Resource Economies

by Traverse Davies

  Chad had the wind knocked out of him, he tried to turn over, to catch his air, but Tyson's weight was still on his stomach.

  Tyson stood. "Sorry man, I'm so sorry."

  "No worries."

  The next one was Michelle. Tyson and Chad helped her as soon as she was low enough for them to do so. She was ashen and grey by the time she fell backwards into their arms. Tamra came next, climbing quickly and expertly. Finally came Evie. The girl didn't so much climb as run down the hill, arms and legs in rapid movement every moment. It looked like she would fall any second, but she was fine.

  "Holy shit, how did you do that?"

  "Grew up in Meat Cove. There wasn't a lot to do other than climb the cliffs."

  The Hero Triumphant

  The zombies were tearing at Bennett's armour, trying to get into the soft flesh underneath. The armour was holding, but breathing was almost impossible, their weight was on top of him, crushing him. This was it, he wasn't going to make it out of this one. No chance for him to make it. Suddenly the weight on top of him got a lot lighter, then there was a patch of sky visible, the pure cerulean blue marred by wispy white clouds. There was still a half dozen zombie faces, then there were four, then two, then Wayde's wide face, a grin etched onto his features.

  "Hey, boss."

  "Why the hell aren't you wearing a helmet?"

  "Shit, guess it got knocked off. Yeah, that's not cool. You want a hand up?"

  Bennett held out his hand and Wayde picked him up, almost lifting him off the ground. Once Bennett was standing he looked around, the inside of the camp was littered with zombies. It was a mix of zombies on the ground, skulls smashed in, and wandering around, chasing the half dozen armored soldiers who had made their way back into the compound. There was something blocking the hole in the wall, not completely, but high enough that the zombies could only get their heads over it. It looked like a piece of corrugated tin roof.

  "Looks like I picked a good time to come home."

  "You couldn't get here an hour ago?"

  "If I did I wouldn't have my special present for you."

  "What is it?"

  "Let's get this mess cleaned up, then I'll show you."

  They set to work on the zombies. Bennett noticed that Naomi was among the soldiers inside the wall, her slight frame and way of movement so familiar to him he would have known her from a mile away.

  The defenders cleared the interior quickly. Bennett called out, "How's the outside of the wall doing?"

  "We are winning out there. Most of the zombies are done. Just a couple dozen left, should be a few more minutes," Naomi replied.

  "Okay, so, Wayde, what's your present?"

  "I caught one of the fuckers. I have him tied up outside. Ragged looking son of a bitch. I stashed him where the zombies can't get him, left one of the boys on him."

  "Alright, what about the breach there?" Bennett pointed to the hole in the wall. It was in fact corrugated aluminum roofing. There were zombies reaching through at them, and there were more zombies behind them, a lot more.

  "Well, that's something we are going to have to deal with. The roofing won't last much longer."

  The soldiers inside the wall, including Wayde, Bennet, and Naomi, made their way over to the zombies and started stabbing into the mass.

  After a little bit there were no more zombies to stab. Wayde said, "Let's go get my gift."

  "Okay, maybe we can ask a couple of question."

  "That's the plan. He might not really enjoy the questions, but that's alright... I think I will."

  "We won't be doing the interrogation, at least not most of it. My girl, she's really good at that you know?"

  "Yeah, I can see that. She's an intense lady."

  They made their way over the corpses. Each one they stepped over left Bennett thinking, "Well, shit, now we have even more we have to get rid of."

  The building across the street was rough, close to collapse, but Wayde assured Bennett it would survive the five minutes it took to get the prisoner. They walked into the dark, musty interior. The first thing to hit Bennett was the smell. Mold and wet concrete mixed in equal measure. It was cold, the day outside had been so hot, but in here it was freezing, and the walls dripped with condensation. The staircase was concrete, probably the only reason it was still standing. It was pitted, scarred, at places, the rebar showed through. The railing was more the ghost of a railing. Strips of rusted metal sticking out from the half-collapsed stairwell wall. Bennett made sure to stick as close to the more intact of the walls as he went up. He had no way of knowing what kind of building this had been when it was intact, something industrial he guessed. They reached the second floor and found the prisoner with one of Wayde's men. The prisoner was sitting against the wall, looking sullen. He was dressed in layered rags and had long hair that might not have been washed since the zombie apocalypse. His teeth were rotted stumps between greying beard and mustache, both long and matted. His eyes had a telltale redness around them, and he twitched constantly as he sat there. The stench coming off him rivaled that of the walking corpses outside.

  "dul ag feck tú féin," he said, snarling.

  "I have no clue what that means. You know how to speak English?"

  "Níl Tada Níos Measa Na Bód Ina Seasamh," the man replied. Wayde lashed out with a foot, catching the ragged man in the arm. He slammed the man’s arm into the wall, there was a crunching noise and the prisoner screamed, incoherent rage and pain. "Answer the fucking questions or I'll beat you down like the dog you are."

  "Go fuck yourself," it sounded more like "Go feck yerself" with the strong accent the man had.

  "Okay, this isn't going anywhere. Bring him into the camp. We'll give him to Naomi," Bennett said, turning his back on the prisoner.

  "You realize that means I have to touch him?"

  "Sorry man, don't really see a way around that."

  They took the prisoner back to camp. A few of the men were repairing the breach, making sure it would stand if there was another wave. After Wayde got the bearded man to the center of camp Bennett went and grabbed Naomi. "Hey love, I have a job I think you'd be better at than me. We have a prisoner."

  "You want me to question him?"

  "Yeah. I think Wayde broke his arm."

  "Good."

  "I thought you were anti torture."

  "Oh, I am. It don't work. Not ever. You can beat that man to death and you'll get answers from him, but those answers won't be better than guesses. No, it's good because it was Wayde, and now I can make a show of being the one who cares, I can start getting in his head."

  "He's filthy, smells terrible. Hair, beard, it's all awful."

  "Okay, I have a plan for that. It's probably a big part of his identity. Shave his head, his beard, cut off his clothes, give him clean ones. Hose him off while he's naked. All of it has to be done before I start talking to him. Get him off balance, kill his sense of identity. When I come in I'll establish a rapid rapport with him. Also, means I don't have to deal with most of it. The teeth... well, it's not like I plan to make out with him or something. Still, something to kill the breath would be good. I want to be able to react as natural as possible."

  "Okay, we'll get it done. How long until you talk to him?"

  "In a perfect world, three days. In these circumstances, I figure a couple of hours. Let him stew, but we do need fast results."

  Bennett went back out, told Wayde the plan. The big man decided to hand it himself. He grabbed the prisoner by the hair and dragged him to where they had an outdoor hose. "We're getting you clean you filthy fucking animal."

  "Get the fuck off me."

  "Not a chance in hell. Boys, grab his arms."

  Two of the men grabbed the prisoner, pinning him to the ground. Wayde slipped his large knife out of its sheath and started sawing at the filthy man's clothing. The ragged and rotten fabric parted like butter before the razor-sharp steel, leaving behind flesh that was pale as the belly of a fish but streaked with dirt an
d filth. Bennett didn't think the man had bathed in decades. As his clothes fell off he fought harder, straining with all of his might against the men holding his arms.

  "Don't fucking matter, I'm a Wendigo, me. I'll eat your fucking SOULS!"

  Despite his protests that it didn't matter he kept fighting. Wayde sliced every bit of clothing from his body. Bennett noticed the man was skinny, it looked like he was starving, his muscle mass almost gone, and his belly distended, swollen. After he was stripped naked Wayde grabbed his head. "Holy shit, I've never seen this many lice. His skull is crawling. How do you stand the itch man?"

  "Fuck you. Get the FUCK OFF ME!"

  "Well, that's not going to happen." Wayde started sawing at the matted hair on the man's head, hauling it off lock by lock. It was slow going, the hair had dreaded, thick ropes fell off to the ground, crawling with small white insects. Finally, Wayde started on the beard. As the man's beard came away he finally let go of the tension in his limbs and collapsed, sobbing, on the ground. After that, they turned the hose on him. Cold water and strong soap. The water ran off his body, black, then slowly turning grey. Clear took a long time. The smell was overpowering, stale sweat and shit. After he was done Wayde decided to be more thorough. He said, "Somebody get me a toothbrush. I'm cleaning this son of a bitch up."

  The man lying on the ground had a face that was a mass of wrinkles. His thin frame was wrinkled and decrepit, ancient looking. He was strangely pale and pink but had liver spots all over. One of the troops came back with a tooth brush and tooth paste. The man clenched his teeth together, but Wayde held his nose shut until he had to open his jaw to breathe. Wayde stuck a gloved hand inside. The man tried to bite, hitting jagged, broken teeth on the chain mail glove. He howled, wordless now. Wayde stuck the tooth brush in his mouth and started to brush. After a minute he said, "I used to have a dog with rotten teeth. Thing fought getting its teeth brushed like I've never seen. The smell every time you tried was enough to make you gag. Still smelled better than this though. Damn, how can somebody let this happen to themselves?"

  "I don't think they can if they aren't crazy. This man, clearly he's crazy," said one of the soldiers.

  His gums bled, not a little. To the point where they had to rinse his mouth out. He winced and cried, after being so strong and violent, it seemed like this was what finally broke him. He sobbed when they were done, naked and bald, blood dripping from his mouth.

  They took him, got him dressed in clean, fresh pants and shirt, nothing fancy but soft and warm. They took him to a room they had built in a storage crate. It was meant as a short-term stockade in case one of the men did something too egregious. It was the closest thing they had to a prison though.

  After a few hours, Naomi went in alone. The prisoner was tied up, and Wayde had been surprised by how weak he was once they had his clothes cut off. What had looked like a large man was a very weak man, suffering severe malnutrition, but his layers of rags and hair had hidden it well. Naomi stayed in with the man for a few hours. When she came out she walked straight to Bennett. "His name is Norm. He was a fisherman before the rise. Actually, one of the few original islanders among his people. He's clearly far gone down the kuru path, and he's going to snap soon. Don't let anyone get near him without armor, but so long as he's restrained he should be okay. He's here following someone named Junie, kind of an heir apparent to the group. They make their base in Meat Cove but consider the island their territory. Crazy religious fanatics, kept calling the zombies 'the blessed'."

  "That's a lot of information."

  "I have a lot more. Yes, they have some of our people prisoner. He was part of a group of ten left behind to mess with us. You know, once I started to break down his barriers he remembered a lot about who he used to be, his wife, five kids. They did lobster fishing for a living."

  "Don't tell me you feel for him?"

  "No, of course not. He's evil, straight to his core, but he didn't used to be, I feel for the lobster guy from before the zombies. Of course, that guy died a long, long time ago, this is just a Wendigo wearing his skin."

  "Wendigo? He said that outside."

  "Yeah, that's a bit more jumbled, but I think they took native legends around the Wendigo and applied it to Kuru. He's got it by the way, in case you couldn't tell. Probably loses the ability to walk within the next few months, dies not too long after that. It's weird though, usually, with Kuru, they lose the ability to walk first, then eat. Hell, maybe he can't eat because his teeth are so rotten."

  "Well, that's a hell of a lot more than we had. So, cannibals?"

  "Yeah, for about twenty years now. They have made it into a ritual, makes them closer to the blessed in their eyes."

  "So, we need to wipe them out."

  "Yeah. No choice really. The number of people who might suddenly develop kuru is far, far too high. No way we can integrate them."

  "I wasn't thinking it was likely. So, the next bit, how are they controlling the hordes?"

  "Apparently it's pretty simple. They don't do anything mystical or anything like that. It's baiting them with the smell of fresh meat, bringing hordes together, and knowing how to get out. Takes a lot of skill from what I can tell. Junie's the best at it, even better than his dad, a real psycho named Clyde."

  "So, zombie worshipping inbred redneck hillbilly religious fanatics. I think I watched that movie."

  "Yeah, you and me both. As to the inbred, he didn't say specifically, but they are an isolated group living far from anyone, with a population in the hundreds, you know there's inbreeding happening."

  "Yeah, and every other horrifying thing that those groups usually do. It's pretty distressing, we get wiped out, and this is where we end up when have a clean slate."

  "Well, it's not really a clean slate. Too much old hatred made it over. Hell, when Jasper and me came over to PEI we dealt with Robert. Clearly not a true clean slate."

  "Yeah, I guess guys like that will always exist."

  "I think this Clyde guy might be more dangerous though, guess he's a preacher, got them believing that there's extra books in the bible about life after the zombies rise, books only he has access to. It sounds like he might just be a true believer."

  "I guess we know what we have to do then."

  "Yeah, it's going to come down to it. Wipe them out. Can't leave em, can't let that sort of cancer survive. It pollutes everything."

  Fox Hunt

  Clyde didn't get angry, not ever. These folks though, they were pushing him close. First, they took Emily and turned her into one of the blessed. It wasn't bad being one of the blessed, of course, but it wasn't for the unbelievers to do that to a child. She was such a pretty little girl. He had been thinking he might even give her to Junie as a second or third once she was old enough, but then they had to go and take Evie. Evie, the chosen child. She was so beautiful, and even better she was only barely related to Junie, just a little bit. They would have had such beautiful children.

  Sure, the girl was insolent, spoiled, all of that, but nothing a few nights in the marriage bed and some strict discipline couldn't cure. She was tainted now, he was sure. After all, why else would they have taken her? Well, maybe not, maybe they were saving her for someone back at their base, but that just meant he had to find them even faster.

  The cliff, it was obvious they had gone down, but he wasn't willing to risk his people like that, it was close to suicide. Sheer stupidity, especially for a man his size. He yelled, "Come. This way. We're going to the base."

  It wasn't a terrible walk around. Despite the height of the cliff, there was a reasonable path to the bottom just a little back the way he had come. He led his men back to the route down. There was one woman among them. Someone had gone back to get Emily's mother and father, they only had the one child, so they were on the hunt, as was their right. It was only fair for a mother to get the chance to confront the man who'd killed her only child.

  "Clyde, we gonna kill them good right?"

  "Damn right we ar
e. I'm gonna see you get the best pieces too. You get the first pick, you and Brother Joseph."

  "Promise me. Promise me we make them pay."

  "You know I will Sister Rose. Those unbelievers will pay in blood and pain."

  Sister Rose was one of his original flock, one of the first group to come with him. She had married Brother Joseph late because for a long time Clyde had kept her for himself. Eventually though as was usually the case he passed her on. She got too old for him. She had born him three children though, before that day came. She was still a decent looking woman and Clyde thought for a moment if he should take her a few more times while they were on the trail, but it didn't seem fair to do with Brother Joseph traveling alongside them. Not that Brother Joseph would mind. He'd think on it as they traveled.

  The easy path down the cliff was slow going still, no good taking it too fast. He wasn't worried, he knew how badly damaged the group was. Sure, there was at least one he hadn't had in his captivity, but he was pretty sure from the tracks that it was just one more.

  Why did they think they could do this to his people? The arrogance to think they could invade God's Chosen like this, kill their children. Hell, there was a chance that Emily was even one of his - a small one, the timing was suspect, but some. They might have killed his own daughter, him, God's chosen on earth.

  The longer they traveled the more he started to feel rage, hate, the need to punish and hurt them.

  Once they reached the cliff base he started walking toward where the group had come down, it was obvious where it was, at least to him. There were limited options, limited places it could be. Along the way he discovered the mangled remains of one of them walking around. Tim. That was his name. It had been the only thing he'd even bothered to ask, he didn't really care about the unbelievers, other than that they were invading his island.