Chapter 4

The following day, Tommy took over an hour writing out a letter to General Charles, answering as many questions as he could. Then he spent at least half an hour just reassuring everyone that he was coming back, that this was their new home, and that they just needed to wait for him. Given their overwrought reactions the last time he left them alone for the day, he felt guilty about not bringing them along, but there was no way he would be able to keep track of all of them and still get shit done.

On the other hand, Holly, of course, was coming with him. She was his girl, singular, and there was no way he was going to risk leaving her behind.

When he left, he was careful to close the front gates behind him. He really didn’t need anyone wandering off during the day.

He still needed to paint more signs, plus finish the rest of the Army’s questionnaires, and check in at the Brown Derby, and look for more trapped humans, and figure out how to keep the water flowing, and track down the power source for the area, and ... and ... Basically, there was way the hell too much stuff to do.

Worried about being able to find his way back to the Dooley’s house, he stopped half a dozen times to paint arrows on the pavement as he drove out of the neighborhood. Consulting a map, he then began working his way back to the east along a new route, stopping occasionally to paint instructions to visit the Brown Derby onto billboards, buildings, and overpasses.

At the border fence, he exchanged his letter and the forms he had managed to fill out for a new set of newspapers they had left for him. The army had also left a few packages of bottle rockets for signaling purposes, which sounded like a really good idea to him.

Early that afternoon, after his tenth spray-painted sign of the day, he got back into the van and noticed Holly getting out on the passenger side. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, afraid Holly had picked out another addition to his harem, as if he didn’t already have more than he wanted or could even handle.

He got back out of the van and noticed more movement than normal from the surrounding Infected pedestrians. Not just movement. All of the Infected near him had begun running, and a few of them were now aggressively yelling in babblese.

“Holly!” he yelled, not seeing her. He quickly started following the crowd, most of whom were now loudly babbling. He cried out even louder, trying to be heard over the noise. “Holly! Stop!”

He still couldn’t pick her out of the forming mob. Thinking again, he stopped running and yelled, “Everyone, stop! Be quiet!”

That did it. Mostly.

“Holly, follow the sound of my voice and come to me. Everyone else, go home!”

Most of the mob started to disperse in random directions, but he could still hear noises and see a lot of movement in the distance, back down the street, past where he had painted his message on the side of a building.

About twenty seconds after his last order, he finally saw Holly, in a stumbling run, moving towards him. He held out his arms, and she practically jumped into them, saying, “Dabba himma gluttally tumbryman! Tomtom finaya mursupai.”

“Hey, it’s all right. It’s all right,” he reassured her. “I only lost track of you for a few seconds there. Less than a minute. You okay?”

She nodded and held him tight. He wiped away a few tears that had formed in her eyes and gave her a kiss. She held him tighter and kissed with greater force and passion.

“Good. I guess that means you’re still a slave to your ... to our ... monster-controlled, human-chasing past. But I got you back, and you’re fine. Right?”

He pulled away from her enough to look her in her teary eyes. She was actually trembling a little. He kissed her again and just held her tight for almost a minute until she stopped shaking.

He released her from their hug and set her down.

“Now, I need to go see what started the mob rush, cause there might be someone uninfected in danger. You see our van, right there?” He pointed. “I want you to stay right next to it until I come back. Get inside, if you want, but you need to stay with the van. Okay?”

She nodded and trotted over to the van, placed one hand on its side, then looked back at him.

He smiled and nodded, then turned to chase down the rest of the mob. He was still on a bit of an adrenaline high, from the rush of fear that came when he thought he might lose Holly, so he ran full speed, and Infected humans were actually really fast, as long as they could avoid tripping or running into something else. Strong, fast, stupid, and clumsy as hell. Since he had regained his mind, he was no longer stupid and clumsy, making him a virtual superman. Well, maybe 1/1000th of a Superman at best, but still stronger and faster than normal humans.

The swarm of Infected were centered around a small multipurpose standalone commercial building, with a bar, a restaurant, a barber shop and a tailor on street level facing him, with nameplates for doctors, lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants who had offices on the middle floors. The uppermost floors maybe looked to be civilian apartments. It was pretty much indistinguishable from other nearby buildings, except for the dense swarm of Infected on street level.

He started circling the building as best he could, yelling for the Infected crowd to be quiet and go home. A couple dozen needed individual attention before they would leave, but the rest left the area with a purposeful step almost immediately after he gave them orders to do so.

Once the general area was clear, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Hey! Is there anybody who isn’t Infected around here?”

A window opened on the fourth floor, and a middle-aged man stuck his head out and looked around. Seeing the crowds leaving, he waved at Tommy and moved his mouth. The guy was obviously trying to whisper down to street level, which just wasn’t working out very well.

Yelling up at him, Tommy said, “I can’t hear you. Listen, the Infected people in town won’t attack me. Plus, I can give them orders that they’ll follow for a few minutes at least. Either you can yell back, and I’ll chase off any more that come, or I can come upstairs. Your choice. Or you can write notes and drop them down here for me to get.”

The man pulled his head back in, and a couple minutes later, he reappeared and dropped a sheet of paper out the window. The wind was only a hint of a breeze at street level, but four levels up? It caught it and the paper was halfway down the street before Tommy could even think about giving chase. The two men looked back at each other, a shared look of frustration evident.

“Do you have any rocks you could wrap it around? Or ... I could come upstairs, but you could keep the door closed, if you’re worried.”

The man pulled his head back inside for a minute, then stuck it back out and dropped a piece of paper, this time wrapped around something solid. A clay ashtray, as it turned out, broken into three pieces by the fall.

It read: Come up to 415.

Tommy gave a thumbs up and headed inside. Or tried to. The door to the upper floors was locked.

He yelled up at the window again. “Do you have a key? I could maybe break in, but I’d hate to damage the door.”

The man pointed down, and it took a few seconds for Tommy to realize he was pointing at the ashtray. He had failed to notice it before, but taped to the bottom of one of the pieces was a key.

Tommy gave a thumbs-up and headed upstairs.

There followed a half hour conversation through a dentist’s front office door, where Tommy explained who he was and the situation in general. The man, Harry Portsmith, had been hiding with his wife and two daughters for about two weeks, ever since they snuck back into town to try and reclaim their apartment and belongings. It hadn’t worked out well for them, but they had stayed alive by locking down the building, with the handful of Infected already in the building locked inside their own apartments.

It wasn’t the friendliest of conversations. Harry still refused to leave his stuff behind, and Tommy refused to help them move the entire contents of their apartment. They finally compromised with Tommy offering to pull his transport van up to one of the building’s doors so the family could load up what they could easily carry.

Fifteen minutes later, Tommy and Holly drove back to the building and parked a few feet away from the steps leading up to the agreed upon exit door. He once again cleared out the Infected who had come close, then helped the Portsmith family carry stuff into the van. He told Holly to stay in her seat and not attack the humans, and kept telling her every couple minutes until he would have sworn she looked annoyed with him.

The family brought down six suitcases and ten boxes, and it just kept coming. Tommy shook his head at the TV they loaded up, but put his foot down when they tried to start carrying out mattresses.

“We’re leaving in two minutes. Finish up and get on board now,” he warned.

He saw Holly closely watching one of the daughters, who looked to be college age, with an appraising look, so he leaned over to tell Holly to leave her alone. He did one final check of nearby Infected people before getting in the drivers seat and making sure all four passengers were on board.

As he drove to the border fence, the wife, Nancy, thanked Tommy profusely for the rescue, obviously trying to make up for her husband’s grouchiness. He also got more information from them. They had survived in town by keeping quiet and staying out of sight, drank water from the taps, and scavenged food from the ground-floor stores. Tommy also learned from her that his sign-painting had drawn their attention, and their attempts to draw Tommy’s attention had caused the earlier rush of Infected.

He didn’t detour all the way back to his most commonly used gate, but instead just went for the closest fence, then drove until they found a different gate. The family unloaded the van while he chased away all the Infected in the area back at least half a mile. He set off one of the bottle rockets he had gotten that morning and drove away as soon as he confirmed that an Army jeep was approaching.

He stopped the van half a mile away and watched the family get rescued. He grinned to himself when he saw them being forced to leave 90% of their stuff behind by the soldiers.

After checking his watch, he decided he had enough time to check on the Brown Derby and drove there with only a single stop to get gas. He paused at the station to ponder the gasoline situation, but dismissed the fear of running out any time soon. While many Infected gas station attendants still seemed capable of dispensing gasoline, only a handful of Infected car owners seemed capable of realizing they needed gas. Or, at least, he had only seen a dozen or so Infected drivers stop at gas stations for fuel over the past couple days. All the same, he resolved to keep an eye out for any full tanker trucks he could appropriate.

When he arrived at The Brown Derby, he got his first really great surprise of the day: Four people were waiting for him. Four people with intelligent expressions who focused directly on him. Well, there were three at the front door of the restaurant, plus a fourth that ran over from across the street when he arrived.

The first was a mildly overweight, balding white man with a large mustache, wearing a clean suit and tie. The second was a middle-aged white woman wearing a clean, obviously new, blue dress. The third was a high-school-aged boy wearing jeans and a button-down plaid shirt. The fourth one, the one not waiting inside the restaurant with the others, was an elderly black man, with white hair and beard.

Tommy was practically bursting with joy as he greeted them.

“Hello, everyone! This is amazing! I didn’t know whether or not anyone else had regained their sanity. Hi, my name is Tommy, and this is Holly.”

His grin faltered significantly when he was answered with babbles. It took him a few seconds, but he quickly realized that these people were speaking with purpose, using normal inflections and speech patterns. It’s just that the words that came out were random nonsense.

When they had fallen silent, he said, “I’m sorry, I had been hoping that you would be able to speak normally too.”

The man with the mustache responded with an annoyed sentence that, from the context and intonation, probably meant, ‘But I am speaking normally!’

“Let’s go inside, so we can sit down while we figure things out,” Tommy suggested.

A few other people were waiting inside, but they had the slightly confused or unfocused expressions Tommy had come to expect from normal, Infected humans, so he ignored them. He told a waitress to bring everyone a Coke, and told Holly to sit down at another table as he and the other four sat down together.

“Hello, everyone, my name is Tommy Byrd. I’m a Corporal in the U.S. Army.”

He fell silent, looking at the others.

Each of them babbled something, speaking clearly, concisely and with purpose. He noticed the white man give a glare at the elderly black man, who ducked his head, slid out of the booth and sat in a nearby chair. Tommy gestured for him to pull up to the table.

“Well ... umm ... I’m glad that I’ve found people here in the city that can still think and read, but I’m sorry to tell you that you still can’t speak. Whatever you think you sound like, you’re actually still babbling.”

Both the black man and the balding man seemed to take offense at his statement, verbally objecting, while the teenager and housewife lowered their eyes and kept silent.

Tommy quieted them down, saying, “Please let me finish.”

Right then, the waitress showed up with a half a dozen bottles of Coca cola, popped off the caps with her own bottle opener, and passed them out, giving the sixth bottle to Holly. Everyone took a sip before resuming, all eyes on Tommy.

“So far, I’ve found two groups of uninfected people here in town and escorted them safely to one of the gates so the Army could rescue them. I was able to talk with them, and they could understand me. That’s how I know I’m actually speaking clearly. And I really am sorry that you can’t do so. Or maybe I should say, can’t do so YET. If you’ve each recovered enough to be able to think and read, maybe you’ll start speaking English again soon too. All right?”

Though frustration remained, all four nodded.

“Now, do any of you have any ID with you? I’d like to know your names.”

Tommy was almost rendered speechless as all four of them produced wallets or billfolds.

Well, the teen didn’t have a driver’s license, instead producing some kind of learner’s permit, indicating that Jacob Pryor was just short of sixteen years old and was permitted to drive if a licensed driver was next to him in the passenger seat.

The woman turned out to be 34-year-old Jackie McIntosh Charles. She also casually presented photos of two adorable youngsters, one boy, one girl, and an adult man who was presumably her husband.

The elderly black man was 69-year-old Jebediah Washington Smith, who also displayed a company ID card for a private security firm. If the photos were any indication, he had up to twelve grandchildren. Well, they could be his children, if he had a young wife, but Tommy stuck to what was normal and assumed grandkids.

The portly, prematurely balding man was 42-year-old Henry Frincetti, and, according to his business card, he was a civil engineer.

Tommy repressed a desire to weep with joy at the sight of an actual civil engineer.

Despite the risk of sounding like an idiot, he couldn’t help himself. “You’re a civil engineer?”

Henry nodded and said something along the lines of, “Tiya, hum ratty bo mumma.”

“Sir, you are the answer to a prayer,” Tommy replied, ignoring the man’s dismissive tone of voice. “I wanna talk a lot about what we gotta do for the city, but I was thinkin’ about a situation like this last night, and first, we gotta do a few tests.”

He really had been wondering about communication problems the previous night, after he had seen how aware and mentally focused Mrs. Dooley had been (ignoring what she had been focused on).

Turning to expand the conversation back to all four of them, he continued. “I’m sure all of you have seen how ... ummm ... not trying to be insultin’, but how dumb everyone is, right? Well, after all that’s happened, the army is cutting the Los Angeles area off from the rest of the country, probably because they don’t know what to do with us. Most people here still try to swarm and attack any Uninfected human they see, so they moved all the Infected they captured alive to this area and put up fences and guard posts with snipers to keep us inside. Newspapers say they’re working on a cure, but so far, no one has a clue how to make one.”

While he had been speaking, Jacob had grabbed a nearby waitress’ order scratchpad and started writing something down, while the other three had started looking around for paper.

Jacob held up the pad to Tommy.

“What happened? City? People? Fence? Was it monsters?” Tommy read aloud. “Is that ... Are you all wonderin’ that?”

All four nodded.

“Oh, sorry. Guess I made assumptions. So, do all of you remember the monsters comin’ up out of the oceans?”

Nods.

“Do you remember the one that came out near L.A.?”

The nods were more hesitant, but all four indicated that they remembered it to one degree or another.

“Kinda fuzzy memories, I guess?” Tommy didn’t wait for a response. “That one was designated Target Bravo by the Armed Forces. Like I said before, I am a Corporal in the U.S. Army, and my squad was one of many sent to help evacuate ... Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Target Bravo, which was the largest recorded creature so far, exited the ocean approximately forty miles south of Los Angeles and circled around East, then curved Northward...”

Tommy gave the group a ten minute summary of what had happened to the region, up to and including the death of Target Bravo and his own Infection. He sketched out a very quick summary of his own actions since then, skipping over his acquisition of a harem and all the sex.

“Holly, here, has been with me since we were first dumped inside the inner perimeter fence. We’ve been taking care of each other, as best I can, and she’s ... she’s actually improved a lot, mentally, in the past few days. Actually, Holly, would you please go bring me the newspapers I left in the van? The ones we picked up at the fence this morning? Thank you.”

Holly nodded and walked purposefully outside, while Tommy hoped she was able to do it.

“While she’s getting that, why don’t we do a couple tests. Now, like I said, I know I’m speaking English because I’ve had conversations with Uninfected people. But you each thought you were speaking normal English too, right?”

Nods.

“At least we know you can all read and write, correct?” Without waiting for confirmation, he reached for Jacob’s scratchpad, then stopped. He darted over to the hostess stand, and grabbed a handful of scratchpads and pencils so everyone had one.

“Write down something. When it’s your turn, read it out loud. When someone else is saying something, write down what you think they’re saying. Then we’ll compare notes.

It only took a moment to confirm that no one but him was able to speak comprehensible English, and that everyone could clearly understand what Tommy said but not the others.

Holly came back in at that point carrying two of the four newspapers he had gotten that morning at the fence drop point. Figuring that was good enough, he handed them over to the others and let them scan the papers.

He gave them maybe ten minutes to start getting caught up, while he planned out some more tests. When he finally knocked on the tale to get their attention, the four of them looked far more crestfallen than before.

“I haven’t read those yet, but I read enough last night to have an idea what you’re seein’. I know it looks bad, but ... well, I’m not sayin’ we’re in a great position, but things ain’t ... sorry ... things aren’t actually all that bad. Last I heard, all the monsters we know about are dead, except for the one down around Antarctica, and they have patrols out lookin’ for that one. Here in the U.S., none of them made it very far inland, and L.A. was the biggest city they got. Target Alpha on the East Coast was getting near to New York when they killed it, so we got pretty lucky there. Parts of Europe and China got hit WAY worse than we did. And, almost every company in the world is working on a cure. Well, not EVERY company, not literally. I mean, you know, car companies and things like that wouldn’t be ... Let me just say that lots and lots of people around the world are workin’ on cures.”

He leaned forward a bit. “In the meantime, we just gotta do our part to keep as many people alive as we can. I’m hoping that more people will be able to read the signs I’ve been putting up, so we can do everything better and better, right?

“But first, we need to finish a few more tests. Now, for this next bit, I need one of you to volunteer.”

They looked at him blankly for a moment, then the teenager wrote down, “Volunteer for what?” and held it up so he could see it, then rotated the pad so the others could read it too.

“Well, I didn’t realize it at first,” Tommy explained, “but normal, dumb, Infected people actually obey my orders.”

He stood up and fetched a waitress, guiding her over to the group. “Just as an example. Now ... uhhh...” He looked at her nametag. “Chrissie? Nod your head if your name is Chrissie.”

The middle-aged brown-haired woman nodded at him, her glazed expression clearing up slightly as she focused on him.

“Chrissie, stand on one leg.”

She lifted one leg and balanced in place.

“Now hop up and down. Stop. Do a handstand. Whoops, lemme help ... Oh, god, sorry about that. Bad idea. Let’s get you upright again.”

Chrissie’s skirt had fallen to cover her head and torso when she did her handstand, exposing her panties and stockings.

“Sorry about that,” Tommy repeated, turning back to the group. “I was just ... well, at least it worked for the demonstration.”

The others were looking at him skeptically.

“My point is ... or rather, my purpose is, I want to test that on one of you. You’re the first intelligent Infected people I’ve found so far, so, would one of you be willing to volunteer for a quick test? No handstands, I promise,” he added, looking at Jackie Charles, who was wearing a dress.

Jacob, the teenage boy, walked over to stand in front of him.

“All right, thank you. You ready?”

Jacob nodded.

“Obviously, I cannot tell you to resist my orders, but you understand.”

Another nod.

“Jacob, raise your right arm.”

Jacob’s arm shot straight up. His expression was one of surprise, but he made no effort to lower it.

“Jacob, do one pushup.”

He dropped to the floor, did a pushup, then stood back up and raised his right arm again.

Tommy sighed. “Okay, go ahead and stop. Thanks.”

His arm fell to his side. Silently, Tommy noticed that Jacob hadn’t shown any outward sign of mental distress or physical effort to resist, no straining to lower his arm, for example.

Henry, the civil engineer, stood and walked over, a look of defiance on his face.

“You wanna try?” asked Tommy.

Henry babbled affirmatively, saying, “Wumble ka, igmuffy nub sammoo.”

“Fair enough. Henry, cover your left eye with one of your hands.”

The slap of his hand on his face was audible as he covered his left eye. Again, a moment of surprise registered on his face, but the reaction was brief. Henry appeared to be perfectly content to keep his eye covered.

“All right. You can stop that. And to save time, how about if you four just accept that I have the ... the power to give orders.”

They all returned to their table, though Tommy delayed long enough to ask Chrissie to bring them another round of Cokes. Returning to his seat, he commented, “I learned a couple days ago not to ask for coffee or tea anymore. Sometimes what they bring you isn’t fit to drink. I mean, please, get what you want, but I recommend asking for something bottled or at least watching them make it, just to be careful.”

Henry and Jebediah nodded in agreement, with Henry making a face.

“Now, we need to make plans. Hmmm ... First, I think I gotta say something to ... ummm ... Well, if I ever say something or tell any of you to do something that’s dangerous or stupid or doesn’t make sense, I want you to stop and confront me about it. I mean, if I tell someone to go jump in a lake, I don’t mean for anyone to do it literally, understand? I ain’t meanin’ ... I mean, I’m not meaning to take advantage of any of you, and I expect you all know your business a lot better than I do, of course. I just ... It’ll make conversations and planning hard, since I gotta watch what I say all the time.”

Henry nodded, looking thoughtful, but the other three were looking ... maybe suspicious?

“And, sorry bout this, but ... You four are perfectly comfortable with the idea of me having this power over you. I gotta tell you that or else you’ll keep being worried and ... well, I think we’ll get a lot more done this way, all right? Also, none of you will ever try to hurt me, and you will all be willing to work together peacefully. And none of you are going to attack normal people anymore. If you find someone who isn’t Infected, you’ll just let me know about them next time you see me, all right?”

They all looked perfectly relaxed now, which both reassured Tommy and made him feel guilty. He’d thrown in that bit about working together peacefully, because he had a suspicion that Henry wasn’t going to be willing to work alongside a black man without such an order.

“Now, next thing, are any of you taking care of anyone right now? Family? Friends? Just someone you’re responsible for?”

All four began writing, handing over sheets of paper with their responses.

Jacob was trying to take care of his father and sister while looking for his mother, who was missing. He was also keeping an eye on his girlfriend, who lived half a mile away, so he had been driving back and forth between his house and hers.

Jackie had two children at home, one boy, one girl, both under 10 years old. Her husband was dead, as she had found his corpse next to the highway near their home. She had no other close family in town.

Jebediah had been able to find and gather eight family members so far, including one brother, one son, one daughter, one daughter-in-law (now probably a widow), and four grandchildren. He was a widower with no living parents, so pretty much his only family left were his descendants.

Henry had taken up residence in an empty house near a central power control station, and had brought his wife, son, and sister-in-law with him.

Further questioning revealed more information, bit by bit.

- They had all regained their sentience or awareness roughly four or five days after the death of Target Bravo, a week or more before Tommy had awakened in the back of the truck that brought him to Los Angeles. (Tommy still wasn’t entirely certain of the timeline, but as best he could tell, he had lost at least two, possibly up to three, week’s time, give or take, between witnessing the death of Target Bravo and waking up in the truck.)

- None of them had met or seen an uninfected human since they woke up, so they had no idea if the Infected madness would still affect them or not. And that would be dangerous to test since it could put uninfected humans at risk.

- Henry had visited six power routing stations and substations and had been able to keep electrical power running to maybe a quarter of the L.A. region, though things would eventually fail beyond his ability to manage, since he wasn’t making repairs, just controlling the settings for what was left. The city still had power from the lines to the Hoover Dam, which, if the feed was left intact, would probably be the only long-term power source for the city. He had also visited a coal-burning plant he was familiar with, and it was being manned by Infected men who were trying to return to their previous lives and jobs. The jobs of loading coal and water into the plant’s systems to run it were simple enough that most of them were able to keep doing it well enough, but the controls and maintenance required were beyond the simple minds of most Infected. The big danger was fire; without proper maintenance, sooner or later, it would catch on fire, likely killing all the workers.

- Henry also pointed out that having a source of electricity was only half of the problem. Without maintenance and repair, the distribution of power would gradually fail citywide. He did not know of any Infected who was capable of doing those jobs.

- Henry only knew a little bit about the water system, but thought it would fare little better over time, though it supposedly needed less monitoring and work to maintain compared to the electrical grid.