Survivor Response

by Patrick J. Harris

  “Where at?”

  “Jesus Christ! Hell if I know. I take it you’re just as clueless at me?”

  “You seem to know a little more.”

  “Because driving a semi with a zombie riding shotgun is knowing more. Where were you supposed to pick me up?”

  “I was supposed to stop you a few blocks from the bridge, before you crossed,” Bobby said.

  “And do what? Pistol whip me and shove me in an SUV with dumbass over here?” Julian thumbed to Paul.

  “Paul’s not—Paul wasn’t part of this. It seems you got delayed.”

  “You could say that,” Julian said.

  “And then when I saw,” Bobby held up a turned-off GPS unit, “it was your semi, Julian, that crashed in Belleville, well, I had to go and get you instead. And what a cluster fuck that was.”

  “Okay, ignoring the cluster fuck for a moment,” Julian said, “why were you supposed to stop me and take me across? And the other guy, Miles?”

  Bobby flexed his right hand on the steering wheel, “I’m to take you to Nasher.”

  “Aww, geez,” Julian said, slumping into the seat and covering his face.

  Paul sat up, alert. “Nasher? How do you know Nasher?” He paused, recalling Bobby saying he had taken an extra job after his ZMT shifts. But Nasher didn’t live in Creedy. “Bobby. Are you working for Nasher?”

  Bobby stayed silent, focused on the road, and weaved around two cars.

  Paul knew of Nasher. ZMTs would receive bulletins before their shifts of his recent activities across the bridge, urging crews to report any sightings of a severely burned man with no hair or eyebrows, six foot five, and two hundred and thirty pounds. Nasher ran the city’s underground and its racketeering, and often employed city employees. Paul thought back to their patrols through Foxer, and recalled Bobby knowing his way around, which alleys to cut through, which corner stores that would offer more than just a free cup of coffee. Paul attributed the perks to a combination of Bobby’s gregarious blue collar charm—chatty, playful and friendly, and people’s reverence to the city’s service and law enforcement—grateful for doing a dangerous job. He never stopped to think it was due to Bobby having found his way connected to Greenport’s crime syndicate.

  “You’re working for Nasher, aren’t you?” Paul said, resigned, still processing the implications.

  “Yes,” Bobby said, barely audible.

  “Why?” Paul said.

  “Does it matter? What does it matter?” Bobby answered, raising his voice. “I run around the city, after I do my shifts, for a few hours and get some money out of it. All I do is pick up packages and deliver them. No one gets hurt.”

  Julian objected, his voice bursting. “I’m a package. That’s rich.”

  “In a sense, yes, you are. Second person I’ve had to pick up, but same difference. I pick something up, put it in my car, and deliver it to where I’m told to go.”

  Paul shook his head in disbelief. “You know, Alan’s been looking to bust Nasher for months. The guy’s practically manic in his search to get at him. If he catches you, or someone tips him off, you’re done.”

  “Alan’s smart, but he’s a dick, Paul. A blind one.” Bobby said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve heard rumors that he treats people like shit, for one, and well, somehow I got info on where to grab Julian.”

  Julian stared out the window and rapped his fingers on his knee. “He’s got someone on the inside. That what you’re saying? Nasher did like playing things differently.”

  “No other way I can think of,” Bobby said. “All my instructions come very detailed with routes and times. I was to grab Julian at all costs, and get Miles if I could, too. It was mentioned he was someone’s kid.”

  “So you sold out for cash, is that it?” Paul said.

  “Selling out’s a bit dramatic. Earning extra cash, yeah, but giving up on the city no, not exactly. Speaking of cash, Julian, how long were you able to make the fake money last?”

  Julian kept his voice low, even, still staring out the window watching the city blocks grow thinner. They were nearing the bridge to cross the river to Foxer. More leveled buildings and empty lots spanned like an urban graveyard. Paul guessed Julian knew why he was returning to visit Nasher. “Long enough to get enough to survive.”

  “Knowing full well that the people you traded the play money with wouldn’t know, and more than likely would get killed because of it. It wouldn’t get them a pig’s trough of garbage.”

  “No one knew how long the outbreak would last,” Julian said. “We were still getting government reports, CDC, WHO people saying they could contain it. I wagered differently.”

  “Bet enough. How much did you bet to get water, fuel, guns, supplies?”

  “Quarter million before the electrical grid went down and people were scrambling for supplies. After that, the money quickly became worthless, so maybe twenty-five grand to greedy assholes with guns. The rest, I used it for kindling when it got cold.”

  “A quarter million dollars,” Paul said in disbelief. “Jesus.”

  “I had more,” Julian said, with bitter pride. “Stashed around the three cities I had shops in. I drove around, spent what I could from each stash in that area, and locked it in storage units. The outbreak spread faster than I could plan to spend and store it. I did manage to hire someone to store a drop shipment of supplies for me in Cleveland.”

  Paul remembered living like everyone else who wagered in the faith that the government would contain the outbreak. Get up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, live life and hope the horrors stayed far away in TV footage or a newspaper article. As the outbreak grew, well-lit news conferences of white coat doctors reading prepared statements behind podiums clashed with pixelated grey sludge of video clips posted on internet social networks. Bloody screams and flash mobs of ravenous dead dropped onto an already fearful public, and turned Facebook and Twitter into a hysterical mob with a megaphone. For Paul, his sister and father, they left home when the emergency room in Asheville, North Carolina became a viral thirty-two second loop of a woman laying on a gurney gnawing on the neck of a nurse in mint green scrubs. The nurse flailed her arms to push the woman away as a doctor and orderly pulled her away. The nurse fell to the ground, clutching her crimson soaked trachea, as the woman clawed at the doctor and lunged at the orderly’s neck. In twenty-four hours, the ER would be overrun with the dead, and within a week, the scene would be replayed with different people. Instead of a woman attacking a nurse, it would be a man devouring a priest or a convenience store clerk too scared to turn the safety off his pistol.

  Paul’s father packed the entire pantry, a cooler full of meat and a butane camping stove in the bed of their red F-150. He and his sister were told to pack one medium-size duffle bag, enough clothes for a week-long trip to their aunt’s house in central Louisiana. Knick knacks and collectibles and keepsakes of their mother would be left behind. Before leaving Asheville, they stopped to purchase a camper top for the truck. The dealer, his belt pulled too tight around his weight as his gut spilled over, stretching his denim shirt, sensed the family’s flight out of town, had wanted payment in food and water. They left, trading the man a case of twelve bottles of water, four cans of beans and two steaks.

  Paul eyed Julian, judging his shrewdness. While deceitful, he was clever. His shrewdness had allowed him to survive, quiet and unassuming. “Nasher wants you to make him money then, right? Literally make him paper money. That’s why he sent Bobby to get you.”

  “That’s likely,” Julian said, still watching the streets pass. “Paper money’s still good for things now that things are back to normal. Well, somewhat normal.”

  “Things Nasher needs to keep in business.”

  “You got it,” Julian said, turning to Paul.

  “The counterfeit money won’t work for too long,” said Paul.

  “Man, it works. You know why? The Secret Service doesn’t exist any more, or if they
do, tracking down fake money may be a lower priority than protecting what resembles a branch of government. And, the cash isn’t capable of being tracked, like the new system of credit dollars. Cash, it’s like a black hole of managerial accounting. You throw paper into it, you know it went there, and you never see it again. But this black hole is magic—you get something else, off the books.”

  “Are you really that good?”

  “Feds never caught me.”

  “Then how’d you end up the Mill?”

  “Something stupid.”

  “What was that?”

  Julian considered Paul’s face. “It must be nice to feel so assured of the moral high ground.”

  “I guess you really did do something stupid.”

  “I still kept a gun, from my travels. I had it in my trunk. It got stolen and traced back to me.”

  Bobby reacted. “How?”

  “Everybody gets fingerprinted when they come into the city. My prints were found on the gun.”

  Paul and Bobby both shifted in their seats and shook their heads.

  “I know, stupid,” Julian said. “I’d only been in the city six months, and I guess I forgot about it. Going from needing it every hour of the day made it hard to part with. I didn’t know what to expect in Greenport. I still expected to have to fight off the dead before I got a cup of coffee. Didn’t know what ZMTs were, like paramedic SWAT cops, man, allowing me to get a cup of coffee without looking over my shoulder. Once I got used to that—” He shook his head. “I forgot about the damn gun.”

  Paul laughed. “SWAT cops? That’s a new way to describe us.”

  Bobby shrugged. “It fits doesn’t it?”

  “Wait, you’re both ZMTs?”

  “Yes,” Paul said.

  “But only he,” Julian said, pointing to Bobby, “Is working for Nasher?”

  Paul clenched his teeth. “Yes.”

  “This won’t go down well with Nasher. You know that, right?” Julian said, tapping the back of Bobby’s seat. “You’re either paying him, working for him, or you don’t exist. Don’t exist also means—dead.”

  They approached the bridge. It spanned roughly half a mile of steady water, floating barges, and freight ships. Scorch marks scarred the concrete pavement from the burned out cars or makeshift bonfires to prevent zombies from trudging into the city at night. Potholes still speckled the road. Crude sheets of steel and iron reinforced the bridge’s ascending struts.

  Across the bridge stood the district of Foxer, gray, brown, umber yellow and covered in grime. Artificially bright streaks of neon lined the riverfront, welcoming all who crossed into a smorgasbord of vice. Gambling, craps, poker, blackjack, roulette, mingled with heavily mixed cocktails. Food of gluttonous portions were served by a person dressed to titillate any sexual preference. Beyond the riverfront, sin and vice moved in the shadows like a cockroaches—when you did see one, there were more, no matter how much you try to control them with pesticide.

  Bobby eased off the gas. Every pot hole vibrated through the inside.

  “That looks like one of the trucks I was driving,” Julian said.

  A cobalt blue tractor-trailer truck sat parked askew on the right shoulder twenty yards past the bridge. The back doors to the trailer hung from their hinges while the truck’s taillights glowed bright red and spots of day glow orange glistened from the frame of the cab. Shadows moved across the white light escaping the cab.

  “What was in the trailer?” Bobby asked.

  “Not a clue. Nor do I want to. Let’s just get to Nasher’s place and call it a night, okay? I hope you know where he’s at, because I don’t,” Julian said, leaning forward for a better view of the parked truck.

  “That’s my plan, and yes, I do know where we’re going. It’s only a few blocks off the—”

  A distant pop erupted and two hollow, metallic thumps hit the car. All three men startled and looked around for the source of the noise. The back window crackled, punctured, a bullet embedding in the back seat.

  “Go! Go!” Paul said with Julian crouched and each covering their heads.

  Bobby slammed his foot down on the accelerator and lowered his head below the steering wheel. A bullet blew out the front right tire, and Bobby swerved to the right, colliding into the trailer to a dead, rattling stop.

  Chapter 13

  Alan watched the monitor feeds, entranced as two of his drones slaughtered the ZMT crew in front of a clothing store, stole the crew’s weapons, and ran in pursuit of the beat-up SUV. He smiled. They really fucking worked. His creations worked in the streets, networked to a subnet of Greenport’s wireless infrastructure. Instinctively, they moved, kicked, dodged, obeyed exactly as he designed them. Although he’d have to send out a small update to the drones’ routines to protect their faceplates and helmets from direct gunfire.

  For now, he watched his own action movie, the remote zombies fleeing Belleville. The video feed shook and bounced with each passing building. Occasionally, a head would jerk to headlights and zigzagging cars.

  Alan requested Sophie track the escaping SUV and approximate a destination. Judging by the turns to an eastward direction, Sophie guessed it would most likely be headed to Foxer. She switched to the city’s closed circuit televisions to follow the vehicle. A duo of monitors displayed the car’s movement. One at the oncoming end of the street received the glare of the headlights, and the other high on an opposite street corner to catch which way the car turned, if at all. The car would be limited by Greenport’s roadways and traffic.

  His drones, however, didn’t need to adhere to where the streets could go. They scaled buildings and jumped rooftops and cut through alleyways and hustled across dilapidated lots. Not quite as the crow flies, but a more direct route to the bridge than Julian’s abductors could drive.

  Alan’s phone buzzed, breaking his concentration from the first-person thrill ride playing out on the screens. He dug the phone out from his pocket—the screen read “Actress.” He was surprised it took her this long to call. Her socialite tendencies made her well connected to people all across Greenport, particularly the city’s arts district, where she frequented.

  He pressed the green accept button.

  “Alan: What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On.”

  Alan pictured her stone faced and leaning forward with her hand rising and falling to the beat of her words for dramatic effect. “We’re still working on the details, but it appears a supply truck crashed, despite knowing that trucks are not allowed through Belleville.”

  “More than that,” Caroline said. “Four men dressed in black fatigues rampaged down the street. Two are dead, but the two that didn’t get killed, murdered a ZMT crew point blank. I mean, one of them lived—a girl. But point blank just fucking killed them.”

  No doubt Caroline’s hands were waving about. Alan watched the surviving ZMT wheeled away on the monitor, strapped to a stretcher with a brace on her neck and a splint on a grotesquely broken leg.

  “I’ve ordered a police crew to find them,” he lied.

  In fact, Sophie had been intercepting calls to Greenport’s call center and routing them to an automated artificial intelligence bot. The only call that went through came in via the city’s administrative portal by Karen. After that request for emergency services, he directed Sophie to reroute any voice calls and block any transmissions for additional service.

  Caroline exhaled hard. “Everyone down here is in a panic, Alan. Apparently, there was some kind of getaway car. I don’t really know. I was down here visiting in a friend’s loft for drinks when all this started. Shortly after the crash, my phone blew up. It’s still buzzing right this very moment with all the texts I’m getting. Jesus, this is— is— a mess.”

  Alan let her vent. He found it best to let her talk her emotions out until she tired, and then he could commandeer the conversation. “Yes, it is, and we’ll clean it up.”

  “Alan, lots of people are scared. Are we being attacked? Why would our own citizens be attacked?
Greenport prides itself on being safe, and this is not safe. Just, what do we do, Alan? Do you need me to make a message? We could broadcast it shortly. I can come into Central to do it.”

  Right now, Alan surmised, not many people knew of the incident in Belleville, nor of his drones that he could control. They were all coming online in Foxer to hunt down Clyde Nasher, and he still needed to take Foxer’s communication grid down for “scheduled maintenance.” But the story would flow regardless of what he did; he needed to minimize its impact. Uncontrolled information bred rumors and disorder.

  “Alan? Alan, are you listening to me? What do we do?” Caroline said.

  “Yes, I am. Just pondering your suggestion about the message.”

  “Do you think it’ll work, to keep people calm?”

  “It could. We’d have to get you the script to read, quickly. I’m not sure who’s around that can write.”

  Alan looked up from his keyboard to the video monitors. On the screen, Karen stood with her hands on her hips, watching a stretcher folded into a ZMT truck. On the stretcher lay two of his remote drones. Faintly, barely distinguishable from shadows, the exposed, plated hand dangled freely. The bodies bounced as the cart went in and an emaciated face rubbed against the other remote zombie’s helmet.

  “Alan?”

  “Caroline, I need to go.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Just sit tight, and I’ll call you back.”

  “Should I come in?”

  “I’ll call you back, Caroline,” and he hung up.

  “Sophie, play back the cameras that follow that stretcher.” Alan needed to know how the glove came off and who saw. The plates reinforcing the finger bones would make someone curious enough to question, but the electrodes attached on the skull, tracing back to the neck, let alone the ferro electric skin that controlled the muscles...

  “Fuck,” Alan said with a growl.

  The video displays pictured a young, elvish-looking ZMT cutting away at the glove, pinching each finger. With the glove removed, he ran his own fingers across the mesh skin. Karen came into view. A fire fighter assisted in removing the helmet.