DISEASE: A Zombie Novel (4 page)

Casey’s mirth is short lived. The herd of creatures below drags on, seemingly endless. She’ll give Danny a pass this time, but if he stares at her like that one more time he’s going to lose an eye. She glares at him.

Danny reaches into his side pouch and fishes around. Casey watches as he lifts a piece of dried jerky from the bag and thrusts his hand out toward her. It’s not exactly a bouquet of roses, but it’s a fair apology. He keeps his eyes locked on the ground far below, careful not to look at her anymore.

Casey snags the jerky from his hand. Her stomach screams, insisting that she gobble it,
now
, that she stuff it down her throat without taking the time to chew. Holding her bat between her knees, she snaps the jerky in two. Sure she can’t fight the urges much longer she thrusts the bigger piece at Alex and then finally gives in, tearing off a chunk from what’s left. It’s tough, like leather, the most delicious leather she’s ever tasted and it’s heads-and-tails above a can of dog food. Food of the Gods.

Alex snuggles up beside her. She feels like hunger is playing tricks on her mind, and it’s so hard to decide if Danny and his crew are the good guys or the bad guys. The blond man watches the creatures below, his leg jigging up and down nervously. He’s definitely temperamental, but he’s not really that bad. He’s young, maybe he thinks he has something to prove. His men don’t seem to like him very much, but they trust him enough to be out here with him, to take orders from him.

Casey swallows the chunk of jerky. “My name’s Casey, this is Alex.” Danny looks up at her, a dark cloud momentarily passes across his face, a sadness that is shuttered so quickly she wonders if she really saw it. He looks away, down at an old wristwatch. Casey can see from where she sits that the seconds ticking by much too slowly to be an accurate gauge of time.

The group falls into a pervasive, dragging silence.

***

The horde of cadavers finally passes and when they’re sure it’s safe, Casey hands Alex down from the tree to Danny’s waiting hands. The boy is light, so light that it worries her. They are starving, she can see the hollows of Alex’s cheeks starting to form and knows she probably looks the same. It’s no wonder Danny feels the need to bring them back to his home base. The jerky and bit of water from his canteen have done little to ease the hunger pangs.

As she lets go of the boy, Casey’s struck by how similar he looks to Danny. Same blond hair, same blue eyes. It’s not hard to believe that the fragile, emaciated, child could grow up to become the solid, healthy man below her.

She swings down from the tree without help, managing the descent with her bat in hand. The second her feet hit the ground, Danny shoves Alex toward her. “Hurry up.”

So much for pleasantries, she thinks.

Much farther ahead, the brigade pushes through the underbrush like well-seasoned woodsmen. Danny walks with Casey and Alex, his face set on scowl and she wonders why he feels the need to put on this tough-guy act. “Where’re we going?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“I thought we were past all this now.”

There’s a rustling in the grass nearby but Danny is annoyed and doesn’t notice. “What do you want me to say? Does it matter? We’re going somewhere where there’s food and shelter and lots of other people. Do you want me to draw you a map?”

“Will you at least tell me why you’re out here?”

“No.”

Casey stops walking.

“What are you doing now?” Danny steps toward her. Casey lifts her bat, knuckles growing lighter with her tight grip and biceps flexing, preparing to strike. Danny throws up his hands, his hot temper getting the best of him.

“Fine, suit yourself,” he turns away nonchalantly.

“Watch out!” Casey yells as a grotesque, nearly skeletal hand reaches up from the weeds at Danny’s feet. It wraps around his ankle and he tumbles to the ground, landing mere inches from a horrifically rotted face. He squawks in surprise as teeth snap shut like a gator that’s been lying in wait and flinches back, avoiding them.

A face and arm are almost all that’s left of the creature, but that doesn’t stop it from being deadly, it would only take one bite. It digs its fingers at Danny’s ribs while weeds slip down in front of his eyes. He rips a handful away from his face and scrambles back, the thing’s teeth just missing his face a second time. It drags itself up using his clothes, scaling him.

Casey’s foot streaks through the air and catches under the creature’s chin. The sheer power of her kick rips the thing’s head right off and catapults it into the sky, sending it sailing overhead. It lands far away. Danny struggles comically to shove off what remains of the creature. He stumbles to his feet and kicks the corpse for good measure. Casey raises an eyebrow.

“Uh… Thanks,” Danny brushes himself clean.

“Yeah, no problem, are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Should I strip you to see if you’re bitten?” Casey knows it’s a cheeky remark, but she can’t help herself.

A half-pleased look washes over Danny’s face. “If you like.”

Casey smiles slyly. “Maybe another time, soldier.”

“Another time then,” Danny turns back toward his men. They nod, he nods. Nods all around.

“They seem concerned.” Casey says.

“Yeah, they’re real sweethearts.”

She snorts amusement and Danny motions for her and Alex to follow him. “You coming?”

Casey nods, it seems the thing to do.

Hours pass. Insects bite and sting. Brambles and bushes pluck at exposed skin, leaving it tender and itchy and the infrequent stops take their toll as fatigue becomes the new norm. Night descends rapidly while the brigade chats in hushed whispers, gossip mostly. So-and-so did this or that, water cooler chatter that would almost make this world feel bearable if not for the occasional reference to “The Risen”.

Casey gabs eagerly with the other adults. She doesn’t care if she barely knows these men. It’s been months since she’s had the opportunity to converse with anyone, and despite their circumstances it feels good, almost normal. Besides, she’s learning quite a bit.

They’re headed to a fortified hotel, which sounds like paradise. Security, food, and community. The kids go to “classes” and the leader of the place is a woman named Lot—a great person by all accounts. The brigade men have warmed up quite a bit to their visitors, and they’re more talkative than Danny, who hasn’t said a word in hours. He’ll get along with Alex just fine, Casey thinks.

The group falls into another quiet lull, everyone is tired. Casey’s feet ache terribly, but the thought of getting a hot meal pushes her forward. Her mind wanders in the silence and she thinks about the first few weeks of The Plague, when she still thought there was hope.

She and Anton had holed up, boarded the windows to the house and kept to themselves. They had a well-stocked emergency supply kit and cupboards filled with non-perishables. Careful rationing sustained them for almost two months.

Things outside were bad. More than once they had to defend themselves from looters. Worse were the infected. They wandered the streets, attacking everything that moved and or made too much noise. Casey and Anton watched helplessly as a horde pushed its way into their neighbor’s home, breaking windows and pushing down doors. She will never forget the screaming.

She and Anton listened to the radio every day. It was just emergency broadcasts with no real information, nothing about what the disease was, or how it spread. Still, they clung to hope, staying quiet and hidden. Eventually, the radio transmissions stopped and they lost all contact with the outside world. It became clear help was not coming.

As a strategy to keep their sanity, and their lives, they began working on a plan for a more sustainable set-up and better protection. The world became a new frontier they could conquer together. Despite daily horrors, they felt they could triumph. They thought they could create a new Eden. The world had gone to shit, but at least they had each other—it was almost romantic.

They started with limited trips away from the property to collect supplies. When Anton scraped his arm badly on a nail they didn’t think much of it. They’d been raiding a neighborhood garden for tomatoes and the rusty little dagger was jutting out of a fence. Casey had been keeping an eye out for the infected and heard him swear. Later, when they got home she cleaned and bandaged it, concerned about infection.

The wound was healing nicely when Anton began experiencing lockjaw. After that the tetanus progressed quickly, soon affecting every muscle. Anton hadn’t been up-to-date on his vaccinations. She didn’t realize it at the time but she would beat herself up for that fact every day for the rest of her life. She was a paramedic, for God’s sake, she should have been on top of that kind of stuff.

There was nothing she could do. No medications could help him, no doctor could have saved him, and the worst part wasn’t even watching her husband suffer and die of a preventable disease right before her eyes. The worst part was watching it alone.

No one else was with her as he laid on the bed screaming in pain. No one else was there when she covered his mouth to stifle the screams. No one else cared when his muscles spasmed, breaking his back and tearing his tendons, or while he fought for air, unable to breathe through the attacks. No one else was there when the last convulsion subsided, taking Anton with it, and no one else was there when she used Anton’s autographed baseball bat to defend herself from him when he rose again. That was the day she came to understand what the “infected” truly were.

Casey wipes away tears, the dark memories getting the better of her and she’s surprised to feel Danny’s awkward hand pat her shoulder. He doesn’t ask why she’s crying, just uncomfortably thumps her back.

A chuckle escapes her lips. “You don’t do this much, do you—comfort people?”

“No, I guess not.”

She smiles and he smiles back briefly.

Casey feels Alex slide his small hand into hers and squeeze. Just when she thinks the kid has totally shut off, or that maybe she only imagines the connection between them, he goes and does something so lucid, so touching—so needed, that it bowls her over in surprise.

“Thanks, Alex.”

***

Lot sits behind a large, polished oak desk in an opulent office. It’s one of the few rooms in the hotel that remains essentially unchanged from its glory days. There’s a fireplace set deep into a sidewall, but no fire burns there today. Candles and lamp oil are becoming scarcer by the day, but despite this, Lot works by candlelight.

Search parties rarely return with much anymore and trade routes are in their infancy. Lot has done her best to hoard the community’s gasoline and other fuels, but those supplies are only used under extreme circumstances, and it won’t be long before they start going bad. Lot thinks light may become an exercise in creativity if she’s unable to secure the solar panels before winter begins.

Above the mantle hangs a painting of the hotel’s exterior, when it was in its prime. The façade of the building is huge and overwhelming. Faceless guests arrive in luxury cars and forgettable doormen guide them inside. It’s like looking at the shiny side of a penny. Now the hotel has armored windows and an overgrown field. One day, she thinks, she’ll see this place reverted to its former glory, but right now she has other priorities.

Spread out on the desk is the map Opie gave her. Its worn creases threaten to break apart under her hands. Lot contemplates a circle drawn on it with red marker, the ink spotted and dying. Written next to the circle is one word: children.

Entire colonies of children litter this ravaged world—just like in the Old World, when bombs leveled cities whose names have now been forgotten, it was the children who managed to survive. Their parents gave up everything to ensure their offspring lived. They fed them when they themselves starved, clothed them from their own backs, and laid down their lives to spare the lives of their young.

Now hordes of these children live in squalid conditions, hiding in just about every nook and cranny. They scavenge and steal, their agile young bodies carrying them quickly out of danger’s path when needed. They live only to lament the loss of YouTube and selfies. They are animals, uneducated and unhygienic. They are rats, holed up in walls, squirming out to root through garbage and spread disease. But those who have survived are tough, they are strong, and they are a readymade labor force.

There are many communities that need bodies to till their soil, cook their food, and fill their beds. The children, thinks Lot, should be grateful. Many will find their new lives in servitude more satisfactory than living like wild beasts.

Lot touches the red circle with her finger. It’s dangerous work to corral feral children, but fortunately there are a trusted few in her inner circle that can handle such matters. They see eye to eye with Lot when it benefits the community, and betters their own lives within it. Opie has a real knack for identifying such individuals.

She sits back in her chair, its still supple leather supporting her gently, then folds the map and drops it into a drawer. It won’t be long before there’s no need to round up children from the wild—they’ll only be young for so long, but they can work, and breed, for a lifetime. She’s put plans in the works that will concentrate their efforts solely on the distribution side of the business, facilitating between the haves and have not’s.

Lot slides the drawer closed, her touch lingering on the dark polished wood. Years ago she sat at a humbler desk in her home office. It was functional, and not much else, made of cheap particleboard and plastic coated veneer. Lot was sitting at that desk, working on her laptop and creating the monthly budget for her doomed commune, just a few years old back then, when Danny first came into her care. She’d just come into a large sum of money courtesy of his father, Oliver.

The man was a mess. Wheelchair bound, barely able to get around. He had some vague hope that relinquishing everything to Lot’s cause would garner him mercy in the eyes of the Lord. That somehow, against all odds, a miracle cure would be found and he would rise healthy and vital from his rolling coffin.

Oliver was a wilted and disgusting man with bedsores and a catheter, a man who relied on his son to feed and clothe his disease-ridden body. It was no life for a seven-year-old boy, watching his father waste away. What kind of person would do that to his own child?

The day Oliver relinquished his son to Lot a soft knock had come at the door and Opie slithered across the carpeted room to open it. On the other side sat the decrepit man sitting lopsided in his wheelchair. Behind him stood Danny, then a quiet boy with a mop of blond hair and striking blue eyes.

“Come in, Brother,” Opie smiled. In the Old World he’d always been relaxed and upbeat. Oliver offered back a labored smile and Lot could see it was an effort to control his muscles for even such a simple task.

The boy tried to push the wheelchair through the doorway but Opie stopped him. “I’ll take your father. You wait outside in the corridor and keep still.” The boy looked to his father, but he twitched his hand, motioning for Danny to comply.

Once Opie had guided the boy into the unadorned hallway, he shut the door and pushed Oliver to face Lot. Inwardly she cringed, but outwardly she smiled warmly. “Brother Oliver, thank you so much for seeing us.”

Oliver gummed every word out of his wasted mouth. “It’s… a pleasure.”

“Nonsense, the pleasure is mine. I trust you’ve found the other members accommodating to both yourself and your son so far?”

“Quite.”

“Good, good. I’m glad.”

Lot paused to look gravely at Oliver. She closed her laptop and folded her delicate hands in front of her, holding the silence a few moments and intentionally allowing the ailing man before her to become uncomfortable. It was amazing, the power a little silence had and it was a trick that still served her well.

Oliver’s head shook with the tremendous effort it took to speak. “Is… everything… alright, Sister?”

Lot sat back, calmly assessing the situation. She knew her cool calculation was usually taken as thoughtful repose. “Oliver—I hate to speak with you about this, but I haven’t a choice.”

Lot waited again, forcing the cripple before her to respond. Every word was a struggle for him and soon he’d have no voice at all.

“What… is… it?”

“We don’t feel that Danny’s adjusting to life here very well.”

A bright sheen of panic glazed over Oliver’s eyes. Lot was surprised by how quickly it happened—had been expecting the need to push harder, but the man was desperate.

“He’s… adjusting. He… just… needs… a little… more time.”

“This isn’t a judgment, Oliver. It’s very hard for a boy his age. You’ve moved across the country, uprooted him, taken him away from everything he’s ever known—his home, his friends. His mother is already gone, and now he’s facing a future without a father, too.”

“You… have to… give us… more… time. We’ve… only been here… a month.”

“He doesn’t participate in services, doesn’t obey his elders, and overall he seems unhappy.”

“Please! I’ve… given… you… everything!”

“Oliver, listen to me, I know this may be hard to digest, but sometimes the miracle we want isn’t the miracle we need.”

“What… do… you… mean?”

“You are dying, and there is nothing we can do about it. Your ALS has progressed so far that you’ll be lucky to see next year. Isn’t that why you came to me in the first place?”

“Yes… but—”

“Listen to me. Nothing is going to stop your disease. Not begging, not prayer, not good will. Soon you’ll no longer be with us. Meanwhile, your little boy not only has to watch his father waste away in front of his eyes, but also has the added burden of caring for him. It’s no wonder Danny can’t adjust to life here, you are preventing him from having a childhood.”

Oliver’s face crumpled in dismay, it was so easy. Lot had seen a perfect opportunity several months back, when he’d first made contact with her and now she was sure he’d hand her the keys to the city, no questions asked. Tears began to leak from his eyes.

“Opie, get him a Kleenex, would you?” Opie appeared from the side with the tissues, almost too quickly. It was as if he’d been waiting with his hand on the box the entire time. Lot knew he was always quick to please and stayed loyal because she made sure the commune looked after his every need. For some people it was effortless to look the other way when the furnishings of an easy lifestyle blinded them.

“Oliver, I think it’s time you allowed me to take Danny under my wing. I’ll look after him the way you would if you could. It pains me to see the boy so distressed, and his lack of acclimation is a warning sign of things to come.”

Oliver blew his nose, soaking the tissue with snot while his head bounced up and down. He opened his mouth, trying to form another word, but Lot cut him off. The time for fishing was done and she was ready to reel in her trophy.

“I know you’ve been resistant, but we will provide for you. You’ll receive care from your fellow brothers and sisters. You needn’t suck the childhood from your boy any longer.”

Oliver’s head shook involuntarily, raw emotions playing across his face. Finally, and with great effort, he spit out the word Lot had been waiting to hear.

“Okay.”

Lot sat back in her chair. She’d been prepared to pull out the big guns, but this had gone so smoothly she couldn’t have planned it better. She smiled reassuringly at Oliver. He smiled weakly back.