Monster Nation

by David Wellington

  “I need to call my mom,” she said from time to time. Sitting up in the seat she stared out the window at a man wearing nothing but a baggy t-shirt. He was wandering through a stand of avocado trees, the branches smacking him in the face but he paid no attention. “Do you think—is he one of them?” Shar asked.

  “Holmes is just loaded, Shar,” Charles chortled over the back seat. “He’s all crunked up, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I need to go home now, Charles,” Shar said so quietly he couldn’t have heard her. The windows of the little Toyota rattled whenever he took the car over forty miles per hour and he refused to turn down the radio so any conversation between the three of them had to be shouted. Nilla opened her mouth but Shar shook her head in negation. “No. No, I’m just practicing. I could make him take me home if I really wanted. Charles wanted to go to Hollywood, but I talked him out of it,” Shar said, looking up into Nilla’s face.

  The girl was scared shitless and a little traumatized. Nilla wondered how she would react if she ever saw one of the dead face to face. “Yeah?” Nilla asked, her voice a soft purr. Maybe she had been a nurturing person in her life or maybe it was just natural instinct but she knew what it took to comfort the girl. She brushed Shar’s hair away from her forehead. Hunger stabbed her in the stomach and told her it was time to eat but she sucked in her belly and refused to entertain the notion. “Why did he want to do that?”

  “He thought we could find some movie star, or maybe a singer, and save them from the sick people and then they would be so grateful they would let us stay with them and we wouldn’t have to worry about money.”

  Nilla nodded as if this made perfect sense. “But then you heard on the radio that you should stay away from Los Angeles.”

  Shar nodded and rubbed anxiously at her nose. “I think maybe I should sit up now. Up front, I mean.” She stared deep into Nilla’s eyes and shot her a microsecond smile. “Thanks,” she said. “I got so scared.”

  “It happens.” Charles pulled over on the side of the road so Shar could get back in the passenger’s seat. As she was climbing out of the car the girl brought her face close to Nilla’s ear. Nilla closed her eyes to better hear what Shar might say.

  “Don’t hate me, okay? But you really need some deodorant.”

  They didn’t stop for Bakersfield, though Shar and Charles argued about whether they should until long after they’d passed through the sprawling downtown. Charles got them onto Route 58 after only a few tries and before they knew it they were in the middle of farmland again. Relief overcame Nilla and she shuddered. She really didn’t want to stop anywhere populated again but even so Bakersfield looked untouched by the dead. Maybe it was just a local phenomenon. Maybe if she got far enough east she would be safe. Was that what her mysterious benefactor on the hill was trying to tell her?

  About ten miles past the last houses of the city they started seeing cars coming from the other direction, headed west. A station wagon flashed its lights as it sped by them and Charles looked pensive. “Yeah, fuck you too, grandma,” he said, and chewed on the hair of his lower lip. When they started to see exit signs of Tehachapi it happened again, this time with a Mazda Miata. A third car honked its horn at them repeatedly.

  Nilla stared through the windshield and saw the driver emphatically shaking her head and waving a hand to tell them to stop. “Charles, maybe we should slow down,” Nilla suggested.

  “Yeah, and maybe you should just sit there and not talk to me right now,” he said, turning in his seat, the seat belt tugging at the skin of his neck. She had a momentary pang of desire—she really wanted to put her teeth in that throat of his—but she fought it down. “I’m kind of busy, and you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry, okay, ho?”

  Nilla crossed her arms and looked away.

  They started to see more traffic heading east and Charles had to slow down anyway to match the prevailing speed. The lanes heading west grew packed and drew to a standstill. Charles switched off the radio and squinted at the road. He didn’t like what was going on but he’d already told Nilla to shut up and he didn’t want to show any signs of weakness.

  Many of the cars they passed honked their horns now and occasionally someone would lean out their window to shout at them. Nilla couldn’t understand them—they were moving too fast. She found a map in the pocket of the seat in front of her and pulled it out. Just east of Tehachapi… there. Brown blotches surrounded the road on either side. She studied the tiny print.

  Edwards Air Force Base. China Lake Naval Weapons Center. Fort Irwin Military Reserve. Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps Base. It looked like the Armed Forces owned all the land between them and Nevada. She remembered the man in the Army uniform, the one who had almost presided over her execution.

  “Charles, listen to me—we have to get off this road!” she shouted. The boy sneered and showed her one fist. He didn't want to hear her but she was far more worried about falling afoul of the Army. “Charles! There’s a roadblock, that’s what’s happening. Do you really want the Marines to ask you why you’re running away from home?” It was a bluff—she still didn’t understand what had made him flee his hometown—but it had to be at least partially right.

  He started to grumble again but Shar sat up straight in her seat and looked right at him. It kept him from growling, anyway. The girl put a hand on his arm and stroked it gently. “They’ll split us up. They’ll find out I’m underage.”

  He lowered his head and refused to look away from the road. Nilla didn’t have time to argue anymore. “There’s a road—route 14. We can turn off at a town called Mojave.” It wasn’t a great solution—it would take them along the edge of China Lake—but it would get them out of immediate danger.

  Charles still refused to respond and she had to content herself with staring at the back of his head and imagining what would happen if the Army found her. They wouldn’t fall for her trick again, would they? Even if they did there was no way Charles and Shar would let her stay in their car once they knew her secret.

  Come on, Charles, she thought. Come on.

  The big green signs for the exits at Mojave came up on the side of the road and Nilla had never wanted anything so much in her life. At least as far as she could remember.

  Chapter Five

  It is recommended that travelers arrive at the airport four hours in advance of departure time to complete the required medical examinations before boarding. [FlyDenver.com “Tips for Travelers” page, updated 3/31/05]

  A star had fallen to earth and gotten lodged there, still burning bright.

  Its silver radiance illuminated the ridge, sending out long streamers of brilliance that made shadows on the facing slopes, shadows like the clouds made during the day, impossibly big, always moving. Like ocean waves of light and darkness washing across the spine of rocks and trees at the top of the world.

  He headed toward it, drawn—physically pulled in. Death had not been kind to his eyes but he could make out more details as he got closer. There were buildings on the ridge, low concrete blocks. There were other shapes there as well, like titanic lizards eroded by rain and wind until their shapes were soft and smooth. They occluded the light, their silhouettes thrown across him, over him.

  Others—other dead people—had gathered in the scree below the ridge. They stood apart from one another on ground crawling with lichens and dwarf pine trees that throbbed with energy but they weren’t trying to devour that life. They stood motionless, their faces tilted upwards to catch the sleeting luminosity of the fallen star. As he came among them they made no sign of noticing him. They were too busy studying the endlessly changing glow. Feeding on it. One of its beams touched Dick and though he was mentally incapable of surprise anymore his body could still feel the shock. It felt like something had been torn from him, burnt out of him perhaps. The hunger. When that light reached him it drove the hunger away. It fed him a constant, steady stream of energy, the energy he needed to continue his existence. More than enough
.

  It was like the glow of the woman in the car, like the golden aura of human life. Except… no. Better to say that the human aura was like the light of the fallen star. The radiation that shot through him was altogether more pure and more real. It nurtured him, warmed him. He wanted to run up the slope and jump inside of that light. Surrender to it—become one with it.

  As he got closer though the warmth he felt turned to heat. Real heat. He could feel it singing him, scorching every cell in his body. He took a step closer and tasted smoke at the back of his throat. He could see dark shapes ahead of him. Charred, burnt-out corpses, lumps of blackened meat in tattered remnants of clothing. He understood, in a wordless, primal way. The very thing that nourished him could consume him if he got too close. He was in a gray zone, a realm between comfort and instant annihilation and staying there meant pain.

  No matter. He stepped backwards. It was enough to stand a respectable distance away and let the fallen star comfort him. It was enough to rest. To rest and watch the light show. It was all he ever wanted, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in life or in death.

  He was so absorbed in the coruscating patterns of the light, transfixed like an acid freak staring into the depths of a lava lamp that he barely noticed when a yellow rectangle appeared up in the buildings above the star—a door opening, letting out human noise and movement. A man, a living man appeared there, a microphone in his hand. Dick bared his teeth by instinct but he felt no real need to attack the man. The light of the fallen star had given him that, a kind of serenity.

  “Good evening,” he told them, his voice amplified by loudspeakers strung on poles in the circle of statuary reptiles. Some of the gathered dead, like Dick, looked up. Most did not. “I see some new… new faces tonight. Welcome. I wish there was more that I could do for you. I truly do. You’ll never know how sorry…”

  The voice broke off in a choking noise. A sob. The man went back inside his house. Music played over the loudspeakers, light Classical music—Mozart, although Dick could not have made that distinction. The music meant nothing to him. He already had everything he wanted.

  The man came back the next night. Every night. The music changed. The pleas for forgiveness didn’t. Dick grew irritated with the man for a while. Eventually he learned to ignore him, to not even look up when the lights went on up there.

  It was a kind of perfect existence. He felt warm and sated. Dick could have stayed there forever.

  In a dawn time without time, long after the music had finished, Dick stood rock still where he’d stopped the night before though dew ran down his face and his muscles were stiff and sore. None of it bothered him. The rising sun couldn’t overpower the rays of life and happiness that shot through him. Yet something had changed, something simple, easy to miss. He studied the fallen star to try to detect what it might be and felt the star looking back at him.

  It was more than aware of him. It was actively looking at him. It had a consciousness and even a kind of voice, though its words were made of light. Dick had been unable to understand the living man’s address the night before but these words made perfect sense to him. In time it took shape, a certain fulgent form that conveyed the sense of a human body while being made entirely of rays of light. It reached out fingers that stretched across the slope and brushed the ruins of Dick’s shoulders.

  Yes, it thought, and Dick heard it sigh. There were others, it told him. Others that were closer or perhaps better equipped to perform the task (what task? It was a question, and Dick was beyond questions). Yet Dick possessed a certain quality of appearance. A supreme ugliness, a horror of aspect. His ruined body could inspire fear better than that of a dead man more whole.

  Dick could hardly be offended by the thought. He was more honored than anything else, honored to be picked by this perfect form at the heart of the fallen star. In the middle of the source.

  The form said it could use him. Dick lacked the will to refuse the request and anyway the form wasn’t asking. He would do its will. Even the concept of choice was beyond him.

  Some part of him, some deep part felt regret and longing but it didn’t stop him from turning his back on the source. Without a word, without complaint, he turned and left the ridge and headed down into the valleys below.

  Chapter Six

  Bottled water will be available free of charge. You are also entitled to pick up pre-cooked foods at the local grocery store. Menus and options will be chosen or approved by your local FEMA representative. Please let us know about any dietary restrictions. [FEMA Supplemental Broadcast for Relocated Individuals, 3/31/05]

  “Great fucking plan, Nilla.” Charles grabbed the map out of her hands. “Look, now it’s torn. This is so whack!”

  Nilla looked through the windshield. The road they’d been following—one lane, only partially paved—ended in a T intersection. There were no street signs or any kind of indication of where they were. The level cultivated land around Bakersfield had given way as they traveled north to trees and mountains and the roads had become sparser. They hadn’t seen a human being or a car for half an hour and now, officially, they were lost.

  East, Nilla thought. They should head east. Except that she couldn’t see anything through all the trees. Sparse scrub pines and towering aspens crowded together on both sides of the road. East. Except they had turned around so many times and switched roads so often she had no idea which compass direction she was facing, much less which way was east. She felt something stir in her belly. Hunger, yes, of course it was hunger, it was always hunger. But the familiar pull was drawing her in a particular direction. It was telling her to go left.

  Nilla had taken advice before from a naked man she had probably just hallucinated. “That way,” she said. One of the few compensations of having no memory whatsoever was that you couldn’t remember how many times your gut feelings had steered you wrong. “Seriously. That way.”

  No one will be allowed into or out of the quarantine area without official written permission. Violators will face criminal charges and possible lethal force for non-compliance. [FEMA Travel Advisory for Las Vegas, NV and Salt Lake City, UT, 3/31/05]

  Three hours and change in an Airbus from DIA to Ronald Reagan National on an empty flight, just Bannerman Clark and a pair of exhausted Air Marshals who took one look at him and started ordering drinks. When was a flight to DC ever empty? He realized that he hadn’t been watching much CNN since the incident began but he’d had no idea people were scared enough to stay off of planes.

  At least the quiet flight gave Bannerman Clark some time for the paperwork that had been piling up since his interrupted dinner at the Brown Palace. He couldn’t concentrate, though, and barely made it through a single Incident Account Report before he had to give up and snap shut his laptop. In the vibratory space of the jet engines he couldn’t seem to shut off his brain and things kept occurring to him, things he’d forgotten, things he needed to think about later. The girl’s face kept jumping out at him, the look of terror in her eyes. The stuff that dripped from her nose. The fact that she could talk. She had to mean something. She was less affected by the pathogen than any other victim he’d seen or heard about. Did she possess some natural immunity? Or maybe she’d been infected with a different strain of the virus or bacterium or whatever it was.

  He’d been putting together a requisition for some troops to go looking for her. He couldn’t just grab men and women out of their barracks willy-nilly, even a Rapid Assessment and Initial Deployment officer had to formally request personnel from their commanding officer. He had a line on some really promising folks, veterans from Iraq who’d been pulling weekend warrior duty every since they got back and should be rested and ready for a new adrenaline rush. Then Vikram had come in to break the news. He was wanted for a breakfast interview in Washington with a DoD Civilian.

  It was all over. Initial Deployment was his Military Occupational Specialty, his MOS and the initial deployment was complete. His role in the crisis was finish
ed. He didn’t resent it, really. There were other people, people far more qualified in dealing with widespread medical emergencies waiting to take his place. He just wasn’t sure what he was going to do next. The world was on fire and he was holding a bucket full of water and he didn’t know where to throw it.

  When he touched down at DCA a limo was waiting to take him right into Georgetown. He was a little surprised he wasn’t going to be debriefed in the Pentagon itself but he had a lifetime not questioning orders to quell his unease. After passing through a metal detector and an inspection by a nosy dog barely kept on leash by a man in a uniform shirt that simply read CANINE SUPPORT he found himself in a fourth floor office of lacquered cherry wood and office chairs wrapped in plastic. A stack of multi-line telephone units with no handsets had been shoved under the conference table. At the head of said table stood a chilled bottle of water and a cellophane-wrapped box of marshmallow Peeps. Clark knew they weren’t for him. He decided not to sit down and instead stood by the window, peering through the Venetian blinds at businessmen in dark suits or dress casual jeans rolled toward their various offices like Pachinko balls falling into their appropriate holes.

  “Bannerman.”

  The man in the door had the sort of heavy body shape and steel-blue freshly-scraped jaw of a desk officer with the CIA but he wore the dark suit, red tie and American flag pin of someone who regularly appeared at press conferences. An under-secretary, surely, one of the Department of Defense’s leading lights but nobody Clark would be expected to recognize on sight. He didn’t offer his name. He sat down in one of the wrapped chairs, not bother to remove the plastic, and cracked open his bottle of water. “Look at you. Veteran of multiple wars. Well decorated and commended. Thirty-five years on service and you’re still just a Captain. I think we both know why.”