shitty. And we’ve really only seen the beginning. Let’s say, by some miracle, all of the infected people in the world die of starvation or just by getting shot. Nearly everyone has become bitten at one point or another. This disease is sitting inside all of us, just waiting.

  In a perfect world, let’s say I live to be ninety years old. The world has been rid of infection, but is likely still recovering from the damage. I imagine that we would never reach as high a pinnacle as we did before the infection. The infrastructure won’t just flip back on.

  In this perfect world with no infected, I die. Whether it’s by another person or old age, doesn’t matter. What if even after all that time, the infection is still living inside me? If my body isn’t disposed of properly—bang—the infection potentially starts all over again. What about our kids? Or their kids? Will the virus pass from generation to generation? Creating a tense militaristic world of strict order where the higher-ups tend to the dead because the public can’t be trusted? This thing really could live on forever, or start back up at any time.

  Day Thirty-Four

  Wife started asking me about the warehouse, and I can’t stand to see the kid starve. We’re going to Iowa. I tried to talk the family out of it; they don’t know how the trip is. Honestly, if we do go, I’ll feel a bit like a dick. It’d be a shame if Chester died because I didn’t want to make the trip again, and we end up going back to Iowa anyway. Shame.

  Day Thirty-Five

  Yep, wife made the call. Fucking damn it. I didn’t want to go through this again. Wonder how the guys at the warehouse are doing. Hopefully they are still around. It’d give us a ticket inside. But yet, maybe the C.V.P.M. caught on that I picked Chester up. That would make things interesting.

  I’m sure if I were to walk in there with the starving kid and family, they’d give us a meal. Ugh, that’d mean that I’d have to enlist with those fuckers, huh? Damn it. I hope not.

  I told the family that we aren’t stopping once on our way there. Piss in a milk jug for all I care. Taking everything we have left with us. Pray we make it.

  Day Thirty-Seven

  Like I said, we drove straight through. Just hit the ‘ole Black Hawk County lines. There were a couple of times we almost crashed; infected were out roaming the streets in Denver and Omaha pretty hard. I have no idea what I’m going to say to the guys. I’ll just wing it. Like always. First find out if they know I picked Chester up, and then wing it. I won’t bring up Chester if they don’t.

  ——

  Everything is tore to shit. There was a fire by the looks of it. Outside of the fence, there is a barricade I don’t recognize. There is also a random semi and its attached trailer is full of blood marks on the inside, oddly. I found a journal inside the cab filled with a bunch of handwritten notes. I’m taking the folder with me; I’ll go through it later. I’m going to look inside the warehouse.

  ——

  Most of the food’s gone, the power is off, and it looks like a plane crashed into the offices. I wonder what the hell happened. It’s beyond repair, anyone could tell you that. Burnt corpses are everywhere, but I can’t recognize any of ‘em. I’m feeling a little lost. We made this trip for this place.

  Wife is scared. She keeps asking me what we are going to do. It’s not like there is that much of a choice. We fight on, endlessly, for our own causes, and kill anyone that gets in the way. We go north.

  The End

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  Ever since they were kids, Benjamin Thurm and his younger brother Andy have always been competitive. They’ve always pursued the same goals, like joining the Air Force, and have been racing one another to the top. This time, Benjamin has to give chase across the country after Andy and stop him before he hurts anyone.

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  About The Author

  Austen Rodgers has lived in northeast Iowa all of his life. The Book of a Few is his first novel in his writing career. His hobbies include sunny days at the gun range, playing Magic The Gathering, watching anime, and writing Pathfinder campaigns that he runs for his friends.

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