Population: Katie

by Connor, Penelope

  We all stop on the landing. It’s not a very large area, and has been stripped of its furniture, if it ever had any. There’s a door beside the staircase that seems to lead to the main part of this level, but I can’t see what’s back there. The few windows present are very small and all broken in. Each has been boarded up so that only tiny streams of light shoot through them at us. The door’s solid metal, and looks distinctly out of place. Someone at the back of the room sneezes, and Derek shushes them, reminding them that the zombies are attracted to unusual sounds.

  I want to point out again that they’re not really zombies, but think better of it.

  We are each assigned six bullets, and everyone successfully loads them all in under a minute. There are plenty of empty cans, small picture frames, and knickknacks lying around the first floor that we could practice shooting, but it seems odd to come down to the main floor, where we’re more likely to be heard by the Passives, to do it.

  “Katie,” Derek says, waving for me to join him beside the front door.

  My heart immediately starts to race as I walk over to him, pointing my now loaded gun at the floor, and away from my feet, as instructed. I take a deep breath, chase the fear from my face, and looking up at him, in the strongest voice I can muster, tell him that I don’t want to learn this, and have no intention of shooting at any stupid cans, no matter what he says.

  “That’s fine,” Derek replies. “We don’t waste bullets here.”

  “What...?” I start to say. But I don’t have to finish my question, or await an answer. It all becomes clear as, to my surprise, Derek pulls his sunglasses down, and then unlocks and opens the front door. The light’s so bright that I have to blink my eyes, which have adjusted to the dark, mostly windowless inner room.

  Everyone else recoils, except for Glory, who I assume already approved this deviation from our usual training. It’s clear that the others are just as afraid as I am, but for vastly different reasons. I try to push the door closed, but Derek, who’s stronger than me, and insistent, swings it open and gestures outside. “No one will be passing through this threshold,” he says firmly, which both assures the class that they won’t be asked to exit, and that he will not let anyone enter from the outside. His assurance does little to encourage me.

  “Guards are standing by at the second floor windows above and will make sure that nothing gets too close to the door,” he continues. This does not encourage me either.

  I step back, but Derek grabs hold of my hand, and the gun, pulling them both up to point out the door. The street’s mostly deserted, save for a few Passives that are meandering in the distance down the street. Derek, still holding my arm, raises it so that my gun is pointing at the closest one, a man about thirty feet from the door, and moving particularly slowly.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Derek says, and lets go of my hand. I know that he wants me to keep the gun trained on the Passive, but I let it clatter to the ground as soon as he releases me.

  “I can’t shoot him!” I cry, as though this should be as obvious to Derek as it is to me. I’m beyond fear now, beyond apprehension about guns, and almost beyond reasoning as I stare at Derek in horror.

  “You can, Katie,” he says, bending down to pick up the gun. “And even if you miss, it’s okay. We’re just practicing right now.”

  It’s clear that he doesn’t understand the basis of my protest at all as he picks up my gun and holds it out to me again. When I refuse to accept it, Derek turns back to the others. “Does anyone else want to go first?”

  When he turns his head, I step around him and out the door. Derek grabs my wrist, and I use the maneuver he taught us two days ago to twist free, and continue towards the Passive man. I hear him tell everyone to remain calm, and stay where they are – which, of course, no one does. Derek and Glory both know about the inoculation, but no one else in the class does yet, so my casual walk over to the enemy is shocking to them, and they all want to see what I’ll do next.

  I approach the man, reach into his back pocket and retrieve his wallet, then turn back to the building. Derek stands just outside the doorway, with Kenny peering out from beside him, and the others gathering around behind them. I open up the wallet, pull out the Passive man’s driver’s license, and begin reading. “This man’s name is Carter. He wanted to be an organ donor.”

  “Katie! Get back here!” Derek shouts, but doesn’t leave the doorway, in case anyone else might follow him.

  I rifle through the other cards in his wallet. “He liked to read. There’s a library membership and two gift cards to different bookstores in here.” I pull a folded picture from the wallet; in it, two older men are smiling and shaking hands. I hold it up even though no one will be able to make it out from this distance. I read from the back of the photo, “Carter, I finally got to meet my hero, thought you’d like to see proof, Love Dad.”

  I look up at the others, who have pushed Derek and Kenny even farther out the door in their attempt to see what I am doing. There’s obvious concern on their faces, some for my radical actions and me, and some that reflect their own inner turmoil. My point is getting across. They’re starting to doubt what Derek is making us do. I have personified Carter just enough to make them think. This could be their son, their brother, their friend. I glare at Derek, who looks furious with me. Our eyes meet for a long moment, and I can almost see the wheels in his head turning.

  Suddenly, Derek’s demeanor relaxes. He takes another step out from the doorway, grabs Kenny’s hand, and pulls her with him. Then, in a voice that will not be ignored, he orders the rest back inside. He points my gun at the little girl and parallels my monologue. “This girl’s name is Kendra. She’s nine years old and should be in the fourth grade. She likes bunny rabbits, chocolate ice cream, and having her hair brushed.”

  Everyone gasps, and now it’s Glory who barricades the door and hushes them all. Derek looks up at me, pointing the gun first at Carter, who stands at my side, and then back at Kenny, who stands before him, more confused than afraid. “If it came down to him... or her... who would you choose to save?”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. His argument is clear, his logic sound, the ultimatum simple, but I can’t respond. I don’t want to. How can I put a value on two different lives? My body shakes, and my vision becomes blurry as tears well up in my eyes. I know the answer, but I can’t speak. I just shake my head in feeble protest.

  “That’s not what I’m trying -”

  “If that’s what it came down to,” he continues, “because it does. All the time. When you’re out there and one of them comes at one of us, that’s the choice. Not everyone gets to live.”

  “Derek...” I say pleadingly, wishing he’d stop.

  By this point, several Passives have taken note of our argument and begin ambling towards us.

  “Say it,” Derek commands.

  I let the word slip from my mouth. “Her.”

  “What?” he asks.

  “I’d choose her,” I say, with a bit more volume.

  Derek nods and turns the gun back on the Passive. I squeeze my eyes shut, and jump as the shot goes off. I hear Carter’s body slump to the ground at my side.

  Derek ushers the others back into the building, dismissing them early. I open my eyes and spot a pair of Passives within fifty feet of the front door. They, too, drop suddenly as two more gunshots crack through the air. I look up and can see the guards up on the second level.

  I drop the wallet on the ground, unable to look at Carter again, and walk over to the building. Derek opens the door for me, locking it shut once I’m inside. I’ve managed to curb my crying to a minimum, wiping my eyes with my sleeve and taking deep, even breaths as he secures a large heavy bar across the door.

  When he’s finished, Derek comes up beside me. He pulls the sunglasses back up onto his head, but doesn’t look over. Instead, he just gazes straight ahead as he addresses me. “You treat them like they’re people.”

  I’m surprised to find
his tone is not harsh, condescending, or even angry. It’s that same tone that he used when convincing Kenny to take the gun from him.

  “They are people,” I tell him.

  Derek shakes his head, resting his hand on my shoulder for a moment in a comforting gesture. “No. Not anymore.”

  “Your brother’s a lunatic,” I tell Kyle as I sit down next to him in the common room. Somewhere between training this morning, and carrying my dinner to the table, I decided that it would be easier to fixate on Derek’s shortcomings, rather than my own.

  Kyle laughs, and nudges me with his elbow, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “He thinks he knows everything,” I say.

  “You’re going to have to try harder than that,” Kyle says, taking a bite of his dinner. “I know that, too.”

  I let out a long, loud breath, pretending to think really hard about it, then, in a jesting voice say, “He sent audition videos to every season of Top Marksman.”

  “Ooh!” Kyle says, “That’d make good gossip! But do you have any proof?”

  “None at all,” I admit with a laugh. Kyle has been good for a rant when I’ve needed it, but I suppose that, today, he knows what I really need, more than the opportunity to speak negatively about Derek, is to relax. I dig into my dinner as the table slowly fills around us.

  “Speaking of lunatics,” Kyle says, pointing at me with his fork, “I heard a crazy rumor that you walked out into the middle of the street and pick pocketed a zombie.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I reply through a mouth full of food. “I was trying to show him... never mind.”

  “Okay, okay,” Kyle says. “Let’s just gloss over why you did it, and run full circle into how you did it - you know, without becoming someone’s lunch.”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I say, noticing several people pretending that they’re not listening in on our conversation.

  I may as well have launched into an explanation right then, however, because not two minutes later, one of the teens plunks down across the table from me and addresses me loud enough for everyone to hear, “I heard that you punched a zombie!”

  “What?” I exclaim, “You were there! I didn’t -”

  “I heard that you created an antivirus!” another girl says.

  “No!” A young boy down the table jumps in. “She can control them and make them do whatever she wants!”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Kyle states plainly.

  “Thank you,” I say, glaring at the teen.

  “More ridiculous than the living dead chasing us out of our homes?” The boy retorts.

  Kyle shrugs, and I slap his shoulder. “What?” he says. “Kid has a point.”

  Right then, the whole table breaks out into loud and increasingly ridiculous theories about what happened earlier and why. Even people who were there share ideas and second hand theories, making me wonder about the lack of entertainment in the place. I had a boss once who said that boredom breeds gossip. I suppose he was right.

  As the theories reach record ridiculousness, I stand up, knocking over my chair, and shout loud enough for everyone to hear, “I do not have magic zombie powers!”

  Although I succeed in silencing the litany of chatter, I immediately regret drawing attention to myself. Most of the people at the table were speaking as though I was not even in the room, and now that I have reminded them that I am, in fact, present, they all look at me expectantly. Kyle reaches down and rights my chair, so that I have the option of merely sitting back down, but I know that, at this point, it might be better to just come clean. The truth is far less interesting than some of the theories anyway.

  “I was given an experimental inoculation,” I say, only just loud enough for the people at the ends of the tale to hear me. Everyone remains silent as they try to hear what I am saying. “I don’t know how it works, I don’t know how it was made, and I don’t have any more of it. I already shared everything I know with Tim and Kimberly, and it wasn’t much.”

  Thankfully, everyone’s attention diverts to the Ims, who are sitting at the far end of the table. I take the opportunity to sit back down as Tim stands up to address the table. “Thanks to Katie, we know more about the infection than ever before. But not much that can help us.”

  “What can you tell us?” Someone shouts out.

  “Are we closer to a vaccine?”

  “Or a cure?”

  Tim reluctantly continues. “We all know that the infection is caused by a virus, and that it’s spread by any affected person’s bodily fluid getting into the bloodstream of a non-infected person.” Everyone nods and murmurs their agreement; this is obviously common knowledge. “We also know that the Government was working on an inoculation before we lost contact with San Angeles.” More nodding, “What we have since learned from Katie is that the Gov was successful. She’s proof of that. Though, we don’t know the limitations of the serum she was given, or if anyone in S’Angeles knows about it.”

  “How could they not know?” the teen shouts again.

  Tim continues. “Because the inoculation was only used on Katie after we lost contact with the Government, and the doctor who developed it is dead. So we’ve no idea if anyone at all knows about it. We could be the only ones.”

  “We could find a doctor,” the girl next to me says. “Or a scientist. Maybe they could make more.”

  “Katie came here hoping that the local Gov would help her make contact with their HQ… that they’d help her pass along the information she has to the right people.” He casts a meaningful look around the table. “But we all know that’s not possible, so we have to think up a new strategy.”

  “Why doesn’t she go to S’Angeles?” a man asks.

  “That’s an option,” Tim says, “but not a good one.”

  Everyone seems to accept that and dinner continues in complete silence.

  As each person finishes, they begin to spread out around the common room. I take the first opportunity to sneak off undetected and head straight to the sleeping room. Once inside, I dig around in my backpack until I find the journal.

  Since showing it to the Ims, I haven’t looked at Dr. Ashmore’s journal even once, and as I flip it open now, I begin to feel guilty about ignoring my mission. But really, what else could I have done? Tim’s right, going to the local Gov isn’t an option, and getting to S’Angeles is an enormous undertaking that I’m not prepared for. The roads are unreliable, and trying to walk across the country would most likely result in starving to death, rather than helping anyone.

  I read over the pages that deal with the inoculation once again, looking for anything that I may have missed over the first few reads. I don’t find anything new in the carefully penned words. Nothing about side effects, or limitation of the serum; nothing about it wearing off either.

  I skip forward to the end of the book where my notes have been added, and pull out a pen. I add Tim’s concerns to the bottom of the page that details my dealings with the serum:

  Concerns:

  * Side effects/illness.

  * Limitations/favoring certain people only.

  * Eventually wearing off.

  “What’s that?”

  I jump and drop my pen, not having heard Kyle enter the room. He laughs and picks up the writing utensil, then sits beside me on my mattress and hands it back. “Some kind of girly diary?”

  “Not really.”

  “So if it’s not a diary, then why are you writing in it?” he presses, curious.

  “It’s...” I say, hesitating slightly. “It’s a journal, but it’s not quite mine. I mean, not originally. I didn’t write most of it. It belonged to the doctor at the MegaMart.”

  “The one who made the serum?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Is it helpful?”

  I let out a little laugh. “I don’t know,” I admit. “There’s a lot of information in it, but nothing makes any sense.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to approach that t
ank,” Kyle says. It’s not a question, but rather, a statement of fact.

  I respond with a confirmation regardless. “Yeah. I need to find a man named Colonel Bennett. I’ve never met him, but I knew his son.” I pause, not sure how much detail I should give to this boy. Kyle looks at me with open interest and his usual friendly smile. We’ve only had time to really talk a few times, but I like him a lot. He’s one of those truly good people. I can see him going out of his way to help someone carry their groceries, or checking on the neighbor’s cat everyday while they’re on vacation. Of course, that would have been before all of this happened. Now, I guess the equivalent gesture would be grabbing your hand and pulling you into a dark alley before a tank runs you over.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Kyle says.

  “No, it’s okay,” I reply. “It’s just... complicated. I wanted to stay at the MegaMart. I knew I should make sure that the Gov had the information that I did, but I didn’t know what I’d find if I left.”

  “And then when you did get here, the local Gov couldn’t help,” Kyle concludes.

  “Yeah.” I confirm. “Maybe I should go to S’Angeles… but what if things are just as bad there? What if they’re worse?”

  “It’s risky,” Kyle says, nodding his head.

  “I know. It’s so far.”

  “No,” Kyle says. “I meant going into a big city. I mean, I’m sure the journey will be treacherous and all that, but Middleton’s nothing compared to what you might find there.”

  “Why? You don’t think that the Gov there would be like they are here?” I ask. I really can’t go all that way just to get run over by a different tank.

  “No,” Kyle says, lowering his voice, “but I’ve heard rumors…” People are starting to filter into the sleeping room, getting ready to go to bed, and he obviously doesn’t want anyone else to hear as he continues “… about gangs in the city.”