by Chu, Wesley
When he rejoined Elena, they lay side by side, their faces so close they shared the same air. The faint light fell upon her, bathing the curves of her body in an orange luminescence, like the sunrise over the rolling hills of these lands. Zhu sighed and took a mental picture. He wished he could use his camera instead to remember this moment forever.
But then Elena pounced on top of him. Her fingers were calloused and firm on his chest as she guided him inside. He didn’t remember her touch being so coarse before the outbreak. So many changes, even the smallest things. Zhu suddenly found it difficult to keep his train of thought. His body became flushed, his mouth dry. Their eyes stayed locked. Time slowed to a crawl. They played for an eternity, changing positions, laughing and reconnecting. The world they lived in no longer existed for these few moments.
The end came for them together. It was like a long walk up a hill, and then a sharp exhilarating plummet off a cliff. His knees buckled, and he momentarily forgot the world around them. He fell onto the bed next to Elena, his body drenched in sweat as he sucked in humid air. When he got his bearings, he felt drained, but content.
Elena rolled to her side and ran a finger down his damp chest. She spoke softly. “I didn’t know how much I loved you until I thought I lost you.”
Zhu froze. She had never said “love” to him before. Neither had dared. He loved her as well, but he had never imagined a future with her. Before the outbreak, they had an understanding that she would eventually return home. Afterward, there was little room for love.
“I love you too,” he replied simply. The words came surprisingly easily, although a sting of bitterness still scratched the back of his mind. They loved each other, but not enough to give up their pasts.
Even now he couldn’t imagine a future with Elena. His heart was with her, but it was also with his village. She would never go with him if he decided to leave the Beacon and join them. Doing so would mean giving up hope of ever returning to her family. He could never ask her to give that up. As much as she said she loved him, he knew Elena would leave him the moment she had the opportunity to go back to America.
She eventually fell asleep in his arms, her chest rising and falling as she curled against him. Zhu stayed wide awake, staring at the ceiling, guilt scratching in his head until he too fell into an exhausted slumber.
15 IN DEFENSE OF THE REVOLUTION
Elena woke at the first sound of the morning loudspeaker. She scrunched up her face and groaned, pulling the thin sheet over her head. She hated those damn speakers. There were a dozen spread over the Beacon, making it so loud she could hear them clearly even in their metal cocoon.
Every morning, without fail, the entire base woke to the loudspeaker playing the Chinese national anthem, which was followed by twenty minutes of slogans: “The dragon rises with the dawn to feast on the still-slumbering sheep.” “Too little sleep robs the body, too much sleep robs the Living Revolution.” And then her personal favorite: “Only the healthy flower that blooms with the sun will find the strength to meet the challenges of the day.” Because flowers had to worry about the dead trying to eat their brains.
Elena watched as Zhu zipped up his jeans. She marveled at how much he had changed in such a short amount of time. When they met, his scrawny body was a blank slate, his skin was milk-pale and the only mark on him was inflicted by a chicken who had objected to him taking her eggs many years ago. Now, he was sunbaked and wore more scars than she could count. He was still slender, but his body was taut with stringy muscles, the result of hundreds of hours of stress and strenuous activity, and not enough food.
Zhu threw on his shirt and grimaced at the loose buttons scattered on the bed from the night before. “I don’t have time to get this fixed.”
“Don’t look at me. I can’t sew.” Elena rolled onto her stomach. “You should go fight jiāngshī with your shirt hanging open. I think it’s sexy.”
Zhu walked over to the bed and bent down. Elena met him halfway up for a kiss. “I’ll be back by evening.”
“Be careful out there. I just got you back.” She changed her mind. “Wait, I’ll walk with you. I need to start my day.”
They left the stuffy suite hand-in-hand and were blasted by a cool mist hanging in the air. A fog had rolled in overnight, and a fine layer of dew now settled over the ground. The sun, hidden behind several layers of clouds, was a dull yellow climbing up the horizon.
Elena walked Zhu to the base of the wall, where a group of about fifty had gathered. Most of these people were assigned here as punishment for various infractions: breaking curfew, stealing food or water, sleeping on watch, speaking poorly of party members, et cetera. Most of them would work in the Charred Fields for a day. More than that for repeat offenders. The more serious offenders—the rapists, murderers, spouse beaters, drunken brawlers—were on permanent Charred Fields duty, forced to work every day. There were only a handful of them. Most didn’t last longer than a few weeks before either the jiāngshī or sickness got to them.
It wasn’t surprising that Zhu was the only windrunner paying penance today. Windrunners were usually too valuable for such work. The people who knew who he was must have assumed he had committed some grievous wrong.
A guard handed out several long weapons, mostly cut spears and pitchforks, but also several traditional weapons. Elena didn’t know which kung fu school, armory, or traditional opera troupe they had scavenged these ancient weapons from, but she was glad for any implement that made slaughtering jiāngshī easier. Zhu opted for a bloodstained and rusted man-catcher: a long pole with a wide U-shaped two-pronged fork attached to one end. The local police called them riot forks, and used them to control crowds or to subdue someone from a safe distance.
Zhu gave it a few practice thrusts before hefting it over his shoulder. He turned to Elena. “I’ll see you tonight?”
“I’ll wait for you here when you’re done,” she replied, kissing him quickly before he was corralled into a squad and marched to the entrance of a container crate that led to the fields on the other side. Once the doors on this side closed, Zhu and the rest of his assigned squad would open the outer gate.
Elena went up the catwalk to the parapet and watched Zhu’s squad on the field begin to fight in a ragtag formation, herding the jiāngshī into the trenches. She wasn’t very worried about him. He could handle himself out there. What she worried about were the people next to him, the ones who weren’t used to being out among the dead, the ones who frightened or fatigued easily.
At that moment, Elena was specifically thinking of a middle-aged woman with stringy, thinning hair pulled back into a ponytail fighting next to Zhu. She was thrusting a crooked tree branch timidly at the jiāngshī as if she were poking a piñata. The woman seemed ready to run at any moment, which would leave Zhu’s left flank unprotected.
Elena scowled at the sad bunch of pushovers her boyfriend was saddled with. She wouldn’t put it past him to choose to fight next to that timid woman in the hope of helping her survive the day. Zhu was good like that. That’s what she liked about him, but she also didn’t necessarily approve. Kindness was rarely rewarded these days.
She spectated a while longer as his squad corralled the jiāngshī into a cluster and then pushed them into a pit. The field master managing the squad doused the dead with gasoline or oil and lit them up. Within an hour, there were a dozen such pits burning in the fields. Long columns of smoke choked the air, clouding the sky with soot and ash.
The loudspeaker, blaring its usual slogans, paused to summon all off-duty windrunners and guards to a mandatory meeting. Elena had seen enough anyway, and was glad to finally be away from the walls. The growing stench permeating the air was terrible. She hurried down the catwalk stairs and continued toward the heart of the base. The smell of cooked flesh was replaced by one of humanity living in squalor. She was minimally comforted by the fact that she knew she would get used to it within a few minutes.
The meeting was already underway by the time Elen
a reached the sitting area. She found Bo, which wasn’t difficult; he was nearly a full head taller than everyone else. The big man grinned and made space for her.
“What did I miss?” she asked.
“The usual,” he shrugged. “Windmaster Hengyen always starts with the good news. Wangfa was promoted to master of the Beacon’s defense.”
Wangfa was one of those guys who never gave her the time of day. In his eyes, if you weren’t military—or Chinese for that matter—you weren’t worth speaking to. The two men were standing on a table in the center of the dining area, speaking to the group of guards and windrunners who weren’t on duty or scavenging. It was a smaller group than she expected, but they were still depleted from the mystery mission that they had been sent out on last week while she was looking for Zhu.
The windmaster was standing on top of a table still singing the praises of everyone there, making a point to call out individuals for certain deeds. Elena even got a little bit of a nod for leading her first scavenge and pulling in valuable resources. Then Hengyen eulogized the fallen. The crowd became respectfully somber yet also slightly restless. Every one of them knew it could just as easily have been their names being recited. Several scanned the crowd, probably taking note of the unfamiliar faces while searching for missing friends. Since windrunners were always coming and going, it could be weeks, if not months, before they learned that someone had made the ultimate sacrifice.
“Now,” he continued. “You must all be wondering why we’ve called you here. As many of you know, there have been rumors of a typhoon bearing down on the Beacon of Light.” He paused. “One so large it blights the land all the way to the horizon. I only wish I could dispel those rumors, but I have seen it with my own eyes. It’s endless. A million of our former brothers and sisters, stolen from us, are now cursed to fight their comrades.”
A wave of mutters and curses swept the crowd. If anyone knew the threat of the jiāngshī in great numbers, it was people who risked their lives every day. People began to talk among themselves. The consensus sounded like they wanted to run, but there was a very vocal group among the guards who demanded they stay and fight.
“What do we do? Where do we run?”
“We can’t run. There’s no escape from the dead. We have to make a stand.”
“You fool. We can’t fight a thunderstorm. The only thing we can do is take shelter.”
“Coward! Where the living go, the jiāngshī follow. We must make a stand for the Living Revolution.”
“How dare you!”
A scuffle broke out within arm’s length of Elena and Bo, and quickly spread. It appeared the divide was between the windrunners and the guards. Bo, ever protective, moved between her and the melee and raised a ham-fist threateningly at anyone who dared venture too close.
A gunshot pierced the fracas and sent everyone into a stunned silence. Even Windmaster Hengyen appeared startled and annoyed when he noticed the smoking pistol in Wangfa’s hand. Hengyen continued speaking. “The decision has already been made. My brothers and sisters of the Living Revolution, we will cede no more ground to the jiāngshī. We will stand. We will triumph. Or we will die fighting.”
An uneasy silence passed among the crowd of wind teams. Some men and women were nodding along with a steely look, but many others were not as convinced by the windmaster’s words. Restlessness and uncertainty rippled through the crowd.
“There is one more thing.” Wangfa hurriedly stepped in front of Hengyen and broke into a wide grin. “Secretary Guo has confirmed that he has been in contact with the People’s Liberation Army. Order is slowly being restored across the country, and it is our duty to hold the Beacon until they relieve us.”
The two leaders had buried the lede. A great cheer broke the stunned silence, and grew to a deafening roar as the guards and windrunners, at one another’s throats a moment earlier, now cheered and clapped each other on the backs. Bo had both fists raised in the air, and Elena got caught up with everything and ended up following suit, throwing her arms around his waist as they both jumped up and down. Someone started singing “March of the Volunteers,” and it became a chorus.
Elena found herself humming along. She didn’t know all the words, but it was definitely one of the snappier national anthems. If the army was still intact, that meant the rest of the country might be as well. If the tide was turning against the jiāngshī here in China, then maybe there was still a way to get home. For the first time in recent memory, Elena embraced that hope, just for a moment.
It was just a matter of time. She just needed to see this through.
Something about the two leaders caught her eye. Wangfa was enjoying the celebration a little too much. He basked in the glory on top of the table as if they had already won. Hengyen, on the other hand, looked like he had just bitten into something rotten. He crossed his arms and waited patiently until the song ended, then waited some more until the chatter died.
“We haven’t won anything yet, brothers and sisters,” he said into the silence. “The People’s Liberation Army is on their way, but we must survive long enough to receive them. That means the Beacon of Light cannot break. We will not break. We will stand firm and cede no ground to the dead. We will fight them with all our strength.”
More cheers followed.
The windmaster’s tone changed, becoming grimmer. “Sacrifices will be made by every member of the Living Revolution. The typhoon will smash into our walls like ocean waves against the rocks. We must be prepared. We must strengthen our defenses, raise the walls, sharpen stakes, cut deeper trenches. Our stockpiles must overflow, our food supplies must overflow, and our hearts must be made of steel. We are willing to lay down our lives for the Beacon of Light to stand. This is our Long March, my comrades. Not every one of us will survive, but the ones who do will be golden.
“All of us will be pulling double shifts, and every soul will contribute to the defense. For the windrunners, the scavenge outputs will need to be vastly increased. Point requirements are now tripled. No more mandatory rests between scavenges.
“Furthermore, the Living Revolution will no longer tolerate the vultures on the outside to reap the fruits of our struggle. It is by our hands that the Yellow Flag paths are kept clear of the dead, all while these parasites feed off our accomplishments. All survivors outside of the Beacon will be brought into the fold in order to aid our defenses. It is now all wind teams’ duty to report and bring forth anyone they find. No exceptions.”
A new series of mutters swept through the crowd, especially among the windrunners. Capturing people changed the nature of a windrunner’s role. All of them knew someone out in the wilderness. Some friendly, some not, some who bartered supplies or offered shelter. There was an ecosystem of survivors out there, one predicated on relationships and the shared need for survival. There was no turning back once these fragile trusts were disrupted. Elena personally found this new development distasteful.
One of the windrunners raised her hand. “Dàgē, I know a settlement near Dafu Lake with sixty people, most elderly.”
“Every person,” said Hengyen, grimly. “Man, woman, child. Anyone who can chop down a tree, carry wood, carve and sand a shaft, wield a spear. No one is exempt. If the group is too large for a wind team to bring in, then notify me to coordinate a raid. It’s past time we unify the people toward our common goal.”
“Until our needs are met for the upgrades of our defenses,” Wangfa added, “every person brought in will count toward maximum quota. Any information leading to the capture of people will receive points as well.”
Another windrunner raised his hand. “I know a family living on a barge on Yuanjiang River.”
“There is a large group of vultures who raid near the base of Kiyu Mountain.”
“There’s a bunch of Christians living in an abandoned factory two days south.”
More windrunners began calling out information they had about groups living in the wilderness in the hopes of getting credit.
Bo raised his hand. “Heaven Monks live on the horse ranch halfway up the San Mountain.”
Elena’s mouth dropped and she threw the hardest elbow she could into her friend’s ribs. “Why did you do that?”
“What?” He winced, giving her the same look their family dog Winnie had when nine-year-old Elena had stepped on her tail. “The windmaster said ‘everyone.’ ”
“Not our friends, or good people, and especially not people of…” The words died in her throat. Did it matter if someone still had faith in this world? Were they to be admired or ridiculed? She scowled. “Well, our team isn’t going to do it. There’s no way. You hear me?”
“Hey, Big Bo,” one of the women standing next to Wangfa called, gesturing for him to approach. “You had raised your hand? Give me the information so I can credit your team.”
Bo looked conflicted, but it didn’t matter. It was already too late. She watched as he gave her a last helpless glance and weaved his way through the crowd to report what he knew. More windrunners, also wanting credit for identifying groups of survivors still in the wilderness, began crowding around the notetaker.
Elena took this opportunity to slip away. More than any other moment in the last few months, now she felt that she needed a drink. Even the sweet-sour plum wine would do. Anything to wash this bitter taste out of her mouth. She wasn’t sure if it was from the ash in the air from the Charred Fields or just bile from her disgust.
On her way back, Elena treated herself, paying a little extra of her recent earnings to purchase some American-style pizza for lunch. It tasted like it was made by someone who obviously had never eaten pizza, but it was a nice change of pace from her usual diet of rice and scallions.
Afterward, she returned to her cage to listen to music on her MP3 player. She played through the same ten albums for the umpteenth time each, and spent the rest of her afternoon seeking solace in her worn, pocket-size King James Bible. A going-away present from her pastor father, it was one of the only things she had managed to save from… before. Elena never realized how much she had taken it for granted until desperate times like this, when she really needed a source of hope. She took comfort in the fact that if her parents were still alive and safe, they would be reading the same book. Now, more than ever, she wanted to believe that wasn’t such a big “if.”
