by Chu, Wesley
6 THE BEACON OF LIGHT
Elena waved, and the brightly garbed men and women waved back. The Heaven Monks were standing on a crop of boulders near the edge of the forest corralling a group of bound jiāngshī into a clearing. Their order was an offshoot Taoist sect that had risen from the shattered remains of the old world. Several groups of them operated in the area around the Beacon, and could regularly be seen herding jiāngshī like cattle. Nobody knew exactly what the monks did with them, but as long as they were helping thin the dead’s ranks, nobody cared.
One of the monks, the leader by the looks of it, put his hands together and bowed. Elena bowed back. There were at least three or four sects of Heaven Monks operating in the area. She was pretty sure she had run into this particular cluster before. Zhu knew all of them by sight and was on a first-name basis with all their leaders. He was affable like that, always quick to make a friend.
Survivors operating outside the control of the government were technically illegal, but the Beacon tolerated the Heaven Monks because they helped keep the yellow-flag paths clear of jiāngshī. Once, during a particularly bad jiāngshī storm from the south, the Beacon had even opened their doors to give the monks shelter.
Elena and Bo continued on, walking on top of an eight-foot stone wall that followed the road for several kilometers. The jiāngshī in this area were noticeably sparser, which was a sure sign that they were finally close to home. A few of the dead ambled up to the wall and grasped at them, but the wall was just tall enough to keep anyone standing on it out of reach, and there weren’t enough jiāngshī around to knock it down.
Elena and Bo reached the end of the wall by midmorning. They jumped from the bridge onto a row of vans and trucks, then leapfrogged to a utility pole. They climbed up the pole using the notched grooves as a ladder. From there, they moved from pole to pole, walking on wooden planks placed over the cables. The wind teams had fondly nicknamed this segment Lightning Lane. It took them another hour or so to reach the top of the hill overlooking a large flat plain next to the Yuanjiang River.
Along the shore of the river was a series of ugly metallic buildings that rose several stories into the air. They were built on the site of a water-purification plant that the military had taken over during the first months of the outbreak to safeguard the fresh water. Since then, the plant had grown into a full-blown military camp and was now the seat of government for the Hunan Province. At least, whatever was left of it. Dozens of container crates stacked two and three high lined the perimeter.
They had finally reached the Beacon of Light.
“Home sweet home,” she muttered. They weren’t out of the woods yet. “Come on.”
The final stretch of the journey was over the razed land that surrounded the Beacon. They had to scale a large transmission tower and ride a makeshift cable transport into camp. Elena was silent throughout the ten-minute trip over the aptly named Charred Fields.
Below her was a burned-out stretch of land with a series of deep trenches cut into it. It looked like a battlefield at the gates of hell, the site of a great war between the living and the dead. One which seemed destined to last forever.
Jiāngshī, attracted by the sounds and lights of the settlement, converged on the Beacon from every direction at all times of the day. They would be met with barricades and teams of spearmen who filtered the dead into the trenches where they could be safely killed from higher ground. Once the jiāngshī were neutralized, the spearmen would close out certain tributaries so cart teams could retrieve the bodies and bring them to one of the burn piles that dotted the landscape. This had to be done every day from sunup to sundown, and was often assigned as punishment for petty crimes, disloyalty to the Living Revolution, or falling short of quota. The last one was especially pertinent to Elena. Zhu’s wind team had so far managed to avoid cart duty, but they had had to take up spear duty twice now in as many months.
The rusty gate from the cable transport swung open once it came to a stop over the perimeter wall. The two climbed out and stepped onto the container crate. The metal parapet was a swarm of activity. Soldiers of the Living Revolution manned the fortifications as if they were in some medieval castle repelling invaders. In a way, that wasn’t far from the mark.
Men and women were positioned every ten feet. Half were watchers who used bullhorns to call out any jiāngshī who had escaped the trenches. The other half were armed with bows. Children, some as young as seven, acted as runners, carrying messages, water, and provisions. Some of the teenagers and older citizens were sent to the fields to strip valuables from corpses and to reclaim spent arrows. Everyone had a role, and everyone did their part in this human hive. Always for the good of the people.
Overhead, a loudspeaker blared slogans of encouragement, and not a few veiled threats about responsibility and guardianship. The contemporary China Elena had known was nothing like the one she had learned about in books. It was modern and exciting and fueled by innovation and capitalism. Since the outbreak, however, she had seen the government and its people retreat and entrench into defensive rhetoric; habits that had birthed this nation were now wielded as a method of control.
When order began to slip, the government in Beijing had declared a second revolution, or a Living Revolution in this case. It was every citizen’s duty to combat the threat of the jiāngshī by working together to fight off the infection plaguing the Land Under Heaven. Or something like that. Mandarin could get awfully flowery, and Elena’s grasp of the language hovered somewhere around second-grade level. Zhu had interpreted it for Elena when the message was broadcast on the loud speaker.
Elena and Bo walked across a construction catwalk and joined the line of people waiting to go down a set of stairs to the ground. She began scanning for Zhu, although the odds of spying him among the mass of humanity below were slim. Still, she held on to the hope of finding him in line at the quotamaster’s or eating at the mess hall.
The main encampment within the Beacon looked as one would expect in this new, terrifying world: part military base, part refugee camp, part prison, and entirely downtrodden and miserable. The majority of the settlement was a combination of tents and wooden sheds that wouldn’t have been out of place in the worst slums in the world. It was said that the Beacon housed approximately three thousand people inside an area spanning three football fields.
Shipping containers made up the remainder of the more permanent structures. The side of the settlement near the river held the water purification systems and the few permanent concrete buildings occupied by the government. That was where the military and provincial secretary had set up the regional capital of Hunan after the old provincial capital, Changsha, fell to the jiāngshī.
Elena left the catwalk and threaded her way through the thick crowds along the muddy paths. Smoke, sulfur, and benzene filled her nostrils. Clusters of people huddled around burning metal drums. A loud tapping like someone hammering a pipe in one block was replaced by the sounds of hissing steam and the cry of an infant at the next.
Above that cacophony, the loudspeaker barked the updated Maoisms, words of encouragement, and sayings straight from the glory days of the Revolution, blaring through tinny speakers like a late-night infomercial.
Let one million flowers bloom to put to rest our restless dead!
To volunteer to fight for the Living Revolution is a sacred duty.
Birth more children. Every life you bring to the world is another blow to the dead.
It sounded a lot more lyrical in its original tongue. Elena would have thought many of the sayings were poetic, even beautiful, if they hadn’t kept blaring these slogans nonstop at every odd hour of the day. After a while, it became mostly background noise, but it was effective. Whenever a particular slogan came on, her brain automatically recited it in her head. It was what had made her ask Zhu to train to be on a wind team rather than stay in the Beacon all day doing other tasks that they considered more “appropriate” for a foreigner.
Th
e two joined the queue at the quotamaster’s tent. There were twenty or so wind teams ahead of her. Again, no sign of Zhu. She closed her eyes and tapped her foot impatiently as the line crawled forward. The last thing anyone felt like doing after spending days, if not weeks, out in the wild scavenging was to return to the Beacon and wait in the queue for the quotamaster to judge how well they had done. It was almost always less than expected, never mind the fact that every single one of them had risked their lives to get these supplies to keep the settlement running. All Elena wanted to do now was drop her scavenge off, get something hot to eat, and finally take a hot shower. Hell, she would have settled for a lukewarm one at that.
A small commotion erupted farther down the path. Several wind teams huddled their heads together and pointed. The crowds parted and saluted. Shouts of dàgē rang through the air. That could only mean one person. Ying Hengyen appeared a few seconds later. His face was grim and haggard, and his left arm was in a makeshift sling. He must have just returned from a hard time in the wild.
The rest of his elite wind team looked even worse. Their clothes were torn and bloodied. Whatever they had just gone through must have been brutal. That was when Elena realized what everyone around them was whispering. Hengyen’s wind team was short a member.
“It’s Linnang,” said Bo quietly. “He just transferred in two weeks ago.”
“I wonder who will take his spot,” she replied.
Even in his condition, Hengyen took the time to stop every few steps to greet familiar faces, patting people on the shoulders and shaking hands like a politician working a line. Elena caught herself standing a little taller, a little straighter. She was intimidated by Hengyen. He had trained many of the wind-team leaders and was revered among the ranks. She had only met him once, when Zhu had brought her to him to ask for permission to train her for his team.
To Elena’s surprise, he stopped at her and Bo. “Bo, you’re looking healthy.”
Bo sucked in his gut and straightened up. “A nourished body promotes a strong back, dàgē.”
Hengyen grinned, patting him on the shoulder. “Nourish it too well and you end up just pulling your own weight.” He continued on to Elena. He broke into passable English. “And how are you this day, Elena Anderson?”
“I’m well. Thank you for asking.” She switched to Mandarin. “I’m ready to do my part.”
He nodded and looked to either side of them. “Where’s Wenzhu?”
Elena hesitated. “I don’t know” did not sound like the right thing to say.
“He’ll be along,” said Bo quickly. “He had to take care of something out in the wild.”
Hengyen did not look satisfied with their answer. “It’s never wise to get separated. Please let him know I wish to speak with him.”
“Yes, dàgē,” both of them replied.
Hengyen continued down the line. When he was out of earshot, Bo leaned in to her. “What do you think he wants to talk to Zhu about?”
She shrugged.
“I bet Hengyen wants him to take Linnang’s spot on his team,” said Bo.
“Good for him.” Elena bit her lip. She didn’t really mean it. She had never considered being part of any wind team other than Zhu’s. That wasn’t what she had signed up for. He wouldn’t abandon her to join Hengyen’s wind team. Would he?
There was nothing as close to a group of rock stars at the Beacon as Ying Hengyen’s team. Considered the elite of all the wind teams, each member was given a bedroom, allocated the best weapons, and all the food they wanted. Most importantly, they were exempt from quota.
Half the people desperately wanted to join Hengyen’s wind team. The other half wanted nothing to do with it. The downside to joining the best wind team in the Beacon of Light was that it got the most difficult assignments and, as a result, turnover was high. Elena was in the latter camp, not that she was remotely qualified. It wasn’t worth throwing herself in danger like that just for the best weapons and all-you-can-eat buffets. Now, if they threw in unlimited hot showers…
It took a little over half an hour before Quotamaster Ming got around to rummaging through their things. She and Bo stood there patiently while the seemingly always-sweaty stout man with the receding hairline and generous midsection opened their duffels, neatly stacking the contents onto the table. As he counted the cans of oil and double-A batteries, his fingers on one hand waggled in the air as if he were casting some magic spell. Zhu had told her the first time she witnessed those strange movements that the quotamaster was doing math with an imaginary abacus. When Ming finished going through the bag, he signaled to his assistant, who scrawled some numbers on a small whiteboard.
Ming next moved on to Bo’s bag. He gave the power drill a dismissive look but raised his eyebrow when he pulled out the dremel and the alternator. He squinted and held the alternator up for a few seconds, and then fixed on the two with his beady eyes hiding behind his thick tinted glasses, no doubt wondering where they scored these supplies. Finally, he did more math with his fingers and then jotted a number on the whiteboard.
“Not bad,” he said, grudgingly.
Sure enough, Zhu hadn’t steered them wrong. It was a better-than-expected scavenge for them. The supplies from the mechanic’s garage fetched a lot of points, enough to keep them afloat for a while. Maybe even buy some fruit. She also needed a new pair of boots, which really meant she could trade her existing pair in for something a little less worn down from storage.
After a quick meal on a bench in the general mess hall, Elena and Bo parted ways. Curfew was only an hour away, and neither had the points to go anywhere that stayed open after dark. Elena went on to the wash tent, using some of her hard-earned points for warm water, and luxuriated for the entire four minutes allocated her. She dragged her time out for as long as possible, waiting until the water attendant cut her off, and the shower reluctantly released the last few warm, precious drops.
The temperature had dropped drastically by the time Elena was dressed. A light drizzle had passed through between the time she reached the Beacon and left the wash tent, leaving the paths a little muddier than usual. She sighed. It was as expected. Between the rainy season and the cramped living conditions, there wasn’t even a way to keep the dirt and grime off her in the short jaunt from the wash tent to her pod.
Elena hurried on, taking a roundabout way near the perimeter container walls where the traffic was slightly lighter. She passed by a group of children standing in a neat row, each wielding dull wooden broomsticks. Tied in front of them were five jiāngshī with their jaws torn off and their hands bound behind their backs.
An instructor carrying a stick walked back and forth behind them, barking “Lān! Ná! Zhà!” over and over again. The children, ranging from seven to twelve, practiced thrusting with the broomsticks, striking the dull ends into the bodies of the jiāngshī in time with the instructor’s commands. One of the jiāngshī, its flesh more intact than the others’, lunged forward, causing the little boy in front of it to yelp and drop his stick. The jiāngshī had moved so abruptly that Elena caught herself reaching for her dagger. The poor boy was given a sharp rap across the shoulders for dropping his weapon. She shook her head sadly as she passed. This was the new normal, at least in this part of the world.
Elena returned to her pod, which was in one of the dozens of container crates that had been converted into living quarters. The pods were stacked five-high along both the side and back walls of each container, looking an awful lot like the cages used at the pet shelter she had volunteered at on weekends a lifetime ago. A few of the women were playing mahjong near the front of the container. They paid her little more attention than a slight shift of the eyes. Two were huddled around a small television playing a soap opera recorded on old VHS tapes. They had played it so many times Elena could almost recite the entire series. Competing music was playing from a couple of cages. Everyone else was either already sleeping or reading books or magazines. Old gossip magazines were especially popula
r, for some reason, despite the fact that the subjects of the lascivious articles were likely dead and gone.
She plugged her electronic devices into the charger and scribbled a point on a piece of paper. They were technically on the honor system in the Beacon, but everyone closely watched everyone else. After all, not paying your points was a betrayal to the Living Revolution. Getting reported for cheating could put you on Charred Field duty or worse.
Elena threaded her way through the crowd toward the back of the container, wishing that some of these women would spend more of their points on showers. Her pod was on the top row in the far corner. The lower-level cages were given to the older women who had trouble climbing up. It was always a pain to get into her cage, but being in the corner afforded her a little more privacy than most.
Her pod was just wide enough to lay flat on her back and almost long enough for Elena to stretch her legs out. She pitied tall people. A thin mattress stuffed with hay served as bedding, and a small chest at the head of her pod held all her possessions in the world. Her possessions on this side of the world, she corrected herself. She had a bedroom and garage full of stuff back at home.
Elena tossed and turned on her rumpled mattress, trying to find a comfortable position. She stared at the lone picture of her family on one of their boating trips taped to the wall of the cage and fought off the tears welling in her eyes. No, she hadn’t lost it yet, and she wasn’t going to. “Soon,” she whispered, stroking her mom’s face. “Just have to hold on a little longer.”
The yellow lights on the ceiling blinked twice. A message blared over the loudspeaker about how important sleep was for the soul, and how it was everyone’s duty to rest their bodies in service of the Living Revolution. A few minutes later, someone stopped by their container and slid the main door shut, enveloping them in darkness.
7 THE LIVING REVOLUTION
What about Lankui?”
