by A. R. Wise
Lightning snapped through the air nearby, the thunder wasting no time chasing it, and the industrial building was illuminated long enough for me to get a better view of it. Above me, probably forty feet high, I saw a chair positioned near the corner of the building, inside a piece of broken exterior, looking down on the parking lot. It was used as a watchtower, and if someone had been sitting there then they already knew I was coming. I cursed my foolishness. This was a quest I didn't need to take, and it was getting worse by the second.
I would've normally accepted that I'd been caught and called out to reveal I meant no harm, but the smell of death was too prevalent to ignore. If someone was still alive here, then they'd learned to live with a ghastly stench, and that didn't seem plausible. More than likely the person, or people, that lived here had been caring for Stubs and were dead now. That would explain how Stubs had come to me, and might also explain the Popper that showed up at my door.
The gate was ajar. I was able to peer through it and into the lot beyond. It had once served as a secondary parking lot, probably for privileged employees of the plant, but it had been converted into a yard for livestock. There was a wooden structure in the back and several troughs lined up along the sides. Bales of hay had been set along the fence and there were cow pies littering the cracked pavement. Despite the evidence of a herd, there wasn't a single living creature to be seen.
Animals, even livestock, are a lot smarter than people give them credit for. When there's any sign of a zombie they flee immediately. They were clearly a hell of a lot smarter than me. I knew this place was a tomb, almost certainly the site of a zombie attack, but I continued on anyhow. I avoided the yard, convinced it held no more secrets for me, and made my way to the parked vehicles in front of the main entrance.
There was another fence on the other side of the cars, and it stretched out to my left for at least a hundred yards. The plant was at the intersection of the fences, and they were tall enough that I couldn't see what was beyond them. There didn't seem to be a gate on the longer fence like there was on the livestock area, which led me to believe there would be an entrance to the larger lot inside of the building.
The plant had a set of double doors for an entrance and a series of windows looking out onto the parking lot that had been boarded up. There were no vines snaking their way along the walls, another sign that someone had been tending to this structure. I moved to the door and pushed at it with my foot to see if it was unlocked. It didn't budge, but that was because it opened outward, a fact I should've realized since the hinges were on my side. I felt foolish for my mistake, but the only witness was Stubs, and he couldn't make fun of me even if he wanted to.
I tried again, this time pulling on the door's handle instead of kicking at it, and discovered that it was unlocked. I put my foot in the opening and pointed my Glock inside, then pulled the door open with my left leg. It swung easily, which meant that someone had been oiling the hinges. I hadn't encountered a fortification like this in years, and I had a growing suspicion that this place had been used to house far more than just a few survivors. This had the feeling of a colony designed to feign dilapidation. It was set off the road several hundred yards on a downgrading hill, and the entrance was through a crumbling industrial plant. The animals were kept at the entrance, which made me wonder if they had been a major part of the colony's trade. Having them positioned at the gate would keep any traders from discovering the true population hidden behind the fence. Also, if a horde of Greys ever sniffed out the livestock, they would focus on the outer pen and allow the occupants of this colony an opportunity to burn them alive, all while the residents were safely packed inside the other gate.
The plant was gutted and filled with an army of mannequins that were fully dressed and scared the living shit out of me when I first saw them. Most of them were overturned and several had their limbs or head ripped off. Each one had been carefully designed to mimic a living person and there were bells tied to their clothes. It was an ingenious warning system that I was disappointed in myself for never thinking of. The Greys wouldn't be able to distinguish between a living person and these dummies upon first sight. If a horde managed to slip through the open field, unspotted by the guard positioned in the watchtower, then they would be discovered once they entered this area and tried to ravage the plastic, chiming army within. I wonder how much time the zombies would waste knocking over the mannequins in this room before looking for a different victim.
The only thing in the room other than the mannequins was a stack of pallets. The fact that they were here convinced me that this building had been used for offloading trade. This stack was probably put here for the next caravan that came calling and would be given back to whoever they were trading with.
If they required multiple pallets worth of trade items, then this was a massive colony I'd stumbled on. In two decades I'd only encountered a few caravans that bothered strapping their trade to pallets, and that was back when thousands of survivors had lived in structured settlements. In this age of re-emerging hunters and gatherers, the idea that a caravan was still selling pallets worth of goods came as quite a shock.
There was another set of double doors at the back of the building that was protected by an iron gate that had probably been installed when this building was converted into a makeshift gatehouse. I stared up at the system of catwalks that crisscrossed the structure as rain blew in from the holes in the side of the building. There was no access onto the catwalks from inside. The way up must've been located on the other side of the iron gate. This room was designed as a murder hole, where anyone daring to enter would be susceptible to the whim of the guards above them.
The iron gate swung open easily and without the normal screech you'd expect to hear. Stubs whimpered in my pocket and tried to spin around, but there wasn't enough room for that. He did his best to duck his head, but his huge eyes still peered over the edge.
I pushed the bar handle of the back door to see what this gatehouse had been designed to protect. As if on cue, lighting flashed as the door opened and revealed the largest colony I'd seen in over a decade.
It was a shocking sight to behold and was a beautiful contrast to the dead world I'd been forced to live in for the past twenty years. There were no buildings, and the residents had learned to abide within yurts, lined up in rows, that stretched for three or four hundred yards. There were flowers everywhere, blooming brilliantly at the entrance of each abode and hanging from posts along a central thoroughfare. A ten-foot wide moat separated me from paradise and ran the entire length of the fence as a defensive back up. If a portion of the fence was breached, the attacker would plunge into the deep reservoir on the other side. On the opposite bank of the moat there were sharpened stakes buried into the dirt pointing out, making climbing out of the ditch unharmed nearly impossible. Directly in front of me was a metal bridge that was connected to a crank on the other side. Luckily for me it was already down.
I would've been excited about discovering a place like this if it weren't for the familiar buzz of flies and stench of death that pervaded the area. Something was dead here, and that never bode well. I'd survived twenty years after the apocalypse by knowing better than to walk into places like this. I should've turned around and allowed the place to fester for a few more days before exploring. If the Popper that died in my kitchen had come from here, then it was reasonable to think any other zombies that originated from this colony would die off within a few days.
"We should go back," I said to Stubs. "Do you think there're supplies here?" I looked down at him as if he might answer. I'd only had him for a few days, but the company had already started to affect me. I often found myself carrying on conversations with him, letting his voice be part of my subconscious that I would then answer, as if debating with him. "If there's anything good here, it'll be here when we come back."
Stubs stared up at me, affectless as he licked his nose.
"You're right. Whoever they were trading with
could come back any day now. We might lose the chance to pick through the place first if we're not careful. All right, you win, Stubs. We'll check it out."
Talking aloud was asinine. It was something I'd never done in the past, but my extended sojourn into the plains of Wyoming had yielded very little human interaction. I've since accepted that I was suffering from mild dementia as I crept into the colony. The months of solitude had taken their toll and I was left conversing with puppies and making decisions that could've easily led me to my death.
"Let me know if you hear anything."
The metal bridge groaned beneath me as I stepped across. Raindrops caused hundreds of ripples in the murky water below. There was no mold where the water met the ditch, meaning the moat hadn't been still for long. The people of this colony had devised a system of irrigation, and this moat played a part in it somehow, which kept the water moving to avoid stagnation.
I made my way over the bridge and onto the dirt road that ran down the center of town. The yurts were set off the thoroughfare a few yards, and wooden carts were placed along the wide gravel path. It took me a while to realize that this was a marketplace.
The cart closest to me had baskets on it that contained wilted lettuce. I picked up a handful of the vegetable and was surprised to see that it was all the same variety. Normally any vegetables or fruits that were collected ended up being a mix of various species the gatherer had found in the wild. This looked as if it were the product of agriculture. There were other baskets that were filled with other types of fruit and vegetables. The people that tried to sell this had access to a cultivated field.
I picked through a basket of blueberries, but the hot sun had withered the fruit days ago. I set the basket down, but the bottom tilted over the edge of the cart and to my surprise it fell as I walked away. The basket bounced off the dirt, scattering the moldy fruit across the path. I froze in place with a pained expression as if the noise had paused me in the midst of torture.
Once I was sure my clumsiness hadn't alerted anything to my presence, I moved to the closest yurt. I pulled aside the hide that served as a door and looked inside. The circular structure had a skeleton of wooden beams that were covered with various strips of fabric that had been sewn together. The roof rose to a point, and there was a hole at the very top about two feet in diameter. The hole served two purposes. First, it allowed the owner to have a fire pit in the center of the yurt. Second, it afforded them the luxury of collecting rainwater in a basin that could be rolled out over the pit.
The basin hadn't been rolled into place for this storm, and the rain fell in through the hole and collided with the ashen remains of the owner's last fire. The smell of burned wood was reinvigorated by the rain, adding a pleasant aroma to the yurt that was a welcome relief from the sweet smell of death outside.
I studied the basin and the funnels that were housed beneath it. There was also a wooden box containing plastic bottles that had been filled with what I assumed was rainwater funneled from the basin. It was all the proof I needed that this yurt, and perhaps the entire colony, belonged to a group of Greens. The oldest children that had been born after the apocalypse were adults now, and none of them remembered the years of acid rain and chlorine gas-filled skies. No Red I'd ever known would dare drink rainwater without filtering and boiling it first.
The yurt was filled with useful items. I found three pots, a cast iron skillet, a butcher knife, a ceramic wet stone, and three pounds worth of salted pork. I also found smoked fish, which disgusted me. I didn't know there were people out there dumb enough to eat fish. While it was possible to find a few clean springs here and there, the chance of a fish surviving to adulthood without getting loaded with enough chemicals to cause illness was slim to none.
"What the hell were they thinking?" I asked Stubs as I tossed the smoked fish into the basin. "I'm surprised they survived as long as they did."
I collected everything useful I could find in this yurt and set it on a blanket that I then tied into a makeshift sack. The pots clattered as I dragged them out of the hut and close to the bridge. I'd already made enough noise in this place to wake the dead, so if nothing had come running after us yet, they probably never would. I set the sack on the side of the moat and headed back toward the next yurt.
My plan was to gather everything I could find in the colony that was worth the time and energy needed to drag it back to the house. I wouldn't bother wasting space in my gear to carry anything other than what I needed when traveling, but I could stock the dilapidated house with the plunder and then use its location as a bargaining tool later on. Traders were rarely ever willing to give much credit for such obscure promises of hidden bounty, but every now and again you could find someone willing to take a chance.
Stubs squirmed in my pocket and I was comfortable enough with our safety to set him down. He rushed to the fruit stand and urinated on the corner, expelling more liquid than seemed possible for a creature his size to hold. I was thankful he waited to be set down instead of relieving himself in my pocket.
We moved on to the yurt across the street. This yurt was nicer than the first, with uniformed hide used for the walls and a wooden framed door with a handle instead of the cloth draped entrance of the last one.
The intense smell of rotting flesh struck me with near physical force as soon as I opened the door. I staggered back and pressed my hand over my nose as my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. Flies buzzed furiously into my face as if angered by my intrusion and I swatted them away as I tried to glimpse inside. Beyond the buzz of the flies I heard a sound that sickened me. I'd encountered enough dead bodies in my time to become familiar with the various sounds they could make, and the grinding noise that filled the yurt was from maggots worming through a corpse. It was always surprising to hear how loud the sound could get considering it originated from tiny worms slithering through dead flesh, but the grinding was louder than the flies themselves as the maggots wiggled inside the three corpses in this yurt.
I knew what happened the second I saw the bodies. It was a familiar discovery. A mother lay on the floor with a baby in her arms, both of them killed by gunshots. The gun had been placed against the back of their heads, leaving their face a mess of shattered bone and flesh. The smeared blood on the floor revealed that someone had positioned them lovingly, the baby in its mother's arms, after they'd been killed. It didn't take long to find the father. His body was crumpled in the corner, the top of his head blown off from sticking the pistol in his own mouth. The family had committed suicide before the disease was able to claim them.
It was horribly gruesome, but a good scavenger never leaves a gun behind, even if it is clenched in the fist of a dead man.
I was going to steal the gun when I heard two explosions in the distance. The sound was followed by the squeal of brakes and then tires skidding on asphalt.
Someone had driven over my spike strips.
CHAPTER 2 – Living in a New World
COBRA DAWN
I heard the pleasant chirp of my alarm and rolled over to set my hand on the display screen beside the bed. It was expected of us to let the Administrators know when were awake. The green light blinked under my palm and the machine hummed as it scanned my biometrics.
Another chime, different from the alarm but no less charming, alerted me that the scan was complete. I took my hand off the glass and swung my legs over the side of my thin mattress. The bed was positioned a few feet off the floor on a white shelf that was supported by two hinged poles that protruded from the wall. The biometric scanner was on a white, rectangular pedestal that jutted out from the similarly colored wall. When I got off the bed the Administrator sensed the weight shift and the bed folded up, disappearing into the white wall seamlessly, as if it never existed. Every night, after the Administrator scanned my biometrics, the bed would descend with clean, pressed sheets.
"Good morning, Cobra Dawn." The Administrator's calm voice greeted me. "Are you ready for your morning exercises?"
"Yes ma'am."
The view screen on the wall opposite the bed turned on. I positioned myself in the center of the room where the grey footprints were painted on the floor. I set my arms at my side and waited for my mirror image to appear on the wall. My digital representation materialized as a shadow on the screen, and then pixilated until I was looking at a perfect copy of myself.
"Are you okay?" asked the Administrator's voice through the avatar of myself on the screen.
"Yes, why do you ask?"
"You tossed and turned a lot last night. I was worried that you were feeling ill, but your biometrics show no sign of increased white blood cell count. Do you think the purples stopped working?" she asked about the evening pill that helped me fall asleep.
"No, I just couldn't calm down." I looked at the mole under my left eye on the avatar. It was such an ugly blemish that made me stand out from the other Dawns. It had plagued me since I was a child when it first appeared, barely the size of a grain of sand. Now it was larger, at least three times the size it had been then.
"That's what the purples are for, Cobra. You don't have to suffer like that."
"It's not so bad. I'm okay." I walked to the right, toward the six-foot mirror on the wall, and poked at the blemish. "Is this getting bigger?"
"Your mole?"
I ruffled my blonde hair with the tips of my fingers so that my bangs hung wildly over my cheeks, hiding the mole in the process. "Yes, the mole. Is it bigger?"
"There are no signs of melanoma and the growth has not caused any concerns for the Administrators. You're fine."
