by SD Tanner
Now everyone was listening intently, he continued, ‘If we don’t get smarter, we don’t survive. It’s that simple. Ya can throw emotional shit at me all day long, but it don’t change the reality of what we gotta deal with. It jus’ makes us feel like shit while we do what we gotta do anyway. People already died, Lydia, and more people are gonna die. I can’t change that fact. All I can do is try and make sure they don’t die for nothin’.’
Giving Lydia a hard look, he added, ‘And if ya don’t wanna support this, Lydia, then step away from the table and send me Farrington. I know that asshole won’t think twice about infectin’ anyone with his goddamn designer virus.’
‘Screw you, Gears,’ Lydia replied angrily. ‘Don’t treat me like there’s something wrong with me just because I don’t take putting innocent people’s lives at risk lightly. You will not replace me at this table with Farrington. Whether you like it or not, I will be the conscience of this mission. You do not get to walk all over people with your over-sized feet. You have to convince me first!’
He always did like Lydia. The woman was smart and feisty and smirking, he replied, ‘Firstly, I have the correct size feet for a man of my height and secondly, I don’t need ya goddamn approval to do anythin’. If ya wanna leave table then you do that.’
‘Gears, you can’t railroad people like this,’ TL objected.
Without breaking eye contact with Lydia, he replied amiably, ‘Shaddup TL. For as long as you’re screwin’ this woman, ya don’t got an opinion.’
‘What?’ Captain Ted asked in surprise. ‘I didn’t know he was doing that.’
Turning to look at Captain Ted, Pax chuckled and asked, ‘Jus’ how stupid are ya?’
Sitting at the opposite end of the table, he heard Philip ask, ‘Are all your meetings as entertaining as this?’
Axel chortled merrily and said, ‘Yeah, ‘cos if they are, guv, I’m gonna bring popcorn.’
Ignoring Philip and Axel and giving Lydia a hard stare, he asked, ‘So, Lydia, what are ya gonna do?’
Sounding resentful, Lydia said, ‘You’re turning into a real asshole, Gears. I’ll do what you’re asking, but nobody is to be coerced into being infected by the designer virus.’
‘That’s always been my position,’ he replied sternly.
Lydia looked at him angrily and said, ‘And you should be there when we infect people, so you can see just how vile this process is.’
‘I was there last time we infected people, Lydia,’ he replied grimly. ‘I know how foul this process is. I didn’t create the shitstorm we live in, but I did promise to try to find a way outta it. I agree the path ain’t clean, but it’s the only path we got. It’s either this or we give up, roll over and fuckin’ die.’
When no one in the room spoke, he said, ‘Truth is, up until now we’ve jus’ been playin’ around. Sure we been collectin’ people, we put up an island, we got some bases, we collected some hunter specimens and we even infected a few people with the designer virus, but where the hell has all this got us? Over a thousand people dead and both Pax and me lost the women we love. We’re continuously bein’ outflanked and ya’ll jus’ wanna keep doin’ what we’ve been doin’ thinkin’ that’ll work. But it ain’t workin’. There’s less people left, we can’t take care of the people we have and we’re losin’ the assets that got us here in the first place. I don’t wanna drag ya ignorant denyin’ asses with me, so either wake up and get a grip on the true reality of our situation or I’m takin’ my gun and findin’ a nice island to live out the rest of my days. Right now, I ain’t got enough motivation to drag your sorry asses to see the truth, so either see for yourselves or fuck off and leave me alone.’
TL sighed and remarked, ‘You’re turning into a bad-tempered old man.’
Grinning cheerfully, Captain Ted said, ‘It’s the hairy ears. My grandfather went the same way. Old men get hairy ears and short fuses.’
Pax sniffed loudly and asked, ‘Have ya finished yelling at us, Gears? Cos if ya have, it would be real helpful if ya handed out some orders.’
He did have orders and having made his point, he said, ‘TL, sort out the next batch of volunteers to be infected and get it set up with Lydia. And tell me when to be there for it. Lydia, I wanna brief on the weapons we got against the super hunters. I wanna test ‘em in anger asap. Axel, I understand you’re an arty man. I need ya to work with Captain Ted to get our arty up and running for future combat. Pax, you’re with me and Philip. We’re gonna go sort out clearin’ a bigger island and I wanna go check the Navy submarine base in Kings Bay. We might be able to use it as another combat base.’
Now he’d finished handing out orders, he turned to Pax and asked, ‘Happy now?’
‘No, Gears, I ain’t,’ Pax replied dryly. ‘Ya didn’t say please.’
Philip raised his hand and asked, ‘Is anyone else allowed to suggest anything, or is this a one man monologue?’
Rolling his eyes and sighing, he asked, ‘Why is everyone who joins us a smartass? Whatdaya have, Philip?’
‘If you want to think big, then I know a really big island just north of here,’ Philip said. ‘The UK has an infrastructure and manufacturing base. We can get power and water up and running and we can make more weapons and ammo. And don’t forget it’s a short channel ride between it and Europe. If survivors can cross the channel, then they’ll be safe and we can start to build up more of the living to fight the dead. It can be a safe base for your people and a source of supply for your army. Being an island, once cleared it stays cleared, plus the hunters are running out of prey and starving to death there, so there are less of them than here. If we cleared it, we could have hundreds of thousands of people there, all safe and able to grow food for a substantial army. Before all this happened, the UK was able grow and farm enough food to feed over fifty million people.’
They desperately needed to be able to grow and farm food and supplies were dwindling. He was worried that they could continue to feed the survivors and food wasn’t the only thing they were bound to run short of. Weapons and ammo would also become a problem. Philip was right and at some point, they’d need to be able to manufacture again. He wasn’t a civilian and his knowledge of farming and manufacturing was limited, but he understood the need if not the how. He didn’t understand how they could make the UK work for them. It was at least a week to get there by sea at best and that assumed no trouble on the water.
Sounding as doubtful as he felt, he asked, ‘Doncha think it’s a little bit far away?’
‘Not really,’ Philip replied. ‘It’s no more than eight to nine hours by air. I’m a pilot and I’ve done the route plenty of times.’
Knowing the military were highly skilled at long haul supply and logistics, he nodded said, ‘We could do with an air force.’
‘Of course we’d need to recon it first,’ Philip said pragmatically. ‘I don’t know what condition the UK is in, but the hunters must be running out of food. I’m assuming it would be easier to clear, but I’m not sure.’
Shaking his head firmly, Pax said, ‘Ya can’t clear somethin’ the size of the UK without the army of the weird.’
Rubbing the scar on his face, he nodded thoughtfully and said, ‘That’s true. It’s too hard to clear all the buildings, but unlike the US, it’s a contained island so it can be cleared and kept clear. And it’s true the UK has factories and farming land. The real question is…are the super hunters there too? Based on what ya said on the radio, Philip, I’m guessin’ they might be and if they are, then there’s no way to clear the UK without the army of the weird. I do like the idea of a recon. Can ya work with Hatch to set up a flyover?’
‘Of course,’ Philip replied.
Looking at everyone else in the room, he asked brusquely, ‘Any other business? Cos if there ain’t, ya need to get out and get on with it.’
No one had anything else to add, they filed out of the room, leaving only TL, and Pax seated at the table. He figured his brothers weren’t too impressed with h
is management style and waited to be told he was an unreasonable, bad-tempered asshole.
Looking at him with genuine concern, TL asked, ‘Do you really think it’s as bad as you were saying or are you just unhappy about losing Ip?’
He was tired and his eyes felt gritty. Rubbing his eyes, he said, ‘I think it’s worse than I said. We’ve achieved pretty much nothin’, other than extendin’ a few people’s lives by jus’ a little bit longer. We still don’t understand what we’re dealin’ with. All we know is that it’s targeting us, it’s got better resources and it don’t give a shit how it’s gonna get where it’s goin’.’
Leaning back in his chair and putting his dirty boots on the chair next to him, Pax asked, ‘What is it?’
‘A real smart and cunnin’ enemy that wants something we got,’ he replied. ‘And our enemy is more committed to their endgame than we are to ours.’
Frowning, TL asked, ‘How do you figure that?’
Remembering his argument with Lydia, he felt a flash of annoyance and said, ‘Cos when Lydia pouts about havin’ to infect willin’ volunteers, then she ain’t as committed to our endgame as our enemy is to theirs. Our enemy don’t hesitate to use anyone in any way to get where they’re goin’.’
TL pulled a disgusted face and said, ‘Ends don’t justify the means.’
Equally disgusted, he replied bluntly, ‘People who believe that never get to the end. We beat every other country to the moon ‘cos JFK said we’d do it by a date and we couldn’t let our President be wrong. I dunno what we did to make sure our President was right, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t hesitate.’
Nodding in agreement, Pax said, ‘Ya got send a dog to catch a dog, TL. Our enemy is an asshole, so we’re gonna have to be jus’ as bigga assholes if we wanna beat ‘em.’
‘I don’t want to be an asshole,’ TL complained.
He and Pax looked at one another and burst out laughing. Still chuckling, Pax said, ‘Too late, TL. Yer already an asshole.’
Frowning, TL asked, ‘How do you figure that?’
With a grin, he said, ‘Last I heard, you’re playin’ two women at once, TL.’
Now delighted, Pax said gleefully, ‘Yer crazy, dude. Those two women know one another and it’s jus’ a question of time before they find out about one another. Anna shot Gears for less and she damn near killed him.’
‘True story,’ he agreed solemnly. ‘I learned my lesson. I ain’t ever sleepin’ with Anna again.’
Looking confused, Pax said, ‘Ya can’t, Gears. She’s dead. I shot her in the head.’
He snorted and said, ‘Bein’ dead didn’t stop ya from sleepin’ with BD.’
Snorting in disgust, Pax said bluntly, ‘I didn’t sleep with her corpse ya jackass. I slept with her ghost and that’s a very different thing.’
Shaking his head, TL said, ‘I think we’ve got off track.’
He grunted and said, ‘The whole goddamn world got off track the day the virus erupted. We’re jus’ goin’ with the flow now.’
CHAPTER SEVEN: When you wish upon a star (Gray)
The man with the buzz cut was sitting at Rulers feet, sobbing loudly. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ He asked, not sure he really wanted to know.
‘Oh, it’s very sad,’ Ruler replied, as he slowly rearranged his face to look tragic. ‘His daughter died when she was just four years old.’
Surprised that Ruler would know or care about the man, he asked, ‘What happened?’
Ruler replied abruptly, ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there. It happened eighteen years ago.’
That didn’t make any sense and he exclaimed, ‘What? Why’s he still crying about it?’
Looking disinterested, Ruler shrugged and said, ‘Some people are just overly dramatic.’
What really happened was Ruler cruelly placed the man’s consciousness in the moment when he felt the depth of his grief at losing his only child. With his mind locked in that moment in time, the man was perpetually grieving for his daughter and his soul was in never ending pain, but only Ruler understood what he’d done.
Feeling slightly disgusted with the man, he asked, ‘Why’s he following you around?’
Ruler shrugged again and said petulantly, ‘I don’t know. I think he fancies me.’
Genuinely not wanting to know any more about the man, he said, ‘You wanted an update on the setup of the refugee camps.’
‘And the setup of the army,’ Ruler reminded him.
He didn’t like doing business with Ruler, and despite outward appearances, the man wasn’t human. He asked around the bunker who this guy was and they all said his name was Barry. Barry was over 400 pounds, but he lost 250 pounds in the six months following the outbreak of the virus. By all accounts, Barry was a decent guy, friendly and always kind and helpful to the point of being self-sacrificing. He was a conceptual design engineer for many of the nuclear missiles in the silos and with his experience, he was assigned a position in the secure bunker. If anyone was capable of getting the nukes working, it would be Barry.
The people in the bunker said they woke up one night surrounded by hunters and were herded into a meeting room where Barry held them hostage. It seemed Barry was suddenly able to control the hunters and he completely flipped out, ordering them to call him Ruler, but he very much doubted the man in front of him was Barry. He wasn’t sure where Barry went, but he suspected he might be dead and this guy called Ruler could control the hunters. He figured, if he could manage Ruler then he would have the power he so badly wanted.
When he studied at Cornell University, he was filled with high ideals and ambitions. Holding court amongst his friends there, he declared the current rule to be wrong and promised everyone he could do a better job as a politician. The problem was, no one believed him and after failing to win a majority time and again, he was relegated to a low ranking oppositional seat. His marriage turned into a loveless hate-fest to a woman he couldn’t divorce and remain the all-American good guy to a voting population that didn’t vote for him anyway. Bitterness seeped into his thinking and that turned into cynicism. The outbreak of the virus presented him with his first and probably last chance to be the ruler he was utterly convinced he should be.
Drawing a deep breath, he explained, ‘We’ve set up a camp in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. It’s a very large army base and it has everything we need. I’ve taken about 120 people from the bunkers and we’re setting up power and water. Of course, there were already some supplies at the camp. So far, with the refugees arriving daily, we have over eight hundred people.’
Ruler was poking the sobbing man with his foot and didn’t appear to be paying much attention, but he continued anyway, ‘I’ve found someone with some military experience. His name is Eric Hull. He was dishonorably discharged from the British Army about five years ago, but he knows enough to get an army set up. He’s not getting a lot of support from the military personnel from some of the bunkers and that’s slowing him down a bit.’
Suddenly interested, Ruler looked up and said, ‘Send them to me. Cry Baby needs some company.’
While trying to hide his disgust, he asked, ‘What will you do to them?’
‘Do you care?’ Ruler asked blandly.
Deciding what he didn’t know, he didn’t have to care about, he replied firmly, ‘No, would you like to walk the site?’
Ruler looked over at him and he felt a slight chill staring back into his blue on blue eyes. Flouncing slightly, Ruler said sulkily, ‘I suppose. Nothing else to do here is there?’
Pointing at the sobbing man, he said, ‘Might be best if you leave him here.’
‘Why?’ Ruler asked petulantly.
Wondering why Ruler couldn’t see it for himself, he explained, ‘People might not trust us if we look like we’re doing harm.’
With a look of contempt, Ruler said, ‘I don’t care what people think. Cry Baby is my pet and he goes where I go.’
Shrugging, he led Ruler out of the office building and standing outside in
the middle of the road, he pointed north and said, ‘There’s an airfield over there. We don’t have any pilots yet, but when we do we can get airborne.’
Sounding surprised, Ruler asked, ‘Why do we want to do that?’
Trying not to show his frustration, he replied, ‘So we can get control of the rest of the country. It’s a big country and we need to be able to travel by air.’
‘Sounds inconvenient,’ Ruler replied, now looking disinterested.
He pointed south and proudly said, ‘We have warehouses full of weapons, food, clothing and general supplies and we won’t need to forage for much. Outside the main areas of the base we have housing and we can relocate refugees to new homes.’
Narrowing his eyes, Ruler said abruptly, ‘Don’t do that. I want people kept centrally.’
Puzzled, he asked, ‘Why?’
Sneering, Ruler replied, ‘Don’t question me. I can destroy this camp in seconds. One hunter is all it takes.’
He knew that was true, but he didn’t understand why Ruler wanted to keep people under such tight control and said, ‘That would be true even if they were living in the houses.’
‘You are stunningly stupid,’ Ruler said amiably. ‘I don’t want people to be happy. I want them under control. What kind of idiot are you?’
Shaking his head, he said, ‘I don’t think they’re going to be happy living in barracks or in houses. Our world has been destroyed.’
Looking confused, Ruler said, ‘My world hasn’t been destroyed.’
In the short time he’d known him, he learned there was no point arguing with Ruler and smiling, he said, ‘As you wish.’
