Convoy 19: A Zombie Novel (20 page)

Chapter 32

The tired-looking navy clerk frowned. “There’s no more room in W. You’ll have to bunk in WCU12.”

Pam stared back blankly at the wrinkled old man. He spoke in a manner that assumed she knew what he was talking about. Military personnel had a bad habit of creating their own language, and Pam needed clarification. “W?”

“Oh, are you married? Is your husband here? We have room in MC…” The man began to flip through a box of three-by-five cards.

“I’m not married…” Pam was confused.

“Then you’ll have to stay in WCU12. Cube 41.” The man handed her a red pin and glanced at the person standing behind her in line. “Next?”

Pam looked at the red pin with her name on it, and she attached it to her chest. The U.S.S. Boxer had no stations for non-navy military personnel, and the convoy team had been assigned temporary living quarters within Cube City. Pam had been the last to register, and Carl and Miguel had already shuffled off to their assigned cubes. She hefted her backpack over one shoulder with a sigh, and then she began to look for her housings. The enormous improvised refugee camp was sectioned off by fences that were held in place by dumbbells and sandbags. Large signs designated gender specific “neighborhoods.” Before long, Pam’s sign, “WCU12,” came into view.

“I hate kids,” Pam mumbled with a frown. She didn’t have a motherly bone in her body.  She vastly preferred laptops and logistics to diapers and crying.

She marched into the area, avoiding eye contact with any women she encountered. Pam eventually found her cube, secured her equipment, and re-emerged into Cube City. It was late, but Pam knew she would be unable to sleep without a basic knowledge of the area. More importantly, she wanted to know where her friends were.

“Excuse me?” a meek voice called after her.

Pam turned and a young woman, no more than seventeen, stood breastfeeding an infant under a blanket.

“You’re from the convoys?” The girl looked at Pam hopefully as she spoke.

Pam nodded. “I was. Why?”

“I was wondering if you knew anything about the Spring Valley DDC.”

“I was at Spring Valley two days ago.” Pam let the words slip out of her mouth slowly. The moment they passed her lips, she realized it would have been better for her simply to lie and say she didn’t know anything about Spring Valley.

A smile washed over the girl’s face for a second, but then it vanished. “My boyfriend’s there! Is he… is… how was it there? Are they safe?”

“The DDC was secure. I’m sure he’s fine.” Pam lied and began walking away.

Armed military personnel guarded the gates which connected the segregated living quarters. Refugees could freely pass between sections, but signs were clearly posted all about the area; ‘no males’ hung every ten feet within the female areas. Large text was painted in red letters on the storage bay wall in clear view of all inhabitants; ‘Assault will result in EVICTION. Robbery will result in EVICTION. Damaging the ship or interfering with the crew will result in EVICTION.’

The term “EVICTION,” Pam knew, was essentially a death sentence.

“Are you… I mean… Is the military going back soon? We aren’t married, but we qualify for section MC,” the girl pattered behind Pam as she walked. Civilians had a bad habit of assuming every soldier was in the loop on everything the military was doing. If you were in uniform, particularly a woman in uniform, civilians assumed every military commander in Southern California was part of your personal gossip circle. In this case, Pam did know, but she didn’t see any point in completely crushing the girl’s hopes.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Pam approached the gate to section W – Women. The soldier on duty nodded at her silently as she passed. The girl who tailed her slowed to a stop, reluctant to leave her designated area.

The women’s section was much like the WCU12 section. Clothes hung from clotheslines. Dishes sat neatly stacked on a table next to a cube marked ‘kitchen.’ In the middle of the aisle, was a long row of potted plants. The withered forms of tomatoes, beans, carrots, and even corn, fought for sustenance in the constant dull florescent light of the storage bay. A woman in her twenties or early thirties sat cross-legged on the ground, cleaning a pistol.

Pam walked out of section W and into a section marked simply C - Children. Half a dozen women sat calmly reading or playing solitaire next to a table completely covered in baby monitors. In the back of the area against the storage bay wall, was a huge montage of children’s pictures. As she passed, a sign came into view; “I’m looking for a home. Navy personnel can direct you to adoption services.”

The Spring Valley DDC and the children that had been rescued sprang into Pam’s mind. She wondered if any of them had ended up here. There had been so many convoys, so many civilian resources transported in the past year…it was almost inevitable that some of the people living here had been transported by Convoy 19.

The section marked MC – Married Couples—was quiet. An elderly couple held hands as they walked through the aisle. They smiled at Pam, and the old man gave her a salute. She saluted back and grinned – it was always nice when old veterans of an all-male military showed their respect to women in uniform. Along the wall to her right, was a set of shelves marked ‘library.’ Roughly a hundred tattered and worn books sat piled in disarray.

Section MCU12—men and children under 12—had a large semi-circle of chairs set up around the back wall. While most of the chairs were unoccupied, a handful of men and boys sat around a middle-aged man in a wrinkled suit who was giving a quiet lecture. “The Lord has chosen you my brothers. You are the chosen ones. It is you who will shepherd mankind forward into an era of unprecedented prosperity with His hand on your shoulders…”

“Bullshit!” A man in a stained white undershirt grunted and stood up. “God didn’t send this plague!”

“William! This is my time! I scheduled my time a week ago.” The man in front of the group motioned to a chalkboard that depicted a schedule. All manner of topics were listed; bullet making: 9:00am, undead behavior studies: 10:00am, sports talk: 11:00am, book club: 1:00pm. Pam hadn’t even realized it was just after midnight and the item on the list for that time was bible study.

“Miss,” the arguing men stopped their banter and bowed their heads as she passed.

“Gentlemen,” Pam returned the gesture. As she left the area, she could hear the two men resuming their argument.

“The devil brought this plague!” one yelled.

“No, God’s testing us!” the other yelled back.

“Your mom’s testing us! Now shut up and let us sleep!” Someone from a nearby cube shouted.

Pam giggled. She guessed that someone made the mistake of assuming a religious discussion would be quiet enough to schedule for late in the evening. She doubted that mistake would be made a second time.

Finally, Pam found the section she was looking for: M. This was clearly one of the largest sections, and she struggled to remember Carl and Miguel’s cube number. She eventually found it after a few minutes of wandering through the area.

“Anyone home?” Pam knocked on the side of the cube, lifted the sheet that served as the door, and peered inside. Like all the other cubes, Carl and Miguel’s was covered by a blue plastic tarp and lit by the gentle yellow light of the ship’s storage bay.

“Come in.” Carl greeted her and then resumed looking at his accommodations with frustration; the small office cubicle hadn’t been designed for living quarters. It was cramped for one person, let alone two.

“I hope Private Wensel is okay.” Miguel groaned as he lifted his broken leg onto his cot and tried to prop himself up on his backpack. The cot was too short for a full grown adult, and Miguel struggled to find a comfortable position

“Yeah…  If he isn’t bit, he’ll be okay. If he is…” Carl spoke somberly as he sat on his cot and rubbed his eyes, “another one bites the dust, I suppose.”

Pam and Miguel shared a look. Carl seemed distant.

“Hey… You talk to Cap?” Pam looked around for a place to sit. Seeing that Miguel was occupying his entire cot and Carl was trying to organize his things…she eventually settled on the floor opposite the door. 

Carl leaned his rifle against a corner, stared at it for a second, and then picked it back up. “You think our stuff is safe here?”

“I think so…” Pam answered optimistically. Now that the question had been asked, she wondered if it had been wise to leave her things in her cube.

Carl popped the clip of his rifle out and then back in. “This is my last clip. I picked it up on deck when we arrived. I couldn’t stand carrying around an empty rifle,” he noted to no one in particular. “Yeah, I talked to Cap… Don’t get too comfortable. We’re heading over to the Reagan in a couple of days. They don’t really know what to do with us yet. Captain Sheridan is gonna try to keep us together, but he couldn’t make any promises… said we should be ready for a welcome ceremony, though. Cap says we should try to enjoy the down time while it lasts.”

Miguel squirmed in his cot. “I hope we’ve got more space on the Reagan than we do here. This is way too small.” He popped a pack of cigarettes from his front pocket and carefully extracted the contents. He held three cigarettes out to his friend and smiled. “My lucky cigs… they aren’t a cigar, but now seems as good a time as any.”

Pam did not smoke, but took a cigarette to indulge her friends. Carl hesitated. It seemed to him that smoking Miguel’s lucky cigarettes signified a finality he was not yet able to embrace. Reluctantly, Carl reached out and slid a cigarette from Miguel’s grasp, placed it in his mouth, and lit it.

Pam took the lighter from Carl and lit her cigarette. She took a drag and coughed. “Damn… lucky?”

Miguel took the lighter from Pam, lit his cigarette and inhaled before handing the lighter back to Carl. “Lucky.”

A moment of quiet reflection passed between the soldiers.

“Did any of you see if Private Wensel got bit?” Pam eventually broke the silence. She had lost plenty of fellow soldiers this past year, but this was the first living person she had to look in the eye as he was left behind. He had seemed unconcerned, resolved that he had not been bitten, and the entire issue would be sorted out after a couple of days.

“Nope, I didn’t even know he was hurt,” Miguel answered. “The DDC was hairy, though.”

“Too hairy…” Carl mumbled “and that little girl rode in car three all the way to San Onofre. I didn’t know she was hurt either… ” Carl trailed off, lost in thought. Right now, one of the little girls the convoy had rescued was living the last few moments of her life on a San Onofre rooftop with her father.

“Yeah, what were there? Four if you count that dad who wasn’t bit?” Pam continued.

Carl tried to get comfortable in his own cot. “Cap’s in contact with Private Wensel. He’ll be fine. I guess we’ll find out for sure in a day or so.”

“It doesn’t even take that long most of the time.” Miguel blew out a big puff of smoke.

The three soldiers sat speechless for a few moments; thinking and taking in the enormity of the past year. It felt strange to see the civilians in Cube City conducting themselves as if the world weren’t being devoured by the living dead. Without cars, roads, caffeine, or undead, the three friends struggled to find things to talk about. The sense of being relatively safe placed them paradoxically on edge.

“I know they’re mindless, but I feel like this is some crazy undead trick… like we made it all the way through only to walk into a trap. I feel uneasy,” Miguel admitted. “Is that weird?”

“I feel the same way.” Pam took one final drag from her cigarette before offering it to Carl. “There’s a library in section MC. First thing tomorrow, I’m going to read a book… try to relax. I can’t remember the last time I read a book.”

“I’m going to the mess hall to find a cook and get myself a steak.” Miguel closed his eyes, and a dreamy expression came over his face. “I’d give my right arm for a steak.”

“Ghouls run all the cow ranches now. I’m sure they’d take you up on that offer,” Pam joked.

“I’m not sure what to do.” Carl held a cigarette in each hand and took turns inhaling from them. “I guess I’m going to clean my rifle and sit around doing nothing.”

“A little bit of doing nothing is a damn good thing.” Pam smiled hoping her commanding officer could take some time and unload the emotional burden he’d been bearing.

The three friends talked for a bit until sleep began to nag at them. Miguel drifted into slumber and Carl started to drowse, so Pam stood up and took her leave.

Pam made her way back towards her quarters through the corridors between cubes…wondering how many of these people could thank the convoys for being here.  She wondered —after some time spent in cramped cubes adjacent to strangers— if they would thank them at all. Clearly, there were already problems with assault. What other social problems would take root? Thievery? Organized crime? Lack of education? Lack of opportunity?

“Better than being in San Diego…” Pam muttered quietly, as she remembered the sight of the San Onofre power plant shutting down.

To her horror, an all-too-familiar moan echoed back at her. She froze in her tracks – was it her imagination? A sound of the ship she was unfamiliar with. Someone making noise in his or her sleep? A few seconds passed before she discovered where the sound had come from. Her eyes locked onto the white sheet of cube 26.