Dahmer Flu (16 page)

Our eyes locked; his were cold and deadly serious. “Me?” I answered, with a disarming grin, “hell no. We’re just a couple of folks passing through. We’re no threat to you or yours.”

Jim held the gaze for a moment more, and then broke with a genuinely wide smile. “Good. There’s something I want to show you.”

Washington High-School-turned-City had an impressive science building, and it was buzzing with activity. “The Colonel, he’s big on science. His plan is to find a cure or inoculation or something, rebuild society starting right here at Washington City. And I’m damn sure he could do it, too, the man’s a genius.”

“Who’s the Colonel?” I asked. I’ve heard him mentioned too many times to fail to pick up on the significance.

“You’ll meet him ‘fore too long. Let me show you the research.”

He led me into the building and through several twists and turns in the clean hallways. At last, we came to a door, heavy and held fast by solid welded metal throws. Above the door was a wooden sign: ‘hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae’. Jim translated, “It’s Latin. This is the place where death rejoices to help those who live.”

A young man, couldn’t have been more than sixteen, if that, stood guard, a rifle slung across his shoulder. Hastily he threw the bolts and pulled the door open, then closed it again after we passed. I heard the bolts fix into place immediately.

After going down a flight of stairs we were, I supposed, in a sublevel, perhaps a basement, of the building. The familiar smell of rot hung in the air.

“What is this?” I asked Jim.

He had a perverse glee in his eyes, like a child showing his favorite toy. “This is the lab. Look.” He pulled me to a window which had been reinforced with thick steel bars. “We don’t take any chances here, we learned some hard lessons before. But that’s why any breakouts, they don’t end up too bad for us. Take a good look inside.”

Inside the room, a group of men stood around a table. They were dressed as though they were surgeons in an operating room. Instruments of various sizes and purposes sat neatly on tables and trays, and a bright surgery spotlight supplemented the florescent lights above them. I couldn’t see, however, who or what was on the table because my view blocked by the men. Annoyed, Jim rapped at the window and gestured for the men to move. Obligingly, they shifted, and I could see what it was. A creature was strapped securely to the table, bound at the hands, legs and torso. The head was fitted with a complicated contraption that seemed to be created for the purpose, and effectively held the head still by the jaw, neck and forehead. A muzzle, of sorts, was fitted over the creature’s mouth. Its eyes, though, were wild and frantic, darting from man to man; it didn’t seem afraid, or even aware- its eyes just looked… hungry.

“We call ‘em brainstalkers,” Jim explained. “That’s ‘cause they’ll follow you jus’ like they you’re biggest fan, and they don’t got too much goin’ on up there, you know what I mean?  Not much more than just what’s working in the base of the brain. But once they know to be looking for you, they don’t give up for nothing.”

One of the men looked to the window, where Jim nodded his approval to continue. With delicate precision, he cut into the necrotic flesh, opening a bloodless ‘y’ shape from shoulder to shoulder to stomach. As the man made his cuts, then began to saw through the ribcage, the creature continued to writhe; not in pain, as my mind tried to conceive, but was instead struggling to reach the living flesh. Under the muzzle, I could see its jaw clenching and relaxing, instinctively anticipating a meal.

Another of the men began pulling viscera from the opened cavity, reaching and removing the stomach. The stomach, a blackened, quivering mass, was swollen and splitting, leaking discolored meat from the tears. From one of the tears, a pink human finger fell to the floor. The man picked it up and carefully set it aside next to the stomach itself.

“They’ll be a while, here,” Jim said. The suddenness of his voice made me jump, which I hoped didn’t show. “There’s something else I want to show you, you’ll like this.”

I followed Jim further towards the back of the room. Either side of the walkway was lined with more of the same rooms; most empty, but some were some occupied. I chose not to look as we passed, but the edges of my vision saw small collections of creatures drifting in several.

Jim stopped at one of the windows. “This,” he said simply, pride in his voice.

Inside, a woman, “
Once a woman”
, I realized, stood at the far end of the room. Her back was to the window and she swayed uneasily, left to right and back again. Her blonde hair was matted with old blood, and had parted and dried in place over her neck; the yellow-stained angular spinal frame pushed through a jagged opening in the soft, pale flesh. She hadn’t been dead long, it seemed. She wore a hospital gown, the opening revealing her feminine frame.

Her room, though, wasn’t like the others here. It was darker and was furnished, although to a very sparse degree. She had cot with a pillow and a small wooden chair. The small table had been overturned, spilling a book and ceramic mug to the floor.

Jim reached past me and rapped twice on the window. The woman didn’t react, at first, but a moment later turned her head slightly. Slowly, as if drugged, she turned to face the window, uncomprehending but seemingly aware.  At one time, she was probably beautiful, but it was hard to tell, now. Her face was frozen in a horrified death-mask and an uneven hole in her cheek showed her teeth clenched tightly together.

In her arms, she held a small child.

My mind flashed back to the preacher’s house, a place I had hoped in vain to forget. I turned away from the window, and saw Jim watching my reaction. He didn’t speak.

“I’ve seen this before,” I said after I silently regained my composure. “Sometimes when a woman gets herself bit but not ate, she’ll get away and go to the thing that means the most to her, her kid. Maybe she gets somewhere safe, but sooner or later she turns. Once that happens, that baby’s nothing more than a snack; if she doesn’t finish, maybe forgets that it’s there or something, it turns, too. I don’t know why they hang on, old memories maybe, I don’t know.”

Jim smiled wide. “Look again.”

I turned and peered through the window. The woman had come closer, nearly to the window itself. The baby in her arms opened its eyes; it was alive. The baby was alive.

I turned to look at Jim; he wore a wide grin, which grew even wider with my reaction. “We don’t know, either,” he said. “We found her a few weeks ago not too far from here. She was alone, ‘cept for the kid, and not aggressive at all. So we brought her here, so we could try to figure what’s going on in that rotted little mind of hers. That’s all she does, just stands there holding the kid, never once tried to hurt the little bastard. We call him ‘Huck’; the Colonel, he likes the story, and the name seemed to fit.”

“How… how…?” Was all I could find to ask; I couldn’t quite get the words to come.

“How’s it alive, you mean? We go in there a few times a day. We got ourselves a few women that are nursing, so we use that- they’re called ‘wet nurses’, I think. We hold her still, and Huck, he eats his fill. It’s not easy, and she sure seems to hate it, but she calms down again once we leave her alone. Ever seen anything like it?”

I didn’t answer. I hadn’t; hoped I never would again.

Madi and I were given another clean change of clothes for dinner. “The Colonel, he likes his guests to dress for dinner”, Lisa had told me as she handed me a neatly-folded pile.

Clean, dressed and anxious, Jim led the two of us towards the cafeteria. “We eat well, you’ll see that in a minute. These w’men, they know how to cook, and that’s not the only thing they do well.” He gave a knowing wink. I ignored the innuendo.

The cafeteria was large and modern, with wide round tables interspersed through the open space. The chairs were hard molded plastic, which sat in an aesthetic contrast to the well-dressed tables; each draped with a white cloth and set with bright candles and fine place settings. The men at the table ate greedily, pulling food from serving dishes and baskets. The noise was overpowering, forcing us to shout.

“There’s only…” I began.

“Men?” Jim finished. “Yeah, the men eat first. The w’men, they like to cook and take care of their men; they got to, so the men can take care of them right back. The w’men, they eat afterwards. Or in the kitchen. I’m not sure. Don’t worry about it, Colonel’s waiting.”

Jim led us through the main floor towards the far end and through a set of double doors. The second room was much smaller than the main dining room, but was still larger than necessary for the small group inside. The table was set for formal dining, with a half-dozen men seated around it. Each of them men, aside from Jim, wore the old style military uniform, the green, brown and black patterned BDU’s; Big, Dumb and Ugly, we used to call them, before the Army switched to the modern grey digital pattern. Three seats, directly next to the head of the table, were empty. Each place was set, but untouched, and a young girl, perhaps in her early teens, stood quietly against the wall. All eyes were on us as we entered, until the man at the head of the table stood, with the other men immediately following suit.

The Colonel was the opposite of Jim in every discernable way. He was short, thin and clean shaven, and wore a crisp military formal uniform, the ‘Class A’, which was weighed down by rows of ribbons and hanging medals.

“Ah, Bradley! Thank you for joining us. Please, have a seat; your daughter may, too.” He gestured to the empty seats. The Colonel’s voice was surprisingly deep, for his size, and had the distinct twang of a Texan.

“Thank you, Colonel. Brad will be fine,” I corrected.

“Of course. Sit, please.” He sat when we did, and the other men did then same.

The Colonel smiled. “Good,” he said. “Welcome to Washington City. Jim here been taking good care’a ya?”

“Yes, thank you. Him and Nurse Lisa both,” I answered.

“Excellent. Now, Bradley, meet the government of Washington,” he waved his arm across the table. I ignored the slight of my name. “I’m Colonel Ryan H. Arnold, I’m Governor here. I built this place, made it what it is. Now, of course you’ve met Jim, he’s security, but you’ve probably realized that by now.”

He introduced the rest of the men in turn, going around the table, each nodding with the recognition. Two women had emerged from the kitchen and began piling plates and refilling cups with fresh iceless water. Thankfully, the meal wasn’t pork; it was, however, home-cooked and hot. The pasta was still steaming, with a homemade tomato paste; the vegetables were plentiful, with cabbage, cucumber and peppers.

While the rest of us had started to eat, the Colonel hadn’t touched his meal. Instead, he watched. “Bradley, please tell me. If my men hadn’t shown up, what would have happened to you?”

I glanced at Madi, who looked back at me; she wanted to know, too. “We would have run until we got too tired to run. Then we would have walked until we got too tired to walk. If nothing came to save us, or if we weren’t able to get away, we would have found a place safe enough to die quietly and quickly. Before they could get to us”

The Colonel seemed to digest every word, then sat back and took a slow bite. No one else spoke.

“You’d have killed yourself, and your daughter, rather than let them get to you?” The other men at the table watched silently.

“Yes. Seems a lot better to do it our own way, rather than let them choose how we die.”

“Wiser words were never spoken,” The Colonel answered. “You would have shot yourself?”

“Whatever was quickest,” I said. I didn’t tell him about the cyanide.

“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re here now, isn’t it?” He said finally. “Tell me, Bradley,” he appeared to enjoy my name as he changed the subject, “are you familiar with Major General Benedict Arnold?”

“The traitor of west point?” I asked.

The man stared with cold, hard eyes. No one spoke until Jim leaned close and whispered, “Didn’t you catch his name, dumbass?”

Arnold.
I saw the connection, and kicked myself for not seeing it when he asked the question.

“That’s all right,” The Colonel said, after a moment. “It’s a common misconception. Major General Arnold was my great, great grandfather, a couple of steps more down the line. Did you know that he launched the first real American Navy? While Congress was still dicking around with authorizations and requisitions, he launched a fleet of fishing boats with after-market cannons. He tied up the entire British Armada, saved the war for the Country. The man served with honor, until he was betrayed. He was betrayed. Did you know that? They betrayed him first.” His voice had risen in pitch with his agitation; he spit a fine mist as he raised his voice.

“I hadn’t heard that.” I wasn’t sure about his facts, but didn’t feel the need to argue the point.

He continued, “But Benedict Arnold, he was misunderstood. I was misunderstood, too, by the Army, before the war, at least.” He paused. “Woman, drink!” He called. The young woman appeared by his side with the carafe of water. She mumbled a quiet apology before retreating back to the wall. “The Army held me as a Captain for too long; misunderstood, just like my ancestor. Did you ever serve in the Military, Bradley?”

“Yes,” I answered. “I was Army; truck driver.”

“Ah, a Mike!” he exclaimed, referring to my MOS of 88M. “So you get it, you understand. You know how the Army can get sometimes. Were you in the war?” I assumed he meant the war against the undead.

“No, I got out when this one was born. I was out by the time it happened,” I said, with a look at Madi.

“Shame,” he replied. “We’re were fixin’ to take one of the Northern L.A. sectors, back when we thought we could take and hold anything at all. The fight was door to door, it was bloody, it was brutal. But Colonel Dolet, he kept pushing on. No time to regroup, no time to recover. He caught himself a stray round before we hit the County jail; it happens sometimes, especially to men like Dolet. Happened
a lot
to men like Dolet, if you know what I’m saying. I was next ranking, so I pinned on in the field; no paperwork, no time for a ceremony, it was a goddamn war and I had a mission.”

It seemed that he actually saw himself that way- that in his mind, He was every action hero and every great leader rolled into one. He paused, and breathed deep.

“L.A. fell pretty fast. I heard…” I trailed off.

“You heard right. We went full retreat after that, we were just losing too many and not making enough progress to make it worthwhile. Good men; kids, most of them. Lost even more trying to get out of that hell-hole.”

He stopped talking, leaned back in his chair and loudly belched. “But that was another lifetime. We’re here now, tucked away safe and sound, in what might just be the last city on earth.” That prompted a brief cheer, and a subdued Army ‘Hooah’, from the men at the table.

The Colonel stood, pushing his chair behind him as he rose. “Gentlemen, I wish you a good night.” He turned to me, “Bradley, come to my office tonight, twenty-hundred hours. Jim will be out, if you lose your way.” I saw Jim nod from the corner of my eye. “Cherry!” he barked. A young man at the far end of the table snapped to his feet, pushing his chair across the floor.

“Sir?” the man answered.

“When Bradley and his girl are done eating, take them to billeting and get them set up with a place to sleep. I want those medical beds freed up tonight.”

“Yes, sir!” The man replied, and then skittered towards the double-doors.

“Bradley, I’ll see you tonight,” the Colonel reminded me. I nodded as he left.

The nervous man, Cherry, returned to the room as the others began to leave and the women cleared their spaces. He more fell into the room through the double doors, rather than walking into it, as he smoothed the papers on the thick clipboard.

He stopped and sat at the table next to me, pulling a chair from against the wall. The man had short-cropped dark hair and a neatly trimmed goatee, and he wore thin wire glasses. “Hi, my name’s Jon, but they call me Cherry because I’m new here. I’ve only been here for a few weeks, but I like it fine. Do you?” He spoke quickly, with the chronically nervous demeanor of a small, yappy dog; I didn’t believe that he took a single breath until he stopped to wait for my answer. He had the affable sincerity of a child, and I figured that he had about the same faculties.

“Yeah, it’s all right,” I answered.

He smiled, satisfied. “Good, good.” A panic look quivered across his face, as his eyes darted from side to side- I realized that he was looking for something to fill the brief silence. “Did you know that horses and rats can’t vomit?” He added, reassured that he had come up with something, no matter how unrelated to the matter at hand. 

“No, I guess I didn’t,” I admitted. “Were you in the Colonel’s unit, back in the war?”

He laughed. “No, I wasn’t in the Army. I think only a couple of these guys have been. And no one from his unit survived, anyways, ‘least that’s what I heard him say once. The Colonel likes it, that we dress this way. Early on, right after we found the school, we took some stuff from a Nasty Girl Armory…”

I interrupted, “Nasty Girl?”

“Yeah, that’s what the Colonel called it. National Guard, I think. There were some people inside, but only a couple. They were probably doing the same thing as us, anyways. So we took what we could find, and we got these uniforms, too. I like it, it really makes me feel important. Before all this happened, I lived in this group home, and we weren’t allowed to do a lot of things, but here there aren’t too many rules.” He paused, thinking. “For the men, at least,” he added.

He continued. “I don’t want to talk about that. The Colonel trusts me to do a lot of important things, and I have an important job.” He pulled his sleeve and pulled a thick rubber band quickly, allowing it to snap onto his wrist with a painful crack, wincing as it left a red welt. He did the same action every few minutes, as if on impulse. He checked the sheet affixed to the clipboard. “Now, let’s see, is your girl eighteen?” He asked, sincerely and without any trace of sarcasm.

Madi and I exchanged glances. “No, she’s eight.”

“Okay,” he answered. He tapped the paper absently several times with the tip of a pen, leaving a small patch of inadvertent ink marks. “Room two-forty-one. That’s available. We’ll get you a few cots and some bedding and get you settled in. Is that okay with you?” He asked.

“Yes, Jon. Thank you, that will be just fine,” I answered. He visibly relaxed.

“Good. Good.”

We followed closely behind him as he led us to the storeroom, from where he pulled out a pair of cots, pillows and bedding. Although I offered to carry them, he insisted that he do it and continued talking with a singsong rhythm that I wasn’t able to entirely follow, but I appreciated his earnestness. At last, with the sun beginning to slip behind the surrounding hills, we reached our room.

“Here you are, two-four-one,” Jon said, stopping outside the door. “I’ll check on you in the morning. The lights aren’t working, but I think the moon’ll be out tonight, so maybe that will help.” He looked around carefully, before kneeling next to Madi. “If you’re scared of the dark, don’t worry, you’re safe here. Sometimes I’m scared of the dark, you know,” he whispered. “I never had to sleep in the dark before, I always had a night light to sleep with. I just remember that it’s light somewhere, and the sun’s going just as quick as it can to get back to me, and it makes me feel better. Okay?”

Madi smiled her sweetest smile, humoring him. “Okay, thank you.”

He smiled back. “Good. Good. Now, I think the Colonel’s expecting you before too long.” He snapped his rubber band again, wincing as it smacked against the soft skin on the underside of his wrist. “You might want to get settled in. There’s a clock on the wall, it should still work okay if the batteries are still good, the rest are running pretty good at least. They start with breakfast as soon as it gets light out, so you should get there early so you can get plenty. Please, have a good night. Thank you for staying at the hotel Jon.”

He stood anxiously, waiting, and I chuckled politely at his joke. He smiled and mumbled, “Good. Good,” as he turned back the way we had come. There was a thick metal hasp on the outside of the door, but no lock; I moved it aside and we entered.

As I was setting up Madi’s cot, there was a soft knock at the metal-skinned door. I turned to Madi, “Stay there.” She obediently planted herself on my cot, and was quiet. By this time, it was dark outside, but I could see Lisa when I opened the door. “Lis-” I started, as she pushed through the opening to come inside. “What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.