Contagion On The World

by J. B. Beatty

  The drive is uneventful, thank God. I remember when I used to look forward to events, back before the world ended. No longer. Uneventful is good. Boring is better. It means we live longer.

  We had hoped to make it all the way to a good spot near a boat before the sunrise, but as we are still miles east of Onekama, at the east end of the lake, we see traffic ahead. Taillights—multiple vehicles. They aren’t moving. Instead, they seemed to be idling on the road ahead. Hoping we haven’t been seen, we find an old dirt track and hide in a woodlot.

  “As much as I just want to hide and hope it goes away, we probably need to check this out on foot,” I say. “I can go alone.”

  “We all should go,” says Carrie.

  “That jeopardizes the mission. This should be a one-er.”

  She looks to Justin.

  “That's probably right,” he says. “We need some medical expertise for our mission. I don't think it matters which of you go, but it should be just one of you. The other needs to stay with me and move ahead if something goes wrong.”

  “Hate to say it, but I'm probably more expendable.” I tell her.

  “You’re definitely expendable,” says Justin. “With that wounded wing, you’re really not much help.”

  “I'm actually quite good at sneaking through the woods at night and spying on people. My inclinations toward cowardice make me very stealthy.”

  Carrie squints at me but doesn't argue.

  I stay about 30 yards away from the road and pick my way very carefully through the woods. It's not very thick and the footing is generally clear. I stay low, trying to make good time without hurrying. Mainly, I have to stay observant. There may be fewer zombies active this far from the big cities, but the ones I have seen have appeared quite zippy.

  It's hard for me to guesstimate total distance, especially in the dark. It takes me perhaps 20 minutes to go what might be 300 yards. I get close enough to see that it's a caravan stopped along the road, Humvees at the front and back with two school busses in between. Behind the last bus is a large panel truck.

  I settle low in the woods, laying on the driest ground I can find, covering myself with pine boughs. Then I wait, and watch.

  51→THE PLACE WAS PLUM FULL OF FARMERS

  Ireturn at midday, having seen enough to be alarmed and having struggled enough to stay awake. I need a break. When I get back, I find Justin is inside the truck, sleeping. I don't see Carrie until I hear a whispered, “Up here.” She is keeping watch from above, having ascended to a perch in a nearby tree.

  It can wait till Justin wakes up, so I find a suitable tree to lean up against and I take my own nap. I don't even think I fall asleep, but it's almost dusk when someone—Justin—kicks at my foot.

  “Do you want to tell us what's going on down there?”

  Carrie joins us and sits on the ground.

  “Yeah, I'll tell you. They're farming.”

  “Who?”

  “Our friends at Great America.”

  “How?”

  “You're not going to believe this. It's like a prison crew. They've got 10 guards, all your typical men in black. Two each on the Humvees and two more inside each school bus—there are two of those. Plus there's a supply truck of some sort and I think I saw two guys get out of that. But the bus, that's how they transport the farmworkers. I counted 27 getting off those buses. They looked Mexican to me. I wasn't close enough to hear anyone talk. And they were young, meaning around our age. They're slaves, I think.”

  “How could you tell they're slaves?” asks Carrie.

  “The guards had the guns aimed at them, not at whatever zombies might attack them from the neighboring woods.”

  “So, they were harvesting food?”

  “No, city boy. It's spring. It's a planting operation. I'm not sure what sort of seed they might have been planting. They brought bags of seed and some of their own equipment. They had a tractor with a plow on that truck. They chose a field, and it was like one of those speedy lawn-mowing operations. They plowed, and the workers scattered behind, putting the seeds down and hoeing them in. They're moving fast.”

  “A crew like that, they could cover a lot of ground quickly.” Justin rubs his hair. “Planting like crazy, and then harvesting later. Would eventually provide a lot of fresh food for the folks behind the wall. It actually makes good sense.”

  “It's really not the best farm country, though, right?” I say. “There's not a lot of farms this far north. Whereas farther south, southern Michigan or even Ohio, you see a lot more farms.”

  “For all we know, they're working those areas too,” says Justin. “Maybe this makes sense economically, simply because it's closer to their enclave behind the wall. They can bunk the soldiers and their slaves on the other side.”

  Carrie seems distracted, looking away from us, holding her rifle tightly. “Slavery?” she says with blood in her voice.

  “Not saying it’s right,” notes Justin. “But perhaps it makes good sense from their perspective. I mean, if you're a bunch of evil overlords and you want to rule what's left of the world and you don't give a shit about any survivors but your own, then enslaving farm workers makes sense.”

  “Heck, there's the chance these workers think they got a great deal,” I add. “They're alive. They get food and shelter and protection from the zombie apocalypse.”

  “They got the vaccine,” notes Carrie.

  “Must have.”

  “Oh my god,” she says. “Do you realize what this means? This underlines even more that this wasn't an accident. You don't just have a vaccine ready in case there's an outbreak of Zombie Flu-- You give it out in advance.”

  “We already knew that,” says Justin, “or surmised it.”

  “Yeah, but they vaccinated Mexican farm workers so that they would have a healthy pool of laborers? To me, that just takes this to a whole new level of evil. This was serious planning—they constructed the world that they wanted. They not only knew this was coming, they made it come.”

  “Maybe,” I say, “maybe this can work to our advantage somewhat.”

  “How so?” asks Justin.

  “Well, I'm thinking if we figure out their movements, it means we can hijack fresh food at harvest time.”

  “Okay, that's nice, I'd like a salad now and then,” says Carrie. “But it's not really a game changer.”

  “No, but—and this might be stretching a bit—maybe the game changer is that some of these farm workers might not be happy with the set-up. Maybe after a while the joy of simply being alive wears off and they get tired of breaking their back while thugs have guns pointed at them.”

  Justin smiles and says, “People of color getting tired of laboring at gunpoint for white men? I don't see it.”

  “Hey, at least one of the guards was black.”

  “Oh lordy-lord, tha's wonderful news! We movin' up in de world!”

  “Ouch,” snaps Carrie. “We get it. We get the whole white privilege thing. But let's focus. It makes sense that we could maybe get some new people, healthy fighters possibly, from these vaccinated farm workers. At some point.”

  “We'd just have to take out 10 guards,” I say.

  Carrie points at each of us, saying, “1... 2... 3...” She looks at me pointedly.

  “I'm not saying we do this today. We've got to stay on our mission.”

  “Does anyone here speak Spanish?” she asks.

  Justin's got nothing. Finally, I volunteer, “I had freshman Spanish.”

  “What did you get?”

  “I remember getting a bunch of candy. We did piñatas regularly. And great field trips. We learned that Taco Bell is not authentic.”

  “I mean, what was your grade?”

  “Oh, I failed one semester, then got a D after my parents got on me.”

  “And what's your level of fluency? If you had an opportunity to approach one of these farm workers, what would you be able to say?”

  I bite my lip and pick up a small twig, breaking it
into little pieces as I think. “I'd be able to order a taco el pastor... which I think is beef.”

  Justin gets to his knees and braces himself. “I think that you've just been appointed our diplomatic liaison to the enslaved Hispanic farm workers of America. Congratulations... But on another note, listen. I hear engines.”

  We do. And indeed, there is activity down the road. I sneak to the edge of the woods and steal a peek. The convoy is moving out, heading to its next plot of arable land.

  “Coast is clear, but let's wait until nightfall to get to the lake,” I say. “And we're going to have to move carefully. They might be on their way to someplace 30 miles away, or they might just be moving right around the corner.”

  52→HEATHENS DON’T AMOUNT TO SHUCKS ALONGSIDE OF PIRATES

  Long before sunrise, we are in a small pine forest north of the lake, close enough to the Lake Michigan beach that we can hear the surf. The area is more open than we'd prefer, so we conceal the truck well with fallen branches. We are still near houses, within 50 yards of the closest, but it shows no signs of life. We set up a little camp, where we have a well-hidden defensive position and a clear shot to the truck in case we have to make a fast retreat.

  Justin stays at the camp while Carrie and I carefully scout the neighborhood in the dawn. We see no signs of life, but plenty of death. The lone zombie we run into seems to be slowing down for lack of food. Carrie dispatches him with a knife. He only responded to her approach in the final moments. On his prone corpse I recognize the tattered traces of a football uniform.

  The marina is across the road from the cover of the woods. We see boats in the distance.

  “Do you know how to pilot a boat?” Carrie asks.

  “I've been on a pontoon boat,” I say. “And we went on a Caribbean cruise once. The food was simply amazing.”

  “That helps, so we should be fine here,” she says with full snark.

  “How about you?”

  She grunts. “Just the mandatory riding on someone else's little yacht into Lake Michigan, getting sunburned while the dads fish and drink beer. I can't say it gave me any operational expertise in the maritime field.”

  “Well maybe Justin...”

  “Ya think? I hate to stereotype, but do really want to bet a black dude who grew up in Detroit has a lot of experience on boats?”

  “Wow, was that hate?”

  “That was reality. Let's ask him. But I'll bet you lunch he's never been on a boat.”

  We break into one of the cottages and score some canned food and boxes of cereal.

  When we get back to Justin we start packing for the next leg of the mission. We're traveling ultra-light, planning to grab food on the go as much as possible.

  “Oh Justin,” says Carrie innocently, “Do you have any experience with a boat?”

  “Bass boat. Spent a lot of time in one when I was a kid, fishing with my uncle.”

  She looks disappointed. I smile at her and she sticks out her tongue. “But we're probably taking something bigger than a bass boat, right?”

  “I think it would make sense to take the biggest, newest thing we can find,” he says.

  “Why big?” I say. “And while you're at it, why new?”

  “We might be on it a few days. Bigger means more room, means more stable on the water, means we can sleep on it if we need to. Newer means hopefully a quieter engine and fewer mechanical problems... And we should also snag a few kayaks or a rowboat or something small that we can bring in to shore.”

  “And you can drive this big boat?” asks Carrie skeptically.

  “Psshh. It's like riding a bike,” he says. “Only if something goes wrong, we drown.”

  The marina at night is frightening. The boats move with the waves, creaking and banging. We jump at every noise. A quick inspection with flashlights shows us something we had not considered. Every boat in the water is a wreck, either half sunk or with serious structural damage that renders it unsafe.

  “What the hell?” I say. “It looks like a war zone.”

  “It is,” says Carrie. “It's called what happens to boats on Lake Michigan when the owners don't get them out of the water in the winter. These things have had ice slamming into them for months. It's a wonder anything here is still afloat.”

  “What are we supposed to do now?”

  She points to a fenced-in area on the other side of the main building. “Some owners got their boats out of the water in the fall when they were supposed to. The trashed boats all belong to the procrastinators.”

  It's a big job. We pick out a nice-looking, newer model boat. Covered in blue shrink wrap. Maybe a yacht. I don't know if there is a definitional difference in terms of size. This one has a cabin with four bunks, a little bathroom, and even a kitchen stove. Justin finds the manuals and starts running through a few mechanical checks. He leaves to get oil and supplies from the marina store.

  Getting the boat to the water is another challenge. It's already on a trailer. We find a forklift that's been equipped with a hitch. “Is this strong enough to pull that trailer?” asks Carrie.

  “Only one way to find out,” says Justin, who's been busy trying to get fuel for the boat from pumps with no electricity. He has removed a small manhole-type cover that feeds the fuel into the underground tanks. Now he has a small manual pump he found in the store and is painstakingly filling gas cans.

  I observe and help pump when he gets tired. “Why don't we start transferring this fuel to the boat?”

  “Not all of it,” he says. “We need to make sure the damn thing even starts. I don't want to fill up a fuel tank until we know it's the one we are going to be using.”

  I never thought that the entire process would take so long. We are there for hours, horribly exposed, using flashlights and making noise. I am praying there aren't zombies nearby, or worse, a gung-ho neighborhood watch. But we see no one.

  Finally, we get the boat in the water, test the engine, and get it fully fueled up. We move our supplies into the boat, along with a selection of snacks from the store. It's almost 4:30am.

  “Decision time,” says Justin. “It's too late to go all the way up to the peninsula and start the ground leg. It will probably take us two hours to get up there and the sun will already be coming up. We could head that way and anchor off shore, but that makes us sitting ducks.”

  “You said they won't be looking for any sort of sea attack.”

  “That doesn't mean they won't think it's little unusual if a nice boat shows up anchored off their shore. They'll check it out, and then probably blow it out of the water. If we're lucky, they'll kill us first.”

  “What's behind curtain number 2?” asks Carrie.

  “We stay here for the day. Park it among the wrecked boats and it will be kind of camouflaged. Then we head out at night.”

  “There's a risk someone will check us out in the daytime.”

  “That's a risk wherever we go.”

  “How about a boat house?” suggests Carrie.

  “Meaning?” He turns to her.

  “Some of these houses on the lake have boat houses, basically garages for boats. We can park in one of those for the night, if we can find a place where no one is living or watching.”

  We like that idea, except for the part we don't like. The problem is that at a big vacation lake like Portage, there are literally hundreds of waterside dwellings. Some will inevitably have elderly survivors in them. Noise carries. They will hear us, see us, and find us. But there are some maritime businesses nearby, close to the channel. A little farther from the homes.

  “But still,” says Justin. That's his way of saying no.

  We end up with what we all agree is a risky plan, but better than nothing. We take the boat onto the big lake, with an eye toward heading north. Then before we get to enemy territory, we bring it in to shore and dock it somewhere it might look like a piece of wreckage.

  Of course, we argue, but we need to do something quickly, and this seems to make the m
ost sense. Justin fires up the engine. He struggles a bit on orienting the boat in the correct direction. But once we head into the channel, he stands at the helm projecting great confidence.

  “How big is a bass boat?” Carrie asks me.

  “I'm sure there are a lot of similarities,” I reassure her. “And what's the worse that can happen?”

  “We all drown in the cold, vasty deep,” she says grimly.

  “But on the bright side,” I say, “Lupus won’t kill you.”

  Her eyes flash as I realize that might have been over a line. “Congratulations, you've discovered a cure,” she fires, before moving to the other side of the boat.

  As we enter the lake proper, the boat is rocked by large swells. I grab onto the rail, suddenly feeling queasy. I'm sure we're violating every rule of maritime safety, traveling at night without running lights. I find a life vest in a compartment under a seat and put it on.

  We travel for nearly an hour, always staying within sight of shore. We are navigating by landmarks in the dark—gatherings of light on shore might indicate we are passing the next town on the map. That sort of navigation. Sure, the Phoenicians mastered navigating by the stars, but then, they probably knew trigonometry. Luckily, our minds are not clouded by such skills.

  We pass the suspected town of Arcadia: a few lights burning. Then we pass what we think is Frankfort, going close enough to shore that we can distinguish town buildings.

  “Does anyone recognize it?” asks Justin.

  “I had ice cream there when I was 8 and we went to Sleeping Bear Dunes,” I offer. “If you can get us inside the ice cream place, I'll be able to tell if this is the right town or at least where the chocolate is.”

  Silently, Justin reaches out for me and gently steers me away from him to the back of the boat.

  After suspected Frankfort, we stay closer to the shore. Justin is looking for the outlet to the Platte River. He says that is possibly the only remaining place to dock the boat before we hit enemy territory.

  Of course, he tells us, we face risks. “It's sandy area, and the river mouth could be too shallow for us to navigate. We could get hung up on driftwood or the wreckage of other boats.”