Population: Katie

by Connor, Penelope

  “Did you find Jude?” I ask.

  Tim looks down at his plate. Kimberly forces a hopeful smile, but all I see is the pain behind it. “Not yet. But he was with good people. We're not giving up hope.”

  I nod, and for a moment, I think that the conversation has ended.

  Tim speaks up again suddenly, offering up details that I was not planning on pressing for, but am admittedly curious about. “When we arrived, the local Gov, or what was left of them, were running without orders, capturing people, killing anyone who tried to leave.”

  “So we just hid,” Kimberly jumps in. “We wanted to reach out to the Gov, and find out where the evacuations had led to, but it was too dangerous.”

  “That was when they found us,” Tim continues, “the retrieval team at the time, before Derek and Kyle joined up. There was a defected soldier in the group back then, and we got a lot of information from him.”

  “But he couldn’t tell us where Jude had been taken,” Kimberly says, “The people evacuated from Carnassey were taken somewhere else.”

  Tim continues. “So we’ve been here, trying to get in there to find out what they know.”

  I consider this for a moment. “So why can’t you get in to see the Gov? Lots of people have been taken from the city… how come everybody hasn’t stormed the place to get them back?”

  “People are scared,” Kimberly explains. “The Gov picks us off one at a time, keeping us divided and weak.”

  “Did they ever try and evacuate Middleton? Wherever those people would have been taken is probably where Jude went.”

  My question is quickly answered by Kenny, who I hadn’t realized was listening in.

  “There were supposed to be evacuations,” her little voice rises up from the edge of the table. She’s finished playing with, and eating, her food, and is now looking up at us. “They said to stay inside and wait, and they got mad at anyone who didn’t listen. But, then, everyone didn’t listen, so they got mad at everyone.”

  The three of us sit in silence, listening to the little girl as she calmly explains the facts about the state of the city at the time. “Mommy brought the bunnies home so that we could take care of them and be safer.”

  Kenny stands up with her plate. She’s about to leave, but turns back to us, making a face. “I don’t know if anywhere’s safer.”

  Tim lets out a deep sigh, and it seems like as good a time as any to ask, so as soon as Kenny’s out of the room, I turn to the Ims. “What happened to her mother?”

  Tim and Kimberly exchange a look. I imagine a telepathic conversation taking place between them before Tim replies. “Derek had a couple of us out on patrol, and we heard them screaming. Two of those things had gotten into their building... we got up there as fast as we could, but it was the top floor...”

  “They got her?”

  Kimberly nods, clearly pained by the memory. “She’d been bitten. She knew that she didn’t have much time.”

  Tim continues. “She asked us if we were good people. Derek said ‘we try to be’. I guess she believed him. She told Kenny to take care of us, then she threw herself out the window.”

  Later that evening, I find myself curled up on the uncomfortable mattress that I’ve been assigned to share with the blonde woman who was hanging out with Derek and the two guards earlier. She reintroduces herself, claims the right side of the mattress, and then promptly falls asleep, leaving me to my thoughts.

  The sleeping room is considerably smaller than the common room, and scattered with mattresses, blankets, pillows, and people in haphazard little rows. The few candles that we were using earlier have all gone out, and the only source of light now comes from the moon, peeking in from a large window that overlooks the narrow access road between the buildings on this street and the next.

  I can see Kenny curled up on a pile of blankets in the corner. I suppose she’s small enough that they haven’t bothered to assign her to a mattress. Or maybe she just likes curling up in the nest that she’s formed in the corner.

  Some time passes and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever fall asleep. I want to snap my finger together and call for the warm ball of fur that used to curl up on my chest at night, but I know that Kit Cat’s far from here. I sigh and turn onto my side, then notice the silhouette of the tiny girl as she pads noiselessly across the room and crawls onto an occupied mattress. I see Kimberly wrap her arms around Kenny, and hold her close. Almost immediately, they both begin to sob silently, Kenny into Kimberly’s chest, and Kimberly into Kenny’s hair. Tim’s arm appears from the far side of the mattress, and encircles them both warmly.

  This is why everyone has been so welcoming to me. This is why I want to trust them, and why they endeavor to be trustworthy. In the cold, dark, powerless climate that is the city of Middleton, there is much comfort needed, and so very few people to deliver it.

  Chapter 9 – Will the Owner

  of the Green Station Wagon...

  I wake up alone. All of the other mattresses have been abandoned, sheets piled on top with no particular concern for proper folding or wrinkle prevention.

  Not one to reinvent the wheel, I pile up the sheets that I’ve used on top of my mattress, then head out of the sleeping room and down the hall towards the common room. Quick peeks into some of the rooms along the way suggest that this was once some sort of office building before it became a refuge for the twenty-two survivors that live here now. It makes an amount of sense, I suppose. An office building wouldn’t have had a lot of food or useful supplies, so it wouldn’t have been looted, and it wouldn’t have large display windows either, making it more secure. I can see why it was chosen by whoever set up this little group.

  A loud clattering of metal and ceramic emanates from the next door down the hall. I assume that this space is functioning as a kitchen and quickly sneak by, not wanting to be assigned to dish duty. Although I have absolutely no idea what dish duty might entail considering that there’s no water to spare. Maybe rubbing hand sanitizer all over the used plates... or maybe just wiping excess food off with cloths. Whatever the case, I’ve no interest in taking part.

  The common room’s empty when I arrive, and although a part of me’s drawn to the idea of challenging myself to a game of chess, I decide to keep looking for someone to tell me where everyone’s gone. I don’t have to look much farther, as I find Tim, Kimberly, Glory, Derek, and the other team leader in the next room, all examining a map spread across a large boardroom table.

  “Well, that is where we found her,” Derek says, in a tone that suggests that this is not the first time he has made this statement. “I can’t tell you how she got that far without being noticed - it wasn’t like she was being subtle.”

  “That still doesn’t explain what you were doing so far -”

  I clear my throat loudly to announce my presence.

  “Look at you, Sleepy Pants!” Tim says in a teasing tone. “Finally up and about?”

  Derek grumbles something that sounds a lot like ‘missed training,’ but Tim elbows him in the gut before addressing his concern to me directly. “Everyone gets a free pass on their first day, but we do have a few rules around here. To keep things organized and safe, you understand?”

  I nod and take a few steps into the room. “I’m grateful for your hospitality, but I won’t be staying long and I won’t be any trouble.” I want to add ‘unless I get dish duty,’ but I simply bite my tongue and smile.

  “Nonsense,” Glory says in her soft, frail voice. “Where will you go? We’ve already voted to invite you to stay with us.”

  “Oh,” I reply. I’d been so wrapped up in deciding if they suited me, that it hadn’t even occurred to me to wonder if I suited them.

  “Now, we were just talking about you. Why don’t you come over here and help us sort out a few details?” Glory waves for me to join her as she turns back to the table.

  I move in between her and Derek and look over the map. It’s an old looking thing, and has probably seen bett
er days, with the edges all curled in and crease marks running in every which direction as though it’s been folded and refolded a hundred different ways. There are hand written notes all around the edges, and the city has been divided into many sections with hand-drawn lines, each section labeled with a number. I glance around in search of section three, where Derek had announced that he found me the night before.

  I point to a familiar sounding road that intersects the highway I drove in on. “That’s where you found me.”

  “Close,” Derek says, and points two intersections farther. “It was here.”

  I reply with a non-committal noise of acknowledgment, then continue. “Where are we now?”

  Tim points to a building in the sector marked fourteen.’ From that building, there are hand drawn blue lines that web out in an odd pattern and have no apparent regard for the placement of streets or buildings.

  “What are those?” I ask, tracing one of the blue lines with my finger.

  “Escape routes,” Derek jumps in. “They lead to other safe buildings so that we can scatter in seemingly random patterns and rendezvous later if this location is ever compromised.”

  “Oh,” I say, still examining the map. The sectors are small, most occupying about a ten-block radius, and several have buildings marked similarly to ours. “What -”

  ‘Those,” Derek says, anticipating my question, “are other known safe buildings where other branches of the rebellion live. Or at least, where they lived the last time we had contact. Things are always in flux.” He looks over the map and points to a large area, comprising at least one third of the city. “And this is Government controlled territory.”

  This section has a series of rounded lines that grow increasingly larger, like the ripples of a pool. I assume that they represent updates in the Gov’s territory, but can’t tell if the lines represent a growing, or shrinking area. Instead of touching on a potentially upsetting topic, I ask about the lack of information within the Gov area. “How come nothing’s marked in there? Where’s their safe house... building... thing?”

  “If we knew that,” Derek says, “we wouldn’t be sitting around here, barely scraping by. If we could get into that part of the city, we could win this.”

  “Why can’t you get in there?” I ask, and before I’ve even finished the sentence, I know that my tone should have been softer.

  “Because,” Derek responds harshly, in response to my unintentionally snippy tone, “they patrol it rigorously, set deadly traps, and gather huge clusters of the infected at the borders. It’d be a suicide mission. We just don’t have the numbers for something like that.”

  “Fun.” I look over at the others, who are chatting quietly amongst themselves. After a minute of trying to listen in to their chatter, I interrupt, softy this time, “Can I do anything?”

  They all look over at me, and I can tell right away that the answer is no.

  Tim speaks up for the group. “We were debating sending Derek’s team to your car. You said that you brought food and supplies?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, returning my attention to the map. “I walked into town on this road here,” I run my finger from the point on the map where Derek and Kyle found me, back out to the edge of town. “But I wedged the car here, so I had to leave it behind. It shouldn’t be hard to spot. It’s a pale green station wagon with this wood-looking panel -”

  Tim and Kimberly laugh, causing everyone to stare at them for a minute. “Green?” Tim confirms, “With awful wood paneling that’s peeling off? And a roof rack?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I found it in town.”

  Tim shakes his head, “That was our neighbors’ car. I’m surprised that you made it all the way to town in that rust bucket.”

  “It’s not that bad!” I exclaim, not entirely certain why I feel the need to defend the honor of my car. Maybe because it helped me escape Carnassey, or maybe because I thought it was nice looking... at least before I saw it in the sunlight. “Whatever! Yes, that’s the one! And it was way more practical than the motorbike!”

  “We’ve never sent anyone out that far,” Kimberly states in a tone that’s just bordering a protest. “You and Kyle shouldn’t have even been out as far as you were. We have no information about that part of town. Nothing since the exodus.”

  “Yeah,” Tim adds. “What were you doing out there?”

  Derek hesitates for a moment, and then begins lining a trail on the map with his finger. “We did our usual route down this way, mostly in the sewers, and into some of the safe buildings, nothing out of the ordinary. We were ahead of the tank, as usual, but then it changed course.”

  “Why would you follow the tank?” I interrupt, “You said it was dangerous.”

  “Because,” Derek says, “as you may have noticed, the Zs hide from it. It gives us a chance to gather supplies without being surrounded as quickly.”

  “Only the Passives were hiding. The one at the intersection, the one that the Gov gunned down, it was an Aggressor.”

  “A what?” asks the team leader whose name I can’t remember.

  “One of the more aggressive ones,” I tell her. “They move faster, and are more violent.”

  “Anyway,” Derek says, directing the conversation back to his explanation, “the tank took a different route than usual, so we went that way instead. That’s where we found you.”

  Glory speaks up then. “The tank may have deviated from its usual route if the government got word that a vehicle had entered the city.”

  Everyone considers this for a moment before Glory turns to Derek. “How was the route? Can you make it to the edge of town safely?”

  “It’s risky,” Derek admits, plotting out a path on the map with his finger. “This area here,” he points to a spot a couple blocks from where they found me, “is the end of the line for sewer travel. And after that, the buildings start to spread out quite a bit. By the time we reach the car, we’ll be completely exposed.”

  “Then we don’t do it,” Glory says in a matter of fact tone. It’s obvious that the safety of her people is of the utmost importance.

  “If it helps,” I add in cautiously, “there were no Passives in the outskirts. I only started seeing them as I got further into town.”

  Glory considers, then turns to me. “What kind of supplies do we stand to gain?”

  “I have a packing list, actually,” I say, reaching into my back pocket and handing her the folded piece of paper.

  Glory and Derek review the list, then share a pointed look.

  “A small team. We could be back before dinner.”

  “Don’t rush,” Glory says, by way of agreement. “Be ever cautious.”

  Derek nods, then turns to Tim and Kimberly. “With respect, I’d like to choose my own team. Four people, all armed.”

  Tim glances at Kimberly who nods.

  “Done,” he confirms.

  Derek looks over the map one more time, as though settling on his route, then clears out of the room in a hurry. Glory and the other team leader excuse themselves as well, leaving me alone once again with the Ims.

  Tim folds up the map and sticks it into a small backpack that sits on the edge of the boardroom table. He zips up the pack and positions it so that the handles are closest to the door. It looks as though the bag is waiting for someone to snatch it up in a hurry, and I wonder if they prepare it like this every time they leave the room, just in case a quick escape ever becomes necessary.

  Kimberly tosses her red hair over her shoulder, and then drops her arm around my shoulders, leading me from the planning room with Tim trailing behind. I reach up and pull at a strand of my own dull, messy hair and wonder how Kimberly has managed to keep hers looking so vibrant. Maybe she found some of that fancy, leave-in conditioner. The MegaMart didn’t carry that sort of thing, but I could probably find a salon or drug store... I jump back into reality, realizing that Kimberly is addressing me.

  “You must be hungry,” she repeats.

  “Defi
nitely!” I respond with a bit too much enthusiasm.

  Tim flashes me his boyish smile as he catches up, passes Kimberly and myself, and then takes the lead, “You missed breakfast, but we can sit down to an early lunch if you like.”

  “Sure,” I say, happy to have a little bit of time with the only two people here that I know.

  The three of us head down the hall, back to the room where the loud noises were coming from earlier, and step inside. It’s clearly the de facto kitchen, although no one is banging around pots and dishes anymore. Instead, a man and woman in their forties are cutting up some of the vegetables that I brought the night before, while a teenage girl counts crackers out onto plates that are already piled with small chunks of chicken. The chicken looks like the same stuff that was served last night, and I wonder if it’s just been sitting out for the past fourteen hours.

  “Almost done,” the man says, seeing us, and hurrying to finish chopping the last of the carrots.

  “No rush,” Kimberly says casually. “I know we’re a bit early.”

  “I saved your breakfast,” the teenage girl says, looking at me. She pulls a plate out of the cupboard, and begins scraping my uneaten breakfast onto one of the plates of crackers and chicken. Once the vegetables are all cut, the girl quickly divides them equally onto the twenty-three plates, counting out each piece instead of just scooping from the pile. Looking at the meager portions, I can now see why they keep the group small. Any more people living together, and sourcing meals would be quite an issue.

  The woman marks our names off on a list while the man and girl hand us our plates. Tim and Kimberly nod their thanks, then I mimic them, before we head back to the common room together.

  A glance from the Ims’ lunch plates to my breakfast/lunch combo plate tells me that breakfast this morning was a bit of fruit, and more of last night’s chicken. I guess with no way to store it properly, we’ll be eating the fresh food that I brought in abundance, until it’s gone. Which, of course, won’t take long with this many people. By my estimate, lunch will finish up the last of the chicken. Dinner will probably be the packaged steaks or a bit of fish, maybe veggies. We’ll have eaten it all by lunch tomorrow. Not that it could last any longer even if there were fewer of us, what with the lack of refrigeration. Already, I’m wondering how my stomach will deal with the next few days. And, somehow, my concern is not for the awful sick feeling, but the waste. It would be downright shameful to throw up even one meal with things as they are.