Survivor Response

by Patrick J. Harris

“I’d be a mess if I did.”

  “I figured it was a food allergy issue. My dad had something similar—he’d have to eat vegetables and potato chips at barbecues if all they served was hamburgers. Sucks that your first meal away from the Mill is something you can’t even appreciate.”

  Miles sat on the cab’s running board and ran his hands down his jumpsuit. “It feels so great to be out of there, man. The whole atmosphere of grey pipes and orange lights and constant noise. How the place always smelled of burnt electronics.”

  “It can wear on you, that’s for sure.”

  Miles stared off. “It did.”

  Julian finished his cigarette, put it out with the heel of his foot and swiped it underneath the truck. He bit into a piece of bread, imagining the taste of butter and cinnamon breakfast toast before the Plague.

  “Hey, Julian, can I ask you a question?”

  “Go for it,” he said, mid chew.

  “What got you sent to the Mill?”

  Julian chewed his bread in silence for a moment and looked to the plate. He could give the bullshit answer that landed him in Millers, or he had no proof, but was certain that he was targeted for a different reason. He eyed Miles, who appeared too trusting of a person. How much did he know about Greenport?

  “Before I answer that, what are you in for?”

  “My father said I was too young to work in his business, so I ran drugs and got caught in Foxer for a group that was trying to get in with Nasher.”

  Julian nodded. Miles possessed some idea of what went on. “How long ago was that?”

  “Two years, give or take.”

  Julian coughed on his bread. “Two years? I’ve only been at Millers for three and a half months.”

  “So, what were you in for?”

  “Got stopped with gun in my SUV.”

  “Geez. Plenty of those still around. You made it all the way here, only to get caught with something that got you through the worst part of your life.”

  “Something like that. I never used it though.”

  “Oh? Then how’d you survive?”

  Julian paused. “Hid out mostly, handed out counterfeit cash for goods.”

  Miles’ voice cracked, “What? People still did that?”

  Julian had counterfeited five, ten, and twenty dollar bills before the Plague, staying at his shop into the night. The smaller bills paid for coffee, magazines, or incidentals around town. No one checked Lincoln or Hamilton to see if they were real. Often, for expensive purchases like a new TV or computer, he would drive two or three hours away, check out a rental car for an hour, pay for his new gadget in counterfeit twenties, return the car, and go home with his purchase.

  “Yes, people still do that. It helped during the Plague while I moved from town to town. You look surprised.”

  Miles stood and examined Julian. “But how? Don’t you need ink and paper for that? And electricity? Power plants went down all over the place, and if you didn’t have a generator, you couldn’t turn on a light past sun down.”

  “It’s possible to do it without electricity, but you’re right, it’s hard,” Julian said, rolling the lighter through his fingers. “At first, when things got out of control real fast with hordes growing and devouring cities, and while the lights were still on, I printed a shitload of money. I didn’t have a gun, nor am I some badass green beret. I figured I could buy my way, if needed.”

  “Did that work? Paying people with wads of fake cash?”

  “For a while, at the start, until it got harder to meet people who believed the American dollar was still worth something.”

  “Crazy, right? Water, gas, medicine and whatever scrap of food became money.”

  Julian stopped rolling the lighter, surprised by Miles. “That’s a good summary of how things went. I started buying supplies, stockpiling them in a big ol’ SUV I stole—”

  “Plenty of people did that. Saw some guy jack a Maserati.”

  “A horrible vehicle to steal, not much ground clearance. A joyride, for sure, but hit a decaying zombie or fresh entrails at eighty miles an hour, you’ll spin out, and you’re screwed.”

  “Yeah, probably. Shame you can’t make some cash now. Everything’s chipped or barcoded, like some science fiction future.”

  Julian’s fingers scratched at the pack of cigarettes in his pants pocket, as his body pulsed for one more nicotine snack. “Inside Greenport, yes, cash is digital bits now, linked to your name when you arrive and register at the annex. Outside Greenport, paper currency returned to being worth something. A mob boss in Foxer heard about my skills—”

  “Nasher? You met Clyde Nasher? Like, the King of Foxer?”

  Julian’s connection to Nasher, combined with his printing skills, made him believe the gun charge was a solution to a problem. “I met him once,” Julian said. “Charming, smooth talker, but a bit arrogant, giving people their heroin, meth, dice, and depraved sex as if he were some ghetto Robin Hood.”

  Miles shrugged. “A lot of people in Foxer like him. All the guys I met in the Mill spoke about how he helped them out. Was half his face missing?”

  “It looked burned, or healed as best he could have done during the Plague without skin grafts. Whatever hair he had left, it appeared he shaves it off. If I saw him in a dark alley, I’d brain him, thinking he was a zombie. And maybe he is nice. Anyway, he heard that I could print cash, and he saw that as a way to buy the drugs he smuggled into port.”

  “No shit.”

  “True story.” Julian put another cigarette to his lips and lit it, breaking his own rule. He remembered this morning: He had woken up, prepared to press breadboards for eighteen hours, only to be herded to a small, dank, and mildew-reeking room with twelve other men. A voice, similar to the one that greeted them at the shipping depot, ordered them to change from their manufacturing jumpsuits to the ones designated for drivers. Every few hours, the voice instructed a pair to exit the room. Julian and Miles were the last to leave Millers, and were led to an eighteen wheeler. A screen inside the cab displayed a map to western Greenport’s annex. When they arrived, it was still late afternoon with the sun starting to set, and with no watches or clocks, Julian had lost sense of time of how long they had been sitting in the bay.

  Miles shuffled back and forth in front of Julian with his hands in his pockets. “What do you think we’re doing here?”

  “No idea.”

  “I mean, we get yanked out of bed and assigned to be runners? Usually only one or two guys at a time get assigned to be runners. It feels weird—a dozen of us suddenly get to see the other side of the river, or Greenport for that matter.”

  Julian knew good behavior meant the privilege of getting to drive a city truck, making deliveries. He said, “I’m just here, lucky enough to smoke my cigs outside a razor wire fence.”

  A robotic voice echoed inside the shipping depot, and all twelve men froze and looked around. “Drivers. Please board your vehicles at this time. Your navigation systems will inform you of your destination to deliver your cargo.”

  Miles side-eyed the trailer. “We have cargo? When did it get loaded? Who loaded it?”

  “It probably got loaded while we were eating.”

  “Weren’t you out here the whole time?”

  “No, I hung around inside with you all for a little bit, thinking a pot of milk free food would magically appear.”

  Miles laughed. “Can’t blame you for hoping.”

  “Hop in and check out where we’re going. I’ll be right back.”

  “Got it.”

  Miles walked around the front of the truck as Julian tossed his finished cigarette butt to the ground without stomping it and made his way toward the rear to inspect the cargo. He surveyed the trailer doors looking for the handle to unlatch the locking pin and swing the sheets of white steel open and peer inside. He ran his eyes up and down the doors. No handle, or any mechanism to open the doors appeared fixed on the outside. Where the rear gate met the bottom of the doors, a black
rectangular box with two red LED lights was mounted. Julian traced the box with his fingers and glanced to the back of the other trucks. The pairs of lights on the other two trucks glowed like faces without mouths.

  Julian walked slowly back to the cab, staring at the ground, attempting to make sense of the black box. Whatever sat inside the trailer wasn’t meant to be seen by the drivers, and it could only be opened by someone else, or something else and only at its destination. He tapped his pocket and itched for another cigarette. He decided to save his remaining snacks for later and climbed into the cab.

  “Where’d you go?” Miles said, tapping the touch screen on the dash.

  “I went to check what we’re carrying.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “Nothing. It’s locked by a black box of some sort. I didn’t see any way to get the doors open.”

  “Did you notice that earlier?”

  “Never thought to. This is my first shift as a runner.”

  “That makes two of us,” Miles said, buckling his passenger seatbelt.

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Foxer.”

  “Really?” Julian turned to the screen.

  “Our drop-off point is just across the north bridge, maybe a block into the zone.” Miles pointed to the highlighted route to the bridge taking he and Julian through the northern Greenport zones, the city’s better parts. “And it turns out we’re the last to leave again. The screen says departure time for two hours from now.”

  Julian leaned back into his seat and crossed his arms. “Damn.”

  Flee

  The girl fled into the school’s deserted, overgrown parking lot, squinting in the bright mid-morning sun. A soccer field with knee-high grass and outlined with silver bleachers led to a thicket of trees. Through there, she didn’t know if she’d find more trees or another place to shelter.

  And a trio of ragged zombies roamed the field, staggering in her direction.

  She jogged to the front of the school, where beyond a median of untamed shrubbery stood houses she’d seen in nearly every other neighborhood—squat beige or cream blocks in various states of disrepair. Unmowed lawns, broken windows, wide open front doors. One had a charred black maw from what looked like a kitchen fire. Between herself and the row of houses, however, a stream of zombies flowed through the front doors of the school, while outliers crossed the street to join the flow.

  She could outrun a handful, but could she dodge any of the faster ones?

  A zombie, once a middle aged woman—in yoga pants and a neon yellow sports bra, with grey skin and a blackened hole the size of a fist in her abdomen, kept a steady pace toward the larger crowd. Its head swung loosely with each step. It caught sight of the girl, adjusting the backpack to keep the top rims of the canned food from digging into her back.

  It pivoted towards the parking lot and hissed.

  Other zombies looked around as if signaled to a new source of food and began to follow.

  The girl turned and dashed across the parking lot, ignoring the abandoned vehicles. She was sure they wouldn’t have keys, and she wasn’t sure she could drive any of them safely without wrapping a front end around a light pole. The last vehicle she drove, a yellow Ferrari, stalled out when she didn’t change gears properly.

  At the edge of the field, she slowed. She strafed the grass, her legs kicking through the dense brush. The zombies in the field struggled to adjust their path, called out with garbled rasps. Mayflies and dander clouded the air. Her eyes stung and watered while the dry air sucked her throat dry. She huffed, gagged and coughed, increasing the tears as she trudged through the grass. She held her hand on the water bottle, fighting the urge to gulp a swig of water. She was halfway through the field, and she didn’t know when she’d have fresh water again, and she didn’t trust her coordination to hold the bottle, drink, and—.

  A brittle crack pierced the field and a screech arose when her foot stomped down on the grass. She tumbled to the ground, her foot entangled in the ragged pant legs of an emaciated zombie. Its abdomen was hollowed out and mottled patches of hair hung what little skin remained on its skull.

  The dense grass kept its arms from moving, but did not silence its cries.

  She struggled to rise, but the water bottle pulled to her left and the over-loaded backpack pulling to her right. She batted at the grass with her forearms and sought to find her balance while still progressing towards the thicket of woods. The trio of zombies were closer, perhaps ten to fifteen feet, their arms extended and their voices snarling. She ignored the loose grit matted against her cheek and pumped her thighs, wading through the field, cautious of any other hidden bodies in unseen grassy depths.

  One of the three zombies, a black man in overalls with an embroidered name she couldn't read, stumbled, creating a plume of dust and bugs. She neared the end of the field, where no net hung between the goal posts. The the cans of food clunked and plunked with each hurried step while the snarls and rasps of the zombies continued at a distant pitch.

  She strode below the crossbar and neared the woods. At the edge of the field, a green, wooden fence rose to her chest. She slid the backpack off and lowered it to the other side, taking care as to not damage the laptop inside and lose her security blanket of solitaire games. She rubbed the sweat and grime off her hands against her jeans and gripped the top of the fence. With a grunt, she sprang and slammed her chest against the wood and tumbled back, gasping for air.

  She forced herself up, stomped at the grass, ignoring the oncoming zombies.

  She inhaled three deep breaths before sprinting and leaping towards the fence.

  Her waist caught the top of the fence, and she doubled over. Her head landed on a blunt rock amid the forest floor. She cried out as the rest of her body rolled to a stop. Her head stung and felt warm and wet. Dead leaves and twigs pricked her arms.

  A pair of thuds broke from the wall as the pair of dead collided to a stop. A third, the zombie in the sports bra, joined them. They raged and flailed their arms, as she shrugged of the debris and collected her bag.

  She walked into the woods and gingerly touched where her forehead met her red hairline. Blood seeped from a small gash.

  Chapter 6

  On Alan’s office monitor, the recently promoted runners ate the stroganoff he provided. He clicked over to view a skeleton crew of city employees loading pine coffins into the trailers of the eighteen wheelers. Two forklifts drove from one end of the annex to the parked trucks, placing four boxes to each trailer, while two other employees cranked tie-downs to the beds’ floors to prevent the boxes from shifting. Once a truck was loaded and its cargo secured, an employee would then close the doors and place the remote lock at the doors’ base.

  Alan devised the lock, needing a mechanism to lock the cargo doors on a trailer for its transit, and to prevent his new drivers from inspecting their shipment. Plus, he needed to remotely open the doors once the trucks reached their destination. The drivers wouldn’t be needed once they arrived to their drop points at the roads that led to and from Foxer.

  Nor did he expect them to live thereafter.

  He clicked his keyboard and the video shifted back to the group of men eating their last meal. They scooped the beef stroganoff by the bowlful, no doubt excited for a meal better than the synthetic food supplements doled out in the Mill. He eyed the twelve men promoted this morning to Greenport drivers, sacrifices in a greater strategy to find and kill Clyde Nasher.

  Nasher had eluded Alan’s network of cameras and sensors for three years, running Greenport’s underworld of drugs and crime. For as long as Alan served as city manager, Nasher peddled meth, cocaine, heroin, marijuana—a pharmacist’s delight of pills, everything found before the Plague. Anything illegal grown outside the city’s walls was identified and burned upon discovery. Alan had ordered a raid on a suburban house in west Greenport when electricity usage spiked in a span of two days. Greenport police dismantled portable ultra violet lights and doused the
indoor marijuana garden with herbicide. Inventory and sales for all goods in the city’s limits were tracked and data mined in real time, and the aggregated data reported which citizens potentially cooked meth by analyzing their purchases.

  What Alan couldn’t predict was the illegal trade coming in and out of the port on the river. Alan would install cameras and sensors within the shipyard, only to have them destroyed within days. And like Sisyphus’s futile endeavors, Alan would install more. Four months ago, Alan deployed quadcopter drones to surveil the area, only to watch their video feeds turn to snow. The police never found the drones.

  Tonight, Alan would test a series of new drones, twenty-four in all, now resting inside six trailers, in order to find Nasher. He rose from his desk and exited his office. Sophie commanded the city’s controls the way he had taught her and inspected the broad array of systems and their reports, determining anything out of the ordinary. Her fingers traversed her keyboard as the row of monitors rotated through the annex video feeds. Rather than interrupting her, Alan turned down the hall and out the exit.

  Outside, the last of the third shift of ZMTs left the ambulance depot and drove into the night. A cold air swept across the headquarters’ grounds as Alan strode toward his lab. He waved his ID in front of the badge reader and entered. When Alan fortified the administrative complex, he ordered the remodeling of a small hospital to serve as his personal laboratory, his own personal playground, which he designated a research facility.

  Inside, at the end of a long corridor flanked with doors, he regularly spent hours coding at a keyboard, constructing algorithms to mine greater facets of intelligence out of everything he collected. Electronic components, chips, boards, and wires covered the building’s entire left wall. Prototypes for drones in various states of assemblage hung along the right.

  In the back was a clear cage, the size of a walk-in closet, made of three-inch-thick glass, the kind installed at teller windows of banks. It rose from the floor to the ceiling nine feet high. An air gapped antechamber similar to biological research labs extended the glass outward four feet, sealed with a steel door. Along the perimeter, dried streaks of blood and yellow bile chaotically encrusted the enclosure.