by Max Lockwood
This covert warning did nothing to change Sergio’s mind. He seemed almost manic, walking faster, now with a smile on his face.
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Sergio sang.
Matthew could hear faint voices approaching them. He grabbed onto Sergio’s arm in fear, expecting to see an armed guard threatening them. Instead, he saw Carl appear around a tree, accompanied by Mayor Schilling.
Sergio stopped dead in his tracks, his jaw slack. Matthew’s stomach lurched. He tried to act casual in order to convince the mayor that the new visitors were not trying to search for dirty secrets. He had never been a good actor, though.
“What are you guys doing?” Carl asked.
“Just walking around,” Sergio answered coolly. “You?”
“Mayor Schilling wanted to show me around.”
“I wanted the three of you to see our community, but Carl said you left dinner early,” the mayor said, smiling. “If you’re just walking around, enjoying this nice evening, I suppose you won’t mind if we join you.”
“Sure,” Sergio said, much to Matthew’s surprise. The way he said it was so calm and cordial, not at all of his true feelings. He had either a change of heart or alternative plans. Matthew guessed it was the latter.
“Excellent,” the mayor said, nodding her head forward. “Let’s proceed with our little tour. I was just telling your friend about how we can power our community when the public utilities fail. We pride ourselves in using mostly solar energy to power this place. It’s the reason why we have hot water in the showers and lights in our homes. Everyone does their part to conserve what we have. Our cooks often use fire to make our hot meals and we try to limit use of electronics to just a few hours a day. It’s a sacrifice, but everyone is on board to make sure the essentials are covered.
Sergio snorted. “Some sacrifice,” he said under his breath.
“Next, I can show you some of our security measures,” she continued, not missing a beat. “Our facilities are guarded by some of the brightest and most capable guards in the area. That’s the reason why we’re able to casually walk around at night without having to carry weapons. I’m sure you saw our fencing around the perimeter. It’s a bit unsightly, but again, we must make sacrifices for safety.”
“Where did you manage to get all of that razor wire?” Carl asked. “And that’s got to be expensive to have so many military-grade weapons. I didn’t think civilians could even get some of those.”
“We’re a pretty well-connected group,” she said haughtily. “The Homeowners Association pooled our resources to make sure we would be taken care of. Some of our residents have ties to the military. We managed to get the bare essentials.”
“I was under the impression that a lot of government workers had been killed or turned,” Carl said. “That’s why there’s no organization that can clear the streets.”
“Unfortunately, that’s the case for a lot of individuals.” She frowned. “We never like to see our police officers and soldiers succumb to deadly illness. Luckily, we don’t see a lot of action here. I’m sure you’ve noticed how quiet it is.”
Matthew nodded. It was certainly eerie, especially when he knew how chaotic it was in the rest of the city.
“It took a little planning, but in the end, we managed to keep this zombie problem far away from home. Those creatures are absolutely nasty, and I hate the thought of anyone having to see one.”
“See one?” Carl asked. “Heck, we’ve killed hundreds of them.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s quite impressive. I commend you for your hard work. Unfortunately, they seem to multiply quickly. I hope your hard work wasn’t for nothing.”
“How is it that you don’t have scores of them outside the gate?” Matthew asked. “We had a safe place too, but they still waited for us outside the building. They could hear and smell us, I think.”
The mayor grinned. “That’s another thing that sets this place apart from the rest of the city. I assume that you made your kills right outside your camp, right?”
“That’s right,” Sergio said. “I’m not sure if there’s really any other option.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She smirked. “You know that the zombies have a keen sense of hearing and smell. We can use this to our advantage. In a few parts of town, we’ve left traps. First, we have the sonic traps. These are just little contraptions that mimic human noises. These bring the zombies to the site of the sound in large quantity. Then, we leave a scent. Sometimes, these are concentrated pheromones. Other times, it’s just as simple as a used shirt. The scent traps keep the zombies in place for a while.”
“Then you kill them?” Matthew asked.
“No,” she laughed. “That would require a lot of work. But it seems as though people like you are helping us out with this problem. We’ll kill them if it’s easy, but we don’t go out of our way to clean the streets, as you say.”
Matthew frowned. “But wouldn’t that just create pockets of zombies in other vulnerable areas? Or are you placing these far away from others?”
“Well, we live in a metropolitan area. It would be impossible to set these traps in a completely rural area. We don’t want these things ruining our space. The zombies make horrible noises and pollute the air with rotting flesh. They’re frightening and cause panic. We don’t want them here. We use guards to round up the stragglers and lead them elsewhere.”
Sergio scoffed. “No one wants them here, but we don’t have any other options, do we?”
The mayor showed her teeth. “I’m going to have to disagree with you,” she said, gesturing to the neighborhood around them. “It’s a problem, but it doesn’t have to be our problem.”
“Where do you lead them, if it’s not a secluded area?” Matthew asked. They had done a good deal of driving around the city and had yet to see another area that was as quiet as this one.
“Oh, here and there,” she said nonchalantly. “Areas of the city where we know there isn’t productive life going on.”
Matthew’s stomach dropped. If she was saying what he thought she was suggesting, they were purposefully luring zombies away from their community and into poor neighborhoods.
He wondered if the reason they had to battle so many zombies was because Mayor Schilling was dumping them in their territory. He feared that there was a lure near that office building and the others would have to battle the zombies because of it.
Then, he remembered passing the street in the projects that was engulfed in flames. There must have been so many zombies in those buildings that the survivors had to burn the structures down with the monsters inside. There had to have been so much death, all because one group of people was taking down another.
It was absolutely diabolical, the more Matthew thought about it. He didn’t know exactly how many people were staying in the compound, but it was only a small fraction of the survivors who had to kill zombies every day just to stay alive. It made him feel queasy to know that lives could have been saved if it weren’t for Mayor Schilling and her little town.
Sergio was fuming. Matthew wasn’t happy either, but he was doing his best to keep his anger under control. At the very least, he wanted to get away from the mayor before he started talking about how evil she was.
“This is bullshit,” Sergio growled. “You’re telling me that you’re not actually saving lives by creating this place. You’re killing more people so you don’t have to experience bad smells or see unsightly things. You’re just pushing your problem—our problem—onto other people who don’t necessarily have the resources to take care of it.”
“You do have the resources to bring in the survivors from the areas you’re dumping zombies,” Matthew said.
“Some people just don’t belong here,” she said cryptically. “We have to be careful about how we keep our town. We certainly have welcomed high-quality people to our community. But if we start mixing people who don’t fit in, we’ll soon have chaos and all of our precautions
would be for naught.”
Matthew didn’t like her word choice. He could understand being afraid and selective of who to bring it. In fact, he frequently argued with Sergio about that very concept. But it wasn’t as though Sergio was afraid of certain demographics like the mayor suggested. He was wary about bringing in personality types that could derail what they had going. There was a very clear distinction between the two.
Sergio knew that there were bad people out there. It was likely that they were walking with one. But they were bad because they were willing to do things to harm innocent people.
Mayor Schilling was afraid of people from the disadvantaged neighborhoods where they indirectly killed citizens by dumping zombies on them. For all they knew, there were many upstanding citizens who could make a big difference in saving civilization. Though they would never know that if they continued to kill them off.
Carl had remained unusually silent throughout the conversation. Though he wasn’t nearly as outspoken as Sergio could be when he was fired up, he was often the voice of reason. However, he had been nervously chewing on the inside of his cheek while Sergio and Matthew tried to seek logic in what the mayor was doing.
Everyone seemed to notice Carl’s consternation, save for Sergio who was too far in his own head to realize it.
“Something on your mind, Carl?” Mayor Schilling asked sweetly, a stark contrast from the content of her words.
“I’m just trying to understand this,” he said slowly.
“Oh, I guess I’m not being a very good tour guide. What is it that you want to know?”
“Well, for starters, why did you let us in here if you’re so exclusive?”
She smiled. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out on your own. You must lack self-esteem. I heard that the three of you are soldiers. Obviously, I would love to have you work for us. We want to keep our security as tight as possible. That, and it seems like you all came from good families. You’re intelligent, polite, and have an understanding of how the world works. You’ve spent a little time here, and I assume you’re appreciative of what we can offer you.”
“We are appreciative,” Matthew said flatly.
“I knew you would be.” She winked.
“So, you’re looking for a few indentured servants who have an appreciation for hot showers and soup?” Sergio asked.
“I’m not sure if I like the way you’re seeing this excellent opportunity for you.” She frowned, deep lines forming in her forehead.
“Just answer this question for me,” Carl said, raising his voice slightly. “When the attacks first started happening, no one knew what was going on. I’d argue that I’m someone who is generally pretty good at keeping people safe. But the night I learned about the zombies, I lost a girl I was trying to help get home safely. Matthew lost his wife without any warning. How many did you lose?”
She pressed her plum-colored lips together. “Just a couple. But they were tasked with leaving the compound to work. This town is so secure that we have yet to lose anyone within the gate.”
“How?” Carl asked. “Certainly, you wouldn’t keep those ugly watchtowers and wire fences up all the time. You said it yourself—they’re just plain unsightly. It seems impossible that no one was killed. I mean, a child could infect a parent so easily. A zombie could simply squeeze through gaps in the hedges and bite someone strolling down the street. Now that we know you’re moving zombies from your neighborhood to poorer areas, we can rule out the idea that these creatures discriminate. Excuse me if I don’t understand something correctly, but it just doesn’t add up. This happened so randomly and so rapidly. No one could have seen it coming.”
He stopped in his tracks and breathed heavily, as though he was physically exhausted from all of that thinking. Matthew was impressed. It was a valid question that he couldn’t quite put into words himself.
Mayor Schilling digested his loaded question and answered much more concisely than Matthew could have imagined. He was ready to hear her politician’s answer that would dust any misdeeds under the rug. Instead, she smiled and turned to face the men, taking a second to look each of them in the eye.
“That’s exactly right,” she said. “We did see this coming.”
16
Though the air was fresh and sweet in the secluded community on that mild evening, Matthew suddenly found it stagnant and hard to breathe. He looked over to see Sergio standing upright with his hands balled into fists. He seemed to be having a hard time breathing as well. Or he had just held his breath to keep from screaming.
Carl kept blinking his eyes, as though he thought he was hallucinating. In the pale light, Matthew could tell that the color had drained from his face, besides the two pink splotches on each cheek.
All the while, Mayor Schilling stood patiently, waiting for the three to speak again. She crossed her hands in front of her body, as if she were in the middle of a political debate.
“I—I think I misunderstood you,” Carl stuttered diplomatically. Though, judging from everyone’s reactions, he understood perfectly.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said, still smiling. “The reason we were not ambushed was because we were not caught off guard. We didn’t have much time to prepare, but everyone pitched in to make sure the village was secure by the first reports of zombie activity in the Greater New York area. Sure enough, no sooner than we raised the watchtower, we could hear screaming off in the distance.”
Matthew’s forehead furrowed so much it made his head hurt. He didn’t understand how anyone could know about the zombie apocalypse. That was the whole reason these things were so deadly—they happened without warning and spread so quickly that no one could prevent it.
“That’s not possible,” Matthew said in disbelief.
“It is,” she insisted. “What are you having trouble understanding?”
“Everything,” Sergio blurted out.
“No one knew this was even possible,” Matthew said softly.
Mayor Schilling sighed. “No, you didn’t know this was possible. You don’t understand the zombie illness.”
“And you do?”
Mayor Schilling began walking again, waving at neighbors who peeked through their windows. She smiled, hiding the fact that she was talking about horrors the soldiers couldn’t even fathom.
“I see there is a knowledge gap between us,” she said. “If you would like to know about the nature of this disease and how my town came to exist, I’d be happy to tell you.”
“Please, go on,” Carl said, his voice sounding strained.
“Excellent,” the mayor said, enjoying having an audience. “Now, I am no scientist. I had nothing to with the disease itself. I was only told that it existed and instructed to get my community in order before it spread. This was to be kept a secret because of the nature of these things. I instructed a few key community members to gather up necessary supplies like the fencing and weapons. However, most of the neighborhood was in the dark. Amazingly, it all went off without a hitch. We had a few tragic casualties, but it could have been much worse.”
“If you knew, then why didn’t you tell anyone?” Sergio asked.
She looked at him as if he were asking a stupid question. “That would defeat the whole purpose. If everyone knew, then everyone could prepare for it. Still, few people have the resources necessary to pull this off in just a few days.”
“Rich people can buy protection,” Sergio grumbled. “How is that possibly fair? People like you aren’t any better than people like me.”
“I didn’t say that, now did I?” she said icily. “It’s not about the money itself. Money is just more plentiful in those with better breeding and higher intelligence. I know you didn’t take the time to speak with anyone here, but they’re all pillars of society. We have the leading medical specialists in the world living in our neighborhood. We have the brightest lawyers, politicians, and artists within these gates. Anyone who is worth their salt has a home here. Plus, we managed to
snag a few other important people to join our ranks before the disease blew up. The best of the best is here. It’s sad when loved ones die, but the world is better off starting over again. Noah had a flood. We have a virus.”
Matthew cleared his throat. “You’re talking genocide.”
“It has nothing to do with ethnicity,” Mayor Schilling sniffed. “I think you’ll find that we have representatives from many different ethnic groups.”
“Then you’re purging the world of poor people,” Sergio said flatly.
She huffed. “There is no dollar amount that we place on people. But if you look at people in the housing developments of the inner city, you’ll see a lot of violence, drugs, and not a lot of achievement. You can’t tell me that society wouldn’t be better without violence.”
Matthew screwed up his face. He wasn’t a sociologist, but he knew enough about people to know that this woman didn’t have a clue. Her ideas were misguided at best. At worst, they were incredibly dangerous.
“You really don’t know that for sure,” Carl said. “People rise above their poor lot in life all the time.”
“Sure, there’s a feel-good story every now and again, but for the most part, your average human is completely forgettable. Does the world need another telemarketer or waitress?”
“Someone has to serve the rich,” Matthew grumbled.
“No,” she answered, ignoring Matthew’s response. “The world is grossly overpopulated. Do you think we need more people around here?”
Matthew didn’t disagree with her statement, but the way of going about it wasn’t right.
“There are other ways to control population,” he said. “Why don’t we limit how many children can be born to a set of parents? Why don’t we let the elderly die naturally and stop keeping them alive by machines?”
“That won’t work,” she argued. “China tried that. People starting throwing unwanted children off bridges or sent them to orphanages for American parents to adopt. It became a human rights disaster that caused a lot of outrage. If you even suggested doing that here, people would lose their minds. Plus, you might say that you want to die a natural death, but if that’s your parent or spouse or child connected to those tubes, don’t tell me that you wouldn’t beg for just a little more time.”
