The Infection

Wendy flinches at a loud thud, followed by another. Somebody is throwing something heavy at the bus. It reminds her of the monster bashing their vehicle as they struggled to flee the Pittsburgh fire. She gasps and digs her nails into Sarge’s hand, which he accepts without protest. The soldiers at the front stand up, glaring, fingering their rifles. The window across the aisle explodes and angry shouting and dusty sunlight penetrates the bus. Wendy half stands in her seat and catches a glimpse of camping tents and people through the jagged hole.

“Take your seat, Ma’am,” one of the soldiers says, a clean-shaven kid with large ears protruding from under his cap. “Please, it’s for your safety.”

Wendy sits, shaking her head in wonder.

“Volleyball,” she says, feeling almost giddy with relief. “I saw some teenagers playing volleyball outside.”

“That wasn’t a ball that hit us,” Sarge says. “Somebody was throwing bricks or rocks at us. Something is wrong here.”

“It can’t be all wrong if kids are playing volleyball,” she says.

“People play volleyball in prison,” Sarge tells her.

The bus stops and the driver kills the engine. They sit quietly for several minutes, waiting for something to happen. The heat is oppressive. The smell of diesel exhaust slowly dissipates, replaced by conflicting odors of cooking and open sewage. They hear a mother shouting at her child to be careful. Somebody is playing a guitar.

The door opens and a woman enters the bus carrying a clipboard, her face partially obscured by a green bandana. Her blue eyes glitter against her sunburned forehead. She pulls the bandana down, revealing a young, pretty face set in a bright smile.

Wendy grunts with surprise. The camp appears to be run by teenagers.

“I’m Kayley,” the girl says. “I will be your orientation instructor.”

♦

The survivors are led into a classroom inside a brick school building. Kayley stands at the front of the room, by the chalkboard, while they take their seats. The window blinds are open, allowing sunlight to fill the space and providing an outside view of several women taking a smoke break while another inventories a pile of boxes.

Ethan pauses at the teacher’s desk before finding a seat. His classroom had been like this one, clean and neat but low on budget and behind the times in terms of technology. The main teaching method was lecture using a green chalkboard, erasers and lots of chalk. For a little excitement, maybe an overhead projector with transparencies. He remembers how much he loved the squeaky sound a stick of chalk made on the board as he wrote equations for his students. He loved everything about the job, in fact. That, and his relationships with his family, had defined him.

How quickly things change, he thinks.

How would you solve for x?

Answer: You try to kill it.

His finger throbs with pain. He pops another painkiller.

A part of him realizes that he could start over here. The camp appears to offer a second chance. If they provide schooling to kids, maybe he could even become a teacher again. Putting his skills to work here is a duty as real as Wendy’s wish that she were still a cop. One might think teaching kids math during the apocalypse would be a waste of time, but the opposite is true. Kids should continue learning, preparing for the future. Otherwise, there is no future and the war against Infection is already lost. The other way lies barbarism.

He will never teach again, however. He knows this. Even if the plague and the fratricides were to end tomorrow, he still cannot imagine it. That part of him is as broken as the world.

The truth is the only reason he is here is because of the slim chance he might find his family among the camp’s residents. This hope, as thin as it is, has become his strongest reality. Everything else is illusion. He will keep searching until he finds them. He will search forever. That is what he does now. That is who he is.

Todd flops into the desk next to him and slouches, scowling. “I just can’t get away, I guess,” he mutters.

“Ready for some algebra?” Ethan says with a wink, hoping to rib him.

“I liked algebra,” Todd tells him. “It’s school I hated.”

A man walks into the room, talks quietly with Kayley for a few moments, and then leaves. Immediately, a group of people enter in a cautious daze.

“You are all survivors of Pittsburgh,” she tells them. “You are not different from each other. You are all the same. At one time, you were neighbors. Welcome each other.”

The survivors pause, sizing each other up, and nod before taking their seats. The newcomers are filthy and exhausted. One of them sobs quietly as she hugs a sleeping toddler against her chest. Another puts his head down onto his desk and immediately falls into a fitful sleep. Dust floats in the sunlight around them. They smell like ashes.

“Welcome,” Kayley says. “Welcome to Camp Defiance. You are safe here, in this room. This is a safe place and you’re okay.”

The survivors quiet down and look at her hungrily.