by Gareth Wood
He looked at me for a few moments then poured me one more finger of vodka. We drank in silence.
* * *
Dinner that night was nice. Sarah had saved a ham for us, and there were some potatoes and fresh bread. We ate in the living room around the fireplace, and then sat back and drank the little bit of coffee Jess had kept for us. As the evening passed I felt relaxed, but kept thinking about what Eric had said to me earlier. He was right. I did try to save everyone, even though my rational brain told me it was impossible. It was a conscious decision, though, one I made last year before we made it to Cold Lake and started Salvage Team 107. There were people alive here with us that had survived because I had made that decision. The cat sitting on Jess’ lap right now was one of those survivors, rescued because I literally could not leave another living thing to be killed by the undead, or starve to death because it had no more food and was locked in a house where everyone was dead.
So while I knew that saving everyone was impossible, I was still determined to try to save those I could. I think Eric understood that, and was just warning me not to get too upset by the inevitable deaths that would occur no matter what I did.
Late that night Sarah found me on the front step, staring up at the dark night sky.
“What are you thinking about, brother of mine?” she asked. She had put on a warm coat before coming outside. The nights were getting colder.
“Just pondering the imponderables, you know?” I shrugged and looked back at the stars.
“Bullshit,” she said, “you’re thinking about the baby and how to protect everyone.”
I began to protest, but she was right.
“Seriously, Brian, you need to knock that off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Protecting everyone. Stop thinking about that shit, because you can’t do it.”
“I think I had this conversation earlier in the day.” I said.
“I know you, Brian. This is how you were when we were kids. You always looked at the biggest picture. The problem is, that won’t work now. Solving the question of how this all happened is not your problem. Finding some miracle cure is not your problem. There is nothing you can do about it. You should focus now on your family, your friends, and this community. It’s all we have left.”
“That sounds like it’s the big picture,” I said.
“No. The really big picture is what’s going on in Brazil or Spain right now. It’s how many survivors there are in Japan, and how they manage to live day to day. It’s how the planet looks from space. Ever wondered what happened to the Space Station? Or even beyond that? Are the Mars Rovers still sending signals nobody picks up?” She paused and looked me in the eye. “All of that is just speculation, and we cannot do anything about it. It doesn’t matter to us here and now.”
“Sarah,” I started, but again she stopped me.
“Jess needs your head in the game now, brother. She needs you there for her. If you are going to be more than a step-in father for these kids and one of your own, you need to get your head on the right way and stop trying to solve the big puzzles.”
I looked at her for a few moments, trying to sort out a response. She maybe had a point, but I think she was missing some of it. I turned back to the stars.
“Sarah, you see the shoulder of Orion there? That red star?” I spent a few moments pointing it out to her.
“What about it?”
“That red star is Betelgeuse. It’s a supergiant, a really big star. It’s somewhere between four hundred and a thousand light years away.”
“So what?” she said, obviously wondering what the hell I was getting at.
“Betelgeuse is a supernova candidate. It’s either going to or already has exploded in a very violent explosion so big it will be visible from here during daylight for several weeks. Anything nearby when it blows up will be pulverised. And by anything, I mean anything.”
“What’s your point?”
“There’s nothing I can do about it.”
She punched me in the shoulder.
* * *
The next day I slept in. Jess got up earlier than I did, and I could hear Megan and Michael running around the house with her. I slept some more, and got up eventually to find a good breakfast of homemade bread, bacon and eggs, and tea. Coffee is in extremely short supply, and the eggs and bacon were from a farm just outside the town. I stayed with Michael while Sarah took Jess and Megan in to the clinic for Jess’ pregnancy test and a check up. I ended spending the unexpected free time playing games with Michael, asking about school, and treasuring the fact that I didn’t have to wear a weapon at all times while I was here. Life was far from what was normal back in the days before, but at least it was closer to normal here and now than it had been while we were on the run.
Jess and Sarah came back a few hours later. I met them at the door. I rubbed my shoulder for good measure, but Sarah made a point of ignoring it.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, it looks like you and I are going to be having a baby,” Jess said, smiling at me. I hugged her, and we went to the kitchen to make some lunch.
It was a quiet afternoon, and we rested. Around three o’clock I went over to CFB Cold Lake and reported to Major Couper. He congratulated me when he heard about Jess being pregnant, and offered me a drink and a very rare cigar. I took the drink, and refused the cigar. We chatted for a few minutes about family and kids, and then got down to business. He filled me in on more of what was happening around the area. The stories I heard in Athabasca about missing Salvage Teams were true. Four groups that had been out in the last three weeks were overdue, which was a sizeable percentage of our operation. There were fifteen teams out searching for supplies at any given time, and six more teams held back in the town. Once one team came back, another was sent out. This meant that my team, having just returned, had triggered another group to leave. In a few days or maybe a week we would have to leave again to seek out more food, more medicine and clothing, fuel, diapers and spare parts for machines. It was a never ending crisis, full of risk and potential for disaster.
For the most part, the military was very forthcoming with information about what was going on outside the walls of the town. There was a steady stream of news out to the population as it was brought in. I was therefore aware of the survivors in California, and that the Calgary International Airport was still up and running as a staging area for the supply runs made into the city and surrounding area. I was aware that we were running out of supplies faster than we could bring them in, and that a lot of what we were eating was grown on farms within the protected areas around the towns on the highways up here in northern Alberta. I knew that the winter was going to be a harsh one, and that we might start losing people to starvation and disease if we couldn’t stay ahead of the food and medicine problems.
Major Couper asked, “What are you going to do to replace Chris and Jess?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “How is the volunteer file looking?”
The Salvage Teams are all volunteers. The council and the military are careful to weed out the crazies, the shell shocked, and the people with a subconscious death wish or strong survivor’s guilt. People on Salvage Teams needed to be adaptable, stubborn, and quick thinking. Sometimes that wasn’t enough.
The volunteer file is where Major Couper kept all the applications of the people who got through the screening. There aren’t many, usually a dozen or so. Enough to form two more teams, actually, but he keeps them ready as replacements if the need comes up. I wondered if he wasn’t going to start up half of them as a new team, after the losses we’d suffered recently.
We had to replace Chris because he was most likely dead, and Jess because the town council and the military didn’t want to start risking pregnant women on salvage operations. Jess would be left here when next we went out. In a way I was thankful for that rule, but I would miss having her along anyway.
“Here, have a look,” he said, and hand
ed me the binder he kept it all in. I took some files with me, names of potential replacements, and promised the major I would look over the list.
At dinner that night we had Eric and Sanji and his brother Jay over. Darren and Mandy were almost always there anyways, and Sarah too. Jay was one of the people we helped rescue from a shopping center in Prince George last year, and he is one of the town dentists now. He has a constant stream of customers, and is doing well even if he complains about short supplies every time I see him. He has even been out a few times to the remote farms and smaller towns to do work there, checking up on people who can’t make it in to Cold Lake for whatever reason. We had a pleasant dinner and a nice evening afterwards. After we put the children to bed, Jess told everyone that she is due in early April.
Everyone on the team knows she won’t be out on salvage operations anymore, so talk turned to replacements. I took out the list and showed it around. This is a team decision, so even though I am nominally in charge of ST 107, I wanted everyone to weigh in on who we would take with us next time we went out.
We were all surprised to see a familiar name on the list: Amanda Martin. She had put her name in to become a Salvage Team member. She was rescued from the same store as Jay and Sanji, in Prince George. Last we had heard from her she was in Athabasca, working at the hospital there. Her file said she was in Cold Lake now, and gave her number and address. Sarah went to call her, and the rest of us went back to looking at other files.
Half an hour later Amanda showed up at the door. I let her in, hugged her, and introduced her to Eric. Everyone else she already knew. She looked a little different than when I last saw her. Her hair was dyed red now, and cut to hang over the burn that marked the left side of her face. She had gotten the burn when a car she was setting on fire as a zombie distraction blew up on her. She apparently also has some impressive shrapnel scars from that same incident. She had stopped wearing the dark and tragic Goth clothing, and was instead wearing jeans, a black shirt, and a military jacket. Her piercings were all still in place, and she had the same look of amused disdain that I remembered.
“How have you been?” I asked her.
She sighed, and shook her head. “Not too bad. Since Adam died I’ve – “
The room erupted with mass protests as we all spoke at once.
Jess stood up and crossed over to Amanda. “Whoa, there! What happened to Adam?”
“You didn’t know?” she sounded surprised. “About four months ago, he was working at the gatehouse in Athabasca, and some survivors came in. One of them had been bitten, and he resisted when the guards tried to separate him from his family.”
“Oh God, honey,” Jess said, “what happened?”
“The man had a gun, and he shot at the guards. Adam got hit...” She hung her head for a few moments, and Jess drew her into a hug.
Amanda pulled away a few moments later, and wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It was four months ago, like I said,” she told us as she sat down, “I’ve been looking to do something other than work in the hospital for a while now.”
“Do you think going out with a Salvage Team is a good way to deal with this?” I asked her.
“Nothing else appeals to me right now,” she said.
We talked for a little while longer to make sure she was realistic about joining us. She was, and her training scores were really good. I asked her if she’d like to be part of our team, and she said “I’m in,” before I could even finish.
* * *
They were behind me, reaching like a dark plague. I turned to look and they were there, thousands of them, arms reaching for me, sightless eyes staring. They all opened mouths filled with blackened teeth, and groaned. I fled. Ahead of me there were cars, all battered and dusty, and ruined buildings with gaping black windows. Behind me the sky was black and the undead came in a wave. I couldn’t seem to move fast enough, and I could feel the rotten fingers clutching at my collar. There was no time! I stumbled, tripping over a hubcap, and they were on me. I felt hands tearing at my flesh, teeth biting deep into my arms as I tried to hold them off. I saw Chris among them, and I screamed-
-and woke up with a gasp, in my bed. I’d had a nightmare. Again. Third time this week, but not always the same. Usually I dream that I am being chased over open country, and that there are a few dozen of the walking dead chasing me. Sometimes it is only one undead, but I can’t stop it no matter how hard I try to kill it. Sometimes I dream that someone I know has died and come back. Usually it is Darren or Jess, though I dreamed it was Eric once. I finally dreamed about Chris coming back from the dead, and it was nasty.
“Fuck,” I groaned, and sat up.
I looked at the clock on the table beside the bed, and saw that it was just after 6 in the morning. My brain slowly recalled facts, and I could smell something baking. It was October 5th, a Wednesday. Jess was already up getting the kids ready to go to school. I got up, automatically checked my Browning where it hung on the stand beside the bed, and pulled on some pants. I staggered to the bathroom, and then went to see Jess in the kitchen. Morning twilight outside was becoming daylight, and I kissed my wife before grabbing a cup of tea. She was baking muffins, and was starting on other things for breakfast. I roused Megan first, then Michael, and helped out with feeding them and getting them packed for school.
Such a normal thing, sending children off to school in the morning. Despite the uprising of the undead more than a year ago, we still educated our kids. The approach taken to getting them to school was a little different now. All the kids were picked up in a school bus that was guarded by armed members of the military, or dropped off at the school by armed parents who escorted the children to their classrooms. The teachers had access to secure locked rooms inside the school where they could take the children in an emergency, rooms that were stocked with water, blankets, and enough food for thirty days. The school was guarded twenty-four hours a day, inside and out. Nobody was taking chances with the children.
So far, none of the minor outbreaks we had seen in Cold Lake had been anywhere near the school. We have taught the children that if an outbreak occurs and they can’t get home, they should go to the school, where the teachers are supposed to go as well. The classes are a little different than they were before the rise as well. Children are taught the basics of math, writing, reading and history, as well as some science and art, but a big chunk of the day is also about how to survive in the world we live in now. They learn how to get clean water, what seeds will survive what soil and weather conditions, and how to avoid the undead. The older children receive firearms safety classes. By necessity, we are teaching the next generation how to survive in a world where cannibalistic corpses outnumber them by thousands to one.
When we are home, Jess and I drive the kids to the school. We did this today, parking in front of the building, and escorting them inside, to be signed in by their teachers. There are only one hundred and thirty four children of elementary school age in Cold Lake now. The school is set up for many more. The children are in five classes depending on age, so Megan is in a different class than Michael. Jess dropped Michael off, and I took Megan to her class. I hugged her and signed her in, and left her talking to her friends. Megan is ten years old, having just had a birthday a few weeks ago. She was rescued from the store in Prince George over a year ago, and her parents were missing. She’s been with Jess and I from the beginning, and after we married, we adopted her. She’s a smart girl who likes her new brother Michael. Michael is Jess’ son by her boyfriend Ken, who had gone missing back in the first days of the dead rising. And now Jess was pregnant. Soon we would be five.
We drove home, cleaned up the early morning mess generated by getting two children out the door, and then sat and had tea and talked. We had plans for the house now that we had a fifth member of our family joining us. There was a spare bedroom, and we used it for storage. We would clean it out and make it a baby room, relocating all the boxes
and unused furniture in there to the basement. We would paint the room, if some paint could be located, and get some appropriate furniture. We might have to make the crib ourselves, unless we could find a carpenter to trade with. Cold Lake’s economy was based on barter and necessity, since money was of no use now other than as fuel or a source of metal. We discussed this until noon, when I got a call from Major Couper. He wanted me to come in to discuss my next salvage assignment.
I knew it was coming. The salvage operation was essential to the survival of the town, and it had been falling short of goals. We simply were not bringing in enough medical supplies and food, and with winter coming we needed to get as much in as we could. Normally I could count on a week or more between trips out. I had been home for five days this time. I imagined it would soon become a permanent thing, with only a few days between expeditions, if any time off at all.
I called Eric first, then Sanji and Darren, and finally Amanda. We had not decided on a sixth yet, so it looked like we’d be going out short. I started going over the checklist of supplies we would need, and thinking about the fuel issues, travel time, and ammunition. I hugged Jess and kissed her, and went to see the Major.
* * *
“Sit down, Brian,” the Major said, as I walked into his office. He offered me some tea, which I accepted, and a cigar again, which I did not. His office was Spartan, with only a few filing cabinets, a desk, a few chairs, and a plug-in kettle with a teapot and some condiments on a small table. It was located in a corner of one of the base buildings, with a view of the airfield. There was some activity out there, a small plane being fuelled, and some military types walking around.
We sipped our tea and talked about the usual things—weather, the town, and family. We talked a little about Jess being pregnant, which he already knew about, probably from her doctor, since all doctors in Cold Lake reported any major changes in a patient to someone on the base. Patient confidentiality was a thing of the past. He congratulated me again, and we talked about the consequences of having a baby in this day and age, what with the zombies and all. He seemed distracted, but I wasn’t sure why.
