This Plague of Days Season One (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) (16 page)

“Nothing very useful now, I don’t suppose. Some extra clothes maybe. If they’re thinking they’ll steal something now and sell it later they might have something there. Otherwise, clothes, would be the most useful thing they could stock up on that I can think of.”

“I did want to have a new cell phone,” Anna said.

“You spend enough time talking to him as it is,” Jack said.

“Him who?” Oliver said.

“The boyfriend.”

“Ah, well, it must be difficult for you to be away from him,” Oliver said.

“Thank you,” Anna said. “Thank you very much for saying that. It is. I’m not allowed to say so around here, but it is very difficult.”

Oliver looked at his plate and focused on cutting his steak into small pieces. He glanced at Jaimie, who was chewing a wad of steak while fingering a phrase in his book:
facta non verba
. (Actions speak louder than words.)
 

The boy read the words like Braille. This Latin phrase felt like sandpaper under his fingers. Jaimie understood the words were a warning that demanded work. Some ancient man might be sending a message with this Latin phrase, telling innocents to beware liars.

“Slow down, young man. You want to take little bites. If you choke or fall down or break a leg, the EMS is not showing up with an ambulance any time soon.”

* * *

Oliver told the Spencers about the day before. He had walked east. “I saw the Ginger Gas Man. He’s a freckled, red-haired man at the nearest garage. Said he was waiting for a new gasoline tanker to arrive.
 

“The Ginger Gas Man said the truck was supposed to come any day now. It was supposed to come ‘any day now’ a couple weeks ago. People keep driving in and driving out cursing the Ginger Gas Man. There’s no line, but they still expect he’s got gas in the tanks? People are nuts.

“He just sits there on a rocker all day and night, living off candy bars and chips and pop from the vending machines,” Oliver said. He flips people the bird as soon as they pull across the hose that rings the bell. Hard to figure, considering the TV is still working. People make their own entertainment wherever they can find it, I guess.”

Oliver found The Home Depot, grocery store and pharmacy had all been looted. “There was a young family digging through the garbage in the aisles at the drug store, looking for whatever crumbs were left,” he said. “I think when it started, people were raiding these stores at night. Now, it’s clear no one is coming. Day or night makes no difference.”

“What about the military?” Anna asked.

Theo jumped in before his neighbor could deliver more bad news. “Mr. Oliver said all of them are coming home. They’ll be here soon, I’m sure.”

Oliver shook his head and cleared his throat. “I didn’t say that exactly.”

Theo gestured for the old man to continue.

“As soon as they’re here, I think the same thing that happened with the police, firefighters, EMS, doctors, nurses…it just…” He seemed sad and gathered his thoughts. “Everyone has a family and they’ll all want to be together. Everybody talks country first, but it’s really either family first, or maybe just me first, in times like these.”

“But they’ll get shot if they desert.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Whoever does show up, I suspect they’ll be rather thin on the ground. This is America. That’s a lot of ground to cover. The government, whatever’s left of it, would do better to shrink wrap Texas and start again from there. That would be plenty ambitious given the area versus the manpower.”

The family sat quiet for a time, weighing the old man’s words.

“It could be even worse than no army, in fact.”

“How’s that?” Theo asked.

“Warlords. Nobody thinks it could happen here, but I was a jewel trader in Bolivia and several African countries. No one is so different that it can’t happen here. People are the same everywhere.”

“So…you’re picturing rebellion?”

“If I were a general, I’d set myself up in a small city or maybe even a large one if I was ambitious. I just wouldn’t call it a rebellion. I’d set up a city-state that never quite got around to setting up a democracy while I was alive. Whatever I did, no matter how horrible, I’d say it was for everyone’s safety and security. Not so different than it’s been lately in many ways.”

“That’s a dark, worst-case scenario,” Jack said. “I don’t think that would happen here.”

“Nobody ever does until it’s already happened. Kent State, 9/11…the Sutr Virus wasn’t supposed to happen, either, except every virologist and epidemiologist and historian agreed we were overdue for a massive plague.” Oliver glanced up at Jack and saw she looked stricken. “I’m sorry, Jacqueline. How much more should I say?”

“Tell us everything,” Jack said. “We can’t hide it from the kids and I think we’ve been hiding it from ourselves. We’ve been insulated so far, thanks to Theo’s brother.”
 

“I walked east and south to a group of low rent apartments. A young man was selling drugs for gold rings. I don’t know what sort of quality it is, but I gave him a couple rings and he gave me some weed and some ecstasy.”

“You’ve got X?” Anna was wide eyed.

“Medicinal reasons. You never know when some cat might need tranquilizing and I might be that cat. The thing you need to understand about the new economics is, the banks are shut down now. We’re on our own again. The system has collapsed while you’ve been hiding. I’m surprised the television, phones, power and water still work, but some intrepid souls are still on the job somewhere, keeping a skeleton crew working. When things well and truly fall apart, it will take the turbine a while to get up to speed again, but no worries. You’ve got lots to trade, right? Trade is the new economy. What’s old is new again. We’re pioneers again. We might even get back to covered wagons, depending how bad it gets.”
 

All but Jaimie stared at the old man, dumbfounded. “You folks really did have a media ban here, eh? When things change — and at some point everything always changes — it happens quickly.”

“I’m still getting over you going to a drug dealer,” Anna said.

“I did say the pharmacy is cleared out, didn’t I? If I break a leg one morning or get a toothache or just can’t stand the horror of it all, I do have a fallback position. Suffering should always be optional.”

Theo recovered faster than his wife. “How are the roads?”

“Still passable as far as I could see. Either everyone pulled over to the right when they abandoned their car or, more likely, someone from the city is hauling cars and trucks out of the way, probably to keep up the free flow of the trucks carrying the dead out of town.”

Oliver looked from face to face. “I’m sorry if I’ve spoiled anyone’s dinner. That was a fine steak.”

They ate in silence for some time before Anna pushed her plate back. “I can’t eat. I’ve lost my appetite.”

With the speed of a hawk scooping up salmon from a lake, Jaimie stuck a fork in what remained of Anna’s steak and plopped it on his own plate. He immediately returned to where his right index finger marked his latest Latin phrase:
Fronti nulla fides. Appearances are deceiving.
 

Everyone else burst out laughing. They laughed until there were fresh tears on their cheeks and they had to gasp for breath. Jaimie chewed and read, oblivious.

Insistent rapping at the glass at the dining room window silenced them instantly.
 

Pray all you want in our final days

T
he thin, disheveled man peered in at them, looking left and right. Long, greasy hair obscured half his face. He pounded on the glass.

Theo leapt up. “Hey! You’re going to break my window!”

The man stopped, looked at him and waved for him to come outside.

“Careful,” Oliver said.

Theo ignored the man’s gestures and instead spoke to him through the glass.

“What do you want?”

“Food!” the man said. “I’m all out and my kids are starving. Please give me some food!”

Oliver stood and moved from window to window on the first floor, checking outside.
 

“I could smell that meat cooking down the block!” the man said.

“How many in your family?” Jack shouted out to the man.

“Three. I mean, four including me,” he said. “We’ve run out of food. We’ve been scrounging, but people are hoarding and I don’t want to go in any dead people’s houses.” He eyed each face, as if to memorize them.
 

Jaimie glanced up from his Latin dictionary entry:
e pluribus unum
. One out of many was famously the motto of the United States, of course. However, looking at the man in the window, Jaimie thought the new meaning might now shift to something darker. The man was one survivor from many dead. The plague had divided the nation again. The country was becoming merely land, where names and boundaries were useless. To Jaimie, the man in the window seemed more angry than hungry.
 

“Please, the baby won’t stop crying.”
 

He was lying about his family. Jaimie was sure. There was no baby.

“We can spare some tins. I’m sick of the peaches and there’s some soups we got that we didn’t really want in the first place,” Jack said.

“This is a really bad idea,” Oliver said.
 

Jaimie couldn’t tell whether Oliver believed the man about his hungry family or not. He wasn’t sure that mattered to the old man.

Theo nodded to Jack and gave Oliver a helpless shrug. His wife jogged from the table and soon returned with a plastic bag filled with several tins of food. Jack walked to the door but Theo stopped her.
 

“I’ll take it out and talk to him,” Theo said.

Oliver came with him. The man waited by the window. When the intruder’s eyes fell on Anna, he licked his lips and stared. He kept watching Anna until she moved from her seat and out of sight.

Outside, Theo extended his hand to the stranger but Oliver put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Got a name?”

“Bently,” the man said. “I think I recognize your kid, the one who never speaks. I’ve seen him at the mall before, walking with you.” He pointed at Theo.

“Where do you live?” Oliver said.

“The other side of the drive. I’m a tax attorney.”

Oliver smiled. “The tax deadline seems to have come and gone with no one noticing much.”

“Yeah, they’ll just have to print up the money this year. They’ll get back to us once this all blows over.” He eyed the bag of groceries.

“What have you got to trade?” Oliver said.

“Nothing.”

“Everybody’s got something.”

Theo looked at Oliver but said nothing.

“Look,” the old man said, “That was the last of our supplies tonight. We don’t have anything more to spare.”

“I smelled steak,” Bently said. “Your barbecue is still warm.”

“That tells me you were poking around instead of just ringing the front door like a normal person. You a raccoon or are you a man?”

“Look, grandpa,” Bently said, “I’m hungry. My family’s hungry.”

“You left them alone?”

“Safer for them,” he said.

“Not if you bring home the bug. Why aren’t you wearing a mask?”

Anger flashed across Bently’s face, but he said nothing and shrugged his shoulders in a helpless gesture.

“If you don’t have anything on you, at least tell us what you’ve heard,” Oliver said.

“Where have you been out looking for…donations?” Theo asked.

“I’ve been all over the neighborhood. A lot of people have cleared out. I don’t know where they think they’re going.”

“Know anything about that?” Oliver said, pointing his chin at a gyre of three hawks circling over a property behind a high hedge. The Spencer’s view of the crescent that snaked behind their house was blocked, but the birds must have been circling something dead or dying.

“There’s a couple bodies in the driveway one street over, on the crescent behind you.”

“What’d they die of?” Theo asked.

“Wasn’t the flu. There was blood all over both of them.”

“Did you see a weapon?”

“No…but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve seen a few ugly scenes of murder/suicide. Somebody could have come along and taken a gun from them after it happened. Before I came along. There are still some people around, you know. You watch some of these houses long enough, you’ll catch a curtain moving. It’s what makes going from house to house so dangerous. I’ve heard shots and seen a couple of boobytraps where the people left, but somebody came before me and the scavenger was on the wrong end of a shotgun blast. Kinda discourages further exploration, in case there are more traps.”

“What else?” Oliver said.

“What do you mean, what else?”

“Who have you talked to? What’s the word out there?”

The man thought for a moment. “There’s talk that there’s a gang going around to houses at night. I haven’t seen them myself, but I came across a house behind the mall last week that was wrecked.”

“Seen any police?”

“Nope. I called the police station a couple times and at first the line was always busy. Call ’em now and it just rings and rings. Voicemail is full.”

“What were you calling the police about?” Theo said.

“Wild dogs,” Bently said. “They almost chased me down a couple times now.” The man gave an ingratiating smile. “You know, you oughta be careful with that propane grill. The smell might bring the dogs instead of a guy like me.”

“I’m still trying to figure out which I’d prefer,” Oliver said. “You saw these dogs?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you heard them howl at night? There’s a pack of them.”

“One of them a big German Shepherd?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I was a bit busy running for my life. They chased me into an empty house and I had to stay there all night. You missing a German Shepherd?”

“Yeah, but I got another couple to keep me company,” Oliver said.
 

The color change fascinated Jaimie. He recognized the lie by Oliver’s aura, gray and white and blue went to a rustier shade around the edges. The old man’s voice and face betrayed nothing.
 

“What did you find in the empty house?” Theo said.