THE TRASHMAN

by Terry McDonald

  “I brought your things from the jeep. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m ready for a shower, too, and I’m starved. You should eat, too. Can you believe they cooked roast beef? It’s real, from frozen.”

  She left. Doctor Van was still standing. “You may want to hold off eating until I examine you.”

  “You want me to lie down?”

  “Not here. No. Please follow me to the Medical unit. Major Allen told me about your gunshot wound, I’m concerned about the reoccurrence of infection and about your continued use of antibiotics.”

  I followed him to another building. Inside the infirmary, he greeted a tall, blonde haired woman dressed in blue scrubs. Several of the former slave women and some children were in the reception area being examined by four other nurses in blue.

  “Nurse Mays, this is Major Olmsted, the gentleman responsible for our early start today. I’m taking him to pre-op three.”

  Nurse Mays reached to shake my hand. “It may be early, but it’s good work. Physically, these women and children are mostly in fine shape. Emotionally, they’re wrecks. I think Pastor Watts can do more for them than we can.”

  The doctor said, “Triage and send him only the worst cases. Last I saw of Pastor Watts, he was overwhelmed with distraught children.”

  Doctor Van led me to an examining room. “Strip to your skivvies and let’s have a look at your side.”

  I began unbuttoning my shirt. “Where did you and the nurses come from? I mean, how did you arrive here?”

  “From Valdosta. Sergeant Chester and Corporal Salvo discovered us and arranged transportation.

  “A small gang with big guns came to the hospital. One of their men was shot. They arrived and then decided to stay. Our drugs, my nurses to rape. Robbing, raping, and killing people who came to the clinic needing help. They thought they had it made.

  “Unknown to us, Carl and Salvo were observing the goings on. They caught the gang eating in our cafeteria and killed them all.” The doctor paused to smile. “Made a mess in the mess hall you might say.”

  Stripped to my underwear, he had me lie on the exam table. The tape holding the gauze in place tugged at my skin, causing me to wince.

  He dropped my bandage into the trashcan. “It’s definitely infected.” He used his fingers to prod the area. I was almost in tears by the time he stopped. Then he used a syringe to draw fluid from the wound. Using a swab, he expressed a dab of the fluid and sniffed it.

  “Here’s what’s happened. The bullet nicked a section of intestine. I’m going to open it up and take a look.”

  I had to admit I would be glad to have a professional treat me. “When?”

  “Right now. If you’ll just rest here, I’ll have nurse Mays come in and prep you.”

  “Will you put me to sleep?”

  “In a normal setting I would, but it’ll be local anesthetic. I’ll have her remove the tape from your head and clean that wound. If it needs stitches you may as well get them, too.”

  The next hour was not a fun time. My intestine was involved. The doc told me I was lucky the section adhered to my abdominal wall and wasn’t leaking into my cavity. Three stitches in my gut. Eight stitches to close the slit he made to access it and then three stitches to close my forehead.

  I fell asleep during the sewing on my head and that was where I woke up several hours later, still on the examining table. Someone had raised the rails to keep me from rolling off.

  Not long after awakening, a nurse opened the door to look in.

  “You’re awake, I’ll get nurse Mays.”

  Nurse Mays looked tired. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine. How long before I can walk around? I need to visit the men’s room.”

  “The sooner you’re on your feet, the better. You’ll be a little stiff for a few days and you’ll need to avoid any activity the puts a strain on your abdomen, but walking and normal activity will speed your healing.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Just past 1:00 p.m. Lunch is still being served in the mess hall, if you’re hungry.”

  Suddenly, I was. I went to stand, but my side wasn’t ready for that. “Thank you nurse Mays. If you’d help me to my feet, I’ll be able to handle it from there.”

  This was the first time I had seen the mess hall. Before, William, Carl, and I had dined in the officers’ mess. This room could easily sit fifty people at a time. I stood for a moment and surveyed the room looking for familiar faces. I saw Pastor Watts and Sarah Hawkins together at a table near the front. Sarah noticed me, waved, and then pointed to an empty chair.

  I went to the service line. Betty, the chubby teen I’d met was behind the counter.

  “Hi, Betty, did you find out if the little boy’s name is Bobby?”

  “It’s David. He’s with another lady now. A black lady’s taking care of him. He seems to really like her.”

  “It’s good to know he’s with someone who cares about him. What’s on the menu?”

  “Beef and potato hash.”

  I went along the service counter pointing to foods in warming trays. Betty loaded my plate. As I went to Sarah and Pastor Watts’s table, I saw many faces from the pastor’s group, and from the Village whom I recognized but didn’t have names for.

  Sarah waved me into a chair. “Pastor Watts, this is the man who found the cure for the plague. His cure is a rough one, though. You have to get sick on purpose and then you can be cured. I mean you get really sick. There for a while, the way me and Salvo and his boy were coughing I was sure his antibiotic cure was failing. It did fail poor Mercedes.”

  Pastor Watts said, “The Lord surely does work in his own way. He put a miracle in this man’s hands, but He had to recognize the Lord’s blessing on his own. Praise God.”

  I echoed his sentiment, “Praise God. I wish he’d blessed me a bit earlier so I could have saved my loved ones, but I’m glad to see it worked for you and Salvo, Missus Hawkins.”

  The pastor said, “You sent us to a good place. The major has a good, altruistic soul. He agreed to the use of the chapel as long as I kept my service nondenominational. I’ve no problem with that. I hope to see you at service tomorrow.”

  “Is tomorrow Sunday? I’ve totally lost track.”

  “It is.”

  “You know Salvo joined the Guard? The poor man is so torn up and confused… Bitter since Mercedes died,” Missus Hawkins said.

  “I’d say most of humanity is confused and bitter. I know I am.” I changed the subject. “Salvo and Carl seem to have been busy. I met the doctor and nurses they brought from Valdosta.”

  Missus Hawkins laid her fork on her empty tray. “They’ve brought in other survivors, too. There are nearly a hundred people here now. Major Allen said when we have enough trained Guardsmen, we’ll have to start expanding to the homes outside the fence.” She stood, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the nursery. Most of the women adopting the children have never mothered before. They have a lot to learn. I and a couple of women from the Pastor’s group are teaching basic parenting skills.”

  Pastor Watts was finished eating, too, but he wasn’t finished talking.

  “Ralph, do you believe in God?”

  I didn’t like him asking. “My beliefs are private.”

  “I understand. It was rhetorical anyway. You know, all my life I’ve been involved with the church. My father and grandfather were lay preachers. Up until the plague, I burned with the flame of the lord. I think the flame has burned out. This wasn’t the rapture.”

  “You’re right about that. Look Pastor Watts, I know it’s hard to hang onto faith when faced with the horror that’s come our way. I know I have doubts.”

  “I’m beyond doubt. Since I arrived here at this place and my thoughts can be given to something other than surviving, I’ve taken a closer look at the concept of religion. I’m not going to say words to sway your belief, but I’ve come to the conclusion I still have a role to play in this game of life, but not in a truly biblical
sense. No more heaven and hell, I’ll espouse only the humanistic values to be found in the scripture. I’ll not use fear ever again.”

  I stood to leave. “Pastor Watts, I don’t know what place religion should have in this… in this... Forgive me, in this fucked up mess we call life. I will say I can find no fault in what you said to me. No one should fear God. Teach love.”

  I found William in the control room. His eyes were not on the monitors and the persistent dark circles under his eyes had shrunk to barely noticeable.

  “You’re looking well, William. Not so tired.”

  He pointed to a surveillance monitor showing Carl talking to a circle of men dressed in BDUs. “No more, twelve on and twelve off, we’ve got men to stand watch.”

  “Are you and Carl still determined to start a town?”

  “Yes, more than ever now that we see the possibility of gathering enough decent people to populate it. We’re considering names. Personally, I’m leaning toward New Hope. Carl favors Elysium.”

  “I’m for New Hope,” I said. “More than anything else, hope is what’s needed.”

  “You did some good work, Ralph. Your first day on the mission, actually within an hour, you sent us people. Then the Pastor arrived with his flock and now you’ve added more. The children you brought are more precious than gold.”

  “Thank you, William.”

  “What’s next for you?”

  “I want out of here. Being around people, having to have conversations… I simply can’t handle it. I reckon I’ll head back to the Smokies and finish what I started and then I’ll go about finding more people to send your way.”

  William heard my statement and grimaced. “I knew you probably wouldn’t stick. Ralph, the truth, how do you handle the killing? How is it affecting you?”

  “The truth. In the beginning, the first time I shot a man, I thought of him as a man, a fellow human, and I could feel for him. Now that I’ve seen the harm that bad people can do, it’s like a job that has to be done. Evil people are like broken parts, empty cans, broken shards of glass that need to be disposed of. Once you throw away trash, you never think about it again.

  “I’ll tell you what does affect me. A young dead couple on the road, the husband gunned down, the wife raped and then murdered. Young girls used as sex objects and forced to be servants. A metal cage full of men, women and children, left for days to starve, to wallow in their own shit and piss while they wait for their executioners.

  “Not too long ago I looked through a window and saw a man cooking stew. In the back bedroom lay a woman, tied naked spread-eagle to the bedposts, beaten so badly that her nose lay flat against her cheek.

  “I used to be Ralph Olmstead, and I worked with computers. Now I’m ‘The Trashman’ and I’m running behind on my job.”

  *****

  The next few days, while waiting for Doctor Van to release me for duty, cemented my resolve to leave. The early camaraderie with William and Carl was at an end. William, though freed from the grueling duty of standing guard twelve hours each day, now found his time consumed by the administrative morass of shaping a growing number of people into a viable community. The fact that many of the newcomers were joining the Guard, thus shifting responsibility for them over to Carl, did go a long way in reducing the load. It is much easier to issue orders to people than to reason with them.

  Carl had his hands full training the raw recruits. Add in the fact he had a new best friend, a retired marine sergeant he and Salvo had found down in Valdosta.

  Gunny Sergeant McClung had taken on the responsibility of protecting three survivors, two women and a seven-year-old boy. He, and the three he’d taken under his wing had avoided exposure to the virus. One of the women didn’t survive the antibiotic cure.

  For five days, I aimlessly wandered the grounds and buildings of the depot. A man I didn’t know, a newly appointed supply clerk named, PFC Jones, an insurance salesman in his previous life, took me on a tour of the underground storage bunkers.

  At the entrance to a small, concrete-block building, he entered the pass-code for an electronic door lock. I heard a click and the steel door slid aside into the wall. The building housed a freight elevator.

  Jones began speaking as the door slid closed. “There are two levels. Level one is everything but armament, food, clothing, and etcetera. Level two is weapons and ammo. I’ve only been here at the Armory for a week and I don’t know much about the weapons. I’m studying the material… the manuals. But It’ll take me a year to learn all the stuff in them. There are over two thousand individual files on the computer down there.”

  “I can imagine. How did you come to be at the Armory?”

  “Salvo and Carl caught me looting a convenience store over near I-75. I thought I was dead for sure. They’re some mean looking ‘mothers’ in full military gear. Found out they’re two of the nicest guys you can meet as long as you’re a decent sort. On the way back here, two guys had a two-lane road blocked with a dump truck. Carl, he was driving, went to back up. Another dump pulled in behind us to block that way, too.”

  “Boxed ya’ll in,” I said. The elevator had stopped on the first level and the door had been open for some time. I motioned for him to lead the way.

  Jones stepped though into a large, open bay. Several electric powered forklifts were lined up at charging stations, ready for use. There were also two golf carts. I moved to be beside him.

  “Yeah, we were boxed, but not for long. Carl and Salvo were like machines. Carl said, “On three. I’ll take the front.” On three, they left the front seats of the jeep. Four shots and all the ambushers were dead. One of them did fire a round though. It came right through the windshield and out the back glass. It couldn’t have missed me by more than an inch.”

  Listening to his tale, I settled into the passenger’s seat of the golf cart.

  “Carl saw the holes in the glass, and said, “Next time there’s a firefight it might behoove you to grab some floorboard.”

  Jones had begun driving, pulling into a random aisle between steel shelving racks of the sort you’d find at a lumber supply. The aisle was long.

  I asked him, “How big is this place?”

  “About half the size as the Depot grounds, a little under five acres. From what I understand, Moody air base down near Valdosta was the base for an airmobile combat rescue squadron. This depot was one of Moody’s main places to warehouse stuff. Besides food, and clothing and such, there’s a tremendous amount of medical supplies housed on this level.”

  I eyed the pallets of canned goods stacked to the ceiling which had to be twenty-feet high. “And the second level’s as big as this one?”

  We’d reached the end of the aisle and Jones went around the end to enter another one going back in the direction we’d come from.

  “Yep, just as big. There has to be enough rifles, pistols, rockets, and grenades to outfit a small army for years to come. William… Major Allen wants to send a team to Moody to secure the choppers and stuff there, but we don’t have enough men.”

  We arrived back at the parking area for the cart.

  “If you want to see the lower level I’ll have to call for authorization.”

  “I don’t see a need, but I do need to get up-top. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”

  As we approached the elevator door, it opened, and several women led by Sarah Hawkins, exited. Stephanie was with them. She waited until we got there. I asked Jones for a minute and he continued to the elevator to give us privacy.

  “How are you doing, Ralph? You look a lot better. I don’t think the cut on your forehead will leave much of a scar.”

  I smiled and gave her shoulder a pat. “I give credit to Doctor Van for that. You’re looking better, too. I’m glad to see a smile on your face.”

  “I’ve got plenty to smile about. You know Delores, the Nigerian nurse with Doctor Van?”

  “I didn’t know her name, but I know who you mean.”

  “Well she and I
have a thing, you know. I mean, with men I can’t seem…”

  I knew what she was trying to say. “You like her a lot, huh?”

  “Oh God, yes.” She seemed relieved I’d taken command of the conversation.

  “What are you all doing down here?” I asked.

  “I’ve been assigned, volunteered actually to work with Missus Hawkins. We’re down here to assess our needs to set up a knowledge depository. This Depot and ultimately the town will be dedicated to preserving computers and tablets, even I-phones. Books, too.”

  I didn’t tell her I was the source of that theme. “Speaking of Doctor Van, I’ve an appointment with him in thirty minutes. Want me to say ‘hi’ from you if I see Delores?”

  Stephanie blushed. “No. Look, she wants to keep our relationship on the down low for now. I shouldn’t have told anyone, but I couldn’t help myself.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “Thanks.” She took a few steps and then turned to say a few words before joining the other women, “Ralph, you’re different from most men. If you were younger I think I could have went for you.”

  I was only a few minutes with Doctor Van. With a warning to not over-do-it, he released me to active duty. I left his office feeling light on my feet and ready to go. I did see Nurse Delores and because of my conversation with Stephanie, I noticed her in a different way. She was tall and thin. Her hair was short cropped to a burr cut and her face was long and narrow. She couldn’t be called beautiful in the common sense, but she was striking in an exotic fashion, like a runway model.

  Walking from the clinic to find William, I got to thinking how I hadn’t thought about sex, hadn’t really looked at a woman ever since Becky died.

  Thinking farther along that line, I realized I knew nothing about any of the people I’d sent here and could only recognize the faces of people I’d interacted with, people like Stephanie and Pastor Watts and the plump girl, Betty. These thoughts led me to the possibility I might be having some sort of mental problem. I switched course and went in search of the Pastor.