Desolation

by Mark Campbell

  Desolation

  Mark D. Campbell

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to actual events or locales or governmental agencies or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Author: Mark D. Campbell Editor: Alex Proctor

  ISBN-13: 978-1493520473 ISBN-10: 1493520474 © 2013 Mark D. Campbell

  Foreword

  In a period of carefully orchestrated insanity during the Cold War, America’s government created what would eventually prove to be its own demise.

  In the early eighties when nuclear proliferation between Russia and the United States had reached its peak, both governments devoted their research into more subversive means of attack. They started to covertly dabble in microbiological weapons despite the Biological Weapons Convention agreement both countries signed and ratified. While Russian scientists struggled, the United States flourished.

  America created a slew of toxins capable of wiping out the Red Motherland, but it was the eighties and biological research was still in its infancy. Therefore, most of America’s creations were accidental in nature and they did not understand many of the abominations they created.

  In the rush for microbiological proliferation, ‘PT-12’ was born. Like many others, its creation was an accident. The virus worked in two stages. First, it killed the host in a matter of hours. Second, it reanimated their necrotic tissue and turned them into savage shells of their former selves. The reanimated corpses were slaves to the virus and served only one purpose: to infect others and spread the disease. The reanimated husks were capable of staying active for weeks until rot and decay finally subdued them.

  America should have incinerated the virus but in their arrogance they not only pretended to understand ‘PT-12’ but also pretended to be able to control it and kept it as a possible weapon. Fortunately, before they could unleash the virus on Russia, the wall fell, the curtain lifted, and America was left with numerous creations they feared and could not understand.

  Time has a mysterious way of making governments forget their atrocities. America forgot how dangerous ‘PT-12’ and their other Cold War creations were and, as such, grew complacent as the months rolled into years. It was through that complacency and a chain of human errors that ‘PT-12’ was accidentally released and allowed the dead to walk the earth.

  The dead’s reign was a short one but it cost mankind dearly. Those who were fortunate enough to have survived the plague were left to shift through the ashes while those who once held power struggled to regain it.

  A new ruined nation was formed within the decayed corpse of the old one, doomed to repeat the sins of the past.

  The United States of America

  You may know me but then again you may not.

  It doesn’t matter.

  Nothing really matters anymore.

  I work for a government I’m not sure exists outside of name.

  I pledge allegiance to a flag with stars on it, stars that represent states that are no longer there. We’re supposed to be the ones tasked with rebuilding all that was lost. How can we do that when we're too dependent and pathetic to do anything about it?

  How can we rebuild anything if all we do is hide behind the walls of the few FEMA relocation camps left scattered throughout this desolated country, afraid to even venture out into the unknown?

  We wait for some unnamed remnant of the military to drop off cases of food like manna from heaven. I’m not even sure where they’re flying from. I’ve always assumed that they’re flying down north from the Capital, Camp Seven, but nobody knows for sure. We just sit and listen to their propaganda about how they’re rebuilding the big cities and how they’re making America safe again.

  We all know its bullshit and bullshit just doesn’t give us hope anymore. Last week they dropped off cases of seeds! No food. What a joke! They spun some tale about how their supplies and aviation fuel were running low. I still can’t believe that they had the gall to tell us that we needed to become self-sufficient after they spoon fed us from the start.

  I even got a promotion after they left; I’m the camp’s chief agricultural officer. Imagine that… Hell, before everything happened, I was a used car salesman. The next thing I know, after the plague, they gave me a gun and told me that I’m a soldier. Now I’m supposed to be a farmer?

  What the fuck do I know about farming? I grew up in Detroit! Besides, we can’t grow any crops in-between the thousands of barracks inside the concrete-covered campgrounds; like I said, we’re too afraid to venture outside the walls and FEMA doesn't allow it anyway. I’m no farmer, but maybe you could throw my body over the wall and use me for fertilizer? I’ll even stuff some seeds in my pockets before I shoot myself. Who knows? You might get lucky when you bury me.

  I doubt it though… We do live in Arizona. That was some excellent foresight for a camp, huh? Like we could grow something in this wasteland… idiots.

  I’ve had enough of this. The fucking helicopter didn’t come again today. We have no food, no supplies.

  Things are about to get very bad here and I don’t want to be here for it.

  I just can’t pretend that everything is going to be fine any longer. Somebody please tell Kara Phillips in dormitory sixteen that I am sorry. Jeffrey T. Mallory

  FEMA Camp 6

  United States Armed Forces

  Three weeks later…

  Jerri stretched out across the uncomfortable cot and grumbled as the sun shone through the cracked skylight. Granted, after a year of being jarred awake by the sound of gunfire and air raid sirens, it was nice to be able to sleep in but that didn’t stop the desert sun from being a cruel mistress to those just waking up.

  She pulled the green army blanket over her face to block the sun’s intruding rays but stifled a gag when she caught a whiff of the stench of mothballs that lived inside the blanket’s fabric. She threw the blanket off and slowly got off of the cot. She stretched and popped her back. The time spent on that bare-bones military cot had not been friendly to her spine. As she looked around her room she realized that nothing there had been especially friendly or appealing to her.

  Her room was a standard civilian dorm room, consisting of a cot, a small dresser, an in-wall disk player (but no television to watch it on), a window air-conditioning unit (that leaked onto her floor and grew mold on the wall), a small desk, a plastic chair, and a table lamp with no shade. The lack of décor and the general dilapidation would bother most people but the disk player and no television irked her most of all.

  She wasn’t entirely positive but she was fairly sure that the camp’s massive solar generators could handle a few televisions. Not that it mattered anyway. She left her movie collection back in Phoenix and she was pretty sure that HBO wasn’t on anymore.

  She hated the dull room and would have adamantly protested living in such conditions if things were the way they were before the outbreak. At twenty-three, she was not too young to remember how things used to be but she was not old enough not to care anymore. It was an odd age at an odd time.

  The only thing about her room that made it bearable was a collage of pictures and snippets from magazine covers she had pasted onto an otherwise featureless wall. She liked to stare at the pictures on the wall and remember what the world used to be like. Sometimes it made her thankful that all the moronic celebrities and vapid shells in the media were gone. Other times it made her miss them and the simpler time they represented.

  Her eyes lingered on a TV Guide cover that featured a television show about zombies. She remembered catching an episode or two. The TV show was wrong. Everything about zombies was wrong when it came down to it. Fiction. Eventually, the zombies did die off and society and government had a funny way of continuing onward. The society she lived in was pretty fuc
ked but it was some semblance of a society nonetheless.

  She yearned for something she just couldn't understand or even begin to wrap her mind around. It was like an itch she just couldn't scratch no matter how hard she reached for it.

  It depressed her to think about so she tried not to. She wanted to see if they were serving anything in the kitchen so she figured that she should get to the shower while the hot water was still available; it went away pretty quickly in the mornings. The thought of food made her stomach growl.

  The kitchen hadn’t cooked a decent meal since the helicopter stopped arriving but they still managed to serve small slithers of overcooked meat from time to time so she remained hopeful.

  Then again hope had failed her many times before. She sighed, grabbed her hygiene kit, and put on her overcoat to cover her nightgown. Her coat also did a good job concealing the two things she valued most; her ration card and her switchblade. She almost got raped three times in the camp, and the knife became a necessary part of survival. The last man who tried to attack her lost the tip of his penis and part of his right ear. Jerri doubted he'd be so eager to victimize another following their incident.

  She put on her slippers and walked out into the hall. She didn’t bother locking her room; the locks didn’t work in her building anyway. Besides it wasn't like there was anything worth stealing.

  As she walked down the moldy hallway, she glanced at the ceiling and saw that the center tiles were sagging even more noticeably and a few of the soaked tiles had fallen onto the stained blue carpet. A pipe was clearly leaking but she doubted anybody cared. She wondered how long it would take before the whole ceiling simply collapsed.

  Things were definitely getting out of control in Camp 6, but she supposed that’s what happens when you pack over three-hundredthousand souls in an area meant for half of that number. Over a quarter of the population lived in tent cities strung up between the dorm buildings. The camp was overpopulated and underfed. Living conditions were atrocious. The buildings were falling apart, sewage lines were backing up, and violent crimes were on the rise.

  Despite the camp’s oppressive police tactics, most of the officers had grown apathetic in their duties and only punished the most overt of offenses.

  She groaned as she stepped in a soggy portion of the carpet. Her slippers were soaked and she didn’t even make it to the bathroom yet. God only knew what horrors awaited her in the shower. Last time she saw a bunch of rats feasting on one of their dead kin and almost broke her neck as she scurried out of there half-naked. Unsurprisingly, given the food crisis, the rat population seemed to be disappearing so there was some good news in a world full of disappointment.

  The roaches didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. She hated roaches. She also hated that her room was so far away from the building’s communal shower. Navigating the hallway was always a game of dodging water drips and the countless roaches.

  She walked past one room and heard a girl screaming. She slowed, concerned, but then she heard they were screams of pleasure and knew nothing was happening that the girl didn’t want. She shook her head and continued onward. Her dorm was supposed to be a female dormitory, but that was one of the first rules the camp’s totalitarian administration stopped enforcing. At first, she thought it was because that the FEMA police were too busy defending the walls but then she realized it came down to a simple fact: the cops liked fucking just like everyone else.

  A few rooms ahead of her a door opened and a gangly naked man staggered out into the hall.

  She stopped and reached in her coat pocket.

  The man looked at her, grinned in a hung-over stupor, and waved. Jerri didn’t wave back. She kept her hand around her concealed weapon, ready to slice off what little he had to work with if it came to that.

  A woman emerged out of the room and threw the man’s clothes at him, letting them fall onto the soggy carpet.

  The man swaggered and scooped up his clothes up from the ground.

  The man and the woman argued with each other as Jerri slipped past them, keeping her head low.

  Jerri hurried her pace and retreated into the bathroom.

  3

  The bathroom smelled like moldy potatoes and raw sewage. Brown water had pooled out of the toilet stalls. The room was decorated with dingy subway tiling that had fallen loose in many places. A framed poster hung above the row of sinks and mirrors that divided the stalls from the showers.

  She looked over at the toilet stalls…

  She opted to pee in the shower stall while she bathed instead. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time. She walked up to one of the grimy mirrors, unzipped her hygiene pack, and sat it on the sink. She turned on the tap water and waited for it to run clear. While she waited, she looked at her sunken face in the mirror. Slowly, she took off her overcoat and laid it next to her hygiene pack.

  It was weird for her to stare at the stranger in the mirror. At one time she considered herself pretty, but long periods of malnutrition and unrelenting stress whittled away at her youthful appearance. Her hair, once a beautiful rich dark brown, hung flat and streaks of premature gray ran through it. Her skin, once free of blemishes and scars, was dry, scarred, and clung against her boney frame. Her ribcage jaunted out and poked against her stained nightgown. However, even in her emaciated state, she had a certain natural beauty about her that she didn’t notice.

  Jerri sighed and looked away. Her skeletal apparition was a little too much for her to take so early in the morning. The water finally started to run close to clear so she quickly brushed her teeth without toothpaste. Toothpaste had become a luxury during the past few months. As soon as she finished brushing, the water started to run red with rust once again.

  The water in Arizona was always disgusting and the rain was lacking but, compared to the camp’s recycled water, the old tap water was like bottled Fiji. The camp’s water tasted like metallic mud. She supposed that you could only recycle sewage into clean water so many times without adequate chemical treatment. Since the camp couldn’t even keep toothpaste in stock she doubted that they had adequate chemical supplies to properly treat drinking water. She imagined that what little chemical supply they had was being watered down to nothingness. Pretty soon the camp would be reduced to sucking dew off of leaves.

  She disrobed and stepped into the cleanest shower stall she could find and took a cold shower without soap. The hot water had been used up apparently. She saved what little soap she had for Sundays. Soap had become yet another precious commodity inside the camp.

  When she got out of the shower she felt dirtier than she did when she stepped in.

  She slid her gown back on and took a tattered towel out of her hygiene pack and started to dry her hair.

  The restroom door opened.

  Jerri dropped the towel and quickly reached for the knife in her jacket.

  “Hey Jerri,” a familiar quiet voice said. Jerri looked at the reflection in the mirror and lowered her hand. She bent down and picked the towel up off the floor and went back to drying her hair.

  “Morning Krystal,” Jerri said, smiling. Krystal, a native Bostonian, thin as a rail with long black hair, moved as quietly as a phantom to the sink next to Jerri and kept her head down. She always kept close to Jerri, more for protection than anything else. Since her parents were both victims of the virus and her older brother died of residual radiation poisoning after the government bombarded the eastern seaboard, she didn’t have anybody else left.

  Krystal’s knees buckled and she caught herself on the sink. She bent her head down and heaved violently. What little food was in her stomach ran down the drain.

  “Holy fuck, are you sick?!” Jerri exclaimed as she dropped the towel and turned towards Krystal. Concern washed over Jerri’s face as her eyes scanned her friend up and down.

  Krystal turned the sink on and washed the vomit off of her chin. She slowly shook her head, tears streaming down her face.

  “No, I… just have the flu
,” Krystal said, turning away from Jerri’s gaze.

  Jerri looked alarmed.

  “The normal flu,” Krystal corrected herself, “not the… you know. So how are you?”

  Jerri took her towel and slung it over her shoulder. “Well, I woke up and didn’t have to stab anybody, so I guess my day is going pretty good so far,” Jerri said with a grin. “I didn’t see you last night for chow… You weren’t out with Alex again, were you?”

  Krystal shook her head and supported herself against the sink. “I haven’t seen him for weeks,” she said. “After he saw that I wasn’t going to keep putting out, he kind of put me out instead.” “Asshole” Jerri spat, shaking her head.

  “What was for dinner last night anyway?” Krystal asked, splashing some rust-colored water on her face.

  Jerri sighed.

  “They were closed again,” Jerri said. “It’s starting to become a little common. Even the mystery meat is running low.”

  “What is that stuff anyway?” Krystal asked, leaning against the sink. “Notice all the rat traps that they been setting up the past two weeks? Yeah… I think I’d prefer that the meat mystery remain unsolved,” Jerri said with a smirk.

  Krystal offered a slight smile. “Meat is meat I guess… Do you think the supply drop will come today?” Krystal asked. The tone of her voice was telling; she already knew the answer to her own question. “It’s been so long…”

  “Sure,” Jerri lied to herself with a smile. “They can’t just let us starve. We'll run out of vermin eventually.” Krystal vomited again into the sink, knees buckling. Jerri stepped back, disgusted by the smell.

  Krystal broke down and started to sob deeply, her whole body shaking.

  “I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” Krystal said. “I’m just such a mess… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Jerri took Krystal into her arms and held her close, shushing her, patting her on the back. She looked around nervously, worried that somebody might walk in and see Krystal sobbing. It was never a good idea to show weakness in the camp. It would be even worse if someone saw that she was sick. People were quick to assume the worst.