Just Us

by Stark, Collin

  A picture of a dog barking towards a lake popped up as the icons loaded. It was the best Kern could do. The previous owner, a young man named Brad by the original loading screen, wasn't much on pictures apparently. It was better than the picture it used to have, with the kids name emblazoned across a really terrible first-person-shooter screen. Once the icons loaded, he clicked on the web browser. While the web page loaded, he plugged in a pair of ear buds and put one and clicked on the media player.

  Some old, forgotten skater punk blared through the buds. Finally, he got what he had been waiting for. The error screen. Before the infection took hold, the screen would have been the cause of instant frustration. Now, it held one of his simple joys; a wombat flying through a neighborhood. It's graphics were before his time, but it was something simple, repetitious. And a lot of days it beat staring out the window while Dad was doing chores.

  His thoughts quickly turned to Fireside. After months of near starvation and terror, it seemed like an oasis in the desert of despair. It was there that they got their first taste of hot food since the day they left the school. It was also there that Kern learned that trust was a deadly thing.

  xxxxxxxxxx

  They had skirted the city after the bridge had been blown. Both them had considered trying to swim to the other side, but they could see those things pouring off the bridge and into the water. Maybe it was deep, but neither one wanted to risk being pulled under the water to a chorus of outstretched hands. The Resort salon was the first building they holed up in later that night, the first building they came to that wasn't occupied or crawling with the infected. Or were they dead? Kern had stopped caring about that a long time ago. It was seared into his memory because it seemed like the most unlikely place to hide. Kern started his habit of collecting anything he thought was useful there in the three days they waited as shadows passed the window, the silhouettes amplified on the dusty, white blinds.

  Dad led him building to building for a few months, staying a day or three whenever the infected showed up. If nothing else, Dad was stealthy when he wanted to be. Food was in short supply the whole time. Once they managed to find themselves in a small convenience store, but it had been looted long before. Matters weren't helped by a large group that loitered in the square for days. Hunger had already set in, and all they had were a handful of snacks and candy. Dehydration was staved off by drinking from the tank on the back of the toilet.

  Kern notched the wall with the knife he had found in a rundown old house. Nine days they stayed there, rationing their meager supplies and barely keeping from starving to death, when they finally saw an opening to leave. From there, it was months moving from one rat hole to another. It was a cold night with frost blanketing the splotches of greenery around the town when they stumbled onto Fireside.

  When they first walked up to the gates, cold and starving, all they could see was the wall wedged between the auto body shop and the used clothing store. Bree, a muscle-bound blonde woman with a cute face ( that was all that was cute, her physique terrified Kern ) met them at the gate.

  "What's you're business?" she asked, the shotgun laid on her shoulder from the rolling platform on the other side of the wall.

  "Please," Dad said, holding his hands up slightly. Kern followed suit. All he had then was a tire iron, "We're starving. Do you have any food to share?"

  "What's you're business?" Dad sighed, and twitched his right hand, signaling Kern to run if things got bad.

  "What business do you think we have? Does it look like I'm delivering the mail? Maybe I'm coming to tell you everything is okay? Do you really think we would be standing out here if we weren't hungry?"

  Bree started to say something, but there was a low murmur from below and she looked down. She sighed, but suddenly her whole demeanor changed.

  "What's in the bag?" she asked.

  Dad looked at Kern and nodded, and he began pulling everything out. A pair of scissors, some fishing line, a few dented cans of food, and other things Kern had picked up along the way. The whole time he was unpacking his bag, he kept thinking to himself that he would have had more to show if he had a bigger bag. When he was done, she nodded at Dad. He dumped the cloth grocery bag out at his feet, the few canned goods and bottles of medicine spilling onto the asphalt.

  "What's are your names?"

  "This is Kern, and I'm Andy." Kern looked down at the pile of their stuff on the ground to keep Bree from seeing his surprise. Andy was a new one. Last time they met someone, Dad's name was Burt. The time before that, it was Jeremy.

  "Have you had any contact with any other survivors?"

  "A few. A family trying to get to Ridge Park. A trader, trying to peddle expired food. There were others in passing. Why do you ask? What do you know? Is the government still around?"

  "Right now, I'm the one asking the questions. Why should we let you in?" Bree clenched her fist. Kern heard her knuckles pop.

  "We never asked to be let in," Dad said. "We are asking for food. Anything you might have to spare."

  "And why should we give you anything? Going to the grocery store isn't really an option these days. How do you know we even have any food to spare?"

  Dad sighed and hung his head in resignation. It was evident to both him and Kern that they weren't going to get anywhere. They would be lucky, Kern thought, if they were allowed to leave with their stuff. It wasn't much. The food they had would have maybe made one meal for the both of them before. Now, they were looking to that food to get them through the next five or six days. Times like these made things that everyone used to take for granted valuable. Hatred was too soft a word for how Kern felt about peas. His time in the city had shown him that, if things got bad enough, he would kill for a can of those nasty little green things.

  "Okay," Dad said. "Alright. We'll leave." Slowly, he bent down and began gathering his belongings and putting them back in his bag."

  "Wait a minute," a voice said from behind the makeshift fence.

  That voice came from Pastor Davidson. He had heard enough. Dad and Kern were let in, fed the first hot meal they had had in months, and given a small room in the big church.

  The Corner Church was one of those hip, non-denominational churches that had become popular in the new millennium. The pastor told them the big brick building with it's ornate masonry work used to be a community recreational center. When downtown got to be like so many downtowns across the country with the crime and low income housing, the rec center was closed down and put on the market. It wasn't one of the mega churches one would see on TV, but it was big and was home to a decent sized community. They were "Member 42" and "Member 43" when they were allowed to stay on permanently.

  Kern liked it there. The church stood by itself, but the walls were built up to the other old brick buildings. Those buildings that could be secured were incorporated into the structure. Those that could not ( usually the ones that had big windows on the street front ) were barricaded off on the inside with steel mesh and quick setting concrete. There were three other people close to his age. Jenny was Pastor Davidson's daughter, and seemed pretty stuck up even in times like those. Kevin was sixteen, and ready to be a man, especially since he had lost his parents. Everything was business with him, and his business was protecting the church. Neither of these two Kern really had much for. There wasn't any place for being stuck up in this world they found themselves in, and while defending the church was important, there was more to life than being an overgrown hall monitor.

  Then there was Jay. Even then he seemed like an average teenager to Kern. Everything just seemed to run off his back like water off a roof. He wasn't careless or belligerent, but he took things as they came, and didn't worry about the day to day things like everyone else did.

  The community at the church expected participation from every member. Dad had a little handyman knowledge he had learned from his father, so his days were spent checking the fences and fixing what little infrastructure the church had, like the generato
rs or fixing the everyday broken items. Fixing the bed frames and doors seemed like a lifetime job. Kern, on the other hand, was not only new and young but also lacked any kind of advanced skill set. And so, Kerns daily drudgery of cleaning and mindless odd jobs began. Most of the stuff Kern didn't mind doing. Sweeping floors, peeling vegetables from the garden. Those were mindless tasks he could stomach since the luxuries of yesterday like computers and video games were history. What he really hated, though, was cleaning the "restroom", which was an area at the back of the lot where they had busted up the asphalt and a huge hole had been dug. Dad's father and grandfather had fought in World War II and Vietnam. Apparently, the word "latrine" was more accurate.

  Human excrement was a terrible thing to shovel. Once he learned that feces was a part of the compost when they planted the little gardens scattered throughout the community, Kern's distaste for vegetables grew exponentially. It was a good thing that a few months of scattered starvation made him appreciate them. Most days, Jay was more than happy to take on Kern's latrine duty. Kern couldn't understand it, but Jay had an uncanny knack for completing mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. This, of course, gave Kern more time to rest and work on his marksmanship. Not only did the community have guns in abundance, but they also had silencers and their own rifle range a few buildings over.

  Jay was an easy ally. Both of them obsessed over Jenny, hated Kevin, and tried their best to get out of whatever responsibilities they felt the community unfairly put upon them. When they could both get away, to Kern, it felt just like the life he had left behind. Endless days hanging out by Nana's pool or playing video games on a cold, Winter's day. Jay was also the one to let Kern hear the only government message still on all the radios; FM, AM, Ham, and Citizen's Band. It was on the AM radio that Kern heard that all residents were to stay inside or in small groups. There was more to the repeated broadcast, but Kern already knew that it was a recorded loop. That meant the military wasn't coming, that the government had already resided to safer pastures or was gone indefinitely.

  Before, Kern would have hated Fireside. Now it was easy living. The monotonous chores and even the hard labor were worth the hot meals, the warm baths, and the other people. After the panic of the first couple of weeks, Dad and Kern didn't speak much. Shock had set in, and it seemed like their words were mechanical. How much food do we have left? Where are we going? Do you feel alright? It was just a bunch of phrases and questions, strung on the line of isolation. Now there were others. Dad rarely said anything and barely slept while they were out on the road. At first Kern had thought he was just going into survival mode. Later, he realized it was stress and shock, and maybe a longing for what they had both lost.

  One night, a man came to the gates. Kelvin was a skinny, slimy excuse for a man. Half his teeth were rotting out of his head. Everyone at the gates that morning told him to leave, until Pastor Davidson came out and spoke to him just like he had spoken to Kern and Dad. Once inside, Kelvin pulled a soda and some bullets out of his pockets. A caravan of traders, he said, were just a few miles away. They were lacking food, but had other things. Maybe it was worth having a talk?

  The traders arrived the next day and offered Fireside some of their goods in return for staying a few nights. Of course the Pastor refused, after which they handed out things like candy and trinkets to the residents. They were all pretty much like Kelvin; dirty, thin, and skiddish. Derek was the leader of the caravan. He seemed a bit heartier than the others, and quick to laugh. Kern felt uneasy around him. Finally public opinion won out over Pastor Davidson, and they were allowed to stay.

  Over the next couple of weeks, the caravan assumed many of the responsibilities like the other people of Fireside. They even went on scavenging runs and brought back stuff to share with the others. Dad had went on a few scavenging runs with them. In the meantime, Kern pretty much stayed with Jay, the two of them inseparable. Jay's mother was usually pretty busy, cooking for the community and a dozen other small jobs she took on. It worked out well for the two boys, because they could spend their time enjoying life and hanging out with Jenny. After all, competition was slim and they had a sixty-six percent chance of one of beating out Kevin, at least by Kern's figuring.

  Sadly, Kern never got the chance to find out before they fled.

  xxxxxxxxxx

  Suddenly, the screen began to reload and Kern's heart skipped a beat. The network icon was blinking white, then back to dark, then again. Kern sat up and put the laptop in front of him. At the top, an address popped into the URL box: gov.usprepared.gov. It loaded for a brief second, and instead of the polished, sleek, modern web site Kern expected he might one day see, all he saw was an American flag and black words on a white screen, with some blue links at the bottom of the page. Just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

  Kern sat there in awe for a couple of minutes, a hundred things running through his mind. He had never seen a web site with those first three letters. Did it mean that somewhere, the government was still functioning? Did it mean they had the capability to get the internet back on? He tried the web site a few more times, but it just sent him right back to the game.

  He sat up on the bed and opened his bag. While he had bags and boxes stored all over the house ( and even some in the yard ), there were three bags he considered bug-out bags. Two of them were pretty much complete to his satisfaction ( he could always think of more things they might need, but weight was a major factor ), but the one he kept close to him at all times had the rare things they might need, like the crank-radio he pulled out.

  It was newer, and had a flashlight and a couple of USB ports. As Kern cranked it, his ears were met with static. He thumbed the dial, and was about to give up when something faint came over the speaker. It was a voice, and he strained to make out what it was saying. Single words and phrases stuck out. Dead. Shelter. Canton. Extreme caution. Kern laughed out loud and bounded out of the room and into the living room where Dad was sitting.

  "Kern, why are you..."

  "Shh!" Kern held the radio between them and cranked it, worried he might lose the station if he didn't.

  Dad listened intently, a dumbfounded look on his face. The same words bled through as he listened. After a couple of minutes, he put his hand up and Kern turned it off.

  "Dad, this means that someone else is out there! We can leave here and find them. Look, I've been looking over the maps and..." Dad shook his head sat down with a sigh.

  "You mean those old road maps we found? I think the newest one is over 20 years old. They might be able to point us in the general direction, but I wouldn't trust them to drive. And do you know where Canton is? It's on the other side of the state. I worked out there once. We would have to get over the mountain and then a few hundred miles through the woods and the plateau. We don't even know how old it is. Maybe it's an old recording, and they have moved on or worse." Kern's face flushed and he stomped his foot.

  "Or maybe they aren't. Dad, you're not looking at the big picture. We are safe here, for now. What happens if they show up one day, like they did in the town, but only this time they stay? Or how about when we run out of food? We can't live on half spoiled cans of fruit and stale crackers forever!"

  "It's suicide to go out there! Don't you remember how we almost starved to death? Or how about what happened at the church? And we haven't even traveled twenty miles in over a year."

  "But we can do it, Dad." Dad shook his head and grunted in disgust.

  "Kern, I know you want to get out of here. Trust me, I do, too. But I don't know how. You don't think I haven't played out everything you've said and then some? When I think about going back out there, I don't see things ending much better. Sure, the last several infected..."

  "Zombies," Kern said.

  "Infected we have seen have been older and slower, but you've seen how they can corner people when there are enough of them. I like to think that there are still people in the town. I'm almost sure of it. What if some of them turned? Then we
have the fast ones to deal with again, and if it's not them, then it's going to be people wanting to take whatever we have. That's just the world we live in."

  "You've watched too many movies, Dad. Pastor Davidson took us in."

  "He did," Dad snorted. "And he also let in the traders. You saw how that worked out. I can protect you here, in this house. But that will change when we are out in the open, where we can be chased or surrounded."

  "We're out in the open every time we go scavenging."

  "Yes, but we don't have a choice. Plus we know we are relatively safe here. I know, I know. You're thinking that more of the infected or other people could show up at any time, and you're right. Still, we have a good thing going here."

  "Whatever, Dad."

  Kern stomped off to his room and slammed the door. Normally Dad would have gotten onto him about being too loud, but he didn't. He was so mad he didn't even want to mention the web site. If the radio broadcast didn't phase him, Kern's "story" ( which is exactly what Dad would see it as, a story ) sure wouldn't. Maybe they would stay here for the rest of their lives, however long or short they may be. Kern punched his pillow, and his eyes teared up.

  One day, Dad would listen to him like he always did. At least, he did when Kern was making sense. Sometimes Dad could prove he was right, other times he couldn't. It was the latter times that he would finally listen to what Kern had to say. It was obvious that this was what would happen this time, after Dad had a chance to think about it. But what if it was too late by then? What if they were already surrounded, or whoever was on the radio left?