The Plague Runner

by Burgy, P. J.

  “I’m sure.”

  She stepped carefully over a crumpled up shirt, scanning the room for a clear place to sit. “We shouldn’t have left Trap down there.”

  “Is that its name? The dog will be fine.”

  “They eat dogs.” She frowned.

  His head tilted. “If they can catch them.”

  “We should have brought him with us.” She took a few more steps into the room, careful not to tread on any of his belongings.

  “I don’t really like dogs.”

  Realizing that the conversation was going nowhere, she let it go, frustration written on her face as she rolled her eyes and shook her head. She found herself looking around again and saw what she recognized as an acoustic guitar in an upright stand hidden in the corner opposite the bed. Her excitement got the better of her and she navigated across the treacherous terrain of the apartment floor.

  “What are you doing?” He leaned forward

  “This is a guitar. Where did you get this? Can you play?” She reached the corner of the room and grabbed at the neck of the guitar. His gloved hand covered hers before she could pick it up. He had come up on her quickly and silently. Seeing his shape so close, she jumped and backed away. “Whoa!”

  “Don’t touch anything. Please.” He straightened up to his full height and held a hand toward the couch. “Have a seat. Go to sleep. In the morning, you can go.”

  “Sleep? I don’t think I can. Not after all that.” She rubbed at her upper arm.

  He backed away from her. “Then, just sit.”

  Her nose wrinkled as she studied the seat he was offering her. He must have sensed her discomfort, making his way to the couch and grabbing the shirts he had left hanging over the cushions, tossing them over to the floor by the desk. Without being able to see his face, she was left to wonder what sort of expression he was making when she saw his gas mask turn her way once more. She tried to smile as she made her way over to him and contemplated sitting down.

  “Do you have anything to eat?” she asked.

  “No,” he answered, stepping nimbly across his floor to reach his bed. He sat down on the bare, ugly mattress and crossed his legs over one another, not even bothering to take his boots off first. Leaning over, he rested his elbows on his thighs.

  “How about something to drink?” She sat down on the couch in a very prim and proper way, not for the sake of looking dignified, but rather because she had just heard a crunching squish in the cushions.

  “No.” He might as well been a statue.

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Well, luckily I do. Was hoping to save it if you had supplies, but, hey, it's fine. Do you want some water? Something to eat? For your trouble?”

  Again, he said, “No.”

  “Okay, okay.” She cleared her throat. She moved to slide her backpack off of her shoulders and place it into her lap. Opening the flap, she took out a bottle of water. “How about a ration bar? Apple?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Opening the lid to her water bottle, she took a swig and then looked around his apartment once more, nodding toward the various corners of the room. “Have you read all these books?”

  Not getting a response, she clicked her tongue, sucking air through her teeth. She regretted it instantly, the smell of the place now a lingering taste in her mouth.

  “Okay.” She forced a smile at him, twisted the lid closed on her water bottle and then set her backpack on the cushion beside her. “I figured it out. It’s fine. Thank you for saving my life. I’ll shut up until morning.”

  Exhaling, she leaned back into the couch and dismissed the audible groan of the springs behind her. She folded her arms, water bottle in her lap, and sat quietly. His ceiling lights were round, dead, and cracked. She saw the remains of old spider webs circling the fixtures.

  “I’ve read them all, yes.”

  She looked over at him. His head had lowered, the gas mask facing downward. He must have seen her glancing his way, his head lifting again.

  “Okay.” She smiled ever so softly. “I guess you’ve been here awhile.”

  He shrugged. “You could say that.”

  “What’s your name?” She asked. When he didn’t answer right away, Kara rolled her shoulders and smoothed her bandanna. “My name is Kara.”

  “Russell.”

  “Russell,” she echoed. Kara folded her legs in front of her, mimicking how he sat, and bit her bottom lip, studying him for any movement or motion. “Why don’t you leave? There’s plenty of fort towns, you don’t need to stay here.”

  “I am better off here, trust me, Kara,” he said.

  “You’re a hunter, aren’t you?” Her eyes grew larger and she leaned over, staring intently at the frozen figure sitting on the bed. “You’re trying to clear out this part of the city?”

  The sound he made was an incredulous snort that she interpreted as a laugh, his head shaking as he leaned back. The fact that he had suddenly emoted so freely was more shocking than the response that followed. “I’m just trying to live.”

  She sat up straight. “Out here, in the middle of this?”

  He tilted his head. “And you think a fort would be safer?”

  “Well, no, but, I mean-”

  “Better the devil that you know,” he said. “I know the Infected. It’s everyone else that confuses me. Like you. What are you doing here?”

  She scanned the floor. When she looked back up at him and saw her reflection in his dark visor, and the way the candle light threw the shadows across the walls of his apartment, she felt, just for a moment, the weight of his unseen stare. “A few days ago, the fort town of Pleasant Tree was attacked. There was no one left. We followed the trail, and it led us here.”

  “Us? I don’t see anyone else.”

  “Well, Trap and me. No one else wanted to go look. Just me.”

  “Smart of them.”

  “There are survivors, somehow, I know it.” She scowled. “Yes, there were casualties, people died, but there were over two hundred people not accounted for. Men, women, children. Russell, they were taken. Dragged away. They’re in this city somewhere.”

  “You think they were brought here?”

  She eyed him. “Yes, I found proof. I tracked them.”

  “This city belongs to the Infected. Your friends will all be dead.”

  “No, I didn’t see any signs of that.” She shook her head, waving a hand in the air. “They’re somewhere, hidden. I don’t know why they were taken, but whoever has them is protecting them from the Wailers.”

  “And you mean to find them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She balked. “Why? Because they're my friends.”

  “You're friends with every single person from that fort?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  He lowered his head. “Just curious, is all.”

  She sighed. “A few are special to me.”

  “Special enough to risk your life for?”

  “If I suspected they were dead, I wouldn't be here. I would have moved on,” she said. “I'm not a fool.”

  “Should be careful. The Infected are different here.”

  Her brows lifted. “They're odd, I'll give you that.”

  He cleared his throat. “They're smarter. They think.”

  “I doubt that.”

  He folded his gloved hands in his lap and leaned forward again. “And they don’t talk either, do they?”

  “You mean that thing back there? That wasn’t talking.”

  “Sounded like words to me.”

  “It was… mimicking, mimicking human speech. It was repeating something it had heard, maybe, maybe the cries of its last victim.” Kara fought for words, searching the cold, unfeeling visor of his gas mask. “I’ve never heard a Wailer make any other noises, just screaming, or their horrible howl, but never words.”

  “You have a lot to learn about the Infected,” he said.

  “Oh, trust me, I k
now plenty.”

  “Apparently not...”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I was a rover for over a decade, hunting those things where they slept, clearing out their day time dens. I know all about their habits, their behavior.”

  Russell went on, his posture shifting lower. “Most of them do just scream. They’re mindless plague casualties. The Black Fever burned their brains out years ago. Now and then, you find one that retained some semblance of their faculties, to some degree. Like your talker back there. She remembered some words.”

  “It was mimicking.” She clenched her jaw.

  “You’ve got to figure, there has to be some part of them still in there. They see you, and they recognize that you’re not Infected. Even without the smell of you. They know,” he said.

  “Animal instinct. That’s all.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll see one of them pawing at the old ATMs-”

  “Ay-Tee-Ems?”

  “Oh.” He chuckled. It was an odd sound. “From the world before the virus, they were machines that people would take money out of. Cash. What we used to barter and trade with.”

  She sniffed. “I know what money is. I’d just never heard of an Ay-Tee-Ems.”

  “I’m just saying, now and then, you find an Infected who isn’t as mindless as the rest of the horde. I’ve seen them. They’ll beg for their lives, just like you would.” He placed his palms together as if he were about to pray.

  “But they aren’t like you and me. They can’t talk like you and me. They can’t think like you and me. The virus burned their brains out, and maybe, maybe one or two of them can make noises and string together sentences, or whatever, like that thing on the street, but they aren’t like you and me. If that’s what you mean by smarter, that they can make noises that sound like words, then fine. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I don’t want to ever again. But, if you’re trying to say that there is still a person in there, then, that is horrible. Just, horrible.” Her eyes burned into the visor, and she saw herself there, her own face frightening her for a moment. She looked away. “You aren’t saying that, are you?”

  He was quiet for a few long moments. “No. They only mimic.”

  She sighed with relief, visibly relaxing.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that.” Her nose wrinkled and her top lip lifted as she remembered the thing's face in vivid detail. “I never thought I’d hear one call for help, you know? Scared me. Those things are animals.”

  “They were human once,” he said.

  “Once.” She gained her composure and cleared her throat. “It’s just, you spend your entire life running from them, or hiding from them, hunting and killing them, seeing what they do to anything or anyone they catch. I’ve seen one of those things overturn a car to get at a cat, Russell. I’ve seen the deer carcasses, horses, cows. People. They don’t just kill you. They rip you apart. They eat you alive.”

  “That's why you should just go.”

  “Yeah?” She watched him, waiting for him to say something more. But, he didn’t. Russell sat on his bed and said nothing further. She found herself growing tired now that she had been sitting for a bit on his couch, and, despite the stink of his apartment, she considered sleeping. The silence was uncomfortable, the air thick with incense and tension, and when she finally spoke, his head lifted as if she had surprised him this time. “I think I will sleep.”

  “Do you want a blanket?” He asked.

  She imagined him peeling up a blanket from the floor, and she shook her head. “I’ll be good. I hope you’ll be able to get some rest. You really earned it, saving my ass tonight.”

  “I’ll rest easier in the morning when you leave the city,” he stated.

  Kara nodded, keeping her comments to herself. She smiled but didn’t show her teeth, placed her backpack on the ground, and moved to lie on her side. Her eyes had closed for only a second when she felt a presence, close and looming, and when she opened her eyes her reflection stared at her from his dark visor, Russell crouching by the side of the couch.

  She stifled a cry, her hands flying to her mouth.

  “You will be leaving the city, won’t you?” He asked her.

  She gawked at him. “Why would you do that?”

  “Tell me you’re leaving the city. Tell me you’re going home in the morning. Kara.” He remained crouched by the couch, waiting for her reply.

  “Do you need to hear me say it?”

  “I need to hear you promise me you will,” he said.

  “Why?”

  His tone was flat. “Because I think you’re going to go deeper in and keep looking for those dead fort folk.”

  “They’re not dead.”

  “I knew it,” he muttered.

  “What does it matter?” she asked.

  “You’ll get yourself killed.”

  “You don’t know me, Russell. Why would you care if I got killed? Hell, why did you even save my life anyway?” She told him and tried to get comfortable on her side, eyes on his gas mask. She thought she could make out the vague and ghostly image of his eyes through the colored glass.

  “I liked it better when you were thanking me.” He stood up and stalked back to his bed, sitting down less gracefully than he had earlier. “If you really want to kill yourself, I guess I can’t stop you.”

  His words echoed Renshen’s and she grimaced. “Look, there are people that I love, people that I love who could still be alive somewhere in this city. I don’t know who took them, or why, but they could still be alive, and if they are, I need to find them. Do you understand?”

  “If they loved you, they wouldn’t want you to die trying to find them I bet,” he said.

  “How can you say things like that? Haven’t you ever loved anyone?”

  “It’s because I have loved someone that I say things like that.” He twisted on the bed and then flopped onto his back, arms behind his hooded head, his gas mask facing the ceiling. “Trust me, you’re better off with the memories than the scars. You’re alive. Go live.”

  She felt that the conversation could go no further and so she did not reply. She closed her eyes again and exhaled through her nose, the musty smell of the couch combining with the sweet and pungent smells of his apartment. She thought about the world outside of his apartment, her mind wandering.

  She thought about Trap and wondered if he was okay out there in the dark, or if he’d been caught by one of things. Or more than one of those things. Torn apart, his bones chewed on. His whimpering soft as he lingered, not dead yet, and they crouched over his broken little body, pulling on his ribs and guts. She felt her lungs burn, her throat clenching. In the darkness, she imagined them running, their skin pale, their gaping mouths filled with blackness. Brightness erupted before her, and suddenly she was holding a flashlight, pointing it into the darkness outside of the fort, trapped in the shadows with those things, unable to hide. She saw grass and trees, rocks, bare patches of dead earth.

  But then a small white figure was caught in the spotlight. It was one of them, standing alone, teetering in place, feet bare, dressed in a dingy, dirty little nightgown soaked in blood, both dried and fresh.

  It was a little female, thin, young, its hair long, wild, and pale yellow. When it turned to show its face, Kara saw the bloodshot eyes and the inky oil they secreted, the pupils huge. The black liquid that seeped out of its open mouth was running down its chin, staining the front of the already ruined nightgown. It had little teeth, baby teeth, and Kara felt a sense of familiarity buzzing in the back of her skull when it made eye contact with her. It was staring directly at her, gaze locked.

  This thing wasn’t mindless. There was a purpose within it, a will. Kara realized who it reminded her of just then. It looked like Ramona. It smiled.

  She took in a sharp breath of air as she woke up. It took her a second to remember where she was and get her bearings, the smell of Russell’s apartment and the low light of the dying candles instantly bringing her back. With no
way to tell the time, the windows taped over and sealed, she wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep, but, judging by how low the wax had melted, it had been for a few hours at least. She yawned and shifted on the cushions, moving to lie on her back. It occurred to her to look over at Russell’s bed and she saw it was empty.

  She narrowed her eyes, surprised.

  She sat up on the couch, searching the apartment. “Russell?”

  No reply. She stood up.

  Taking a few steps toward his bed, she saw that the blankets were exactly the same as she had seen them last, crumpled and hanging off of the end of the mattress. She gathered her bravery and pushed the bathroom door open. The smell was the worst here, and she held her hand up to her nose, eyes squeezing shut. Her gag reflex threatened to fill her mouth with vomit and she turned away. She coughed, chancing another look in and saw dark towels piled all over the tiled floor, the sink filled with more of the same, the shower curtain dirty and pulled closed. She shut the door and shook off the waves of nausea.

  She decided to explore other areas, quickly moving to the desk to see what book he was reading. The cover was faded and worn, the title impossible to make out. Opening the book at a creased page near the end revealed lines of dialogue, two people talking about a time machine. Setting the book back down in the spot she'd found it, she again noticed his glasses. Out of curiosity, she picked them up. The lenses were crooked, too big for the frames. She tried them on and immediately set them back down again as she blinked in discomfort from the tiny little world she’d seen.

  She heard the sound of the locks on the first door and rushed to lie back down on the couch, turning onto her side and closing her eyes. She didn’t want to get caught snooping, not when she was a guest in this strange man’s home. Russell didn’t seem the type to take kindly to nosy house guests. He unlocked the apartment door and came in, shutting the door behind him. She heard nothing afterward.

  A minute of silence went by. Was he just standing at the door, waiting there like some dark monolith?

  “You don’t have to pretend to be asleep,” Russell said.

  She sighed and opened her eyes. She was surprised to see that he was sitting on his bed, legs crossed. He had folded his gloved hands in his lap. He still had that gas mask on.