End World: Corruption Undone

by David Peters

  Doc was able to pull them back from the brink if it was something minor. Just as in the days of the early west, dysentery was one of the most feared diseases. Dylan always took it hard when he got the word of someone passing due to something that hadn’t been fatal to man for more than a hundred years. Infections, the flu, even the common cold could become fatal if not caught early enough. A quarantine cabin was set up in the back corner of the town in order to house those with anything they feared might be contagious. No one would ever condemn someone that had been confined to the Q-hut, friends and family would pick up the extra work to cover for those who were sick without any questions. People wouldn’t want to see you in town until Doc said it was safe for you to leave quarantine.

  His boots knocked out a slow rhythm as he walked down the boardwalk surrounding the town center. The small bakery already smelled of warm bread as the ovens churned out a thin column of black smoke. As he passed the butchers shop, he could hear the meat cleaver in the back room as it thumped on the cutting board. Across the square a cabin door opened and a woman shook a carpet out. Others began to appear as their workdays were just beginning.

  He kicked the mud off of his boots as he stood outside of the cabin with the blue door. This small house had been his home for the last five years and was the place he looked forward to seeing every day after his work was done. Turning the old brass knob he left the world of destruction and chaos behind a barrier made of oak and entered the warmth of family and home inside.

  “Do you want to know something?” he asked with a broad smile. “I never get tired of that smell after a long patrol,” he breathed in deeply as he smelled eggs, bacon and fresh tea brewing on the stove. “It’s the smell of home to me. It’s a little something that we were able to steal from the past and pull it into this place.”

  “It still doesn’t feel right without coffee though, does it, Cowboy?” Niccole kissed his cheek as she helped him with his raincoat. She lovingly rubbed the scruff of his growing beard and hung the heavy coat on the rack behind the door.

  “Coffee? Don’t remind me.” He shook his head as he continued, “How come no one ever talks about the fact that there is no more coffee once the world ends? Not one movie ever managed to work that in.”

  “What about that instant stuff you scavenged from the truck stop out on Route Eighty. It wasn’t too bad with enough cream in it.”

  “That lie living in a glass container? That impostor imposed on the world by some mad scientist? Please don’t call that coffee. That was, well, there is a lady present so let’s just say it was a poor attempt at coffee and it is sacrilege to even give it that name.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “That stuff was bad. Even for the apocalypse it was bad.”

  “We still have just a little bit squirreled away for an emergency. You want me to go ahead and throw it into the compost pile?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

  Dylan sat down at the table and sighed in defeat, “Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Let’s save it for a special occasion, shall we? If whatever we happen to be celebrating is special enough, maybe I won’t notice the horrible aftertaste.”

  Dylan felt something fall against his leg and looked down, “There’s my Little Bear!” He picked the small boy up and gave him a hug as the boy giggled and hugged his father back.

  “Miss you mostest, Daddy!”

  “I missed you too, buddy. Did you have a good sleep?”

  “Good sleep, Daddy!”

  “Daniel sits at the window until he sees you come through the gate. He kept asking how long before ‘Daddy fish taprol’?”

  “Help me out here. I’m still working on my Toddler Speak,” he looked at Niccole with a slightly confused look.

  “He wanted to know how long it would take you to finish your patrol. He has been up for nearly an hour. He was up before the cat this morning.”

  He looked at the smiling face and kissed his son on the cheek, “Patrol is over, buddy. You ready for breakfast?”

  Daniel giggled again and yelled, “Brefass!”

  Dylan put little Daniel into his small, homemade booster seat and sat down across the table from him, “Little Bear sure is growing up fast. I passed Caperson on my way out of the barn. He wanted me to tell you that Jen was going to drop by around lunchtime. She was hoping that Daniel was up for a play date with Annie today. I guess she is talking about starting up a preschool of some sort. We are starting to get quite a few children around town and it’s worth thinking about. I think it’s time that we started thinking about education, reading and writing. All of those basics that we probably shouldn’t lose.”

  “Sounds like a plan. It’s my day to radio sit so it will work great. Erica and Travis are dropping by for dinner. He is bringing over a roast from the elk they got earlier this week.”

  “Has Erica said anything about him asking her to get hitched yet? They are already as good as married and at some point she is going to figure out Travis just isn’t good enough for her,” he winked when he made the comment.

  Niccole put on of show of being angry, “Not good enough for her? The man saved your life, on more than one occasion if I recall correctly.”

  “As long as being the hero involves blowing something up, Travis will be there for me. Of that, there is no doubt.”

  “He knows what he does well and sticks with it. What he does well just happens to be blowing things up most of the time. Thankfully he’s on our side of this little conflict,” she said back with a smile.

  “Let’s hope the days of us blowing stuff up are behind us? As fun as it sounds, I always wind up throwing out my back or landing on something really hard.”

  A somber look drifted over Dylan’s face. They had one more nuclear device locked up in the armory. People around town still spoke in whispers about the day the earth shook as the Corrupted were burned and buried. The explosion underground had vaporized a large void deep underneath Sumter. When the weight of the ground above collapsed downward a massive crater was created on the surface. This round crater was rapidly filled by the Paradise River and was now called Lake Paradise. Doc had kept a close eye on radiation readings and said the lake was now just barely above background levels. The townspeople still couldn’t bring themselves to eat any of the fish that thrived in the murky depths. People in town had no fear of radiation poisoning or anything remotely similar. They took Doc at his word that the levels were safe. What Doc couldn’t tell them was whether or not any of the fish had eaten bits of blown up Corrupted. The thought of eating something that had consumed something as vile as a Corrupted was far more than most palettes could cope with. There had been a brief conversation involving a barrier to prevent the fish in the lake from moving upstream but the few surviving ecowarriors were nearly apoplectic at the suggestion of altering nature in that manner.

  Several boot steps were followed by a soft knock on their front door.

  “Come in,” Dylan said loud enough to be heard, “the door is unlocked!”

  A middle-aged man leaned in, “Sorry to bother you during breakfast, Boss. I wanted to catch you at the barn but I sort of overslept and I didn’t know if you would be taking a nap or not before the work crew this afternoon.”

  “No worries at all, Jeff, come on in. Take your coat off and stay a while,” Dylan said as he waved him over to the table.

  Niccole stood to get a plate out of the kitchen, “Can I get you some breakfast? We’re out of toast but there are still some eggs and a little bacon left.”

  “Sure, that would be great. Thank you.” Jeff sat down at the table but looked very uncomfortable. His eyes moved nervously around the room, anywhere but in the direction of Niccole or Dylan.

  “Is everything all right this morning, Jeff?” Niccole asked from the kitchen, “You seem to be a little distracted.”

  “I wasn’t real comfortable coming to you like this. I’m not really sure how to say it
.” He turned to Dylan, “Boss, I don’t want to cause any trouble, you know? I just want to do my job? Do my part around town but something has really been eating at me and I can’t sit back and do what I was told.”

  Niccole put the plate in front of him and slid over some clean silverware, “We’re all friends here, Jeff. Feel free to speak your mind.”

  “So I have been running something by Sara but she doesn’t think it’s any big deal? Kind of blows me off like I’m just seeing things and yesterday I guess I got a little mad,” he hesitated for a moment, “I wanted to make sure you knew about it. I’m just not the kind of person who could let something like this sit.”

  Sara was the patrol coordinator and kept track of any new sightings or reports. Her primary job was to make sure that the people on the town committee weren’t’ bogged down with reports that didn’t mean anything or have any value to the town.

  “Is there a problem?” Dylan now had an edge of concern. The town had been quiet for nearly six months. They still had the occasional Hunter sighting but they were always either too far away to be of any concern or the patrols were able to dispatch them without the Corrupted getting very close to the town. “Are you two not getting along? I can see about getting you a reassignment of some sort if you would like.”

  “It’s nothing like that, she’s a good commander and I love what I do. I’m damn good at what I do. It’s just that, well, I have been seeing movement in town.”

  “You’ve seen movement? Like animals? Are there Corrupted in town and I’m not getting the report?”

  “No. To be honest I’m not sure what it is. It isn’t Hunters or some loose Sapper. It’s always in the shadows or very difficult to pick out, but I definitely see something down there, something moving.”

  “Nothing of the kind has made its way to me, why not?”

  “That’s just it, Boss. I’m the only one who has seen it. None of the other scouts have seen anything beyond the normal animals and stuff so they think I’m just jumpy or making things up to sound exciting or get attention.”

  Niccole pressed him for more, “Are you saying that out of twenty-eight regular patrols, you are the only one to see anything? No one else has seen this movement and reported it at all? Don’t you think that’s kind of odd?”

  “No, ma’am. Sorry, I mean no, Niccole.” Word had traveled fast around the town that Niccole didn’t like being called ma’am but old habits die hard for some people. Jeff simply stared at his plate as he continued, “It isn’t that they haven’t reported it either, I asked. I even told them where in town I was seeing the movement and no one else has seen a thing. No one but me can see anything down there.”

  “Did you go into town to see?”

  “No way, sir. Everyone knows that is strictly forbidden unless you are in a group. We observe and report and keep as much open area around us as possible. Sara won’t authorize a patrol into town based on what I have reported. She told me that Sumter was off limits to anyone that wants to live. Doc may say it is safe but you can’t see radiation.”

  Dylan smiled at the young man’s statement. They were the exact words Dylan had used when setting up the original patrol schedules. He looked at the man in front of him. Jeff was young, probably in his early thirties. Trim and almost always had a smile on his face, “How long have you been running patrols now?”

  “I was put on patrol just shortly after I got here. I used to hunt a lot not too far south of here so it just made sense. I guess that was almost two years now.”

  “I’m going to talk to Sara and see about getting you some time off. Think that a break would help?”

  “I don’t think it will change what I keep seeing if that is what you are asking. I’m good at what I do and I know what I’m seeing.”

  “I’ll talk to Sara and get it set up. Enjoy your breakfast, you could use a break.”

  “If you say so, Boss.” Jeff continued to stare at his plate. He slowly picked at his food but never really ate anything. He simply pushed it around the plate.

  Dylan wasn’t sure what he should do but he could see that Jeff was tired and needed the break.

  ~1~

  “Knock, knock? Hope I’m not imposing, Niccole. I know I don’t usually pop in on Thursdays,” Jen said as she leaned her head in through the front door. Little Annie raced through the small opening in the door and sat down on the floor in front of Daniel.

  “Not at all, come on in! I could use the company,” Niccole said as she stretched her arms and back. “These dial scans get pretty darn boring sometimes. I never find anything but one static filled channel after another. Even when I do bump into someone on an unexpected channel, it’s usually a township we already know of doing the exact same thing I am.”

  “How often does that happen?”

  “It might happen twice a month. I get pretty excited when it does so the letdown is a little tough. I have a scheduled call at one o’clock this afternoon so that should help break the monotony somewhat.”

  Daniel and Annie laughed as they chased each other around the small cabin. Daniel was making his best sheep sound while Annie was yelling for him to get back into the pen.

  Jen corralled the rogue sheep as he ran by, “All right, you two. Let’s see if we can find something for you two to do that is a little easier on furniture.”

  “And our ears,” Niccole said with a smile.

  Jen finally managed to calm the two children and they got down to the serious business of drawing horses on the small chalk boards she carried around.

  “Can I get you some tea? I always start a new pot when I move from the CB to the UHF. Kind of a habit I’ve picked up.”

  “That sounds really good. Do you have any of that new stuff the O’Malley’s have been trading?”

  “Don’t I wish. I think that is one of the hottest items in town right now.”

  “Chris offered them some of that elk jerky he made last summer but they said they already had more meat than they could store.”

  “Dylan was telling me that they go out pretty far scrounging for things. I guess they get almost out to Pendleton on some of their searches. The whole thing sounds a little too dangerous for my blood.”

  “I’m pretty content on this side of the wall myself. Something about having four meters of rock and lumber between me and the ‘Rupts just gives me a warm fuzzy.” Jen said with a smile. “Did Dylan tell you about my school idea?”

  “He mentioned it but didn’t give me any details.”

  “I’m just thinking we need to stay on top of things like that. We have a lot of kids in the town now and as it stands the only thing they are learning is how to work around town. I was thinking that we should probably worry about things like schooling and education.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Are you thinking a real school?”

  “Nothing big mind you but yeah, a full school where kids could come and learn.”

  “I can’t imagine the council saying no and I’m sure Dylan and Erica could make the building happen easy enough.”

  Jen smiled, “Then I’ll propose it to the council and get the ball rolling.”

  “Tell me when I can sign Daniel up!”

  Jen ‘Whiskey’ Caperson sat on the floor and helped the two children with their letters while Niccole sat at the extensive radio table in the living room. Several dozen cables snaked their way out through the back of the cabin and into a shallow trench that led to the top of the small hill behind the town. There a hastily erected tower bristled with a multitude of various antennas that had been scavenged over the last few years. The entire wall behind the table had a hand drawn map of most of the Pacific Northwest, extending all the way into Western Montana and down south to the Nevada deserts. Circles of various colors indicated townships that still did, or once had, existed. Along the new cities, any major hive sightings were also noted with large black skull and crossbones. To date, Paradise Falls was the only township to survive with a hive so close to the walls. Paradise
Falls was also the only known township to successfully fight back and defeat a hive by completely wiping it off the map.

  Jen had been quietly drawing with the kids for twenty minutes when Niccole’s heavy sigh caught her attention.

  “Is there a problem, Niccole?”

  “I just don’t get it,” Niccole said out loud more to herself than anyone in the room.

  “Don’t get what?” Jen stood to talk to her friend.

  “I’m sorry, Jen. Daniel is usually crashed out on the couch napping by this time so I tend to talk to myself a lot,” she said with a frown. She leaned and put a red mark on a township with the name Hansonville. “Another township just falls off the planet. We were talking the week before last, now nothing. No warnings, no static, no calls for help. Just gone. I don’t understand how they could simply disappear. The ‘Rupts have always done probing attacks first, or something to give them a clue what was coming. A few scouts, maybe a Hunter party or a few Sappers. Either way, we always knew when the big push was not more than a few days away.”

  “Is that who you were expecting to talk with today?”

  “I was hoping they would be there. I figured last week was a fluke of some sort and that they would be back today but, well, nothing. I usually don’t worry if a township misses a week or two. Sometimes the weather can be a bear so the more distant places can’t always be reached. This one isn’t that far away and the weather is almost perfect. They should be there.”

  Jen looked closely at the large map for several minutes. She moved her fingers across the map as she noted the townships with a large, black X through them, “Has the Folkesburg Township noticed anything odd. More scouts than usual, maybe even fewer?”

  “They haven’t mentioned anything different. I don’t know if they would bother to report not seeing anything at all. Why?”