The Infection

FLASHBACK: Todd Paulsen

The government closed the schools after the Screaming. For Todd Paulsen, this meant the possibility of early summer vacation.

Four whole months of freedom. No more furtive darting through the crowds in the hallways between classes. No more ritual humiliations during gym class. No more awkward moments trying to secure a seat on the school bus. No more fantasizing about walking into the school with a machine gun and hunting down every jock asshole who ever hurt him. He prayed the school system would stay screwed up until the end of the summer. The Screaming had culled the assholes; graduation would claim most of the rest. Then next year he would be a senior.

The only thing that kept him sane since entering high school was the Lycans, the wargaming club down at Lycan Hobbies. Most of them were guys attending the local college. He counted them as his only friends. He pretty much worshipped them. They were basically geeks like him, but they were much more self-assured and worldly. In fact, to them, geek was not an insult, something to be ashamed of, but instead a simple, apt and mildly amusing descriptor. They even dated girls and discussed their dating casually, without fanfare. They assured him that high school may feel like prison but college would be better, so be patient. This tantalizing thought had kept him sane all year.

That, and Sheena X, the high school chick who worked the register at the store and usually sat with her feet up on the counter, chewing gum and reading comic books. Sometimes, she even participated in the gaming on Friday nights. She would typically show up wearing red skinny jeans, Converse All-Stars, and a black T-shirt with screamo or some band name scrawled on it. Often, she wore a matching studded belt and wristband. On colder days, she wore a tight sweater vest. Her hair, dyed black, fell over one eye. She would show up at the store with an obsession of the week. One week, it was getting suicide scars tattooed on her wrists. Another week, making a movie based on the songs of Island Def Jam and Joy Division and Garbage. For the next three weeks, Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp. Todd usually communicated with her in an overexcited, virtually shouted stream of consciousness, but instead of rolling her eyes at him and mouthing freak, Sheena X simply stared and nodded sagely.

They accepted him, more or less, as he was. They were his port in the unending storm that was his adolescence.

The club played several tabletop miniature wargames but usually Warhammer 40,000, set in a space fantasy universe where the Imperium of Man, far flung across the Milky Way galaxy, was in constant conflict with powerful alien species. For many teenagers, music and fashion were their outlets. For Todd, it was gaming. He had painstakingly collected and painted a company of a hundred Space Marines, war machines and bosses, allowing him to participate in smaller games as well as big games, three thousand points and up, that played out over days. The Lycans had just gotten a new codex for urban warfare and had been trying it out with a game between Space Marines and massive swarms of Tyranids. The table presented the ruins of an ancient city in the middle. The Space Marines’ mission was to secure the city within several turns and set up a defense in time for a massive Tyranid counterattack. Todd and Alan had just taken the city before the Screaming, and now that school was canceled, he was itching to get back to the game. Alan had fallen down but his opponents were okay, and so the game could continue.

Lycan Hobbies, however, remained closed three days after the Screaming. Finally, in a state of panic, Todd called Sheena X at home. She explained to him that the owner’s wife had fallen down, and that he was out of his wits trying to find his brother, who was missing.

“Wow,” said Todd. “So do you know when he’s going to open the store again?”

“I don’t know, dude. What are you doing up this early? You’re never up this early.”

“Sirens woke me up. It’s like non-stop sirens out there. Some kind of fire or something.”

“I can hear them here, too.”

Fires were a common occurrence since the Screaming. A lot of heating devices—ovens, irons and so on—were left on when the screamers fell down. Natural gas systems were not being properly maintained. Power lines were still falling.

“So anyway, do you think he would just let us in so we could finish up our game?”

“Todd, what the fuck?”

He launched into a recap of the first night’s gaming. She had not been there that night. Surely, if she knew how great it was, she would understand his impatience at continuing the contest. He’d had a simple strategy, he said. He and Alan had sent armor—two Venerable Dreadnoughts with plasma and auto cannons, flanked by Land Speeders armed with missile launchers and heavy bolters—pushing hard through the city, securing it. When the infantry caught up, he sent about half to mop up the remaining resistance and the other half to establish a defensive perimeter in a horseshoe shape. Then the Tyranid counterattack suddenly appeared, a real party made up of Tyrannofex, Termagants, Tervigons and Hive Guard led by a Swarmlord with three Tyrant Guard—

“Enough, Todd,” Sheena said tersely.

He felt his stomach fall into his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said tentatively, his mind racing to figure out what he had done wrong.

“I don’t give a shit about Warhammer right now. My dad fell down, Todd.”

“Now he won’t bug you anymore,” he offered.

“I know I don’t like my dad very much,” Sheena X said, her voice strained. “I know he can be a real asshole when he wants to be. But I didn’t want this to happen to him. I didn’t want him to go into a fucking coma. I didn’t want half his foot to get chopped off by the fucking lawnmower he was pushing when he fell down.” Her voice became shrill. “Okay?”

“Okay, Sheena,” he said, feeling chastened and more than a little shocked by her language. “I get it. You know, my mom fell down, too.”

“I know, Todd. Maybe you should be thinking about her instead of that stupid game.”

He recoiled, his face burning with embarrassment while anger flared in his chest. She had made him feel childish for enjoying Warhammer 40,000 when he had always understood that it was a game that adults played. It was not stupid. And his mom was fine. Dad had put her in a special facility where she was getting around-the-clock care. He also tried to get Todd to see a therapist, but luckily they were all booked up with new patients after the Screaming—indefinitely, it seemed. Why would he need a therapist anyhow? He was at home lying on the living room couch sick when the Screaming happened, fast asleep; he had missed the entire thing and had to see it on TV later. Half the school’s bullies were in a catatonic state and the school itself had been closed. His mom was sick like the other screamers but he knew that she would be okay. They would all be okay. He had tremendous faith in the government’s ability to solve problems like this. A cure was coming.

Todd said nothing, racking his brain for something to say, maybe something funny that would ease the tension.

She sighed. “I got to go, Todd. My mom is yelling for me.”

“All right.”

“Oh my God,” Sheena X shrieked happily. “Mom says Dad is waking up!”

“That’s great,” Todd said, laughing.

“I got to go. Bye, Todd!”

Todd hung up, grinning. If Sheena X’s dad was waking up, so was his mom.

His grin evaporated. And so are all the others. Like John Wheeler.

And they would reopen the school. Maybe even keep school going past the end of June to make up for the lost time. Todd felt deflated at the thought. God had a crappy sense of humor.

The phone rang. That would be his dad bearing good news. He picked up the receiver.

“Todd, listen—”

Couldn’t they all just stay asleep for one more month?

“Hey, Dad. Are you calling about Mom?”

“Listen to me. I don’t have much time. That barricade is not going to hold. We have nothing to fight them with—”

“Aren’t you at work?” His dad worked in an office as a manager of something. In one of those big cubicle farms like you see in Dilbert.

“You need to get my gun. It’s in a shoebox on the top shelf of me and your mom’s closet. Make sure you get the bullets, too. Don’t leave the house. Shoot anybody who breaks in. Shoot to kill.”

Todd laughed. “Dad?”

“They’re coming in. DON’T RUN! STAY TOGETHER! FIGHT! Todd, I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re fucked. I love you, kid. Yeah. I guess that’s it. Take care of yourself.”

A flurry of screams at the other end of the phone.

“Dad?” Todd said into the dial tone.

He smelled smoke through the open window. Sirens continued wailing from all four corners of the city. Other sounds ripped the air: screams. And splashes of gunfire, startlingly loud. Todd looked out the window but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just his boring little typical suburban street washed in bright May sunshine. Every lawn was perfectly manicured; even the front yards of the homes abandoned by the screamers had been well tended by charitable neighbors. Looking at this gentle scene, it was hard to believe that even the Screaming had happened.

One thing was wrong, though: The street was empty except for a single distant running figure, which quickly disappeared behind a house. The headlines on the major news sites on the Internet announced widespread rioting in California. Todd wanted to head downstairs and turn on the TV to find out what was going on, but remained rooted where he stood, torn between the thrill of massive developing tragedy and the uncertain terror of finding out that something awful had happened to his dad. He tried calling his dad’s office line and got voicemail. He left a message, trying to figure out what to do next to keep his growing sense of panic at bay a little longer.

He looked down at his front yard and saw a big cop in a motorcycle helmet marching purposefully down the sidewalk.

“Hey, officer!” he called. “What’s going on?”

The policeman looked up at the window, showing his gray face and wet, blackened chin.

“Are you okay?” Todd said.

The man ran up the front walk of his house, quickly disappearing from view.

“What the hell is he doing?” Todd mumbled to himself, both alarmed and amused.

He heard the front door crash open. Moments later, the motorcycle cop came banging up the stairs.

“Oh, crap,” he said.

Todd threw himself onto the floor as he heard the stomping in the hall, and crawled under the bed as his door flew open, knocking half his Space Marines off his dresser.

The cop paced around the room impatiently, sniffing the air and shouldering the walls. Todd lay under the bed and tried not to breathe, flooded with panic and fear. The emotions reminded him of school, the strange feeling that everybody hated him. He watched the cop’s boots track blood across his carpet. The minutes ticked by. The cop continued to pace and knock things over. The room began to fill with a rancid sour-milk stench, forcing Todd to breathe through his mouth. After an hour, the cop left. Todd heard him in the bathroom, splashing in the toilet. Then the man came back, coughing wetly, and resumed his march around the room.

After a few hours of this, Todd grew bored and eventually fell asleep.

He woke up dry-mouthed and sweaty and fighting a massive urge to piss. He almost cried out at the jolt of confusion he felt waking up under his bed, but remembered the danger he was in and wisely kept his mouth shut. Thank God he had not snored or farted or laughed or did any of the other things he speculated that he did in his sleep. He had no idea what time it was; the sun had gone down and he could barely see his hand in front of his face. The maniac cop was no longer pacing but was still in the room. Todd could smell his sour stink and hear him breathing in quick, shallow gasps. He wondered if the man was sleeping. Should he risk moving? The thought of leaving the security of his hiding place paralyzed him with fear. He did not know exactly what the cop would do to him if he caught him but just the idea of being dominated physically by a stronger man electrified him with revulsion. He stalled by fantasizing about his dad coming home, and warning him just in time that the cop was there, saving his life. Then he fantasized about Sheena X coming over to check on him, and saving her life, which gave him an erection. An hour went by like this while the night breezes delivered the sounds of screams and squealing tires and gunfire through his window.

He realized that he had to do something soon or he might be trapped under this bed for another full day. He crept towards the far edge of the bed, stopping to listen every few inches. The policeman panted like a dog. Finally, he left the shelter of the bed and wondered what to do next. A part of him wanted to stand up and make a run for it on pure adrenaline, but this notion was quickly overruled by his tiny but growing voice of common sense. Do nothing and you’re going to die, Todd old man, he told himself. So do something. The bedroom door was open and the cop was somewhere to his left. If the man was facing the door, he would see Todd. If he was not, then Todd might have a chance.

He slithered forward like a snake and paused at the edge of the bed, peering at the dark form swaying on its feet in the darkness. The cop was facing the corner. The white motorcycle helmet bobbed as the man breathed in his little shallow gasps, his shoulders shrugging in rhythm.

This is really freaking ninja, he thought.

Within minutes, Todd was free and gently closing the door behind him. He tiptoed to his parents’ bedroom, emptied his bladder quietly into the sink in the en suite bathroom, and began pulling boxes down from the top shelf of the closet until he found a heavy blue shoebox. Inside, he found nestled a small handgun, box of bullets and sheet of paper. He took the sheet to the window and squinted at it under the light of nearby streetlights. It was a note from his dad to him saying the gun was loaded and had no safety, so do not even think about touching it if he ever found it.

Awesome, he thought, picking up the gun.

The gun roared in his hand, punching two smoking holes through the wall. He blinked in the afterglow of the flash, his ears ringing and his nose burning from the cordite.

“Holy crap,” he said. His voice sounded muffled in his ears. “Aw, jeez. I barely touched it.”

Dad’s gonna murder me for that, he thought.

As his hearing returned to normal, he became aware that the cop was roaring and banging on his bedroom door. Todd ran to the hall, braced his legs and aimed the pistol with both hands. Strangely, the presence of the gun made him feel weaker instead of stronger. His hands started to shake. The door was shivering and splintering under the blows. He took a deep breath to try to calm himself. Picture the outcome, he told himself. He envisioned the cop bursting through the door and lunging out of the gloom. He imagined squeezing the trigger and putting two in the chest and one between the eyes. He pictured the crazy cop dying before he hit the floor.

“Screw that,” he said, lowering the pistol.

He ran down the stairs, stepped into his shoes at the front entry and bolted out of the house. Almost immediately he collided with a snarling woman coming up the driveway, the gun going off in his hands again and taking the top of her head off.

“Crap, sorry,” he said to the crumpling form, and kept running, into the night.

He became winded after a few blocks and slowed down, cradling the gun carefully against his chest. He heard the tramp of feet and quickly hid as a pack of people ran by growling, their torn shirts flapping. People were screaming everywhere. On the next block, a house was burning without a single fireman on the scene; he could feel the heat on his face. He fought the urge to cough on the smoke.

Todd began to feel as if he were moving through a nightmare. Changing direction to avoid the fire, he approached a group of people huddled on the ground near the wreckage of a horrible car crash in the middle of an intersection. He wanted to ask if they were all right but the tiny voice of common sense warned him to stick to the shadows. One of the cars was on fire, the light glittering on the tiny shards of broken glass carpeting the ground.

As he passed the group of people, he realized they were hunched over a body, pulling out organs and chewing noisily. The light crawled across their gray, bloody faces. He fought the urge to retch.

Picture them eating something nice, he told himself. Fried chicken. They’re eating a bucket of fried chicken. Crispy fried chicken with a side of fries. That’s all. No big deal.

Bad idea. The contents of his stomach leaped into his throat and he vomited noisily against a brick wall, helpless, his eyes filled with water. When he turned back, he saw that one of the eaters was looking right at him. He knew they were different—crazy, demonic, even—but they couldn’t see in the dark, could they? He clung to the wall, trying not to move and yet shaking uncontrollably. The woman was topless, her chest wet and darkly stained, firelight gleaming in her black eyes. Todd stared wide-eyed at her bare breasts. Eventually, she lowered her head back to resume her grisly meal.

People are turning into cannibals, he thought. What the hell is going on? Where am I supposed to go? He suddenly wanted to find a computer or TV so he could see what was happening. Maybe a phone so he could call his dad again. Maybe his dad was dead. He tried not to think about it.

Sheena X. He decided to go to her house, help her barricade the place, and wait out this zombie apocalypse together. He was rolling a fantasy of them sharing the pain of their parents being dead—followed by the realization that that they are in love, and a huge make-out scene—when the Infected came running out of the darkness, howling and reaching for him.

Todd ran in a blind panic. Jesus, he thought. These people want to kill me. The very idea sapped the energy from his legs. Made him suddenly want to sleep. His mind swam in panic. If only, he thought. It’s not fair, he thought. His lungs were gasping for air on razor blades. The gun, he thought. He remembered the pistol in his hand.

He slowed and turned as the first Infected bore down on him, a big man wearing a T-shirt soaked through with blood and sweat, emitting a long, terrible shriek. Todd squeezed the trigger on reflex, forgetting to aim. The bullet entered the side of the man’s head just above the ear, instantly turning half his skull into a spray of blood and skull fragments. The Infected staggered, shaking his head vigorously as if sneezing, shaking free pieces of brain, and then collapsed. The death of this monster struck Todd as nothing short of a miracle.

“Yeah!” he cried through a haze of gun smoke.

More came howling out of the darkness. He had to wait until they got close so he could be sure that he would hit them. But if they got too close, he would panic and run and then they would get him. Todd blanked out his mind, breathing heavily through his nose and trying to slow his heart rate, and pictured the scene as an online first-person shooter game, letting his hand-eye reflexes take over, shifting his aim and firing as the Infected approached.

“I am invincible,” he sang off key, wishing for a soundtrack, then stopped, unable to remember the rest of the words to the song. The fight was over in seconds. He blinked, surveying the bodies of five Infected lying on the ground moaning and thrashing.

He approached the twitching bodies carefully, watching for any who might make a last-second movie lunge and deliver a mortal wound that would be just payment for his hubris. One of them was a police officer. Todd was curious about him because he shot the man three times but the cop kept getting up and coming at him until the last bullet destroyed the right side of his head. The mystery was solved easily; the man wore a bullet-proof vest.

Todd pulled the vest off the man and put it on himself. It was a little big and it was heavier than he thought it would be, but he loved it. He had seen them on TV, of course, and had always wanted one. He thought it made him look bigger, bulkier, tougher than he usually felt when he looked in the mirror. He sensed that he could be good at this—surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

Looks like school is out forever, he thought. The thought almost made him happy.

He continued his march. After a while, the sky began to lighten; dawn was coming. He had to get off the street soon. His heart pounded as he approached Sheena X’s house.

Wait until she sees me in this gear, he told himself. She’ll be all over me.

The porch light was on, as if she were expecting him. Lights were on in the house. The door was ajar. He rang the doorbell and waited.

Todd backed away, shaking his head.

“Aw, Sheena…”

The screen door banged open and Sheena X stumbled out of the house, twitching and gray-faced, the front of her T-shirt soaked with blood, her hair still combed over one eye.

“No,” he said. “Oh, no.”

“Rah, ruh,” she snarled.

“I’m sorry, Sheena.”

Todd raised the gun and fired. The bullet punctured her skull and splashed her brains onto the screen door. She collapsed instantly, leaving a puff of smoke and bloody mist hanging in the air.

The crash of the gunshot echoed down the street and mingled with millions of similar sounds occurring all over the city, rising up to the sky as a single chaotic roar.

Todd sat on the ground in a daze, unsure of what he felt. Then it all suddenly hit him. Within moments, he was shaking uncontrollably and hugging his knees and bawling.