Who Watches the Dead Men?
by Steve Ormosi
Jonah looked out over the barrier at the charred and toppled buildings that used to be part of his city. It was hard to believe how fast everything had come tumbling down. It could be worse, he thought, I could be dead…or a howling lunatic by now. He gazed out on the ever-present throng of mindless bodies attached to vicious teeth and nails. He scanned through the crowd of used-to-be people. There were three today. Three people he knew from a lifetime ago. Two had gone to high school with him; one was a friend from work. All three wanted to eat his guts now. They looked hungry.
He tried to get his mind off of how depressing the whole situation was, but his watch seemed endless, sitting in this tower, alone, with a siren and a handgun. He found it funny that the siren up here would be significantly more useful than the gun if there was any kind of breach. A simple loud noise could save thousands of people if it came down to it, this handgun would only save one soul…not even his life, just his soul. He wouldn’t ever come back if he had anything to say about it. One shot to the temple and that would be that if they ever got through.
Jonah stared at the barricade. It encircled the whole encampment, which was close to the center of the city that had been, with a watch tower situated every mile or so around the interior’s circumference. The barrier was sturdy, about 15 feet high, made of concrete and curved slightly out so it couldn’t be climbed. The unfortunate people of the initial attacks had found out early that fences didn’t work; they’d be scaled within the day. Barbed wire didn’t do shit since they apparently felt no pain. Luckily, the zombies, or zeds, or Zack, or infected (for the scientists) or whatever you were calling them hadn’t figured out how to stack things to enable themselves to get over the wall…at least not yet. This was part of the reason The Watch tried to never kill zombies that were just outside the barrier, they didn’t want bodies piling up since they had no way of clearing the ground. There was a second wall about 40 feet behind the towers just in case the first one broke.
Jonah looked back towards the city, or what was left of it. It had been pared down to just less than 15 square miles and held over 100,000 people. He thought about the Herculean effort it had taken to erect a barrier around these 15 square miles with only a few months to prepare before the plague had hit. Every man woman and child that stayed behind had been put to work doing all they could and it still hadn’t really gotten done in time. The initial quarantines had been real bad. Lots of uninfected people were put in pens with the infected because they were suspected to have the virus. A lot of people left. In a way it was lucky that so many had fled the city after the first reports of outbreak and first wave of quarantines. They didn’t need so much land and could defend a smaller area. It helped that the zombies weren’t too smart; they were pretty easy to take out when the need arose.
They did retain good hunting instincts though, which, combined with their unquenchable desire for flesh, made them damn dangerous especially when they formed packs. Jonah sat on this tower all shift, every shift, thinking about these soulless bastards of man. He thought about ways to kill them, he made up back stories for the ones he saw, he prayed for the ones he knew. Sitting up here was probably going to drive him fucking batshit insane and he knew it, but he stayed. Loyalty to his remaining friends and fellow survivors spurred him on. He’d often catch himself thinking , “One day I’ll break,” over and over again. Then he’d think, “but not today.”
And then his shift was over. His relief called up from below and Jonah shimmied down the ladder, passed off the gun and gave some other poor fuck the chance to lose his mind for a while.
Going back to the city involved 2 doors and about 10-15 minutes of questioning from the guards at the second gate. These were the second rate citizens of The Watch. The ones who really only had to fight if the shit had properly hit the fan, and by then there probably wasn’t fuckall anyone could do anyway. You were required to give a testimony of anything unusual you’d seen before reentering the city limits. Jonah laughed to himself nearly every time they asked that, “No, sorry sergeant, nothing unusual, just about a million people doing their damndest to eat my fucking face off.” He’d found out early they didn’t really like responses like that. That’s why he kept giving them.
After that he had to strip down and be inspected for bites or broken skin of any kind. He’d heard that one guy had accidentally cut his hand while on a watch about a month ago and they quarantined him for a damn week, must’ve sucked for him, but Jonah understood the caution. Nobody wanted to have their dad or husband or neighbor waking up as a zombie one night and fucking life up for everybody.
Once he was through, Jonah headed home for some rest. He worked in four twelve hour shifts a week and had the next two days off. There would be plenty of time for fun and games after he caught some zees.
Jonah woke up, as he often did, in a cold sweat. He shivered off the most recent nightmare, stepped into a pair of torn up jeans and went to the bar downstairs of his apartment.
Kelly was working the bar today, “Moonshine or beer, Jonah?” she asked.
“Beer Kel, and for the love of god, keep ‘em coming. I got a couple hundred brain cells want killing by the end of tonight.”
“You got it.”
The Watch always drank free, and Kelly was good for a conversation if you were in the mood. She slid the beer down the bar closely followed by an ashtray. They didn’t mind smoking in the bars so much as they used to before the downfall of man. Jonah lit up two and handed one to Kelly.
As he breathed in that first delicious drag he asked, “Slow tonight, eh?” Exhale.
“Yeah, there were a few in here earlier but nobody’s out and about. It’s a school night remember?”
Jonah grinned, “These kids must be pissed. The world ends and they still have to go to school.”
“Kids go to school because it keeps them out of their parents’ hair while they try to get electricity and running water working,” Kelly gestured at the sinks with her cig hand, “Sure would be nice if I could wash my dishes in those without having to walk a mile to fill up on water.”
Jonah finished his beer and had another in front of him before he put the glass down, he grinned and stubbed out his cigarette, “Quick aincha?”
“You’re my only customer, gotta keep you in drinks. And besides, I have to butter you up before I ask you to run down to the corner and pick me up some dinner.”
“Oh Jesus, alright, I think they just offed a cow, maybe they’ll have hamburgers. I’ll go after this beer. Grab me some plates.”
Jonah strolled through the entrance of the bazaar, plates tucked under his arm, and started off toward the food carts ignoring the shouts of, “Suck your cock for onna those plates,” and “BRAND NEW BATTERIES, NEVER BEEN USED! TWO FOR A HOT MEAL OR A WARM BED!” and “Equal rights for infected Americans!” on the way. God bless America. It was an uncertain prospect that he’d get anything especially good to eat in here, but you could always get something and that was much better than nothing. Turned out they didn’t have hamburger, but a pig had just died at the farm, so hot pork chops were on sale. The old world’s money was pretty much worthless these days but a hard day’s work still earned you some currency, he showed his official ID, just a piece of paper, but within the city limits it was like gold. He got two meals, pork chops and potatoes and started back to the bar.
As he walked back through the bazaar, he took in the insanity of it all. Even on school nights, this place bustled. There were people selling anything they could. Coffee was a big seller, working batteries too; they were becoming hard to come by. And as was always the case, humanity’s alleged oldest profession was doing quite well. Many of the vendors sold whores as well as whatever they could dredge out of their basements before they fled the zombies. A lot of them had been holding onto these knick-knacks, until they realized they needed to eat and they could barter this stuff for food.
Local government was often buying up electronic equipment on the cheap because they were usually the only ones with the expertise to make it work in some capacity or another. Full-on city wide electricity was probably still months away at the very least, so anyone who knew anything about electronics was working for the guys in charge (their power over the city was tenuous at best, but it was better than pure anarchy). All the scientists up in city hall were working on god knows what while The Watch sat in the trenches and witnessed the abominations clawing and biting and bloodying themselves against the wall. It was maddening, but it was the job. Jonah thought about all this as he walked.
Back at Kelly’s the food had vanished and was replaced by shot glasses full of the only damn liquor you could find anymore. Good old-fashioned moon shine. It tasted like shit and Jonah hated it, but he couldn’t turn down the offer from Kelly.
“To the watch,” she said.
“To liver explosions and brain aneurisms,” Jonah countered.
“Here, here,” Kelly said before she gulped down her favorite gasoline flavored beverage.
Jonah sputtered after drinking his, “I need a beer and another cigarette. Quick, quick, lickity split. My eyeballs hurt after drinking that sludge,” he coughed and gulped the new beer Kelly had brought over to him.
“Oh, stop being such a pussy.”
“Kel, seriously, I think your moonshine would stop the hordes. Melt their skin off em, explode their heads. I think you might have saved humanity when you brewed that shit. “
“Then they’re pussies too,” she grinned, “Got plans for after this?”
“I got no other plans, why? You closing down soon?”
“Not soon, just trying to make conversation. Well I’m glad to have some company for a bit anyway,” Kelly slid another beer down to Jonah just as he was finishing the one in his hand, “That one’s on the house.”
“Great, thanks. You’re a real humanitarian.”
“Anymore Jonah, we all gotta be.”
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