Resource Economies

by Traverse Davies

  The night was dark, heavy clouds obscured the stars. There was a chill in the air, it was too cold for his overalls, but they were still better than nothing.

  He wandered through the woods, carefully. With the lack of light, it was a terrible risk. He knew thought that all of them were too beat up, that they needed to take care of their bodies for the next little while, they were near the point where their bodies wouldn't keep them alive much longer if they didn't do something to change the dynamic.

  After an hour or so he found a stream by stepping in it. He scooped the pot full of water and headed back to the cabin. Luckily, he was able to find it quickly, he'd been careless, but lucky. It could have ended with him wandering the entire night, lost to the world. When he got inside Tamra and Tyson were asleep on the floor, while Evie was curled up where the skeleton had been. Apparently, they'd moved it while he was away.

  He lay down, just for a minute, just to get a tiny bit of rest. When he woke up sunlight was streaming through chinks in the log walls. Everyone was up.

  "Hey, turns out there's a stove in here. We boiled up the water, it's ready to go." Tyson was standing over the stove, heating something in a pot.

  "Huh... oh, yeah, cool. Boiling it, good idea."

  "Yeah, also there's a few more cans here. The grey stuff if cream of mushroom soup. It's pretty tasty, especially when you cook it right."

  "What should we have done?"

  "Well, you're supposed to add water and heat it up. That's it. Here, have a bowl."

  They set some food on the rickety table, a few sticks underneath a board. Chad ate it, and it was ambrosia, the greatest thing he had ever eaten in his life.

  "How old are these cans?"

  "The expiry date is almost twenty years ago. We're lucky opening it didn't kill us all. Still, they knew how to make soup back before the world died."

  "Apparently. The amount of salt in this, I don't think there's a bacterium in the world that could survive it."

  "Yeah, guess that's why we got to eat this sumptuous repast."

  They ate and searched the cabin. It was a single room, a latrine pit dug out back was long since gone to soil, but they could tell what it had been once upon a time.

  There was the pair of overalls, a long shirt, a jacket, and a pair of long johns. Tyson took the long johns and the jacket, Tamra the shirt, since it was long enough to be a dress on her. Chad kept his overalls. There was also a pair of socks and pair of boots, but they were too small for Chad and Tyson and far too large for Tamra. The socks were worse than nothing when trekking through the woods if they weren't accompanied by boots.

  The four of them started into the forest, Evie was the only reason they weren't completely lost. She'd scouted the general area the night before. She led them to the shore in minutes. The ferry was there, some distance up the bay, grounded as they had noticed before. It was a long, narrow bay. They were near the head of it, just a short jaunt until they had a possibility of crossing, a ruined stretch of road that had clearly flooded many times but was above the waterline at this point.

  They crossed the bay by the road, trying to stay out of sight. Last time they had screwed up by going into a town, by being visible. This time Chad was determined to do it right, to stay out of sight. That is until he saw the lodge.

  It was remote, isolated, made of logs, but carefully constructed, clearly weatherproof. The roof was made of some sort of black, shiny material, and despite the dirt on it, it appeared to be perfectly intact. They walked up to the front step, log, but intact and secure. The door proved to be unlocked but latched. They walked in, carefully.

  Inside there were three residents. Old zombies, possibly even first night zombies from the condition of them. All three turned to the open door, making their way slowly towards the group. Three men, tall and fit from the look of it, at least once upon a time. Now they were emaciated, well-dressed corpses.

  Chad moved into the closest one, bring his hatchet into its knee, using the blunt end. The knee shatter, a sickening pop momentarily overwhelming the moaning of the creatures. The zombie fell to one side, still reaching for Chad.

  Tamra took the second one, grabbing its outstretched arms and spun it, moving it out of the door. She shut the door behind it. Evie and Tyson worked on the third. Evie baited it, staying just out of its reach. Tyson grabbed the nearest heavy object he could find, a silver tipped cane, and smashed the creature as hard as he could in the temple. It fell to the ground, grey matter leaking across the wooden floor.

  Chad took the opportunity to hit his zombie with the sharp edge of the hatchet, cleaving deep into its skull, another corpse dealt with.

  Finally, they opened the door and Tyson brought the cane down on the third, no point leaving a sign post to where they were.

  The inside of the lodge was luxurious. Somehow the windows were intact, although almost impossible to see through, scratched and pitted. The material wasn't glass, it was something else. There were large chairs facing a fireplace, a set of stairs leading up to a second story, and a door leading deeper into the building. Every wall had an animals head on it.

  There was a safe on one wall, underneath the head of a massive buck. It contained rifles and shotguns, a dozen of them. They didn't see any ammo, but that didn't mean it wasn't there.

  Chad said, "Let's search this place, as fast as we can. If we can get ammo, good. If we can't, let's find whatever weapons we can use. We need to be out of here fast though if we can't get the guns. If we have them, we hang out and wait for a bit, hope Clyde catches up with us. This place with guns on our side, we win."

  They started the search. In the end, there was half a box of ammo, nothing more. The gun safe was locked up tight. They could see the weapons, even touch them, but not get them out. There was nothing edible, not that had survived the twenty years. It was a bust. The only clothing was what was on the zombies. They did manage to gather up a few hunting knives, one bow with ten arrows, and an axe. Tyson took that, it was full size.

  "We're a bit better armed than before, and a bit warmer. Let's keep going, get as far as we can by daylight. We still have days and days of walking in front of us before we reach safety."

  Make Them Pay

  Junie was pissed. He only had Earl left with him, and the prisoner was dead. Time to unleash the last horde. Maybe that and some explosives would convince the camp to leave or at least kill them all. He was getting ready to go when he heard a sound from outside.

  The soldiers were on the stairs! A whole lot of them. Well, he had a plan for that. He pulled a rope and there was an explosion. The stairs fell away from the side of the building, leaving only the small platform at the top. Junie walked out on it, looked down, and laughed. A dozen of the black clad men were lying on the ground, in a heap.

  "You should have stayed away. This place is ours."

  "Why don't you come down and we can talk about it?", a tall man with black hair said.

  "Naw, why don't you fuck off back to New York. I killed your boy, he's lying on the ground floor inside. You should go get his body."

  "You think we're deaf? We know what's in there."

  Junie spat at the tall man, hitting him in the shoulder.

  "Alright, that's the way you wanna play it. Keep in mind, we have guns."

  "Yeah, I know what you all got. So, here's what I got." Junie pulled another chord and the warehouse doors blew, falling open. The zombies started to stream out, hundreds of them, all reaching for the men in front of them. The men Junie wanted to see dead.

  He knew he didn't have a chance, but at least he could take out as many of the Godless as possible.

  The blessed started grabbing hold of the black clad men, biting at them, trying to bear them to the ground. The soldiers fought back. Junie laughed and grabbed his bow. It was an old-fashioned longbow, the kind that had been used for hundreds and hundreds of years.

  He fired an arrow, aimed at the tall man's leg. The man went down, the bolt through his thigh. He
found another target and fired, this time through an arm. He was drawing a third shaft back when a crack broke the air. It didn't even hurt much, but suddenly he had no strength. The arrow fell, useless and broken. Then Junie joined it descending to the ground, a swan dive into the waiting horde.

  I Fall Down

  Bennett felt a momentary tug at his right leg. Nothing much, for a moment, then the pain hit. His leg went out from underneath him and he fell, the zombies piling on top of him. This was the second time in a couple of days he'd been in this position. At least he had his blade on him. He stabbed one zombie in the temple, then another, then another. His arm was lead, no strength left. The zombies were chewing on his armour. It was strong. He could take this for a while, but eventually, the links would give if he didn't get clear.

  Each zombie he dropped was replaced, after a while it took a little longer for the next one though. There were brief moments of respite, brief moments where he thought he might be able to get through them before they got through his armor. If any of them hit his injured leg that would be a different story, the links were already weak, and the odds of them breaking were much, much higher than the rest of the armor.

  He fought on, long past the end of his strength. His arm shook, shook worse, he felt bile rise in his throat, his breath caught in his chest. He kept stabbing, brains and ichor flowed over his helmet, covering his visor, until finally, he couldn't see. He kept stabbing, by feel alone. The corpses weight bearing down on him. At some point, he realized there was nothing left to stab. He pushed, found himself unable to move the corpse on top of him. There was nothing left in his arms, at least not enough to push himself free. The dull red in his visor faded to pure black. He woke some time later, hands pulling him up.

  "Hey boss, good to see you."

  Bennett pulled off his helmet, allowing light to reach his eyes.

  "Hey. Did we win?"

  "Yeah, nobody without a pulse still moving here. We did it."

  "Thank god. The villagers?"

  "Two fresh, the guy who fell and another one. He put up a bit of a fight, but we took him out. There was another one, he had Coschek with him, on the floor where the zombies were. Neither one turned, heads destroyed in the fall."

  "Okay, well, that was a fucked up situation. You all did amazing. Now, we have more work to do. These bastards need to be put down."

  Naomi came up to him, her armor covered in gore and dirt. "So, we lived through another one. Time to bring this shit to them."

  "That an order boss?"

  "Yep. Damn, right it is. Motherfuckers need to pay. I was on board with killing them before, now I want them exterminated. Sooner than later."

  "Okay, we leave a skeleton crew behind, make our way up to Meat Cove. Take them all down."

  "You know how bad this is going to be right?"

  "Yeah, I do. I know we can't leave any of them."

  "Kuru can show up decades later. They've been eating people, none of them can join us, they pose too high a risk. That means kids, old folks, women, whoever."

  "Yeah, I know. We've talked about this in council meetings."

  "You ready to shoot a kid?"

  "Yeah, if I have to."

  "Well, we have to. No question at all."

  They gathered the soldiers together back in camp and started to develop the best plan of attack they could. The next phase was to call the council and brief them. As they were waiting for the radio Naomi said, "I'm pretty sure I'd rather be covered in honey and left out for fire ants than make this call, how much you want to bet Barbara tries to veto?"

  "She won't, she can't. It's policy, and policy she drafted. We don't let cannibals survive. Too many dangers to us. They can't be reintegrated, they can't be reasoned with. It's not a workable solution. We have to fight them, and we have to kill them."

  The voice on the other end came over, static filled and distant, but clear enough. "Go ahead. Over."

  "We have identified the source of our issues. We have a community of cannibals in the area. Over."

  "Okay, I'll bring the council in. Over."

  The first voice they heard was clearly Barbara. Her tone was flint, mixed with Iron. "Cannibals. Of course. It had to be cannibals, didn't it? Well, that changes things. Over."

  Taylor spoke next. "No, it doesn't. It delays things by a bit, but it doesn't change things. There's enough material in salvage to justify this expedition, already waiting at the dockyards here. I've run the numbers and even with everything we are up by a huge amount. You are trying to sabotage this, again. I've had enough of it. Stop trying to tear things apart, we need someone who's willing to build, not destroy."

  They could almost hear the silence on the other end of the radio. Nobody talked to Barbara like that, and it was likely that nobody other than Taylor could get away with it. Everyone was full of tension, on edge with the rift. Finally, Barbara spoke. "It was never my intention to jeopardize the mission. As you know I had concerns about resource usage. Once the materials started flowing in I made peace with it and gave my blessing. Now, with these cannibals, I have to wonder if we wouldn't have been better not starting, following my original thoughts, but that ship has sailed, and now we have to hope that even with the added complication we are able to make it all work. Over."

  Bennett said, "So, as per policy we are going to root out the nest. These people can't be allowed to stay in place. Over."

  "Of course not. I proposed that policy myself. Once we know of a cannibal group we have to exterminate them. Do we know numbers? Over."

  "Not exactly. Less than a thousand, more than five hundred. They are in a place called Meat Cove, of all things. Over."

  "They are proud of their cannibalism? Over."

  "No, it's a pre-apocalypse name. The place has high cliffs and the natives used to drive herds of animals over them, harvesting the meat from the rocks below. It's a very, very old name. They have incidences of Kuru showing up frequently. They call it going Wendigo and seem to have adopted a variant Christian cult status. Messianic leader, all that nonsense. Nothing we haven't seen a few times before. Their numbers are high though, it's going to be a bitch. We could use more men. Over"

  "Not a chance in hell. You have to do it with the team you have. Over."

  "I figured. Well, nothing for it but to get started. Once we have this in hand we will get back on schedule with shipping resources back. Over."

  Barbara said, "Good luck. Come back in one piece. Over and out."

  The radio clicked off, leaving dead air. Bennett wondered if this was really how people used to use the radio. It was so stilted, so strange. Not something that was ever part of his world.

  "So, she didn't get a chance to bitch," Naomi said, "Guess you win that one."

  "Yeah, but Taylor is going to face some pretty heavy consequences pretty soon."

  "Yeah, nothing we can do to help either. I hate that woman, a lot."

  They went to Bennett's tent and laid out the old-world maps, updated as best they could be.

  "Looks like Meat Cove is at least a week away on foot. Best to go with as many troops as we think we can spare. Maybe leave a dozen here to cover off, plus support people. Get the troops out there, in some force."

  "Yeah, fuck. This is the last thing I wanted this trip to turn into. We are supposed to be bringing hope, not destruction. Now I gotta go kill a bunch of people. Damnit."

  They drew up plans, set marching orders in place, and started their people moving through the wilderness, fully equipped. Bennett took the lead. Naomi was against him going, but he couldn't leave something like this to someone else, he needed to look at these people as he gunned them down.

  "Look, babe, I don't think I would ever be able to live with myself if I told my soldiers to shoot children and I didn't go to at least face the reality. Would you really be able to look me in the eye again?"

  "No, but I don't like it. You're a commander now, not a field soldier. You don't belong out there."

  "Field sold
ier? I think you forget that I'm actually an accountant. The rest of it is just what happened when everything went to shit."

  "Babe, you were an accountant for what, three years? That was twenty years ago. You're a soldier, a survivor, a general. Face it, that idea you have in your head isn't true, not even a little bit. It's old world thinking. In a way I can't wait for the rest of the world to catch up to the reality, none of us are what we were before first night, and who we are is who we've been for twenty years. Hell, do you know what Barbara did before the zombies?"

  "You know, I don't. Everyone knows about the farmhouse and how incredible her story is. I think she writes it at the bottom of every memo, but I don't have a clue what she did."

  "Nothing. She inherited a tiny bit of money from her mother and she lived off that. Never had a job, never married, no kids, she did literally nothing. She's just what she is now, a former colonel turned politician."

  "Well, that's actually kind of interesting. I always thought she was a student or something."

  "No, a waste of space really."

  "So, kind of like now?"

  "I have to be fair to the woman, we needed her in the early days, but we don't need her now, and she's poison. She's too stuck in immediate survival mode to see that there can be a larger vision for the future. That's why I backed this idea, expanding our civilization, building new colonies, new homes."

  "Still, she's a bitch. No doubt, no debate."

  "Somewhere along the line I think power became its own motivator, now she does what she does to keep it. I don't know, if I ever got to that point, shoot me in the head."

  "Nope, I'll shoot you in the stomach and then set you loose in a council meeting. Might be that would be the best thing that could possibly happen."

  "Not unless you make sure Taylor is gone. She still trains every day you know?"

  "Really? Every day? It's almost like she survived a zombie apocalypse or something."