A Place Outside The Wild

by Daniel Humphreys

  Chapter 5

  “So. I got to ask. Donnie says you’ve never had a cheeseburger. He’s messing with me, right?”

  Vir Singh lowered the binoculars and gave his questioner an annoyed glance. Joey Bennett was twenty years old; short and skinny with a messy thatch of black hair. A not-insignificant crop of acne flowered across his forehead. “Excuse me?”

  “Umm. You’re Indian, right? He said Indians don’t eat beef. You guys worship cows or something.”

  Vir gave a heavy sigh and turned back to the binoculars. He resumed his slow study of the warehouse across the highway. “Yes,” he said. “I was born in India. And Hindus regard cows as sacred. I do not, as I am Sikh.” He reached a hand up and touched the blue fabric wrapped around his head. “Hindus do not wear the dastar, what you call a turban. I can eat all the cheeseburgers I want, when I can get them.”

  “Oh.”

  Joey was silent for a long moment. Vir heard him take a breath as though to ask another question, but none was forthcoming. He lowered the binoculars and looked at the young man. “What now?”

  “So, uh, if you were born in India, why don’t you sound like Apu . . . um.” Joey had the good grace to blush. “Never mind.”

  “I attended secondary school in England. I also went to uni at the Imperial College of London, where I earned a degree in structural engineering. As you were rather young when our world fell apart, you may not know that India was once a part of the British Empire. Many of my countrymen speak with a similar accent. ‘Apu’ from The Simpsons is a ridiculous stereotype.” Of all the relics of the past, someone had to scavenge those bloody stupid cartoons.

  “Right. I’m sorry I asked.”

  Vir stared at the young man for a long moment, then said, “Joey, there is no problem with an honest question out of ignorance. In that, you are more refined than Donald, who made an assumption due to his preconceived notions. If you have questions, feel free to ask. I do not mind discussing them. This moment is perhaps not the best time to do so.” He nodded toward the road. “We need to be watching out for biters, not talking.” The boy gave him a jerky nod and turned to look out the windows on his side of the room. “Hey,” Vir said, finally, then winked as Joey looked back at him. “I know you boys think I’m a bit aloof, but I’m not nearly as big of a stick in the mud as you think I am. Once we get back to civilization, we’ll tip a few back, all right?” Joey’s color returned a bit and he grinned. In the ensuing silence, Vir resumed his study of the landscape. He tried not to think about how far from safety they were.

  The I-275 bridge spans over the Whitewater River were long destroyed, but in a way that was a boon for their current mission. The land on the west side of the river had been farm ground before Z-Day, with houses few and far between. The northward trek had been a far easier movement than it would have been had they crossed the river and taken surface streets through the suburbs. Those neighborhoods were still infested with biters. Vir was no coward — he’d stood more than his fair share of watches — but the thought of that trip left his mouth dry. Their ultimate goal was north of the city, and they were able to get close to it while remaining somewhat safe.

  The warehouse complex was north of the city proper —and just across the river. After some debate, the council had agreed that this run was worth it. They'd authorized the usage of a pair of six-wheeled cargo trucks; spoils of war courtesy of the Indiana National Guard. When they’d left the settlement at the break of dawn, materials and tools filled the beds of the trucks. The trip to the crossing had been the easy part; they’d spend much of the morning laying logs and securing them in place at a shallow spot.

  They’d made it across the temporary bridge with ease unloaded. The thinking was that the cargo they were intending to return with would be bulky, but it wouldn’t be heavy enough to cause an issue.

  The house they’d chosen was just off the river and perfect for the job. Nestled in a lot thick with trees, the driveway doglegged in such a way that the house was invisible from the road. They hadn’t even had to clear it, Vir marveled — it had been empty when they arrived. Wherever the homeowners had been in the last days, they’d never managed to make it home. There was some interesting salvage inside, but the real gem lay a few hundred yards away.

  The industrial park was full of nondescript two-story warehouses. The three on the near side of the road consisted of a restaurant supplier, a company which had sold water filtration systems, and — right in the middle — a distribution center for a pharmacy chain.

  One of Vir’s new teammates had worked there in a temp job, and he’d told enough stories that the mission had been green-lit. Two hundred thousand square feet of bandages, toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, vitamins — all ripe for the picking. Sure, some of it would be useless after sitting for so long, but still more would be fine. The most difficult parts were prioritizing what to take first and being quiet enough that repeat trips were workable.

  Soft footsteps sounded behind them on the stairs that led up into the loft space they’d set up in. Vir and Joey abandoned their study of the warehouses and turned to look as Buck, the head of the salvage team, joined them.

  Curtis Buckner was a tall, trim man in his late forties. Even after eight years of rough living he kept his beard and hair close-trimmed. His eyes glittered with wit and charisma. It was safe to say Vir had liked him pretty much immediately. There was a solid and dependable aura about ‘Buck’ Buckner. He was the type of man who would not have seemed out of place running a construction site or a corporate boardroom.

  “Gentlemen,” he murmured as he crested the top of the stairs. “What’s the word?”

  “Looks clear, so far. I’ve seen a couple of solo acts, but there’s no sign of any larger numbers out there,” Vir replied.

  “Same for my sector, boss. Just one biter, and it isn’t even movin’ much,” Joey reported. “Just kind of stands by one of the warehouses and wobbles in the wind.”

  Buck nodded. “Hibernating, most likely. Good. Light loads only, gents, we’ll leave most of our gear here in the meantime. We’re going to go for it. The exterior doors all look closed, so we’re presuming light to zero presence inside.”

  Vir frowned but said nothing as Buck turned to leave. He pulled the strap of his binoculars over his head and laid them on the couch that he’d been using for a support. The loft was set up as a home office and den. An L-shaped desk and computer took up one half of the room. The rest held comfortable furniture arranged around a television. He picked up his backpack and unclipped a small tactical pouch from it, then placed his backpack on the couch next to his binoculars. The pouch held extra loose shells for his Mossberg pump-action shotgun and extra magazines for his sidearm. Vir clipped the tactical pouch to his belt, on the opposite side of his holstered pistol. He nodded to Joey. “Ready?”

  The younger man shrugged. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “This ain’t my first rodeo, but this is a hell of a lot more nerve-wracking than what I’m used to.”

  Vir smiled in what he hoped was a comforting fashion. Sometimes his beard made the expression look fiercer than he intended. “Stick with me, Joey,” he promised as he picked up his shotgun from where he’d laid it beside the couch. “We’ll get through this together, all right?”

  “Sounds good,” the other man said with a wan smile, then moved toward the stairs. Vir cast a look over to the row of warehouses and frowned again. This was his first time out with Buck’s crew, but he felt nervous as well. The team leader had a reputation for being cautious and patient, and he was being neither at the moment. Vir shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts. He slipped a hand under his jacket to ensure his kirpan was loose in its sheath. The presence of the long knife was comforting, as always.

  He just hoped he wouldn’t need it.

  “You ever think this is the start of something worse?” Larry mused as they pushed through the ankle-high grass.

  “What, people steal
ing corn?” Miles thought about it, then laughed. “Not really.”

  “Thieving, making meth. Heck, even Alex going off the reservation and playing sniper games instead of going to school is a little troubling.” Larry adjusted his gun belt and shrugged. “We’ve got a bunch of folks that have spent damn near ten years on the edge of death at every waking moment. That’s got to leave some psychological scars, right?” Larry sighed. “I don’t know. I just wonder if we’re not waiting for the other shoe to drop and someone to snap under the pressure. Maybe I wouldn’t be so worried if we didn’t have so many people content to just sit and mope instead of actually, you know, doing something to make things better.”

  Miles was silent for a long moment as he rolled it over in his head. “I read a magazine article, before. It said that disaster relief organizations always planned on bringing fewer people than they needed when traveling to recovery efforts, because there was always a given percentage of victims that couldn’t just sit there, they had to do something. Remember right after it all went down when we started putting up the fences? Guys like Gary, and Jim Piper, they were chomping at the bit to get it done, to not just sit around. Hell, even Miss Martha would have been out there pounding nails if we’d have let her. By that same regard, there’s a nasty little secret those organizations knew, too. After the disaster is over and they’re packing up to go home, there are usually a significant number of people they have to force out of the shelter because they don’t want to leave. It’s worse for us. Take out those who aren’t capable of work and we’re split down the middle. For every Gary West, who damn near lives on the wall, we’ve got someone else with a primary focus of waking up before they shut down the breakfast line at the chow hall.”

  “So what do you suggest? Forced labor? I might not go along with that for certain historical and ethnic reasons, mind.”

  Miles grinned. “Hey, I should suggest it at the next council meeting. Maybe they’ll fire me and elect someone else.”

  His father-in-law chuckled. “No, I’m serious here, son. There’s a reason why people picked you for this job. You think about things at different angles than everyone else. Sometimes that’s what we need — an opinion that doesn’t run in line with the status quo.”

  “Well. Here’s how I see it, then. You worry about waiting for the other shoe to drop, I worry what kind of world I’m leaving for my daughter. Because the way it’s set up now, it could morph into some sort of neo-feudalism or sharecropping setup. If you’re worried about me bringing up forced labor now, in a few more years people will be clamoring for it. What we’ve got right now is a commune more or less. Everyone gets food and shelter, clothes as needed, and generally aren’t forced to work for any reason other than peer pressure. Someday, when people aren’t so scared of what’s going on outside, they’re going to start looking at what’s going on inside, and they’re going to resent the shirkers. There are people that are still freaked out by the whole “zombie apocalypse” thing, and who blames them? But knock on wood if I don’t think we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, they should have rotted away to nothing long ago, but they’re getting there. And once that threat isn’t hanging over our head, human nature is going to snap back, fast.

  “Yeah, there’s some semblance of an economy, but it’s for luxury items or pretty trinkets the scavenger teams bring back. And even then that exchange is on a barter basis — it’s not based on any official currency other than Tom’s quarters. It’s basically bushels of corn for beer, or a basket of fruit for an iPod recharge.”

  “How do you create an economy, though? Do we start printing bills? Force people to work to pay for things?” Larry shook his head. “You know who that sounds like.”

  Miles stopped walking and stared into the distance. “Yeah, it sounds one heck of a lot like . . .”

  In the early days, the number of survivors had been few, but loud. The night Miles recalled had been a prime example.

  “Grant’s on the warpath tonight, isn’t he?” Sticks had whispered.

  Miles glanced over at his best friend and tried to hide his smirk. The subject of their disdain marched back in forth in the center of the Quonset hut they used for meeting space. If they got any more people they were going to have to shift things into the equipment barn. At the moment, it was standing room only behind the folding chairs.

  Grant Johnson had been a City Council rep before things went to hell. As far as Miles could tell, he hadn’t quite figured out that his position was meaningless without, you know, an actual city.

  How did this jackass even get elected?

  “. . . Even if we are to discount the actual danger involved, how can we justify outright theft from a legal standpoint?”

  “Danger? Is he coming with us? I feel safer already,” Sticks whispered. Miles bit off his snort of laughter and tried to look innocent as a couple of people around them looked for the source.

  “Don’t you think we’re getting a little too far into the weeds?” Pete called out. “Legal? For better or worse, the law is just a set of books that will molder on the shelf if people like us don’t try to preserve it.”

  Grant turned to face the other man. “You’re wrong. At some point, the government will be coming back, and we’re going to have to answer for what we’ve done in the interim.”

  “Then where are they?” shouted someone in the audience.

  “Look,” Grant said. “I’m sure that rural Indiana isn’t high on the priority list. But at some point . . .”

  “Look,” Pete interjected. “The power’s been out for weeks, but I’ve been able to run my HAM set a bit. There’re people out there, sure, but they’re alone. If there’s any semblance of government or organization out there, they ain’t talking. So we need to do what we can to survive this thing. Call it salvage, call it stealing, it has to happen.”

  “You crazy coot! You think you’re in charge? He who has the food makes the rules, is that it?” Grant spat.

  Pete laughed. “Don’t look at me. If anything, Larry’s in charge. He’s the one with all the guns and ammo, he can get all the food he wants.”

  Miles realized he’d fallen into silent reverie and finished, “. . . Grant Johnson before he tried to take over.” A handful of people died on both sides of the issue during the nascent coup. The one most important to him being Sticks.

  Larry grunted in agreement. “Yeah, I try to keep that little stain’s comments in the back of my head. That’s why I’ve pushed to distribute food production to as many people who want to farm as possible. It's also why I keep fighting all the proposals to centralize weapons storage.”

  “That would be terrible in the best of times. If things start going south, the last thing we want is someone claiming sole ownership of an arsenal. It’s hard for a knight to lord over a peasant when the peasant can shoot him out of the saddle with a longbow.”

  “Always with the history, kid,” Larry laughed.

  “You know you love it. I think I picked up most of it by osmosis from you and Uncle Pete over the years.” Miles kicked at a rock in the field. “You know what I don’t get, though? What’s our corn thief get out of this? Nobody has a working fridge. If he starts showing up at the depot for buckets of ice Jim’s going to get suspicious. Can’t eat it raw. So he cooks it? No way. He’d have to live in one of the bigger houses to do it with any privacy. People are too nosy to cook outside without someone up in your business.” He counted names off on his fingers. “I know nobody in our house did it unless you’re ready to confess your dastardly deeds.” Larry shrugged and shook his head. “Didn’t think so. Val didn’t do it, and none of her kids are strong enough to haul what looks to be a pretty full bag all this way. How many people does Tom have living in his place now, six? Seven? And they’re all solid, either work with him on the farm or Gary on the wall. Maybe I shouldn’t jump to conclusions but I don’t see any of them stealing a bag of sweet corn.” Miles sighed. “Sometimes I wish Derek was still around. He had
a better mind for this crap than I’ll ever have.”

  “So maybe he didn’t steal it to eat, he stole it to trade. Which begs the question, who was at Tom’s bar last night — the thief, the guy trading for it, or both?” Larry paused for a moment and rubbed his chin in thought. “When we get done, we need to run over to Tom’s and see if he can remember who all was there last night when Henry came in. And I’ll go you one further, Sherlock. If the guy who stole it can’t cook without the neighbors coming up and saying, ‘howdy fella, where’d you get the corn?’, how in the world is the guy he’s trading it to going to get any use out of it? Unless, say, he’s got somewhere outside of the fences to bring it to.”

  “You think they’re cooking the meth outside the fence?” Miles considered it, then observed, “Ballsy.”

  “Like you said, we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not as dangerous out there as it used to be. We’ve gone over every building inside the fence with a fine-toothed comb. By definition, the lab has to be somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, but where? We stripped all the usable material out of the houses around here. There’s nowhere left to hide.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  Miles frowned. The slide marks were fading as the day got warmer, but remained visible enough to see that they ended near Martha Bradley’s old horse barn. They didn't have many horses left, so they'd converted the building into apartments. Upstairs, they'd quartered the hay loft to provide larger spaces for families.

  Downstairs, they'd stripped out the half-walls between the stalls. New walls made single apartments out of each pair of stalls. Insulation, wall panels, flooring, windows, and doors furthered the transformation.

  While it would be generous to describe the construction as rough, the rooms were tight. The entire building stayed warm in the winter with the addition of a wood-burning stove on the lower floor. The center aisle of the barn was still dirt, due to a shortage of concrete. They’d hauled in enough gravel to ease drainage and prevent it from becoming a sloppy mess when it rained or snowed.