The Human Spring

by Hollingsworth, David

  “What’s up, y’all?” Deon asked without stopping.

  “We have decided to stay,” Fatima informed him. “We want to see what we can do to help.”

  “Cool.” Deon plucked a handful of strawberries from a bush. “We got the gardening taken care of. Matter o’ fact, I’m just about to go whip up some lunch since we just about finished for the day. Maybe y’all could check in with those marines on lookout duty.”

  “Sounds good,” Ehsan answered, though he secretly dreaded another argument between Fatima and Josue. The two of them walked to the front gate. Ehsan climbed up the furniture next to the lookout spot.

  “Hey fellas. You guys need any help? We’ve decided to stay.”

  “Sweet,” Josue responded. “We’re good. Just a bunch of fucking zombies. Reminds me of the time I was stationed with army grunts,” he added with a laugh.

  Ehsan smiled uncomfortably. After growing up Middle Eastern in the US, he instinctively cringed internally whenever someone insulted the US military. Before society’s collapse, all it took was being near someone who spoke badly about the US military for him and his sister to also be called unpatriotic, or worse, by people nearby. “Well, okay. Let us know if you need something.”

  “Will do,” Josue replied with a casual wave of his arm.

  “Hey, by the way…” Ryan started, right before Ehsan started to climb down. Ehsan looked over to him. “Glad to have y’all aboard.”

  “Thanks man, glad to be here,” Ehsan answered with a smile, though he felt a sting of disappointment to see that they didn’t need help. Ehsan hopped down to where his sister waited. “Looks like they’re fine up there.”

  “Hmm, okay,” Fatima answered. She paused. “What should we do, then? I want to avoid just sitting around.”

  “Same. Let’s walk.”

  The two of them walked in the direction of the library with no set destination. As they did so, Ehsan spotted Mateo coming back from the garden. He waved, and Ehsan and Fatima waved back. Mateo walked back to the field to help Deon and Manuel.

  They decided to return to the garden. Both of them wanted to see it again, to see the possibilities before them at Linda Vista Elementary. They also figured they could tend to any flowers that needed it.

  When Ehsan and his sister reached the garden they found Sarah lounging on one of the red wooden benches under the central tree, staring up at its leaves. She looked to be nodding off. As they approached, however, she noticed them and sat up.

  “Hey, sorry to interrupt,” Ehsan apologized.

  “Oh, no, not at all.” Sarah smiled. “I was just enjoying how nice out it is today.”

  Fatima nodded. “This garden is something special.”

  “Right? I’ve been here about half a year now, so I’ve sorta gotten used to it. But I remember when I first came here, I almost started crying when I saw it.”

  “I almost started crying when I saw the handball walls,” Ehsan joked.

  Sarah chuckled. “Well, it’s nice to have you two here. I’d ask how you got here, but you’ll get enough of those questions during lunch.”

  “What do you usually have for lunch around here, anyway?” Ehsan asked.

  “Well, usually in the morning we have eggs and fruit that we grew here. For lunch and dinner, it’s whatever combination of fish, veggies, and fruits we’ve gotten from our trading network. We also sometimes add some of the things we’ve foraged from nearby houses, too, like beans or soup. Every once in a while we’ll catch a rabbit or squirrel, too.”

  “Who usually prepares it?” Fatima asked.

  “Most of the time it’s some combination of Cecilia, Julie, and Deon. Mateo and I help on occasion, though we’re not nearly as good at cooking as those three.”

  “Well I’d be happy to help, too,” Fatima offered. “When we were growing up, I usually ended up cooking for Ehsan and I. I learned how to cook a lot of things before I even hit puberty.” Ehsan cringed, but Sarah nodded understandingly.

  “Speaking of which, we’ve got a good supply of tampons here,” Sarah informed her.

  “Good to know,” Fatima replied. “Running short on those while on the run is not fun.”

  “Anyway,” Ehsan interrupted, “I’m impressed by how quickly you took us in here. Don’t you guys worry about taking on more mouths to feed?”

  “Not really. Yeah, it’s more mouths to feed. But we’ve come to learn that everyone has something to offer, too. Especially people who’ve made it this far.” She gestured with her hand toward the front of the school. “Like, take Deon and Marcus. Marcus used to work at a pharmacy, so now we actually know what to do with a bunch of the medicine we’ve gathered from nearby houses. Before we just sorta left everything that wasn’t Nyquil or aspirin. And you’ve already seen Deon, who knows how to garden. He also goes out on supply runs and scouting missions with me, not to mention his cooking ability. We had no idea who they were a few weeks ago, and now it’d be hard to imagine life without them.”

  “But have you ever had any trouble with new people?” Fatima asked. “Not all people are like Deon.”

  Sarah laughed and waved her hand. “Let’s not worry about that now.”

  “Fair enough.” Fatima crossed her arms. “I hate to ask such an uncomfortable question, but how many people have you lost since coming here?”

  “I’ve only been here to see two people get eaten,” Sarah answered, her demeanor becoming grave. She cleared her throat. “James and Fernando. They were our other set of scouts. The thing…” she trailed off and sighed. “The thing about being a scout is that mobility counts more than anything else. Running fast and avoiding danger are the most important things you can do when you’re outside the school. But James and Fernando, they always liked to stop and fight the zombies they encountered. Which is fine, I guess, when it’s a small group. But they’d fight even when there were large groups.” She shook her head. “One day they just… didn’t come back. It was about two months ago, I think. Maybe three. They didn’t return from what was supposed to be a short scouting trip. So, the next day I went to go scout out the area they were supposed to scavenge through. I saw them… turned into those things.”

  “That’s awful,” Ehsan commented.

  “It was. It was also a good reminder.” She looked to the flowers. “Even with everything we’ve set up here, we can’t let our guard down or get cocky. These things aren’t a joke. If we try to play action hero when we shouldn’t, we’re not going to make it.” Ehsan and Fatima both looked at the ground.

  “As for before I got here,” Sarah continued, returning her gaze to Ehsan and Fatima, “I know they’d lost a handful of people before I joined, but I don’t know the details.”

  Ehsan thought of what Sarah had said about the scouts dying from stopping to fight the zombies instead of running. Had that been their end? He thought of all the times he had convinced Fatima to stop and fight packs of zombies instead of running past them. Had those been good ideas? What if he or his sister got bit? He shook his head, trying to shake off those thoughts. They bounced around the walls of his mind, but remained safely inside.

  “Hey y’all, sorry to interrupt,” a voice said from outside the garden. Ehsan turned around to see Deon standing on the stone path right outside the garden. “But lunch is ready.”

  The four of them headed toward the lunch tables. Everyone else they had already met sat at the tables except for Cecilia and the three older kids, who had also just arrived. Manuel and Julie served the food. Ana and Estefanía sat on either side of Mateo at one of the tables, talking to him while he smiled and nodded. The two marines sat at their own table. Andrew and a bald black man who looked to be about Ehsan’s age, wearing khakis and a black shirt with silver writing on it, sat at a different table. Ehsan assumed the man he didn’t recognize was Marcus, Deon’s cousin. He wanted to say hi, but thought it’d be less awkward to wait to be introduced.

  “So what’ll it be today?” Sarah wondered out loud as the four of the
m walked up.

  “Fish and avocado burritos with a side of oranges,” Deon informed her. The smell transformed Ehsan’s stomach rumblings to full-on roars. He hadn’t had a meal like this even at his Costco.

  Cecilia and her students reached the tables before Ehsan, Fatima, Deon, and Sarah did. They each grabbed a paper plate and sat down. Gustavo enthusiastically beckoned his father over. Manuel held his hand up for Gustavo to be patient, then gestured over to Ehsan, Fatima, Sarah, and Deon to get their food. After a quick exchange of pleasantries, Manuel handed them their plates. Ketchup, Tabasco, Tapatio, and Cholula awaited them at the nearest table. Ehsan added a bit of Tapatio to his burrito. He looked toward the tables. He and Fatima, along with Sarah, joined Mateo’s table while Deon joined his cousin.

  “Do you think later you can push us on the swings, Mister Mateo?” Ana asked Mateo.

  “We’ll see. I gotta take over guard duty after we eat. Maybe if we eat quickly enough.”

  “Okay,” Ana replied with a smile, taking his answer to mean yes.

  Estefanía put her empty plate on her head. “Look at my hat, Mister Mateo!”

  “Oh, it compliments your eyes very well, Estefanía,” he joked. Ana and Estefanía giggled, then got up to throw their plates away. Mateo turned to the three people joining him. “Hey there.”

  “Hey,” Fatima said with a smile. Ehsan simply waved, his mouth already full of burrito.

  “So, Ehsan,” Mateo said as he turned toward him. “How would you feel about joining me after lunch for guard duty? Cecilia’s been doing it with me the last few months. I told you she was backup, which she is, but we lost one of our lookout people a few months ago. It’d be nice to have another permanent person.”

  Ehsan looked to Fatima. He hadn’t left her side since the fall of their Costco.

  “Go ahead, Ehsan,” Fatima told him after a split-second hesitation that no one else seemed to notice. She turned to Sarah. “Would it be alright if you showed me more of the school afterward?”

  Sarah smiled. “Of course.”

  Ehsan looked back to Mateo, attempting to hide his discomfort. “Sure, I’m down for lookout duty.”

  “Awesome. I’m sure Cecilia will be happy to hear that.”

  After everyone ate, Julie, the student teacher Ehsan and Fatima had met in the library, took the kids to go play on the blacktop. The rest of the adults gathered around the lunch tables for a meeting.

  “Okay, has everyone met Ehsan and Fatima?” Mateo asked as everyone sat down.

  “Not yet,” Ehsan answered before any of the school’s residents could. He looked to the man who’d been sitting with Deon during lunch. “Hey, I’m Ehsan. You must be Marcus.” The man nodded his head and Ehsan shook his hand. Marcus was clearly making a conscious effort to try to appear confident with a forced look of detachment on his face, but Ehsan could sense an air of awkwardness beneath. His posture was rigid, and his seemingly relaxed facial expression had a stiffness to it that betrayed his calm façade.

  “Fatima,” his sister said with a smile and outstretched hand. Marcus shook her hand, too, still awkwardly trying to appear a mixture of interested and disinterested.

  “Okay, looks like we’re all good now,” Mateo stated. “Now that everyone’s met, let’s talk about jobs. They’ve already made their own offers. I don’t wanna speak for ‘em, though, in case they’ve changed their minds.” He turned to them. “So, what jobs are you two interested in?”

  Ehsan looked to Fatima. She spoke first. “Well, I would like to offer my services as a counselor. I had just started my master’s program in psychology when everything happened, so I really only have my undergrad degree to go on, but I still know a fairly good amount. I was training to become a counselor for people who grew up in abusive homes.” She looked over to Cecilia and Julia. “I would also like to help with the cooking, and be a backup lookout person.”

  “So, basically everything,” Ehsan teased with a nudge.

  “Excellent,” Cecilia said without attention to Ehsan’s comment. “I think we should talk later about the counseling, but we can figure out the cooking schedule after this meeting.” She turned to Ehsan. “How about yourself, Ehsan?”

  “I’m definitely up for being a lookout person. I wouldn’t mind learning to garden, either.”

  “I think we got the gardening covered, actually,” Deon interjected. “Ain’t too much fruit that needs tending to here. How about you become a backup scout for me and Sarah?”

  Ehsan nodded. “I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

  “Great,” Mateo commented. His expression became serious, but not stern. An empathetic, curious glint appeared in his eyes. “On another note, though, would you be okay telling us how you got here? I know it can be tough, so you don’t have to right now if you don’t wanna. But it helps us when we know where you’re coming from, and what you’ve been through.”

  “Yeah, we’re fine with that,” Ehsan answered. Fatima nodded in agreement. He sighed, trying to figure out exactly how to explain everything. “Basically, we were down in San Diego when it all started. First we went to the naval base, but it’d already been overrun. Then-”

  “Hah!” Josue interrupted. “Figures those pussies wouldn’t last. All squids are good for are sailing and screwing each other.”

  Everyone shot him a dirty look. Ehsan’s shoulders tensed at another anti-military joke. Mateo spoke up. “Go ahead, Ehsan.”

  “Right,” Ehsan continued. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, after that we found a couple groups who, uhhh…” he looked over uncomfortably to his sister. “Didn’t really want us.”

  “What do you mean?” Cecilia asked.

  “Well…”

  “They were racist,” Fatima answered for him. “They refused to let us join because they thought this whole thing was caused by a ‘terrorist Muslim’ plot. Another group thought it was China and North Korea who caused everything, but they rejected us all the same when they saw we were Middle Eastern.”

  “I see,” Cecilia replied. “Thank you for clarifying.”

  “Man, that’s awful,” Mateo commented with a shake of his head.

  “Yeah,” Ehsan agreed quietly, trying to push aside the residual embarrassment and fear he felt whenever he thought about those early days. “But, anyway, we eventually found a small group holed up inside a Target. We stayed there for a few months. Eventually, we moved to a nearby Costco. It was a good setup, and the group grew as time went on. At our biggest we probably had about thirty or so people.” Ehsan cleared his throat again. He hoped his voice would remain steady. “Then, about three weeks ago, me and Fatima went out on a supply run with a few others. When we came back, we found a huge herd of zombies overtaking the Costco. We’re talking way over a hundred."

  “The Costco was great at keeping the zombies out, because we only had one entrance to guard,” Fatima added. “But that backfired when the herd got in. There was no other exit. The five of us escaped when we realized it was too late to save the Costco, but we got separated from the others. Ehsan and I have been alone since.”

  “We found ourselves near the ocean, so we decided we’d head north to Camp Pendleton to see if it was still around,” Ehsan concluded. “Now here we are, somewhere between Pendleton and San Diego.”

  “Thanks for sharing.” Mateo smiled reassuringly. “I’m glad you made it out okay.”

  “Thank you,” Fatima replied with a bitter smile. “I hate that our Costco got overrun. But, I am glad we found this school.”

  “We’re glad to have you,” Sarah said warmly. Mateo, Ryan, and Deon nodded in agreement.

  “Thank you,” Fatima replied.

  “We’re glad to be here, too,” Ehsan added. “Even if my calves were getting pretty sculpted from running all the time.”

  Mateo, Sarah, and Josue chuckled. “Well, now that we’ve established that, is there anything you wanna ask us?” Mateo offered.

  “Nothing I can think of,” Ehsan replied.

&nbs
p; “I have a few questions,” Fatima said. “How many total people have you lost?”

  “We have lost six in total,” Cecilia replied matter-of-factly before Mateo could.

  “How many kids?”

  “Zero.”

  “Has there ever been a breach?”

  All of the residents except for Cecilia hesitated. “Yes. Once. We lost one person, but we were able to get the zombies back outside within an hour.”

  “How do the other groups in your trade network defend themselves?”

  “Everyone has their own different way of doing so. The fishermen have built the best barriers of any of us. They used cars, sand, and heavy objects they found in nearby stores to make their stretch of beach a fortress. They also have their backs to the water, which is both safe and their main source of food. Even if everything else were to fall, they would be alright on their own.”

  “Yeah, they’re a little rough around the edges, but they’re good at taking care of themselves,” Mateo admitted. “As for the clinic, they actually had a boxing gym nearby. It was a pretty high level one, too. A few of their amateur fighters and one of their pros stayed when everything went down. One of their students was a blacksmith during the day, and another used to dress up for comic book conventions. The two of ‘em worked together to create these really cool metal gauntlet things for their boxers. They use those to thrash the zombies.”

  “I had no idea cosplayers would survive the apocalypse,” Ehsan commented with a laugh.

  Mateo chuckled. “You’d be surprised.”

  As for the field workers,” Cecilia interjected, “the last time I checked, they had about five or six marines that help them guard the fields. Most of the worker themselves are undocumented, meaning that they went through hell to get here. Three of them even survived Guatemala’s Civil War. They help the marines.”

  “I didn’t know Guatemala had a Civil War,” Ehsan admitted. He grinned. “Are there a bunch of people in Guatemala who drive raised trucks with the Guatemalan Confederate flag on them?”