Dahmer Flu (17 page)

“Nothing,” she replied with a warm smile, although I could see that she was nervous about something. “I know you were going to see the Colonel ‘fore long, and I thought you’d like someone to stay here with Madi.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said. I actually did, and was relieved that she had come.

“Hi, Lisa!” Madi called from her Cot.

“Hey, Madi!” Lisa answered. “Mind if I hang out with you for a little bit?”

“Sure!” Madi smiled.

Lisa leaned in close, “Brad… Jon’s a nice guy, in his own way, but he’s not all there, you know?”

“I figured.”

“Don’t leave him around Madi too long.” She paused. “Now, you’d best get going, don’t want to be late.” She gave me brief directions before shooing me out the door and into the cooling night air. “And just remember, don’t say anything about Bennedict!”

I grinned as I walked the quiet, dark hallways. The nights were always the most surreal, even with all the other adjustments; there should have been distant lights. The hallways should have been dimly lit by nearby security lighting. There should have been aircraft crossing the sky amongst the stars. Instead, all was still, except for the occasional conversations from within the long-disused classrooms. I patted at the pistol under my coat; I felt better having it.

For the briefest of moments, the hallway was brightly lit; lit and filled with people rushing from one room to another. The memory was vivid and welcome, from when Aimee and I were young, from when she was alive. It was a memory that I wanted to keep forever, because in it, she was still with me; and in me, she was still alive for as long as I would be. The memory didn’t last very long, however, and I was soon back in the darkened school.

Without realizing, I had reached the admin complex, where Lisa had told me to go. A guard opened the door and ushered me inside, past modular rows of functional desks. Only one was occupied; a serious, focused woman typed furiously on an archaic typewriter, her fingers dancing over the keys like frenzied dancers. We stopped in front of her desk; she didn’t bother looking up.

“The Colonel’s ready for you,” she said, simply.

“Thank you,” I answered. The guard pointed to closed door, which was identified by an ornate wooden plaque. ‘Colonel Ryan H. Arnold’ it read in large print, and in smaller letters below it, ‘Commanding Officer’.

I knocked three times, polite, but firm. I felt the same nerves as when I was a young soldier before a promotion board, before I reminded myself that I wasn’t a soldier, and this wasn’t a promotion board. This was a strange man with a highly inflated sense of self-importance.

“Come!” called the Colonel from the other side, in his characteristic Texan drawl. I opened the door and stepped confidently inside before closing it behind me.

“Leave it open,” he directed; I pulled it, letting it swing fully open. The Colonel’s office was large, probably at one time the principal’s if not a decent-sized conference room, and was lavishly decorated and overly ornate. The Colonel himself sat in a large leather executive chair behind a massive dark hardwood desk and toyed idly with a magnetic executive desk sculpture. Against the far wall, heavy curtains hid what was probably a window. The office was filled with at-one-time expensive furniture and other superficial signs of success. The finery was contrasted by the bizarre collection of items that cluttered every surface and shelf, except for his desk. Each item, I realized, was some treasure from a world that no longer existed. The Colonel smiled, seeing my astonishment. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” He asked.

“What is ‘it’?” I replied.

“Far as I know, it’s the last collection of Americana that has someone alive to enjoy it. These,” he said, as he rose from his desk with constrained enthusiasm, as if he were trying it hide his excitement, “Are some of the things that I’ve liberated along the way; kept them safe from the ‘stalkers and out of the hands of looters.” He had an underdeveloped sense of irony.

He pulled a large frame from a shelf and held it triumphantly; it contained a gold record, the type given to recording stars, but I couldn’t make out the name. The Colonel explained, “When we gave up on LA, we pulled West to try and regroup; we didn’t know then that there really wasn’t anyone to regroup
with
. We got as far as Palm Springs before we decided to head up North towards Fort Irwin, see if there was anything up there. By that time, we were pulling what we needed from some of the empty houses; didn’t know the King had a home out there. Gold record, Elvis Presley; it’s a collector’s item,” he said. “A piece of history,” he added as an afterthought. “Have a seat.”

I sat in one of the simple wooden chairs in front of the desk as he settled into his own seat.

“Bradley, I’ll be candid. I’ve allowed you into my city, I’ve given you food and shelter, personally welcomed you, even let you eat at my table. I’ve extended every courtesy to you and your girl, why are you being so secretive? What are you hiding?”

I was off guard. “How do you mean?”

“I’ve told you my story, Bradley. I’ve told you what I’ve seen, and how I came to be here. But this here is our second conversation, and I don’t know anything about you. Why are you here?”

“We’re just trying to survive, like anybody else anymore.” I felt a small amount of unjustified guilt; I told him our story. I told him about the apocalypse, where we were and what we were doing. I told him about our rescue and the National Guard base that was overrun.

He interrupted there. “Where was that post?”

I thought for a moment. “Near San Luis, I think. Why?”

“I had a friend there. I figured it was something like that. Go on.”

I continued, painfully recounting Aimee and Jake’s deaths up through our rescue. “… And that’s how we got here,” I finished.

He thought for a moment. “Why did you let your wife take your son out of the house?”

The question stung. I swallowed hard. “You had any family? Any kids?”

“No.”

“You try and stop a woman who thinks she has a chance to save one of her children, when the other’s already going to die. You can’t- there’s something too strong there. She cleared the way so her daughter could live, at least.”

“I see. I’m sorry for your loss,” he said sincerely.

The silence felt awkward. “So…” I said, finally. “We appreciate your hospitality, but we’ll be moving on in a day or so, once we’re rested up.”

“Leave?” He asked; his surprise felt calculated. “Well, you’re certainly free to go, Bradley, although I don’t know why you’d want to. I mean, we don’t want someone here that doesn’t want to be, right?”

“I suppose so. Thanks,” I said.

“But the girl stays.”

It was an awkward moment while I searched his face for the joke; looking for him to laugh or smile. He didn’t. “No, she’s not,” I said, trying to bluff that I had some say in the matter, against his word and those that followed it. He wasn’t any more fooled than I was. I thought about my pistol, and wondered if I could make it past the guards once they heard the shots.

“I’m sorry, Bradley,” he said. “I didn’t mean to give you the impression that you had a choice in that. I’m gonna clarify for you, just this one time, and then we’ll move on.” He rose from his seat and crossed to his collection of ‘liberated’ spoils; I stayed seated, unsure of what to do next as he idly rolled in his hand what appeared to be a Star Wars movie prop.

He continued, “We’re an insurgency, do you realize that? We’re not in charge any more. You know who’s in the State Capitol right now? Just a bunch of Brainstalkers wandering the halls; that makes them the government, makes us the armed resistance, right? Way I heard it last, the whole Country was the same way, with the rest of the world not too far behind. So, you and I, we have a similar problem, don’t we?”

I didn’t answer.

“Because I’m leading an insurgency, I need men and supplies, and since you plan on leavin’, you’re not really doing me too good on neither; fact is, you’ve only taken up some of my food and ain’t done me too much good so far. Like I said, I don’t want to keep you here if you don’t wanna stay. But see, Bradley, I got to think about the long term. And in the long term, numbers are going to make the difference. You know what’s different between how we fight and the way
they
do? Every time
we
lose someone, they tend to get stronger; it’s a matter of numbers, and they’re in the Brainstalker’s favor right now. We need to swell our numbers as quick as possible; the girl stays.”

I realized what he was saying. “Are you saying you’re going to
breed
my daughter?” He didn’t answer. “Answer me!” I shouted, springing to my feet and putting both hands on the desk. The wooden chair fell backwards with a crash; I turned to the door as the guard burst in, weapon ready. No one spoke.

Finally, the Colonel broke the silence. “Bradley, why don’t you have a seat?” He motioned to the guard who lowered his weapon and righted the chair. Reluctantly, I lowered myself into the seat. He said to the guard, “That’s all, soldier. Close the door.”

“Yes, Sir,” the man replied as he closed the door behind him. When I looked back to the Colonel, he was resting his hand his desk, and in it, a large military-issue pistol.

“You’re wearing on my hospitality, Bradley. You’d best check yourself, you don’t have a lot of options, and none of the ones you have are especially good.”

“What are you planning for my daughter? She’s eight years old, she’s a child, are you some kind of pervert or something?”

“Yes, she’ll be breeding stock, eventually, but not until she’s grown. We’ve kept us some laws, and that’s one of them. No, she’s got ten years; she’ll learn an occupation, she’ll have a place in society, but most important, she’ll be safe here. Don’t you want that for her, Bradley? Would you keep that from her?”

“She’s safe with me,” I answered.

“You think she’s safe out there? Seems to me that you two were living life on nothin’ but a lick and a promise- and not even that when my guys found you. We’ve everything we need in here.”

“You’re not safe in here,” I rejoined. “You may be for the moment, but like you said, they’re just growing stronger while you’re holed up in this High School. Give it time, ‘till one of the hordes happens to make it this way, your ‘city’ will be nothing more than a snack stop on their way. No one here’s going to be safe for long. How many tens of thousands of those things do you think you could hold off, once they know you’re here?”

That appeared to get his pride up. He scowled and leaned in close, “How’d it work for you, with Aimee and Jake?” He sat back, satisfied with his shot.

“Fuck you,” I replied; it wasn’t my finest argument, but the sentiment was there. He waited patiently for me to speak again. “Look,” I said, “you have a lot of people here, and I’m sure you want to take care of them. Me and Madi are going north; come with us. We’d be a lot safer in a group, and we could rebuild above the snowline.”

“You’re mistaken, Madi’s staying here with us; we’ll rebuild here. There’s no such thing as heroes any more, Bradley. Only survivors.”

“Maybe that’s true here,” I said. “Some places still have heroes.”

He smiled. “I think I can help you understand.” The door opened as if on cue and the guard entered.  I suspected that he had been listening the whole time. “We’re ready now.”

“Yes, Sir,” the soldier replied.

“I want to show you something, come with me. And Bradley?”

“What?”

“Give your weapon to the guard.” I stood as the guard closed in to me, one hand leveling his rifle to my chest, the other, palm up and extended. Reluctantly, I pulled the pistol from my holster and handed it to the guard. He slipped it into his pocket and circled behind me, patting my clothes.

“This way,” The Colonel said, once he was satisfied, and left the room. Not knowing what else to do, I followed.

Eventually, we reached the science building, and took the same path into the sub-floors, stopping in front of a room labeled ‘Storage’. “You’ll enjoy this,” The Colonel said as the guard unlocked and pulled open the door. The room was empty, and the walls were lined with sound canceling egg crate. A plastic folding table was to the right, near the door, and held a single revolver and three pairs of shooting earmuffs. At the far end, a creature stood, startling me when I saw it. It was nude and slightly overweight and its skin had the tell-tale shade of death. It began to moan hungrily and struggle against the chains that I now saw held it to the wall by the neck, arms and legs. A layer of sandbags was stacked behind the creature around the anchors.

“Now, Bradley, I want to show you the difference between them and us.” He walked to the table and put on the shooting earmuffs before picking up the pistol. The guard closed the door, then put on the second pair of muffs and handed me the last, which I slipped on before joining the Colonel closer to the brainstalker. The sound of the creature was dampened by the earmuffs, but still audible. The guard waited near the door, watching.

“We’re made of the same pieces, us and them. Muscle, skin and bone. The difference is that we slow down when we’re hungry, scared or hurt. They don’t.” He accented his point by pointing the pistol at the creature’s knee and squeezed the trigger. The knee exploded, spraying black blood and chunks of bone against the sandbag wall. I never had gotten used to the fact that they don’t scream, but up close, the lack of reaction was more unnerving. Instead, it just struggled to stand upright on its damaged leg, held only by the chains, and to push forward and reach us, his natural prey.