Those Who Remain

by Priscila Santa Rosa

I open my eyes to find the two soldiers asleep. I hope their dreams are more peaceful than mine. Strangely, the constant hum of the helicopter’s engine makes me feel safe.

  “You okay, Doc?” the Sergeant asks, his eyes narrowed.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The base. Home.”

  “Is it safe?”

  He stares at me, maybe considering lying or, perhaps, wondering what safe really means in this new world.

  “For now.”

  The Geek I

  November 23rd, Monday, 1 pm

  My fingers drum against the back of my hand. The basketball bleachers slowly fill with the good citizens of Redwood. Unlike me, they are in no rush. They never are; quiet town, quiet people. Every now and then I take my phone out of my pocket. It’s noon already. We’re behind schedule.

  Roger, my best and only friend, stands to my right. Ma flanks me to the left, a self-satisfied smile on her wrinkled face. No doubt she’s reminiscing about all those lectures she used to give bored teenagers, which are now inflicted exclusively on me.

  We wait for everyone to arrive to start the town’s meeting and make the biggest announcement in the history of this boring place in the middle of nowhere. For the first time in my life, I stand in front of a crowd by lucid choice.

  I’m not nervous. Really. Being back at my old high school isn’t at all intimidating. Nope, not one bit. My fear of public speaking is also gone; all those tips from online articles totally helped me with that. My hands are not sweaty or shaking. It’s just hot inside the school, that’s all.

  Yeah, right, Danny. Keep telling yourself that.

  “Are you okay?” Roger asks, intuitive as usual.

  “Totally.” The answer comes in an accidental high-pitched tone. I clear my throat. “I’m great.”

  His raised eyebrow and thin smile tell me he didn’t buy it, which isn’t surprising. We’ve known each other since first grade, when he stopped bullies from pushing me around. He always was and always will be a goodie-two-shoes. No wonder he became a cop.

  “I can talk first, if you want,” he says.

  I let out a small laugh. Pride is the shield of fools after all, and what did it matter who talked first anyway?

  “Yeah, you do it. I’m here just to offer my opinion as an expert anyway.”

  My answer doesn’t please Ma at all. “You should do it, Danny. You’re the one who knows how to explain all those… weird things.”

  I let out a chuckle, hand on the back of my neck. “Ma, come on. Roger’s the Sheriff. He likes doing this stuff.”

  She gives me her signature scowl: jaw tight, stiff neck and a pout. It’s the first one in hours, a record. It doesn’t help me calm down one bit.

  “What’s taking so long?” I mutter, noting the bleachers are still half-empty.

  “It’s half-full. People will come.” Roger removes his Sheriff’s hat, giving it a quick clean.

  If there was any question who was the optimist between us, that definitely clears it up.

  “I told Gutierrez and O’Neil to knock on everyone’s door,” he adds.

  Oh great. Gutierrez and O’Neil, the wonder team. They better be knocking on every single door, all two hundred of them, instead of fooling around eating cold pizza and drinking beer in the back of the only police car available.

  Worrying about those two incompetent clowns and the fart jokes they’re probably laughing at, makes me angry, so I survey the people I plan to save.

  The usual upstanding citizens came first, as soon Roger spread the word about the meeting. They’re the ones always complaining about the height of someone’s grass or the color of their picket fence—which had to be white, of course. It was the law. Pamphlets were distributed every month, just to clear up any doubts about the exact shade. Maybe someone would think white was actually pearl or cream, and nobody wanted that disaster next door, right?

  The second wave consisted of the bored. Their only interest was to watch the whole thing dissolve into petty complaints and wild accusations of debauchery and corruption. They’re the type who would have loved watching Rome burn, from a safe distance, that is.

  I’m waiting for the rest, the ones that don’t fit my broad strokes of small town clichés. These won’t be easily convinced to come, most hate these meetings and the people who show up. I need the whole town working together. It’s the only way my plan will work.

  By half-past two the bleachers reach full capacity. I search for Lily in the crowd, but she and her father are nowhere to be seen. I’m not surprised, though disappointed. I plan to ask Roger about them later. We are going to need their guns pretty soon.

  Roger calmly asks for silence. Despite his soft-spoken voice, the crowd eventually quiets down. He always did have a way with people. Jocks, nerds, cheerleaders—especially them—all cliques liked Roger. Back when we were fifteen it annoyed me, but right now it’s pretty useful.

  “First, thanks for coming, folks. This is an important announcement, and every presence counts.” He clears his throat. “What I’m about to say will shock some of you, but please listen till the end before raising any hands.”

  I bet most of them are thinking the white picket fence law is about to be abolished.

  “You probably have been following the news lately, but if you haven’t, let me explain a few things first.” He looks at a paper in his hands, where I can see a bullet list of topics. Damn it, I should have done one of those. “A disease has spread all over Europe and the African continent, and reports speak of millions infected just this past month.”

  The crowd begins to wake up, chatter scattering around the court. Maybe some of them were paying attention to the international news section of the paper. Since the headlines were focusing more on the latest celebrity drug scandal and the election, I thought most wouldn’t care about anything else.

  Roger keeps his cool, waiting for silence. “Maybe you’re all thinking this is nothing to be worried about, since every flu season there is the same story about a new kind of virus in China or some other faraway country, but Danny here has solid evidence this no ordinary disease.”

  He looks at me, giving a slight nod. I step forward, gulping for air. What happened to him giving the speech?

  “So... Yeah. Evidence. Has anyone seen a zombie movie lately?”

  Silence. Long, horrible silence. Someone coughs.

  “Tell them, sweetie,” Ma says loud and clear to make sure every single person hears her. As an added embarrassment, she elbows me in the ribs. “Go on.”

  This is worse than the time I had to recite Marlowe in front of the whole school while trying not to pee my pants. This would’ve been so much easier if someone had turned into a zombie by now.

  “The thing is, people…” My voice cracks. I clear my throat. “Zombies are real, and—”

  “This is ridiculous! Can we please focus on the issue from last week? Terry still won't park on his side of the street like a normal person,” a woman in the crowd shouts.

  After that, people decide it is time to focus on the real problems: their petty rivalries. They all speak at the same time, the usual suspects standing to offer their valuable input. The rest of my speech dies a horrible, suffocating death inside my throat.

  “Shove it, Marie. This isn’t about you!” Terry Keller defends himself, getting up from his seat. Roger told me Terry’s real problem was refusing to wear glasses.

  Linda Fords goes next. Somehow she thinks that because she’s the town’s only lawyer, her opinion is better than everyone else’s. So that means it’s actually worse. “We should just kick the foreigners out of town. We all know they bring those diseases…”

  And finally, Frank, a burly mustached man, gives his own input, never forgetting his longstanding feud against Fords. “What? Are you for real, Linda? Is this about my son again?”

  “He’s French.”

  “He went to France one freaking time!”

  “He smells like cheese. It’s weird, Frank
.”

  I facepalm myself. Can’t these people stop embarrassing themselves? This would only scare off the sane ones.

  “You all shut your traps right now. My son is speaking,” Ma shouts, pointing her finger at the crowd.

  This is why I love my Ma, even with our disagreements.

  “Stop being so goddamn petty, people. Although…Frank, I’m sorry to say this, but Louis really does smell weird. I’m thinking it’s marijuana. You should talk to him about that, but don’t judge.” She takes a deep breath, hands on her hips. “Now, does anyone have something else to say, or can my son explain how he’s going to save us all?”

  Wisely, nobody speaks. Ma gives me a push forward, a huge smug smile on her face.

  “Okay. So. Like I was saying, Zombies are real.” In my head that line sounded awesome, right now it feels really dumb. “I guess I should start at the beginning, right?”

  “A little faster, dear. My soap is coming on soon!”

  Ma shushes Mrs. Cohen, an elderly lady with a pair of huge glasses that managed to slide off her nose every two seconds.

  “But that’s exactly it, Mrs. Cohen, there won’t be any more soaps on, no sports to watch or great movies to go see.” My chest tightens with the thought of not knowing how Game of Crowns ends. “The power is going out tonight. And it won’t come back ever.”

  When nobody else interrupts me, my breathing slows and my hands stop shaking so much. People are actually listening to me right now, how cool is that?

  “The morning news didn’t tell you, but believe me, things out there are bad. Most of you don’t trust the Internet, I get it. Especially after the war, but it’s the only way to know the truth. The fact is, guys, something went really wrong on the other side of the planet. And it’s coming here.”

  “Yeah? Where’s your evidence? Why should we believe any of this?” someone shouts, while Ma gives him the stink-eye.

  Roger brings out the TV, not my beautiful 42'' plasma screen, but it’ll do. This audience wouldn’t appreciate its high definition anyway. I place the DVD inside the player and let them see all the evidence I’ve collected over the recent months.

  Videos appear, one after another. Lines of people on our borders, begging entrance, pushed out by the military; a man foaming at the mouth, running toward the camera; a girl on a hospital bed screaming and trying to bite doctors. A mass grave being torched only to have the dead rise, flesh still burning.

  At the end, there is footage of a plane nose-diving inside an airport compound. People run, soldiers try to contain the crowd only to be overrun by the infected.

  “This past week, in order to contain the spread, the Army tightened control at the borders and international airports. They weren’t letting anyone in without checking them for the disease. But, yesterday, I found this video. And this is happening all over the country.”

  The picket-fence fanatics gasp first. Others ask for more evidence. I have to point out the flags, the colors of our military uniform, the timestamp on the video and other details to convince them. People start to raise their hands and demand answers all at the same time.

  “You guys knew about this since when? I got family out there!”

  “Are we at war with someone again? Is this an attack?”

  “Do we need to get shots? Is there a vaccine, maybe?”

  “Folks, let’s calm down.” Roger raises his hands. “We didn’t want you guys to panic, that’s why we waited until now to say anything. There’s no need to be scared. Ever since Danny got wind of this disease, we’ve been gathering resources like batteries, medicine, and antibiotics. Danny even prepared something to answer most of your doubts.”

  I reach for my bag, pulling out the brochures I made a week ago, using as reference the zombie-watch message board I used to participate in. They went dark a week ago. Ma takes a bunch and starts to distribute them to each row, people passing the stacks along to those sitting higher up. I’m pretty proud of it. The design is cool and clean, with lots of cute illustrations to help educate while entertaining the reader. I read somewhere that’s the key to make learning fun.

  “What you have in your hands is Danny’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse,” I pause, waiting for laughter. A smile forms on my lips when none comes. “It’s a simple guide on how the disease works, what we need to do to avoid it and what to do if, well, the worst happens.”

  Mrs. Cohen puts her reading glasses on to study my brochure, sliding them up her crooked nose. She raises her hand and Roger nods to her.

  “How do you know my soap won’t be on tonight anyway, dear?”

  “It’s pretty simple actually. I made a list of our resources like electricity, phone lines and our dependency of other cities and states. Since our power lines are in a high density region, and considering the amount of military activity over the last few months, lack of awareness of the general public, I came up with a formula to…”

  “Never mind, dear.”

  The one thing I looked forward saying, and nobody wants to listen. Typical. I turn to give Roger an exasperated look, which he returns with a short laugh.

  “Please read the brochure carefully and share with anyone not here right now,” Roger continues, adjusting his hat. “This is just the first step to secure our town. From now on, we’re going to need everyone’s cooperation. I won’t sugarcoat it, folks. It’s not going to be easy.”

  Roger explains my plan, while my gaze travels across the bleachers. Eyebrows raise, frowns mark faces, eyes are wide, and hands cover mouths. They believe me now.

  “…Every citizen will have to learn to properly hold, secure and use a firearm. The curfew has to be respected, as we don’t have enough personnel to patrol the whole town, making it unsafe to be out during the night. We’ve placed generators on all communal buildings, and encourage people to avoid walking alone at any time.”

  With each item, a new protest is raised. People want exceptions for their children, special treatment for the council, and other demands too numerous to keep track. They don’t want to stop taking long hot showers, don’t agree to mandatory patrols, and can’t deal with sharing food and clothes.

  They are scared of money having no meaning anymore, of not being able to visit bigger cities to shop or have fun. They want to be safe, but are not ready for the sacrifices necessary to keep them alive. Most want to bury their heads into the sand and hope for the best.

  Not even Ma can keep order anymore. The complaints make my head hurt. The meeting quickly descends into a chaos even the laid back Roger can’t control. Politeness won’t work. I grab my phone from my pocket and turn it on, pressing play and lifting it above me.

  A scream pierces the basketball court, silencing everything else. The next sound is followed by a plea for help and then crying.

  “This is you tomorrow.” I say, the phone still above my head. “This is what will happen if we keep bickering about the color of picket fences. The problem with the Zombie Apocalypse is not the zombies. It’s the people. We stand together or we die. That’s it. And it takes only one person to screw everything up. Just one person who doesn’t trust enough, who doesn’t tell the truth, and it’s all over. I don’t want this to happen here. I like this shitty town.”

  “Language, Danny.”

  “Sorry, Ma.” I take a deep breath. “I like this town. Maybe you guys don’t, and that’s fine. If you don’t want to follow the rules, then leave. Quickly. Like, right now. Take your things, lots of water and keep off the main roads. But you’ll be on your own. So, what it will be?”

  A few people leave; most of them stay.

  Roger puts a hand on my shoulder and Ma looks prouder than the time I made her a necklace of dried spaghetti for Mother’s Day.

  Some kids ask Santa for a toy. I wished for the Zombie Apocalypse. He took his sweet time, but finally my present was here. With luck, unwrapping it wasn’t going to kill me or destroy the town. After months scavenging the Internet for clues and weeks of planning, I’m ready t
o save this town.

  The Last One Out I

  November 22nd, Sunday, 6 am

  I check my briefcase again, making sure it is properly locked for the eleventh time since leaving the plane. The customs line has not moved for thirteen minutes and thirty seconds. Between blood tests, body searches and the swarm of refugees hoping to enter the country, this slow rhythm is expected. Yet my current circumstances make this delay a source of great anxiety.

  Time is running out.

  “Excuse me, miss, would you mind terribly to let me pass?” I ask the person in front of me.

  The rotund lady turns her equally round face. She stares at me from head to toes, arching her eyebrows. While her expression is full of annoyance, I am quite sure mine is one of despair.

  “I am on important, vital, business, and time is of the essence. Please let me pass.”

  Her answer comes in the form of a rude gesture I have no joy in describing. Clearly, politeness has no effect on desperate people waiting in line for four hours.

  For fourteen minutes, fifty seconds and… fifteen minutes, I have stood in this very spot. I dare not to let go of the briefcase, not even to dry my sweaty hand.

  This is madness.

  I would call over a border agent and tell him I plan to save humanity from extinction, but not only do I wager that this will produce laughter; authorities have also recently been far from approachable. Since our arrival, we have been received with suspicion, warnings, and promises of consequences for inciting panic. I am quite sure I am better off not drawing that kind of attention to myself.

  I lean to the left to better see the situation. People at the end of the line are probed, tested and questioned by a group of doctors wearing protective gear, which cover their whole bodies in bright yellow plastic. All of this happening under the watchful eyes of a long line of soldiers and riot police.

  Occasionally someone is carried away shouting and pleading. Occasionally this is followed by a harsh sound of a gun firing. Nobody protests, nobody questions anything. We only lower our heads and carry on, all too aware that the nightmare we left behind is far worse than this.